"Why can't you
stay?" urged his host. "Because, I tell you, I don't want to," which
set us all laughing, and settled the question.
Our first knowledge of his arrival in town was usually that early and
punctual ring at the door to which I have referred. He would come in
looking pale and thin, but full of fire, and, as we would soon find,
of a certain vigor. He became interested one morning in a plan
proposed to him for making a collection of poems for young people, one
which he finally completed with the aid of Miss Lucy Larcom. We got
down from the shelf Longfellow's "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and
looked it over together. "Annie of Tharaw" was a great favorite of
his, and the poem by Dirk Smit, on "The Death of an Infant," found his
ready appreciation. Whittier easily fell from these into talk of
Burns, who was his master and ideal. "He lives, next to Shakespeare,"
he said, "in the heart of humanity."
In speaking of Rossetti and of his ballad of "Sister Helen," he
confessed to being strangely attracted to this poem because he could
remember seeing his mother, "who was as good a woman as ever lived,"
and his aunt performing the same strange act of melting a waxen figure
of a clergyman of their time.
The solemnity of the affair made a deep impression on his mind, as a
child, for the death of the clergyman in question was confidently
expected. His "heresies" had led him to experience this cabalistic
treatment.
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