Personal Sketches and Tributes, Part 2, from Volume VI., - The Works of Whittier: Old Portraits and Modern Sketches by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 31 of 41 (75%)
page 31 of 41 (75%)
|
the coming election with much interest, and of her plans for the winter.
On the morning of her death (October 20, 1880) she spoke of feeling remarkably well. Before leaving her chamber she complained of severe pain in the region of the heart. Help was called by her companion, but only reached her to witness her quiet passing away. The funeral was, as befitted one like her, plain and simple. Many of her old friends were present, and Wendell Phillips paid an affecting and eloquent tribute to his old friend and anti-slavery coadjutor. He referred to the time when she accepted, with serene self-sacrifice, the obloquy which her _Appeal_ had brought upon her, and noted, as one of the many ways in which popular hatred was manifested, the withdrawal from her of the privileges of the Boston Athenaeum. Her pallbearers were elderly, plain farmers in the neighborhood; and, led by the old white-haired undertaker, the procession wound its way to the not distant burial- ground, over the red and gold of fallen leaves, and tinder the half- clouded October sky. A lover of all beautiful things, she was, as her intimate friends knew, always delighted by the sight of rainbows, and used to so arrange prismatic glasses as to throw the colors on the walls of her room. Just after her body was consigned to the earth, a magnificent rainbow spanned with its are of glory the eastern sky. The incident at her burial is alluded to in a sonnet written by William P. Andrews:-- "Freedom! she knew thy summons, and obeyed That clarion voice as yet scarce heard of men; Gladly she joined thy red-cross service when Honor and wealth must at thy feet be laid Onward with faith undaunted, undismayed |
|