He said of the Boston Radical Club (which nevertheless contained the
best intellectual life of its time) that he feared the saints went there
not only to worship but to be worshipped:--a large part of the audience
consisting of pretty young women. Yet he finally went there himself, for
the sake of an interview with the most distinguished of his admirers,
the Emperor of Brazil. This magnificent monarch, who may even be called
the Marcus Aurelius of modern times, openly declared that there was
nothing in North America that he wished so much to see as the poet
Whittier. A meeting was accordingly arranged, and no sooner had Dom
Pedro caught sight of Whittier (whom he recognized from the pictures he
possessed) than he hastened to embrace him, and would certainly have
kissed the astonished Quaker, after the fashion that prevails among the
Latin races, if Whittier had permitted him the least opportunity. After
paying his compliments in a handsome manner to the assembled company the
Emperor took his leave again, and insisted on carrying off the poet with
him. One might like to know what sort of a conversation two such
different and almost antipodal friends had together for that one hour in
a lifetime.
The climate of the Isles of Shoals exactly suited Whittier's dreamy
nature. He would wander from the piazza into the billiard-room, and back
again to the piazza, and then look at the sea for an hour or more
without speaking a word to any one.
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