The Arkansaw traveler., 1889-01-12
Whittier and Holmes.

lTIenOs Ill DOhIOD lAsl Week, wears uls
old age easily, and of late years seems
less averse to mixing in general society
than he formerly was. | suppose. says
a writer in the Boston Post, that his
summer solitude among the mountains
and the quiet life which he leads at
Oak Knoll, his home in Danvers, make
the change 10 the city welcome by
way of variety. Though not fond of
society in the ordinary aceeptation of
the phrase, he has large social likings
and takes deep interest in social pro-
gross. In large companies he does not
appear at his best, because he is not
accustomed TO the conventions of
society and has not the faculty of pass
ing lightly from one topic TO another
after the manner of our brilliant con-
versatiOnal butterflies. lie is more or
less absorbed in the serious though hts
TO which he gives utterance in his
poems, and hi finest fancies cannot
take fleeting form which would adapt
them for the requirements of the
drawing room. In these respects he
is unlike the great Scotch poet, whom
he resemblessin his love of nature and
attachment TO its humblest object. |
have often thought that it would have
been well for Burns had he possessed
the reserved strength of character
which belongs TO Whittier, which
would have saved him from yielding
TO the temptations which luxurious
Edinburgh society offered to his sus-
ceptible nature.
For a man of his age Mr.. Whittier
enjoys good health, and with him
scrupulous attention to hygienic laws
has been the means of his attaining an
exceptional longevity for a poet. lie
will be eighty-One years old this
month, being nearly two years older
than DIR. Holmes. Ii does not ,eem to
me that Mr.. Whittier has shown of
late years the cumulative evidence of
old age which might be expected; he
has held his own, SO TO speak, with
remarkable tenacity, and the same may
be said of the "Autocrat of the Break
fast Table," who, barring a slight deaf
ness, is as well preserved as most men
ten years his junior. have sometimes
thought that deafness was not an
altogether undesirable acquisition for
man like DIR. Holmes, who is pes
tered with all sorts of talk, and as he
is not reduced TO the necessity Of using
an ear trumpet, he can the more easily
"turn deaf ear" TO unwelcome Wis
itOrs. 1t is not what people say to
such a man, but what he SAYS to them,
which measures the extent of his use
fulness, and as long as his tongue and
pen flash forth wise thoughts and
brilliant fancies the fact that he can
not hear so easily as formerly the voice
of admiration and compliment is not
so serious a draw back as it appears at
first sight. At his time of lite the
mind naturally dwells more upon
inward than outward satisfactions,
and with his wealth of pleasant men,
cries he can never be at loss for con-
templative enjoyment.
AS between Whittier and Holmes it
is noticeable that the former has not
colored his later poetry with the pen
sive tinge which marks the more
recent verse of his brilliant contempo-
rary. Though the fire which glowed
in the passionate appeals for the
slaves is not seen in the placid
poems for which the author of
"Snow Bound" smooths his declining
years, there are no indications of old
age in their tone. / take it that the
life of Nature which Whittier has
lived has left him untouched by the
pleasing melancholy which is apt to
color the poetry of men who, like