Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Greenleaf Whittier

[118]

‘Ah I what white thing at the door has cross'd,
Sister Helen?
Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?’
‘A soul that's lost as mine is lost,
Little brother!’
（O Mother, Mary, Mother,
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven.)

It is evident, however, that Whittier had in early life some vague vision of an intellectual movement which should enlarge the atmosphere of the Society of Friends, not, as has since been done, in the methodistical or camp-meeting direction — for that he disapproved-but in the direction of a higher thought and life. This letter, hitherto unpublished, from one of the most gifted and cultivated associates in his Quaker years, reveals to us indirectly this mood of his, and is well worth printing because it mirrors his own mood. It may be well to add that the writer left the Society, not many years after, and apparently retained but little affection for it, going so far as to say once to me, “Quakerism makes splendid women, and very poor, mean, miserable men;” from which general condemnation Whittier was exempted, although in later years their friendship apparently waned, and she seemed hardly to appreciate him at his great worth.