The Portland daily press., 1892-09-10
WHITTIER PERSONALITIES.
His Housekeeping Ways-The Story ofH is
Last Poem-Avoiding Pilgrims-His Re-
Iations With His Publishers.
EBostnn Transcrint.l

had not been out of New England for
many years. His journeys to Washing
ton and to Pennsylvania were his longest
ones. Possibly he was our only Ameri-
can man of letters-certainly the only
one of the first rank-who never went to
Europe.
Hampton Falls, N. H., where he died,
is only seven miles from Amesbury,
Mass, his ''voting home" He has said
that he should like to be in Florida or
California for winter, but the going APP
palled him, and the bright open fire in
his library at Oak Knoll has given him
condensed sunshine for his recent Win
tiers of growing infrmity.
There is an interesting little story in
connection with his last poem, ITO OH
yer Wendell Holiness" which appears in
the September Atlantic Monthly. 1t was
copied for him and sent to Houghton,
Miff1in & Co., and in the copying
stanza was left out. Nobody will find 1T
easy to guess where the omitted stanza
ought to come in the poem as it appears
in the current Atlantic. But when Mr..
Whittier got the proof he wrote in siren
uous haste to inquire for the missing
stanza. 1t was too late then; the plates
of the Atlantic had gone to press without
it. His readers will have this stanza in
the volume of his poems, AT SundoWn"
which will be out in November.
ST. Nicholas has a poem by Whittier,
which will appear in the November num-
Der 1.-THE first number of that magazines
YEAR,, andthe complete book will follow.
The letter Mr. Whittier wrote about the
missing stanza is the last one received
bv his publishers. 1t is a long time
since he was in Boston, and his last visit
to Mr.. Garrison in his Office at Houghton.,
Mifln & Company's was not a recent
one. The autograph copy of the birth
day poem that went to DR.. Holmes con-
tanned, of course, the stanzas the copy
list had left out.
Mr. Whittier's relations with his pub
fishers were always of a happy sort He
made a modest fortune from his poetry,
and his income might be said to be on an
average about that of acollege professor.
He was most generous to good causes,
and no man was ever more appealed to
from all sorts and conditions OF enthusi-
asts, as well as beggars outright, with no
reason for asking except the goodness OF
his heart.
Several years ago he burned great
quantity of material-letters, etc-which
would be of priceless value to his biog-
rapher, whoever that may be. Some one
has asked, "Why not Miss Lucy Lar
COMP She was certainly very near to
him in understanding, affection and long
friendship, and knew him thoroughly
well. The letters he destroyed went into
the flames at time when several vol
umes of Life and Letters of eminent
men had laid bare to public criticism
passing notions, evanescent opinions and
sacred secrets of experience. Mr.. Whit
tier had no wish to risk such i'll treat
ment from an injudicious biographer
1t is said he has since repented of his
holocaust of material. At all events
there is great fund of living, loving
knowledge concerning his simple. demo-
cratic beautiful life readily accessible.
The story has been told before of a
visitor to Oak Knoll once praising
"Hannah Binding Shoes to MI. Whittier
with the comment that the speaker al
ways liked that best of your poems MI.
Whittier" With a sparkle of /merri-
ment in those keen dark eyes (he was
color blind by the way, he said he ad-
mired that poem very much himself.
after exhibiting an amount of interest i'll
the poem surprising to the visitor who
had heard that Whittier was modest
about his poetry, the poet called in Miss
Lucy Larcom, who CHANGED to be a
visitor in the house, and said '"Thee will
like to meet the author of Hannah Bind.
i,n Gb0ac ~ and intrOdncad har2
All the world loves a poet, all the
world of reading people; at least, and the
people who make pilgrimages from far
and near to see Whittier were countless
Of late years he has not been able to see
many of them, and it has taxed the in
genuity of his friends at Oak Knoll and
at Amesbury to keep them away without
hurting their feelings. Until few years
ago he welcomed them all, but a chief
reason that he went seven miles from
home this summer was to be at place
where he could s'avoid pilgrims to use
his own phrase. He asked his lifelong
friend, Miss Cove, one day after meeting
''Abby, has thee spare room up at thy
house?'' And of course she was happy
to welcome him. He had said within a
month that this was the most restful
summer he had spent in forty years.
They went across to the Inn Ior tnelr
meals, except when Mr.. Whittier was
feeling i'll, then they used the little
dining room in the house.
There was little balcony from Mr.
Whittier's room where he could look Off
to sea. The station agent at Hampton
yesterday pointed out to a visitor from
Boston the places in sight connected with
several of Whittier's poems.
''Yonder are the 'River-mouth Rocks,
and that house there is the one where
'Goody Cole lived. THE Tent on the
Beach was over on Salisbury Beach, and
Ihow thoroughly of New England this ]
though I've lived here within sight of it
for fifty years, I've never yet been over to
the beach,"
1t is particularly broad and lovely at
Hampton Falls, and there are two superb
elms near the house where the poet died.
And on the way down from Boston you
see, in going the meadows green and
low and glimpses where a river comes
winding down from salt-sea meadows
and uplands brown" 1t is a journey
through Whittier's own country:
"And fair are the. sunny isles in view
East of the glisly Head of the Boar,
And Agamenticus lifts its blue