He was twenty-four years old--in the restless period between youth and real manhood. He had known little but hardship and had come out of it with impaired health. There was little to cheer him in the tragic career of Burns, in the almost desperate enthusiasm of Garrison, or in the cynicism of Byron, to which he had lately become subject. To cap all, he had been "crossed in love." He could not even have the grim comfort of realizing that he was passing through a youthful phase when he wrote to a friend: Disappointment in a thousand ways has gone over my heart, and left it dust. Yet I still look forward with high anticipations. I have placed the goal of my ambitions high--but with the blessing of God it shall be reached. The world has at last breathed into my bosom a portion of its own bitterness, and I now feel as if I would wrestle manfully in the strife of men. If my life is spared, the world shall know me in a loftier capacity than _as a writer of rhymes_. There--is not that boasting?--But I have said it with a strong pulse and a swelling heart, and I shall strive to realize it. This temporary abandonment of poetry was after all only an evidence of his regard for it. With all the other young writers of his day, he was hoping for new achievement in American literature and wondering in the back of his mind if he were not to be a contributor to it. At the moment Bryant had turned to journalism the New England group were not yet articulate, and the call of politics was loud. "There was nowhere in America a writer of verse with more immediate promise than Whittier, [yet] he was a sick man in the old house at the back of Job's Hill, disgusted with poetry and planning how he could best get to Congress."