1. Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). [back]
2. In the 1880s, a number of English critics were interested Whitman, including Matthew Arnold, Robert Buchanan, Thomas Carlyle, and Oscar Wilde (see Leaves of Grass, Comprehensive Reader's Edition, ed. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley [New York: New York University Press, 1965]). On April 18, 1888, the Herald printed a short piece by Whitman on the death of Arnold in which the poet proclaims Arnold will not be missed a great deal in the United States. When "The United States to Old World Critics" appeared in the Herald, less than a month after Arnold's death, Whitman asked Traubel what the poem meant to him. Following Traubel's response, and his indication that the meaning came to him immediately, Whitman concluded, "Good! then the poem is better than I believed" (Traubel 1: 120). [back]