Content:
A heavily revised draft fragment, composed of several scraps of paper pasted together to form two leaves. The notes found on the first leaf were used in "Preface, 1876, to the two-volume Centennial Edition of L. of G. and 'Two Rivulets'" (1876). The prose fragment on the second leaf contributed to "Darwinism—(then Furthermore)," a short prose piece that orginally appeared in
Two Rivulets
(1876), but that was later incorporated into the "Notes Left Over" section of
Collect
in
Specimen Days & Collect
(1882–83). Both of these pieces were eventually included in
Complete Prose Works
(1892). Cancelled Civil War "reminiscences" on the Battle of First Fredericksburgh and the sinking of the U.S.S.
Hatteras
appear on the verso of the second leaf. Whitman wrote about both of these events in "'Tis But Ten Years Since (Third Paper),"
New York Weekly Graphic
(14 February 1874).
