WHITTIER, John Greenleaf — AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (ALS)
Oak Knoll, Danvers, MA. Fine three-page letter on a 9" x 7" sheet folded into quarters SIGNED "John G. Whittier" to Marshall Pickney Wilder, President of the Massachusetts Senate and longtime president of the American Pomological Society, addressed as "Dear Friend." Whittier comments on enjoying reading an address by Wilder, "a farmer & a farmer's son. I have always loved agricultural & horticultural pursuits--the sweet air of country living and fruits & flowers." He then quotes two four-line stanzas, "lines written for one of our autumn festivals of my neighborhood," from his poem "A Song of Harvest": Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all. For he who blesses most is blest; And God and man shall own his worth Who toils to leave as his bequest An added beauty to the earth. Whittier concludes: "I know of no more beautiful and beneficial devotion of the closing years of life than the one thou hast chosen; Thy fruits praise thee; thy flowers spring up and bless thee.". Minor creasing from mailing with short, closed tear. Near Fine
