7.15 P. M. W. writing a postal. Shook hands, then went on writing. Ed in the meantime coming in and waiting. W. handed Ed two postals and two wrapped papers. Ed went to the post office. Spoke of his health—said that he still feels comparatively well. "Now for fourteen days, this has kept right on, without intermission, I may say." Returned me proof for Ferguson. "Eidôlons" had not been corrected. "It is not a matter of life and death," he said, "yet it must be done: we must insist on it." I heard from Kennedy to-day. W. read the note. Where K. says of Garland's Transcript piece that it was "very good indeed," W. put in: "That is what we say, too." Asked me then: " Did n't Garland say he had sent a paper to Burroughs?" He added after I had answered him: "I thought so: I had a paper made up to send to John: a note, too: thought, just at the last minute, of what Garland had said: so set to—addressed it to O'Connor."
W. spoke of some rabid criticism of Leaves of Grass. "There was a time when I was inclined to reply to these charges, though I never did so: now I have not even the disposition to do so: have not had for years: I have felt that whatever is for a fellow worry is not for him:
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if I had n't observed this I would not be here to-day: you take some of the criticism harder than I would: yet I can understand—I have been there." Suddenly he said to me: "I had another M. P. here to-day: came with a letter from Dowden—only a short note—simply introducing." W. handed me cards. One of them "Lewis Fry" and the other one bearing the names of his two daughters. He pointed to the girls' card. "That is an English kink: I wonder why they have n't adopted it here." W. went on: "I liked Fry and I liked his two daughters, too: fine looking, handsome, ruddy." Did they stay long? "Oh no—only a short time: Mrs. Davis brought up the cards." He smiled good humoredly. "The doctor's prohibition was explained to them—they observed it." Was Fry as interesting as Summers? "Quite: he talked like a house afire—altogether colloquially, however: he was so interesting I almost regretted the prohibition." Described Fry as "tall, rather slimmish: moustache: not at all John Bull in appearance, build. He seems to be a good Liberal." He told W. he "had been in Dublin—seen Dowden." Here W. commenced a fruitless search for a letter. "I wanted you to have it: I thought I had laid it on the corner of the chair there where I sometimes put your letters." Floor, table, chairs, boxes, turned over but no letter. "No matter," said W., "I will look for it again—keep it for you when it turns up. I gave him a book—one of Dave's copies—for Dowden. He said he would like to read it—was not going straight home. Would I grant him the privilege? I had not written in it: of course I said yes." I remarked: " He 'll find it worth while: the book pans out well with healthy strangers." W. looked pleased. "That is a good thing to hear—that is the test of a book: does it wear?" I said my question was: Do I want to go back to it? W. approving. "That is even better—that is final: there is nothing beyond that: I never heard it put more decisively."
Dave had not seen The Transcript piece. Elizabeth Porter Gould wrote him about it. I promised him a paper: sent
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for several Saturday: not here yet. W spoke of Dave—his ability &c. I referred to his courtesies to me. W. said: "Yes, he wants to identify himself with the books he publishes—their writers. Some people accuse Dave of sharp practice: I do not: I have seen no evidence of it: he is close—but then that is the business man in him. He has done great work on the market this year with his Shakespeares, Peys, Emersons." W. after a pause asked: "Did he ever tell you anything about Brown—Charles Brockden Brown? Did the books go?" I answered no. McKay is reviving Brown. "Not that I take any interest in Brown: it is interesting to know if anybody else does—if that sort of work can still find a place." Had he read Brown? "I think I must have done so: I read a great deal in those early days: even The Mysteries of Udolpho—as bad as that!" My inquiry then was: "Then you don't like Brown?" "No. I am not averse to the rank, the crude: but Brown was too rank, too crude." Brown then was not a Cooper? He shook his head emphatically and said with a raised voice: "I should say not: not more than a molehill is a mountain, than disease is health!" Cooper "had immortal qualities." Undine he had read: "but that is of a higher order—a stroke of genius."
He has been going over papers and manuscripts the past week. I asked if the Aaron Burr had yet turned up? "No," he said, "but I have my eye out sharply for it: it seems as if it must be there in the mix—yet so far I 've not come upon a trace of it. Some months ago, not long before I was taken sick, I sat down for an hour in the parlor there by the window—jotted down memoranda of Burr. Since that time I have missed the sheets: they got out of sight among other papers. It is nothing: it contributes nothing new: adds nothing to the stock of knowledge of Burr: yet it is a word, perhaps well said." He thought Burr "justly should be regarded as above the ordinary estimate of him"— "the school book stories," as he called them. I thought there had been a reaction from them: yet they crop up again
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and again as if to say, 'Burr was a traitor and that 's the end of him.' But that is not the end of him: Burr was an able man—one of the great men of that day: he had his bad spots: in the turns and twists of life"—W. indicating by a gesture of his right hand— "now and then a dark spot would appear: that spot has set itself in the public eye: that spot alone, as if there was nothing else: yet the man was mainly good, mostly noble." He did not think Burr "was worse than the average great man of his day: none of them will bear inspection: Franklin, Washington, Hamilton: subject them to the standards of our time: the nice standards: none of them would shine." I asked: "But you justify our standards?" "Yes, yes: but I mean, Burr should be judged by a standard applied to all, not to him alone. A century ago drunkedness was not necessarily a dereliction: now it means shame and reproach. Hamilton has come down to us almost deified: but was he exempt from criticism? Hamilton was an intellectualist: cold dispassionate, calculating: yet he was truly a patriot—performed no inconsiderable part in the consummation of the American revolt: but Hamilton was a monarchist: there was nothing in him to appeal to our democratic instincts—to the ideals we hold so dear to-day." Described Burr: "A little man: what some of us would call dudish in manners, dress"—yet "not in the least that in fact."
W. was much stirred up. He said: "I had the most happy good luck in my early days to fall in with superior men—the higher man of that past era. I remember Colonel Fellows: you have heard me talk of him: one of the finest of them all. He had been a bosom friend of Paine in his last days—Paine's last days. How good the stories he told! how well reflecting things as they must have been!" W. said: "My father had been an acceptor of Paine: Paine had been much vilified." W. was quiet for awhile. "There has never been a life of Paine," he said: "anything tangible, real." I jokingly said: "That would be a job for me to take up." He seized the idea earnestly: surprised me with
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the vehemence of his assent. "Yes, it would: charge yourself with it: do it: it needs to be done." He was "familiar with Vaill's life, but that is merely a sketch." Then: "I knew Vaill personally: he had a little store in New York: was a mathematician, I think: something in the nautical way: a valuable rare old man to know. Take a man: take all sentiment, poetry, philosophy out of him: that is Vaill." Yet "Vaill was a hard nut"—that is to say, "was a character not to be trifled, ridiculed, away." Still the Paine story needed to be told. W. had read Ingersoll's lecture on Paine and "perhaps his reply to Dr. Prime": "but that was not enough—was polemical." As to W.'s Burr piece, "it is nothing in itself." I suggested: "But much as it reflects you." He said: "That may be: I know it is important to know a man's views, opinions, so we may know him." He still hoped "to come across the manuscript." "When I do you shall have it to read."
Something was said about "nothing." W. broke in: "After all, nothing makes up a good deal of a man's life: these trifles are registers, explanations, confirming, justifying." I asked W. about Dana—Charles Dana. Was Dana always friendly? W. replied: "Yes: Dana wishes me well: The Sun always treats me well: Dana accepts me so far as it is safe to do so—keeps on the line of safety." Regarding Dowden's "Walt Whitman" on the outside of the envelope, W. said: "How alike is the writing of all the English professors." I mentioned the "great secret" this evening again. He grew grave at once. "Yes, it belongs to you: you are entitled to know it: some day: some day soon." I laughingly replied: "Maybe it 's like the Diplomatic Secret: the secret being that there is no secret." He shook his head, but was very quiet for a bit. "There is a secret: you will sometimes see that there is a secret." That was all.
W. had another letter for me. He picked it up from the accustomed place on the table. " It 's from Rossetti," he said: " I 've been reading it over: William Rossetti: full
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of wise beautiful things—overflowing with genial winsome good will: you 'll feel its treasurable quality." I sat there and read. He said: "Read it aloud: I can easily enjoy it again." When I got to the passage describing the walks W. interrupted me: "Oh! that 's so fine—so fine, fine, fine: he brings back my own walks to me: the walks alone: the walks with Pete: the blessed past undying days: they make me hungry, tied up as I am now and for good in a room: hungry: hungry. Horace, do you sometimes feel the earth hunger? the desire for the dirt? to get out doors, into the woods, on the roads? to roll in the grass: to cry out: to play tom fool with yourself in the free fields? do you feel that, Horace? If you do—O yes! I know you do—then you too can understand what Rossetti means—can understand the open air things that I have tried to set forth in Specimen Days." I went on reading, still aloud, and he listened, with his hand back of his ear, to every word: listened and spoke about what he heard. He must have broken in upon me twenty times:
W. said: "Rossetti fires up magnificently when he talks of the American attitudes towards me. Whether America is right or Rosetti is right—who knows? I don't. Rossetti sounds right: yet America has her own voice in the matter—has thundered against me or been contemptuously silent about me in a way not to be misunderstood. America makes me proud: Rossetti makes me humble: I stand for myself, for the Leaves—must let results take care of themselves. I would be a fool, an ingrate, if I did not however respond with love to a confession as unhesitating and unqualified as Rossetti's." He paused. I went on. The Tennyson matter moved him? "Yes, I am sure we would understand each other: we would find that we had most things in common—that the differentiations were too trifling to make much of." "Even Tennyson's later desertion of democracy?" I
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quizzed. He laughed mildly: " I 'd prefer to go back of that: back of that you 'll find Tennyson all right—or mainly right." W. was also very responsive to what Rossetti wrote of the dedication. "We can best appreciate such delicate compliments in the silences." To the Mazzini passages W. cried repeatedly: "Amen! Amen! Amen!" And he wound up with declaring: "Mazzini was the greatest of them all down there in Italy: infinitely the greatest: went deepest—was biggest around."