lay of light upon the New
Hampshire hills. Not more did Daniel Webster study with eager eyes the
glowing and the paling of the light on the hilltops, no more
rapturously did Rembrandt unweave the mazes of darkness, conjure the
shadows, and win by study the mysteries of light and shade, than did
Whittier. To Carleton, a true son of New Hampshire, who had himself so
often in boyhood watched and discriminated the mystery-play of light
in its variant forms at dawn, midday, and sunset, by moon and star and
zodiac, at the equinoxes and solstices, the imagery of his favorite
poet was a perennial delight.

As he ripened in years, Carleton loved poetry more and more. He
delighted in Lowell, and enjoyed the mysticism of Emerson. He had read
Tennyson earlier in life without much pleasure, but in ripened years,
and with refined tastes, his soul of music responded to the English
bard's marvellous numbers. He became unspeakably happy over the tender
melody of Tennyson's smaller pieces, and the grand harmony of "In
Memoriam," which he thought the greatest poem ever written, and the
high-water mark of intellect in the nineteenth century. Carleton was
not only a lover of music, but a composer. When some especially tender
sentiment in a hymn impressed him, or the re-reading of an old sacred
song kindled his imagination by its thought, or moved his
sensibilities by its smooth rhythm, then Carleton was not likely to
rest until he had made a tune of his own with which to express his
feelings. Of the scores which he composed and sang at home, or had
sung in the churches, a number were printed, and have had happy use.

To the end of his life, he seemed to present, in his carriage and
person, some of that New Hampshire ruggedness, and even rustic
simplicity, that attracted and lured, while it foiled and disgusted
those hunters of human prey who, in every large city, wait to take in
the wayfaring man, whether he be fool or wise. Because he wore
comfortable shoes, and cared next to nothing about conformity to the
last new freak of fashion, the bunco man was very apt to make a fool
of himself, and find that he, and not the stranger, was the victim. In
Boston, which of late years has been so far captured by the Irishman
that even St. Patrick's is celebrated under the guise of "Evacuation
Day," matters were not very different from those in New York.
Carleton, while often conducting parties of young friends around
Copp's Hill, and the more interes