Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-09-08


were discussing principles to which he
was devoted. He had no inclination to
travel, never having been abroad and
having made few journeys in his own
country not prompted by business or
duty.
After the civil war, when he was near
sixty, many of his friends urged him at
different times to go abroad They as
sured him that he would enjoy European
travel, with its classic scenes, historic
associations and treasures of art, des-
canting largely on on these and the in
tellectual advantage they would be to
him. He usually gave his delicate
health us reason for not going, but
when 1t had been made clear that he
could travel slowly and easily and with
every comfort he admitted that he great
ly preferred to remain Mt home: that he
was never so contented as when he re-
manned at Amesbury and under his own
roof.
Once prominent Bostonian, by way
of additional inducement to cross the
ocean, told him that he had thousands
of admirers in Great Britain who would
be delighted to greet him and to extend
TO him every kind of honor. private and
public. AT this the poet smiled sadly
and said my good friend, thee adds
terrors to travel that had not thought
Of, and l have not the courage to en-
counter the common difficulties that
must beset every man"
He had been invited again and again
to visit different American cities, where
he was to be received with appropriate
ceremonies. When it was discovered
that he objected to ceremonies of any
l. No. t,,,v, i.,l To-,
and assured that no parade should be
made over him. Even then he would
not go, and nothing could induce
him to.
Enterprising managers exhausted in
genuity after the close of the war to in
cite him to lecture. When he said that
he had no theme, they mentioned
slavery, in the abolition of which he had
borne so prominent part; but he de
clared that he had put into his verse
whatever he had thought and felt ON
the subject, and that his lecture would
be but repetition in prose. He was
wholly opposed to lectnring; no amount
of money could tempt him, for he had
been offered repeatedly as high rs 81 900
night al can never understand" was
one of his remarks, chow II modest man.
can be willing to make an exhibition of
himself"
Born in small town of Massachusetts
dec. II, 1907, where he lived mainly
till past thirty, and then removing to
another adjacent small town, he closed
his days there. He had done many
years work On farm, and was always
fond of nature and of rural scenes and
associations, ~ his poems show.
His parents We're Friends, popularity
termed QuaLlcrs, and lie ut an early age
joined their society, wore their garb and
used their form of speech. Like all its
members he was opposed to slavery, and
his opposition grew with his years. 1t
seems not improbable. that, but for his
strong antislavery feeling, he might have
remained obscure to his death, That
feeling, especially after the newspa' er
he edited in Philadelphia in his younger
period had been mobbed, was SO intensi;
fed that whatever he wrote, whether
prose or verse, was saturated with it.
He was chosen 1886 secretary of the
Antislavery society, and his stirr ag
poems, expressing his convictions against
the great national wrong, early made
him conspicuous in the then small band
of abolitionists.
Writers Modesty.
1ItStnllllS Hil lnc AlllhDlblltSS HIlu
placidity of his sect, those intimately ac-
quainted with him were aware of his
Intense passionate nature and his burn.
ing sentiments. Some of his associates
compared him 10 volcano covered
with ice and snow. The external cool
ness was there, but within fierce fires
ragged. Often in conversation, up TO the
last, when deeply interested, his check
wouid flush and his eye flash with sym
pathy and indignation. Old and feeble
as he was, impetuous youth still burned
in his wasted veins. Never very robust
he had the regular New England con-
stitution-he took excellent care of him
self always, and thus insured longevity.
without such care. he would have died
no doubt in middle age.
For the last twenty years or more he
had been to- an extent recluse, rarely
going away from home, and keeping in
unfavorablo weather within his simple,
sedulously neat house at Amesbury. He
had frequent visitors from all parts ot