"I sent my hymn," he wrote from Amesbury in 1876, "with many
misgivings, and am glad it was so well received. I think I should like
to have heard the music, but probably I should not have understood.
The gods have made me most unmusical.
"I have just got J. T. F.'s charming little book of 'Barry Cornwall
and His Friends.' It is a most companionable volume, and will give
rare pleasure to thousands.... I write in the midst of our Quaker
quarterly meeting, and our house has been overrun for three days. We
had twelve to dine to-day; they have now gone to meeting, but I am too
tired for preaching.
"I don't expect to visit Philadelphia. The very thought of that
Ezekiel's vision of machinery and the nightmare confusion of the
world's curiosity shop appalls me. I shall not venture."
He was full of excellent resolutions about going often to Boston, but
he never could make a home there. "I see a great many more things in
the city than thee does," he would say, "because I go to town so
seldom. The shop windows are a delight to me, and everything and
everybody is novel and interesting. I don't need to go to the theatre.
I have more theatre than I can take in every time I walk out."
No sketch of Whittier, however slight, should omit to mention his
friendship for Bayard Taylor. Their Quaker parentage helped to bring
the two poets into communion; and although Taylor was so much the
younger and more vigorous man, Whittier was also to see him pass, and
to mourn his loss.
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