Note
The occasion for this little volume is the celebration of the centenary of Whittier’s birth. The sketch of his life aims to present the chief formative influences which affected his career and determined the character of his poetry. The poems have been chosen with the intention of illustrating, first, the circumstances of Whittier’s boyhood and the themes to which his poetic imagination naturally turned, then the political and social struggle which engrossed so many of his years, and finally that mood of devout resting and waiting in which his long life closed.
Note
The frontispiece portrait of Whittier is from a miniature by Porter, painted about 1838. The portrait which faces page 36 is from an ambrotype taken about 1857. Both the miniature and ambrotype are in the possession of Samuel T. Pickard, Amesbury, Mass.