Some one has
said that Whittier's epistolary style was perfect. Doubtless he could
write as good a letter on occasion as any man who ever lived, but he
sustained no such correspondence. His notes and letters were homely
and affectionate, with the delightful carelessness possible in the
talk of intimate friends. They present no ordinary picture of human
tenderness, devotion, and charity, and these qualities gain a
wonderful beauty when we remember that they come from the same spirit
which cried out with Ezekiel:--
"The burden of a prophet's power
Fell on me in that fearful hour;
From off unutterable woes
The curtain of the future rose;
I saw far down the coming time
The fiery chastisement of crime;
With noise of mingling hosts, and jar
Of falling towers and shouts of war,
I saw the nations rise and fall
Like fire-gleams on my tent's white wall."
"The fire and fury of the brain" were his indeed; a spirit was in him
to redeem the land; he was one of God's interpreters; but there was
also the tenderness of divine humanity, the love and patience of those
who dwell in the courts of the Lord.
Whittier's sister Elizabeth was a sensitive woman, whose delicate
health was a constant source of anxiety to her brother, especially
after the death of their mother, when they were left alone together in
the home at Amesbury. As one of their intimate friends said, no one
could tell which would die first, but they were each so anxious about
the other's health that it was a question which would wear away into
the grave first, for the other's sake.
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