He was himself a bad
sleeper, seldom, as he said, putting a solid bar of sleep between day
and day, and therefore often early abroad to question the secrets of
the dawn. We owe much of the intimate friendship of our life to these
morning hours spent in private, uninterrupted talk.
"I have lately felt great sympathy with ----," he said one morning,
"for I have been kept awake one hundred and twenty hours--an
experience I should not care to try again."
One of Whittier's summer pleasures, in which he occasionally indulged
himself, was a visit to the Isles of Shoals. He loved to see his
friend Celia Thaxter in her island home, and he loved the freedom of a
large hotel. He liked to make arrangements with a group of his more
particular friends to meet him there; and when he was well enough to
leave his room, he might be seen in some carefully chosen corner of
the great piazzas, shady or sunny, as the day invited him, enjoying
the keenest happiness in the voluntary society and conversation of
those dear to him. Occasionally he would pass whole days in Celia
Thaxter's parlor, watching her at her painting in the window, and
listening to the talk around him. He wished to hear and know what
interested others. He liked nothing better, he once said, than going
into the "store" in the old days at Amesbury, when it was a common
centre, almost serving the purpose of what a club may be in these
later days, and sitting upon a barrel to hear "folks talk.
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