"His breath warmed the sheet of paper which you have before you. The
microscope will show you the trail of flattened particles left by the
tesselated epidermis of his hand as it swept along the manuscript. Nay,
if we had but the right developing fluid to flow over it, the surface of
the sheet would offer you his photograph as the light pictured it at the
instant of writing.
"Look at Mr. Bok's collection with such thoughts, ...and you will cease
to wonder at his pertinacity and applaud the conquests of his
enthusiasm.
"Oliver Wendell Holmes."
Whenever biographers of the New England school of writers have come to
write of John Greenleaf Whittier, they have been puzzled as to the
scanty number of letters and private papers left by the poet. This
letter, written to Bok, in comment upon a report that the poet had
burned all his letters, is illuminating:
"Dear Friend:
"The report concerning the burning of my letters is only true so far as
this: some years ago I destroyed a large collection of letters I had
received not from any regard to my own reputation, but from the fear
that to leave them liable to publicity might be injurious or unpleasant
to the writers or their friends. They covered much of the anti-slavery
period and the War of the Rebellion, and many of them I knew were
strictly private and confidential. I was not able at the time to look
over the MS. and thought it safest to make a bonfire of it all.
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