]
When Whittier was asked how the stroke felt, he said, "It was like a
blow from a pile-driver,--and I would not like to have it repeated." The
hole which the lightning made in the side of the house, could scarcely
be distinguished from that of a large rifle bullet. A few days
afterwards I saw a small house set on fire by the lightning, and it was
consumed in a very few minutes, so one may infer how narrowly the
Whittier family escaped a double danger.
He was a tall, and rather slender man, measuring almost exactly six
feet, with sloping shoulders, and he stood so straight, as almost to be
the personification of uprightness. No soldier was ever more erect, and
this without the least stiffness or conventionality. His head was not
large at the base, but high-crowned and finely arched. His eyes were
magnificent, and can only be compared to Hawthorne's eyes, though not so
clear. Marshal von Moltke had eyes like two brilliant lights; even the
Emperor dared not look into them. Whittier's were not like this, but
seemed to be lighted by hidden fires; very large, dark, and powerful. He
had a sensitive and refined mouth, which was closed, as if by an effort
of the will. In general appearance he resembled men of the Revolutionary
period, as if a cotemporary of Washington had luckily been dropped out
of the eighteenth century. He looked like Copley's portrait of Samuel
Adams, but with a more intellectual, and less stubborn expression.
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