| Show THE POET WHITTIER A merited tribute to ills H in nobility of character as art a man aufan the whole country and the aholo Ency english is lish reading mading world united in their tribute of honor bonor and esteem to the good quaker poet john G whittier on his eightieth birt birthday hilay whittier is is an old man whose work is done all the antagonisms tat of his prime ire are long since forgotten e and nil ill the asperities asperi ties of his early work have long since lost their bitterness and now in the benign peace of liis his old age age he sits is as it were in the warra warm chimney corner of a nation s regard tile the most venerated figure perhaps in tile whole land mr whittler whittier has no family of his own but now in his old age that indescribable feeling of farally regard 0 goes out irresistibly toward towan him from a whole people ile he holds the pleasant place of grampa in ill the nations heart this widespread wide spread feeling of regard for mr whittier Wh illier is not due entirely to the fact that lie is a poet and the possessor of a I 1 great liter literary ary renown it is due clue in a lar large c degree to the conviction vic tion which his whole life has served to strengthen that lie he is a good man mail a plain genuine man mail of homely virtues a 1 man who to tile the best li light lit within him has done ri rihl right hl thare there have been greater poets and broader thinkers trotti than whittier who have hare been lesser men willell than he be there have been men in this country of 0 greater originality of keener wit of greater literary but there have been hecei few who e characters have been built upon a I 1 firmer rock bottom b basis of sturdy worth than liis his then a again 0 ain whittier possesses that inevitable attribute of great minds modesty there is something ang about true greatness re atness that is always self dis trustful and perhaps the surest ayi evidence of 0 greatness re atness in a man in liis his own unconsciousness of the tact whittier possesses this unconsciousness in in a remarkable degree e and for this reason tho the world is the more willing to accord him that meed of honor that is by himself lie ile has often been called 1 a I man of the people there is nothing weak and liter literary arv about him the learned carried affe affectations affectation cLation S the self conscious vanity the spirit of caste and coterie that de dc form the characters of so many literary arv people seem to be entirely unknown co 0 whittier the learned dignity with ellich 11 inch so many eminent emiller lt authors invest themselves never freezes the trembling visitor at Whit tiers homelike home iio isi its plain aai a farm farmer CF and nii makes all men mein his nei neighbors h this is the sty leof m man an who endears himself to thoughtful C sturdy men ile he has followed charles dickens advice to boys much beyond tile period of his boyhood and lias Is just done all the good he can and not made any fuss about it it is riot not necessary here to speak of Whit tiers poetry his best poems are known by heart to the lie lovers of american son song 0 his works will be e critically dissected and discussed by learned literary specialists for many generations but the poets contemporaries do him best service in testifying to his nobility of character as a man yankee blade |
