Content:
The content of this manuscript, in which Whitman writes that true knowledge and experience do not come from books, is similar to material found in Whitman's early notebooks and in the first edition of
Leaves of Grass.
Based on this and the handwriting, Edward Grier dates this manuscript to before or early in 1855 (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:188).
