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[99] took the trouble to show me to a neighbour's, where he left me; but that did not seem to wholly suit his ideas of hospitality, for in the course of the evening he made his appearance, saying that it had occurred to him that he could sleep on a lounge, and give up his own bed to me,--which it is, perhaps, needless to say, was not allowed. But this was not all. The next morning he came again, with the suggestion that I might perhaps like to attend meeting, inviting me to go with him; and he gave me a seat next to himself. The meeting lasted an hour, during which there was not a word spoken by any one. We all sat in silence that length of time, then all arose, shook hands, and dispersed; and I remember it as one of the best meetings I ever attended.

Kennedy's Whittier, pp. 167-68.

No one came nearer to Whittier in all good deeds or in private intimacy than the late Mrs. Mary B. Claflin, well known in Boston and Washington, in both of which cities she exercised profuse hospitality, during the public life of her husband, the Hon. William Claflin. No book yields such a store of private anecdotes about Whittier as her little work, “Personal Recollections of John G. Whittier.” Mrs. Claflin quotes one adviser, who said “I would rather give a man or woman on the verge of a great moral lapse a marked copy of Whittier than any other book in our language.” She goes on to describe a young and oversensitive college girl, overcome with the strain of her new life, who went to the president, and said, “It is of no use, I cannot go on, my life is a failure; I must leave college and go home.” The tactful president replied, “Go to the library and take Whittier's poems, sit down by your window and read ‘The Grave by the Lake,’ then come and I will talk with you.” The young girl came back in an hour with a changed

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