Chapter John Greenleaf Whittier of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

character. I have made some enemies among those whose good opinion I value, but no rational man can ever be the enemy of Mr. Whittier."¹

In Hartford.

For a year and a half, Whittier retained this position, developing rapidly in power and in professional reputation. He gave his support to Henry Clay and upheld the principle of the tariff. Whittier also enjoyed the society of the literary people more or less noted, who made their home in Hartford. Among the members of this interesting group were the poets James G. Percival and Mrs. Lydia Sigourney, whose writings were at this time widely read and admired. It was in Hartford that Whittier, in 1831, published his first book, Legends of New England, a volume of rather crude sketches, including some verse; they had already appeared in the New England Magazine. These Legends were not thought by Whittier worthy of permanent place in his Prose Works; and the same judgment was placed by him on most of his early experiments in fictitious narrative. Of his poems written previous to 1833, there are few which have survived. The spirited Song of the Vermonters, a product of his school-days, The Vaudois Teacher, and The Star of Bethlehem are selected by Professor Carpenter as the only ones of poetic value.¹

The Crisis.

From 1832 to 1836, Whittier was again upon the farm struggling to make a living for his mother, his sister, his aunt who lived with them, and himself. We may recall the situation at this period of the other writers whose lives have been already noted. It was in 1832 that Emerson resigned his pastorate in Boston and retired to Concord; Poe, recently discharged from West Point, was in Baltimore trying to support himself by hack-work for the magazines; Hawthorne was dreaming in the seclusion of his hermit- like existence in Salem; Longfellow was now settled in his professorship at Bowdoin. Bryant, of course, representative of the earlier generation, had emerged from his period of struggle, and had been for three years editor of the Post. For Whittier, now in his twenty-fifth year, the future was full of uncertainty. Politics seemed to offer the only field of promise, but this field he hesitated to enter; -- as he wrote to Mrs. Sigourney, "There is something inconsistent in the character of a poet and a modern politician."2 A year later he wrote to the same correspondent:--

"Of poetry I have nearly taken my leave, and a pen is getting to be something of a stranger to me. I have been compelled again to plunge into the political whirlpool, for I have found that my political reputation is more influential than my poetical."³

But in 1833, Whittier's vocation was made clear. It was the turning-point in his life. The poet found inspiration in an unexpected theme.

The Abolitionist.

The anti-slavery movement, which five years earlier had enlisted the extreme energies of the radical and lion-hearted Garrison, had already appealed to the humanitarian spirit of Whittier. He was as strong an idealist as any transcendentalist of Boston or Concord, and could not be otherwise than strongly sympathetic with the ultimate purpose of the movement. At twenty-six, therefore, the poet allied himself for better or for worse with the abolitionists. For twenty-seven years Whittier was one of the foremost among those identified with this cause. He was a delegate to the first National Anti-Slavery Convention at Philadelphia in 1833, and signed its Declaration. Two years later he was mobbed in Concord, New Hampshire, while traveling with an anti-slavery agitator. He was threatened in Boston. In 1838, he took charge of the organ of the Society, the Pennsylvania Freeman, published in Philadelphia, and again encountered a mob, which sacked and burned his office. Throughout this turbulent experience, his courage and zeal knew no limit. The shy and gentle Quaker had become the fearless advocate of an unpopular crusade. In 1833, he published at his own expense a pamphlet, Justice and Expediency, which exerted a wide influence. The verses which he wrote rang like the voice of a trumpet through the land. Randolph of Roanoke, Massachusetts to Virginia, To Faneuil Hall, The Slave-Ships, The Hunter of Men, Clerical Oppressors, The Pastoral Letter: these poems illustrate various phases of the poet's utterance during