Mr. Whittier, when interviewed some time ago as to his favorite works, replied: "Oh! really, I have none. Much that I have written I wish was as deep in the Red Sea as Pharaoh's chariot wheels. Much of the bread cast on the waters I wish had never returned. It is not fair to revive writings composed in the shadow of conditions that make every acceptable work impossible. In my early life I was not favored with good opportunities. Limited chances for education and a lack of books always stood in my way. When I began to write I had seen nothing, and virtually knew nothing of the world. Of course, things written then could not be worth much. In my father's house there were not a dozen books, and they were of a severe type. The only one that approached poetry was a rhymed history of King David, written by a contemporary of George Fox, the Quaker. There was one poor novel in the family. It belonged to an aunt. This I secured one day, but when I had read it about half through I was discovered and it was taken away from me."
This was about the time when Judge Pickering, of Salem, and a party of ladies called at the farm-house to see him. "He was then an awkward boy of seventeen--as he used to tell the story--and was just then under the barn, looking for eggs. Hearing his name called, he came up with his hat full and found himself suddenly in the presence of people more elegant in appearance than any he had ever met. In telling the story, he added naïvely, 'They came to see the Quaker poet--and they saw him!' This must have been about the year 1824."
Mr. T. W. Ball (in the Boston _Journal_, Dec. 18, 1891, weekly edition), the journalist, wrote of his sole interview in 1848 with Whittier, in a little editorial den at the junction of Spring Lane and Water Street with Devonshire Street (the building recently torn down), where Henry Wilson was then editing the Free-Soil paper (owned by him as well). "I was busy," says Mr. Ball, "getting up some local items one morning, when a gentleman of staid appearance, with a beaming countenance, a broad-brimmed fur hat--the old-fashioned fur hat, so different from the silk tile--and a brownish coat of formal cut, entered the room, and, after the usual courtesies of salutation, fell into a close chat with the 'Natick cobbler,' by which popular title the future Vice-President was then known. It was the summer season, and Wilson was resplendent in a brown linen coat and a flaming red-checked velvet waistcoat, which was much affected in those days. As the conversation between the two waxed interesting, I noticed that the visitor unbuttoned his vest for comfort, and possessed himself of an exchange paper which he converted into a fan. The interview closed, and the visitor, buttoning up his vest and donning his hat, turned to depart, when for the first time he appeared to take notice of my presence. With a rapid glance at Wilson, he said, 'Henry, who is thy young friend?'