The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: John Newton Johnson to Walt Whitman, 8 May 1888
Date: May 8, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02409
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Marie Ernster, Amanda J. Axley, and Stephanie Blalock
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Mid Alabama1
May 8, 1888
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Few are aware how the great Literature penetrates all, gives hue to all, shapes aggregates and individuals, and, after subtle ways, with irresistible power, constructs, sustains, demolishes at will.
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O days of the future, I believe in you! I isolate myself for your sake!
O America, because you build f'r mankind, I b'ild f'r you!
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That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body, or the fibres of plants.
Of all races and eras, These States, with veins full of poetical stuff, most need poets, and are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest.
Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.
(Soul of love, and tongue of fire!
Eye to pierce the deepest deeps, and sweep the world;
—Ah mother! prolific and full in all besides—yet how long barren, barren?)
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I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
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I dream'd that was the new City of Friends.
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.2
Printed by the HALF LOAF
Correspondent:
John Newton Johnson was a
self-styled philosopher from rural Alabama whom Whitman described as "a good
affectionate fellow, a sort of uncut gem." There are about thirty letters from
Johnson in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection, but unfortunately there are no
replies extant, although Whitman wrote frequently for a period of approximately
fifteen years. When Johnson wrote for the first time on September 13, 1874, he was forty-two, "gray as a rat," a former Rebel
soldier with an income between $300 and $400 annually, though before the
war he had been "a youthful 'patriarch.'" He informed Whitman that during the
past summer he had bought Leaves of Grass and, after a
momentary suspicion that the bookseller should be "hung for
swindling," he discovered the mystery of Whitman's verse, and "I assure
you I was soon 'cavorting' round and asserting that the $3 book was worth
$50 if it could not be replaced. (Now Laugh)." He offered either to sell
Whitman's poetry and turn over to him all profits or to lend him money. In the
letter he enclosed a gold dollar: "So much grand poetry nearly kills me with the
pain of delight." Characteristically, he concluded his letter with an unexpected
question: "Walt! Are you Orthodox or Universalist? I am Materialist of late." On
October 7, 1874, after describing
Guntersville, Ala., he commented: "Orthodoxy flourishes
with the usual lack of flowers or
fruit." His amusingly detailed description of his
face on November 7, 1875, Whitman marked in red
crayon. Thus Johnson became a self-designated philosophical jester to amuse
Whitman. See also Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man, Poet
and Friend (Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1915),
125–130.
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: CAMDEN, N.J. | MAY | 11 | 8AM | [Rec'd]. Johnson has written his address and the date on the verso of the postal card, above Whitman's address. [back]
2. Johnson has printed on the postcard passages from Whitman's poetry, including "By Blue Ontario’s Shore" (Sections 8 and 9), "For You O Democracy," and "I Dream'd in a Dream." [back]