of thought' have been made welcome; here came Alice and Phoebe
Cary on their romantic pilgrimage, and here have come many others
of the illustrious women of the day, most of whom he reckons as his
friends in this generation as he did Lydia Maria Child and Lucretia
Mott and their contemporaries in the last."

Mr. Whittier's personal appearance is thus described by George W. Bungay
in his "Crayon Sketches:"--

"His temperament is nervous bilious; he is tall, slender, and
straight as an Indian; has a superb head; his brow looks like a
white cloud under his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, and
glowing with expression, . . . those star-like eyes flashing under
such a magnificent forehead."

Another writer tells of:--

"The fine intellectual beauty of his expression, the blending
brightness and softness of the clear dark eye, the union of manly
firmness and courage with womanly sweetness and tenderness alike in
countenance and character."

That clear and bright observer Mr. Wasson says:--

"The high cranium, so lofty, especially in the dome; the slight and
symmetrical backward slope of the whole head; the powerful level
brows, and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so fun of shadowed
fire; the Arabian complexion; the sharp-cut, intense lines of the
face; the light, tall, erect stature; the quick, axial poise of the
movement,--all these traits reveal the fiery Semitic prophet."

His smile is spoken of by all as irradiating his whole face. He is the
most modest and one of the shyest of men. He can rarely be exhibited as
a lion in Boston, though the celebrity-hunters often try to induce him
thus to show himself. His fame has been a great surprise to him, and he
can scarcely believe in it even now. When his seventieth birthday was
celebrated by the publishers of the "Atlantic Monthly" by a Whittier
Banquet, to which all the great writers in the country were invited, and
where many fine tributes were paid to his genius, he especially wondered
that all this honor was for him. The "Literary World" at the same time
published many fine poems from distinguished authors addressed to him,
and he replied in that journal to them, saying:--

"Beside that mile-stone where the level sun
Nigh unto setting sheds his last low rays
On word and work irrevocably done,
Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun,
I hea