The name is absent

44 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
enabled Wlnttier to see that mere surface ornamentation or
tricks of rhetoric were harmful; that a writer must first be
himself and then concentrate on style; that the inner emo-
tional quality of a work rises above mere Uterary technique;
and finally, that the subject matter must bear a direct rela-
tion to the authors own personal experience. Though this
emphasis on truth often caused Whittiei- to overmoralize and
disregard valid literary techniques, it never allowed him to
equate sincerity with dullness. His best works do attempt to
“throw a golden haze of poetry over the rough and thorny
pathways of every-day duty” (Works, VI, 216) and to utilize
“the extraordinary richness of language and imagery”
(Works, VII, 287) which Whittier so admired in other
writers.¹⁶

Practically, it is revealing to see how Whittier employed
these beliefs in his own writing. He consistently uses images
which have their source in the everyday experiences of farm-
life, the harvest, the change of seasons, growth of crops, husk-
ing, planting, and his most effective poems abound in de-
scriptions which are taken directly from a specific section of
Essex county. The opening of “The Last Walk in Autumn”
literally transcribes the scenery along the Merrimack River;
while the town in “The Countess” is an accurate picture of
Rocks Village, a small settlement a few miles from Whittier’s
house. “Snow-Bound,” “Skipper Ireson’s Ride,” “A Sea-
Dream,” and “Among the Hills” are similarly dependent on
exact local description. Also his finest genre sketches rely on
the careful accumulation of these realistic details. Note the
series of images from the poem “In Peace”:

A track of moonlight on a quiet lake,

Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore
Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make
Such harmonies as keep the woods awake,
And listening all night long for their sweet sake;

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