As leader and inspirer he stood--not autocrat. He cared to know all men’s opinions, and his weapons were argument and persuasion, and that keen rapier of retort which pierced many a false theory. * * * * * Yet, as it has been said, in these morning hours politics were not all. The poet had been writing; he needed recreation. Everything that was going on around him was of interest to him; the local story, the fun, the jest, the laugh were not wanting; nor was any situation with the possibility of humor in it lost upon this politician and poet. He appreciated broadcloth, he delighted in cultured phrase; both he could find in his own town. But where these were lacking, “A man’s a man for a’ that.” For Whittier lived so much in the realities that he held men as they stood in the ranks of character, and in reading them he was wonderfully keen. So, he talked and listened and joked and laughed with his fellow-townsmen, and reckoned among them many a true friend. * * * * * In a letter to Mrs. F---- written in the November of 1876, he says: “What does the Colonel think of the election? I staid to vote in Amesbury and have been here for ten days or more. The dismal and misty weather seems to correspond with the doubtful and wearisome political condition of the country. For myself, I would prefer to see Tilden president than to elect Hayes by fraud. Yet there seems a possibility of his fair election.” * * * * * After giving some Amesbury news to a correspondent, he adds: “Do thee ever think of our sojourn at the Bearcamp House? I always recall it with pleasure. H---- C---- [a young friend of whom Whittier was fond] is now in Amesbury. He is still, I hope, improving.” X Sometimes the poet did not see his friends and acquaintances upon the street, or he was too absorbed in a poem--or, alas it may have been with a headache--to give sign of recognition. Yet to a neighbor who one day laughingly accused him of “cutting” her, he spoke of the two persons whom he never failed to recognize, whatever his preoccupation--one an old cooper, the other an old lame man, both of whom through their poverty found many persons blind to them. But, again, sometimes Whittier’s eyes served him well. One morning coming out of the post-office, he saw the doctor driving past and the two stopped to greet one another. Then, as the interview seemed finished and the doctor was about to drive on again, the poet said in an undertone: “Don’t thee go yet. There’s So-and-So,” naming a bore, “waiting for me. Let him get by first.” So the poet and the doctor’s carriage stood in the road until Mr. “So-and-So” grew tired of waiting and took himself off. * * * * *