Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Greenleaf Whittier

Whittier's desires in youth were almost equally divided between politics and poetry; and there presently appeared a third occupation in the form of that latent physical disease which haunted his whole life. This obliged him to give up the editorship of the New England Review and to leave Hartford on Jan. 1, 1832. He had been editing the “Literary remains of J. G. C. Brainard,” an early Connecticut poet, and wrote a preface, but did not see it in print until he had returned to Haverhill.

He wrote about himself thus frankly to Mrs. Sigourney (Feb. 2, 1832) as to his condition of mind and body at that period.

I intended when I left Hartford to proceed immediately to the West. But a continuance of ill health has kept me at home. I have scarcely done anything this winter. There have been few days in which I have been able to write with any degree of comfort. I have indeed thrown together a poem of some length, the title of which ( ‘Moll Pitcher’ ) has very little connection with the subject. This poem I handed to a friend of mine, and he has threatened to publish it. It will not have the advantage or disadvantage of my name, however. I have also written, or rather begun to write, a work of fiction, which shall have for its object the reconciliation of the North and the South,being simply an endeavour to do away with some of the prejudices which have produced enmity between the Southron and the Yankee. The style which I have adopted is about halfway between the abruptness of Laurence Sterne and the smooth gracefulness of W. Irving. I may fail,indeed, I suspect I shall,--but I have more philosophy