File:Beautiful gems from American writers and the lives and portraits of our favorite authors (1901) (14726872496).jpg

Identifier: beautifulgemsfro00bird (find matches)
Title: Beautiful gems from American writers and the lives and portraits of our favorite authors
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Birdsall, William Wilfred, 1854-1909, (from old catalog) ed Jones, Rufus Matthew, 1863- (from old catalog) joint ed
Subjects: American literature
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., International publishing co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
es his charm,and, to scholars, his one defect. It has led him to write, as no other poet could,upon the dear simplicity of New England farm life. He has written from the heartand not from the head ; he has composed popular pastorals, not hymns of culture.Only such training as the district schools afforded, with a couple of years at Haver-hill Academy comprised his advantages in education. In referring to this alma mater in after years, under the spell of his muse, thepoet thus writes :— Still sits the school house by the road,A ragged beggar sunning ;Anjund it still the sumachs growAnd black-berry vines are running. Within, the masters desk is seen,Deep-scarred by raps official;The warping floor, the battered seats,The jack-knife carved initial. It was natural for Whittier to become the poet of that combination of whichGarrison was the apostle, and Phillips and Sumner the orators. His early poems werepublished by Garrison in his paper, The Free Press, the first one when Whittier -80
Text Appearing After Image:
JOHN G. WHITTIER, HIS HOME AND BIRTHPLACE. JOHN r.RI.ENLKAF WHITTrER. 81 wns nineteen years of (i<i;e and (jiarrison liimseH lillUi morc^ llinn a boy. The farmerlad was elated wiien he found i\w. verses which Ik; had so timidly suhniilhid in ))rintwith a friendly (H)mm(!nt from tlu; editor and a ie(j(uest ibr more. (birrison evenvisited Whittiers ))arentsand urjjjed the im()()rtance of giving; liim a finished echiea-tion. Ilius lie fell early under the spell of the great abolitionist and threw himselfwith all tlu! nrdor of his nature into the movement. His poc^ns against slavery anddisunion have a ringing zeal worthy of a Cromwc^ll. They are, (kjclares onewriter, lil<(! the sound of the trumpets blown Ixdbrc^ th(^ walls of Jericho. As a (^u;dv(!r Whitti(M- conid not have b(!en oth(!rwise than an ;ibolitionist, for thatd(!nomination had long since abolished slaveiy within its own comnuinion. JNlost))rominent, ;imong his j)oems of IVeedom are Jhe Voice; of Kieedom, published in184

Note About Images