But with regard to Whittier, such comparisons were
never made, even in fancy. His lithe, upright form, full of quick
movement, his burning eye, his keen wit, bore witness to a contrast in
himself with the staid, controlled manner and the habit of the sect
into which he was born. The love and devotion with which he adhered to
the Quaker Church and doctrines served to accentuate his unlikeness to
the men of his time, because he early became also one of the most
determined contestants in one of the sternest combats which the world
has witnessed.
Neither in the ranks of poets nor divines nor philosophers do we find
his counterpart. He felt a certain brotherhood with Robert Burns, and
early loved his genius; but where were two more unlike? A kind of
solitude of life and experience, greater than that which usually
throws its shadow on the human soul, invested him in his passage
through the world. The refinement of his education, the calm of nature
by which, in youth, he was surrounded, the few books which he made his
own, nearly all serious in their character, and the religious
atmosphere in which he was nurtured, all tended to form an environment
in which knowledge developed into wisdom, and the fiery soul formed a
power to restrain or to express its force for the good of humanity.
But as surely as he was a Quaker, so surely also did he feel himself a
part of the life of New England. He believed in the ideals of his
time; the simple ways of living; the eager nourishing of all good
things by the sacrifice of many private wishes; in short, he made one
cause with Garrison and Phillips, Emerson and Lowell, Longfellow and
Holmes.
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