Content:
A complete draft, with corrections and notes to the printer, of "How I Still Get Around and Take Notes. (No. 5)," a piece of journalism that appeared in
The Critic
(Vol. I, no. 24) on December 3, 1881. Portions of the piece would later be reprinted as three separate sections of
Specimen Days
(1882–1883): "A Visit, at the Last, to R. W. Emerson," "Other Concord Notations," and "Boston Common—More of Emerson." The article was also reprinted, with small portions excised, in Alexander Ireland's 1882 volume
In Memoriam. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Recollections of His Visits to England in 1833, 1847–8, 1872–3, and Extracts from Unpublished Letters
(London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.), 113–115.
Content:
This manuscript, entitled "The Dead Emerson," contains some handwritten notes
about Whitman's last visit (which, according to the manuscript, took place in the
winter of 1881) to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a clipping from a printed piece which
is almost equivalent (except for a short phrase) to "A Visit, at the Last, to R. W. Emerson" as published
in
Specimen Days
in 1882
(retained, within
Specimen Days
and with the same title, in the
Complete
Prose Works
, published in 1892). The clipping included in this
manuscript was taken from the section " Emerson as He Looks Today" which appeared within the
article "How I Still Get Around at
60, and Take Notes" published in the
Critic
on December 3, 1881.
