Various other papers were read,--stories, sketches, etc., and
after the reading there was a little conversation, when he came
and spoke to me. I let the friend who had accompanied me do my
part of the talking for I was too much overawed by the presence
of one whose poetry I had so long admired, to say a great deal.
But from that evening we knew each other as friends; and, of
course, the day has a white mark among memories of my Lowell
life.
Mr. Whittier's visit to Lowell had some political bearing upon
the antislavery cause. It is strange now to think that a cause
like that should not always have been our country's cause,--our
country,--our own free nation! But antislavery sentiments were
then regarded by many as traitorous heresies; and those who held
them did not expect to win popularity. If the vote of the mill-
girls had been taken, it would doubtless have been unanimous on
the antislavery side. But those were also the days when a woman
was not expected to give, or even to have, an opinion on subjects
of public interest.
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