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Duke University Libraries call number 811.38 T777W v.1 c.1
Copyright, 1905, 1906, by Horace Traubel
Copyright, 1905, by The Century Company
Entered at Stationers' Hall
Published February, 1906
Press of Geo. H. Ellis Co.
Boston, U.S.A.
My story is left as it was originally written. I have made no attempt to improve it. I have taken nothing off and put nothing on. I know that it has defects. I am not ashamed of defects. I know that it has virtues. I am not proud of virtues. Here is the record as it virginally came from my hands in the quick of the struggle it describes. It might have been made more literary. It might have been made more precise. Its loose joints might have been tightened. Some commas might have been put where colons are. Phrases might have been swung about. The formal grace of the recital might have been improved. I have preferred to respect its integrity. To let it remain untouched by a censorship. To let it continue, for good or bad, in its then native atmosphere. I do not want to reshape those years. I want them left as they were. I keep them forever contemporary. I trust in the spontaneity of their first inspirations.
Did Whitman know I was keeping such a record? No. Yet he knew I would write of our experiences together. Every now and then he charged me with immortal commissions. He would say: "I want you to speak for me when I am dead."
On several occasions I read him my reports. They were very satisfactory. "You do the thing just as I should wish it to be done."
He always imposed it upon me to tell the truth about him. The worst truth no less than the best truth. He did
A number of the collateral documents quoted are from Whitman himself. These are printed without repair. They are kept to his own text without elision and without change. The same thing may be said of the letters from others to Whitman. Nothing has been done to sophisticate the text. It occurs here in the rude dress natural to the incidents that produced it. I had no time then to polish. I have had no
"Whatever you do do not prettify me."
"Be sure to write about me honest: whatever you do do not prettify me: include all the hells and damns."
At Walt's this evening. Called my attention to an old letter in the Philadelphia Press describing a visit to Emerson with Louisa Alcott, and Emerson's senility."The fact is pitiful enough but the narrative is more so: the letter is so uselessly literal, so much mathematical: has to tell it all and let it run over."
He had himself seen Emerson "after the shadow."
And he "saw nothing tragic or startling"
in Emerson's condition. "The senile Emerson is the old Emerson in all that goes to make Emerson notable: this shadow is a part of him—a necessary feature of his nearly rounded life: it gives him a statuesqueness—throws him, so it seems to me, impressively as a definite figure in a background of mist."
W. handed me a leaf from The Christian Union containing an article by Munger on Personal Purity, in which this is said: "Do not suffer yourself to be caught by the Walt Whitman fallacy that all nature and all processes of nature are sacred and may therefore be talked about. Walt Whitman is not a true poet in this respect, or he would have scanned nature more accurately. Nature is silent and shy where he is loud and bold."
"Now,"
W. quietly remarked, "Munger is all right, but he is also all wrong. If Munger had written Leaves of Grass that's what nature would have written through Munger. But nature was writing through Walt Whitman. And that is where
And after a quiet little laugh he pushed his forefinger among some papers on the table and pulled out a black-ribbed envelope which he reached to me: "Read this. You will see by it how that point staggers my friends as well as my enemies. We have got in the habit of thinking Buchanan is not afraid of anything—is a sort of medieval knight militant going heedlessly about doing good.
16 Up. Gloucester Place, Dorset Square, London, Jan. 8, 1877. Dear Walt Whitman:Pray forgive my long silence.
I have been deep in troubles of my own. All the books have arrived and been safely transmitted. Many thanks. You have doubtless heard about affairs in England. The tone adopted by certain of your friends here became so unpleasant that I requested all subscriptions etc. to be paid over to Rossetti, and received no more myself. During a certain lawsuit against the Examiner, your admirers—notably Mr. Swinburne—pleaded against me that I had praised
you, citedyourwords against me in court etc.I never was so shocked and astonished, for I would not have believed human beings capable of such iniquity. As I think I told you before, I shall ever regret the insertion of certain passages in your books (Children of Adam etc).
I do not believe them necessary or defensible. These passages are quoted as being the work of an immoral writer, and, I tried to show they were part of a system of philosophy, it would not do. I know the purity and righteousness of your meaning, but that does not alter my regret. altho' although I think your reputation is growing here, and I am sure it deserves to grow.
But your fatal obstacle to general influence is the obnoxious passages. I wish you would make up your mind to excise them with your own hand. God bless you!—May your trouble lift, and may happy days be in store for you!—Let me know about your affairs. I may soon be in a position to help you more definitely.
Yours ever, Robt. Buchanan. Robert
W. watched me as I read the letter and when he saw I was through resumed: "Children of Adam stumps the worst and the best: I have even tried hard to see if it might not as I grow older or experience new moods stump me: I have even almost deliberately tried to retreat.
"I have been making a few notes to-day,"
said W., "on the subject of my removal from the Interior Department. As you know, Secretary Harlan took the Leaves even more seriously than Munger: he abstracted the book from my desk drawer at night after I had gone, put it back again, and discharged me next day.
'The removal of Whitman was the mistake of my life.'"
"the radical element in Lincoln was sadness bordering on melancholy, touched by a philosophy, and that philosophy touched again by a humor, which saved him from the logical wreck of his powers."
"We have heard from her
He reached to the floor and picked up a book. "I remembered I had used it for a bookmark. It came several months ago. Here it is."
This is the letter:
Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, January 4th, '88. Honored Sir—and Dear Poet—I beg you to accept my appreciative thanks for your great kindness in sending me by Mr. Stoker the little
bigbook of poems—As a Strong Bird, etc., etc.Since I am not personally known to you I conclude Mr. Stoker 'asked' for me—it was good of him—I know he loves you very much.
God bless you dear sir—believe me to be with much respect
Yours affectionately, Ellen Terry.
W. had written on the outside of the envelope: "from Ellen Terry."
He regarded me with a whimsical eye: "You have a hungry look: I think you want the letter. Well—take it along. You seem to cultivate that hungry look: it is a species of pantalooned coquetry."
"These actor people,"
pursued W., "always make themselves at home with me and always make me easily at home with them. I feel rather close to them—very close—almost like one of their kind. When I was much younger— way back: in the Brooklyn days—and even behind Brooklyn—I was to be an orator—to go about the country spouting my pieces, proclaiming my faith. I trained for all that—spouted in the woods, down by the shore, in the noise of Broadway where nobody could hear me: spouted, eternally spouted, and spouted again.
At Harned's. A crowded table. W. in fine fettle. Felix Adler there: also Tom Dudley, once consul at Liverpool and now retired. Dudley is among high-tariff apostles as high as any. "I am for getting all the walls down—all of them."
"So I suppose,"
said Dudley, sarcastically: "even the walls between the planets, if you could."
"If I could, yes,"
retorted Walt, with spirit: "that's what the astronomers are working all their days and nights, especially nights, to do!"
He was even more explicit as the argument proceeded: "While I seem to love America, and wish to see America prosperous, I do not seem able to bring myself to love America, to desire American prosperity, at the expense of some other nation or even of all other nations."
"But must we not take care of home first of all?"
asked Dudley. "Perhaps,"
replied W.: "but what is home—to the humanitarian what is home?"
At the table Dudley toasted Lincoln. Opposite Whitman, on the wall, was a portrait of Lincoln."Here's to you! Here's to you!"
Adler cried: "I shall always wish to remember Whitman as he looked at that moment."
And to the table in general Adler remarked: "I feel honored in having three things in common with Mr. Whitman—I like coffee, I admire Millet and I love the lilac!"
W. caught at the name of Millet."Yes, there's Millet—he's a whole religion in himself: the best of democracy, the best of all well-bottomed faith, is in his pictures. The man who knows his Millet needs no creed."
Harned interjected this question: "If Millet is enough and to spare what's the use of Leaves of Grass?"
"That's what I say,"
replied W.: "If I had stopped to ask what's the use I never would have written the Leaves: who knows, Millet would not have painted picture! The Leaves are really only Millet in another form—they are the Millet that Walt Whitman has succeeded in putting into words."
"But what about the Constitution of the United States while all the rest is going on?"
W. laughed: "Good for you, Dudley. After Millet and Whitman we seem to have left little room for anything else. What about the Constitution? What about last year's almanac, the weeds back there on the lot, the ash heap down the street? I guess these things crowd into the scheme after all; and after all Millet and Whitman need not feel so lonely."
W. is often described as lacking humor."There's too much old folk here for
"For me too: let's all get young again. We are all of us a good deal older than we need to be, than we think we are. Most of the brilliant things we have been saying to each other here are very old, very few of them are very good. I don't know but I might as well say for us all, as well as for myself, that this is a sort of bankruptcy court of ideas. Yes—yes—there's far too much that's old here—far too much. That is, always excepting Dudley, whose seventy years don't count!"
Mousing among some old papers on his table today, looking for something else, W. spilled out a letter which he first scanned himself and then passed over to me, saying: "If ever a fighter lived, Boyle O'Reilly is that fighter: he writes me fiery letters, he tells me fiery stories. Have you never met him? No? I shall never forget the first time he spoke to me about his prison life. He was all alive with the most vivid indignation—he was a great storm out somewhere, a great sea pushing up the shore. Read this letter. It is mild for him. Then read the letter he enclosed."
The Pilot Editorial Rooms, Boston, Feb. 11, 1885. Dear Mr. Whitman,I have received the enclosed letter today from one of the ablest men I have ever known; and I send it to you as another little proof that Irishmen understand and honor you. I hope you are well. Somebody told me lately that you had been in Boston within a month; but I could not believe that you would have gone away without letting me have the pleasure of seeing you.
Bartlett is happy, and busy; but he has no more money than he had two years ago. His son is now with him, and they are finishing two portrait busts of rich men. Mrs. Fairchild, whom you will remember, is never done preaching you and your work.
Good-bye.
Faithfully yours, Boyle O'Reilly
The enclosed letter follows:
39 Bowdoin Street [Boston] 10, 2, '85. My Dear Boy,I am very grateful to you for inducing me to read Walt Whitman. He is to me that which he claims to be to all his readers, a Revelation and a Revealer. He has marshaled facts and sentiments before my mind's eye which have been floating, vaguely and transiently, through my consciousness since I commenced to be untrammeled in thought: he has given me views which help to render my 'dark days' endurable and my nights teem with companions.
When I read Walt Whitman nature speaks to me: when I read nature Walt Whitman speaks to me. He travels with me and he points out the goodness of men and things and he intensifies my pleasures by his presence and sympathy. Leaves of Grass! so like "the handkerchief of the Lord"! covering the face of creation with love and pity and admiration for "man and bird and beast" and thing! How sad that for a few 'bare' expressions it should be kept out of the hands of the multitude and the women and the children! I thought I knew the greatest American in my dear friend Henry George, but no!
Walt Whitman (whom he admires) is still greater, as a philanthropist, a democrat and a philosopher. He also excels your greatest theologians, naturalists, scientists and poets. He is an intellectual colossus or individuality, which admits of no comparison. He is not a poet and still he is greater than any—no dramatist and yet his characters breathe and strive and even smite you at his will: he knows little of the names of plants and animals, but he makes nature a domestic panorama: he can hardly be termed a religious man, yet he overflows with Faith and Hope and Love: he has no rank as a politician, yet his principles, if grasped, would revolutionize the world. Thus, he is everything and yet—nothing but Walt Whitman, a distinction which should satisfy the most craving ambition. I am your friend and debtor I. G. Kelly.
W. had pencilled this on the note: "Sent me by Boyle O'Reilly Feb. 85."
"What do you think of that for a broad summing up? Barring any extreme statement, he seems to hit several real proper nails on their heads—gets pretty close to my ribs. The man with eyes to see that substance in my work must first of all have had it all in himself: we know that so well, so indubitably, so without disposition to quarrel or doubt, that it saves us from vanity. That man Kelly must be of the most real kind of real stuff. I like especially what he says about religion.
W. in good shape. Speaks optimistically about his health."I am of course only gradually though surely losing strength, but the experiences going with this do not disturb me: no man housed up as I am could expect to hold his ground against old age. But I am convinced that I can
He gave me some books to deliver to two or three persons in Philadelphia to whom he felt indebted for courtesies. He is always giving away books. He sent copies of the two volumes 1876 edition by me to Adler. "Adler,"
he says, "is first rate soil. He is all gone on ethics. Worse things might happen to him, though ethics is bad enough. I do not see how these Ethical fellows can expect to do much as an opposition to the church: they may stir the church up, plague it into reforms, changes, even revolutions—but the church is bound to continue to be the church imminent—imminent, imperative.
My mother had sent W. some cookies. "The best part of every man is his mother,"
said W."She will be too proud to go with us when she gets up,"
he jocularly remarked—adding: "But any mother of any baby has a right to be proud."
Back of him on the wall was a pencilled figure of a rather ragged looking nondescript. "Where did you get that?"
I asked. "Would you believe it—the tramp himself was here this morning."
"Coalstove" was good."The poet said he had drawn it himself sitting on a field outside Camden somewhere before a bit of a broken looking glass, which he had balanced on his knee."
He reflected as I left: "When I said goodbye to the tramp I was envious: I could not see what right he had to his monopoly of the fresh air. He said he was bound for some place in Maryland. I shall dream of Maryland tonight—dream of farm fences, barns, singing birds, sounds, all sorts, over the hills."
W. not so well."I am not down in the mouth about it,"
he explained, "but I am still jealous of that tramp: I suppose he's
W. gave me an old letter from Linton. "This stuck its head out from a bunch over there this morning and I grabbed it. Take it along—put it among your souvenirs. That bunch of your souvenirs must be getting a bay window on it."
New Haven, Conn., May 19, 1875. My Dear Whitman:
Why have I not written to you? Why has not spring come? I have waited for that, waiting a little also I could get through some work which would have made me uncompanionable. till until Now—I go to New York on Saturday June 5 to the Century meeting and remain in New York
Tuesday or Wednesday after. Can not you meet me so as to return till until home with me? Apple blossoms surely will be out by then, and some summer warmth to enable you to enjoy your hammock (did I tell you I have one?) on the piazza. I want you here and to set you to rights. Can you come then (not for a night or two but to stay indefinitely) or will you rather come later?Do which may best suit you; but come; and let me know as near as you can when I may look for you.
Affectionately yours W. J. Linton. I want a copy of your Mystic Trumpeter for England.
"I feel so good again today,"
W. assures me, "that I no longer envy the tramp.
"Not the negro,"
said W. today: "not the negro.
He discussed the present political situation in a
"cares less for politics and more for the people,"
he explains: "I see that the real work of democracy is done underneath its politics: this is especially so now, when the conventional parties have both thrown their heritage away, starting from nothing good and going to nothing good: the Republican party positively, the Democratic party negatively, the apologists of the plutocracy. You think I am sore on the plutocracy?
W. will not talk persons in his censure. He says he will talk persons only in his love. "When I hit I want to hit hard, but I don't want to hit any man, the worst man, even the scoundrel, one single blow that belongs to the system from which we all suffer alike."
"No more than the weather: it is as useless to quarrel with history as with the weather: we can prepare for the weather and prepare for history."
Then was history automatic? "Not at all: it is free in all its basic dynamics: that is, the free human spirit has its part to perform in giving direction to history."
Was this statement not self-contradictory? "I shouldn't wonder: in trying to represent both sides we always run some risk of finishing on the vague line between the two."
He admitted that there was "no practical politics in this kind of talk,"
but then: "What do I want with practical politics? Most all the practical politics I see anywhere is practical villainy."
Did he see anything within the political life itself in America at present to excite his hope? "Absolutely nothing: not a head worth while raised above the surface: not a cross section of a party, or a clique even in any party anywhere, to promise a formidable reaction and advance."
Then he was despondent? "Not a bit so, for you see I am not looking to politics to renovate politics: I am looking
Finally he said: "The best politics that could happen for our republic would be the abolition of politics."
W. is always a good deal interested in public discussions of the college. "To what extent can professors and editors, scholars tied up with institutions and writers writing for their daily bread (and writing under the severest conditions) be expected to talk out and defy the formal monitors of speech?"
W. says the college is "of necessity an aristocracy."
We have often gone over that same ground. "This,"
W. contended, "shows how serious such difficulties are—how far they crawl serpent-like out from the college walls into the general world."
To him Lathrop's letter was "touched with spiritual tragedy."
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick—so does speech deferred."
But what can a man do when he finds himself driven up against that wall?"Come forward and make a peaceful surrender, be dragged out and grudgingly capitulate or stand where he is and be shot."
This confession from Lathrop, W. contended, served to show why it would "be impossible for such a man, fine as he is, fine as his letter is, to really build up and round out a capacious career"
: there was a "lesion somewhere in his marrow."
He looked at me and seemed to see some distrust in my face. "You think I am condemning Lathrop? Thousands from it! I love him—honor him: if there's anything comes short it excites my regret: I judge no one."
This is the letter:
Cambridge, May 19, '77. My dear Mr. Burroughs,
I have just finished your book on Birds and Poets. I like your writing, always, and I have keenly enjoyed this. But you will not quarrel with me if I pass that matter over, in order to speak of Walt Whitman. Ever since I first gained some fragmentary knowledge of him the pruned and lopped English edition, I have not for a moment flagged in the belief that he is our greatest poet, altogether, and beyond any measurement. He threw open a wide gate for me, and I passed through it gladly—thinking to be able in my separate way to make a kind of companionship with him. thro' through From the start, my intentions have been very different in some respects from those of which he has given such huge exemplification; but, as I took to his poetry without any premonitory shrinking, and felt that at last here was something real, I knew that I should in some measure respond to his voice in what I should do, however far off, however fainter, and however much unlike in seeming it might be. But my circumstances have been strangely hampering. I find myself in the midst of the camp which adheres to the old and the conventional. I am an accepted servant in it, trying to pass through my bondage patiently, working year after year in a roundabout way slowly trying to secure my position, and hoping at last to be able to let out the accumulating thunder in my own way. I get my hands loose now and then, and feel that I have done a little something. This much I thought it necessary to say because I suppose you at a distance hardly imagine that a young Cambridge literary apprentice can say his soul's his own or cherish in himself a whole revolution against the powers whom for a time he is working with.
I say it also, to explain why I would like now to convey through you to Walt Whitman some message expressing the fact that I have long wished to speak a word of gratitude to him. To a man so wronged even this little tribute may have its value. It is also a great satisfaction to me to think of speaking the truth about him to him and through one who understands it. There are two persons hereabouts who appreciate Whitman, whom I know. Doubtless there are many more who are unknown to me. But I can believe that the scoffing narrowness which meets any avowal of their appreciation has driven them, as it has me, to preserve silence. It is a great pity his works are not really published, and I have been wondering, long, how to get them. I have nothing but Rossetti's edition. Is there no way of obtaining them? I should be very glad if you would inform me as to this.
I frequently debate plans of some change of base, so as to secure something approaching independence. I was not born in New England,
of Puritan descent, but in the tropics. tho' although I like many things here and dislike others as much. I am a great lover of cities for their crowds, their human sublimities and horrors, yet carry always an insatiable yearning for the wilds. I don't know where to go, if I go from here, where I am now editing the Atlantic with Mr. Howells; but I have before now thought of your region. I have no map showing Esopus. Is it in the Highlands—anything like Milton? Would you be willing to tell me something of your mode of life, or whether one can subsist in that vicinity on slender means? Sincerely yours, G. P. Lathrop.
"We are having our troubles in getting out that book,"
W. reflected, speaking of the German Whitman: "though as for that matter I do not know any edition with which we didn't have enough trouble and trouble running over."
"There's a
This is Rolleston's letter:
Glasshouse, Shinrone, Ireland, September 9, 1884. My dear Walt—I got your second letter yesterday, forwarded here from Dresden.
Don't be uneasy about the English text in translation. I fully see the advantages of it and have mentioned it in my Preface. Only, as I had had no opinion on the subject from anyone in the publishing line I didn't know what they might not have to advance, so did not like to speak so decisively about it. I should not have given you to understand that a publisher's mere opinion would weigh with me, for it would not. Now, as to progress made. I have met with difficulties more serious than I expected. The work is ready, and could go to the printer any day. But the printer is not equally ready for the work.
I offered it to four publishers before I left Germany, agreeing to pay all expenses myself, and all refused to take it up. I sent with my MS. a copy of Freiligrath's article, and did all I could to secure a favorable hearing, but in vain. I am told there would probably be difficulties with the police, who in Germany exercise a most despotic power. Then other publishers I thought of trying are, I have been informed, rogues; and others again are dependent in various ways on court or official patronage—others wouldn't touch it with the end of a poker. I finally came to a resolution a good deal confirmed by what you said of the probable circle of readers of the first edn—namely, to let the work appear in America, and thence make its way into German circulation. Once in print and fairly before the public it will of course weather every storm, but the thing is to get it fairly started. Had I been living in Germany longer I should have tried selling the book myself—but that I can't do from here. Now in America, where your position is assured, I suppose some German publisher would take it up readily enough. I am going then to ask you to take what steps can be taken towards finding a willing publisher with some German connection. No doubt Dr. Karl Knortz would be a useful person to apply to. (If you know him, and could get him to glance through my proofsheets, I don't doubt that the work would be considerably improved.) As to terms, of course if any enterprising publisher would give me one hundred dollars or so for the book I would let him have it (it being understood that you and I should have our way about the form of the book, English version, &c.).
But I would be willing also to bear the expenses and keep the copyright, if the former were not out of the way large. I suppose it would cost a good deal more in America than in Germany, where everything is very cheap, and I have not much ready money to spare now. But I think I can rely on my father's helping me to the extent needed. If the book is printed in America you will be able to oversee technical matters connected with the printing to your own satisfaction. So the upshot of this is that I will send you my MS. as soon as it reaches me (it is coming in a box which was sent after me via Hamburg with other heavy luggage), and you can do as you think well with it.
Let me say again that I should greatly like the proofsheets, before coming here, to pass through the hands of some German scholar who knows the L of G.I should be grateful for any annotations he might wish to make.I have grieved to hear of your increased illness. It is very hard to be persecuted by such things when you ought to have peace and freedom. But I know how you are "armed with patience." Silence is a great comforter.
We are now back in our own country for good and are greatly delighted to be so. The people are much more congenial to me than Germans, though these latter are more so than English. I was born in this town and know every field and nearly every tree since my childhood. It is wonderfully beautiful to me—a rich, undulating, wooded land—deep grass and crops—blue mountains of Slieve Bloom on the horizon, and the stateliest trees, mostly ash and beech, I ever saw. I have a great love for ash trees—such sinewy strength, and a free powerful method of branching, showing through the light foliage. What a country this is! or would be but for savage misgovernment, and Protestant bigotry. The Orangemen in the North are a source of much evil, and will be of more, unless some miracle should turn them into human sympathetic Irishmen. There was a time when I thought that Ireland could never be set free from English rule because the Catholic Church would instantly become dominant and inaugurate a system of religious tyranny which would crush liberties more important than national liberties. Now I begin to see that this would not be so for long. The Irish are much less Catholic than they were—dogmatic religion is loosening its hold upon them in a very remarkable way, and hatred for Protestant England as Ireland's ruler is a most potent cause at present in supporting the Catholic religion here. This is felt even by the more cultivated and far-seeing of the clergy, who consequently oppose the national movement as far as they dare. I have no doubt that in a free Ireland the Church would persecute as naturally as a wasp stings, but I am equally certain that a revulsion of feeling would come which (though attended perhaps with terrible struggles) would mark a real moral and intellectual advance such as seems out of our reach at present. The people about us here are very poor, reckless, friendly, "full of reminiscences" both of good and evil. My father is greatly loved far and wide because when County Court Judge of Tipperary he protected the tenants as far as the laws allowed against the rapacity of the landlord class. He is a man you would like to see. He is over seventy now, more than average height even for our family, where men grow very tall (about six feet four inches), and still sturdy. At present he is suffering from a strain got a few days ago while riding a restive horse. They tell me that a few days before I came there was a storm, and a fine sycamore he was fond of was being blown down. They saw the roots heaving through the loosened earth—and my father sat down upon them until heavy weights could be brought to keep them down the storm blew out, a device which was perfectly successful. He and my mother are greatly delighted with the two grandchildren we have brought them home. I'll send you a photograph of them soon, which has been done in Dresden just before we left. till until I will have the poems arranged in the order I find best, but you of course may wish to alter my arrangement, in which case I shall have nothing to object. I couldn't make out what 'teffwheat' is (Salut au Monde)—is there a German equivalent? I have written Teff-Weizen.
Yours, T. W. R.
"Rolleston,"
said W., "has proved to be one of my staunchest friends.
[The translations that
"We are canvassing the yeas and noes on the Rolleston book: it will come out but it is having the usual amount of stops, starts, stumbles."
"Tucker,"
said W., "has been giving me the very devil in Liberty for calling the Emperor William a 'faithful shepherd' in my poem. In fact, Tucker is not alone: I have got a whole batch of letters of protest—one, two, three, a dozen; but too many of the fellows forget that I include emperors, lords, kingdoms, as well as presidents, workmen, republics."
We talked the matter over for some time. W. was good natured about it all. Yet he was disposed to regard the criticism rather seriously. As he said: "It is all from my friends. Take William O'Connor—take Tucker himself—they deserve to be listened to."
In winding up our chat he said: "I see I must be careful in such things or maybe the boys will think I am apostate.
"Arnold has been writing new things about the United States. Arnold could know nothing about the States—essentially nothing: the real things here—the real dangers as well as the real promises—a man of his sort would always miss. Arnold knows
I put in: "I think Emerson was born to be but never quite succeeded in being a democrat."
W. was still for an instant. Then: "I guess the amendment is a just one—I guess so, I guess so. But I hate to allow anything that qualifies Emerson."
Just as I was about to leave W. reverted to the Emperor William affair: "Do you think I had better write a little note to my friends making that line a little clearer?"
"I thought you never explained?"
"I never do explain—rather, I never have explained: yet the rule is not arbitrary."
"A rule you can't break is no good even as a rule."
"That is true—true—if I wrote I would do no more than make it clear that my reference was to the Emperor as a person—that my democracy included him: not the William the tyrant, the aristocrat, but the William the man who lived according to his light: I do not see why a democrat may not say such a thing and remain a democrat."
"By the way—here's an old letter of John's that will interest you—it was written four years ago: yes, fully four years ago, and in one of his milder moods. John, you know, is stormy, tempestuous—raises a hell of a row over things—yet underneath all is nothing that is not noble, sweet, sane. This letter is almost like a love letter—it has sugar in it: I don't
I sat down on a pile of books and read the letter.
134 East 38th St., New York, Jan. 23, 1884. My beloved Walt—I have read the sublime poem of the Universal once and again, and yet again—seeing it in the Graphic, Post, Mail, World, and many other papers.
It issublime. It raised my mind to its own sublimity. It seems to me the sublimest of all your poems. I cannot help reading it every once in a while. I return to it as a fountain of joy.My beloved Walt. You know how I have worshipped you, without change or cessation, for twenty years. While my soul exists, that worship must be ever new.
It was perhaps the very day of the publication of the first edition of the Leaves of Grass that I saw a copy of it at a newspaper stand in Fulton street, Brooklyn. I got it, looked into it with wonder, and felt that here was something that touched the depths of my humanity. Since then you have grown before me, grown around me, and grown into me. I expected certainly to go down to Camden last fall to see you. But something prevented. And, in time, I saw in the papers that you had recovered. The New Year took me into a new field of action among the miserables. Oh, what scenes of human horror were to be found in this city last winter. I cannot tell you how much I was engaged, or all I did for three months. I must wait
I see you to tell you about these things. till until I have been going toward social radicalism of late years, and appeared here at the Academy of Music lately as President and orator of the Rochefort meeting. Now I would like to see you, in order to temper my heart, and expand my narrowness. How absurd it is to suppose that there is any ailment in the brain of a man who can generate the poem of the Universal.
I would parody Lincoln and say that such kind of ailment ought to spread. My beloved Walt. Tell me if you would like me to come to see you, and perhaps I can do so within a few weeks.
Yours always, John Swinton.
I quoted W. that phrase from Swinton's letter: "I have been going toward social radicalism of late years."
"Yes,"
said W., "I remember it. Are we not all going that way or already gone?"
I picked up a stained piece of paper from under my heel and read it, looking at W. rather quizzically."What is it?"
he asked. I handed it to him. He pushed his glasses down over his eyes and read it. "That's old and kind
I took it out of the hand with which he reached it back to me. "Put it among your curios"
he said, "you'll have enough curios to start a Walt Whitman museum some day."
The note is below:
"Go on, my dear Americans, whip your horses to the utmost—Excitement; money! politics!—open all your valves and let her go—going, whirl with the rest—you will soon get under such momentum you can't stop if you would. Only make provision betimes, old States and new States, for several thousand insane asylums. You are in a fair way to create a nation of lunatics."
Some neighbor had sent W. a plate of doughnuts."Tell her they are not doughnuts—tell her they are love."
"with love and out of my great surplus."
W. was visibly touched. We had a fine hour together, W. full of reminiscence. "I got lots of help those days from noble people all over the North—especially from women."
He stopped and pushed his forefinger among some papers on the round top, drawing forth an old yellow envelope, unstamped, which he shoved over toward me."That was a great woman."
I saw that the letter was addressed in his hand to "Hannah E. Stevenson 86 Temple st, Boston
This memorandum was made on the envelope: "sent Oct. 8, '63."
"That,"
he explained, "was the rough draft. Take it along: it will give you a little look in on the sort of work I had to do those days."
The letter is given in full.
Washington October 8 1863 Dear friend
Your letter was received, enclosing one from Mary Wigglesworth with $30 from herself and her sisters Jane and Anne—As I happened stopping at one of the hospitals last night Miss Lowe just from Boston came to me and handed me the letters—My friend you must convey the blessings of the poor young men around me here, many amid deepest afflictions not of body only but of soul, to your friends Mary, Jane, and Anne Wigglesworth. Their and all contributions shall be sacredly used among them. I find more and more how a little money rightly directed, the exact thing at the exact moment, goes a great ways. To make gifts comfort and truly nourish these American soldiers, so full of manly independence, is required the spirit of love and boundless brotherly tenderness, hand in hand with greatest tact. I do not find any lack in the store houses, nor eager willingness of the North to unlock them for the soldiers—but sadly everywhere a lack of fittest hands to apply, and of just the right thing in just the right measure, and of all being vivified by the spirit I have mentioned—Say to the sisters Mary and Jane and Anne Wigglesworth, and to your own sister Margaret, that as I feel it a privilege myself to be doing a part among these things, I know well enough the like privilege must be sweet to them, to their compassionate and sisterly souls, and need indeed few thanks, and only ask its being put to best use, what they feel to give among sick and wounded. —I have received L. B. Russell's letter and contribution by same hand, and shall try to write to him to-morrow— Walt Whitman Address Care Major Hapgood Paymaster U S A
cor 15th and F St Washington D C
W. sometimes has what he calls "house-cleaning days."
"I would burn such stuff up—or tear it up—anything to get it out of the road."
He laughed in handing me three letters done up in a string. "They are all declinations of poems,"
he remarked: "from different men at different times.'
"These editorial dictators have a right to dictate: they know what their magazines are made for. I notice that we all get cranky about them when they say 'No, thank you,' but after all somebody has got to decide: I am sure I never have felt sore about any negative experience I have had, and I have had plenty of it—yes, more that than the other—mostly that, in fact.
Rooms of the Overland Monthly, San Francisco, Apr. 13th, 1870. My dear sir,I fear that the Passage to India is a poem too long and too abstract for the hasty and the material minded readers of the O.M.
With many thanks, I am,
Your obt svt F. Bret Harte, Ed. O.M.
Harper & Brothers' Editorial Rooms, Franklin Square, New York, June 8, 1885. My dear Whitman,
The Voice of the Rain does not tempt me, and I return it herewith with thanks. Yours ever, &c. H. M. Alden.
The Nineteenth Century, 1 Paternoster Square, London, E.C., May 19th, 1887. My dear Sir:I greatly regret being unable to avail myself of the Poems November Boughs which you so kindly sent me with your note dated May 2d. In order not to put you to inconvenience by delay, I return them at once enclosed herewith. With very many thanks for your kind thought of me I remain
Yours very truly James Knowles.
"This,"
said W., handing me an old O'Connor letter, "this will give you some more of the Osgood history: the whole history of the Osgood affair will, I suppose, never come out, but one thing and another adds light to it as time
After reading the letter I asked W.: "Do you accept the whole Bacon proposition, too?"
"Not the whole of it: I go so far as to anti Shakespeare: I do not know about the rest. I am impressed with the arguments but am not myself enough scholar to go with the critics into any thorough examination of the evidences."
Washington, D.C., February 1, 1885. Dear Walt:
I have long wanted to write to you, but have been shockingly crowded down with work, and I have nearly forty letters unanswered. Your postal of Monday last came duly. Also the Springfield Republican. How deliciously like my old friend Henry Peterson is that critical exegesis on your lines! I shall certainly send it to Bucke that he may be convinced of the error of his ways by it, as I have of mine! Your poem about the Arctic snow-bird is beautiful. I send a slip from the Washington Hatchet to let you see your article on Shakespeare reproduced. Did I tell you (probably not) about getting a letter from Mr. Gibson, the Librarian of the Shakespeare Memorial Library at Stratford-on-Avon?
This is a gorgeous stone building, all carved and paneled oak inside, containing a library, a reading room, a grand hall, a museum of Shakespeare memorials, etc. The librarian wrote me, very liberally asking me to send to the Library anything I had written in favor of the Baconian theory, saying that the management wished to give house-room to anything related to the subject (fact is, those fellows over there are beginning to feel the force of the Baconian claim. It is a sign of the rising of the tide, and ten years ago such a request would not have been made.) I at once sent Mr. Gibson a copy of Bucke's book, writing on the fly-leaf— "To the Stratford Memorial Library,"together with this line, a sort of twistification of a line from Sophocles,"May the truth prevail!"In December last, I got a very polite and cordial acknowledgement from the librarian, in which he says: 'Many thanks for your kind remembrance of my letter and the welcome gift of the life of Walt Whitman, in which is included your letter to Dr. R. M. Bucke, referring to the Bacon and Shakespeare controversy, which renders the volume admissible to our library. I am glad to handle the volume and hope, ere a few days are over, to become better acquainted with the personal history of your great American Poet. The beautiful portrait of the Poet in 1880, to Chapter 2, is exquisite and adds much to our interest in reading his life. His poems are not so well known here as Bryant, Longfellow or Whittier, but they are gradually becoming better appreciated as they are studied. Of all the American poets Longfellow has the widest popularity, and his writings are better known than most of the English poets.'... So, you see, there you are lodged in the great Memorial at Stratford, close by Shakespeare's tomb.I must tell you something funny. You know what I say in Bucke's book, page 91, about Dr. Kuno Fischer, ending with the observation that it is strange that having gone so far in seeing the Shakespearean connection with Bacon, he did not take the step that would seem inevitable.
Now comes the news that he has taken the inevitable step! Mrs. Pott writes me from London that he has come out squarely for the Baconian theory, and was to give a course of lectures on the subject this winter at the University of Heidelberg, where he is professor of philosophy and literature. So it would seem my words were prophetic. This is the most important accession to the theory yet made. Dr. Fischer is a very eminent man, widely known in Europe, and his advocacy will carry weight. There is a string of eminent German professors who have also come out for the cause, notably among whom is Dr. Karl Müller of Stuttgart. He has translated our Appleton Morgan's Shakespeare Myth into German, and it will have the honor of being published by the great house of Tauchnitz. All this will be gall and wormwood to the literary gang here who, for years, in their effort to suppress us, have acted like the Dragon of Wantley in his dying moments. Mrs. Pott writes me that the cause grows daily in England, a number of old scholars, not publicly known, but men of learning and judgment, having given their adhesion, and the young men at Oxford and Cambridge also joining in numbers, are getting ready to fight for Bacon. Hooray! Meanwhile, I bide my time in the cellar.
Here is something decidedly rich which I heard a couple of weeks since, and tell you in confidence, so as not to compromise the narrator. It is extremely creamy. You know, or you do not know, that Osgood and Co., besides being publishers, also run the Heliotype Company, which does beautiful work in that line, in reproducing maps, plans, engravings, illustrations, etc. They have an office here and their agent is a Boston man, a very nice fellow, named Coolidge.
I am interested in a little enterprise in his line which brings me into connection with him. The other day I was in his office, and in chatting, referring to a beautifully published life of Home sweet Home Payne by the firm, I remarked that Osgood got out books in splendid style. Coolidge assented, but somewhat wistfully. "Why," said I, "don't you think so?" "O yes," he hastily answered, "but"—"But what?"—I asked, laughing. "Well," said Coolidge slowly, after a pause, "Osgood's a good fellow, and we all like him, but I'm afraid, as a publisher, he's going down." "Going down!" I repeated. "Why how's that?" "Well," returned Coolidge, "I mean that he's losing his grip." "Losing his grip as a publisher!" I exclaimed: "Why, Coolidge, how has that happened?" "Well," he returned; then after a long pause, he continued briskly, "Did you ever hear of a man named Walt Whitman, who wrote a book called Leaves of Grass?" I admitted that I had heard of this man, and of his book. Then he went on to tell me, very circumstantially, that Osgood had solicited the publication of the book, got it out in good style, and was selling it right along, when the District Attorney threatened him with prosecution, etc., etc., (you and I know all this), when he got scared, broke his contract and stopped the publication. "What an infernal fool!" I exclaimed, just here. "Fool!" returned Coolidge. "I should say so! Why that was his chance! He ought to have told the District Attorney to go to hell, publicly defied him, and set all his presses to work. He'd have sold a hundred thousand copies in a month, and nothing could have been done to him." Then he went on to tell me that the affair made a great buzz, that Osgood was universally condemned for his cowardice, and thought to have acted dishonorably, that in consequence a blight fell upon him, and that he had lost his grip as a publisher for the present, and might be going down. "If he does go down," concluded Coolidge, "it will be because of his conduct towards Walt Whitman." Such is the outline of what Coolidge said, and considering that it was told me as to one who knew nothing of the matter, and by an intimate agent of the house, you may imagine my satisfaction. It was a real comfort to know that although we got so little support in the matter from "the organs of public opinion," there was a public feeling broad and deep enough to put the brand upon the miserable peddler who did this mean wrong. I rejoiced exceedingly to have learned it.
Isn't it a sweet sequel? Don't let Scovel print it (as the divvle did my note to him—wasn't I astonished!) for I wouldn't have Coolidge injured in Osgood's regard for the world, though I wouldn't care a continental how widely it was known that a blight had fallen upon Osgood for his treatment of you, provided the news came without a source being specified.
Gosse's visit to you, and his kind and respectful words, inexpressibly gratified me.
What gave it all point was that he had been fêted to the very top by the literati and aristocracy everywhere in this country, and I "phansy their pheelinks," in Yellowplush phrase, in contemplating the tableau. But I must break off. I wonder if my life-saving career draws to an end. March fourth comes near. Despite the terrible routine of the office work, so wearying and confining, I am deeply interested in the noble work of the service, and should be sorry to leave it. I think, however, the pressure for Kimball's place and mine will be terribly urgent, and already we hear of many aspirants. Our successors will never do what we have done—fill the stations with the best professionals, no matter what their politics, and so make the life-saving work part of the National glory. Well, we'll see what Cleveland will do.
What a chance he has generally to break down the infernal spoils system! I have a fine picture of Bacon, after Vandyck, which I am going to send you soon.
Good bye, Faithfully, W. D. O'Connor.
As I was putting up the letter W. remarked: "William is always a towering force—he always comes down on you like an avalanche: his enemies are weak in his hate, his friends are strong in his love. William should have been—well, what shouldn't he have been?
Referring to Gosse's visit: "I have a letter
"from a lady—a stranger—Washington—1870 (a letter to comfort a fellow and brace him up)."
He waited while I read.
June 14th, 1870. To Walt Whitman, Gentleman.
Sir.
You have had many tributes from the learned and great of Europe and America, yet you will not despise that of a simple, honest woman who writes to thank you, in all sincerity, for those Leaves of Grass from which her soul has drawn such health, freshness, and aroma. I visited Washington for the first time this May, the guest of Mrs. Schwartz (who one night in passing off the platform of a car gave you a rose). I was compelled to [take] many car rides in my transit to "the city." On car No. 14 I encountered you more than once. Your face, which I chose to think a fac simile of the grand old patriarch's, Abraham, attracted me. Through Mr. Devlin, from Mr. Doyle, I was allowed to read your—I prefer saying—I was permitted a long lookinto the wonderful mirror of your creation, where I saw the reflex ofyoursoul, and felt the influence of your divining power.Mr. O'Connor's manly, eloquent, but most unnecessary vindication of your purity was also given me. Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,
As souls only understand souls.I needed no one to translate for me the language of yours, written so plainly in every line and furrow of your face, and revealed to the world in the many gracious deeds of love to your kind.
I closed your book revelation, a wiser and more thoughtful woman than when from idle curiosity I first opened it at the very stanza, Perfections, which I have just quoted.
Life held grander possibilities to me from that hour, and the mission of a soul born into this world to love, influence, and suffer, was invested with profounder responsibilities.
To whoever is granted the power to make another long for Truthfor its own beautiful sake; love the lowly and oppressed for the sake of the divinity spark which is in each human body and see in Nature the heart of the great Mother-God who conceived and gave it birth—to such an one there is a debt due of allegiance and profound gratitude.I thank you Sir, with all my heart, and pray for you the abiding Presence and hourly comfort of the divine
Pure in Heartwhom you worship.I need make no apology for this note. You will not misunderstand it. I go to my home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, tomorrow. I may never again chance to see you, but you will believe, nevertheless, that I will wish for you—and teach others to do the same—a long earth life of usefulness, and an eternity of
appreciationand renown.Reverently yours Mrs. Nellie Eyster.
When I was through he asked: "What do you think of that? Would a thousand dollar bill do you as much good as that?
W. had been burning some old manuscripts today. A piece had dribbled at the foot of the stove. I picked it up.
"Shall I take it?"
"If you choose—but what's the use."
He laughed.
Above this note, which was of an old period, probably the fifties (the ink was much faded) W. had written in pencil: "Japanese women (mothers) shave their eyebrows."
To W.'s in the forenoon. "I'm going up to Tom's for tea—you will be there?"
He was trying on a new red tie. "Red has life in it—our men mostly look like funerals, undertakers: they set about to dress as gloomy as they can."
As I was about leaving W. said suddenly: "By the way, I have found the Tennyson letter I promised you.
[W. borrowed this letter back from me several times in after years and several times sent people to me to look at it.] "Tennyson has written me on a number of occasions—is always friendly, sometimes even warm: I don't think he ever quite makes me out: but he thinks I belong: perhaps that is enough—all I ought to expect."
I read the letter. "It is a poem,"
I said. "Or better than a poem,"
added W. "Tennyson is an artist even when he writes a letter: this letter itself is protected all round from indecision, forwardness, uncertainty: it is correct—choice, final."
Farringford, Freshwater, Isle of Wight . 15th, 1887. Jany January Dear old man,
I the elder old man have received your Article in the Critic, and send you in return my thanks and New Year's greeting on the wings of this east-wind, which, I trust, is blowing softlier and warmlier on your good gray head than here, where it is rocking the elms and ilexes of my Isle of Wight garden. Yours always Tennyson.
"With each month that passes I feel more and more uncertain on my pins."
"But you don't worry about the pins as long as you are all right at the top?"
"I don't worry either way. But I guess I am all right at the top—at least as near right as Walt Whitman ever was: you know how crazy I have always been to some people."
W. talked with us in the parlor a long time. "When I got up Monday morning last I had three sets of verses in hand. I sent one to the Herald, one to the Century and one to the Cosmopolitan. The Century folks sent me a check at once. The piece sent to the Herald was used according to our standing arrangement. The Cosmopolitan editor rejected me. He wrote a note saying the poem did not attract him—he suggested that I should submit other matter."
The poem refused was To get the final Lilt of Songs.
"That is a grand brow: and the face—look at the face (see the mouth): it is the head, the face, the poise, of a noble human being. America don't know today how proud she ought to be of Ingersoll."
Harned read aloud some paragraphs from Ingersoll's North American Review paper on Art and
"Don't stop there, Tom: read it all— read it all."
And several times in H.'s pauses W. cried out: "Go on! Go on!"
When H. was through W. said: "I'm sorry there's no more, though I guess he has said all: it's every bit fine, every bit. A little of it here and there I might say no to, but I guess my no wouldn't be very loud."
"Ingersoll's gone to New York to live."
"Yes,"
replied H., "it's the Lord's own country."
"But say, Tom"
retorted W., "isn't it a sort of delirium tremens?"
Then he reflected: "I used to love it. Perhaps it'll do from seven or eight to fifty or sixty—but not before, not after!"
"What do you think?"
W. asked: "I've received an invitation to embark on a lecturing tour in England—a real invitation with dollars, pounds, back of it.
"Here's to the blessed man above the mantel!"
and then remarked: "You know this is the day he died."
"After my dear, dear mother, I guess Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else."
W. borrowed Boswell's Johnson from Harned, saying: "I have never so far read it."
"Tom,"
he said, "when I was out in the carriage I picked up a lame fellow on the road—a sort of tramp, limpsy, hungry, a bit dirty, but damned human,
H. exclaimed: "Walt—that sentence is as good as a sermon."
W. put on a look of mock inquiry: "Is that all it's worth—is that the best you can say of it?"
W. is writing about Hicks. Morse, now in the west, has made and sent W. a copy of a Hicks bust. W says: "The box is still unopened.
Eakins' portrait of W. being mentioned, W. said: "It is about finished. Eakins asked me the other day: 'Well, Mr. Whitman, what will you do with your half of it?' I asked him: 'Which half is mine?' Eakins answered my question in this way: 'Either half,' and said again regarding that: 'Somehow I feel as if the picture was half yours, so I'm going to let it be regarded in that light.'
When W. was leaving H. said: "I hope you have enjoyed yourself today enough to come again."
"Better than that, I have enjoyed myself today enough to hate to go at all."
"I found the Gosse letter today,"
said W. as I entered: "I knew it was about somewhere. I wasn't looking for it—it just turned up."
I took it and read it.
1 East 28th St., New York City, Dec. 29, 1887. Dear Mr. Whitman:
I am very anxious not to leave this country without paying my respects to you, and bearing to you in person the messages which I bring from Mr. Swinburne and other common friends in England. I propose, therefore, if it be not inconvenient to you, to call upon you in Camden on Saturday next, in the forenoon. Pray believe me to be, Dear Mr. Whitman
Faithfully yours Edmund Gosse.
"This was the letter—this was the meeting—that O'Connor seemed to think was so significant.
W. was in excellent humor. He directed me to the hatchet and had me open the Hicks box. Meanwhile he kept up a running talk. "Half an hour ago I was wired by The Herald for some word on Matthew Arnold, who died suddenly today, and that is already finished and mailed.
The bust was taken out and set on a box, displacing a Whitman, which I took up stairs and deposited in W.'s spareroom. "Morse has done well, better, almost best.
Gilchrist sends W. a card invite to an exhibit of his Whitman in London."Horace, I can't go. You go as my representative."
"All right. And what shall I say of the picture when I get there?"
"Nothing unless you must."
"And if I must?"
"Well, if you must be careful what you do. Don't set it very far up—but don't damn it, either."
Arnold was referred to again. Arnold had recently said of Lincoln that he "lacked distinction." This seemed to irritate W."That makes me think of some one who once said there were two kinds of jokers—the damned good one and the damned bad one. Arnold is a damned bad one. Swinburne resorted to similar strategy to destroy Byron but it would not work. Byron has fire enough to burn forever."
"I have a warm place even for Shelley. He seems so opposite—so ethereal—all ethereal—always living in the presence of a great ideal, as I do not.
The poem The Cosmopolitan rejected was sent by W. to The Herald, in which it appeared this morning. His con-
"Does it look glum?"
he inquired: "that is its one doubtful feature: if I thought it would finally look glum I would hate it.
Speaking of the "strain of American life"
W. declared that "every man is trying to outdo every other man—giving up modesty, giving up honesty, giving up generosity, to do it: creating a war, every man against every man: the whole wretched business falsely keyed by money ideals, money politics, money religions, money men."
Adler promised to send W. the Sower (Millet) but writes saying he cannot find a copy in New York such as he wishes and will send another peasant subject which he thinks would be almost equally interesting. W. had a lot of old cancelled envelopes in a rubber. "What are these?"
I asked. "These are my visiting cards: I put them in my pocket when I go out."
W. sent an autographed portrait of himself to Harned's cook. "She has done as much to make me happy as anybody."
A couple of volumes of poetry from unknown writers reached W. by mail today."Everybody is writing, writing, writing—worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers—every damned one of us—were sent off somewhere with toolchests to do some honest work."
We got talking a little about Carlyle, whereat W. produced a Burroughs letter which he explained to me had
"just turned up in the litter"
and contained "some mighty good matter—just a little of it—anent Carlyle."
"I guess John touches the heel and head of the matter in what he says there about opinion. The world asks us to be so literal: the giant comes into the world like a big blow—no one can tell how."
Esopus N.Y. Mch 14, 1881. Dear Walt:
I send you a little remembrance—enough to pay your expenses up here when you get ready to come, which I hope will be before long. I have orig> reminders from you from time to time in the shape of papers &c. which I have been glad to get. I see about all that is in The Tribune as I take the semi-weekly. The sketch of Carlyle in the London paper was the best I have seen. Your own words upon his death were very noble and touching. It was a proper thing for you to do and it became you well. The more one reads and knows of Carlyle the more one loves and reverences him. He was worth all other Britons put together to me. recd received What have we to do with his opinions? He was a towering and godlike man and that was enough. He is to be judged as a poet and prophet, and not as a molder of opinion. He was better and greater than any opinion he could have. His style too I would not have different. To me it was not the "Mary-had-a-little-lamb" style of most of his critics, any more than your own prose style is, but grand and manly and full of thunder and lightning. The robins are just here, and the ice on the river is moving this afternoon, bag and baggage. Ursula is still in N.Y. but is doing pretty well and hopes to be home soon. Julian and I have all sorts of ups and downs. I am correcting the proof of Pepacton and writing an article for Scrib. on Thoreau.
I first wrote them a notice of his Journal just published, which they were pleased to say was too good for a book notice and that I must make a body article out of it &c. Scrib. has displayed some remarkable journalistic enterprise lately. They have got from Emerson his article on Carlyle for their May No. This is sub rosa and is not for the public yet. I enclose you a slip of the article or lecture which you may have seen. I do not think his trip hammer with the Eolian attachment figure conceived in the highest spirit. It is so preposterous and impossible that it spoils it for me, but it raps soundly upon the attention for a moment, and I suppose that is enough for his purpose. I hope your cloud lifts as spring comes and that you are better. If you see young Kennedy tell him I will write to him again by and bye. I guess he is a good fellow but he needs hatcheling to get the tow out of the flax. How do you like him? I shall want a set of your books by and bye. Let me hear from you.
John Burroughs.
We exchanged some few words about Joaquin Miller. W. was very willing to say good things about him."Miller is wholesome: he is a bit of his own West done up in print. I ought to be very grateful to him. He has always gone out of his way to show that he stood with me—that the literary class would not find him aligned with them in their assaults on me. Miller never quite does the work I expected him to do. He may yet do it."
W. gave me a Miller letter the other day. It illustrates the friendliness of their relations. Miller enclosed a portrait of himself. I insert the letter here. It was written in 1874.
Hotel Chatham, 67 and 69, Rue Neuve St. Augustin, Paris. My dear Walt Whitman:
In London last week I met many mutual friends who were asking after you and wondering when you would come over to the great Smoky Capital—friends who know you only by your books. Last winter Story of Rome the author of Cleopatra, you remember, asked me for your photo once. I gave it him to contemplate and he has it yet. Are you coming, and when? Most like I shall return to the States this winter and then visit Washington for I have never yet seen our national capital. The news of the great Democratic victories has just reached us and all Paris—that is all American Paris—is terribly excited. Of course this suits me, born Democrat as I am, but I trust it will not at all disturb the future of my dear friend the "good gray poet." My address is the Langhorne Hotel. Drop me a line.
Yours faithfully, Joaquin Miller.
Whitman adds as to Arnold: "He will not be missed.
W. said Adler's Millet had not yet come. W. reading the Boswell he got from Harned Sunday. "Johnson does not impress me.
Referring again to the Hicks bust: "It holds its own with me: I think Morse has hit something quite plausible—a living embodiment: I see that I am going to be very proud of it as time goes on."
W. gave me an Edwin Booth letter. Here it is:
Newport, Aug. 28th, '84. Walt Whitman, Esq. Dear Sir—
I have tried in vain to obtain a good portrait of my father for you and am reduced to this last extremity—I must send you a book (which you need not read) containing poor copies of the good portraits that are in some secure, forgotten place among my traps—stored in garret or cellar of my new house where all things are at sixes and sevens. The one as Richard is from a copper plate, taken in England about 1820; the frontispiece is from a daguerreotype taken in Albany 1848—the original is excellent;
is from an engraving—taken very early in his career at Covent Garden—which I never saw. Posthumus posthumous I am sorry that I can find none better than these poor reproductions. They give his face before and after his nose was broken, but are badly printed. I trust they will be of service to you. Very truly yours, Edwin Booth.
"I have had no relations with Booth,"
said W. "Nothing beyond the sort of thing you see hinted of in this simply
Describing the visit of Haweis (now put by H. into a book), W. said: "Haweis came here with his wife and one other woman, evidently, to judge from what he afterwards wrote, to quiz me, and they of course found I was not so brilliant, original, as expected: I was more bent upon hearing them talk than talk myself—so I just put enough in to keep him going.
In with W. Alluded again to Arnold. "I am apt at times to go back on my pieces: this Herald piece, now—it's not all that could be said: it don't say my say for me in the most conclusive way.
Still reading the Boswell. "I am convinced as I get farther along that Johnson was none too veracious—that he was on stilts, always—he belongs to the self-conscious literary class, who live in a house of rules and never get into the open air. Take Arnold, again. I have been looking a little into his poetry today.
W. went back to Johnson. "As I read I think of a funny story Mary Davis tells me of some one who said once in a sudden humor: 'I feel like eating dough!' I don't feel like eating dough
Again: "I reckon I was not made to understand the scribbling class—perhaps they were not made to understand me. We seem to have been made for different jobs. I am doing my job in my way: it don't suit them: they growl, curse, ridicule: but what is left for Walt Whitman to do but complete the job in the most workmanlike fashion he knows?"
W. quizzed in this way: "When you write do you take anybody's advice about writing?
W. brought up the subject of November Boughs. When would he bring the book out? "I don't know: I get up some mornings and say, this is the day: but somehow before the day is over I see this is not the day: yet it will come out, and before long, God willing, and you, Horace Traubel, willing: for I shall need you to help me through with this expedition.
He produced the mass of papers going to make up the copy for November Boughs: a bundle of letters, reprints, new manuscript, pictures, tied together with a bit of coarse string. "This is the sacred package,"
he explained, solemnly. "It is ready for the printer, ready this minute, but I do not seem to pluck up the courage to get the enterprise under way."
"It lasts—lasts wonderfully well: it plays me some tricks—but then it always did: it is not a marvellous, only a decently good, memory. I remember that the Broadway stage-coachmen could turn back over a month's confusion of trips—tell with readiness and accuracy the tally-numbers of passengers of the up and down rides of any hour that could be named—the records being always kept in this simple fashion by the
W. brought out a soiled letter written on a couple of sheets of common proof paper and suggested that I should see what he had inscribed upon the corner with red ink: "beautiful good letter June '82."
Chicago May 21. Walt Whitman.I don't feel that I should apologize for writing to you. I have wanted to do so for years.
I have loved you for years with my whole heart and soul. No man ever lived whom I have so desired to take by the hand as you. I read Leaves of Grass, and got new conceptions of the dignity and beauty of my own body and of the bodies of other people; and life became more valuable in consequence. After a year or two—always carrying you in my thoughts—holding imaginary conversations with you and dreaming of you day and night, I came across a lady who knew you, Miss Lizzie Denton Seybold, now Becker. She had your portrait painted in oil. I made every effort to induce her to let me have the picture, but she would not. Since that time—I was living in glorious California then—I have read with deepest interest every word about you in the papers and magazines, as well as everything you have written. Sometimes I have been furious at what immodest people, idiots, have dared say of you and have longed to write my own pure and true convictions of you. But I cannot—I am too impetuous; I feel my subject too deeply. And yet I am a writer and make a living by my pen. Now that I have come east this far, where I am employed as editor on the Saturday Express, I have the hope that I may sometime see your dearly beloved face, touch with my hand your beautiful gray hair, and possibly feel your arm about my waist. Because I love you so I have written these lines. It is nothing to me who sees them. I am proud of my feeling for you. It has educated me; it has done more to raise me from a poor working woman to a splendid position on one of the best papers ever published, than all the other influences of my life.
I know you must have many letters from strangers, and so I will not take any more of your time in reading what I have to say. Of course I have no hope of receiving an answer to this. But I thought it no harm to let you know that my love went with you, and perhaps in some unknown way was a blessing to you all these years. Good-bye dear Walt Whitman—
my beloved,and may every influence in life contribute to your happiness.Most lovingly your friend Helen Wilmans.
W. waited"Well, how does that strike you?
"Emerson's objections to the outcast passages in Leaves of Grass,"
said W. tonight, "were neither moral nor literary, but were given with an eye to my worldly success.
"Beautiful! beautiful! It's as fine as anything in Plutarch. The common heroisms of life are anyhow the real heroisms; the impressive heroisms; not the military kind, not the political kind: just the ordinary world kind, the bits of brave conduct happening about us: things that don't get into the papers—things that the preachers don't thank God for in their pulpits—the real things, nevertheless—the only things that eventuate in a good harvest."
"Put this with your Emerson papers: it throws more light on Emerson matters: O'Connor is always throwing light on things—lavishing light, we might say: vehement, penetrating light: light that nothing can stand up against. William is a torrent—he sweeps everything before him.
Washington, D.C., June 3, 1882. Dear Walt:Your two letters, full of memoranda, of May 28 and 30, came duly.
I have "toiled terribly," as Cecil said of Raleigh, and sent off another letter to The Tribune, which I think will make Mr. Chadwick wear a toupee, for I have snatched him baldheaded. It has cost me great labor, though you may not think so when you read it, it runs off so savagely easy; but the difficulty in a controversy of this kind is to mould everything so as not to lay yourself open, and to give no points to the enemy, and this costs time and care. My old fencing-master, Boulet, (no better ever lived; he taught once at West Point,) taught me always to cover my breast with hilt and point, even in the lunge, and I think of his lessons when engaged in fence of another kind. I hope I have succeeded in being both guarded and bold in this new encounter with Chadwick. I have freely used the memoranda you sent, and got in as much of it as I could see my way to employ, and as much as I dared. I think you will feel satisfied with the use I have made of it. Some things I thought it prudent to withhold, because they might provoke replication when we are not in a position to defend ourselves, not being ever sure that a single organ is open to us.
You must be very careful in this matter.
Even wordsmust be carefully chosen, for the enemy is unscrupulous and uses every advantage we give him. I came near getting into a pretty scrape by trusting to your memorandum about the appearance of Emerson's letter in Cooke's memoir publishedby Osgood. It was a splendid point to make, that the letter appeared verbatim in a book issued with Emerson's own sanction a year ago, and I worked it in and made the most of it. But at the last I thought it would be prudent to see the book, and there was the letter sure enough, but with a lot of remarks by the editor to the effect that "it is understood" (the usual sneaking lie in putting it) that Emerson had considerably modified his feeling, and regretted, etc. etc. Fortunately, there is not a word in the preface to show that the book had Emerson's sanction,—but just see the scrape I would have been in had I used the information in the shape you sent it!! Indeed, Walt, you ought to be more careful. "A wild and many-weaponed throng, hang on our front and flank and rear." If I had said that the letter was reprinted in a book with Emerson's sanction, Chadwick would have had me. Our stronghold is the Emerson letter, unretracted by himself.Next thing we shall have to meet will be the stories of what Emersonsaidto this man and that man. We must deny them all, and call for proof. Let us admit nothing. Make the other sideprovetheir allegations.I hope my new letter will be as successful with you and the public as the first.
My aim has been to shut Chadwick up for good, for I don't want to be bothered on a side issue by this egotistic jackass. Letters are pouring in upon me. One from John Hay, very cordial. One from the Melancholy Club of New York, very overflowing, inviting me to a grand supper to be given on Saturday (this) evening in honor of
youand of my letter. Have you been invited? And who are the Melancholy Club men of Lexington Avenue?I returned them a civil letter of regret at my inability to be present, etc., and consoled them by offering as a toast "old Selden's trumpet sentence—'Before all things, Liberty!'"—"Words," I said, "which are good to remember when thought is menaced by law." I have had a number of other letters from persons unknown. One from Bucke, quite jubilant over my letter, and telling me the fix I have got his book into, which is comic as a scene from Moliere. You will see the fun when you know that he had sent his MS. to Osgood!! I also got a letter from John Burroughs, announcing his arrival, and I at once sent him a Tribune containing the letter. I also have a letter from Dr. Channing at Providence, red-hot for you, and proposing to reprint my Good Gray Poet at his expense!! There has been quite a swarming of people after me. The press notices are generally favorable and hearty. I hope nothing adverse or disastrous will happen. I want the matter to result in your getting a publisher, as it ought.
Watch the Tribune for my anti-Chadwick.
I hardly think it will fail to bring him down. At the last moment, after two days of anxious cogitation, I cut out of it several pages of really withering ridicule, excellent in itself, but positively injurious to the main effect. You see how solely I consider the interests of our cause—sacrificing thereto my choicest satirical felicities! Good bye!
Yours faithfully W. D. O'Connor.
"That's like a battle-ship firing both sides and fore and aft: no man in America carries as big an armament for controversy as William—can do as heavy immediate execution. I would hate to be in his way myself—to have him feel me to be an obstruction, that he had to strike me down; I'd far rather have him on my side. I was going to say What a fighter! I won't say that: I will say: What a lover! For, after all, William is a lover: after all? yes—and before all, too."
In with W. Complains of headaches. "Rather, not aches, but a sort of congestion.
He paused for a minute. I said nothing. He then continued: "I don't believe you have any pains of your own: I believe you are a sickless animal—I don't believe you know what it is to be on your back."
I confessed that I did not. "Neither did I for the most of my life: I hardly knew I had a stomach or a head for all the trouble I had with either."
He got talking about New York—its literary men."They are mainly a sad crowd: take the whole raft of them—Stoddard, Fawcett, the rest—what are they saying or doing that is in the least degree significant? I am told that Stoddard is pretty sour on me—hates even to have my name mentioned in his presence, never refers to me with respect.
W. still talked on, hitting at different themes: "I sometimes waver in opinion as between Emerson and Bryant. Bryant is more significant for his patriotism, Americanism, love of external nature, the woods, the sea, the skies, the rivers, and this at times, the objective features of it especially, seems to outweigh Emerson's urgent intelligence and psychic depth.
I laughed at this sally, whereupon he continued: "Well—ask Stedman to forgive me."
"To forgive you? He need never hear!"
"Ask
He chuckled a little. "I am always sure that in some way my friends hear all that I say about them: all the love I say about them, all the questions I ask: don't you think our minds go outside us and meet and exchange life for life?"
W. gave me another Miller letter."I guess I belong to Miller: he has proved himself in so many ways—his books have proved him, his personal affection has proved him."
Revere House, Boston, May 27, '75. My dear Walt Whitman,Your kind letter is received and the sad news of your ill health makes this pleasant weather even seem tiresome and out of place. I had hoped to find you the same hale and whole man I had met in New York a few years ago and now I shall perhaps find you bearing a staff all full of pain and trouble.
However my dear friend as you have sung from withinand not fromwithoutI am sure you will be able to bear whatever comes with that beautiful faith and philosophy you have ever given us in your great and immortal chants. I am coming to see you very soon as you request; but I cannot say today or set tomorrow for I am in the midst of work and am not altogether my own master. But I will come and we will talk it all over together. In the meantime, remember that whatever befall you you have the perfect love and sympathy of many if not all of the noblest and loftiest natures of the two hemispheres. My dear friend and fellow toiler good bye.Yours faithfully, Joaquin Miller.
I took W. a volume Goethe-Carlyle correspondence."This Goethe-Carlyle business seems to have been an affair of respect rather than of love. It was not beautiful to me, like Goethe's love for Schiller, like Schiller's love for Goethe."
"You never seem to enter into such literary companionships."
"No—I do not: they are hardly possible to me: I do not seek them.
"Then you do not accept the notion of art for art's sake?"
"Not a bit of it—that would be absurd on the face: the phrase seems to me to mean nothing.
"He is one of my most ardent—I often say, granitic—admirers. Indeed, he out-Buckes Bucke."
To Tucker: "He has thumped me some for my emperor piece but is still my friend as I am still his friend: I don't think a fall or two taken out of a fellow hurts him in the long run.
To O'Connor: "He, too, fell afoul of me for my emperor piece. Why, that piece almost threatens to create a split in the church!
Rhys once said to W. in reply to W.'s question: "William Morris always mentioned you kindly, genially, in fine friendly fashion, admiringly, with full acceptance."
"That seems about the only thing left to a Russian. Revolution may be the only conservatism."
W. said to a visitor in my hearing: "The American people wash too much."
"See,"
said the visitor: What did I tell you? His gospel is a gospel of dirt."
"What did you say to that?"
asked W."I only said you were misunderstood—that what you meant was that the American people did not sufficiently honor the trades, the physical occupations."
"Of course, and wasn't that obvious?"
"Not to your visitor."
"I suppose not. But what do such visitors come for anyhow? To be confirmed in their prejudices. I think our people are getting entirely too decent. They like nice white hands, men and women. They are too much disturbed by dirt. They need the open air, coarse work—physical tasks: something to do away from the washstand and the bathtub. God knows, I'm not opposed to clean hands. But clean hands, too, may be a disgrace. It was the disgraceful clean hands I had in mind."
W.'s friends often rally him about his aristocracy."I appeal to no one: I look in all men for the heroic quality I find in Caesar, Carlyle, Emerson: yes indeed—find it, too, it is so surely present. If that is aristocracy then I am an aristocrat."
I spoke of Lincoln—of the Nicolay-Hay biography. W. said: "That reminds me."
Reaching forward to the table and pulling a letter out from under a block—"Here's a letter from John Hay to me written long ago—twelve years ago.
W. had written some memoranda on the letter, which was without an envelope. "July 25, '76, Letter from John Hay (Custer poem slips and paper sent him July 25)."
Century Club, 109 East 15th St., [New York] July 22. Dear Mr. Whitman,
I thank you heartily for my share in your Custer poem, which I have just read. It is splendidly strong and sustained and full of a noble motive. I am especially glad to learn, in such an authoritative way, of your health and vigor. I wish you would take the trouble to let me know when your volume of collected works is to be published and where I can subscribe for it. I have heard that it was to be published by subscription, but have not heard any further details.
My address is now 506 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio; and I would be very much obliged if you would spend a moment in letting me know how to get an early copy of the book for which many are looking.
Yours faithfully, John Hay.
"There's no use talking,"
said W., after I had finished reading the letter, "I no doubt deserved my enemies but I don't believe I deserved my friends."
To see W. He said: "I gave you some notes from editors the other day—notes declining the poems. I have found you another to add to the collection. This is from Alden: it is more recent than one or two of the others. You see, I have been declined everywhere more or less. Alden is friendly. I never quarrel with the editors.
Harper & Brothers' Editorial Rooms, Franklin Square, New York, May 12, 1885. My dear Whitman,I have your kind favor of the 11th with the enclosed poem—or series of poems, rather.
It does not seem to me that Fancies at the Navesink will make a favorable impression upon our readers—though they might upon a select few. I must therefore return them. With thanks, Sincerely yours, H. M. Alden.
"The world does not know what our relations really were—they think of our friendship always as a literary friendship: it was a bit that but it was mostly something else—it was certainly more than that—for I loved Emerson for his personality and I always felt that he loved me for something I brought him from the rush of the big cities and the mass of men. We used to walk together, dine together, argue, even, in a sort of a way, though neither one of us was much of an arguer. We were not much for repartee or sallies or what people ordinarily call humor, but we got along together beautifully—the atmosphere was always sweet, I don't mind saying it, both on Emerson's side and mine: we had no friction—there was no kind of fight in us for each other—we were like two Quakers together. Dear Emerson!
Then after a pause: "I suppose to all as well as to us—perhaps to no clique whatever."
W. wandered into some side remarks on what he calls "the New York crowd of scrawlers."
Winter, for instance. "There's little Willie Winter— miserable cuss!"
"Stedman's judgment sometimes has a grandmotherly tinge."
Of Stoddard: "I allow for Stoddard what he will not allow for me—that he has written good things. He
"He was a noble scholar: I read him at one time with great assiduity. He never struck anything off with his own fire but he knew what to do with the fire of other men."
He summarized on New York in this way: "It is life to the letter but death to the spirit. It is a good market for the harvest but a bad place for farming."
W. spoke of Washington as "a big man after all."
I said: "But I think Lincoln was a bigger man after all."
"I know you are right—Lincoln was more likely as a Walt Whitman Horace Traubel man: Washington belonged to another period, to another social era: and Washington is too big to be trifled with. I allow him his full measure. But Lincoln? Well, we are very near Lincoln. He is like somebody that lives in our own house."
"It was slow, gradual—won out of an actual radical antipathy. Kennedy is the mixed fruit of the Puritan consciousness. Think of Walt Whitman and Plymouth Rock getting somehow together. It is hard to think out. Kennedy could not think it out at first: it was the most difficult problem he ever tackled: but finally the snarl was escaped. Kennedy came out of it on our side."
"Tom was in today—brought some kind of a preacher along: I don't even remember his name—a clever fellow but preachery all over, like a man in a lather. It did my eyes good to look away from him towards Tom—Tom, who is a normal man, gruff, honest, direct, simple, strong."
"After all, Horace—it's almost the Sower—it comes to almost as much: it is a piece out of the same cloth. Millet is my painter: he belongs to me: I have written Walt Whitman all over him.
W. had been to Gloucester to a planked shad dinner and was unusually tired. Remarked his bad ears. "I am getting a little deaf—I don't hear little things.
This was an exaggeration called out by the fact that I had knocked a long time at the door and rang the bell and was not heard. W. was alone in the house. I asked him how he was managing to go about so readily. He prefers to be alone on these excursions. "The worst of it is I not only sit here and simmer all day long but am growing contented to do it—losing the desire to move.
I found W. reading Louise Chandler Moulton's book on Marston. "How is that?"
I asked."She was here yesterday. She left me the book. I have been trying to make something out of it—so far have not succeeded. Marston did some creditable work—work, however, that can hardly live. It lacked grit—it lacked the requisite organs: it was largely in the air. A sweet enough fellow, though, with a life tragedy, which should have taught him how to write. Literary men learn so little from life—borrow so much from the borrowers."
W. was joyous over what he called "a piece of the best news."
"The Whitman Club in Boston has petered out. It failed because I sat down on
I referred to the Browning clubs. He waived the comparison by saying: "They no doubt have their own excuse for being."
"the Jim Scovel of literature,"
(J. S. a local man "of flaring but unreliable qualities,"
to quote W's words), and added: "I have not read The Deserted Village and The Traveller, but have read The Vicar of Wakefield more times than I can count."
Walsh has been saying something in Lippincott's to this effect: Whitman stands for idea, Tennyson stands for expression."It seems hard to justify such a hard and fast judgment. The idea must always come first—is indispensable. Take my own method—if you call it that. I have the idea clearly and fully realized before I attempt to express it. Then I let it go. The idea becomes so important to me I may perhaps underrate the other element—the expressional element—that first, last and all the time emphasis placed by literary men on the mere implement of words instead of upon the work itself.
Some anarchist was in to see W. today."He was a stranger to me—a Russian, I think: clean, earnest, with a beautiful face—but too insistent: he would have me, whether I would or would not, say yes to his political, or revolutionary, program. We had no quarrel—I only made it plain to him that I was not to be impressed into that sort of service. Everybody comes here demanding endorsements: endorse this, endorse that: each man thinks I am radical his way: I suppose I am radical his way, but I am not radical his way alone. Socialists, single tax men, communists, rebels of every sort and all sorts, come here.
Something I said induced him to talk of the New York reception last year."I did not enjoy it: it was too sudden a change from my passive life in Camden: it was too much the New York jamboree—the cosmopolitan drunk. Some of my best friends, coming into the suite of parlors, seeing the crowds about, with me in the midst sitting there dazed, at a loss to know what it all meant, went away, satisfied to
Urged me to read Stedman's American Poets."Read the book: the book is somewhat different—modified. Stedman has both injured and strengthened his book: it is powerful in spots—rather few spots—and then goes to pieces in general. I should not say this: I should be as fond of Stedman's book as I am of Stedman. How can I? I am making a confession. How can I?"
He could not find the book for me. It had got mislaid. "Every time I criticise a man or a book I feel as if I had done something wrong.
As I was going he called after me. I was already outside the parlor door. "Here's something for you to take along—something for your archives: another of William's letters: a bit sad (he speaks of his sick girl here—it was in 1883)—but powerful: a look into our work-shop while we were putting the timbers together for Bucke's life.
W.'s allusion to the archives followed naturally upon his knowledge that I was systematically collecting W. W. data. Once he said: "I will be handing you stuff from time to time for yourself—for use—perhaps for history: it would get lost here, most of it: some of it
The O'Connor letter:
Washington, D.C., April 4, 1883. Dear Walt:I arrived here last night, ill and exhausted. The parting at Providence was hard.
I fear I shall never see Jeannie well again. Although I had a racking headache all the way, I spent time in the cars reading the proof, which I herewith return corrected. I have followed your wishes, and made only verbal corrections, which I wish you would see carried out carefully by the printer, as I know you will.
Of course I yield about the paragraphs, although I can't think I shall ever like them. No matter: the text is the main thing, and every consideration is swallowed up in the consciousness that you like what I have written—that you feel that my utterance has power and fills the bill. I hope, for your sake, that the public will think so also.
My principal corrections—the ones I feel specially desirous to have made—are as follows:
I. Page 78. Small k in the word "Knights.'
The obstinate printer has twice made this a large K, the effect of which is absurd.II. Page 82. "Quaternion," not "quarternion."
III. Page 82. "Irresponsible." The allusion, which is one George William will keenly feel, is to Tennyson's
"O irresponsible, indolent, reviewers,"which is very witty, and sticks to the tribe like a burr.IV. Page 86.
"And itI think italicising "is" helps the sense.isgrand."V. Page 92. I hope I don't bother the printer, but the change here is necessary, for this is the passage I wrote you about, and I don't want to be picked up by some malevolent reviewer. Please see to this yourself, if you can. It should read "to ride with bared head in the warm and
perfumed rains of Spring that he might feel upon him, he said, the universal spirit of the world." (How this anecdote reveals the poet in Bacon!—how it allies him to the Shakespeare literature!) VI. Page 94. I am not sure I understand the printer's work here. But there should be a paragraph—which I think the fiend tried to abolish.
VII. Page 95. "Furthest," not "furtherest," good printer's devil!
The Good Gray Poet.
VIII. Bucke sent me my foot note, and I have made the change (Page 100).
I think it better, and the five words which commence it, are a blow at Lowell, planted straight home. IX. Page 113. I hope it won't bother the printer to take out Munro's name. I don't know how I ever made such a blunder. Munro's translation (prose) is really admirable for courage and fidelity, so far as I can judge.
X. Page 124. For heaven's sake, make the diabolical printer-man restore the two articles—"the" and "the"—to their proper places. The effect of the sentence is ruined by their elision.
The remaining corrections are trifles.
I'll write again soon. This is hurried, to go off with the proof, which I don't want to delay.
Bucke wrote me to find an epigraph for the appendix—leaving the matter entirely to me!!! So you didn't make anything by soliciting him. As yet I have not been able to think of anything—in fact, I have been in too much trouble to think effectually—that is to give my mind to it.
More anon.
Have you seen Grant White's article in the Atlantic for April on the Bacon-Shakespeare craze? It is rich. Supercilious ass! Faithfully, W. D. O'C.
With W. Read him a letter I had from Morse about the Hicks bust."The bust wears well. Say so to Sidney for me. Tell him I've had a bad head on me lately—have written few letters and nothing else. Say the bust wears
W. not very well. Had been in excellent condition for three or four days. best—tell him that. It will please him: I want to please him.""Now I suffer the old heady feeling again. I wonder what it is all coming to? Something is brewing."
Talked of Marston. I said M. did not attract me, W. replying: "I can see why and approve why; but then you know Mrs. Moulton is a gushing woman.
W. had been reading Gladstone's reply to Ingersoll in the North American Review."It won't do, Mr. Gladstone: you may try: you have the right to try—you try hard: but the Colonel carries too many guns for you on that line."
And after a pause he added: "Besides, Gladstone's day for that work is gone. Old men are too apt to insist upon being in the swim after their virility is departed.
I asked W. about the Boswell—would he finish it? He seemed so little interested. "O yes! I'll whack away at it. I don't care much for it, but shall finish it as a duty.
"If he is not actually a genius he is the sort of stuff out of which genius is made."
I spoke of Morse as "a non-organized, not a disorganized man"
—as "lacking in consecutiveness."
W. assented. "That's as good as it could be about Sidney: a sort of thumb-nail sketch, profound and complete. I think of him as lacking in coherency, which is about the same thing."
"to Walt Whitman with the love and sincere admiration of Edmund C. Stedman. New York April 14th 1887. Dies memoriae et lachrymarum."
W. said the book "interested him."
"But it is not convincing. With all its scholarliness, it kindliness, its receptivity, its genuine and here and there its striking talent, it still lacks root—still misses a saving earthiness: what shall I call it?—a sort of brutal dash of elemental flame, which burns, burns, oh, burns, but saves."
"How strange it is how much better all these fellows are than their books.
"And yet you advise me to read Stedman?"
"I advise everybody to read Stedman: Stedman is an education.
W. remarked that three Englishmen had been in to see him today."They were not célèbres but were none the less—perhaps the more—welcome on that account. They talked about matter of fact things in a matter of fact way—about their aunts and uncles and my aunts and uncles: about their voyage over—some mighty interesting experiences. They were the best kind of plain men—you know the sort I mean: the best plain men are always the best men, anyhow—if there is any better or best among men at all. The cultivated people, the well-mannered people, the well-dressed people, such people always seem a trifle overdone— spoiled in the finish."
W. loves to receive letters—any letters, provided they are in the true sense human documents."Any letters?"
"No, not one."
"Not one? Not one? That's bad luck."
W.
"I will ask Parkhurst over."
"Yes, do—ask him at once—have him come—come any time—as soon as you can."
"You seem very eager."
"It's never too early to hear about Millet. Millet is our man—we must make the most of him."
"But the
Had he read The Critic's criticism of Arnold's recent essay on America?grand does not appeal to me: I dislike the simply art effect—art for art's sake, like literature for literature's sake, I object to, not, of course, on prude grounds, but because literature created on such a principle (and art as well) removes us from humanity, while only from humanity in mass can the light come.""I most likely agree with it. I don't object to Arnold's trip or his writing his trip up. But how can his three months' journey equip him for the real task of the traveller? A traveller must first of all write from the starting-point of sympathy. Every antagonistic word is wasted—strikes wide of the mark. Arnold was not inside himself friendly to America. He always approached it with a question mark."
"It is hard to make or justify comparisons of great men: stars differ in glory: who shall say one star is eminent beyond the rest of the stars? But we have an instinct in the matter—you have yours, I have mine. Shall we quarrel about the stars?—have wars of the stars, as one time they had wars of the roses in England?"
"It's about time we were thinking of bringing out the Boughs, don't you think? I am reckoning upon you to help me—indeed, I cannot bring them out very well if you say no: I am depending upon your good will (your love?) to stick by me for this job.
I did not say a word. I only pressed his hand. He laughed merrily: "I knew you would say yes."
Then I left.
Talked an hour or more about Symonds. W. very frank, very affectionate."Symonds is a royal good fellow—he comes along without qualifications: just happens into the temple and takes his place. But he has a few doubts yet to be quieted—not doubts of me, doubts rather of himself. One of these doubts is about Calamus. What does Calamus mean? What do the poems come to in the round-up? That is worrying him a good deal—their involvement, as he suspects, is the passional relations of men with men—the thing he reads so much of in the literatures of southern Europe and sees something of in his own experience. He is always driving at me about that: is that what Calamus means?—because of me or in spite of me, is that what it means?
"You will be writing something about Calamus some day,"
said W., "and this letter, and what I say, may help to clear your ideas. Calamus needs to clear ideas: it may be easily, innocently distorted from its natural, its motive, body of doctrine."
Clifton Hill House, Near Bristol, Feb 7, 1872. Dear Mr. Whitman,Your letter found me today.
This is my permanent address. I live here in a large old house which belonged to my father—a house on a hill among trees looking down upon Bristol with its docks and churches—a picturesque labyrinth of marts and spires and houseroofs. Your letter gave me the keenest pleasure I have felt for a long time. I had not exactly expected to hear from you. Yet I felt that if you liked my poem [See In Re Walt Whitman] you would write. So I was beginning to dread that I had struck some quite wrong chord—that perhaps I had seemed to you to have arrogantly confounded your own fine thought and pure feeling with the baser metal of my own nature. What you say has reassured me and has solaced me nearly as much as if I had seen the face and touched the hand of you—my Master!
For many years I have been attempting to explain in verse some of the forms of what in a note to Democratic Vistas (as also in a blade of Calamus) you call "adhesiveness." I have traced passionate friendship through Greece, Rome, the medieval and the modern world, and have now a large body of poems written but not published.
In these I trust the spirit of the Past is faithfully set forth as far as my abilities allow. It was while engaged upon this work (years ago now) that I first read Leaves of Grass.
The man who spoke to me from that Book impressed me in every way most profoundly—unalterably; but especially did I then learn confidently to believe that the Comradeship which I conceived as on a par with the sexual feeling for depth and strength and purity and capability of all good, was real—not a delusion of distorted passions, a dream of the Past, a scholar's fancy—but a strong and vital bond of man to man.Yet even then how hard I found it—brought up in English feudalism, educated at an aristocratic public school (Harrow) and an over refined University (Oxford)—to winnow from my own emotion and from my conception of the ideal friend all husks of affectations and aberrations and to be a simple human being!
Youcannot tell quite how hard this was, and how you helped me.I have pored for continuous hours over the pages of Calamus (as I used to pore over the pages of Plato), longing to hear you speak, burning for a revelation of your more developed meaning, panting to ask—is this what you would indicate?—are then the free men of your land really so pure and loving and noble and generous and sincere?
Most of all did I desire to hear from your own lips—or from your pen—some story of athletic friendship from which to learn the truth. Yet I dared not to address you or dreamed that the thought of a student could abide the inevitable shafts of your searching intuition. Shall I ever be permitted to question you and learn from you?
What the love of man for man has been in the Past I think I know. What it is here now, I know that also—alas!
What you say it can and shall be I dimly discern in your Poems. But this hardly satisfies me—so desirous am I of learning what you teach. Some day, perhaps—in some form, I know not what, but in your own chosen form—you will tell me more about the Love of Friends.
then I wait. Meanwhile you have told me more than any one beside. Till until I have been led to write too much about myself, presuming on what you said, that you should like to know me better.
It will give me sincere pleasure to receive a copy of your book from you. I am grateful to you for purposing to give me so great a gift. Will you complete the benefit by sending me a portrait of yourself?
It is good to hear that your work does not deny you leisure. Work with an ample margin of freedom is the best thing for man; but I cannot believe in the modern Gospel of Work and no leisure.
This ends in a Science of Human Mechanics. When I am free enough from home duties I hope to go to America on a tour with my wife. Then I shall request to be permitted to pay respect to you in person.
That you may know my face I enclose two portraits. The little girl in one of them is my youngest child.
I am your ever grateful and indebted John Addington Symonds.
Said W.: "Well, what do you think of that? Do you think that could be answered?"
"I don't see why you call that letter driving you hard. It's quiet enough—it only asks questions, and asks the questions mildly enough."
"I suppose you are right—'drive' is not exactly the word: yet you know how I hate to be catechised. Symonds is right no doubt, to ask the questions: I am just as much right if I do not answer them: just as much right if I do answer them.
Symonds spoke of two portraits. The portrait of himself was still enclosed. The child portrait was missing. W. said: "It's around the house somewhere."
Asked W. "How is November Boughs?"
"Still getting ready."
"I thought you said it was ready?"
"So I did—so it is: about ready: but that about sometimes covers a multitude of cautions. You know I am a conservative animal—I don't jump
"Well—I'm ready any time the book is ready."
"I know—I know: we haven't said much about that between us, but you know, I know: give me a little more time, a little more room—then we can get our start: yes, start right."
Early evening. W. had just been out on his drive. Not over well. Complains some. "I keep so congested—head, belly. The truth is, I have no desire to go out, though I do go—going mostly because I feel it to be a duty. There was a time—not long ago, either—when the mere pleasure of locomotion—of having my arms and legs going out of doors—was a joy to me."
W. said: "I have this afternoon mailed two pieces to the Herald—two more throws against oblivion."
I laughed—W. adding: "It does seem funny.
He had watched at Gloucester the drawing of the seine. "I will put it into a poem: it was dramatic: it would make a wonderful picture."
Frank Stockton has recently lived at Merchantville near by."I do not think so, though I do not remember all my callers. I confess that my curiosity is slight, though I might like Frank at close quarters. The story writers do not as a rule attract me.
"Stedman always feels that he must be judicial—the dominance of that principle has held him down from many a noble flight. Stedman seems so often just about to get off for a long voyage and stops himself on the shore. Why shouldn't we just let go—let life do its damnedest: take every obstacle out of the way and let it go? Why should being thought foolish or unreasonable or coarse hold us back? We can go nowhere worth while if we submit to the scorners."
W. said: "Too much is often said—perhaps even by me—about my Quaker lineage.
He got talking along in matters of family history. Said some things about his father. "He knew Thomas Paine.
Why did he not himself write up this story? "I ought to do it: I have often said to myself that I would do it: I may perhaps be the only one living today who can throw an authentic sidelight upon the radicalism of those post-Revolutionary decades. The average historian has either not seen the facts at all or been afraid to do anything with them."
W. took a drive at eleven, forenoon, and came in at Harned's after we were done supper at 6:30. Had been to see the Staffords at Glen Dale."feeling rather peart,"
as he said. Drove up alone. No one at Harned's door. I saw him from the window. He held the reins and called out, waiting for some one to see or hear. When we had helped him into the hallway he said instantly: "I came for a drink—oh! I am that thirsty for it. I could wait no longer—have had it in mind, could not get rid of it, for an hour past."
Someone remarked the fine day and he exclaimed: "Oh! it is perfect! And I saw out there such a field of fine new sweet wheat."
W. sat up at the table. We were gathered about him, he eating and drinking and talking. Got telling about the dinner the other day at Gloucester. "They wanted a toast from me—a toast to three eminent good fellows—and I gave them President Cleveland, Gladstone, and the Emperor of Germany.
Johnson was mentioned. But W. stuck to his plea."Even Andy Johnson. In all the line of Presidents I do not think we have had one absolute failure—I think every President so far as made more or less honest use of the office. You object to the Emperor Frederick William?
'You're damned tolerant, Walt!'
Am I? Call it toleration, if you choose.
Harned told W. that Gladstone had come out with a reply to Ingersoll. This excited W.'s humor. He laughed gently. Said: "Gladstone is no match for Ingersoll—at least not in such a controversy. Of course, he is a great man, or was—has had a past—but in questions of the theological sort, in questions of Homeric scholarship, he is by no means much.
Here he put his two hands together scoop-wise. "Bob will take him up this fashion, turn him over (all sides of him), look at him sweetly, ever so sweetly, smile, then crunch him!"
—to illus-
"Yes, crunch him, much as a cat would a mouse,
"Ain't you exaggerating his importance, Walt?"
"Not a bit: Ingersoll is a man whose importance to the time could not be overfigured: not literal importance, not argumentative importance, not anti-theological Republican party importance: but spiritual importance—importance as a force, as consuming energy—a fiery blast for the new virtues, which are only the old virtues done over for honest use again."
"It was one of the mistakes of Jerry Black's life that he got into that fight with the Colonel. I knew Black—he frequently came to see me in Washington—was a good fellow—but in that discussion he met, as he deserved, with the most scathing chastisement."
My sister Agnes remarked: "The drives are certainly doing you good—you show it."
He assented. "They do indeed: yes they do.
He turned to Tom: "I say Tom what's the matter with that tipple? Did you put in the cork again? What's the good of a tipple with the cork in?"
Then after his glass was filled. "Well, I forgive you. I forgive everybody: I am in a good mood for gentle things: the beautiful day, my hearty reception here, all of you about me: there's no room left for malice."
"Do you know, my philosophy sees a place and a time for everybody—even Judas Iscariot—yes, for all: all of us are parties to the same bargain: the worst, the best, the middling—all parties to the same bargain. We are as we are, all of us—and that's both the very bad and the very good that's to be said."
I was to go to Philadelphia to hear Adler speak. Had W. any message? "Yes, surely. Give him my love: describe
"I want you to have this letter of William's for your archives. It would be valuable enough if it was only William's—but it happens to be more than that. You see the date—1865. He encloses a letter from George William Curtis—it makes good history. Curtis always had the big manner—yes, big without being offish: his personality has a large swing, as if it had plenty of time and space in which to live.
Again: "It is an eloquent letter all through—rather silent, still, pastoral, for William: his tempest is lulled: the best soldiers are often the best men of peace."
New Ipswich, New Hampshire, October 19, 1865. My dear Walt:The article you sent Nelly from the London Leader is in my possession. Good! I shall incorporate it. Part of it is very fine.
I wonder if young William Allingham wrote it? The Leader is the paper he is on. He is a poet, you remember—one of the most promising of the young British choir. He is an Irishman and a reverent lover of Emerson's genius.
I shouldn't wonder if he wrote this critique. Anyhow it's good and I shall put a great deal of it in.
If, ever since I have been here, I have not had the worst cold I ever had in my life—a cold which has made me really sick and spoiled the pleasure of my visit—I should doubtless have ere this sent off the MS. to Curtis.
It will probably go soon. It is just as well and even better than I have delayed it, for in the first place it will be enriched with this quotation, and besides you will like it better by the excision of nearly all the personality, new light having come to me on this point as time has passed and the sweet country air and relief from labor cleared and refreshed my poor boiled brains. On my way through New York I enquired at Harper's for Curtis and found he was out of town. So I brought the MS. with me up here.
Then came Curtis' answer; of which I send you a copy that you may see how true the reply this splendid gentleman and noble heart sends back to my call. I really did not expect so much from Curtis. I relied on his literary chivalry, but did not look for the rest. As George would say, he has "elements"!
I have written to him saying that I want him to endeavor to find me a publisher and mentioning Hurd and Houghton: also saying that in a few days I shall send him the MS.
I wish you could come up here. The landscape is exquisite. Fields, farms, the quiet rustic town, the gorgeous foliage, the Temple and Peterboro hills enclosing all. And then, drive out a few miles and lo!
Monadnoc! O Walt, what a sight! A purple breadth of mountain, spreading calm in sleepy light and filling the landscape with grandeur. It is the finest mountain I have seen. Its characteristic is breadth. I am staying here at the house of Miss Jenny Bullard, a friend of whom I believe I have spoken to you.
I wish you knew her. You would like her. She is handsome, bountiful, generous, cordial, strong, careless, laughing, large, regardless of dress or personal appearance, and appreciates and likes Leaves of Grass. The first thing she read in the book was Enfans d'Adam, which she cordially liked and wondered how anyone could mistake its atmosphere and purport. She is a very particular friend of mine. I wish you knew her. She told me today that she wanted me to invite you to come up here for a few days before I go, but I said I wouldn't because I knew you wouldn't come. I shall probably leave here about the twenty-fifth and go to Boston. Then home.
Spite of dear friends and respite from the treadmill and the superb scenery, I have had considerably of a bad time, chiefly owing to the horrible cold I have had and the weary state I have been in. But I am better now and the world looks brighter.
Now I hope to be able to announce to you that the MS. has a publisher. But oh, Walt, the literary shortcomings of it oppress me. It is not the thing that should be said of your book—not the thing that it is in even me to say—as I feel. However. Good bye. I will write you again.
Your faithful W. D. O'Connor.
The enclosed letter of Curtis follows:
Ashfield, Mass. Massachusetts 30 Sept. 1865. My dear O'Connor:
Here, up among the Autumn Hills, I get your interesting letter of the 20th and you may be very sure that I will do all I can to redress the wrong of which you speak. The task you undertake is not easy, as you know. The public sympathy will be with the Secretary for removing a man who will be considered an obscene author and a free lover.
But your hearty vindication of free letters will not be less welcome to all liberal men. Personally I do not know Whitman; and while his Leaves of Grass impressed me less than it impressed many better men than I, I have never heard anything of him but what was noble nor believed anything of him but what was honorable.
That a man should be expelled from office and held up to public contumely, because of an honest book which no candid mind can truly regard as hurtful to public morality,
isan offence which demands exposure and censure.I know Carleton but he has several times asked of me favors which I could not grant and I do not believe your offer would be strengthened if made through me. If you think otherwise, I shall most cheerfully go to him,—but would it not be better for you to write to him and refer him to me, saying, if you choose, that you had asked me to call upon him? Think of it and let me know.
It was very pleasant to see your comely chirography again,
I wish I could think of you as having had some vacation. We have been here for two months, far from railroads, telegraphs, and gossip, and are just going home. My wife returns your friendly remembrance and yours, I hope, has not forgotten me. altho' although I should be glad, too, if I thought you felt as cheerfully as I feel at the real gain in the Good Fight made by the war. Andy may Tylerize but the country will not. The wave may be lower, but the tide is rising. Good bye. Let me hear as soon as you will. You know how gladly I shall serve you and how truly I am
Your friend G. W. Curtis.
Called W.'s attention to some announcements of November Boughs already finding their way into the papers."That ought to spur me on."
he said, "though as you know I am not easily spurred. I always argue that all the time there is my time: so I go slow with what I do—take the reasonable maximum of liberty."
Then: "Yet you are right. We should get at that job. I'm in a pretty shaky condition, physically, right along these days—never know what may not happen overnight. I'm not afraid but I face the facts. I want the book to come out—I wouldn't like much to delay and delay and then die off with the thing hanging fire or half done. You are right—yes, you are right—we will attack the problem at once."
He laughed a bit and broke out into a little recitative: "A minister was in here today—he came to give me advice—he said he had come from St. Louis, or Denver perhaps (I forget which), to give me his opinion on Leaves of Grass.
"That's a tale worth putting down in the book."
I assented, but said: "So it is. But I've got a match for it."
"I don't believe it—but let's hear."
"My grandmother was sitting on the front step one day—she was well on to eighty, you know—quietly looking about at things. A clerical came along and saw her, stopped and sat down on the step at her side. 'Madam,' he said, 'you are very old: are you prepared to die?' She was of course annoyed and said to him tartly: 'Sir! if you were half as well prepared to die as I am you would be a happy man!'"
W. was very much amused."Yes, that's a good match: that's worth being put down in the same book!"
And after a little interval in which nothing was said by either he remarked: "The ministry is spoiled with arrogance: it takes all sorts of vagaries, impudences, invasions, for granted: it even seizes the key to the bedroom and the closet."
W. talked again about literary honesty."It's not quite the thing to take language by the throat and make it yield you beautiful results. I don't want beautiful results—I want results: honest results: expression: expression. You know we talked about this the other day: you may have thought I was over vehement, thought, as for that, I don't see how a fellow can say too much on that score. Since we talked I have come across a letter from John Burroughs that finely illustrates my point.
I took the letter from his hand and read the memorandum: "splendid offhand letter from John Burroughs—? publish it."
W. resumed: "John
Inns of Court Hotel, London, W.C., Tuesday, Oct. 3d, 1871. Dear Walt.I am writing to you on the spur of the moment in hopes it will bring me to my senses, for I am quite stunned at the first glance of London.
I have just come from St. Paul's and feel very strange. I don't know what is the matter with me but I seem in a dream. St. Paul was too much for me and my brain actually reels. I have never seen architecture before. It made me drunk. I have seen a building with a living soul. I can't tell you about it now. I saw for the first time what power and imagination could be put in form and design—I felt for a moment what great genius was in this field. But I had to retreat after sitting down a half hour and trying to absorb it. I feel as if I should go nowhere else while in London. I must master it or it will kill me. I actually grew faint. I was not prepared for it and I thought my companions the Treasury clerks would drive me mad they rushed round so. I had to leave them and sit down. Hereafter I must go alone everywhere. My brain is too sensitive. I am not strong enough to confront these things all at once. I would give anything if you was here. I see now that you belong here—these things are akin to your spirit. You would see your own in St. Paul's, but it took my breath away. It was more than I could bear and I will have to gird up my loins and try it many times. Outside it has the beauty and grandeur of rocks and crags and ledges. It is nature and art fused into one. Of course time has done much for it, it is so stained and weatherworn. It is like a Rembrandt picture so strong and deep is the light and shade. It is more to see the old world than I had dreamed, much more. I thought art was of little account, but now I get a glimpse of the real article I am overwhelmed. I had designed to go on the continent, but I shall not stir out of London until I have vanquished some part of it at least. If I lose my wits here why go further? But I shall make a brave fight. I only wish I had help. These fellows are like monkeys. I have seen no one yet but shall try to see Conway tomorrow. I write this dear Walt to help recover myself. I know it contains nothing you might expect to hear from me in London, but I have got into Niagara without knowing it and you must bear with me. I will give facts and details next time. Go and see Ursula. With much love, John Burroughs.
Oct. 4—I went today to see Conway but he was not in—so I went back to St. Paul's to see if I really make a fool of myself yesterday. I did not feel as before and perhaps never shall again. Yet it is truly grand and there is no mistake. It is like the grandest organ music put into form. P. S. I hope you and O'Connor will make an effort to come over here. You need not mention it but I know it is not settled at all who will come. This you can rely upon, but there will be no more bonds sent until in November.
"Now I see what you mean by your reference to the foot-note."
"Yes,"
replied W., "the letter is perfect—it deserves to go alone. The footnote is an impertinence. The foot-
"To Walt Whitman, Poet, These poems, by an English poet who delighted to do him honor. Louise Chandler Moulton, April 23, 1888."
W. not well, had been feeling out of sorts again since Sunday. This is Wednesday. Same symptoms—the insistent headache, congestion, &c. Lay on sofa in parlor in some exhaustion. The Marston book I had noticed was not cut throughout. W. smiled. "No—I did not read the book; I looked into it: the bit I read did not lead me on: I dropped the trail—or lost it, perhaps."
How about the lecture trip to England? Would he take it?"No. It was tempting up to a certain point. But I would rather finish, as I have grown up, here. I could not stand the excitement of travelling and meeting people—of being lionized and denounced. This is a safer place for me—this little town, this little room, my own bed and chair."
Said he had been reading Gladstone's reply to Ingersoll—"It is a great weariness—but I stuck to it, thinking it probably my fault.
Had W. ever heard directly from Carlyle? "No—never directly.
I never knew W. to quote Ruskin."I don't quote him—I don't care for him, don't read him—don't find he appeals to me. I've tried Ruskin on every way but he don't fit."
W. spoke about the first edition of the Leaves: "It is tragic—the fate of those books.
W. said about Franklin Evans: "I doubt if there is a copy in existence: I have none and have not had one for years; it was a pamphlet. Parke Godwin and another somebody (who was it?) came to see me about writing it. Their offer of cash payment was so tempting—I was so hard up at the time—that I set to work at once ardently on it (with the help of a bottle of port or what not).
As I was about to leave W. rose painfully from the sofa, saying: "A minute—yes, wait: there is a little thing I am going to ask you to do for me.
W. handed me the letter:
Phila. Apr. 28, '88. Mr. W. Whitman, Camden, N.J. Dear Sir:—We will receive your acct by the "Br. Prince," now due from Liverpool, consigned to us for your acct., one package containing apparel valued at £1.
We would thank you for your invoice covering same as early as possible in order to clear through customs on arrival. The package will come to us through the medium of Messrs. G. W. Wheatley & Co. If the apparel contained therein is worn at all, kindly say so when replying to the above; and oblige Yours truly O. G. Hempstead & Son.
W. wrote to Hempstead on the face of an envelope: "Please treat with the bearer of this, Mr. Horace Traubel, a personal friend of mine, the same as you would with me, and consider him as my fully authorized agent in the matter."
"I have no word from Lady Mount Temple direct but from Wheatley, as in Hempstead's letter. I suppose this means the usual rigmarole and expense: by the time we get the thing in our hands we will have paid out more than it is physically worth. Of course the gift is the gift—we appreciate that: we will not lose sight of the gift in our struggle to rescue it from customs.
In with W. "I've had a bad day of it,"
he said as I raised the light—"a bad day altogether."
He was on the sofa. I told him I had seen the Hempsteads about the Mount Temple gift."I know little about her. She is not literary: but she is evidently a reader of books. I have had several letters from her—she has bought several copies of Leaves of Grass direct from me. She is a friend of my Quaker friend, Mary Costelloe: it was no doubt through Mary that we came together."
"You are constantly getting gifts. You take them very composedly."
"Why shouldn't I? They are pleasant—we all like to be tickled, to be soft-soaped: we like to have our fur rubbed the right way."
"I had a Boston visitor today: Thayer, a young man, a Cambridge man, author of The Confessions of Hermes, published last year—a good fellow, interesting, of means I judge, who has travelled and makes a facile talker.
he reasoned, "is fairly a type of the literary feller—the class that looks upon literature as an exercise—as a bit of legerdemain—who have nothing native to themselves to give, but who keep right on writing, for what end God only knows.
"Well—what did the thing come to?"
"He unpacked himself in it—that's about all I can say."
"Is Thayer radical?"
"I think so—in his proclivities—but, like men of that class, always making I would not wait upon I should."
W. said he had just heard from Rhys, writing from the Union League, New York, on his way to Baltimore and to Philadelphia."We will see him again before he takes his steamer for the return trip."
"What do you think, Horace? He didn't, he will not, go to see Niagara. Think of a man coming to America and not seeing Niagara! It's refreshing. All the strangers come over and see a few of the ostentatious things and then feel satisfied that they are equipped for literary service. The foreign professionals cross the sea, visit Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago—see a few elect people—hurry, skurry—then go back again and write a book: all in a breath—all over night, metaphorically speaking.
W. talked of Arnold. "Arnold had no genius—only a peculiarly clever order of refined talent.
I mentioned Lafcadio Hearn."My attention was first called to him by William O'Connor, who may have met him personally—I don't feel clear on that point—but who at any rate entertained great hopes for his future—hopes that are being justified. I had one of his books here which Dr. Bucke carried off with him. Hearn has a delicate beautiful nature: he got into instant rapport with the Japanese. These story writers do not as a rule reach me—I find they stay too much on the surface of the ground.
I asked W. whether he had met Cable."Yes—once: and he is the thinnest, most uninteresting, man I ever struck—the typical Sunday School superintendent, with all that that signifies. I am told that he has a class, a Sunday School class, in Boston—that he conducts it from Sunday to Sunday. I don't see how such a man could interest anybody for ten minutes, much less an afternoon. In fact, the last person from whom I should expect any inspiration would be the average Sunday School teacher—the typical good man of the churches—the pillar—the money bag of the parish, though I do not, of course, class Cable, who has undisputed parts, with the money bags.
W. stopped. I waited, knowing he would go on. "The morals of the churches: they might be morals if they were not something
I have not yet succeeded in getting the waistcoat out of customs. "A lot of red tape has first to be encountered and escaped: then the customs bill will have to be paid: that damned customs bill, as utter a piece of piracy as being held up by a robber on the high seas."
"Don't think I have forgotten about the Boughs. A few days more and we will be ready. You can roll up your sleeves any time now."
Down to W. Found him sitting up in the parlor reading. "I am not much better, only a little more resolute. I have
He exhibited a customs bill for three dollars and fifteen cents for the waistcoat. He quite tartly denounced the tariff. "The waistcoat (aside from the sentiment attached) is probably not worth in itself ten cents to me—indeed, I have a dozen vests which I cannot even give away.
In touching upon some Washington episodes W. said: "I never had any desire to hunt up, even to see, the great men—indeed, avoided the magnates.
"I suppose the news in newspapers gets better every year. But as the news gets better the rest of the paper gets worse. I read editorials from force of habit, now and then: what else could excuse such a waste of time?"
He called my attention to a remark of a Methodist minister at a recent conference: "I propose to discuss this subject from a minister's point of view."
"What in hell's name is a minister's point of view?
W. had seen Ingersoll's endorsement of Gresham for President."Yes,"
said W., "I am for Gresham too if he has all them virtues. But has he? The political class is too slippery for me—even its best examples: I seem to be reaching for a new politics—for a new economy: I don't know quite what, but for something."
Touching E. L. Youmans, whom he had met several times, he said: "I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess."
"I've got a little memorandum here for your archives,"
he said: "take it along with you: tell me tomorrow what you think of it: that Emerson matter sometimes seems to have two sides."
He handed me an envelope bearing the printed legend: "Attorney General's office, official business"
with W.'s script added to this effect: "J. T. Trowbridge's anecdote (Sept. 6, 1865) of Rich. Moncton Milnes' letter."
"J. T. Trowbridge has called on me today,
an hour. Told me, on authority of Mr. Emerson, the following. An English gentleman who came to America, and among the Boston literati, not long since, was the bearer of a letter to me from Lord Houghton (Richard Moncton Milnes, the poet)—a friendly and generous letter about Leaves of Grass and also intended as a letter of introduction for the gentleman bearing it. stopt stopped But the Boston literati talked severely and warmly about the author of Leaves, dwelt on the manner in which he treated Mr. Emerson, and, in short, made such a story that the gentleman changed his plan of visiting W. W. and never delivered the letter sent him. "J. T. T. told me of Mr. Emerson's lectures—one in which he said, speaking of the very few who wrote English greatly—'there is also Walt Whitman, but he belongs yet to the fire clubs, and has not got into the parlors.'
"By J. T. T.'s account it is plain that Mr. E has quite thoroughly shifted his position from that taken in the letter of 1855, and makes the largest qualifications."
7.30 P.M. Found Harned at W.'s with Corning, candidate for the pulpit of the Unitarian church on Benson street. W. in a questioning mood."I like to cross-examine,"
said W. to me, once, "but I don't like to be cross-examined."
He was in a mood to cross-examine. He found Corning a willing witness. C. told W. he had spent ten years travelling in Europe. He was particularly interested in Greek art. W. quizzed him freely. After he was gone W. said: "He was talkative enough but I like his voice. I am particularly susceptible to voices: voices of range, magnetism: mellow, persuading voices.
W. asked Corning: "And what may be the subject of your sermon tomorrow?
"My subject? Why—the tragedy of the ages."
"And what may be the tragedy of the ages?"
"The crucifixion."
"What crucifixion?"
"The crucifixion of Jesus, of course."
"You call that the tragedy of the ages?"
"Yes—what do you call it?"
"It is a tragedy.
the tragedy? O no! I don't think I would be willing to called it the tragedy.""Do you know any tragedy that meant so much to man?"
"Twenty thousand tragedies—all equally significant."
"I'm no bigot—I don't think I make any unreasonable fuss over
"Probably not. But do it now—just for once. Think of the other tragedies, just for once: the tragedies of the average man—the tragedies of every-day—the tragedies of war and peace—the obscured, the lost, tragedies: they are all cut out of the same goods.
C. said: "I have no doubt all you say is true. You would not find me ready to quarrel with your point of view."
W. laughed quietly. "The masters in history have had lots of chance: they have been glorified beyond recognition: now give the other fellows a chance: glorify the average man a bit: put in a word for his sorrows, his tragedies, just for once, just for once."
"You ought to be in that pulpit instead of me, tomorrow, Mr. Whitman. You would tell the people something it would do them good to hear."
"I am not necessary,"
replied W. graciously: "You have the thing all in yourself if you will only let it out. We get into such grooves—that's the trouble—passing traditions and exaggerations down from one generation to another unquestioned. After awhile we begin to think even the lies must be true."
I had the waistcoat with me. It is knit, in red silk, and much too small for W. He examined it critically and said little."I suppose it will never be of the least practical use to me. The Lady Mount Temple meant well but hardly used good judgment. She must have made a guess on my size and guessed wrong."
He said he had received two books from authors today—one from Harriet Prescott Spofford, Ballads about Authors, and another from Edward Carpenter, Songs of Labor. "Mrs. Spofford, as well as Dick Spofford,
"Did I say I got a book from Edward Carpenter today?
"You have been so generally acknowledged in England."
"Hardly by that class: I must seem like a comical, a sort of circus, genius to men of the severe scholarly type. I am too different to be included in their perspective."
Matthew Arnold's Milton address appears in the Century."When you talk to me of 'style' it is as though you had brought me artificial flowers. Awhile ago, when I could get out more, I used to stop at Eighth street there, near Market, and look at the artificial flowers made with what marvellous skill. But then I would say: What's the use of the wax flowers when you can go out for yourself
"Speaking of style in that way,"
I said, "makes me think of something Lincoln said about policy—that it was his policy to have no policy."
"That's just it,"
exclaimed W. delightedly: "the style is to have no style."
"All such criticisms, such threats, such warnings, go to show how necessary it is to leave the poems just as they are—to keep them intact: to weather out all the objections, sincere and insincere. The poems are not only fit for the future—they are also fit for today. Today is their day—I stick to it, is their day."
Again: "You can detach poems from the book and wonder why they were written. But if you see them in their place in the book you know why I wrote them."
Mail not very heavy just now. "Mostly requests for autographs, which, as a rule, I do not send."
"I feel in much better feather today—I was out and happy in being out. I am an open air man: winged. I am also an open water man: aquatic. I want to get out, fly, swim—I am eager for feet again! But my feet are eternally gone."
I happened to say to W.: "I will be honest. I don't care much for Milton or Dante."
"I'll be honest, too. I don't care for them either. I like the moderns better. I agree with you that Millet says more, much more, to us today than Raphael or the
"The world is through with sermonizing—with the necessity for it: the distinctly preacher ages are nearly gone. I am not sorry."
W. had been reading Heine again—The Reisebilder. "I have the book here: it is good to read any time—Heine is good for almost any one of my moods.
I had been seeing Verdi's Otello. "Is it our opera—the vocalism of the new sort? or is it still the old business lingering on?"
"It is both, though mostly new."
"Good—we have rather expected Verdi to do heroic things."
"I thought you liked the old operas—preferred them?"
"I do like them—at least, I did—but their age is gone: we require larger measures, in music as in literature, to express the spirit of this age."
Touched upon a practical item. "I have been sending monthly bills to the Herald but tired of it—it seemed so commercial.
As I was getting ready to go W. handed me an envelope: "Here's another little scribble from Joaquin—it has several fine little touches—one especially sweet to me towards the end.
I took Miller along. This is the letter:
Easton, Pa., Sept 30, 71. My dear Mr. Whitman:
I have many messages for you from your friends in Europe which I promised and so much desired to deliver face to face: and day after day and week after week I promised myself and hoped to come to you, but now I shall not see you I return; for I am tired of towns and tomorrow set my face to the West. I am weary and want rest, and I cannot rest in cities. My address for a time will be San Francisco and since I cannot see you I should be proud of a letter from you. I am tired of books too and take but one with me; one Rossetti gave me, a Walt Whitman—Grand old man! till until The grandest and truest American I know, accept the love of your son, Joaquin Miller.
W. drove up to Harned's at six, evening. Seemed rather feeble as he alighted, but joyous. The open air had done him good. "It's fine to see the green again. I wonder how many more springs I will last?
Here are a few of W.'s detached sayings from the talk today: "I believe in the eligibility of the human soul for all perfect things."
"All the 'great phases' in history are no doubt fictions."
"There's a beautiful woman: she is not beautiful alone or chiefly because of her eyes, her complexion, the mellowness of her body, though these, too, play their parts, but because of a certain unity, atmosphere, a certain balance of light and shade, which accounts for every detail—finally gives the detail its proper environment: yes, takes leave of the detail in the whole."
"I believe in saints if they're far enough off."
W. spoke of "the nebulous South American republics which one day will melt in our North American sun."
"I have always wished to know more about certain mysteries in Greek art—of Greek painting and music—their comparative primitiveness as compared with their literature and sculpture."
"It is a sort of small bug business. You have to take a magnifying glass to inspect the arguments."
"I have this morning sent to The Herald the last little poem I had."
W. talked humorously of portraits, of traditions about public men. "I meet new Walt Whitmans every day. There are a dozen of me afloat.
"I am radical, severe, on that point,"
said W., "I am not willing to admit that we have any further serious use for the old style authoritative preacher. As I
But were not the old orthodoxies necessary? Would they still exist if they were not necessary? "Necessary? In a sense, yes. In another sense, no. Take that Methodist church we were talking about awhile ago—do you call that necessary?
Corning interjected a few mild protests which, however, had no effect on W. "The whole ideal of the church is low, loathsome, horrible—a sort of moral negation—as if men got down in the mud to worship—delighting in the filth: out of touch entirely with the great struggles of contemporary humanity."
W. talked then of America: "It is said reproachfully of America that she is material, but that to me is her glory—the body must precede the soul: the body is the other side of the soul."
"Is that not like putting off the good thing for the bad?"
"No—not at all—not more
"I do not assent to Gladstone's claim upon the attention of scholars: I do not feel that he deserves it: either for his Homeric or theological—perhaps not even for his political—work—though, I acknowledge, something may be really said about his politics. I think Gladstone a wearisome old man determined to keep in the swim
In answering the question: "Do you think the church could be safely destroyed?"
W. replied: "Yes, why not? Men make churches: men may destroy churches. I see no use for the church: it lags superfluous on the stage. Yet that is not the whole story.
W. said: "I believe in immortality, and by that I mean
identity. I know I have arrived at this result more by what may be called feeling than formal reason—but I believe it: yes, I know it."Howells, Aldrich, good fellows: I have met them and like them (Howells especially is genial and ample—rather inclined to be big—full size)—but they are
Some one kicked. Hawthorne deserved to be exempt from this classification. thin—no weight: such men are in certain ways important—they run a few temporary errands but they are not out for immortal service: perhaps even Hawthorne, though not surely Hawthorne: Hawthorne, in whom there is a morbid streak to which I can never accommodate myself."Well—you may be right: I know he was a man of talent, even genius: he was even a master, yes a master, within certain limits. Still, I think he is monotonous, he wears me out: I do not read him with pleasure."
Before I left W. asked me: "What did you make of the Trowbridge memorandum I gave you the other day?"
"What did you make out of the Emerson item? You have said you thought Emerson never qualified. Here you say he did."
W. replied at once: "There was an if attached.
If Trowbridge understood right, if, if—but who can decide about that if? Since that story, since that if, other things have occurred to make the Trowbridge version seem impossible. I have had letters myself from here and there tending to show that Emerson was rather silenced than changed.""Don't you think we are making too much of this Emerson business any way?"
"Yes I do—let us drop it—drop it right here. O'Connor used to make the plea that he kept harping upon it not because it would help Walt Whitman to have the thing settled right but because it would help Waldo Emerson. After all it don't much matter what Emerson thought of me or what I thought of him. The public want to know whether I have been an honest servant
"The New England crowd below stairs didn't like me—couldn't stand me—good or bad felt they must declare against me. And that was right. I could only have commanded their approval by being false to the job I had to do. I have been turning over that bit of ground a little today. This letter from Professor Palmer recalled it."
Passing an envelope over to me. "See how he looks at me. He is sweet, affable, courteous: he takes me, not for all in all but for part in part, this or that—yes, with mild qualification: yet he takes me on good behavior. I like all these fellows—they are hearty, as far as they dare be, as far as their scholarliness will let them be, but they never quite know when to say yes and let yes be."
This is the letter, which W. finally called "a characteristic whiff from Cambridge with a leaning towards mercy."
Cambridge, Feb. 20, 1885. Dear Mr. Whitman:I want to thank you for the beautiful photograph of yourself sent through Miss Smith.
It is too true a likeness of you as you are to represent the author of the Leaves of Grass. The picture which hung on wall showed that person better—his paganism, his full senses, his readiness to identify himself with all things, his insubordination, and his recklessness of the fine relations which change a world of things into a world of persons. If I could prefer a poet to a man, I should like that picture better. But this will be the best reminder of the beautiful ripened spirit who met me in Camden and said: "I did the work sincerely. yr your So it is honorable. God shall use it to help men, or else let him throw it away." With warm regard, I am
Sincerely yours, G. H. Palmer.
W. spoke of material successes in civilization. "What do they show? Not necessarily much: we make a big noise about the things we have done, accumulated—what we can do and will do: with some of this I have some sympathy: but after all the main question is, what is all this doing for all the men, women, children of America?
Professor Adler and Tom Dudley had a hot discussion at Harned's in which D. spoke in severely disrepectful terms of the European masses, W. resenting it."I will not believe it, Dudley—I will not believe it. Give them a chance—give them a chance—they will be as good as the rest. All that man needs to be good is the chance. History has so far been busy—institutions, rulers, have been busy—denying him of that chance."
W. said again: "In that narrow sense I am no American—count me out."
Bonsall argued in favor of restricting emigration. W. took him up: "Restrict nothing—keep everything open: to Italy, to China, to anybody. I love America, I believe in America, because her belly can hold and digest all—anarchist, socialist, peacemakers, fighters, disturbers or degenerates of whatever sort—hold and digest all.
"How graphic, touching, powerful that is! What a substantial, rounded fellow the Colonel certainly proves to be! He is in a way a chosen man. There always was something in the idea that the prophets are called. Ingersoll is a prophet—he, too, is called.
This was what I read:
"During the time he was with us he was almost constantly by the sick and wounded, and was as kind to them as though they had been his own children. At the battle of Shiloh, he gave his blankets to the wounded, then slept upon the ground uncovered, with the chilling rain pouring upon him the whole dreary night, and at that time, as I believe, laid the foundation for the disease that terminated his life.
Permit me to say that I sympathize with you deeply in your irreparable loss. Generous men are not indigenous to this world. They are exotics from the skies. There is no such thing as being consoled for their loss. Their memory is worthy of and demands the bitterest of tears. And yet, believing as you do in the immortality of the soul, the dark cloud of grief now enveloping your heart, if not dissipated, will at least be adorned and glorified by the sweet bow of Hope."
"That,"
said W., "seems to catch the Colonel in his more affirmative mood.
W. handed me an envelope marked as follows: "Sent about Aug 15 or 16 '63—letter to S. B. Haskell Breseport Chemung Co N Y"
—and said: "I promised to give you some sample memoranda about the hospitals. Here is a letter—the draft of a letter—I sent to the parents of a boy who died. It was a pitiful, though after all only a specimen, case: they died all about us there just about in the same way—noble, sturdy, loyal boys.
I read the letter. I must have shown I was much moved. W. said gently: "I see that you understand it. Well, I understand it too. I know what you feel in reading it because I know what I felt in writing it. When such emotions are honest they are easily passed along."
I asked W.: "Do you go back to those days?"
"I do not need to. I have never left them. They are here, now, while we are talking together—real, terrible, beautiful days!"
W. was in a very quiet mood. "Kiss me good night!"
he said. I left.
Washington, August 10 1863 Mr and Mrs Haskell, Dear Friends
I thought it would be soothing to you to have a few lines about the last days of your son Erastus Haskell, of Company K 141st N Y Vol—I write in haste, but I have no doubt any thing about Erastus will be welcome. From the time he came into Armory Square Hosp until he died there was hardly a day but I was with him a portion of the time—if not in the day then at night—(I am merely a friend visiting the wounded and sick soldiers). From almost the first I felt somehow that Erastus was in danger, or at least was much worse than they supposed in the hospital. As he made no complaint they thought him nothing so bad. I told the doctor of the ward over and over again he was a very sick boy, but he took it lightly, and said he would certainly recover; he said, "I know more about these fever cases than you do—he looks very sick to you, but I shall bring him out all right"—Probably the doctor did his best—at any rate about a week before Erastus died he got really alarmed, and after that he and all the doctors tried to help him but it was too late. Very possibly it would not have made any difference. I think he was broken down before he came to hospital here—I believe he came here about July 11th—I took to him. He was a quiet young man, behaved always so correct and decent, said little—I used to sit on the side of his bed—I said once, jokingly"You don't talk much Erastus, you leave me to do all the talking."He only answered quietly, "I was never much of a talker"—The doctor wished every one to cheer him up very lively—I was always pleasant and cheerful with him, but never tried to be lively. Only I tried once to tell him amusing narratives &c but after I had talked a few minutes I saw that the effect was not good, and after that I never tried it again—I used to sit by the side of his bed generally silent, he wasfor breath and with the heat, and I would fan him—occasionally he would want a drink—some days he dozed a good deal—sometimes when I would come in he woke up, and I would lean down and kiss him, he would reach out his hand and pat my hair and beard as I sat on the bed and leaned over him—it was painful to see the working in his throat to breathe. opprest oppressed They tried to keep him up by giving him stimulants, wine, &c—these effected him and he wandered a good deal
of the time—I would say "Erastus, don't you remember me—don't you remember my name dear son?"Once he looked at me quite a while when I asked him, he mentioned over a name or two, (one sounded like Mr. Satchell)—and then he said, sadly, quite slow, as if to himself,"I don't remember,—I don't remember,—I don't remember."It was quite pitiful—One thing was he could not talk very comfortably at any time, his throat and chest were bad—I have no doubt he had some complaint besides typhoid. In my limited talks with him he told me about his brothers and sisters, and his parents, wished me to write to them and send them all his love—I think he told me about his brothers being away, living in New York city or elsewhere.—From what he told me I take it that he had been poorly for several months before he came, the first week in July I think he told me he was at the regimental hospital, at a place called Baltimore Corners, down not very many miles from White House, on the Peninsula. For quite a long time previous, although he kept around, he was not well—didn't do much—was in the band as a fifer—while he lay sick here he had the fife on the little stand by his cot,—he once told me that if he got well he would play me a tune on it, "but,"he says"I am not much of a player yet"—I was very anxious he should be saved and so were they all—he was well used by attendants—he was tanned and looked well in the face when he came, was in pretty good flesh, never complained, behaved manly and proper—I assure you I was attracted to him very much,—Some nights I sat by his cot
far in the night, the lights would be put out and I sat there silently hour after hour—he seemed to like to have me sit there, but he never cared much to talk—I shall never forget those nights, in the dark hospital, it was a curious and solemn scene, the sick and wounded lying all around, and this dear young man close by me, lying on what proved to be his death-bed. till until I do not know his past life, but what I saw and know of he behaved like a noble boy. I feel if I could have seen him under right circumstances of health &c I should have got much attached to him—he made no display or talk—he met his fate like a man—I think you have reason to be proud of such a son and all his relatives have cause to treasure his memory. He is one of the thousands of our unknown American young men in the ranks about whom there is no record or fame, no fuss made about their dying unknown but who are the real precious and royal ones of this land, giving up, aye even their young and precious lives, in the country's cause. Poor dear son, though you were not my son, I felt to love you as a son, what short time I saw you, sick and dying there.—But it is well as it is—perhaps better. Who knows whether he is not far better off, that patient and sweet young soul, to go, than we are to stay? Farewell, dear boy,—it was my opportunity to be with you in your last days,—I had no chance to do much for you, nothing could be done—only you did not lay there among strangers without having one near who loved you dearly, and to whom you gave your dying kiss. Mr and Mrs Haskell, I have thus written rapidly whatever came up, about Erastus, and must now close. Though we are strangers, and shall probably never see each other. I send you and all Erastus' brothers and sisters my love.
I live when at home in Brooklyn, New York, in Portland Avenue, 4th floor, north of Myrtle.
W. asleep on the sofa when I got to the house. 7.30 evening. I sat there and read for awhile. When he was aroused we had a talk."I had a volume from France today—poems—Les Cygnes—written by Francis Viele-Griffin—accompanied with a letter from the author which I will get your father to translate for me."
In the volume was this inscription: "To Walt Whitman—the homage and sym-
This is a translation of the letter:
15 Quai de Bourbon. Paris, April 26, 1888. Sir and Dear Poet,In admiration of some of your poems, which I read in an edition, ridiculously "expurgated," published by Chatto & Windus, in London, I feel constrained to have the Parisian people share the estimation in which I hold your high lyrical talent.
Would it be too much to ask of you that you indicate the volume (the edition) which you would prefer having rendered in the French? My friend, Jules Laforgue (who died only too prematurely) has already given to the public two of your poems, and the reception they met with seems to presage a new victory for your works.
In expectation of your kind reply, Sir and dear poet, permit me to assure you of my sympathy in art and of my profound admiration.
Francis Viele-Griffin.
W. said: "I have never been translated into the French except in bits. It is an interesting mystery to me, how I would pass the ordeal of getting into another language. I shall never know, of course: I know no language but my own.
W. added: "I had a good friend in Washington who translated for me viva voce from the French and did it well. Through him I got rather directly acquainted with some of the French master-craftsmen—with Hugo, for instance. My whole—not exactly that: my best—knowledge of Hugo was derived from that man."
Referring to The Path (Theosophic) which he had on his lap: "Even the Theosophists claim me.
N.Y. Herald today contains W.'s poem—
"What did it mean to you?"
I explained. He asked again: "Did that occur to you at once or with a struggle?"
"At once."
"Good! then the poem is better than I believed."
W. recalled a Robert Collyer incident. W. had said to him of preaching what he has so often said to us—that the day of the preacher is past. "Collyer turned the statement back upon the poets: 'Why write poetry any more? All the songs were long ago sung.' It quite embarrassed me on the instant—was an unexpected shot: I had no answer ready for it: indeed, I don't know that there is an answer. Collyer's not deep but he's damned cute—for the preacher class very damned cute: for, as you know, I don't as a rule expect anything of the preachers.
W. again: "I notice that Morse in his recent writing drops his middle initial H. That is right. Rolleston has lately
Mrs. Moulton wrote up an account of her visit to W. W. for the Boston Herald. Talcott Williams sent a clip of it over to W. with this message: "I know you will be interested in this, which comes both from the Boston Sunday Herald and Mrs. Moulton, and feel sure that you will not object to her reference to you, all written in the great love each and all of us feel for one who has made life better worth living and to none more than to yours loyally and gratefully."
"Well—were you interested?"
"Not much."
"Why?"
"I don't know why. She is too effusive."
"Then you would
"I don't say that: there's no harm in the praise: but we must praise right and blame right."
W. called my attention to a pamphlet of sixteen pages of doggerel inscribed: "To Walt Whitman (America's Great Poet)"
written, as he says, "by a woman who evidently thinks I am in danger and wants to save me from hell fire. There are eleven poems in the book preceded by a Prologue, all directed to show that the religion of Jesus is superior to the religion of Walt Whitman.
W. much amused. "I ought to be saved in the end. I should say fifty or a hundred people are busy all the time trying to convert Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass. Something ought to come of it all."
Referring to Sylvester Baxter: "He is one of my cordial, truest friends—an out and out assenter to the Leaves: radical, progressive, with lots of look ahead. Baxter has gone off into Theosophy: all our rebels go off somewhere."
"The Greeks still make excellent wines."
W. replied: "Then you see they are not altogether degenerate!"
My sister had sent W. some cakes. "I was up, it was near midnight: I felt a gnawing something here—a void"
—indicating his stomach and laughing—"so I took some of the cakes and ate them alone, in the dark, in the dead silence.
Bucke likes Morse's first Whitman better than the second."You are right—Bucke is wrong. The second is decidedly the best—I would admit nothing the other way. The second has my vote."
Referred curiously to the skyscrapers. "Are they building them to
Spoke of Charles Lamb: "A dear fellow and a hero, too."
"This letter will give you a little notion of his private regard for me as well as of the reasons he is willing to give for his public espousal of my work. Dowden does not melt himself and melt me, as Symonds does: he is more stiffly literary: but he comes dangerously near to our standard.
Winstead, Temple Road Rathmines, Dublin, March 16, 1876. My dear Mr. Whitman.Yesterday your post-card and your very welcome books reached me.
I spent a good part of the day over Two Rivulets, the Preface, and the Memoranda of the War, and was not far from you, I think, in feeling, however separated in place. I seem to see some gains from the illness which has grieved us. Tones and tints have passed from it into your writings which add to their comprehensiveness and their truth and tenderness. At the same time I hold to L of G and accept it,—taking it as a whole,—with entire satisfaction. It seems to me more for the soul, and for things beyond physiology, than you, contrasting it with your projected songs more specially for the soul, quite recognize. The non-moral parts of it, such parts as simply are the "tally" of nature, are taken up into other portions of and are spiritualized, and each part belongs to the other. In L. of G. Leaves of Grass I find a complete man, not body alone, or chiefly, but body and soul. That its direct tendency (and not alone its indirect) is to invigorate and reinforce the soul I feel assured. But in contrast to the pride and buoyancy, and resonant tones, of L. and G., the L. of G. Leaves of Grass tenderer, more penetrating, more mystic and withdrawn tones of Passage to India, and of the recent poems and prose, seem to me to be again as serving the same, and not other, purposes, but for other moments, other moods and natures—and I think many of your future readers may gain an entrance to your earlier writings through your latter and that for some persons this will be the fittest way.
At present I have little doubt you ought not to set yourselfto any brain work, but at the same time you ought not to think of ceasing to write, for every now and again the mood will come and you will write something as admirable as anything you have written heretofore. Your friends here want to think of you as free from all pressure to write, and anxieties about material well-being, with your spirit open to all pleasant and good influences the Earth and the Season and your own thoughts bring to you. The Newspaper paragraph you sent Rossetti and me has made us fear it may not be so with you, and we remain in suspense as to whether we might not make some move which would relieve us from some of this dissatisfied feeling on your behalf.Ought it not to be a duty, too, of—not the American public to recognize your gift to America as a writer, but—the American Government to recognize your services, as of one who saved the lives, and lightened the sufferings, of many American citizens? It would be honorable to the government and to you. I write knowing little of the actual probability of this, but I believe in England we would be careful of such a voluntary public servant. We are all well, my wife and children and I.
Always affectionately yours Edward Dowden.
W. added: "I hear every now and then from Dowden back there. He has not kept his ardor up, quite, I think.
Took to Whitman, who came to the door himself, my father's translation of Griffin's letter."I never could have known how they were done, of course, as I have absolutely no conversancy with the language. You ought to see the Laforgue poems—I want to hunt them up for you—I have them here.
I exclaimed: "The gospel is spreading!"
"Yes—as fire once started in the grass."
W. added: "It is a new experience to be successful: I always seem to know what to do with failure but success is a puzzle to me."
Would Griffin likely publish an expurgated book? "Damn the expurgated books!
W. spoke
"I never got any money from it. But the Rhys book—the Walter Scott book—has a better record. They sent me fifty dollars.
He laughed very good-naturedly. "Is this my little growl? Well—you must let me have the growl—listen patiently—my growl is worse than my spring."
"It is modest—it sounds well—I shall write him. The best part of Griffin's note is in what he refrains from saying: the best of us is never put into words."
W. asked if I had read Mrs. Moulton's letter to the Boston Herald and described her as "an emotional, full-blooded, somewhat gushing woman."
"But,"
he continued, "I always reflect that such characteristics carry with them their own excuse, being in their own way natural, as I prefer to say."
"You often hear me object to gush: I like love, I like freedom, I like any honest emotional utterance—but I hate to have people come at me with malice—throw themselves into my arms—insist upon themselves, upon their affection. I shy at it. William O'Connor used to say this was rather a contradiction between my life and my philosophy. I don't know—perhaps it is—but it is a feeling I can never rid myself of."
W. never met John Weiss and Samuel Johnson and has never read their books. "I know practically nothing of that group at first hand—the secondary transcendental group. Outside of Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, I have not had any relations with the New England literati.
We did then and there go on for an hour in that strain, I doing most of the talking, in answer to his questions. It was like being in the witness box at court. When we were through W. remarked: "I feel as if I was getting acquainted with a new world—I feel guilty—I have neglected those remarkable men: but I hate theological, metaphysical, discussion so heartily that I run at the sight of a controversial book—always, of course, excepting Huxley and Ingersoll, as you know."
"I have had different opinions about Palmer's prose Homer—have liked it and not liked it and liked it again and so on—it comes and goes like indigestion. I think Buckley's translation the best extant—I read it many years ago: the impression it made upon me has proved to be indelible. Bryant's and Derby's are damnable—I don't know which is worse than the other—they are both so stiff, so bad, it hardly seems anything could be worse than either.
Had never read Taylor's translation of Faust."a cheap copy."
"I have always meant to read it—it always seemed so formidable."
Fiction was debated the other night at a meeting of the Congregational Club, New York. "perhaps the greatest artist since Hawthorne."
W. said as to this: "The sense in which 'artist' is used there is to me as a bad smell to the nostrils. I refuse to consider literature in that light.
"I rather doubt—it was the original policy of the critics, the professional literateurs, to ignore me—to freeze me out."
"When they found they could not freeze you out they tried to burn you out."
"Exactly—exactly: but neither heat nor cold has killed our bud: the Leaves have lasted, lasted, seasons in and out, hates in and out."
W. has never met Whittier."I wrote him on his last birthday and had a short note in the winter from him—a note, however, that was purely formal."
Was Whittier adverse to Leaves of Grass? "It is hard to say yes, it would be harder to say no. A correspondent went out to see him some time not long ago from Boston—they discussed literary matters together, my name being brought up with others—but he was very dextrous in evading any committal phrase pro or con.
Something Joesph Cook has been saying about Paine aroused W."It is always so: the tree with the best apples gets the worst clubbing."
I put in: "Because they are best able to stand it"
—he repeating the phrase after me—"That's ever so true—ever so true—they are best able to stand it."
This reference to Percy's Reliques: "It takes you in to the birth of man: it is always a young book."
The Book News contains a frontispiece portrait of Mrs. Moulton. W. says: "It shows the best of her."
I asked: "When will they put your phiz in their gallery?"
"Never! I don't believe in their gallery—the Louise Chandler Moulton,
"Tom,"
said W., "has been in: sometimes he is like a blustering day. Well, a blustering day is part of a year, too: I like all kinds of days: Tom's kind the same's any other kind. Tom's chief trait to me, after his capacity for good will, is his honesty. Tom goes to a heap of trouble trying to hide his good traits at times—but he never fools me: I know him for what he is every time.
"Dr. Brinton,"
said W., "seems to be always busy."
"His work is always true and of the right sort. Brinton is a master-man—stern, resolute, loyal—yes, what I like (in the best sense) to call adhesive: a good comrade, a ripe intellect.
W. was looking for a paper for me but could not find it."I guess I'll stop right here—I will wait until we have daylight in this room—when I will come across it naturally: to try to hunt a thing in the dark in this confusion is out of the question—the more you stir things up the more you mix 'em."
Gave me New York Herald containing Nineteenth Century Club's debate on "toleration" between Ingersoll, Coudert and Stewart Woodford."I am done with it: you will like to see it. Ingersoll uses them both up as a matter of course—does it easily, nonchalantly—sits back in his chair—I should imagine, this way—shuts his eyes: as easily as this sweeps them right and left with a movement of his arm."
Longfellow was mentioned. W. recalled a visit from L. "He came with Childs, but I was not at home—had just started off for the ferry. They came after me, followed me, and inquired of one of the men at the wharf, who told them I was on one of the boats, for which they waited, but our talk was very short."
"His manners were stately, conventional—all right but all careful."
Was his conversation striking? "Not at all—he did not branch out or attract."
Was he at all like Emerson? "Not a bit.
I described a walk in the country beyond Camden."After all, it is the city man, often the book man, the scholar man, who best appreciates objective nature—sees nature in her large meanings, growths, evolutions: who enters most naturally, sympathetically, into the play of her phenomena, the divine physical processes."
Again: "Ingersoll could not come to my reception in New York: was out of town or busy: but he sent a note containing excuses and some fine things (witty, beautiful things) better than excuses. The Colonel is always my friend—always on the spot with his good-will if not in person."
W. talked of portraits."the unceremonious—the unflattered. Of all portraits of me made by artists I like Eakins' best: it is not perfect but it comes nearest being me.
"They are far back letters—1871: they belong together. Rossetti gives in his a rather apt sketch of Dowden—has some interesting things to say about the Commune: Dowden writes a little more about his own faith in the Leaves—makes a confession, hits off in a sketchy way some other fellows over there who are interested in my work.
56 Euston Square, London, N.W., 9 July, '71. Dear Mr. Whitman,
I was much obliged to you for the kind thought of sending me your fine verses on the Parisian catastrophes. My own sympathy (far unlike that of most Englishmen) was very strongly with the Commune— i.e., with extreme, democratic, and progressive republicanism against a semi-republicanismmay at any moment (and wh. which will, if the ultras don't make the attempt too dangerous) degenerate into some form of monarchy exhibiting more or less of the accustomed cretinism.I fancy that unless some one sends it to you from here, you may probably not see an article on your position as a poet lately published in the Westminster Review. I therefore take the liberty of posting this article to you. I don't know who has written it; but incline to think the writer must be Edward Dowden, Professor of English Literature in Trinity College, Dublin—a young man who no doubt has a good literary career before him.
He is at any rate, I know, one of your most earnest admirers. Lately he delivered at the College a lecture on your poems, with much applause, I am told: and the same week some one else in Dublin delivered another like lecture. There are various highly respectful references also to your poetry in a work of some repute recently published here—Our living Poets, by Forman (dealing directly with English poets only). You may perhaps be aware that the Westminster Review is a quarterly, founded by Jeremy Bentham, and to this day continuing to be the most advanced of the English reviews as regards liberal politics and speculation.
I trust Mr. O'Connor is well: will you please to remember me to him if opportunity offers.
Believe me with reverence and gratitude.
Your friend, W. M. Rossetti.
Montenotte, Cork, Ireland, July 23, 1871. My dear Sir,
I wished to send you a copy of the July No. of the Westminster Review containing an article by me which attempts a study of one side of your work in literature. I wrote to Mr. W. M. Rossetti to inquire for your address and he tells me that he has already forwarded a copy to you. But I will not be defrauded by Mr. Rossetti of the pleasure I had promised myself, and therefore you must accept a second copy of the Review (which I post with this letter) and do what you like with it. I ought to say that the article expresses very partially the impression which your writings have made on me. It keeps, as is obvious, at a single point of view and regards only what becomes visible from that point.
But also I wrote more coolly than I feel because I wanted those, who being ignorant of your writings are perhaps prejudiced against them, to say: "Here is a cool judicious impartial critic who finds a great deal in Whitman—perhaps after all we are mistaken."Perhaps this will be unsatisfactory to you, and you would prefer that your critic should let the full force of your writings appear in his criticisms and attract those who are to be attracted and repel those who are to be repelled, and you may value the power of repulsion as well as that of attraction. But so many persons capable of loving your work, by some mischance or miscarriage or by some ignorance or removable error fail in their approach to you, or do not approach at all, that I think I am justified in my attempt.You have many readers in Ireland, and those who read do not feel a qualified delight in your poems—do not love them by degree, but with an absolute, a personal love. We none of us question that yours is the clearest, and sweetest, and fullest American voice. We grant as true all that you claim for yourself. And you gain steadily among us new readers and lovers.
If you care at all for what I have written it would certainly be a pleasure to hear this from yourself. If you do not care for it you will know that I wished to do better than I did. My fixed residence is 50 Wellington Road, Dublin, Ireland.
My work there is that of Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin. We have lately had a good public lecture in Dublin from a Fellow of Trinity College on your poems—R. Y. Tyrrell, a man who knows Greek poetry very well, and who finds it does not interfere with his regard for yours. If the lecture should at any time be published, I shall send you a copy. I am, dear sir,
Very truly yours Edward Dowden.
W. said of the Dowden article: "It was written with restraint—it advanced, retired, gave, took back—finally came out with a balance on my side. That is the method of the literary historian—he is determined that no steam shall be wasted.
Took Whitman lilacs. W. said: "Tom has been in today. He brought Donnelly's book along—The Cryptogram: I told him I wanted to look it over.
Had W. yet written to Viele-Griffin?"No: but I intended doing so today. I am not much of a correspondent—never was—always wrote when I had something definite to say but never for the sake of writing—never for the sake of keeping up what is called a correspondence. Such correspondence as that of Carlyle and Emerson would be impossible to me, though I see it is all right in itself and for them.
Something got us talking of Beecher. "Lots of people think it their business to damn Beecher: I say if that is their business let them damn Beecher: it won't hurt Beecher any and may help the damners some. I am not in the damning business."
"Or the saving business either."
"That's so—or the saving business, either: I'm just alive and interested in life. I met Beecher a number of times—half a dozen at least: once right here, in Camden, at the ferry. He was to lecture one night at Freehold (it was two or three years before he died)—had an hour of waiting at the West Jersey station. I met him there in that casual way—we
W. stopped a minute or so. I said nothing."Ministers are rarely friendly to me—perhaps are a little more tolerant than they were at the start, though damned little. There have been some exceptions—a few orthodox preachers who were far more revolutionary than they supposed themselves to be. It is only fair to say of Beecher that he was not a minister. You wrote a good line on that point yourself once."
"What was that?"
"You spoke of some minister—I don't know who he was—and you said: 'There was so much of him man there was very little of him left to be minister.' That was very good. It perfectly describes Beecher."
"I know nothing against Abbott and nothing in his favor: I do not regard him as a positive force however he is looked at. After Beecher he is feeble enough—like a theatre-storm after a real storm out of doors."
"The book is too deliberate—holds back too much: is like a conservative charge to a jury. There are touches in Stedman that seem like genius—but just as you are about to accept him as a luminary he snuffs the light out himself. Have you got so far as the Poe yet?
W. had called on a rather testy Camden scholar, Dr. Reynell Coates, and had not met with a kind reception. W. said: "I may sum Coates up by saying that he invited me to a set dinner and had nothing on his table when I got there but pickles."
"I was left out. Why not? It was not surprising: I am not even today accepted in New York by the great bogums—much less then.
"I have often tried to put myself in the place of a minister—to imagine the forty and odd corns he must avoid treading on."
Laughingly: "I often get mad at the ministers—they are almost the only people I do get
"There was nothing at all like that: I never do quote, repeat lines—indeed, could not do it even if I wished to: I remember very few things out of the mass I have written—I could repeat but very few complete lines. Any one of you fellows knows more about my book than I do myself. I wrote the book—why should I be expected to remember it? The best people will tell you I ought to forget it as fast as I can.
W. got a lot of fun out of this recitative. I remember that W. at Harned's when called upon to do so could not repeat three lines of the little poem Twilight which recently appeared in The Century. We had to get the magazine for him. He tried on another occasion to recover the Death Carol but could only get a line here and there—not one whole verse: probably knew a dozen lines in all. By the way, the little Twilight poem, like his Emperor William poem, brought him some excited correspondence."I suppose I had a dozen letters objecting to the last word, 'oblivion.' That word, they
Referring to Griffin again W. said: "I never knew any other language but the English.
W. talked of "Shakespeare worship." "It is like Corning's tragedy of the ages: only one Christ, only one, for forever and forever. Only one Shakespeare for forever to forever. To me that is rank nonsense—it leads to imbecility. Yet it may be a safety valve. Some people need harmless enthusiasms: better zest, ardor, warmth, decision, then nothing—than merely colorless inanity: better misapplied heat than no heat at all.
Walt's great phrase of excuse for the prejudices and bigotries which he encounters—for frailties which in themselves are offensive to his perception of justice—is, "they justify themselves—they justify themselves."
"But she justifies herself by the fact of her temperament and the ways of her life."
Coates' irascibility had super-
"He was supremely irritable—he fired off almost before his gun was loaded: I must have cut a sorry figure in his eyes: he no doubt had the best of reasons for his outbreak."
"Their teaching is mostly impudence—their knowledge is mostly ignorance—they are arrogant, spoiled."
Yet he suffers them because "they after all justify themselves in the scheme of evolution."
"the porcelains, chinas, hangings, laces, fine dinners, equipages, balls, shows, hypocrisies, hard-heartednesses that make it up,"
arguing: "I hate it—hate it with my body and with the rest of me: but what I am to do? Try to find a place outside the universe for it? It, too, justifies itself, don't you see?"
Some one was saying severe things of someone else."Don't do it—save the severe things for yourself."
The undercurrent of it all is a protest, but he tempers his mortal protest with the recognition of our immortal destiny. "Why should I take judgment in hand? I throw away all my weapons—all, all: all weapons of harm—every weapon: I want to meet every man, worst man or best man, with the open hand."
W. had been reading Ingersoll's oration on Conkling."It is not among the Colonel's best pieces: it is too usual for the Colonel: too much like what everybody thinks and says. The Colonel is best when he is off on his own account—letting himself go, go anywhere and however, not caring who is hit."
W. again: "I have not been without friends even among the Catholics. I have had friends in the priesthood—half a dozen of them.
After a brief pause W. went on: "I have seen the preparations for the great dinners of state at Washington—then the sumptuous fare: the swell military grandees, the political fol-de-rol, the brilliant lights—social form and superficial manners: it is all very staggering in a hollow sort of way. But I have seen something more convincing than that—a simple group of half a dozen veterans gathered about a plain board table, with plenty and good to eat, in a house that was perfectly plain, telling their stories—stories of things done and missed being done, stories of heroism and cowardice, stories of meanness and generosity—stories, yes, of death, of suffering, of sacrifice: all told so quietly, too, with no feathers, no tufts, no one wanting to call special attention to himself—everything being kept on a level lower than false ostentation, higher than false humility.
After ruminating: "I may have written these pictures in words somewhere: have I? at any rate, they show what I mean.
W. drove up to Harned's just after one. When helped into the parlor he announced that he felt "miseble, as the darkies say."
"Never mind the toddy today, Tom: I can't take it—it would finish me."
W. was very pale—at dinner very abstemious. "I almost didn't get here,"
said W. "I feel damned bad today: some time before long I'll get one of these bad days and that'll be the end of me: then you fellows will have a funeral on your hands. Have you got a funeral ready?"
W. laughed. Then: "I remember a darky story.
Corning said to W.: "I'd like to see you in a pulpit once."
"Once, did you say? once? That's all it would be: I wouldn't last more than once but I'd make all the fur fly while I lasted!"
"I never met him, but his wife has been here in Camden—visited me. I do not think I would have cared for him, all in all, for a companion: he was rather morbid and more than a bit whimsical—lacking, I am sure, in guts—guts: a man, a sure man, must have guts. Stevenson was friendly to me—has rare gifts: I do not dispute his powers: considering his persistent illness, his rather black background, is rather sunny, rather cheerful. Yes, he was complimentary to the Leaves: not outrightly so—saying yes with reservations: but being a man in whom I dare not waits upon I would he does not state his conviction unequivocally.
"I have read Browning but I do not feel that I know him. I realize him—that is, I see him for a great figure—I see him for a proud achievement—O yes—I do—but I do not feel that I know his books. I have read The Ring and the Book, Paracelsus, some scattering poems (many of them, in fact)—that is all. My impression has been not that he was not for anybody but that he was not for me, though Professor Corson, who has been here to pay me a visit, says that I am mistaken, that Browning is my man, only that I have not so far got at him the right way.
"though I have had letters from him—two or three. I could not read his books—it was impossible, impossible: Boyesen depressed me by his inanity."
W. finally has finished the Boswell. "I read it through, looked it through, rather—persisted in spite of fifty temptations to throw it down.
W. to me: "Your father was in the other day—we talked about Goethe and Schiller—mostly about Schiller: Schiller's sickness—his victory over his sickness.
Corning asked W.: "In your hospital work in Washington did you also come up against Confederate soldiers?"
"Yes indeed—lots of 'em—lots of 'em: in fact, some of my best friends in the hospitals were probably Southern boys.
Politics. Talk of Cleveland and Blaine."Four years ago I did not vote but would have voted for Cleveland if I had voted at all. Not that I prefer Cleveland personally: on the contrary I am not much impressed with his personality. I rather like Blaine—perhaps prefer him: he is strong, brilliant, with perhaps one drawback—he is a little shifty. But I felt that the election of Blaine would be a slap in the face of the South: we had already conquered, subdued, subjugated the South—got it right under our heel"
—bringing his foot down with emphasis—"and why should we rub it in?
"What was that?"
"Harry was arguing for the Republican party: you said, 'the negro will get his due from the negro—from no one else.' I say so too: that is the whole story, beginning, middle and end."
Some discussion of officialdom in Washington, W. arguing: "From my experience at Washington I should say that honesty is the prevailing atmosphere."
Somebody laughed."Let me explain that. I do not refer to swell officials—the men who wear the decorations, get the fat salaries (they are mostly dubious enough, though not all): I refer to the average clerks, the obscure crowd, who after all run the government: they are on the square. I have not known hundreds—I have known thousands—of them. I went to Washington as everybody goes there prepared to see everything done with some furtive intention, but I was disappointed—pleasantly disappointed. I found the clerks mainly earnest, mainly honest, anxious to do the right thing—very hard working, very attentive. Why, the clerk jobs are often the worst slavery: the clerks are not overpaid, they are underpaid.
Donnelly's Cryptogram was mentioned. Moorhouse said: "It is indeed a cipher that is a cipher."
This aroused W. who exclaimed: "Not so fast—I'm not so sure about that: there's a heap big lot of questions to be asked and answered before
"Are you then prepared to say the plays were written by Bacon?"
"Not at all—I should not be prepared to go as far as that: I only say they were not written by William
W. speaking of the idea of immortality, of the "fact" as he prefers to call it, added: "When I say immortality I say identity—the survival of the personal soul—your survival, my survival."
"It could not be otherwise with a man of your optimism. It would be impossible for a man of your optimism to have any other belief."
To which W. replied: "Optimism—pessimism: no one word could explain, enclose, it. There is more, much more, to be canvassed than is included in either word, in both words. I am not prepared to admit fraud in the scheme of the universe—yet without immortality all would be sham and sport of the most tragic nature.
"I am for free trade because I am for anything which will break down barriers between peoples: I want to see the countries all wide open."
W. had not yet sent Griffin the book. "I am more famous for procrastination than for anything else: you write to him—tell him that Walt Whitman will be along by and bye—is rather lame in the legs and in several other
W. said again: "To vary the monotony of my life I received a long letter of advice yesterday from a preacher up in Maine who said if I wrote more like other people and less like myself other people would like me better.
Just before he left he said: "It's been fine here today: I hate to go: I felt miserable when I came—I feel improved—O much improved. Sometimes I guess its not health I want—only people—the right kind of people—the Harneds, Traubels, Cornings—the right kind of people; who knows?"
In with W. Harned already there. W. in excellent good humor, feeling much better than yesterday, his face ruddy again, his hand warm."At the end I was rather exhausted but I slept very well."
"One of Stedman's ideas seems to be that we need an expurgated Leaves. Well—perhaps we do: but who is the man to expurgate it?"
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!"
I said. W. laughed: "Yes, let him expurgate.
"If you can't walk into popularity on your feet crawl in on your hands and marrows."
"That's the point—that's just the point. Did the Rossetti book ever do me any good?
Laughed. "Why, what do you think I personally, selfishly, got out of that edition? Why, just three copies on which I had three dollars duty to pay. I don't blame Rossetti for that—that is only one of the humors of the incident. I was talking of expurgation—of Stedman. Stedman got that—I will not say 'bee'—
cockroach into his noddle years ago, years ago—and it stays everlastingly there, stubbornly there, in spite of his honest desire to do me justice.
W. was silent for a few minutes during which I said nothing. Then he exclaimed: "Horace, take my advice: never take advice!"
"That sounds like bull, Horace, but it's damned serious. No man who's got anything to do in the world can afford to take advice. Take my word for it—don't take advice!"
Rabelais was somehow talked about."Some people think I am someway, in some part, Rabelaisian. I do not know where it comes in—just what induces the belief. But after all, I know little of Rabelais—have looked at him, picked him up, but have never given him any close attention. William O'Connor's explanation of Rabelais was, that he became disgusted with the cant of intellect, scholarship, in his time, and went off to his characteristic work as a protest.
W. said, motioning towards Harned: "We have been discussing the cryptogram again."
"Do you go in for it?"
"Well—no, but I read about it with interest if not with pleasure."
"Are you still against
"Yes, still against
Discussed the proposed French translation. "Let them make it—I encourage it: let results take care of themselves: but I do not think the French will take hold of me—that I come within their orbit.
W. gave me to mail in Philadelphia (I was about to go over the river) a letter he had written to O'Connor enclosing a Gilchrist note received from London today. G. writes describing the fate of his W. W. picture in London—the impression it made on the public and the feeling of artists for and against it."Herbert says he is sure he would not like Eakins' picture: all Eakins' methods, he says, are tortuous. What do you take Herbert to mean by that? Tortuous? How?"
"The Eakins portrait gets there—fulfills its purpose; sets me down in correct style, without feathers—without any fuss of any sort. I like the picture always—it never fades, never weakens. Now, Herbert is determined to
"He gave you curls in your beard."
"Yes, and more too: much more. You can see what Herbert made of me by the remarks of some of the visitors—two women—who were surprised to find that Walt Whitman was not after all a wild man but a rather tame man—almost a man of the world. But you see how it is. The world insists on having its own way: it don't want a man so much the way he looks as the way it is accustomed to having men look."
After considerable conversation in this vein we discussed the question of the ownership of the Eakins picture (half of it Walt's, E. had said), W. remarking with a laugh: "But I'll kick the bucket some day—no doubt very soon now—and then some of these things will be of some value and be sought after."
I asked W. about his projected Hicks volume. Was it all ready for the printer? He responded: "An hour's work would make it so: I have it right here"
—rummaging among the papers on the floor with his cane and pulling out a tied package, which he opened, exhibiting a collection of notes, newspaper clippings, completed manuscript pages, &c. He handed me a book."That is Hicks' Journal: it is a rare and precious book now."
And said again: "I have here, as you see, about eighty pages of finished manuscript: it is about ready to be turned over to the printer—and this"
—turning over some loose scraps—"I call Elias-Hicksiana."
The Hicks matter is mostly written with pencil. I examined it."I've got a lot of notes ready for November Boughs—disjointed notes: you had better take them some day—but you are to be extra careful of them—I have no copy of them."
Harned asked: Why don't you push November Boughs along? The book ought to get out. Besides, it would mean money to you, and you say you need money."
W. threw himself back in his chair and laughed: "What do
But when I asked: "Wouldn't it be safer to do the book?"
W. grew serious at once and replied: "I know what you mean: you are right—it would be safer done than left straggled about this room—with me dead, maybe, some morning.
Added after a pause: "The Lippincott fellows have said they would take a bit of the Hicks—a good sized bit if I choose."
He then carefully tied up the package again and put it back on the floor.
"This,"
he said once, "is not so much a mess as it looks: you notice that I find most of the things I look for and without much trouble. The disorder is more suspected than real."
Harned present. W., speaking of the Gilchrist-Eakins portraits, said they excited in him some remembrance of two Napoleonic pictures."An actor who had no faith in the real, the tangible, in life, portrayed by Napoleon crossing the Alps on a noble charger, uniformed, decorated, having altogether a hell of a time"
(W. indicating its grandiose spirit by half rising from his chair and throwing up his right hand as though it held a sword). "Delaroche, not satisfied with such a conception, took the trouble to investigate the case—to get at the bottom facts. What did he find? Why, just this: that Napoleon rode on a mule—that
"You give us no consistent philosophy."
W. replied: "I guess I don't—I should not desire to do so."
I put in: "Plenty of philosophy but not
To which W. answered: a philosophy.""That's better—that's more the idea."
W. again: "Stedman thinks I should be happy to have my Lincoln poem classed with Lowell's ode.
Brinton said: "Chanting the Square Deific is an immortal poem: I sometimes think it is the most subtle and profound thing you have written."
"Many of my friends have agreed with you, Doctor, about that. It would be hard to give the idea mathematical expression: the idea of spiritual equity—of spiritual substance: the four-square entity—the north, south, east, west of the constituted universe (even the soul universe)—the four sides as sustaining the universe (the supernatural something): this is not the poem but the idea back of the poem or below the poem. I am lame enough trying to explain it in other words—the idea seems to fit its own words better than mine. You see, at the time the poem wrote itself: now I am trying to write it."
"There's more of me, the essential ultimate me, in that than in any of the poems. There is no philosophy, consistent or inconsistent, in that poem—there Brinton would be right—
W. has never read Buckle's History of Civilization."Tell me what it is all about. It always seemed to me so formidable: I never seemed to have the courage to attack it."
Laughing: "You see conscience makes some people cowards. I don't have much bother with my conscience. But books—well, books make a coward of me."
"I have something of Shelley's distaste for history—so much of it is cruel, so much of it is lie. I am waiting for the historians who will tell the truth about the people—about the nobility of the people: the essential soundness of the common man. There are always—there have been always—a thousand good deeds that we say nothing about for every bad deed that we fuss over.
"Have you ever had any experiences to shake your faith in humanity?"
"Never! Never! I trust humanity: its instincts are in the main right: it goes false, it goes true, to its interests, but in the long run it makes advances.
W. spoke of Sidney Morse. "Sidney, so much of Sidney, is abortive—he don't get anywhere: he is a child of
Harned said: ennui: a child—true, sweet, persuasive—has a beautiful personality: is never discouraged: things go wrong: he falls and picks himself up again."You seem extra serious, Walt. You are not feeling sick?"
"No, not at all. As to serious—perhaps I am: I get news some days—bad news, good news: news that sets me up, throws me down: I get only serious, however, never despondent."
He did not specify. Stopped there. W. today gave me a Carpenter letter, saying of it: "It is beautiful, like a confession: it was one of Carpenter's first letters.
Carpenter's letter was addressed to W. at Washington and forwarded to Camden.
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, England, 12 July, 1874. My dear friend—It is just dawn, but there is light enough to write by, and the birds in their old sweet fashion are chirping in the little College garden outside.
My first knowledge of you is all entangled with that little garden. But that was six years ago; so you must not mind me writing to you now because you understand, as I understand, that I am not drunk with newwine.My chief reason for writing (so I put it to myself) is that
I can't help wishing you should know that there are many here in England to whom your writings have been as the waking up to a new day. I dare say you do not care, particularly, how your writings, as such, are accepted; but I know that you do care that those thoughts you weary not to proclaim should be seized upon by others over the world and become the central point of their lives, and that something even transcending all thought should knit together us in England and you in America by ties closer than thought and life itself. When I say 'many' of course I do not mean a multitude (I wish I did) but many individuals—each, himself (or herself, for they are mostly women—fluid, courageous and tender) the centre of a new influence. All that you have said, the thoughts that you have given us, are vital—they will grow—that is certain. You cannot know anything better than that you have spoken the word which is on the lips of God today. And here, though dimly, I think I see the new, open, life which is to come; the spirit moving backwards and forwards beneath the old forms—strengthening and reshaping the foundations before it alters the superstructure: the growth is organic too here I believe, but the flower is very very far and we do not dare to think even what it will be like. There is no hope, almost none, from English respectability. Money eats into it, to the core. The Church is effete. At school the sin which cannot be forgiven is a false quantity. The men are blindly material; even—to the most intellectual—Art and the desire for something like religion are only known as an emotional sense of pain. Yet the women will save us. I wish I could tell you what is being done by them—everywhere—in private and in public. The artisans too are shaping themselves. While Society is capering and grimacing over their heads they are slowly coming to know their minds; and exactly as they come to know their minds they come to the sense of power to fulfil them: and sweet will the day be when the toys are wrested from the hands of children and they too haveto become men.You hardly know, I think, in America (where the life, though as yet material, is so intense) what the relief is here to turn from the languid inanity of the well-fed to the clean hard lines of the workman's face.
Yesterday there came (to mend my door) a young workman with the old divine light in his eyes—even Icall it old though I am not thirty—and perhaps, more than all, he has made me write to you.Because you have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually in my heart. (—And others thank you though they do not say so.) For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest instinct of their nature. Women are beautiful; but, to some, there is that which passes the love of women.
It is enough to live wherever the divine beauty of love may flash on men; but indeed its real and enduring light seems infinitely far from us in this our day. Between the splendid dawn of Greek civilization and the high universal noon of Democracy there is a strange horror of darkness on us. We look face to face upon each other, but we do not know. At the last, it is enough to know that the longed-for realization is possible—will be, has been, iseven now somewhere—even though we find it not. The pain of disappointment is, somewhere, the joy of fruition. Perhaps it will be, in time, with you in the New as with us in the Old world.Slowly—I think—the fetters are falling from men's feet, the cramps and crazes of the old superstitions are relaxing, the idiotic ignorance of the class contempt is dissipating. If men shall learn to accept one another simply and without complaint, if they shall cease to regard themselves because the emptiness of vanity is filled up with love, and yet shall honor the free, immeasurable gift of their own personality, delight in it and bask in it without false shames and affectations—then your work will be accomplished: and men for the first time will know of what happiness they are capable. Dear friend, you are older and wiser than me and can accept all that I have said, with a smile perhaps, but without any ill will. It is a pleasure to me to write to you, for there are many things which I find it hard to say to any one here. And for my sake you must not mind reading what I have written.
As to myself, I was in orders; but I have given that up—utterly.
It was no good. Nor does the University do: there is nothing vital in it. Now I am going away to lecture to working men and women in the North. They at least desire to lay hold of something with a real grasp. And I can give something of mathematics and science. It may be of no use, but I shall see. You I suppose I shall not see. Yet if anyone should come from your side to England—this address will always find me. There are many who, if their pens were here, would send greetings to you across the sea.
Farewell: wherever the most common desires and dreams of daily life are—wherever the beloved apposition is, of hand to hand, of soul to soul—I sometimes think to meet you.
I have finished this at night. All is silent again; and as at first I am yours
Edward Carpenter.
Evening."constipated, listless"
—and saying: "My blood is so sluggish—my pulse is so low."
Then: "But what's the use growling? Everything don't come my way but lots of things do."
Talked for a long time recumbent. Then sat up and faced me."Rhys was here yesterday and the day before: he has now gone to New York. He intends to take in Niagara—then go
'After I have seen Niagara, after having seen you,'
Rhys said, 'I can fairly say I have been to America to some purpose.'
That's what he says. He came up from Washington. What do you think? You couldn't guess. He never called on or saw O'Connor. I was amazed when he told me—it seemed such a
Rhys had said to W.: "Since seeing America and seeing you many things in Leaves of Grass which formerly puzzled me are made plain."
W. responded: "I shouldn't wonder. That book has an amazing elusiveness: I am still looking for some of its meanings myself."
He laughed."I don't wonder Rhys don't give himself airs about the book: the book, indeed, makes us all humble."
Again of Rhys: "Just now his great point is to get along—to make a living—and at that I think he has a hard tug. He always has to think of it: he is as poor as any of us—you know that means a great deal. His first lecture in Boston was given the night of the blizzard—did not return the hall money.
"You never were disputatious. Why did you want this fight?"
"Only to get the truth threshed out.
"But you and Rhys do very little fighting?"
"Very little—very little. Do you ever know me to do any fighting? A kind of love passage—that's my sort of fight. But let me tell you a little more about Rhys. He is very interesting to me. We talked of the poetic lilt. Rhys insists on it: insists on it, come good or bad. Well—the lilt is all right: yes, right enough: but there's something anterior—more imperative.
Frothingham had somewhere said that Shakespeare "lacked the religious as distinguished from the poetic faculty."
"That seems to me to be profoundly true. The highest poetic expression demands a certain element of the religious—indeed, should be transfused with it. Frothingham has hit upon the truth: scholars will not, dare not, admit it, but it is the truth. The time will come when
"The book will be about one quarter verse—the pieces (the heres and theres) of the last three or four years: the rest of the book will be scraps—little papers from different places: a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of something else. I have kept all the material carefully together: I can't hurry—it's not in me to hurry: yet I'm anxious to get the book out. Some day I'll die—maybe surprise you all by a sudden disappearance: then where'll my book be? That's the one thing that excites me: most authors have the same dread—the dread that something or other essential that they have written may somehow become side-tracked, lost—lost forever."
"Rhys took it along with him yesterday."
Had he read the book? "No indeed: but I probably read more of it than you would read if you took it up: I am more trained in patience than you are."
He laughed. "It is a hideous mess—I cannot think of it except in connection with so much
But "Stedman has always adhered to DeKay and Winter,"
he added, "especially to Winter—Winter, who, all in all, is about the weakest of the whole New York lot."
"Yes,"
said W., "He is always on his marrowbones to something or somebody—especially if that thing or that body is English. There is some stuff in some of the fellows in that New York crowd but in DeKay and Winter, in some others, there is absolutely nothing whatever.
"He of course attaches more importance to it than I do—naturally does. I have seen some chapters of the book—I have helped him straighten out some biographical kinks—dates and the like: but that is all. As to the book—the whole: well, I don't know.
—"Being Kennedy!"
I put in. "That's just the word: being Kennedy: just misses being Kennedy. Some day he may get himself all together—then he'll do work his own size."
"He is always the extremist—always all pro or all con: always hates altogether or loves altogether: as the boys say, he goes the whole hog or nothing: he knows no medium line."
"When he loved you he loved you too much. Now he hates you he loves you too little."
"I suppose that's so: I don't know what I deserve or what I don't deserve. Tom said the other day: 'Swinburne either insults you or hugs you—he knows nothing between': that's just the point—yet that 'between' something or other is more worth while than all the rest."
"You worked a long time ago in a print shop, didn't you?"
"Yes, for four years."
"Good! good! that's better than so many years at the university: there is an indispensible something gathered from such an experience: it lasts out life. After all the best things escape, skip, the universities."
W. again: "There was a kind of labor agitator here today—a socialist, or something like that: young, a rather beautiful boy—full of enthusiasms: the finest type of the man in earnest about himself and about life.
"What
"I could not catch the name—he was from the west.
W. talked of Rhys again. "He made some kick or other against Kennedy: they don't seem to have got along well together: I don't suppose it was anybody's fault. I can take no sides in such a quarrel: I consign Kennedy to Rhys and Rhys to Kennedy—let them finish their fight together.
W. advised me to "go and get acquainted with Dave McKay."
He described McKay. "Dave is a canny Scotchman—thick-set, bluff, bustling, businessy—in a few ways of the Tom Harned style. Dave always knows how to keep to the windward of things.
Someone asked W. why he was not received in The Atlantic? "How should I know? They will have none of me. I have met Aldrich—used to in New York, at the beershop—indeed, have met Howells often enough.
Had he ever tried them with verses? "Yes, years ago, with Elemental Drifts, for instance, which they published—and some others, I believe.
"The recent published adverse reference to me from Lanier as reported in the Memorial volume was objected to by his wife, I am told, on the ground of its unfairness, not only to me but to Lanier, since other things said by Lanier about me, reflecting a more favorable mood, should also have been given.
W. kissed me good night."We are growing near together. That's all there is in life for people—just to grow near together."
I was almost at the door. He laughingly called my name. I stopped. "I have a copy of DeKay's Nimrod, Horace: they sent it to me: it's quite a handsome book printerially speaking: you are a typo: I'll hunt it up and give it to you: you may take it away and keep it forever!"
"Shouldn't I read the book, too?"
"If you read it you read it on your own responsibility. I advise you to study its mechanics: that's where my advice ends. Do anything you please with the book only don't bring it back!"
Mailed postal card for W. addressed to Mrs. Costelloe, London. Also package of papers for O'Connor and a McKay "Dave is not exactly your kind, but he is a kind you will like."
328 Mickle Street, Camden Ev'g Evening May 17, '88 Dear D.— Mck McKay
The bearer Horace Traubel is a valued young personal Camden friend of mine—American born, German stock—whom I wish to introduce to you with the best recommendations—He is of liberal tendencies and familiar with printing office matters and the run of books. Walt Whitman.
Talked of Pearsall Smith. Smith is about to go to London and insists that he has two rooms in his house there retained unoccupied for Walt."Of course this is all a dream,"
says W., alluding to it—"one of Smith's dreams. But then dreams don't hurt."
"Sometimes you can eat dreams when you can't eat food,"
I suggested. "How true that is, Horace,"
W. said: "How true! How true! How many's the time I've just lived for days and days practically on my affections alone—the sight of my friends, the sky: thinking life away from, outside, all appetites."
"Pearsall was always very kind to me—very kind. I used to visit them in their Arch Street house: they always treated me with peculiar consideration—made the home so much mine, its servants so much at my beck and call if I had wished it. The house could not have been more mine if I had owned it—the overflowing table, which contained about everything but a tipple (you know the Smiths were opposed to all tippling)—yes, everything but the tipple, which, by the way, some of us would now and then slip out and get round the corner.
W. spoke about prejudices against himself. "Sometimes they assume amusing forms. A few years ago the Association Hall Managers over in Philadelphia refused me the use of their public hall for a lecture on Elias Hicks on the ground that he did not believe in Atonement.
Harned asked W. what he thought of the decision of Vice-Chancellor Bird on the George case. A man named Hutchings, of Camden County, left some money to George for the propagation of the idea of the Single Tax."The decision is vile—at least from the moral, abstract, point of view. There may be some legal warrant for Bird's decision, though I doubt it: but if there is any law back of Bird the sooner we kick it pot and kettle overboard the better for us all, even for Bird.
W. said: "I had a letter of advice, advice, from Bucke today. I love Bucke enough, God knows, but I am as afraid of Bucke's advice as anybody's.
"What piece?"
"Never take advice!"
W. laughed heartily. "I am pursued, pursued, by advisers—advisers. They love me, they hate me—but they advise, advise! What would become of me if I listened to them? I am deaf to them all—deaf—deaf. The more they yell, the deafer I become.
"He's got it all, Tom—not only the cruel, beastly, hoggish, cheating, bedbug qualities, but also the spiritual—the noble—the high-born."
Harned said: "Democracy, while abstractly right, is a hard doctrine to practise."
W. shook his head: "I do not find it so."
H.: "But you are rather an exceptional man."
"That is not the explanation, Tom. Democracy is the thing for us—for America: that's what we're here for—individuals, all of us: yes, and these States. America will not dare to be false to its promised democracy. We're heaping up money here in a few hands at a great rate—but our men? What's becoming of our
I related a couple of recent night experiences on the street. W. said: men? Well, that would be disaster. But I have no fears."That all goes to corroborate my argument—it confirms my own experiences—my own excursions everywhere among what we call the common people, even in rather notoriously criminal circles. You have heard what Horace says, Tom?
Harned made some allusion to Seward. W. took the name up."I once heard a great speech from Seward—one of the greatest speeches, if not the greatest speech, I have ever heard. It was in Washington, in a negro case—a brutal, degraded specimen, with no more sense than a horse, or not as much. Seward made the case a race case: his appeal was a masterpiece in itself—yes, successful, too—though the man was undoubtedly guilty."
W. spoke of editions of Leaves of Grass. "The book no longer contains errors worth talking about—a few in spellings or words, but none that are damaging. I had three sets of
I said: "If it wasn't for the flaws love would be impossible!"
W. looked at me a spell. Then he said: "That sounds startling. Say it again."
I repeated it. W. was slow to speak. Then he pushed his fingers down upon the arm of his chair: "Horace, you are right. The idea scared me first. You are right. Tom, Corning, ain't he right?"
W. again: "Awhile ago we were talking of Pearsall Smith.
"Horace contends that half of Shakespeare's greatness is in his reader—half at least—or Homer's—or any man's who writes or sings or what not. That is a favorite idea of his and it's a striking one, if not absolutely, literally, true—or perhaps it is even that. But what do you think of it, Tom? And you, Corning?"
Corning said something to W. about the hospitality of the Harneds, W. assenting. "Yes indeed, they spoil me: it has come to be with me an essential point: I get to expecting it. I am greedy—never satisfied: their house is an oasis in my domestic desert."
"Don't put it on too thick, Walt."
W. laughed. "Don't get conceited, Tom: that's not meant for you—that's meant for Mrs. and the children and the cook!"
W. complained of his health. "I have been sicker the last four or five days than ever before."
W. received a letter from O'Connor today—read it to us. Harned and
"It does a fellow good to receive such notes: William is always so breezy, so cute.
Reached toward the little shelf at the window sill. "It is dated 1884—I guess it's almost all about the Bacon business: he says he could prove it if he only had time."
This excited Corning to laughter. "He'd need a good deal of time,"
said Corning. This sally aroused W. who at once retorted: "I don't know about that—it's pretty well proved now!"
"Walt, I never knew you to go as far as that before."
"I don't believe you did. It was Corning's fault. What I mean is this—that William is a great scholar—has the whole business in his fingers—can reel off irrefutable arguments by the yard—is wonderfully equipped for the fight. I don't think any man living can stand up against him in that argument: I'd rather run than try it myself, I can tell you."
This is O'Connor's letter:
Washington, D.C., October 2, 1884. Dear Walt:I got yours of the 29th ultimo, with the slip from The Critic.
It is a magnificent compliment, and was inexpressibly comforting. John Burroughs told me when he was here, and has since written to the same effect, that what I say on the question does not touch him at all, and although one does not mind such things at first, yet gradually, and especially when they are only part of one concurrent voice, they more than half persuade one that he is a visionary jackass, and have a deeply disheartening effect—all the more, I think, when one's convictions on the matter are clear and deep. There is nothing more evident to me than what in The Prince did for tyranny— Machiavel Machiavelli i.e.sow death for it by simply showing it up without bias and with perfect candor—Bacon (i.e.Shakespeare) did for feudality. It is the old story of the basilisk—if you see himfirst, he dies. In the plays—the historical plays especially—Bacon sees the basilisk in all his nature and proportions. I regret I am not free of office life, for I am sure I could make Bacon's part in all this matter so evident that Time would remember it.
Criticism on Shakespeare has not yet begun, nor can it begin, until the coincidence with the Baconian movement—the divine conspiracy of the Novum Organum against false civilization—is recognized. So far comment on Shakespeare has been merely esthetic. But the relation of that drama to that age—that marvellous "time-bettering age"— thatis the main question.I am extremely gratified at the reinforcement your article brings.
In this connection, please read Coriolanus. The impersonation of the feudal military spirit in the hero is perfect, and there are scenes—notably that of the conference between the tribunes when they plan "to darken him forever"—which are revelations. I have an article before the Manhattan which I now hope more than ever they will publish, for it has some things about Bacon I would like you to read.
There is a noble picture of him, from the painting by Vandyck, in the October Harper.
Look at it, and ask yourself whether that face belongs to one who was "the meanest of mankind"! Nothing refutes a slander like a good portrait. I have been over today to the Surgeon General's office to see about data for you. I know Dr. Huntington, the Acting Surgeon General, very well. I am afraid that the quest will be fruitless. The only matter they have is the Medical and Surgical History of the War, now in process of publication, what you want—
i.e.hospital matter—will be in the third volume, and this is now being made up, and will not be ready, unfortunately, for a year. I am sorry. However, I will go down tomorrow to the Medical Museum, (as Dr. Huntington suggested to me), talk with Dr. Wild, the li-brarian, and see if he can give me anything. I fear it is unlikely—the publications being inchoate. You shall hear duly. I am crushed with work at present. The weather is simply infernal. I wish you were better, and hope the coming coolness of October will revive you. More anon.
Faithfully, W. D. O'C. (I hope you got the little Hearn book. The thieves' song in the Polynesian story is wonderfully fine.)
W. saw I was through and remarked: "William is a master: his art is wonderful to me.
"Horace, who is the Louise Imogen Guiney who writes so everlastingly in Lippincott's about plagiarism? I don't seem to know her at all."
Described O'Connor's place in the Signal Service as that of "the one who does all the work for the fellow who wears all the ornaments."
Went up stairs, alone, with much effort, to get slip copies of North American Review article, A Memorandum at a Venture, giving one to Corning and one to me. "It is nothing much,"
he explained, "simply a word or two: but we have often discussed that subject—you will recognize the things I say as familiar friends.
A Carol closing Sixty-nine, sent to Lippincott's, not appearing in the current issue, out today (for June), Walt wrote withdrawing it, at the same time sending a copy to The Herald. "It should be printed before my birthday, on the 31st. I do not understand why Walsh did not print
W. told us his poem Old Age's lambent Peaks had been accepted and paid for by The Century and "is to appear soon."
Then: "I am daily expecting The Century to shut down on me: too much of Walt Whitman won't do anywhere, especially in a magazine more or less Nancyish like The Century."
W. showed us slips of the two poems but would give none of them out."I want the poem to appear first. It is a point of honor with me. I would feel free at any time to give away manuscript copies of any of the poems, but somehow object to distributing the printed slips. Curtz makes these slips for me—Henry Curtz. You know him, Horace. He is rather an effete person—seems as if left over from a very remote past: his queer little office, the Washington press, the old faced letters, the wood type, Curtz himself: it's all odd and attractive to me.
Corning asked W.: "Do you finally think Emerson did not withdraw his opinion of you?"
"From books I have read about him—from my talks with him, with his friends—I do not consider that Emerson withdrew that first opinion of Leaves of Grass. Ask Sanborn, ask anyone. I think it will stand. A lot of people are telling what they think and do not know about it, but who has any word in Emerson's own hand to that effect? I do not say I know, but who does know?"
"I am always interested in Realf: he was an exquisite, delicate spirit: we never met, but I am familiar with his career—with his earlier as well as his later career. His end was sad, tragic—but such cases are frequent: I have known many brilliant
"It is almost tragic to see a man endowed as he is so largely silent—so much of him just fired up and never expressed. A nobler genius never walked the earth. William has a world all his own—a potential world: I used to think he would some day give it birth: but the days pass, the years pass, by and bye William will pass, I am afraid, with the work undone. That damned job in Washington ties him down to a few feet of grass: I ought not to growl at it: it is splendid work: but somehow I resent it—just a little, anyway."
Griffin's poems have now joined the mass on the floor. But that implies no dishonor—note even disregard."in a sense so much truck."
Harned showed him a portrait of Haweis in Harper's."Good! that's very like him—he came here just in this sort of evening light. Haweis is the preacher sort: he does not dazzle me."
Corning jollied W. "My sort, sort of!"
To which W. replied: "Hardly—your sort of preacher is no preacher at all. You are a man before you are a preacher and after you are a preacher: that lets you out.
Corning said: "I am honored, Mr. Whitman: that's the best certificate of character I ever got from anyone."
W. smiled and added: "Well, you deserve the diploma, Mr. Corning."
I waited just a minute after Corning and Har-
"Some night it will be a last kiss—a last good-night—but I hope not just yet—not
A Carol closing Sixty-nine in today's Herald. W. said: "The list grows but what's the use of it?"
"I'm going down hill—not hurrying at all, but going."
Asked me about John Stuart Mill: "I have just been reading a little squib here that mentioned Mill. Tell me about him. What did he stand for, teach, saliently promulge? I have never read Mill—I know nothing about him but his name."
"Well, that is beautiful to hear!"
When I was through he said: "I see I ought to know Mill—but then, what oughtn't I to know?"
I remarked to him: "I hear you were at the Unitarian church last night."
He laughed quietly. "Yes—they wanted me to go: Tom particularly wanted me to go: so I went and saw all the pictures."
But what of the sermon? "There was not much to it: the audience liked it: the room was crowded."
"Not a bit: all preaching is a weariness to me—Corning's as much as any other's. We have the stock phrases in books—the stock canvases in art: well, so we have the stock stupidities in sermons. Corning is all right—the man Corning: I can like him, I do like him: but the Corning in the pulpit last night tried my corns. I am always impatient of the churches—they are not God's own—they rather fly in the face of the real providences."
"I have some books and papers to send by you, William,"
he said. Ingram brought with him a volume of selections from Jean Paul Richter, which he had promised W.: also, Thomson's Seasons, from a prisoner, and Clodd's Childhood of Religions. W. kept the Richter, passed the Thomson volume back without comment, and said with reference to the Clodd: "I see—I see: but I have never allowed myself to drift into such discussions: I have deliberately steered clear of them—of all theological, mystical, waggeries, respectable or not respectable: I am oppressed enough by the fact that men quarrel about their religions (as they do for that matter about their loves, strange to say) to wish to discuss them. Why should I addle the egg?"
"Well, perhaps I wrong that particular man: he may be exempt: but I am not mistaken about the thing.
Ingram had also brought W. on a former occasion Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man, which W. returned unread, taking care to repeat the fact of his distaste for literature of the polemical sort. "It is pessimistic, is it not?"
he asked. "This is not because I do not honor Morris, for I do, but because—well, because. You see, I am not a constitutional reader: I do not apply myself to reading in the usual way. I have read, to be sure—read a good deal since I have been tied up indoors—but after all that has never been the chief thing with me."
W. again: "We all hate the idea of the king, the emperor, but sometimes a good king, emperor, happens, who almost seems to excuse the tribe—just as a minister comes occa-
He talked of his experiences with editors. "Who has had more experience of the nether kind than I have? I think everything that could happen to a rejected author has happened one time or another to me.
"Back of him everything, before him nothing."
I said. "Exactly, exactly: the style of man who is adept in one two three—who can tell the difference between a dime and a fifty cent piece—but is useless for occasions of more serious moment. But Holland was all right: he did his deed in the Holland
"They don't like to see you loafing around the throne."
"That's so: and why should I criticise them for that? I don't blame myself for being Walt Whitman—neither do I blame them for thanking God they are not as I am!
Ingram left. W. said of him: "He is a man of the Thomas Paine stripe—full of benevolent impulses, of radicalism, of the desire to alleviate the sufferings of the world—especially the sufferings of prisoners in jails, who are his proteges.
Ingram had said to W. about Reade's book: "It will show you how a man who was in got out."
"I never was in,"
he said, "therefore I had no reason to come out. I never read books
"ceased being a Christian and had become a protectionist."
W. broached the subject of November Boughs. "I have determined at last to start on the book: I shall need to enlist you as my co-worker. I am physically helpless.
He looked out the north window: there was no sorrow in his grave face. Then he turned my way again and added: "November Boughs will probably keep within two hundred pages of printed matter—one quarter of it verse, to be used supplementally in later editions of Leaves of Grass, and to be called Sands at Seventy.
leaves of grass'; there are spears of grass: that's your word, Walt Whitman: spears, spears.'Spears of Grass would not have been the same to me. Etymologically leaves is correct—scientific men use it so. I stuck to leaves, leaves, leaves, until it was able to take care of itself. Now it has got well started on its voyage—it will never be displaced."
W. stopped a few minutes. Neither of us said anything. Then he resumed: "When you come tomorrow you will probably find I have drawn up plans for the book.
"I wouldn't be interested in doing the work for money."
"It's not hire—it's only a sort of communism: why shouldn't we arrange that amiably together?"
"The arrangement was made a long time ago before money was mentioned."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I appeal to the original arrangement!"
W. looked at me and reached out both his hands: "By God, boy! By God!"
He took me in his arms and kissed me and said: "This is a solemn pact to be ratified by love. You have saved my books: I could not do these books without assistance.
As I was passing out the door W. waved his hand to me and cried: me—my ways and what I need to be humored in.""I'm not saying things—but you know, you know! Good-night! Come tomorrow!"
W. in somewhat depressed mood."I never get entirely down in the mouth—I do not seem to have any scare in me—but I am wide awake to the fact of my gathering physical disabilities. It don't take an expert weather prophet to see some storms coming."
In rather humorous mood, too. For he said: "I have another letter from an adviser today. It's queer how the advisers
"I suppose the best thing for you to do would be to throw the Leaves all away and make a new start. You might call your advisers together in a sort of parliament: they could instruct you by resolution: then we could have a new Leaves according to order."
W. laughed for him a big laugh. He is a quiet laugher as a rule. "That's a striking idea—I can see the solemn assemblage—the big crowd of delegates.
He stopped here and seemed to enjoy the contemplation of the fancy we had mutually conjured. Then he resumed: "That seems like fool talk, on the surface, for both of us—yet underneath it all is the best logic: for fool talk could never be as foolish as the fool adviser who undertakes to shift a serious man out of his determined course of life. Advice! Advice! Advice! It is a confusion of tongues!"
"He is in a sense our most generous man of letters, distinctly so called: he is always helping somebody to something—always: I rarely hear of Stedman but I hear about his good deeds: sometimes I am cross about him—about the writer, Stedman: about the man Stedman I have never had a doubt. I find it hard to say what I think about the fellows without seeming to be extreme or harsh—yet I do not want to be either. My little quarrel with Stedman is not about anything he does but because of something I think he could do, does not do: Stedman never seems to ultimate himself, I may say, if that conveys any meaning to you."
He paused."Yes, I may say I love Stedman—love him: he has certain nervousnesses, he subjects me to certain irritations, which I find it difficult to bear patiently—but after all that is the small part of any man: a very small part: in a man like
W. gave me a letter from Carpenter."It is an old letter, written in 1877. The best of Carpenter is in his humanity: he manages to stay with people: he was a university man, yet managed to save himself in time: plucked himself from the burning. I don't know of another living literary man of like standing who could write a letter like this. So many of them are good fellows—rather sympathize with the struggles of the people—but they are for the most part way off—remote: they only see the battle from afar.
Carpenter's letter was dated December 19th. I said: "That is my birthday."
W. smiled and replied: "That coincidence won't hurt the letter or hurt you: the two things are worthy of each other."
Cobden Road, Chesterfield, England, 19 Dec. 77. Dear Friend,I have (yesterday) sent a P.O. O. for £2 for your two vols.
They are ordered by Edward T. Wilkinson, 13 Micklegate, York—to whom please send them. He is a haberdasher in a large way of business—a very straight and true man. I hear from Vines that your books have arrived. He and Thompson (to whom you sent before) are lecturers at Cambridge, Haweis is a popular London preacher, Templeton is working music in London—organizing cheap concerts &c.—and Teall is teaching science at Nottingham. Your other two vols. went to Carlile, a solicitor at Hull. So you see the kind of audience you have. I want to say how splendid I think your Children of Adam. I was reading those pieces again the other day, and of course they came back upon me, as your things always do, with new meaning.
The freedom, the large spaces you make all around one, fill me with continual delight. I begin to see more clearly the bearing of it all on Democracy: that thought surges up more and more as the end and direction of all your writings. I don't know whether it is so. But this immense change that is taking place is absorbing to me now, and your writings seem the only ones that come close to the great heart of it and make it a living thing to one with all its fierce passions and contradictions and oceanic sort of life. I wish I could say what I mean. But it is to thank you.There is one thing that I never doubt for a moment—and that is your deepest relation to it all.I am very well and happy. My term's work is over and I am going away for a month, to Cambridge and Brighton.
I should like to describe to you the life of these great manufacturing towns like Sheffield. I think you would be surprised to see the squalor and raggedness of them. Sheffield is finely situated, magnificent hill country all round about, and on the hills for miles and miles (on one side of the town) elegant villa residences—and in the valley below one enduring cloud of smoke, and a pale-faced teeming population, and tall chimneys and ash heaps covered with squalid children picking them over, and dirty alleys, and courts and houses half roofless, and a river running black through the midst of them. It is a strange and wonderful sight. There is a great deal of distress just now—so many now being out of work—and it is impossible to pass through the streets without seeing it obvious in some form or other. (A man burst into floods of tears the other day when I gave him a bit of silver.) But each individual is such a mere unit in a great crowd, and they go and hide their misery away—easily enough. Good-bye. With much love dear friend,
Edward Carpenter.
I found a memorandum from W. on this letter: "Splendid letter from E. Carpenter Dec 19, '77."
"That is a wonderful tribute paid to the common man. How cheap, vulgar, nasty, such heroism makes the heroisms that are most fussed about in histories!
I asked W. about November Boughs. He shook his finger at me. "I was sure you would ask, of course. Well, it's nearly ready—only I play a little for time—I am fencing for another day or two. Don't you remember, I told you I was very slow. I have to be true to my reputation."
"I hear from Bucke right along—I rarely hear from Burroughs. I don't know about John—he stands aloof so much of the time: I have asked myself whether this betokens any change of feeling: I suppose it don't. When John writes things, has occasion to mention me, he seems to be of the old spirit—I can see no signs of retreat or compromise.
"I shall ask you to take that away and never bring it back,"
he said, laughing. Why? "There is nothing in it to interest me—nothing. I like Harris—we have met: he is friendly to Leaves of Grass—is rather inclined to accept it—is at least lenient—though I guess I am on the whole not occult enough—not obscure enough—to satisfy the particular brand of philosophy he professes.
Talked about November Boughs, W. showing me the copy and the plans as he had drawn them up."I want you to see Mr. Bennerman—to get all possible information before we set out: if the Sherman people cannot do it we will have to look up somebody else. I have written a letter to Bennerman—letter of inquiry and introduction—both: here it is. I think it covers the case: he will be able to answer us yes or no. Then we will know where we are."
Tuesday, May 22, 1888. To Mr. Bennerman:
The bearer of this is Horace Traubel, a young friend of mine in whom I have confidence—I want to have printed stereotyped a book of (probably) 160 to 200 pages—maybe somewhat less—long primer—exactly same sized page as the Specimen Days you printed of mine six years ago— Can you and would you like to do it for me?—
Have you some good long primer?The copy is ready—it is all printed matter—(or nearly all)—is all plain sailing—you could commence next Monday—want liberal proofs— sh'd should You can talk with Horace Traubel just the same as you
with me—I am almost entirely disabled w'd would walking or bodily locomotion— ab't about Walt Whitman.
"What portrait or portraits shall we put into the book?"
asked W. "I have wavered between Eakins and Morse: Morse's, on the whole, seems to me best: is better for this purpose—as a distinct portrait. I think we should have the proper photos taken experimentally at once from the bust—or in a week or two. I am a little doubtful about getting the view I desire: I want your man to try and try and try again until the right one is secured. It is like ordering a suit of clothes: I can give the tailor a hint of what I want, but he must lumber out his stock—wait for me to recognize the right piece. I don't believe in the 'great' photographers—
W. alluded to Carlyle as "that terrible fellow—that terrible octopus—who kept forever growling out to us that we were all going wrong here in America—all the democrats—all the radicals: all going after a mistake—a delusion: all, all: going only to come back.
révolutionnaire: I am an evolutionist—not in the first place a révolutionnare. I was in early life very bigoted in my anti-slavery, anti-capital-punishment and so on, so on, but I have always had a latent toleration for the people who choose the reactionary course. The labor question was not up then as it is now—perhaps that's the reason I did not embrace it.
Reverting to November Boughs W. said: "I have money enough to see it through: I have some money, but am chary of putting it out, as you know. But I recognize that nothing can be done without it—therefore I pay my way right through, preferring to have it understood so at the start—being rather averse to arranging for my books on any other terms.
"I have another errand for you. I do not own the plates of Specimen Days: I ought to, but I don't: they belong to Dave McKay. I want you to go to McKay and make him an offer of one hundred and fifty dollars spot cash for the plates."
He laughed and asked: "By the way, what is spot cash?"
after my reply adding: "I guessed right, anyway. Offer him the one fifty spot cash. I don't believe Dave will accept the offer—no business man could resist the temptation to put more on an article some one was eager for.
Again: "I like to supervise the production of my own books: I have suffered a good deal from publishers, printers—especially printers, damn
W. said as I was going: "I am watching your pieces as they appear in the papers and magazines—reading them all: you are on the right tack—you will get somewhere. I don't seem to have any advice to give, except perhaps this: Be natural, be natural, be natural!
"I guess for one thing you will be our historian: we will have to rely upon you to review the field after the fight is all over. I do not mean a matter of mere biography: I mean the Walt Whitman movement, the Horace Traubel movement, that commenced long before either of us was born—that will go on forever after we are dead."
"That's nonsense,"
he said. The plates originally cost six hundred forty-six dollars. It costs thirty-five or forty dollars to print one thousand copies—press work."
When I conveyed McKay's reply to W. he retorted: "It's nonsense, is it?
Adding: "Dave was always saying the book wasn't worth a damn as a seller: I thought he'd be glad to get rid of the plates."
"Worthington is a humbug—pays me nothing: yet I am averse to going to law about it: going to law is like going to hell: it's too much like trouble even if we win.
"It's really a long story. Worthington is known in his trade as 'holy Dick': he combines piety with his other virtues. 'Holy Dick'! Well—he has a lot of débris to unload before he can enter the Kingdom. Dave rails at me for not pushing Worthington—and Tom, too, says: 'You should drive him to the wall.' I say yes, yes, yes: but when it comes to doing anything I rather decide for no. Holy Dick! He's a sour mess to me: I don't feel much like having any sort of encounter with him, good or bad."
W. then got to business, talking of November Boughs."I propose first issuing November Boughs independently—then shall issue a superior edition of my complete works."
At Sherman's today. Bennerman not in. They advised me to get plates made direct at some foundry under our own supervision. The idea rather hits W. "There are still a few errors in the plates of the Leaves. We must get them corrected. The complete edition will make a ponderous volume of eight to nine hundred pages—shaped like the Cryptogram—printed more or less like our present books. I am of course figuring on your assistance in all these plans—I could not accomplish them alone: indeed, I should stop right here and now if I did not think you would stand by me—see me through."
W. gave me what he called a "document"
to go among my "war records."
The rough draft of a letter written by him (marked on the envelope "sent Oct 1 1863"
) to W. S. Davis, Worcester, Massachusetts."It will help along some other memoranda you have—give you some more material. I clean house from time to time: save you the bits, hunt them, that I think will be of service to you—service or interest. The rest (the most of things) go into the fire."
He
"I know you are jealous of that fire,"
he added. "Well—that stuff is trash, notwithstanding your appetite: I know best what it is: trash, trash, trash."
"The noble gift of your brother Joseph P. Davis of $20 for the aid of the wounded, sick, dying soldiers here came safe to hand—it is being sacredly distributed to them—part of it has been so already—I may another time give you special cases—I go every day or night to the hospitals a few hours—As to physical comforts, I attempt to have some—generally a lot of—something harmless and not too expensive to go round to each man, even if it is nothing but a good home-made biscuit to each man—or a couple of spoonfuls of blackberry preserve—I take a ward to two of an evening and two more next evening &c—
When I was through W. said: "There is some history in that letter. Sometimes I am myself almost afraid of myself—afraid to read such a letter over again: it carries me too painfully back into old days—into the fearful scenes of the war.
W. is thinking of getting the Morse head of himself cast in bronze. Asks me to make some inquiry as to the cost. "It ought to be preserved: the plaster is very perishable:
"Is Eakins the worst?"
"That was a rather hard statement—it applied rather to Herbert's than to Tom's But no matter about that: no matter whose is the worst, Sidney's is the best."
W. went on after a bit of silence: "When I look at Morse's present work I wonder that he could have made that head of me years ago—so inexpressive, so paltry, so apologetic."
"You did not preserve it?"
"No indeed: I took it into the back yard there on Stevens street and dashed it to pieces."
W. described his economies practised in Washington during Hospital days. "It is surprising how little a man may live on if he must: live not meanly but with about all that is needed to make him comfortable: a matter of three or four hundred dollars settles the whole case."
"Don't that mean worry for a man—and don't his worry reduce his capacity for work?"
"Yes. I do not argue for three or four hundred—I only say it is possible. As a general rule it is true that we need something substantial at the foundation—all men—every man—but we can't set the same bounds for all men. There's Poe, for instance—poor Poe—to whose poverty, struggles, death at last in the gutter—sad, tragic, as it may seem—all his work, his quality, seems owing."
"If you repeat these views to the rich they will think you are on their side."
"If I had my way,"
he said more gravely, "I'd try my medicine first on the rich—make them live on three hundred a year for awhile—they would then be better able to understand the case of the under-dog. In the human sense I am on both sides—the side of the rich as well as the side of the poor: no one who
"Why, you're almost radical!"
"Almost!
"But you said to Harned the other day: 'I am the most conservative of conservatives.'"
"You've got a damned good memory: so I did: but when I said conservative there I meant safe. I contend that I am the safest of men—that my gospel is the safest of gospels.
"Nothing: I only wanted to hear you declare yourself."
W. laughed freely. "You're too cute—you've interviewed me in spite of myself: you ought to be a lawyer."
"I could not attempt to read."
Also a little volume of sonnets from Warren Holden, of whom he says he "knows nothing."
"I met Chainey in Boston—saw him, received him, here in Camden on several occasions: am entirely familiar with his career. I could not easily forget how he stood up for the Leaves in Boston on the Tobey days."
W. has been out driving but once this week."I am getting more and more satisfied with my bed and chair, which is suspicious."
Is at last full of his book, after "hesitations plenty,"
in his own words, "and delays to spare."
Says he wants it out in two or three months—three at the most: is almost eager. Explains: "The fall in my pulse is getting more and more evident: I've got no time to lose."
The Presbyterians are celebrating a centenary in Philadelphia."Let them keep at it; it's like a cloudy day—it'll pass off by and bye."
Woodrow is being tried before the Presbytery at Baltimore for his endorsement of the theory of evolution. "The question seems to be—did Adam come from the dust of the earth or
In talking about signatures W. said: "O'Connor once took one of my signatures to a clerk in the Treasury who so cleverly duplicated it that I could not myself tell the two apart."
"Pencilling by Edward Clifford English artist what struck him as an American type of physiognomy, head &c. Oct: 1884."
I asked: "Did the drawing impress you?"
"It was very interesting—not necessarily convincing. Clifford has been about some—struck me as being a close observer. It was a point of view not quite to be assumed just yet: I feel myself that the American is being made but is not made: much of him is yet in the state of dough: the loaf is not yet given shape.
I said: "I would give a good deal to own this card."
"Don't give anything to own it: own it anyway: take it along: I shall never want it again."
"I've got some news for you: I am going to accept Harned's invitation to a jamboree at his house next Thursday in honor of my own seventieth birthday: you must be sure to be there: and Aggie, too: tell her. I have about made up my mind to live another year: why not? Considering all the things I have to do I will need at least a year."
Was there anyone he wished particularly to ask for the "jamboree"? "No—I am sure not—at least not anyone
"You like Williams."
"Yes, I do. Someone was here the other day—spoke of him as a prig. He is not that—he is a man, like Gilder, who possesses more regard for the conventionalities than we do, but he is square with it all: take even Emerson—he was somewhat of the same strain.
How about Donaldson? "He, too, is all right—though not quite so much all right as Talcott.
It would be fine to have O'Connor come up from Washington? W.'s eyes twinkled: "That would be the crowning triumph—but it is impossible. He writes me that he is worse disabled than I am."
"The New Republic he speaks of there was Harry Bonsall's paper here in Camden. It is a beautiful letter—beautiful: Symonds could crowd all the literary fellows off the stage for delicacy—directness—of pure literary expression: yes, honest expression.
W. laughed a bit. 'What right has he to ask questions anyway?'"
"Anyway, the question comes back at me almost every time he writes. He is courteous enough about it—that is the reason I do not resent him. I suppose the whole thing will end in an answer, some day. It always makes me a little testy to be catechized about the Leaves—I prefer to have the book answer for itself."
I took the Symonds letter and read it."
Gais, Switzerland, June 13, 1875. My dear Sir.
I was very much delighted some weeks ago to receive a copy of the New Republic with a little memorandum in your handwriting. Time does not diminish my reverential admiration for your work, nor do the unintelligent remarks of the English press deter me from giving expression to the same in print. I hope soon to have an opportunity to explain at large, in a new series of critical studies of the Greek Poets, what I meant in the little note alluded to by the reviewer of the Quarterly, and to show how it is only by adopting an attitude of mind similar to yours that we can in this age be in true unity with whatever great and natural and human has been handed to us from the past. I was the more pleased to have this communication from you, because I feared that the last time I wrote to you I might perhaps have spoken something amiss. I then—it was about three years ago, I think—sent you a poem called Callicrates and asked you questions about Calamus. Pray believe me that I only refer to this circumstance now in order to explain the reason why since that time I have kept silence from a fear I might have been importunate or ill-advised in what I wrote. There was really no reason why you should have noticed that communication; and it gives me great satisfaction to feel that your friendly remembrance of me is not diminished. Now, though late, I may express the deep sorrow with which I heard of your illness.
How Whitman must have borne such a trial, no one knows better than one who like myself has learned to have absolute faith in his manliness and rigor of soul. Yet it is not the less sad to think that he who could enjoy life so fully, has met with this impediment. I look forward with a keen foretaste of delight to your new volume announced.
My permanent address is: Clifton Hill House, Clifton, Bristol. I should have written earlier had I not been moving rapidly from place to place during an Italian journey.
Believe me ever gratefully and indebtedly yours John Addington Symonds.
I said to W.: "That's a humble letter enough: I don't see anything in that to get excited about.
W. fired up. "Who is excited? As to that question, he does ask it again and again: asks it, asks it, asks it."
I laughed at his vehemence: "Well, suppose he does. It does no harm. Besides, you've got nothing to hide.
"Oh nonsense! But for thirty years my enemies and friends have been asking me questions about the Leaves: I'm tired of not answering questions."
It was very funny to see his face when he gave a humorous twist to the fling in his last phrase."Anyway, I love Symonds. Who could fail to love a man who could write such a letter? I suppose he will yet have to be answered, damn
I remarked: "Symonds here addresses you as 'sir.' You were not yet 'master' at that time."
"No—not master.
"Whatever you do forget don't forget the thirty-first: and push along November Boughs the best you can: I lean on you for this job, so you must stiffen up enough for two!"
"McKay came over to see me yesterday—I forgot to mention it to you—and conceded a point or two. For instance, he said I might use the Specimen Days plates in the complete book. He wanted to renew his expired contract—asked for five years more: said that after that time he would sell me the Specimen Days plates at my own figure—one hundred and fifty dollars."
"What did you say to that? Yes?"
"I made no concessions: I prefer to let the matter rest as it is."
McKay advises us to get our plates made by Ferguson. He thought Ferguson would do them not only better but cheaper. I got an estimate from Sherman, who wants one dollar fifty-five cents per page, brevier. W. said: "That seems dear. After all Dave may be right—Ferguson may be our man."
"I am quite possessed with the idea of getting the book out. It has hung fire here for two years or more.
"I had a letter from Bucke today: he says he likes the sixty-nine poem. But then Bucke likes me. I wonder what the people who don't like me think of the poem?"
I didn't put in an answer, so he said: "I guess I know—I guess you don't need to tell me."
Talked some about Specimen Days. "It don't sell at all—only a copy here and there. Dave simply carries it because he carries the Leaves—it amounts to nothing as a selling article in itself.
Speaking of McKay: "Dave is shrewd, canny, but honest: crude, almost crusty sometimes—but square. I like Dave. I have offered him five hundred copies of November Boughs—a sort of lump proposition. If he takes them I will put his name on the title page."
The foregoing are forenoon notes. I saw W. again in the evening."I guess we can conclude that Ferguson is our man: you had better leave word with Bennerman tomorrow to that effect."
Ferguson will give us plates (long primer) for one dollar and thirty cents a page. W. wants, as he says, "copious proofs—three or four or five if necessary."
"I want you to reach the workmen direct—treat with the craftsman without an intermediary—with the man who sets the type, the man who puts it into form, the man who runs the foundry: reach them, yes, with a dollar now and then. We will keep the troubled waters oiled. Bennerman would not permit this—he never wanted me to go up stairs into the composing room: but I am sure you can accomplish this point better than I did."
I go to Ferguson's tomorrow for samples of type
"think much of American presswork—it seems to be slighted."
"I know of no book printed on this side quite so beautiful in that respect as a book I have received from Dowden—his book on Shakespeare.
W. has an Epictetus volume (The Enchiridion)—the Rolleston rendering. He is very fond of it. I often surprise him reading it."I must see it at once. I am in safe hands. Frank knows what I am about—is loyal to the bone. God bless Frank!"
W. was very affectionate in his manner tonight. "Come here, Horace,"
he said. I went over. He took my hand. "I feel somehow as if you had consecrated yourself to me.
He took my face between his hands and drew me to him and kissed me. Nothing more was then said."I've got a real fillip for you tonight—a Lanier letter, written in the seventies, while he thought better instead of worse of me."
"Why do you think Lanier's notion about you has changed?"
"Things have been repeated to me: there
I waited to hear more but he added nothing. Then I read:
33 Denmead St., Baltimore, MD. May 5, 1878. My dear Sir:
A short time ago while on a visit to New York I happened one evening to find your Leaves of Grass in Mr. Bayard Taylor's library; and taking it with me to my room at the hotel I spent a night of glory and delight upon it. How it happened that I had never read this book before . . is a story not worth the telling; but, in sending the enclosed bill to purchase a copy (which please mail to the above address) I cannot resist the temptation to render you also my grateful thanks for such large and substantial thoughts uttered in a time when there are, as you say in another connection, so many "little plentiful mannikins skipping about in collars and tailed coats." Although I entirely disagree with you in all points connected with artistic form, and in so much of the outcome of your doctrine as is involved in those poetic exposures of the person which your pages so unreservedly make, yet I feel sure that I understand you therein, and my dissent in these particulars becomes a very insignificant consideration in the presence of that unbounded delight which I take in all the bigness and bravery of all your ways and thoughts. It is not known to me where I can find another modern song at once so large and so naïve; and the time needs to be told few things so much as the absolute personality of the person, the sufficiency of the man's manhood tothe man, which you have propounded in such strong and beautiful rhythms.I beg you to count me among your most earnest lovers, and to believe that it would make me very happy to be of the least humble service to you at any time. Sidney Lanier.
Part of this I read aloud. W. argued: "He first tells me he disagrees with me in all points connected with artistic form and then speaks of me as the master of strong and beautiful rhythms.
"Lanier was a beautiful spirit: he had his work to do: did his work: I can see how the Leaves may at first blush have carried him by storm—then how, analyzing his feeling, he became less sure of his enthusiasm.
W. paused for an instant and added merrily: "I suppose I don't wear well—that's what's the matter: I fool 'em for a time, when they're in their teens, but when they grow up they can no longer be deceived—they take my true measure—set me down for what I am.
'If this Walt Whitman ain't a damned humbug—then what is he?'
That's so: what is he? Some people are still asking that question. Lanier thought he knew and said so but I am not sure that upon reconsideration he was so sure he knew. The vitiating fact is—the bother of it all is—that men of the Matthew Arnold type dominating contemporary literature judge all men (not literary men alone but all men) by bookish standards.""Keep on with the book. November Boughs will be my good bye."
Got type-face samples from Ferguson today. W. will "look into it."
"That's decent—very decent,"
said W.—"that's at least one point gained over the Sherman establishment."
Ferguson had asked whether W.'s proof changes were many or extensive, I saying, "No."
I repeated this to W. who reaffirmed me. "They never are—none at all, in fact."
W. was in rather jolly mood tonight."What's that?"
he asked. I picked it up and handed it to him. He put on his glasses, opened it and after surveying its pages looked at me and laughed. "It's a draft of an old letter I wrote Hotten when he was getting out the London edition of the Leaves. Did you know I was something of an artist?"
"An artist? What sort of an artist?"
"Well—a portrait artist,"
he answered. He was a bit waggish. "You don't believe it. Look at that and be convinced."
He handed one page of the letter to me—then the two other pages. On page two was an attempt at autoportraiture in pencil. "Is that your work?"
"Yes—they are my fool lines. I was giving Hotten some advice and tried to illustrate it. Read the letter—then you will see what it is about."
"Your letter contains a portrait, but it's not in the pencilled lines—it's in the words."
"Do you think so? I was only trying to give him an idea how I seemed to myself in my own eyes."
I asked W.: "Is this letter of any use to you any more?"
"None whatever—is it of any use to you?"
I didn't say a word. He looked at me. "I see you want
"Is that a blessing?"
"Hardly—but it might be stretched into a joke."
I copy the letter:
April 24 '68 To Mr Hotten.
I am glad to hear you are having Mr Conway's photograph engraved in place of the bad print now in the book. If a faithful presentation of that photograph can be given it will satisfy me well—of course it should be reproduced with all its shaggy, dappled, rough-skinned character, and not attempted to be smoothed or prettyfied—(if in time I send the following hints)—let the costume be kept very simple and broad, and rather kept down too, little as there is of it—preserve the effect of the sweeping lines making all that fine free angle below the chin—I would suggest not to bring in so fully the shoulders and bust as the photograph does—make only the neck, the collar with the immediately neighboring part of the shirt delineated. You will see that the spot at the left side of the hair, near the temple, is a white blur, and does not belong to the picture. The eyes part and all around the eyes try to re-produce fully and faithfully, exactly as in the photograph. I hope you have a good artist at the work. It is perhaps worth your taking special pains about, both to achieve a successful picture and likeness, something characteristic, and as certain to be a marked help to your edition of the book. Send me an early proof of the engraving. Thank you for the papers with notices in them—and for your Academia criticism. Please continue to send any special notices.
I receive them safely and promptly. The London Review article is reprinted in Littell's Living Age. I should like to know who wrote the piece in the Morning Star—it flushed my friends and myself too, like a sun dash, brief, hot, and dazzling. I have several things more to say and will write again soon—Also to Mr. Rossetti to whom meantime, please offer my friendliest, truest regards.
"If not a portrait, this is material for a portrait."
W. assented, "I suppose—I suppose,"
then laughed again: "But I am proud of my drawing—you don't say anything about that."
Harned and Corning came in. After several how do you dos they got talking of Thoreau. Corning had been reading something new about Thoreau."Thoreau had his own odd ways. Once he got to the house while I was out—went straight to the kitchen where my dear mother was baking some cakes—took the cakes hot from the oven. He was always doing things of the plain sort—without fuss.
Corning broke out: "He was simply selfish, that's the long and short of it."
W. replied: "That may be the short of it but it's not the long. Selfish? No—not selfish in the way you mean, though selfish, sure enough, in a higher interpretation of that term. We could not agree at all in our estimate of men—of the men we meet here, there, everywhere—the con-
Pursuing the subject W. added: "When I lived in Brooklyn—in the suburbs—probably two miles distant from the ferries—though there were cheap cabs, I always walked to the ferry to get over to New York.
Corning referred to something Lowell had written about Thoreau."I have never read it: I do not seem to care much about Lowell's work."
Harned and Whitman got into a spirited discussion over the confession of Barclay Peak today in the Anderson murder case, Harned presenting the legal and Walt the moral argument."possibly good law but bad sense,"
"the refinement of refinement of refinement of technicality,"
"instances in which justice is surrendered to legality,"
adding: "I supposed judges were more independent and juries had more freedom of disposal."
"the truth,"
W. interrupting him to cry out: "Little do judges and juries—especially judges—know about the truth: lots of men are just liars—remember that, too. On the whole
Corning asked: "What are we to trust in if we tear down the courts?"
"We don't build on the courts—the courts build on us."
Corning is to speak tomorrow on The Moral Dignity of Minorities. W. advised C.: "Tell your people that the most hopeful sign of the times is the growing number of men the land through who are not pledged to the programs of the old parties—who vote independently or do not vote at all—who are waiting or working for the new idea, which will before long formulate itself in unequivocal political statements."
"That's just as good as not. If it's a bad word we won't miss it, if it's a good word it'll keep."
"Childs is eighteen carat root and branch."
W. said today: "You will have to know something about Henry Clapp if you want to know all about me."
"I will tell you, sometime or other. We were very intimate at one time—back around the sixties: he edited the Saturday Press, in New York: was my staunch friend—did the honorable with me every time.
"You are steadying yourself—you have things to say: yes, I am sure of it: some day you will get them said—people will listen to you."
About November Boughs: "I have the book in good shape
I asked: "How about the thirty-first? Do you feel equal to it?"
"O yes! I shall buckle to for it—hold in my horses
"Frank has written poetry—a good deal of it, I judge: some of it first rate, though all of the formal order. Frank deserves better recognition than he has achieved: lots of so-called big men, rhymesters, are less well equipped than Frank. The main thing about Frank is, he's a man—that's the main thing about anybody. A big man is nobody in particular, but a
man—he's enough.""Lowell was not a grower—he was a builder. He
And yet? built poems: he didn't put in the seed, and water the seed, and send down his sun—letting the rest take care of itself: he measured his poems—kept them within the formula.""I know what you mean to say. He was a man of great talent—I do not deny it: and skill, yes, skill—I do not deny that. But inspiration? I doubt it."
I said to W.: "Corning was saying to someone the other day that he thought you were rather conservative on the labor question."
W. demurred: "Mr. Corning does not know.
"Not very: but the seed is being planted—the harvest will come."
I said: "You are quite a revolutionist."
"If that is a revolution I am a revolutionist! But the word hardly applies.
W. said: "I gave you some letters awhile ago from editors declining my pieces. Here is a letter of a more favorable character—it is from John Morley: he was editing the Fortnightly at the time. Put it into your pocket."
3 Garden Court, Temple, E.C.: London, Jan. 5, 1869. Dear Mr. Whitman:
I cannot find room for the poem which you have been so obliging as to send me, before the April number of the Review. If that be not too late for you, and if you can make suitable arrangements for a publisher in the United States so as not to interfere with us in a point of time, I shall be very glad. Perhaps you will let me know as early as you can. With my kind regards— Always yours sincerely, John Morley.
W. wrote on this: "Ans. Jan. 20, '69."
The same day he wrote to Fields on a letter head of the Attorney General's Office, Washington."
Jan 20, 1869 James T. Fields, Dear Sir:
The package of February Magazines sent on the 16th arrived safely yesterday. Accept my thanks. I am pleased with the typographical appearance and correctness of my piece. I enclose a piece, Thou vast Rondure swimming in Space, of which I have to say to you as follows.
It is to appear in the April number of the London Fortnightly Review. Having just received a note from the editor of that Review, Mr. Morley, in which he intimates that he has no objection to its appearing simultaneously in America, I thought I would show it to you. Very possibly you will not care to print a piece any how which is to appear elsewhere. Should that, however, be no objection, and should you consider the piece available for your purposes, the price is $20. Of course it would have to go in your number of April. I reserve the right of printing in future book.
W. said: "I sometimes growl a little about the editors but after all they are a good lot—they do the best they can.
W. asked me how my father was. Then said: "Your father is a great man. He was here the other day—sat over where you are sitting now—spouted German poetry to me—Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Lessing.
"What is mere words I miss, but so much of it is not mere words."
"Exactly—exactly: that's what I said to your daddy. I suppose
We have often talked together about Anne Gilchrist and A Woman's Estimate of Walt Whitman, made up by William Rossetti from letters written to him by her."This is a draft of a letter I wrote Rossetti while Mrs. Gilchrist was still a mystery to me.
"But you survived the shock."
"Yes—there are shocks and shocks—shocks that knock you up, shocks that knock you down.
I asked W.: "Do you mean me to keep this letter?"
"If you say so, yes. It is an index to my emotions at the time: it is a part of that history: it will inform you. I always assume in giving you such things that you will know finally what use to put them to. If you keep getting closer, closer, to Leaves of Grass, it will after a while get to be 'I, Horace Traubel, a cosmos, of Camden a son' and so
W. laughed at his notion and added: "That's what the Leaves amount to anyhow—that's what I mean them to amount to: there is a certain point in their evolution where they cease to be my creation, possession."
Referring again to my own writings W. said: "I am always telling you not to take advice. I mean it—every word of it: but that don't mean that you are not to advise yourself or take your own advice."
"Do you mean that a man who systematically takes other people's advice is bound to be a failure and that a man who cannot take his own advice is bound to be a failure?"
"You've said it for me: that's the substance of my philosophy. I wouldn't make it a stiffnecked rule—I would only make it a rule."
W. spoke last thing about the book. "You will see Ferguson tomorrow. Make the best terms you can with him.
I add the letter to Rossetti:
Washington December 9, 1869. Dear Mr. Rossetti.
Your letter of last summer to William O'Connor with the passages transcribed from a lady's correspondence, has been shown me by him, and copy lately furnished me, which I have just been rereading. I am deeply touched by these sympathies and convictions, coming from a woman and from England, and am sure that if the lady knew how much comfort it has been to me to get them, she would not only pardon you for transmitting them to Mr. O'Connor but approve of that action. I realize indeed of this emphatic and smiling well donefrom the heart and conscience of a true wife and mother, and one too whose sense of the poetic, as I glean from your letter, after flowing through the heart and conscience, must also move through and satisfy science as much as the esthetic, that I had hitherto received no eulogium so magnificent.I send by same mail with this, same address as this letter, two photographs, taken within a few months. One is intended for the lady (if I may be permitted to send it her)—and will you please accept the other, with my respects and love?
The picture is by some criticised very severely indeed, but I hope you will not dislike it, for I confess to myself a perhaps capricious fondness for it, as my own portrait, over some scores that have been made or taken at one time or another. I am still employed in the Attorney General's office.
My p. o. address remains the same. I am quite well and hearty. My new editions, considerably expanded, with what suggestions &c I have to offer, presented I hope in more definite form, will probably get printed the coming spring. I shall forward you early copies. I send my love to Moncure Conway, if you see him. I wish he would write to me. If the pictures don't come, or get injured on the way, I will try again by express. I want you to loan this letter to the lady, or, if she wishes it, give it to her to keep.
"Received an interesting letter from Whitman, relative to the extracts I sent over in the summer from Mrs. G.'s letters, which he regards as, under all the conditions, the most
'magnificent eulogium'
he has yet received. The letter must have been written before the complete papers which I posted towards the end of November had been seen by Whitman. Two copies of the last photograph taken for him are to reach me.""Will you please tell Mr. Whitman that he could not have devised for me a more welcome pleasure than this letter of his to you (now mine, thanks to you and him), and the picture; and that I feel grateful to you for having sent the extracts, since they have
O'Connor described W.'s sensations at the moment in a letter which Rossetti includes in the same narrative.]
Received from Ferguson today formal engagement for November Boughs and took it to W. this evening."I am willing to pay a good instalment when the work is half done and the entire sum remaining on the completion of the plates. Any other conditions I shall decidedly oppose."
Gave me My Book and I to take over in the morning—that "to be the opening piece."
He has changed the headline to A backward Glimpse
Rhys, he said, had been in today—was going to New York to stay with Stedman for some days and would then sail, June 2d or 3d."I am proud of both."
"Rhys is the type of the young men who are to come our way and learn the best we have to teach—of the young men who will rightly perceive, measure, us, and then go back and democratize Great Britain."
"Rhys and those fellows set great store by him—seem to rally about him as the one who best expresses the things that noble group of English socialists stand for."
"Do you have any sympathy for the socialism of these men? "
"Lots of it—lots—lots. In the large sense, whatever the political process, the social end is bound to be achieved: too much is made of property, here, now, in our noisy, bragging civilization—too little of men.
"But about their political program—how about that?"
"Of that I'm not so sure—I rather rebel. I am with them in the result—that's about all I can say."
"People often speak of me as if I was very new—original. I am in fact very old as well as very new. I don't so much come announcing new things as resuming the correct perspective on old things. I am very homely, plain, easy to know, if you take me right. Three or four years ago I spoke to some soldier boys in Brooklyn. I started by saying I did not come to reveal new things but to speak of those particular things about which all of them knew.
W. had been reading in Liberty Tucker's account of his encounter with a tax collector. "Tucker is like Thoreau: why should they pay taxes to a government they do not believe in?
W. showed me some literary item concerning Stedman."You can't put a quart of water into a pint bottle: Stedman holds a good pint, but the pint is his limit. It seems ungracious to say that—I do not mean it for being severe. Stedman is miraculously deft—does certain things with wonderful precision. He is after all our best man in his specialty—criticism. He can measure some of the fellows—Longfellow certainly—perhaps Whittier and Bryant—though hardly Bryant—Bryant is a bit Greek.
I put in: "Your opinions about Stedman do not always agree."
"I suppose not. That's because I don't always agree with my-
W. jumped on me for my "radical violence."
"Some of your vehemence is all right—will stand: some of it is the impatience of youth. You must be on your guard—don't let your dislike for the conventions lead you to do the old things any injustice: lots of the old stuff is just as new as it is old. There is no doubt more than most of us see even in the stagnant pool.
W. wrote to Walsh for the return of the "sixty-nine" poem which was to have been used in Lippincott's. "He has not sent the poem back—has not answered my note in any way. I do not understand it."
W. spoke of Hugo."I do not like his insularity. He never said a good word for us—was rather inclined towards the Carlylean point of view with respect to America. Hugo was full of contempt for all things not Parisian—at least, not French.
Some one spoke today of a "pee-a-nist"."Do you mean a pianner player?"
W. objected to the piano anyway. "It seems to be so unequal to the big things."
When some dissent was expressed W. added: "I know. The obvious retort is, that I have never really heard it played. That may be true: I wouldn't go to the stake for my opinion on this subject."
W. gave me a Dowden letter. "That last passage hits me very hard—is memorable for letter writing.
'You make
Dowden has divined the whole secret.'To make no slaves however many lovers.'
Dowden is a confirmed scholar—the people who call my friends ignoramuses, unscholarly, off the streets, cannot quarrel with the equipment of Dowden."Explain it."
"I don't have to—let the other fellows explain it.
Again: That is one of Dowden's early letters—one of the first: he has lasted, still firmly adheres to his original view.
8 Montenotte, Cork, Ireland, Sept. 5, 1871. My dear Sir.
It was very kind of you to send me the photographs of yourself, which I value much. I had previously received one, carte de visite size, from Mr. Rossetti, in which you wear your hat. These I like better, though I liked that.I will name some of your friends on this side of the water whom I know myself. I wish I could make it appear how various these natures are which have come into relation with you.
There is a clergyman, who finds his truth halved between John H. Newman (of Oxford celebrity) and you. There is a doctor—a man of science, and a mystic—a Quaker, he has had a wish to write on the subject of your poems, and may perhaps accomplish it. There is a barrister (an ardent nature, much interested in social and political principles), he overflows with two authors, Carlyle and yourself. There is a clergyman (the most sterling piece of manhood I know) he has I daresay taken you in more thoroughly than any of us, in proportion to his own soundness and integrity of nature. There is an excellent Greek scholar. There is a woman of most fine character and powerful intellect. She, I hope, will at some time write and publish the impression your writings have made upon her, as she is at present about to do in the case of Robert Browning. Then I know three painters in London, all men of decided genius, who care very much for all you do (one of them has, I believe, in MS. some study of your poems, which at some time may come to be printed)—and Nettleship, whom Rossetti knows, and who has published a book on R. Browning. I have been told that Nettleship at one time when Leaves of Grass was out of print and scarce, parted with his last guinea or two to buy a copy. All I have named, (and I myself may be included) are young, and may, I think, be fairly taken to represent ideas in literature which are becoming, or which will become, dominant.
One thing strikes me about every one who cares for what you write—while your attraction is most absolute, and the impression you make as powerful as that of any teacher or vates, you do not rob the mind of its independence, or divert it from its true direction.
You make no slaves, however many lovers. Very truly yours, Edward Dowden. Should you care to carry out a half intention you had of writing me direct to 50, Wellington Road, Dublin.
I said to W. "There's some interesting history in that letter."
"Yes there is. And by the way, talking of history
W. said he has received "no less than three invitations to dinners the last week."
Did he decline all of them? "All of them—all. Old men who have enjoyed a certain amount of fame—done great work—require to be fêted, noticed, flattered, commended, cultivated by the ladies, taken the rounds of clubs, of the towns, of meals—of dinners and suppers.
—reaching forward and touching the cover of a brown-yellow magazine—"the very color of death.
Discussed Ferguson with W. Ferguson is willing to have W. make the payments according to his own custom. W.
"I've got no money to speak of but I've got money enough to take care of that book."
"My brother Jeff, from St. Louis—civil engineer there: until nine months ago for some time in the Water Department—has been here today."
"No one of my people—the people near to me—ever had any time for Leaves of Grass—thought it more than an ordinary piece of work, if that."
Not even his mother? "No—I think not—even her: there is, as I say, no one in my immediate family who follows me out on that line. My dear mother had every general faith in me; that is where she stopped. She stood before Leaves of Grass mystified, defeated."
"You are waggish. You know that George believes in pipes, not in poems."
W. said: "I picked up this old letter of Herbert Gilchrist's from the floor just now: it will interest you."
"isn't there something pretty consoling and deep in this letter?—deeper than Herbert knew when he wrote?"
I read this aloud and asked W.: "Do you still stand by it?"
"Yes: why not? Read the letter for yourself—see if I have written anything there that the letter don't deserve."
Griff, Warwickshire, August 16th, 1882 Dear Walt.
So glad to hear of your health and spirits being so good and that your book too has gone off so admirably in Phil. That Boston lawyer must be a curiously ignorant fellow or something much worse? However, all's well that ends well. I and mother do not think very highly of O'Connor's blustering defence; we think that he is on the wrong tack when he justifies you by the classics and by what Emerson says as if that made any difference one way or the other; it makes some to Emerson but it doesn't substantiate anything one way or the other except to show that Emerson was what everyone already knows him to have been, a shrewd good man: as far as I can see. But people must find out for themselves, it's no use throwing big adjectives at their heads. I don't, dear Walt, think that you have improved upon your early poems either the titles or arrangement.
I can't see that they needed improvement of any kind. And I fear that people of the next generation will be sadly puzzled to know which is theedition? whether to adopt your early or your later readings? depend upon it William Blake's maxim is a sound one,"First thoughts in Art, second in other matters."And neither do I think that your last edition is as artistically printed or bound as those early volumes. (The English edition).I am staying down at George Eliot's native place and am seeing a good deal of her brother whom I like very much indeed.
Am sketching her house—Griff House—the house in which she lived so many years of her early life. The country here is flat but the land is fertile and the people are a fine stalwart race of men and women. Although I had not seen the Evans family before they are very hospitable and friendly. Wednesday afternoon I played the delightful game of lawn tennis with them and their friends and the following day I was asked to go and play tennis at the Rectory two miles off. Miss Nelly Evans, George Eliot's niece, has just returned from the Highlands: a fresh jolly natural lively candid cleverish woman without beauty is Miss Nelly. A Scotch mist this morning so I could not go on as usual with my out-door painting but the afternoon is going to be lovely. Expect to stay in the neighborhood another week, when I shall shift my diggings as my bedroom window will not open: a small cottage, otherwise to my mind.
I am wondering whether you are following our foreign policy as closely as I am: what a splendid fellow Gladstone is—I wish our Premier was thirty years old instead of seventy something! What a safety valve he is to English politics! and yet thousands of his countrymen hate him as though he had wrought them some personal injury. I have just finished reading Democracy. I think that it is inimitable of its kind and quite a new kind to me. How ably the political shark is drawn and what a charming heroine! Herbert H. Gilchrist.
"Do you endorse that?"
"Yes and no: I don't think O'Connor's note was indispensable—or the Emerson letter—or anything, for that matter: so far Herbert was right. But we could just as well say that the storm is not indispensable—or that peace is not indispensable: it is a doctrine that works both ways. The fact is that they are all elements going to complete an episode. Somewhere in the Leaves I say:
'Everything in its place is equally great with everything else in its place.'
Apply that doctrine here and you have the truth.""What, then, was the 'consolation' of the letter?"
"Its genial feeling—its calm: its insistence all through that the Leaves are competent to take care of themselves.
"But where does that leave O'Connor?"
W. laughed. "I am not to be confused, defeated. What shall we say to it if the Leaves choose to take care of themselves, for one way, through O'Connor?"
"But where does that leave Gilchrist?"
W. laughed again, heartily."See here now: I'm not here to prove things but to say things!"
"What do you say to his kick against your later editions?"
"Nothing. William O'Connor seems to feel the same way about it—Bucke too: perhaps even Burroughs."
"But you—what do you believe?"
"I don't believe—I work: I make the changes when they seem to be necessary and that's an end of it."
One other thing I asked W. "You do not have any strong
"I'm afraid I do not: I am sure not. My feeling about him is not condemnatory—only indifferent."
W. remarked to me: "I have seen a statement attributed to Matthew Arnold—the statement, that goodness is not common—and feel inclined to quarrel with it.
W. had never read Mill's autobiography. I had it with me."I should like to read it—must read it. Is it a big volume? I should like to borrow it. I ought to know more about Mill than I do."
Reverted to Arnold: "Perhaps it is the literary habit, which grows on all the fellows, and sets them far apart from men, from life, from sympathy, by and bye.
Ferguson today sent a signed contract to W. but asked for no contract in return. We are to get our first proofs day after tomorrow, W.'s birthday."My relations with William Rossetti have always been the friendliest—the most reassuring: but I am never quite sure I did right to permit any sort of qualification of the Leaves in the Hotten edition produced under his editorship. No doubt Rossetti was right to propose it: his logic was good enough—Like Emerson's, on Boston Common, irrefutable.
"What irritations?"
"I'll tell you about all that some other day. It's too long a story to begin on just as you are about to go home."
Decoration Day."I've had the same concern myself: my body is nowadays so easily shoved off its balance: but I am feeling quite myself today—head, belly, all."
W. said after a pause: "You remember our talk over Arnold yesterday?
"Read it,"
said W., "if you can: it is a chirographic mixup, but you are a printer and will get through with it.
Before I started to read W. added: "I don't mean that for egotism: I mean it only as indicating a distinction which it is entirely proper for us to make.
I read W.'s note.
Sept. 7, '63 Dear friend.
You spoke the other day, partly in fun, about the men being so undemonstrative. I thought I would write you a line as I hear you leave the hospital tomorrow for a few weeks. Your labor of love and disinterestedness here in Hospital is appreciated. I have heard the ward A patients speak of you with gratitude, sometimes with enthusiasm. They have their own invariable ways (not outside éclat, but in manly American hearts however rude however undemonstrative to you.) I thought it would be sweet to your tender and womanly heart to know what I have so often heard from the soldiers about you as I sat by their sick cots. I too have learnt to love you, seeing your tender heart, and your goodness to these wounded and dying young men—for they have grown to seem to me as my sons or dear young brothers. As I am poor I cannot make you a present, but I write you this note dear girl, knowing you will receive it in the same candor and good faith it is written.
"I can hardly wait for tomorrow: I want to see my first proofs."
Left him. Went to Harned's for dinner. Kennedy came in at Harned's while we were eating and stayed there two hours, talking of various matters, but mostly about W., to whom the three of us afterwards went. W. at the front window as we arrived. W. waved his right hand, crying: "Walk in! Walk in!"
Kennedy asked: "Don't you get tired of having so many callers?"
"Oh! No—come right in—all of you"
—laughing—
"I'll take the whole dose at once!"
Stayed the best portion of two hours, W. talking very freely all the while."I hardly expected to find the old man so wide awake. He's as lively as a cricket!"
W. talked of the Donnelly Cryptogram again. "It is my final belief that the Shakespearean plays were written by another hand than
"Why is it necessary to infer the other hand?"
To which W. answered: "It is not necessary to infer it: I infer it: that's all there is to it, to me. Donnelly's book has only served to confirm—to bring to a head—certain ideas which have long lain there in my mind nebulously—half formed—though the cipher argument, attaching the authorship to Bacon, is by no means so convincing.
W. discussed with Harned some legal features involved in the plays. "I know it is said that that legal knowledge is very faulty, imperfect. Suppose it is—grant it: still, it is there: the legal phrase: the legal habit, atmosphere, what not. I am more and more amazed at the little verity we can attach to the man, the player, the Stratford
Kennedy spoke to W. about his own Whitman volume, which is to come out through Wilson, of Edinburgh."It's no use even asking a Boston publisher to handle the volume."
McKay is to bring out a Whitman book compiled by Elizabeth Porter Gould—selections."I don't like the idea of having it done but I like still less the idea of telling her not to do it."
Harned asked: "Have
"Yes—a bit for The Herald, which probably was published this morning, though my today's paper is not yet here.
—nodding to K. and to me. "I have already had four or five little remembrances by mail—two from Rhys: a bouquet of roses and two bottles of Jersey champagne. And by the way, that champagne—let's have some of it now—let's open one of the bottles."
"I am right up against my birthday now—feel quite chipper, for me: I am sure I can go through with it without lowering my colors. I am always more or less on tenter hooks about my health these times."
W. showed us a Walter Scott volume—an edition of 1833—with a title page drawn and written in his own hand, in red and black ink."by a clerk in Washington, a girl, who was sweet on me."
"I used to get love letters galore, those days—perfumed letters—from girls down there."
Reference being again made to Scott, W. said: "I prefer the Border Minstrelsy to anything else: it is to me the richest vein he worked."
Harned and Kennedy talked some together about Europe. Both had been abroad."I don't think I'd take any interest at all in them."
A neighbor's little girl came up to the window. W. greeted her and smiled and handed her out one of the Rhys roses. The report that Rhys was in town yesterday was false."I would find it hard to believe Rhys could come to Camden
W. finally said: "Well—we will all meet tomorrow: good luck! good luck!
And addressing me as I hesitated a minute after the other two had withdrawn: "God bless you, boy! And don't forget the proofs: the birthday won't be complete without the proofs."
Among the notes above, made in the morning, I forgot to say that W. gave me one of the promised Clapp letters. "Henry Clapp was always loyal—always very close to me—in that particular period—there in New York.
Clapp wrote on a letter head of the New York Saturday Press.
New York, Mch 27, 1860. My dear Walt
I am so busy that I hardly have time to breathe; moreover, I am in the greatest possible difficulties on account of one or two past liabilities still. This must explain my not answering your letter promptly.
Do write and let me know about when the book is to be ready.
I can do a great deal for it.
I meant to have done more last week, but followed your advice and made a modest and copyable announcement.
The papers all over the land have noticed your poem in the Atlantic and have generally pitched into it strong; which I take to be good for you and your new publishers, who if they move rapidly and concentrate their forces will make a Napoleonic thing of it. It just occurs to me that you might get Messrs. T. & E. to do a good thing for me: to wit,
advance me say one hundred dollars on advertising account—that is if they mean to advertise with me. Or if they don't to let me act for them here as a kind of N.Y. agent to push the book, and advance me the money on that score.I must have one hundred dollars before Saturday night or be in a scrape the horror of which keeps me awake o' nights. I could if necessary give my note at three mos. for the amount and it is a good note since we have never been protested.
Of course I know how extremely improbable it is that Messrs. T. & E. to whom I am an entire stranger will do anything of the kind: but in suggesting it, I have done only my duty to the Sat. Press, and, as I think, to the cause of sound literature.
truly, Yrs Yours H. Clapp Jr. I need not say, we are all anxious to see you back at Pfaff's, and are eagerly looking for your proposed letter to the crowd.
"Poor Henry! He, too, was always hard up. Poor Walt! Poor most everybody! Always hard up!"
And as to the papers that "pitched into"
him W. said: "Henry was right: better to have people stirred against you if they can't be stirred for you—better that than not to stir them at all. I think I first thrived on opposition: the allies came later."
W. reverted to
"You may think Henry was hard up because of his extravagance—of something personal. That is not the point: he was generous, careful: the trouble was, he tried to carry an impossible load.
W.'s birthday."Seventy years—seventy failures—seventy successes: which do you say?"
"It amounts to success, whatever may have been the failures by the way."
"Good! Good!"
I asked W.: "And don't every life amount to success?"
He looked at me an instant, then said: "I see what you mean. Yes—every life amounts to success."
I hurried off, W. calling after me: "I'll see you at Tom's: don't fail us at Tom's. In the meantime see Ferguson—bring me something from Ferguson: I am hungry for something from Ferguson."
I did see Ferguson."friend, Horace Traubel,"
had no doubt made all the required arrangements. "I told Ferguson that my note was sent by way of clinching what you had done."
F. showed me the note today. Was greatly amused by one sentence in which W. advises F. to put "two good men on it (no sloucher)."
"peculiar but interesting, and always clear."
W.'s reception was to be at Harned's seven to ten in the evening. He arrived earlier for supper. These and some
"We missed you when we made the toasts—though I guess I did most of the toasting and most of the drinking."
W. was very animated. Got off again on the Cryptogram. "While I am not yet ready to say Bacon I am decidedly unwilling to say
He was in a rather merry mood. Songs were sung. Weda Cook sang a My Captain song of her own composition. W. seemed to be much touched, exclaiming "Bravo!"
several times as she went on and when she was through saying to me: "There's fine soil in that girl."
Afterwards Weda and Katie Cook sang together. Cauffman also sang. Mrs. Burleigh played piano. W. very ready. Greeting everybody gaily. Often with inquiries. Nothing flatters like an inquiry.
I gave Walt his first proofs there."I am surprised to receive so much—I did not expect so much. I see I must hurry up—the printers will get ahead of me—I must not keep them waiting."
He laughed and added: "Think of me hurrying up, Horace,"
turning to Clifford and saying: "Horace is always quarrelling with my lame pace—he says I always come along the day after the fair."
"I will put it off to morning—I will send you some message to meet you at the ferry in Camden at noon tomorrow. Can you meet my messenger
That was agreed. He pushed the roll of proofs into a side pocket. "It's more precious than gold,"
he exclaimed to some one who came and remarked what he was doing, "it's my baby book just born today—don't you see?.
W. asked me quaintly: "How did the new printers like my old style?"
"You mean—how did the old printers like your new style?"
"Well—have it anyway you like—but what was their first impression of Walt Whitman?"
"Ferguson said they thought you a trifle odd."
"Well,"
jocularly, "I don't mind that as long as I have my own way—as long as they humor me.
W. addressed Weda Cook: "My dear—who taught you to sing?"
She did not answer—only looked at him smilingly; whereat he added: "Just taught yourself—eh? That's the best way after all."
"If we've got the stuff in us, if we're dead in earnest about it, it'll find its own way of getting out."
To Anne Montgomerie: "I suppose Horace has told you of his big contract?—of our partnership?"
Some aggressive person broke loose on Bacon again, W. at once taking up the challenge: "The orthodox Shakespeareans are as horrified at our heresy as the preachers when we say we don't believe in hell—and their opposition has about as much, as little, significance—not a bit more. I do not so much require definite proofs against the
"The Shakespeare plays are essentially the plays of an aristocracy: they are in fact not as nearly in touch with the spirit of our modern democracy as the plays of the Greeks—as the Homeric stories in particular.
I remember that W. spoke the other day of O'Connor as "a fierce agonizer for Bacon."
W. said to me: "It seems very much all right to have Sloane Kennedy here with us today.
W. was very warm towards Harned and his wife, my sister. "This has been a calendar day for me—it has justified itself throughout—chiefly by your courtesy, consideration, love.
With Kennedy on one side and with me on the other W. was helped to his carriage. I asked W.: "Well—do you think now that the seventy years were worth while, Walt?"
He replied meditatively: "Who knows? I don't know—I suppose so."
The last thing before he drove off he called back a rememberer to me: "This side—the ferry—tomorrow—twelve o'clock sharp."
And finally: "Good night all—good night all: God bless you!"
Two or three things I caught from W. on the fly, as I busied about the room."He has a voice like a Niebelungen god!"
I asked: "What do
"What best? Let me see."
Paused. "I guess I like strength in a woman—woman's strength."
"Then what do you like in a man?"
"I guess I like strength in a man, too—man's strength."
W. said of Clifford: "It puts a stop to your negations to find a preacher who is a man."
Clifford is in the Unitarian pulpit at Germantown. W. to me: "My love is anybody's love today."
Day before yesterday W. handed me an old yellow sheet of paper (the stationery of the Attorney General's office) and said:"There's a fillip for you: a bit of ancient history."
It got side-tracked among my records. It is written in W.'s own hand. I give it here.
"Memo. The Saturday Review (London) of Sept 21, 1867, (p 383) distinctly endorses Walt Whitman as the only
American poet—complains of all the other writers of verse in the United States, are mere imitators, without exception.
"A thing like that, breaking through clouds of abuse, was apt to set a fellow up some.
Took to Ferguson today (after meeting and receiving the package from Mrs. Davis at the ferry) the copy for Sands at Seventy belonging to November Boughs. Then in with W. this evening to confer."They are the best I have ever received—those fellows must be first-class: I have
In this note W. extended his thanks to the foreman, proofreader and compositors of the Ferguson office."to go straight ahead with the book,"
adding: "I am almost in a hurry, which is remarkable for me. And besides, I have quite a feeling for the printers—for the two you said were laid off: I do not want them to suffer on my account: Ferguson got them for me—I should keep them going."
Did he feel any the worse for yesterday's dissipation?"No—not at all—better I believe, in all ways."
W. talked of Kennedy: "Kennedy and Rhys do not seem to get on well together. Kennedy seems to experience a sort of antipathy for Rhys, who, in his own way, probably reciprocates in kind. I tried all I could to get at the bottom of it—questioned Kennedy himself—Kennedy—but he showed that he was averse to going into particulars.
W. has been reading Burroughs on Matthew Arnold in The Century."Ah! yes John puts a good deal more weight into the scales than I should for Arnold: but no doubt he justifies it—John always has best reasons for everything he does, says. I myself think Arnold's place a very much smaller one—sometimes think he has no permanent place at all."
Going back to the Kennedy-Rhys matter W. said: "Kennedy wanted to take Rhys out to Cambridge to see Sempers, who wrote the Harvard Monthly paper on me.
Laughed.
"I think it comes a great deal from high living. These military men have a curious experience—first on the field, inured to all possible hardship: there they do their work—get their fame. Then peace comes—then they are coddled, fêted, dined, out of sense—out of health: in fact, ruined."
This led him to talk of the sick emperor Unser Fritz. "How it seems to mock human greatness, the catastrophe that has fallen upon that man! There is a man who went through sieges, agitations, battles, woundings, horrors, deaths—yes, even dying deaths, many of them, in a sense—a man who finally 'got there,' as people say, yet who at the last turn of the road is brought down with a diseased stomach or a rotted throat or some other such mortal adversity too disgusting and cruel in its form to be contemplated without a shudder.
'all is vanity'
: I only say certain things are vain. I have seemed to enter into the tragedy of Unser Fritz—to have felt the flame of the fire that is consuming him."
"One of you fellows asked me about Gosse—you or Harned or Corning or somebody—how Gosse felt towards me. I said Gosse had shown a leaning my way—was more than cursorily courteous and warm. I have since unearthed a letter I had from him fifteen years ago. I was not looking for it—it just turned up in a litter of other documents.
"Yes—I asked the question."
W. added: "It is very odd to me that such men on the other side—Symonds, Dowden, Gosse, Carpenter—such men—should take such a shine to me—should show themselves to
"Is it the same class?"
"Yes and no: the very fact that they regard me with such suspicion seems to put them in another class, spiritually speaking. But technically, professionally, they are the same class. The fellows over there in England are always writing me accounts of the
Gosse's letter was written from the Library of the British Museum.scholars who espouse my cause (not me, my cause)—Dowden writes me—gives me their names (I will show you that by Dowden's letters)—Symonds, Roden Noel, Rhys, Rolleston—clean, cultured, quoted among the literary êlite.
London, Dec. 12th 1873. Dear Sir:
When my friend Mr. Linton was here last, I asked him, during one of our conversations about you, whether I might venture to send you the book I was then writing, as soon as it came out. If he had not encouraged me to do so, I should hardly have liked to trouble you with it, and yet there is no one living by whom I am more desirous to be known than by you. The Leaves of Grass have become a part of my every-day thought and experience. I have considered myself as "the new person drawn toward" you; I have taken your warning, I have weighed all the doubts and the dangers, and the result is that I draw only closer and closer towards you. As I write this I consider how little it can matter to you in America, how you are regarded by a young man in England, of whom you have never heard.
And yet I cannot believe that you, the poet of comrades, will refuse the sym- pathy I lay at your feet. In any case I can but thank you for all that I have learned form you, all the beauty you have taught me to see in the common life of healthy men and women, and all the pleasure there is in the mere humanity of other people. The sense of all this was in me, but it was you, and you alone, who really gave it power to express itself. Often when I have been alone in the company of one or other of my dearest friends, in the very deliciousness of nearness and sympathy, it has seemed to me that you were somewhere invisibly with us. Accept the homage and love, and forgive the importunity of your sincere disciple Edmund W. Gosse.
After reading the letter I said to W.: "I call that pretty good."
"So do I,"
said he. "Gosse must have been young then. Does he last?"
W. smiled. "Who knows?
Again: "Take Lowell, Whipple, Ripley, such men, in this country: they have no use for me: they are all against me."
"Do you think the same men in England would have been on your side?"
"Not the same men—probably not: but men doing their kind of work."
W. spoke of Harry Bonsall's account of yesterday's affair in today's Post. "Harry made rather a mess of it. Harry's Post never gets much beyond being an apology for a newspaper.
"The Post has one virtue. It has always been loyal to you."
"That is so: Harry has never swerved from his adhesion: I could never forget that. Harry has always been ten times over my friend where once would have done. I don't think I want to be misunderstood on that score."
We talked book
"It now looks like pretty clear sailing—Ferguson is getting to understand me—we are getting to understand him."
Took W. the first six pages of "I have been thinking about the book today. After all, I hardly think it will make the one hundred and sixty pages. I was quite sure it would at first, but now the thing looks more than a little doubtful."
Why shouldn't he include the long-postponed Hicks essay?"It would not be out of place: but the Hicks must wait its time. I do not consider it sufficiently rounded up yet."
Polished? "No—not polished: that is not the word: it lacks somehow that something or other in substance which will go to make it satisfactory to me at last."
Why couldn't he give it that something or other at once and call it done? "Why? because I am a slow piece of machinery.
Maybe the humor will come before the book is through? "You are stubborn. Maybe. If it does I will be only too glad. But I don't seem to have the power to strain at, to force, to compel, the issue."
I read him a paragraph from today's Philadelphia Times—this:
"Walt Whitman enters the Seventies.
"Walt Whitman, the poet, who honors Camden by his residence there, entered on his seventieth year yesterday.
"He says fall, does he and 'probably'? That is rather tantalizing. I am anxious to get the book into plates—printed: the rest is not material. I don't want anything to happen to me in the midst of the job. No one knows better than I do that I may go to pot any minute—vamoose, as they say out West."
Questioned me some concerning the compositors who were working on his book."So they wonder about my use of the apostrophe, do they? I use it before the d, in place of e, in the past tense of verbs, because it seems like reason to do so. The practice comes to me legitimately from the old dramatists—yes, and there is a reason nearer home. I have so accustomed myself to it in my verse that I extend it to my prose for uniformity's sake. Besides, the closening of words—'wisht' for 'wished' and such like—is not alone an old literary form but a wise one—in line today with current phonetic tendencies. How very redundant were spellings in the old times—very redundant: but where spellings have been overdone we are gradually pruning—except"
—with a laugh—"in almost hopeless cases like that of the Evening Post, Bryant's paper, which still uses the o-u-r in the o-r endings of words—or did when I last saw it.
"Their origin was a thought-origin—that I feel, acknowledge: but they are often over-done—over-ornate—their elaboration is extreme, at times utterly obscuring the idea, which might
I said to W.: "I met Morris—Harrison Morris—today.
W. took the praise merrily. "That'll do for Morris. Tell him his roses smell good but he mustn't be reckless with
Ingersoll's reply to Gladstone has appeared."Then Tom was in, too—he had the magazine under his arm: I shall see the whole business tomorrow when I come. I can easily guess what the Colonel has done with Gladstone."
"I believe he was here once, though I am not certain. He came in one of several bevies at a time I was not well—I cannot remember him. On such occasions I let them turn the crank but am myself able to do nothing that is not purely mechanical—no thinking at all—after it, no memory either."
"It is a great injustice but I hope George will say nothing about it himself—it will right itself."
My sister Agnes asked W. whether he still felt satisfied with Morse's Hicks. "Yes—yes—yes: it stays, lasts, with me—that is the great test. I must have a thing by me a long while—must give it a chance to sink in—things never come fast with me, though, to be sure, when they come they come firm.
W. spoke of the birthday compliments. "I seem to have been particularly remembered by young women—in Camden, elsewhere. I got a card from Ryman, of Boston, containing photographs and a bit of four-leaved clover.
W. alluded to Kennedy's letter in the current Critic dealing with the Worthington reissues of the Thayer & Eldridge volume."I would like to rehearse the whole story—it has elements all its own. It is a long story, too. Worthington—'Holy Dick' they call him—bought the plates—has done as he pleased with them ever since—never consulting me.
W. was very merry with me over a Carpenter letter with an enclosure than he produced. He said of it between laughs: "We are not always patted on the back—sometime we are kicked on the behind: and who knows but the kicks do as much good as the pats?
I will first give Carpenter's letter and let passages from the enclosure follow.
Bradway Near Sheffield, 16 Mar. '82. Dear Old Walt—
I should like a line from you. I have not had time exactly to write to you lately—or rather I have written so many letters, business affairs mostly, connected with my brothers and sisters, that I have not wanted to write any more." I enclose you a letter I am sure you will like to read—which I got the other day from a friend. He is a clever fellow, with flashes of genius—classical minded—but you are too much for him!
I have about finished what I am writing at present. It is in paragraphs, some short, (half a line or so), some long, in the ordinary prose form, tho poetical in character. It is a good deal made up of previous writings of the last five or six years
squeezed out—a drop or two here and there. I have thought for some time of calling it Towards Democracy and I do not see any reason for altering the title—though the word Democracy does not often occur in it.Your friend Edward Carpenter.
Following are passages from the letter mentioned:
My thanks for the Leaves of Grass.
Why not "Blades"? I have run through some of it; a barbaric work it is. Surely you must be poking fun at us!—What point of contact is there between E. Carpenter—learned and accomplished in an extraordinary degree, austere, ascetic and idealist,—and Whitman,—"turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding" (pg. 48)—waiting for the wand of Circe. . . . Whitman is the poet of anarchy, confusion, lawlessness, disorder, "anomia," chaos—if such things are compatible with poetry. He is the logical outcome of Protestantism, the natural revulsion from Puritanism, Priapism. Prot-
estantism abandons all reverence for the past, all respect for authority, tramples on all poetry and mystery: at last the individual, however rotten, is the only rule and law to himself. . . . Nothing is vile, if only one has the courage to "brazen it out." These may not be Whitman's exact words, but he says as much again and again. I don't dislike him as a man (p. 273)—provided he is in earnest, which I doubt—but his philosophy—he has none.
Nothing can be done without a system, nor will things work themselves out of their own accord and result in something better.
Our present society is but the concrete thought of some few great minds. The society of the future will be either the same as this, one stage more corrupt, or else nature, fertilized by the great thoughts of some philosopher, will breed something better. There are thoughts which cannot be stated in downright language and yet they may be passed from mind to mind by Poetry and Parables. And if no thought can be extracted from the Poem, then damn the Poem!
—Thought need not be definite, but there must be thought.I find none in Whitman. Also he is notcosmopolitan.
"Have you read it all through?"
asked W."What do you think of that blast? Is there a shred of me left? He don't slip into any half-way mood about me: 'Walt Whitman is maybe all right, but—.' No—that's not his style. He simply says Walt Whitman is
not—and that's the end of it all. I kind "from E. Carpenter enclosing sharp letter on L of G."
W. then proceeded good-humoredly: "The next time anybody asks you about me tell them you have found me out at last—that there's a man in England who has shaken all my timber down."
W. arrived at Harned's at 1.20 in his carriage direct from home. He took his drive later in the day. Clifford came to dinner."Hicks' worldly providence."
"How well it would be if Morse had some touch of the disease of saving! I never met a man so little able on that side to take care of himself. Hicks always kept a little nest egg in bank."
Talking about no-license W. said: "I take no personal interest in it. I don't accept the temperance advocate so-called—neither do I accept the rum seller: I often say to them—hatchel each other all you can—I shan't grieve over it!
At the table W. remarked: "I want to take a vote on an alternative of titles for the poem section of November Boughs. Should it be 'Sands at Seventy' or 'Sands on the Shores at Seventy' or something in effect the same. I am at a loss about it—don't exactly feel any
I voted for Sands at Seventy. sure way out of the dilemma."And you, Clifford—and you Tom—and you there, Anne Montgomerie—
All hands were of one notion in the matter. "You see, Walt,"
said Harned, "we're all agreed."
"So I see—I am agreed too: I guess 'Sands at Seventy' is best—but I wanted to ask. I never feel so certain of myself I may not feel
Harned addressed W. "I thought you always did things in your own way without advice?"
"So I do. Did I take any advice? It happened that you all agreed with me on that title. Suppose you hadn't? What would have happened? Tom, what would have happened?"
Harned laughed heartily and said: "I suppose you would have cast your one vote against all our votes and declared your own motion carried!"
W. very merrily exclaimed: "Good! Good!"
adding, however: I ought to be honest with you all about that, though? I was a good deal uncertain about the title until your unanimous vote removed my uncertainty."
"That's a big concession for you to make, Walt,"
said Harned. "Never mind—it's the truth!"
Drifted into political talk. W. very decided about his politics. "I am for free trade—absolute free trade: for the federation of the world."
"But isn't it our first duty to take care of ourselves—our America?"
"Yes—that's right,"
replied W.: "Take care of your family, your state, your nation—that's right from a certain standpoint: some people seem ordained to care for one man, for a dozen men, for a single nation: and some other people—of whom I hope I am one—to care for them all. All sounds so damned much better than one—don't you think? The whole business done at once instead of a little patch of it here and there!
In mentioning Worthington W. said: "The worst thing I know about Worthington is the fact that he is deacon or
"Moonshine has its importance and place, too."
Again referred to November Boughs as his "last word." Was he still determined to omit the Hicks peace? No—not determined—only afraid: afraid I can't get it done.
Anne Montgomerie having said something about Emerson W. said to her: "Read all the Emerson you can—it is the best preparatory soil. Emerson is not conclusive on all points, but no man more helps to a conclusion."
Clifford made same allusion
"Theodore Parker? Yes—he was built for mountains and seas—for might, for loyalty."
"Yes, I see he is being mentioned for the Presidency—but he's in no danger—he won't be nominated. Have you ever seen Sherman? It is necessary to see him in order to realize the Norse make-up of the man—the hauteur—noble, yet democratic: a hauteur I have always hoped I, too, might possess. Try to picture Sherman—seamy, sinewy, in style—a bit of stern open air made up in the image of a man.
"He must bear some corporeal resemblance to Tennyson—or what I take to be the Tennyson shape and measure. Tennyson, too, has something of the Norse in him. Some one was here awhile ago, some Englishman—many Englishmen come to see me—who told me a characteristic Tennyson story. Tennyson sat with a group of his friends listening to a description of some act of cowardly cruelty committed by a member of the nobility.
'I'd rip his damned guts out.'
I was very much tickled with the story—it seemed to show Tennyson up in a new light—as being far more human and democratic than some of his work would lead us to suppose."
When W.'s carriage had arrived he asked Bucke to take a drive off into the country with him."I intended this ride for you,"
W. said, turning to Clifford, "but Doctor is not often here, so I take him. Your time will come later on."
W. said "good-bye"
all around, kissing the children, kissing Anne Montgomerie—shaking hands with Harned—flinging
"You will see to matters at Ferguson's tomorrow, eh? Horace?"
Ferguson referred to me this morning several questions about which I had to confer with W."I seem to have had since last night three strokes of a paralytic character—shocks, premonitions. That's all there is to it.
He held my hand warmly and firmly. When he drove off from Harned's yesterday with Doctor Bucke he was in great good humor and (for him) apparent health. In the evening he undertook to sponge himself, in his own room, alone, and while so engaged fell to the floor, finding himself unable to move or to call for assistance, lying there, he thought, helplessly, for several hours. When asked why he did not call Mrs. Davis he said: "I thought best to fight it out myself."
"I have had many such attacks in the past—they do not alarm me—though I am aware they do not signify good health."
This morning two perhaps lighter attacks had followed—one of which, the last, that from which he was recovering on my arrival, having somewhat affected his speech. "I never suffered that entanglement in my former experiences,"
he explained. Harned was present when this occurred. No doctor there. "Don't get a doctor,"
commanded W., adding humorously: "I think of it this way, you know: that if the doctors come I shall not only have to fight the disease but fight them, whereas if I am left alone I have but the one foe to contend with."
"I hope it will all pass off,"
he replied: "I guess it will but
W. attributes the trouble to his "infernal indigestion"
suffered of late. "I have passed through hells of indigestion."
"Fast for awhile—cut your belly off."
W. smiled. "I am aware of the need of caution but I am aware also of the fact that I must keep the fire going."
Harned and the others going into the hallway W. turned his head towards me and said: "Well, Horace—you want to see me?"
adding at once—"Sit right down here and tell me what it is."
I demurred. Would it be all right? "Can you do it now?"
"O yes, I am much better."
While I was opening the proofs he went on: "Besides, this attack is a warning to us to hurry the book along all we can.
He took my hand—held it saying: I feel more and more my dependence upon you—I feel more and more that you are to be depended upon: God bless you!"
."Bring as many proofs as you possibly can this evening. Do not forget the extra proofs—the four sets. I am willing (even desire) to give a dollar or so to the prooftaker for the extra trouble we are putting him to. I mean the dollar for the prooftaker personally—not for Ferguson. You will give it to him yourself."
I asked W. whether he felt enough better to be left alone. "O yes—I seem now to be resuming my strength: do not be afraid.
Left at twelve forty with Harned and the children. Harned informed me that he would telephone to"two portraits, a picture of 328, the den inside,"
&c., W. saying: The reproductions are so bad they leave me indifferent."
I received from Ferguson on my return to Philadelphia proofs of Sands. Took these to W. at eight o'clock, finding him with Bucke and Harned, and better, decidedly."The milk is spilled—why should we cry over it?"
Took the roll of proofs from me and put them carefully in the inside pocket of his coat. He pointed to a chair piled with books and papers. "Go there, Horace: you will find a package: it contains some fresh copy for tomorrow."
Bad as he had felt he had done this work since noon."I have not got through yet: but I have tasted the fruit: it not only satisfies, it excites appetite. It is the lawyer's reply, not altogether satisfactory to me, but with here and there bits that we must class with poetry of the highest order."
W.'s physical condition was discussed, W. himself frankly participating.
Bucke superficially made light of the incidents of yesterday and today, though secretly anxious."Notwithstanding what you say, Maurice, there are earthquakes which shake walls, chandeliers—yes, and there are earthquakes which destroy cities."
W. said quietly to me: "In spite of what the physicians say, I know myself, I know my peril: I am on shaky foundations—it cannot be concealed: I read the hints—am convinced of certain things.
W.'s love for Walter Scott never dies out. McKay has responded to his request for "typographically readable Scott
as W. says, by sending two—The Heart of Midlothian and The Antiquary—over which W. is delighted.
It seems that after W. and Bucke had had their spin in the country yesterday W. drove Bucke to the ferry, W. then taking another run of over an hour beyond Camden alone."I drove up as far as Pea Shore—right up to the river, halting there for half an hour, looking over the water—listening to the wash at my feet, my nag all the while impatient, as is generally the case.
Mrs. Davis says he looked ghastly at breakfast—scared her—but nothing happened at that time. Bucke says: "There's something suspicious about last night's affair. I don't believe the old man himself knows very much about it. He was probably unconscious for a long time. I questioned him sharply today and that is my impression."
W. has been looking over a Huxley book just out—controversial."It is far more crushing in its kind even than Ingersoll's—it is superb. It does seem as if Ingersoll and Huxley without any others could unhorse the whole Christian giant. They are master-pilgrims with a fighting gift that would appall me if I was in the opposition."
W. receiving some letters from people he does not know says: "There is someone who says 'the fool is known by more people than the fool knows' or something running that way."
W. gave me a couple of "curios"
as he called them, one an envelope containing a note from The Broadway and W.'s reply to it (1867) and one envelope containing a Henry Clapp letter of the same year.
New York, Dec. 28, 1867. Dear Sir:
The Editor of The Broadway, Mr. Edmund Routledge, London, writes desiring me to get from you, if we can, one or two papers or poems for his magazine. He was offered early sheets of your paper on Democracy from the Galaxy but that would not suit his purpose, he wants such only as he can have for both sides of the Atlantic and is willing to pay accordingly. We do not suggest the title of any subject, believing you to know best the subjects on which you would like to write for such a magazine. Lest you may not know the magazine we send you by mail a copy of each of the five numbers already published. No. 6 will contain papers by Francis Turner Palgrave and Henry Sedley editor of the Round Table and a long poem by M. Rossetti. Hoping to have a favorable reply from you on an early day Wm. William We remain
Yours respectfullyG. Routledge & Sons.
Dec. 30, 1867 Geo. Routledge & Sons, 416 Boone St.,N.Y.
I have received the letter asking me to write for the Broadway. I do not write much, but your invitation is cordially appreciated and may serve as the spur towards something. I can at present only briefly say that should I be able to pre- pare an article, or poem, appropriate for the purposes of the magazine, I will send it on,—and that I shall surely try to do so. My address is at the Attorney General's office here. (New York house please forward this to Mr. Edmund Routledge, London).
W. had made this mem. on the reverse of the sheet: "I sent Whispers of Heavenly Death which they printed and paid handsomely for in gold."
I said to W.: "That was nice enough in Routledge. You were not always knocked down and stamped out by the editors."
To which he replied: "Not always—but mostly. There are exceptions even to this rule. The truth is, what for editorial hard blows, I haven't got a whole bone left in my body."
"By God Horace! if you could see some of the specimen letters of the old time your fighting blood would all be up. I have turned some of the 'no' letters over to you but you have only seen the mild ones. A few such incidents as that of the Routledges can be quoted on the other side: but the current has always pushed hard, very hard, against me.
I am writing this very late at night. Very tired. Walt's copy to run over and get ready for delivery to Ferguson in the morning. Will transcribe the Clapp letter tomorrow.
Took further copy to Ferguson today, concluding batch of poems for Sands at Seventy—also essays on Burns and Shakespeare and several shorter pieces."I am inert, feeble, borne down with lassitude—my head being sore and sick: but there has been no recurrence of such attacks as I suffered yesterday."
Osler had been in to see him—Osler, who, W. says, "believes in the gospel of encouragement—of putting the best construction on things—the best foot forward."
"Doctor sent word that he was called off suddenly to meet his Commission somewhere in New Jersey. He will be back tomorrow. You know Doctor came down into the States with a group of men on an investigating tour."
"I want it to go in if I can get it in. I looked into it today—observed places where patches are obviously needed. It would add forty pages to the book at least. I do not feel bound to put it in—shall not feel guilty if it cannot be managed. If the book must be smaller than it must. So much is packed into our solid pages: I saw as soon as we got started that I was talking rather boisterously when I said the book would make a hundred and fifty pages. I know the danger of delay.
When Sidney Morse was in Camden he took notes of his talks with W. Kennedy asked Morse for the notes for use in his book. Morse said: "It is absurd"
and answered "no."
W. said: "It does not seem absurd to me,"
adding: "Morse took the notes very carefully—often asked me to repeat things I had said. He seemed to be very conscientious about getting the right word as nearly as possible and putting it in the right place.
[Afterwards given by S.H.M to the editors of In re Walt Whitman and included in that volume.]
Drifted into further talk about W.W. portraits. "Herbert's picture,"
said W., "is in some ways unfortunate—is not what it ought to be: lacks in reality: I am sorry it is exhibited in London—it excites wrong impressions.
This seemed to amuse W. into a long laugh.
"My idea of a book page is an open one—a wide open one: words broadly spaced, lines with a grin, page free altogether: none huddled. Some printed pages seem to have a hump in the back. Now, there at Ferguson's I want you to get and keep on good terms with the working printers. If I could get about that is what I should do. The whole affair is in your hands.
W. said there were two other things he would like to include in the volume. "But I am not free to do so. The Century
"I always designate my price when I submit a piece: it is far the simplest way: I make my own valuations. There was the Twilight poem, printed in The Century (a good many of my pieces are like it—only a few lines—a touch)—that was a mere thumb-nail, a hint—yet I named my sum and got it."
Talking of Sunday agitation generally and Gloucester baseball in particular W. said: "I believe in all that—in baseball, in picnics, in freedom: I believe in the jolly all-round time—with the parsons and the police eliminated."
"though I am not sure that I want to hermit myself, either, even in sickness. I like them to come in and stay a little while. A great big lubber like me (my burly body—red, full face)—gets very little credit for being sick—for being an invalid."
Used "legatee" on tenth page of November Boughs. "Was it right?"
continuing: "I often get myself mixed in the use of the simplest words."
I postponed the Clapp letter to today. W. had written on the outside of the envelope: "Henry Clapp (Garibaldi) quite good read again."
18 City Hall [New York] Octo. 3d, '67. My dear Walt:
I have this moment clipped the enclosed paragraph about Garibaldi from the Paris correspondence of this morning's New York Times. What a fine photograph of a splendid man! I wonder why it made me think of you! It did, though, and so I send it to you with the regards ofYours truly H. Clapp, Jr.
W. said before I had read the clipping: "William O'Connor was greatly pleased with it. He said to me: 'Do you know, Walt, that might easily have been written by me, about you!
Here it is:
The last that I heard of Garibaldi's movements was that he was at the villa of his friend, the Marquis de Pallavicini, in the neighborhood of Milan. This was on the 16th, the day on which it was so confidently announced by his partisans in Florence that he had crossed the Papal frontier.
When W. saw I was done he asked: "Does it go home? Is it Walt Whitman or Garibaldi?"
"Neither and both."
"I wonder? and after all that may be the way to see it. Let me see the slip."
Put on his glasses. "William said: 'There you are, sure: He is nothing but a rowdy, wears a boatman's shirt and slouched hat, is not agreeable to the small flute of the Academies, you cannot get him to express
"Well, how does it strike you? Can you see your face in the glass?"
"I can see some of the features—yes."
Then after an instant's quiet, laying his glasses down on the window shelf and passing the envelope back to me: "As to being any way associated with Garibaldi—that is the crowning tribute. Garibaldi belongs to the divine eleven!"
"in my big arm chair there—God bless my big arm chair!"
—"very quiet, untalkative all the time,"
Mrs. Davis remarked.
W. up earlier than usual yesterday and today—by 8:30 instead of 10:30. "I do not seem to sleep,"
said he. We went over the Hicks matter again. He is anxious to complete it. "I should not be at all surprised now if it took its place in the volume though the doubts of it still remain.
"There seems to be something on Mr. Whitman's mind. Do you know what it is?"
"I think it's only the book."
I repeated this to W. He was serious. "Yes, it's only the book—but ain't the book enough? Everything tells us to conserve the book—conserve the book."
"I think the
After November Boughs W. will annex the Sands at Seventy poems to the Leaves. "I am not sure of this, however—I have not entirely made up my mind on this point."
This led him to some reflections upon the character of these latest poems. "I often ask myself, is this expression of the life on an old man consonant with the fresher, earlier, delvings, faiths, hopes, stated in the original Leaves? I have my doubts—minor doubts—but somehow I decide the case finally on my own side. It belongs to the scheme of the book. As long as I live the Leaves must go on.
Harned's Boswell is still around. W. happened to pick one volume of it off the floor today."Here is Boswell. I thought I had given it back to Tom. I notice, by the way, that a good many of the things told by Boswell are contradicted by the notes of annotators, who intimate that this could not possibly have happened, or that, or the other, simply because the man was absent at the time, or dead, or unknown—or for reasons similar.
Kennedy has written W. that he likes The Graphic pictures. "I do, too, except for the slovenly printing, which it is hard to forgive."
"I have not read it seriatim, but nearly all of it—most of it several times, attentively. It is a work of genius and as against Gladstone conclusive. I find that Ingersoll is not altogether my man: does not say all my say for me: that is, is right in his place, for others, but not wholly representative for me. But I am not the only one to be pleased
"But is not Gladstone in the swim?"
"It might be supposed so, but when we come to look it up, not. My friends tell me, for instance, that he cuts a rather thin figure in literature—that is Homeric studies, for instance, are bad in the extreme—as, indeed, they must be, if we may judge them by the standards which apply to his theological acquirements.
My sister Agnes came in and told W. Cleveland had been nominated for the Presidency. "And Thurman?"
asked W. at once: "He has been named for the Vice-Presidency?"
"He is a bourbon—during the war was a copperhead—one of the earlier hateful examples of that tribe."
W. is for Cleveland—says he "may vote for Cleveland,"
but shies at Thurman. "I never met Thurman—no: never met Blaine—have always avoided men of the purely political class: I seem to distrust them."
W. gave me a copy of the 1882 edition of the Leaves. I am to show something in it to the printers. W. had written as title page: "Imperfect—pp 85 to 88 gone (two leaves gone)."
"Next pp 85, '6, '7, and '8 gone (who can have torn them out?)"
The missing pages contained part of I Sing the Body Electric and all but the concluding stanzas of A Woman waits for Me.
"One of the best things I know about Leaves of Grass is the fact that it seems to hit the first-hand men.
Schmidt wrote in English.
Copenhagen, 25 April, 1872. Dear Walt Whitman.
Just now received the New York Commercial Advertiser, which was for some days ago preceded by your kind letter. When returned to Washington, Clausen, who has taken a strong and sincere attachment to you, most certainly will be able to translate the whole article verbally to you. I should be glad if after a thorough knowledge you still would be pleased with it. I have had very great pleasure in introducing you to the Scandinavian public, and most probably in no European country would you find the conditions of the mind so favorable for the understanding of your poetry. Your books and portraits have in the last month circulated amongst the ladies of my acquaintance, for especially it is the women who are your friends. Bjornson writes of your article: "Walt Whitman makes me a joy as no new man in many years and in one respect the greatest I have ever had. Never had I thought in my days (during mylifetime) to get a spirit (or ghost, none of the expressions signify exactly our stand) for my help from America. But such and in no other shape of course it must come. I thank him and thee from my full heart. I went amazed during some days and still the great impressions are haunting me, as were I on the ocean looking on the driving ice-bergs that are inaugurating the spring."I am very curious to know how you did like Clemens Peterson. Of course you did
notlike him. But if you have not found him broken by sickness and bad humorsyou must have felt that here is a mind with perhaps the finest nerves for beauty you ever met.
Will you do me a service? I should like to write an article on "American fancy" comparing the grotesque humor that is scattered with no pretension in your newspapers with the humor of Luther and Shakespeare. Our own newspapers are sometimes bringing such specimens of wit and humor extracted from the American papers. Could you not find for me about a dozen jokes of this sort? That is all I want. For instance: I saw in Harper's Weekly one of your leading political men (whom?) as Cincinnatus by the plough bringing himselfan address, the same person making (in two figures) compliments to himself. Another instance: A teacher explains to his pupils the meaning of a phenomenon. An apple tree is no phenomenon; a cow is none. But if you were seeing a cow in an apple tree plucking apples with his tail:thatwould be a phenomenon!At present you will understand my meaning! Good bye.
Yours Rudolf Schmidt.
"Schmidt has translated a lot of me—done it well, I am told. He seems in his own country to be regarded as a man of great ability. What I like best about him is not his scholarship. He is a human being—is fresh, unspoiled by books. The best man in the world is the man who has absorbed books—great books—made the most of them—yet remains unspoiled—remains a man. It is marvellous what capacity books have for destroying as well as making a man.
It got cooler today. To W.'s at 7.30. His shutters were closed. Sitting by the window looking chilled and disturbed. In reply to my question he said: "I'm not violently afflicted, as I was the other day, but I am feeling miserable."
"I have about concluded to put the Hicks in whether or no—letting it go in with all its sins upon its head."
"I am in a hurry—in a hurry: I want to see the book in plates: then I can die satisfied. We will attend to the presswork and binding when we come to it. The main thing is the plates—the plates. Horace, I am on the verge of a final collapse: I look on the future—even tomorrow, next day—with a feeling of the greatest uncertainty. I am anything but secure: let us make the book secure."
Bucke not yet returned. "He has gone still further—across to New York: I have heard from him. He will be back here by Saturday night or Sunday morning."
"How do you like that for free and easy?"
Laughing mildly. "Some of the fellows in Washington said no—they wouldn't have it on any terms: they said to me: 'you like to make yourself look tough.' One fellow said: 'You do all you can to encourage the people in their belief that you are a tough.'
He called my attention to the dent in the hat. "Somebody once called it a sauce-pan—said I wore sauce-pan hats."
He had also found me the promised picture of Rudolf Schmidt. "It is an old one by this time but then everything about me is growing old—everything
Schmidt had autographed this picture and inscribed it "To Walt Whitman the poet of the American democracy."
"William, taking him for all in all, I should consider my most ardent friend: O'Connor, with his
"Burroughs is an exceptional man, a denizen of the woods: it is natural, constitutional, with Burroughs to take hard beds, ill fare, as a matter of course, with entire serenity. Did you say they proposed to take Scovel? He would only be in the way—would not last. As for that, I doubt if Kennedy would last much longer. Kennedy has all the character necessary, all the brains, but with him it
Scovel had been telling some ultra-intimate suspicions to Kennedy about W.'s private life. Harned had referred them to W., who was indignant."The stuff all seems to me beyond everything else vile and slanderous. I was never on intimate terms with Scovel: Kennedy seems to have imbibed a false idea. I like Scovel's wife, his daughters—spent some of my happiest hours there—at dinners, suppers, about the fire: but there was no more to it. It must be that Jim has repeated to Kennedy some of the vile slanderous stories which have here and there been invented and told at my expense. What is your notion of it all, Horace?
I told him K. was "shocked." "Shocked? Did he believe the stories? Shocked at me? Shocked at Jim?"
"Shocked,"
I said—"just shocked."
I added that Harned was indignant when K. first told him. W. exclaimed: "Indignant? Ah! of course! And still you do not know what it was that Kennedy heard?"
I said to W.: "I advised Kennedy to use any material he got from Jim very conservatively."
"That was right,"
put in W.,"damned conservatively."
"It is not very important as a literary production—it is chiefly important for the material it supplies for the use of others, who will come along by and by and do the literature of that period. It adds sidelight, color, facts—statistics: and odds and ends of stuff here and there contributing to the general effect. What a fund of such data is not being revealed! I hope to see it go on—go on from all sides—from South as well as North—from the disloyal and the loyal. I often say that even Jefferson Davis should put his story down—put himself on record—give the world the benefit of any peculiar light he may enjoy from his personal post of observation.
I offered to copy the Hicks if it was necessary. W. smiled pleasantly: "Thanks, boy, thanks! I should not be at all surprised to have to call on you—take you at your word."
"Leave the door open—go to your work—come back from time to time and take a wink at me"
—as she did, asking once: "Does it annoy you to have me come so often?"
and he replying: "Oh no! Not at all: come."
"Why did you not call me last night?"
He only repeated the "Why?" and did not explain—could not, probably—for what occurred there that night in the isolation of his bedroom will probably never be known to him or to us.
People often criticise Mrs. Davis because of the confusion apparent in the parlor and W.'s bedroom. The fact is W. does not encourage any interference even by her with his papers. She has been cleaning some this week, W. being rather disposed to joke about it. "I hate to see things after they are 'fixed.' You get everything out of place and call it order."
"They all count—I like all—I don't know that I like one better than any other."
Tonight I happened to mention the Rossetti volume, whereupon W.,
"That reminds me—here is another Hotten memorandum: I have already given you something or other of Hotten's.
W.'s memorandum was a draft of a letter, his to Hotten:
March 9, '68. Mr. Hotten.
I thank you for the copy of my poems sent by you. It has just reached me. I consider it a beautiful volume. The portrait given in it is, however, a marked blemish. I was thinking, if you wish to have a portrait, you might like to own the original plate of 1855 which I believe I can procure in good order—and from which you can print something much better—as per impression enclosed. If so, send me word immediately. The price of the plate would probably be forty dollars gold—or eight pounds. It would suit just such a volume, and would perfectly coincide with the text as it now stands in note and preface. If I receive your favorable response, I will, if possible, procure the plate and send it you by express—on receipt of which, and not then, you can send me the money. till until
I will thank you to convey to Mr. Swinburne my heartiest thanks for the copy of William Blake sent me, and also for his kind and generous mention of me in it.
"Talking of those English fellows,"
added W., "reminds me particularly of Rossetti. Rossetti—William—was one of the first of my friends over there—has been one of the staunchest—right along: has never qualified his allegiance. There is another kind of a friend—the I'd rather I'd rather
"Was he on the whole satisfied with the Hotten book?"
"On the whole—yes.
Ferguson gave me the concluding proofs of the Sands today and some of the prose to follow it—Shakespeare, The Mexican Letter and Visitors. In with W. at 7.45"No, it's all right: I was just thinking whether I should not go over to the window again."
I helped him across the room. "I don't feel worse in any one place from the attacks the other day but weak all through—generally less able to get about. I have for two years been expecting a bad fall at some time or other so that what happened the other day was no surprise. I have always been very cautious—you know, the phrenologist puts my caution at 67"
—here he laughed—"cautious enough to be cowardly—and I suppose I owe a good deal to that.
He took a bunch of flowers from a vase on the window sill. "The white ones
Spoke hopefully of the "woodcuts" in newspapers. "Some of them are wonderfully good."
He is really talking about half-tones and other process plates. "They promise so much—are prophetic."
"We judge things too much by side-lights: we must have a care lest we pause with the single features, the exaggerated figures, individuals, facts—losing thereby the ensemble."
W. pursued the subject of literary proportion. "The big fellows are always the generous fellows: they recognize each other wherever they are.
"Things don't always work out,"
said W.: "Sometimes they work in."
He thinks he will bring out the Hicks essay in a special "volumet," as he calls it, later on. Speculated about the development of photography."I doubt color photography: how can it ever be? There seem to be insuperable chemical difficulties in the way. Yet how can
"He may come—he is welcome to try—let him take a shot. Frank Fowler was to have come, too. I give the painters all the rope they want: I humor them every way I know.
I am to write to Morse conveying a message from W."Tell Sidney that the Whitman sent to Boston, refused everywhere there in high quarters, is to be sent to Concord, and deposited temporarily with the Concord School of Philosophy—with that institution as long as it lasts, and, in the event of its demise, with the Concord Library. The London head is still in private hands—with Mary Costelloe—has never been exhibited except that one time with Gilchrist. Mary thoroughly likes it—likes Herbert's picture, too, for that matter, as they all seem to over there. There's something in a head
W. has never seen the French bust of Emerson at Concord. "Concord is a great place. I always hold Sanborn, Frank Sanborn, to be a true friend—to stand with those who wish me well.
W. remarked that he had not yet received any acknowledgment from Griffin of the copy of the Leaves sent to France.
W. has not read the Emerson-Carlyle correspondence. Asked me about it."I guess I should hunt it up. Do you think I should read it? Yes? Well—I must do so. How big is it?"
He wound up by asking me to bring it down to him. "I think Burroughs' analysis of Carlyle about the best I have seen. Carlyle was fed on the pabulum of European libraries: he learned above all to love strong individualities—men who would drive on to their ends through whatever obstacles—men gifted with the genius of extrication—men who were not particular how they did things but very particular to have them done.
"He excites my admiration though I have not studied him as I should."
Speaking of
"I always took a special shine to that, too.
We talked some about college men. I had kicked something on the floor. Stooped and picked it up. W. asked: "What is that?"
I passed it over to him. It proved to be two letters tied in a string—both from Corson, of Cornell."College men as a rule would rather get along without me,"
he said: "they go so far, the best of them—then stop: some of them don't go at all. Corson seems to have signal abilities—accepts me in a general way, without vehemence. As I was saying the other day, the college men this side, the critic classes, the formidable array of the literary celebres, are almost solidly against me."
W. read the Corson notes quietly, then handed them over to me. "I wonder,"
said W., "if Corson knew how significant that last sentence or two may be taken to be?
"Have you any reason for suspecting Corson?"
"None whatever—only, I wonder. His letter is friendly but he has the excessive caution of the university man. The scholar swells rarely—I may say never—let themselves go."
I read the Corson notes—both of them short.
The Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 26 March, 1886. My dear Mr. Whitman:
Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance my young friend, Mr. E. H. Woodruff, who desires the pleasure and honor of meeting you and exchang- ing a few words. Mr. Woodruff is one of your many lovers connected with our university, and I am sure it will be a proud satisfaction to him to meet you. I remember with great pleasure my visit to you last March, when I was on my way home from Johns Hopkins University. I brought, you will remember, a letter from Howard Furness.
I expect to be in Philada on the 1st, 2d and 3d of April, and to visit Mr. Furness; and I shall be much pleased if I can have the opportunity of again meeting you.
Hoping that you are enjoying good health,
I am, my dear sir,
Very truly yours,Hiram Corson.
The Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 26 April, '86. My dear sir:
I received your favor of April 13th and the book, which I am delighted to have. Pardon my delay in acknowledging, due to illness. I'm delighted to learn that your lecture and reading, in the Academy of Music, was so great a success. I hope you may repeat it for many years to come. Americans are apt to forget their great men, unless their work in this world is kept before their minds, through annual presentations of it. It was a great disappointment to me, when I was last in Philada, that press of work, and shortness of time, did not allow me to see you.
When I next visit the city, I shall certainly arrange to have a talk with you, on certain points upon which I have been long pondering—one especially, that of language-shaping, and the tendency towards impassioned prose, which I feel will be the poetic form of the future, and of which, I think, your Leaves of Grass is the most marked prophecy. Very truly yours, Hiram Corson.
I asked W. "What do you want? He seems to concede a good deal."
"I want nothing—he does concede: yes, concede: I suppose that is so.
W. is always saying to me—"I am nearly blind."
He does have trouble with his eyes. But he sees things, too. Tonight he said: "One of the worst signs is my eyes—they seem to be going back on me entirely—I can't see an elephant with 'em."
"And do you notice Symonds himself is down there by the shed, large as life?"
I did notice Symonds. But he wasn't large as life. He was so small it would take divination or a magnifier to see him. I said so to W. and added, rallying him: "And you are the man who says he is blind!"
To which W. testily replied: "Who should so well know he is blind as the man who can't see!"
I laughed and was about to ask him another question but he would not let me. "Take your question to court—don't bother me with them: you ought to be a detective or a lawyer!"
Symonds had written on the back of the photograph: "Am Hof, Davis Platz, Graubunden, Switzerland, 1884."
"Ah! Horace! Is that you? And what have you got?"
—seeing the rolls in my hand. I had manuscript and proofs and a copy of The American containing the first part of Frank Williams' paper on the The Poetry of Walt Whitman. W. shook hands
"The old man's in a bad way. Bucke says he is passing through a very serious phase of his trouble.
It seems, however, that their presence saved W. from a serious fall. When he reached the parlor he was about gone.
For some time after I got in W. remained in a dazed condition—now perfectly rational, then wandering some. Bucke said: "Keep plying him with questions—keep him awake. I thought he was dying a few minutes ago. He is slowly coming round."
"Frank says they propose to have a Whitman symposium in The American. His own article initiates the series."
He stopped short on Frank and got talking of Corning, who had also been in. I went out to say a word to Mrs. Davis. On my return I took the chair at the foot of the sofa. There was no light in the room. Yet W. saw me. "Who's that?"
he asked, and on Harned saying "Horace"
he wished to know "who passed back awhile ago?"
I said: "I did Walt—Horace"
"But who did you go to see?
"Mrs. Davis"
"Ah! I thought it might be some other particular friend of mine."
That was the way his mind cavorted about. "There's William—William O'Connor—he's alive, too: God bless William! And your mother? You, too? Why here I am with everybody."
"Give me your hand, Horace!"
he said. I did so and he undertook to rise, intending to go to the chair opposite. He could not budge his left leg, which I had to literally lift and drop upon the sofa. The three of us then placed him in the chair in the middle of the room, where he stayed as long as we were
"I had a miserable—a very miserable—day. Towards evening I tried to do some proof reading but could not keep myself awake—felt very languid, heavy-like.
Bucke said: "I'd give anything to have you stay upstairs!"
"No, Maurice—don't worry—it's all right: you fellows must not feel alarmed: somebody get up and make a noise—don't let's be solemn about it. I have had fifty and more such spells—the first of them hardest, those after diminishing in force—some of them in Stevens Street, clusters of them, of spells. I am of course aware that with each one I am less eligible to meet those that follow.
—he was bright about it, stopped an instant, then proceeded: "But then we are not going to discuss that final spell until we have got out November Boughs, are we, Horace?"
Bucke has been in New York. Saw Gilder. "I do not think he wished to see me,"
said Bucke. "Don't say that, Maurice,"
put in W. W. referred to the Lounger in The Critic—Jennie Gilder."She calls attention to the money I am making on my poems—says it is rare. Tom, do you want to borrow some of my poetry money? Somehow the New York set hate to think that I receive help from England: they repeat it, that I am not poor: as Richard Watson Gilder puts it, it 'galls' them like the mischief to read the false reports that get about concerning my finances—the New York crowd is a rather snaky one anyway—always excepting Gilder, Stedman, and a few others (very few) who are consistently friendly—even affectionate."
Bucke asked W. if anything remained unpaid on the house."No, Maurice: it is all paid for. The house was first offered me for eighteen hundred dollars. I said I would take it, paying part cash. The owners then offered it for seventeen fifty spot cash. I took up with this proposition. I had twelve hundred and fifty of my own—George W. Childs advanced me the other five hundred, which I afterwards returned—every cent. You may wonder how I came by so much money one bunch?
"I suppose I must submit. What you three fellows agree on together I will say amen to. For one thing: be sure you get a large man—no slim, slight fellow. Mary has shown me great consideration but if I am going to be more than ever helpless it will not do for me to impose upon her for more service."
"I do not want to delay the printers: must not: I want to rally from this, at least to finish the Hicks, if not for more."
Bucke this evening instituted some comparison, or parallel, between Faust and Leaves of Grass. W. profoundly interested. "It is very striking, Maurice, though I don't know how well you could hold it up against the scholars if they slapped back at you."
"a letter written by Watson Gilder for one English and one American periodical disapproving of the current stories of my poverty."
Bucke asked: "How do you know Gilder wrote the letters—did he sign them?"
"No—but I know it on good authority from some one near
"Who was that?"
"Who? Who? Well—it was John Burroughs."
W. received three instead of two Carlyle photographs from England. Bucke questioned W. about his diet. "I never indulge in extras except now and then at Tom's.
Bucke asked: "And how about the cooking here?"
W. answering: "That was unjust to Mary—yes, so it was: her food, too, cooking, is always good—very good"
—determined not to do Mrs. Davis any discourtesy: though as a matter of fact he said to me just a day or two ago: "Mary's heart is all right—she studies to please me—to feed me right—but she lacks in that finer something or other which the best cooks possess—which is so inestimably precious to a sick man: which anticipates conditions."
W. had a note from Kennedy in which K. again tilts at Rhys."I won't commit myself. I want both of them: I am not willing to give either up. When the ocean gets between them again they will forget all about their grievances."
Let me have a Rhys letter. "I intended it for you when it came but it got mixed up with things generally here. It will help along your records."
The letter was written from the Union League Club.
New York, 21st May, '88. My dear Walt Whitman,
I have just been reading your lines in The Herald for this morning which hold in them a message full of meaning, for all of us who know you well. We think of your approaching birthday with sorrowful, and yet glad, remembrance of the years that you have lived so well. My adventures since leaving you have not been very startling, but they have been full of everyday life and energy. Here in Fifth Avenue, or more often in Broadway and the less-known haunts, I have been seeing all sorts of memorable things and men and women. Yesterday my good friend Cyrus Butler, a kind and wealthy old gentleman, took me quite a round of studios, &c. We began by break-
fasting sumptuously here, (fried shad, omelettes, tomatoes, buckwheat cakes, strawberries, coffee, &c.) and then turned in to see Col. Bob Ingersoll, meeting there Lawrence Barrett the actor, and others. Then onto Beard's studios, &c. Over to Brooklyn to see a crazy rhymester—winding up again by having supper near midnight.
Today promises to be even more memorable; I expect to steam up the Hudson River by the Mary Powell (fastest boat in the world, they say!) and then to catch a late train up at Newburgh on to Buffalo, &c. Thence to Dr. Bucke's place on Wednesday, where I will look to send you a further note on my doings. I have good news of my brother at last, and so am free to sail for England in a fortnight.
With love, Ernest Rhys.
"I don't envy Rhys his big breakfasts and dinners and all that—I only envy him his call at Colonel Bob's! I am told those nights at Bob's are halcyon nights. Next to being lucky enough to be there yourself is being lucky enough to hear about them from others who have been there. I don't believe the conventional literary class take any part in the Colonel's gatherings but all the unusual fellows seem to turn up there one time or another."
"I like Rhys,"
said W.; "when you get underneath his very heavy exterior—under the impressive crust—you find a real human figure. I don't think Sloane ever got underneath: he is impetuous—was probably discouraged first time and didn't persevere.
W. handed me a "family memorandum" saying no more about that than this: "It will give you some detail in a matter on which you have questioned me. Take good care of it—I will leave it here."
Kings County Lunatic Asylum. Flatbush, L.I., Mch 22d, 1870. Mr. Walter Whitman.
Dear Sir:
Your brother Jesse Whitman died very suddenly yesterday from the rupture of an aneurism. As it is uncertain whether this reaches you or not we shall bury the body tomorrow. Yours respectfully, E. Warner,
Assist. Phys.
"Announcing the death of brother Jesse, March 22, 1870. Jesse Died March 21, 1870."
I waited for W. to say something. He said nothing. Looked rather serious about it. "Do I understand that I am to take this?"
"Yes—take it—put it away where it will be preserved."
I left shortly after. W. by this time pretty well recovered. "I have got rid of the unsteadiness,"
he said, "but am very weak—very weak."
I offered to help him up the stairs before leaving. He dissented."I like to do all I can for myself as long as I can. You fellows have about convinced me that I should have a nurse. You don't know how I resent the idea—yet how ready I am to acquiesce in it."
We kissed for good night. He called after me when I was at the door: "Remember the book! Remember the book!"
"I seem to be between a fever and a frost: first I burn up—then I feel like a man in a freezer."
"I feel very hot—I put the cream in on my fire: it is just the thing—just the thing."
Looked haggard, his eyes being very dull, complexion off color. Yet he said: "I slept well."
I picked up a copy of Leaves of Grass Imprints (1860) he seeing what it was and saying: "You ought to keep that for yourself—there are others here.
W. tried to describe a picture I was looking at over against the wall but could not do it."decidedly better."
"I am sorry I seem to be in a condition of half-suspended life"
—adding: "Do you just keep things moving until I get balanced on my pins again."
Seemed aware of his plight. Went astray again. The door down stairs banged. He listened—was perfectly quiet for two or three minutes."What do you suppose they have come for, Horace?"
"Who?"
"John and William."
"John and William who?"
"O'Connor—Burroughs. Didn't you say they were down stairs? Why does Mary detain them? Why don't she send them right up?"
Seemed a bit peevish over it. While
Doctor has been giving me some advice about November Boughs but I've got no time now to stop for advice: our train is started—we had better not halt it again until we arrive at our destination: I may never get another wind."
In spite of "feeling like hell,"
as he described it, W. kept us busy answering questions—Harned about his children and I about my mother and father and Anne."I have my suspicions of you and Anne Montgomerie."
After which he dropped into another very sluggish humor during which his face grew deadly pale and he said nothing. Then the flush returned and he turned his face away and smiled.
I left with Harned at about eleven. Arranged with Mrs. Davis to be called in case anything turned up."I dragged this out of the wreckage for you: I remember what you said about your interest in Dowden. Dowden is not the very best but he is next to the very best.
That was clear enough. I took W.'s hand, reached over, kissed him. "God bless you, boy! You say you will be back by and bye? That's right. Come."
I was to go to Philadelphia to the First Unitarian church to hear Clifford's sermon. Read the Dowden letter on the boat going over."It looks to me as if the old man was dying,"
Bucke said. I rushed off. Osler was not at his office. I then went to the Rittenhouse and from that to the University Club failing everywhere to connect."Did Walt ever tell you that he had made a will?"
I answered: "He has told me that he has not made a will."
"Lately?"
"Just the other day."
Bucke argued the matter over some, with Harned particularly.
Osler finally appeared in the early evening. Examined W. Seemed to be as dubious as Bucke and just as much mystified. We all agreed that a nurse should be secured at once. Bucke went over with Osler, designing to bring a nurse back with him. I went to W.'s bedroom at 9.45. W. seemed then quite clear. "Eh, Horace, is that you? I was wondering whether you would break your promise to come back."
"Yes—I guess it is—a little."
Was very feeble. Went off rambling in some talk about Ellen O'Connor, the drift of which I could not catch. Then he seemed to get hold of himself again.
"Did you find some meat in the Dowden letters?"
asked W. "Yes? There's always meat in Dowden—always. He never sets an empty table. Some day you must read his Westminster Review essay on the Leaves: it adds up a pretty big sum, all in our favor!"
Then he went astray again talking weird things about his friends, seeming to get them all jumbled together. Once he mentioned Peter Doyle."Where are you Pete? Oh! I'm feeling rather kinky—not at all peart, Pete—not at all."
He lay there with his clothes on, though complaining of the heat. Would he not be more comfortable with the clothes off? "Perhaps I would but never mind—it will do this way."
Bucke argued with him about this in the afternoon but with no effect. I asked W.: "Is there anything I can do for you now?"
He replied: "Is that you, Horace, at last? You have been away a long time.
Spoke sluggishly, with great difficulty.
I had a few words with Mrs. Davis, who was full of concern, and then whisked off to Harned's, returning with him at 10.30."I am all right—good for the night: let him come back in the morning. I would rather be alone. I hate to have anybody around, right in my room, watching me. Maurice, do I need to be watched?"
"browbeaten,"
he said. He was still clear about the courtesies for he said to me: "Of course the nurse knows that my objection is not personal to him."
So we all bade him good-night and left him alone with Baker, who was to
"from Dowden Feb. 6 and Feb. 16 1876."
Sorry I could not talk with him more about them."Dowden represents the English literary elite—not the caste elite but the spiritual elite: the finer development of that English consciousness which articulates itself these days in the language of the international democracy. Dowden is a book-man: but he is also and more particularly a man-man: I guess that is where we connect."
Winstead, Temple Road, Rathmines, Dublin, Feb. 6, 1876. Dear Mr. Whitman:
Since I last wrote I received a letter from you, acknowledging my book, the E. A. Poe newspaper, and that with the lecture on Shakespere Shakespeare in it. Thank you for all. It is very pleasant to think that you remember me. Shakespere Shakespeare The news of your health is that of the chief interest to me. And in one way or another I have heard about you several times. I trust you do not work when you ought to rest. For any affection such as yours I should suppose entire rest and open air to be essential conditions of recovery; and such lying fallow would be fruitful in the end with you.
Nevertheless I rejoice to hear of the Two Rivulets and your Memoranda of the War being ready. I enclose a draft or bill on the Bank of England for what they tell me is the equivalent of ten dollars. Would you please send me the new edition of and Two Rivulets, and Memoranda, but if the postage is heavy do not send the Memoranda, and let that so far compensate you for your loss by postage L. of G. Leaves of Grass to Ireland. I should like to have my name written in each book by you (unless you object).
I suppose you have seen Peter Bayne's very vicious (and the word is applicable in a literary sense as well as an ethical) article on your writings in The Contemporary Review. As to myself I feel that I have a small grievance to complain of—his selecting scraps from my Westminster article, out of connection with their environment, to employ against you an admissions of one who stands on your side. I trust that you have not so far forgotten my article as to think my meaning was that attributed to me by Peter Bayne. Such an article as this may with some readers delay the understanding of your book, but others, as I know, will have their curiosity quickened by it to see for themselves what the phenomonon—L of G—really is. I see on all sides tokens of a continuous advance in England toward appreciation of your poetry. Occasional references to Walt Whitman in reviews and magazine articles now, as a rule, tacitly admit your position as secured, instead of being, as once was the case, contemptuous.
I will find, if I can find it, a copy of an article by a young barrister friend of mine, O'Grady, which appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine the same month in which Peter Bayne's article appeared. Lately I read a paper on your poems before a Club here—The Fortnightly Club.
The feeling was, to a degree which surprised me, favorable to your writings; and in College I read the same paper to a large class of students, reading aloud passages from your Vistas and L of G, to which a response of almost involuntary applause was given,—a murmur and a low response of satisfaction after complete silence and attention. I had a pleasant letter from John Burroughs and got from him a copy of his Winter Sunshine. This is to me a delightful little book. He lies so close to nature, yet with such a quick, living human consciousness. His writing has some
of the wholesome influence upon me that the sunshine and snow, the apples and the birds themselves have: and this is all the more precious to me because my work as Professor has a constant tendency to tide me away from what is fresh and vital into mere accumulation, and "culture," of a kind which is not life, but mere apparatus, machinery, and dead pelf of knowledge. A friend of mine—Miss West—has printed a little pamphlet of verses which perhaps she may send to you. They are some in sonnet form; and as regards executive power very unequal.
The spirit of them is somewhat stern and self-repressive; yet a capacity for joy is apparent in them; several are occupied with religious doubt, and emotions connected with it; and in the last two or three the result arrived at is declared—a stoical acceptance of our ignorance of the mystery of the world; with a certain amount of hope, founded upon the good things of human friendship and fellowship which life has revealed to the writer. (I write of what you have not seen, and I am not sure that she will think them worth sending to you.) I am, dear friend, yours most truly, Edward Dowden.
Too tired tonight to copy Dowden's second letter. Will include it tomorrow.
This is Dowden's second letter:
Temple Road, Dublin, Feb. 16, 1876. My dear Mr. Whitman,
I received a few days since your last letter. It is very pleasant to me to find you liked my book, but much more to know that you are not indifferent to me, myself, and do not think of me as a stranger. Shakespere Shakespeare The report of your health makes me both hopeful and anxious. I do not know whether your American summers
are as health-bringing as our summers, but I should suppose they had a decided advantage over your winters in this respect (notwithstanding all John Burroughs says of Winter Sunshine) for an invalid; so it is chiefly from the summer that we shall look for an advance towards recovery.
The newspaper statement of the attitude of the American public towards you is a surprise and a disappointment. We had been misled by a correspondent of The Academy, which is a paper always friendly to you, into quite a different view of things. I am waiting until next Saturday to see whether Rossetti has inserted this statement in The Academy. If he has not, I will write to him and try to get it printed there.
Two friends, Professor Atkinson of Dublin, and Stoker, who writes to you, have asked me to get copies of your three volumes, L of G, Two Rivulets and Memoranda. But I do not doubt that half-a-dozen of my friends will wish to have the books, so I should be obliged if you would send a parcel containing six copies of each book—the Autograph 1876 edition. Stoker writes me to ask you to put, if you do not object, his name (Abraham Stoker) and your own in the copies for him. Trin. Coll. Trinity College
He has told you perhaps of a very lively debate we had at our Fortnightly Club on The Genius of Walt Whitman last Monday evening Feb 14th. A most savage, but ill-planned, attack opened the discussion. I followed with a speech which consisted in the main of apt selections from and Democratic Vistas, and these were felt by my hearers to be a very effective answer to the previous speaker's extravagant statements. L. of G. Leaves of Grass Then, to my surprise and great satisfaction, followed speaker after speaker on the Whitman side—a barrister, a young clergyman, a man in business, and others, while the remaining speakers were three, one who placed you below Victor Hugo on the ground of alleged deficiency of formand beauty in your poems, onewho announced that he had never read your books but was sure you could have written nothing as good as Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night, and a third recently introduced to and who confessed to having discovered some few great poems, but much that baffled him, and that should be challenged. The result was on the whole highly satisfactory. It was the second evening occupied by you during the present season. L. of G. Leaves of Grass
These little skirmishes, however, are only occasional incidents in the quiet progress which as I said before I am convinced your writings are making. I was very glad to hear of Burroughs. I still owe him a letter of thanks for his Winter Sunshine.
I enclose a draft for the equivalent of sixty dollars. Please send the parcel to me at the following address: Winstead, Temple Road, Rathmines, Dublin.
And now, dear friend, good-bye. Be sure that any tidings of you, good or the reverse of good, will always be of great concern to me, and write a line when it suits you, but at no other time.
Yours always, Edward Dowden. P.S. If you have any Magazine articles why not try The Gentleman's Magazine if a poem, or—better—if prose, the Fortnightly Review? But have a second copy of the MS. made to avoid the risk of its being lost.
I strongly incline to think Morley of the Fortnightly Review would be glad to hear from you, if you have anything suitable. It also occurs to me that some arrangement might be come to with Messrs. Chatto & Windus to publish your Two Rivulets &c., and give you a royalty on copies sold. I will write to Rossetti about this.
I dropped in to see W. in the morning before going to Philadelphia. Asleep, looking better. I reached over his
"He seemed to be very anxious to have me understand him on that point,"
said Baker. The powders had acted to some extent. He was relieved. Then I went over the river and at once to Ferguson's, where I talked with Myrick, head of the composing room."very serious but not necessarily fatal or even likely to be."
Spent all the evening at 328. W. slept most of the time. Bucke there. Talked about the book."Go on without the old man. What else can you do?"
But I objected. Said I would not. W. had seemed better all day and generally lucid, though now and then going clean off again. I saw him just for a few minutes. I said: "Bucke thinks we should go on with the proofs in your place until you come around. The printers are waiting. But I object. Myrick says he can delay a day or two. I told Bucke you would object, too."
"I do object, Horace. Let them wait. If this business passes off we can make up for lost time."
I had no other talk with him. Even this was dragged out. Utterance rather full, choked. I went down stairs and told Bucke what W. had said. B. remarked: "He said the same thing to me today. If I was in your place I'd proceed without him. He may be a long time getting on his feet again."
Ferguson has got all his spare long primer tied up in our job. Cannot wait many days. Still, I am going to chance some delay.
"Osler thinks, as I think, that the old man is on tenter-hooks. A little something either way may kill or cure him."
The three of us talked over the possibility of Walt's death. What should we do? We felt that no minister should officiate at his funeral."Ingersoll in one of his affirmative moods,"
I suggested. Bucke replied: "That's just it. And no man but a man who was Walt's friend would have a right to be present and speak."
"Most formal funerals are insults: they belittle the dead. If anything should be honest a funeral should be honest."
Harned added: "That's the only position possible for us to take. If we have Ingersoll—or whoever we have—to speak it will not be because of his views but because he was one of the old man's associates in life."
"Yes, yes,"
to Bucke's sharp questions—but showed on the whole that he did not wish to be disturbed. Bucke laughed."The old man is just as hard as ever to manage."
I asked Baker how W. had spent his evening and how he promised to pass the night. "I think he is mending,"
said Baker: "he is less confused—he helps his nurse: he ought to show a decided improvement by morning."
"How is he taking you by this time?"
"He is getting reconciled to me but I can see that I am the hardest dose of all."
W. only said one other thing to me: "Horace, boy, hold everything just where it is. I am commencing to feel my grip coming back."
Looked ghastly blue and languid, the
"It was a close call—a close call,"
he said, "but I can now, I think, see the edge of the woods. The Doctor, and Mr. Baker here, have been poking me full of medicine—full of it—of so much I'm sure I shall by and by leak medicine at every pore. The Herald has it, I am dying—but though it has been a rub, I guess it's not just that. I had a telegram from Jeff—brother Jeff—at
Talked of his diet today. George Whitman and his wife had been in. Pearsall Smith also. "Smith sails for Europe tomorrow."
"He is said to be in a still lower condition. He is doomed—bound to die. If I thought praying would be
W. was interested in our experiences with him since Saturday. "I am convinced that the shock was a nearly mortal one in spite of Dr. Bucke's fear that we might make too much of it."
Again spoke of the drive to Pea Shore Sunday. "Had I stopped on my return that day and got some champagne at the Harned's, I am sure all would have been right. No doubt I got chilled without being conscious of it myself: but the pleasure was very great—very great: my nag stood in the water for fifteen minutes while I looked across the river—saw the sun go down."
"You know, Horace, I propose making you, along with Dr. Bucke, and Tom here, my literary executor."
Asked me my age—then said laughingly: "You look surprised. Well—now you must behave!"
He had drawn up a will today in his own hand. He gave it to Tom and asked: "Will that not do?"
Tom read it and demurred somewhat, saying the legal conditions were not all observed. W., however, asserted: "No
W. said to me: "First of all, I want to protect Eddy. Eddy must be protected at all hazards.
Tom is to see W. about the will finally tomorrow."at whatever cost,"
as he said.] Then I want to have this stuff round here taken care of—in the hands of people who know what to do with it. It would all be lost on my own family—there's not one of them who knows a from b in such things."
W. gave me a copy of the original edition of O'Connor's Good Gray Poet, also a copy of The Radical containing the first publication of Mrs. Gilchrist's A Woman's Estimate."vindicator"
and of Mrs. Gilchrist's "estimate"
as "the proudest word that ever came to me from a woman—if not the proudest word of all from any source."
Harned said to him: "You're bright enough to be your whole self again, Walt."
"I'd have you know I am my whole self again,"
replied W.—"I'm a little shaken but back on the throne."
"I have written Ferguson all that is necessary: a few pages are changed about again but most of them are now ready for casting. You will see, Horace, I take in one more page for the Sands—it must come out on an even number, you know: seventy is even: and so I must look up something to fill it with."
"Be damned careful
Always very loyal on that point. Harned asked: "Is there any-
"Perhaps a little ice cream, Tom—nothing more."
Suggested Mrs. Harned should come to see him tomorrow: "She knows my ways, as you do"
—adding: "But don't bring any others in—except"
—turning to me—"your mother and father, Horace, and Agnes, and Anne Montgomerie.
W. asked me: "Did you read the will? What do you think of it?"
"Let Horace see it, Tom: he is quite as much concerned in it as the rest of us—the sin is on his soul, too."
Harned went out to get W. some ice cream—was away about half an hour. We helped W. to his bed before Harned's departure. While H. was gone we continued to talk, W. again referring to the will: "I do not think I need to explain why I have left myself in your hands in this matter—Doctor's, Tom's, yours. I might say it this way: I feel more secure in your hands: I hardly need to say anything beyond that."
W. a little merry about his condition the other day."Was I a little daffy? Did I talk nonsense? That was only a mood: Horace, I do not think my mind will ever go: I think I will go before my mind goes. The throne may occasionally reel but it never gives way."
W. passed over to me an old 1882 letter from O'Connor. "There's something in it from Professor Loomis about Emerson.
He was quiet for a few minutes. I did not break in. Then:
"It is O'Connor's theory that the enemy made too much of their charge that Emerson repented of his 1855 letter—that the charge is baseless, that all kinds of evidence exists to that effect.
By this time Harned was back with the ice cream. W. sat up with his legs hanging out the side of the bed and ate the cream eagerly, saying to H.: "Tom, you are a buster! This is the best thing I have tasted today!"
W. afterwards laid down again and we withdrew. I went with H. to his home."Last Will and Testament of Walt Whitman in his own handwriting properly witnessed June 29 1888."
This is the will:
The last will of Walt Whitman written by himself June 29th, 1888, at Camden, New Jersey.
I give one thousand dollars to my sister Mrs: Hannah Louisa Heyde of Burlington Vermont—the time and payment thereof to be left to the discretion of my executrix and executor.
In sign of my writing my name
WALT WHITMAN
all the above in
Walt Whitman's
handwriting
In testimony of the following witnesses present
Mary O Davis., Nathan M. Baker.
"It can't be mistaken but it won't hold."
. W. a bit nettled retorted: "It'll hold all well enough I'd bet, Tom. Anyway, it need not be final: we can set it straight any time."
Now for the O'Connor letter. W. Says of O'Connor: "He is always good for a good fight."
Life Saving, Washington, D.C., June 19, 1882. Dear Walt:
I have yours of yesterday, and am happy in the thought that you find my second letter telling. I think it indicates the line to stick to, and I don't see how Chadwick can climb over it. The enemy would give much to be able to break down the Emerson letter. That is what they will try to do, and my reply to Chadwick will make it harder than ever for them. When we get them fairly shut up on that point, we will proceed to further action. Meanwhile, be careful not to make any unguarded admissions, so as to call for defence. We must not be detained
on side issues. I burn to resume the thunder and let the levin fly at Marston. He need not think he is going to escape. At present I am only perplexed by the problem how to make the other side fight. So far, the affair is too much one way, and they seem cowed. Oh if you only had a publisher! What a chance for advertising is slipping by. I am anxious not to be dragged away from the main question into the discussion of side issues, and am therefore in doubt whether to reply to "Sigma." Of course, it is a fine chance for the catawampus chaw, as this bogus "experienced critic" will find out if I go for him, but it seems too much like being drawn away from the trail.
On the other hand, The Tribune invites my attention to Sigma's "assertion" about the "disgusting Priapism," which is, of course, a disgusting lie, and I have to make up my mind whether the point is worth scoring. I have been talking today with Professor Loomis who was up in Concord when Emerson's letter was published, and heard him talk on the subject. He says Emerson's enthusiasm about the book was great, and that he never said a word, nor assumed any tone, pointing to any discount or qualification. Emerson's prominent consideration about Leaves of Grass was its newness. He spoke of it as absolutely a new manifestation of literature—a fresh revelation. Professor Loomis is very strong about the impossibility of Emerson ever having gone back upon his letter. The tone he took, he says, precluded this. He says that undoubtedly Emerson was subsequently much annoyed at what the publication of the letter brought upon him—the swarm of "trippers and askers" that surrounded him with demands as to how he could defend such a passage as this, and what he had to say to such an expression as this, etc., etc., and that he may have expressed his annoyance, said petulant things, wished you more than once at the devil, etc., but that was all, and that he never qualified his original utterance—never! This is Professor Loomis' view—a dis- tinguished man, a witness—and it has weight and force at this time.
Thoreau, he said, was equally or nearly equally, strong in favor of Leaves of Grass, and so were the other Concordians. All this knocks the "disgusting Priapism" assertion endways. Of course we must expect all sorts of hardy lying, but we must allow nothing and demand proof of everything alleged. Another question is as to the genuineness of the Sigma letter. The Tribune editorial shows a desire to put in something as a makeweight, and to seem biased against me, while admitting my letters and letting me do all the mischief I can, and Whitelaw Reid's notes to me have a cordial tone which sustains this view.
Hence the Sigma letter may be got up as a counterpoise. At any rate, it is let in in sham equity. If genuine, who wrote it? Sigma is the Greek letter S, which might stand for Spofford, the librarian of Congress, who is unfriendly to you. I will decide soon whether to answer this serpentine signature. Apropos, Professor Loomis says he wrote to you for a copy of your book, which he is anxious to get. I wish you would let me know the price, as I have enquiries on this point, and can only suppose it is two dollars, like the Osgood.
I sent John Burroughs one of yesterday's Tribunes, which I hope will reach him.
The day here is bad for heat, and I sit soaked, after a sleepless night, not fit to write a letter or anything else. Congratulatory epistles continue to flow. All taffy so far, except "Sigma," whose lucubrations make me think of dear old Gurowski's phrase of objurgation—"Sir, you are an asinine assish ass!"
This is too mild, but nevertheless it faintly describes Sigma. Goodbye. Faithfully, W. D. O'Connor.
"I have had a poor day—very poor: the jelly-like sensations, in my skull, have been persistent: I do not know how to account for them.
Had not touched the proofs today nor received any callers—"except one—a stranger—who was admitted for a trice, a handshake—was then dismissed: some one I never knew or had forgotten but who claimed that he had exchanged books with me two years ago."
"I attribute a good deal of that cipher business in the Donnelly book to Donnelly's love of marvels—his inclination to do natural acts in unusual ways. I read a story once of a man who was thought remarkable because possessed of the power to see with his eyes shut—yet it was Emerson who said that it was not stranger that a man should see with his eyes shut than to see with them open."
"Was he not that kind of a man, Mr. Baker?"
—and then: "If I was to write a book on philosophy I should devote a chapter to the discussion of this point. You know, I did not get as far as Donnelly's cipher: yet the plays are I am sure full of mysteries in which I am sure Bacon had a hand.
W. asked me: "Did you see the will at Tom's last night? Do you approve of it? Tom seems to think it lacks a certain legal verity: I do not myself think it can be misunderstood."
"More and more as I grow old do I see the futility of calculation: refuse myself illusions—try not to get into the habit of expecting certain things at certain times—of planning for tomorrows, the eternal tomorrows, that never come quite as we arrange for them."
"I think my diet needs some careful revision, though I am not a reckless eater any time.
W. remarked that he had received several "very pithy notes"
from friends—"nothing too much said, just a few words to the point—sympathetic, loving, very precious,"
adding: "The modern letter is less elaborate and more like reality.
"I am convinced that the songs of that Quaker evangelism, the old songs, would today be precious,
"I am sorry for them—they must suffer because I am on my back: I feel guilty."
He fumbled in his vest pocket and drew forth a silver dollar. "Give this to the prooftaker, Horace: I wish him to have it. He is giving me beautiful proofs—his proofs are clear, dark, on good paper. Why, Osgood used to send out the worst paper he could find—even Rand & Avery's proofs were only indifferently good.
I picked up from the floor a bit of loose paper on which W. had copied a note about himself from the Nineteenth Century for December, 1882. He saw me do it and asked: "What's that?"
I told him. "Read it,"
he said—"read it aloud."
I did so:
"Magnificent in his war-cry, as in the Song of the Banner at Daybreak, and his note of triumph, 'The War is completed, the Price is paid, the Title is settled beyond recall.' Yet finer still is the Vigil on the Field of Battle,—the memories of the hospital tent, with its rows of cots—the vision of the Mother of All gazing desperate on her dead—the reflection on those 'camps of green' where friend and foe without hatred sleep, and not any longer provide for outposts, nor word for countersign, nor drummer to beat the morning drum."
"That sounds first-rate,"
said W., when I was through, "it shows that somebody there has assimilated me—has drunk my full cup. So many of the fellows this side complain of the attention I have received in England—look at it with a sort of jealousy or with a sort of contempt. Then they say I defer too much to English opinion in my favor. That's all bosh—I defer to nobody—I do my work.
recognize the English good-will is true enough—if I didn't
W. asked Baker for calomel on Sunday night. Baker would not "say yes without the doctor's permission"
W. looked at him an instant rather dubiously and then said, closing his eyes: "You're rather literal, Doctor, but I guess you're right, you're right!"
Harned left while I was still talking with W., who was saying to me: "Use your diplomacy over at Ferguson's: work for time—delay, delay, without seeming to delay.
Baker left the house for ten or fifteen minutes, asking me to stay"I have given you some of Dowden's letters to me—here is a letter from me to Dowden: it is the other side of the shield! We were just talking of letter writing awhile ago—the old and the new: this is a case in point. I suppose I have done a lot less general letter-writing than most men—I was not a voluminous letter writer—when I wrote at all it was mainly with a very definite notion of something very practical that needed to be said. Imagine a Niagara like O'Connor stopping its flood to take account of stock!
"No: it will serve to complete some of your records—that is all: will add the web to the woof—show you what went back to as well as what came from Ireland those days: that is all! that is all! Horace, I don't think you could hardly realize how grateful such friendships were to me in those days—when so many were against me the few who were for me were extra, extra precious!
W. asked me to put the light down. Said: "I'm clean tired out—I must not talk any more. You say you did see the will? That was right. And Ferguson? Go right there in the morning—explain the situation."
I kissed him good night. Baker returned. I left.
W. had written on the Dowden sheets: "Prof. Dowden. Went on steamer Jan 20 1872."
Written from Washington on Department of Justice Paper.
Jan. 20, 1872. Dear Sir
—I must no longer delay writing and to acknowledge your letters of Sept 5 and Oct. 15. I had previously (Aug 22) written you very briefly in response to your friendly letter of July 23d—the first you wrote accompanying copy of the review. All—letters and review—have been read and re-read. I am sure I appreciate them and you in them. May I say that you do not seem to be afar off, but stand very near to me. What John Burroughs brings adds confirmation. I was deeply interested in the accounts given me by you of your friends—I do not hesitate to call them mine also—Tyrrell, Cross, your brother, Miss West, Todhunter, O'Grady,—Yeats, Ellis, Nettleship. Affectionate remembrance to all of them. You especially and Mrs. Dowden—and indeed all of you—already I say stand near to me. I wish each to be told what I write—or to see this letter when convenient.
There is one point touched by you in the Westminster criticism that if occasion arise should be dwelt on with more stress—and that is defended—stating the attitude of general denial and sneering which magazines, editors, authors, publishers, "critics," &c. in the United States hold towards Leaves of Grass and myself as author of it. As to Democratic Vistas, it remains quite unread, uncalled for, here in America.
If you write again for publication about my books, or have opportunity to influence any forthcoming article on them, I think it would be a proper and an even essential part of such article to distinctly include the important facts, (for facts they are,) that Leaves of Grass and their author are contemptuously ignored by the recognized literary organs here in the United States, rejected by the publishing houses here, the author turned out of a government clerkship and deprived of his means of support by a Head of Department at Washington solely on account of having written the book.
I say I think the statement of these things proper and even indispensable to any complete foreign criticism of my poems. True, I take the whole matter very coolly. I know that my book has been composed in a cheerful and happy spirit—and that the same still substantially remains with me. (And I would like my friends, indeed, when writing for publication about my poetry, to present its gay-heartedness, as one of its chief points.)
I am in excellent health and still employed as a clerk here in Washington. I saw John Burroughs very lately: he is well, and showed me a letter he had just received from you. I wish more and more (and especially now that I feel I know you, and should be no stranger)—to journey over sea, and visit England and your country. Tennyson has written to me twice—and very cordial and hearty letters. He invites me to become his guest.
I have received a letter from Joaquin Miller. He was at last accounts in Oregon, recuperating, studying, enjoying free nature, and writing new poems. Emerson has just been this way (Baltimore and Washington) lecturing. He maintains about the same attitude as twenty-five or thirty years ago.
It seems to me pretty thin. Immense upheavals have occurred since then, putting the world in new relations. I send you a newspaper report of his lectures here a night or two ago. It seems to be a fine average specimen of his current lectures. And now my friend, I must close my letter.
I have long wished to write you a letter to show that I heartily realize your kindness and sympathy, and would draw the communion closer between us. I shall probably send you any thing I publish, and any thing about me from time to time. You must write freely to me, and I hope frequently.
No proofs for Ferguson today. Delivered Walt's dollar to the proof-taker. Wrote to Bucke. The book is practically held up. In to see W. at 7.45."not looking very well,"
Baker said.) He was sitting up but asked before long to be assisted across the room to his bed. Had examined but three pages of proofs today. "I did not feel like it
Laughed. "You'll be nothing but a heap of ashes by and by."
"That's so."
Frank Williams and his wife were over today—also Osler—but there were no other visitors, except, of course, Harned, who came twice. W. wrote several notes and looked
"Have I been a good patient today, Doctor?"
"Pretty good."
Thereat W. concluded: "You hear, Horace, he only says, pretty good: he still finds me a little rebellious."
Had W. yet been able to read Frank Williams' American paper? "I have looked it through—that's all. I can't read with much comfort—I don't have any consecutive grip. But I see Frank is all right—I of course take Frank for granted: he knows what our claims are: I guess Frank would
"very obedient"
—adding: "After the kick when I first came I expected to have a lot of trouble with him. Mr. Whitman is a very amiable man."
Catching him in the act of saying something petulant concerning women Baker cried: "I supposed from your books that you entertained quite other feelings about women."
W. at once came down."So I do: the books are right—I am wrong: I don't believe any man ever lived who was more fortunate in the friendship of good women."
Baker put in a question I did not catch. W. then said: "I don't mean respectable women, so-called—I mean good women."
"I think that Emerson's mouth: indeed, the whole of it, the whole, head, his: Sidney has hit home sure. A son, of course, is more sensitive to points we would not see or would dismiss.
I said at one moment: "Ah! Walt—you know we all love you!"
"It does me good to hear that—puts a little blood back in my body, Horace—and I think you all—all—for it."
"And do you know, Walt, we thought Sunday that you were dying?"
"So did I, Horace—and Bucke did, too, I know, for he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, buckled to, saved me. I thought I was having my last little dance. I am fortunate in being so surrounded, cared for, sustained."
Sent me over to the table to hunt for a book."I want you to take it to your father. I know an artist is interested in the pictures of other artists. Look for it: a red-covered Pall Mall extra containing the pictures of the year."
I found it and handed it to him as he sat up on the edge of the bed. "Are you sure that's it?"
he asked—answering his own question by saying: "No—that's not it."
Handed it back to me. "Look on page 66—see if my picture is there—Herbert's."
Yes, it was there."I was sure that was not the book: my mind nowadays plays me strange antics—confuses shapes, sizes, colors of things."
After a quiet minute or two: "I seem to be mentally so sluggish—things come slow: not falsely, but slow."
I had of course noticed this myself. Tonight we discussed several little matters having to do with the book."Repeat that, Horace,"
or, "Go over that again, Horace,"
or "I don't quite catch on,"
or "How's that?"
finally saying of himself: "I seem to be developing into a damned dull scholar, Horace."
In essentials, however, it would be difficult to detect any break."I know well enough that this indoor life is gradually sapping me of all vitality: I need the fresh air—I need activity."
The Courier today had printed some alarmist reports about W., originating in the telegram sent to Osler and in something of a depressing nature that Harned had been heard to say."Did he question you about me?"
"Yes, at once, and very affectionately."
"'Thank you Brinton—that's what I should have expected.' Brinton is a brick, Horace. Brinton has been translating some native Indian poetry: I do not forget that he promised to come over with you some day and read me some of his versions. I like the first things of peoples—the child things."
"There was a German band out on the street today—not too near: they played a couple of songs—O they were very good songs: folksongs, perhaps: anyway, excellent. I hated to have the band go: it helped my head. I do not think I could have stood it close by. After a drum and fife corps had gone through the street yesterday I felt as if my head had been thumped with a thousand vicious fists!"
"You know about the American Institute poem, don't you?
"Know about it? Know what? I have read the poem often enough."
"I don't mean that—I mean its history—genesis? I tied up in a string for you these several letters—the correspondence—invitation—my answer—such things—you will find the packet on the table. You have got it? Yes? Yes—I meant it for you.
I said to W.: "In one of the Dowden letters you gave me Abraham Stoker is mentioned. Is that Bram Stoker, Irving's man?"
"Yes, that's the man—Bram for short, for better. I have heard from him direct—letters (some of them long ago)—he has personally been here—has given every evidence of being staunchly on my side."
"If I don't let up, Baker there"
—Baker was not in the room at the moment—"will set up a growl. Besides—I ought not to talk any more. Go to Ferguson tomorrow again—tell Ferguson I am better today, will be better still tomorrow—that our machine will soon be going again full speed."
Kissed W. goodnight. As I left he said: "Do not fail to write Bucke right along—write Burroughs—write to William O'Connor.
I took these letters home with me and spent two hours examining them. Wrote a dozen replies. Sometimes W.'s correspondence gets voluminous and keeps me working steadily until daybreak."We ought to have a firm signature."
And on another occasion he remarked: "I will have to give you a power of attorney so that our business need not come to a standstill when I get in the dumps."
Examining the American Institute papers I find the invitation, the acceptance, a letter to Robert Brothers and a New York Globe Editorial.
I.
American Institute, New York, Aug. 1, 1871. Walt Whitman Esq. Dear Sir:
Aware of the kindly and generous interest you take in the welfare and progress of the American Institute, the Board of Managers of the fortieth National Industrial Exhibition have instructed us to solicit of you the honor of a poem on the occasion of its opening, Sept. 7, 1871—with the privilege of furnishing proofs of the same to the Metropolitan Press for publication with the other proceedings. With profound respect, George Peyton Chas. E. Burd James B. Young Com. on Invitations.We shall be most happy, of course, to pay travelling expenses and entertain you hospitably, and pay $100 in addition, if agreeable to you, so as in some sort to make amends for your trouble.
II.
Department of Justice, Washington, Aug. 5, 1871. Messrs. George Peyton, Chas. E. Burd and James B. Young, Committee on InvitationsDear Sirs:
I have received your letter of 1st instant containing your invitation to deliver an appropriate original poem at the opening of the 40th Annual Exhibition of the American Institute, Sept. 7, and stating terms, &c. I accept with pleasure, and shall be ready without fail to deliver the poem at the time specified. Address me here if anything further
III.
Department of Justice. Sent Sept. 17, 1871. Washington.
I send herewith the copy of my American Institute Poem. It will be plain sailing, if you have a careful printer and proof-reader. I think an ordinary twelve mo would be best, and send you a sample, my idea of size of page, and sort of pamphlet-volume to be made. As to size of type for the poem—If English solid would not be too large, I would like to have that. If you think it too large take the next smaller size. In binding let the edges remain uncut and bind in the kind of paper according to sample. See sample of title and cover. Send the revised proofs to me, by mail, directed to this city, and I will promptly return them. My per centage &c. I leave to you. I should expect two or three dozen copies. I reserve the copyright myself.
That the papers have freely printed and criticized the piece will much help, as it awakes interest and curiosity, and many will want to have it in good form to keep. The
demand will grow. I have no authority to speak for them, but I think the American Institute will want several hundred copies, and that the pamphlet will have a sale at all their public Exhibitions and Fairs. They always have book stands at them. It ought to be put in hand immediately, and out soon.
IV.
[Globe editorial, Thursday evening, September 7, 1871, under this headline: Our great Poet.]
Such a poet as this, who will sing of mowing machines, steam engines, soap, soda water, and potatoes, ought to fill the Skating Rink this evening to overflowing. We should honor him for the reputation he has abroad. It would astonish Longfellow and Lowell to travel in England, and learn how highly Walt Whitman is regarded. His poetical works have been republished in England, W. M. Rossetti editing one edition of them.
Mr. Whitman was born at West Hills in 1819, in this State. He has an official position in Washington, which yields him a small salary, too small, we learn, to allow him to accept Tennyson's invitation. During the war he was a frequent visitor at the hospitals in and around Washington, bringing cheer and comfort to many a poor soldier. During this time he worked for the government for one hundred dollars a month, he slept in a garret, ate frugally, wore mean clothes, and spent seventy dollars a month for the sick soldiers.
Took to Ferguson proofs of Sands to page thirty-six, approved. Received in return from Ferguson three galleys on the Burns essay. Wrote to Bucke."Keep Doctor informed about things here: don't make the situation any worse than it is—make it a trifle better. Doctor is inclined to extreme views himself."
In with W. at 7.45 evening. Found him alone fumbling about his room for a match. My offer to light the gas was rejected, though he used my arm to assist him in doing the thing for himself. He is game. "I won't be helped unless I must be."
He asked at once: "Is it true that Frederick is dead?
I asked: "But what about getting rid of the kings altogether?"
"That will come, too: the whole business will go. Meanwhile, we like the best kings better than the worst kings."
W. had read no proofs today but had worked on the Hicks. "I desire to get this into some final shape,"
he said: "I do not deny I am anxious about it—very anxious. For instance, if I got another blow like that the other day where would it leave me?
"I always feel tired. Although I am much better than yesterday I still rest under the old cloud—contend with the old indisposition to move about and work. I spoke awhile ago of the 'impulse' to work. It is hardly that—it is rather necessity. I want to see November Boughs through. Your sister sent me some more of her homemade cream, and oh! it is so deliciously taking! Cookery is so much of it genius—an art, by itself—one of six, one of ten, perhaps even more, only can do it justice.
W. gave me a handful of letters received today and yesterday. "Look them through—answer them; they are all so sweet to me. Explain that I am too disabled to write myself just now. O'Connor has written but about nothing in particular.
W. laughs more than a little at the newspaper reports. "Do you see the papers? According to the papers I am crazy, dead, paralyzed, scrofulous, gone to pot in piece and whole: I am a wreck from stem to stern—I am sour, sweet—dirty, clean—taken care of, neglected: God knows what I am, what I am not.
—indicating a paper—"is the fairest I have seen. Bonsall prints only a few conservative words
Morse writes about his mother."I know of nothing more beautiful, inspiring, significant: a hale old woman, full of cheer as of years, who has raised a brood of hearty children, arriving at last at the period of rest, content, contemplation—the thought of things done."
Someone across the street thrums a good deal on a piano. After W. has heard this for continuous hours some days he grows irritable. "She can beat the devil for noise and give him odds."
Harned in in the forenoon."Tom brought in a will, embodying monetary and literary provisions—read it to me: it is about what I want. He has doubts about the legality of the will I made for myself. Tom is all right—I see his motive. I kept the will—took it from him—tucked it under my pillow: it is a matter that must be rightly attended to sometime—brought to a head."
I saw both of the wills thrown carelessly open on the table. "A confusion of wills,"
W. calls it.
W. kicks a good deal about visitors. "Visitors,"
he says, "are so severe a strain, every one seems like half a dozen.
W. said: "You are doing much too much for me nowadays. What can I do for you?"
"I am not doing anything for you. I am doing everything for myself."
W. looked at me fixedly for a moment. Then he reached forward and took my hand. "I see what you mean, Horace. That is the right way to look at it. People used to say to
W. never much interested in Stevenson's W. W. essay."Stevenson had a Leaves of Grass spasm: it mostly passed off, I should say: I am always Walt Whitman with an 'if' to some people."
This matter came up because W. had found an old Burroughs letter in which the essay was referred to. "The essay and other things,"
explained W. "You will notice that he mentions Alcott, also. Alcott was always my friend: I have some letters here from Alcott that I want you to see some time.
West Park, Oct. 29, '82. Dear Walt.
I was much disturbed by your card. I had been thinking of you as probably enjoying these superb autumn days down in the country at Kirkwood, and here you are wretched and sick at home. I trust you are better now. You need a change. I dearly wish that as soon as you are well enough you would come up here and spend a few weeks with us. We could have a good time here in my bark-covered shanty and in knocking about the country. Let me know that you will come. The Specimen Days &c came all right. I do not like the last part of the title; it brings me up with such a short turn.
I have read most of the new matter and like it of course. I have not seen any notices of the book yet. I have just received an English book—Familiar Studies of Men and Books—by Stevenson with an essay upon you in it. But it does not amount to much. He has the American vice of smartness and flippancy. I do not think you would care for the piece. I am bank examining nowadays but shall be free again pretty soon.
O'Connor writes me that he is going to publish his Tribune letters in a pamphlet, with some other matter; I am glad to hear it.
He draws blood every time. I fear poor old Alcott will not rally; indeed he may be dead now. I had a pleasant letter from him the other day.
I had sent him a crate of Concord grapes. I am very stupid today. For the past two weeks my brain has been ground between the upper and nether millstones of bank ledgers and it is sore. We are all well. Julian is a fine large boy. Drop me a card when you receive this; also write me when you will come up.
With much love, John Burroughs.
"Well, did you care for the piece?"
I asked W. "Yes and no—yes, because it was intended to be friendly—no, because it was not very inclusive. Stevenson left so much of me unaccounted for—so very much: accounted for himself better than for me."
Had O'Connor ever put the Tribune articles together? "No—that never happened. A half dozen of O'Connor's pieces bound in one book would have seemed like a battery of guns.
He reverted to Burroughs."John is a milder type—not the fighting sort—rather more contemplative: John goes a little more for usual, accepted, respectable things, than we do—rather more: just a bit maybe—though God knows he is not enough respectable to hurt—not usual enough to get out of our company."
"The best of John is not in the cities—the best of him is in the woods: he gets
Asked me: "Are you writing some yourself right along? Don't stop your writing: you will soon be on good terms with yourself: difficult things will come easier, easier, easy.
Was advice never good? He laughed quietly and concluded: "Certain things advised may be good, but advice?—no, it is never good!
W. said he and Baker were "getting along famously together."
But he hated the idea of "being under watch and ward."
"When a man comes to my pass he'd best take the next step as quickly as possible."
"But you seem in no hurry to take the step."
"Except for the work we have to do I would be quite willing—ready—even anxious to take the next step. But that work—that work: we must get it done before I write down 'finis' next my name."
Kissed W. good night. He was weak but pretty clear about things. Tired—overslow in talk—finding it hard to gather himself together. W. gave me a Brady portrait of himself. I said: "It has a rather ascetic look for you."
"So it has—a sort of Moses in the burning bush look. Somebody used to say I sometimes wore the face of a man who was sorry for the world. Is this my sorry face?
Twice at W.'s today. He was free enough of pain but not "I go from my bed to the chair—from my chair to the bed—again and again—never staying long in either place, never losing altogether the sense of lethargy which characterizes my present condition.
Spoke of the death of Mary N. Spofford—then of Dick Spofford, saying of him: "Do you know him? Have you met him? He is a brainy fellow—honest: seems to be generally liked: is often in Washington, cavorting about with the big political guns: a lawyer—a lawyer, I should say, of ability and income.
W. asked me to write to Burroughs and Kennedy. "I cannot do it: I am not equal to it."
Had, however, sent notes to O'Connor and Bucke—"then I was worn out—could not go on."
Adding: "Now you go on for me."
Talked of Burroughs: "You would like John—should know him.
His head, he said, was easier when he laid down. Could not handle the proofs today. "I no sooner take them up than I am overcome again by this damned lassitude."
I had met Brinton."Tell me about the Doctor. Is he quite well? Did he say anything about us?"
"O yes, a lot. He was talking about the future of the Leaves."
"Did he think they will have a future?"
"I should judge that it was his impression that you would be very soon forgotten—
"Did Brinton take sides?"
"He said he thought you would last a very long while."
"From a cool man of science that very long while is significant"
—pausing an instant and proceeding: "That's my feeling too—has long been my feeling—that the Leaves are destined for a long life or are a dead failure."
W. called my attention to a clipping from the Chicago Herald, adversely commenting on his poetry. "That,"
said he, "is a slap in the face that does a fellow more good than a kiss."
He is very cordial towards the enemy."They sail into me in great style—but that is the great test: if I cannot stand their attack I might as well go out of the Leaves business."
"You are a rebel—you suffer from no attacks that you do not invite."
"You are quite right: I am responsible, the people opposed to me are not responsible, for the fight—or, perhaps, we are both sides responsible.
Asked Mrs. Davis today to bring him up the N.A. Review Lincoln book and the little flexible Epictetus—Rolleston's. He will use his own essay on Lincoln in that volume in November Boughs. Wished to know if the printers could work from the book?"I am quite particular on the ethics of such a question: as, for instance, with The Century people and the two unprinted pieces, which they have paid for and not used."
Epictetus appeals profoundly to W. Is always quoting the Enchiridion—quoting rather to the spirit than the letter."Now that the room is arranged I suppose I'll never be able to find anything any more."
Osler not here today. "He left word that we should send word over—we did so, telling him he was not needed."
Is rather disturbed about the prolongation of his troubles. "I
"I am too weak: I am fragile enough to break."
The day the big tin tub was brought in (it is round—four feet in diameter—about ten inches deep) he threw his head back on the pillows, opened his eyes wide and exclaimed: "Christ
No callers admitted today. Sat up and read papers. W. inquired of me concerning a deckhand at the ferry who had a sick wife.
W. was very anxious about my mother who is a little under the weather. He had mislaid some of the proofs. We hunted them up on the round table by the window and got them together again. W. in the process shoved a couple of piles of documents over on the floor, I picking them up and returning them to the table. I asked him about a little portrait that turned up—a Washington portrait, made by Gardner."Would you like to have it? Very well—take it along. That's one of the several portraits which William O'Connor called the Hugo portraits. O'Connor and Burroughs never agreed about Hugo. When William spoke of the Hugo Whitmans John said he couldn't see it."
I picked up and asked him if I might read the draft of a letter written by him to Margaret S. Curtis, Boston."Care P. Curtis Oct. 28 '63 (about Caleb H. Babbitt)."
He knew of my special interest in his hospital records. "Yes—read it—keep it, if you like. There's stuff in some of those letters which might make a certain sort of history. I have of course used some of the material in Specimen Days—some of it—but the letters possibly have a more absolutely concrete personal touch. I have lately destroyed a lot of that old mess of notes"
—I
"What the devil do you do that for?"
He laughed outright: "Now you're fierce again—why, you're as bad as Bucke and O'Connor.
I was serious about it: "Anyway—let me judge of that for myself. I've got plenty of room home for anything you want to throw away."
He looked at me fixedly: "You seem to be very earnest about it.
I still insisted. Then he smiled and concluded: "I'll promise to throw some of it your way—some of it—though there is a bit here and there too sacred—too surely and only mine—to be perpetuated.
W. looked pretty tired. Baker floated in and out as we talked. I opened the Curtis envelope. W. said: "Put that up—read it when you get home. I am going to ask you now to help me to the bed and put down the light."
This I did. W. then said: "Kiss me good night!"
finally crying to me as I stood as the door: "Go to Ferguson!
I asked Baker as I left what he thought generally of W.'s condition. "He is making slow advances—he will pull through."
Back home—wrote a whole batch of letters for W., to people he had mentioned. Then sat down and read the Curtis letter:
Dear Madam.
Since I last wrote you I have continued my hospital visitations daily or nightly without intermission and shall continue them this fall and winter. Your contributions, and those of your friends, sent me for the soldiers wounded and sick, have been used among them in manifold ways, little sums of money given, (the wounded very generally come up here without a cent and in lamentable plight,) and in purchases of various kinds, often impromptu as I see things wanted on the moment [break] . . . train is standing tediously waiting, &c. as they often are here. But what I write this note for particularly is to see if your sister, Hannah Stevenson, or yourself, might find it eligible to see a young man whom I love very much, who has fallen into deepest affliction, and is now in your city. He is a young Massachusetts soldier from Barre. He was sun-struck here in Washington last July, was taken to hospital here, I was with him a good deal for many weeks—he then went home to Barre,—became worse,—has now been sent from his home to your city—is at times (as I infer) so troubled [break] . . . I received a letter from Boston this morning from a stranger about him telling me (he appears too ill to write himself) that he is in Mason General Hospital, Boston. His name is Caleb H. Babbitt of Co E 34th Mass He must have been brought there lately. My dear friend, if you should be able to go, or if not able yourself give this to your sister or some friend who will go,—it may be that my dear boy and comrade is not so very bad, but I fear he is. Vol. Volume Tell him you come from me like, and if he is in a situation to talk, his loving heart will open to you at once. He is a manly, affectionate boy. I beg whoever goes would write a few lines to me how the young man is. I send my thanks and love to yourself, your sister, husband, and the sisters Wigglesworth. Or else give this to Dr. Russell. The letter from the stranger above referred to is dated also Pemberton square hospital.
W. got his bath today. Was up a great part of the afternoon. Wrote somewhat. Read some. "Drowsed a good deal,"
as he said."I am still in the woods—I thought I was out, escaped: but still there, still doing rather poorly."
W. spoke of the Chicago Republican convention. Harned a delegate from New Jersey. "A rather dubious compli-
said W. Again: "I hardly seem in line with the Republican party any more—in fact, the Republican party is hardly in line with itself. What next? Something will come next—something better."
"I never had entire faith—now I hardly have any faith at all. It is not impossible they will rise to the occasion—it's not improbable they'll sink to the bottom and go to the devil! What a chaos and a chaos it is, mixed with extra chaos! But perhaps they'll pluck the flower safety from the nettle danger. It is hardly likely, however. When these institutions start to die they die on—nothing stops the process."
Did he think the party likely to get licked in the election?"I was not thinking of elections. A party may win elections and be defeated anyway. The Republican party as it is constituted now might win twenty elections without a single moral victory: the moral victories are the only victories that count."
How about the Democratic alternative?"Almost as bad—almost."
He pointed to a paper on the table: "I've been looking through the gossip of the convention. I see Smith is there—our Charles Emory Smith. I have read the protection editorials in the Press carefully now for three years and have never yet seen it make a respectable presentation of the subject. Yet one is possible.
W. called my attention to a contemporary copy of the Long Islander—the paper he had founded in his youth at Huntington. The editor had indited a paragraph referring to W.'s approaching end, and "hoping a heavenly father would smooth his way,"
quoted W. W. asked me: "What do you think of that? Smooth my way—with all the aches and pains I've had for a week!
I could not help laughing at W.'s queer visage. Wasn't the wish sincere? "I can't tell what soured the mix—I only know it's sour!"
W. always shies at conventionally pious condolences.
Proofs still untouched."It seems to be wholly a matter of grip, and that I seem to have lost—to have lost entirely—beyond recovery. I am fighting for a chance to finish the book—after that I can die in peace."
Should I try to do the proof-reading? "If I don't rally in a day or two I will turn the whole thing over to you—you may wrestle with it your own way."
He is very anxious to do the work of the book himself. Complains that his "mind is a chaos"
—that the instant he "tries to concentrate coherency flies."
"the almost death-like pall that has settled down over"
his "consciousness."
"just for a look—perhaps not to say anything at all."
Warren today took out W.'s horse. A little girl neighbor asked about coming in."but only for a minute or two,"
saying further: "I love the little dear but my mind will not stand too much strain."
Referred to the newspaper stories current about his condition: "I am dying, dead—
Asked me to have my sister Gussie prepare him some mutton—described how, &c., with amusing detail. "Mrs. Harned has a perfect genius for divining just what a particular man wants for a particular stomach at a particular time!"
Agnes had left some flowers. Anne Montgomerie sent some over by me."It is very sweet of them. Why don't they come in to see me? Just to see me? To give me a kiss—let me look at them a minute—then go? Tell them I feel neglected."
He lifts the flowers to his nose again and again: looks at them, smells them. "They are reminiscent,"
he says: "they take me out doors! God bless out doors!"
Rather sadly said: "This is Sunday?
Was very particular to have me keep up my writing to O'Connor and Bucke. "Tell them the best and the worst."
W. had laid aside for me a Conway envelope. He called my attention to it."Are you sure this is not a love letter? Are you sure you shouldn't burn it up?"
He didn't seem to be in a mood to parry. He only said: "You may see for yourself. Half a dozen fellows over there in England who were trying to help me got at loose ends over my poverty. Was I poor or not poor? Was I starving or did I have enough to eat?
"Bucke says you are sore on Conway."
"That is a mistake—I am sore on nobody. How could I be sore on Conway?
"But you got into the magazines, some—you were received here and there—you didn't have any more fight to go through than any rebel must expect to encounter.
"I don't: did you ever hear me growl?"
"A little, sometimes—yes."
"Is that so? Then I take the growl back. A man who proposes something new and will not give people time to see it is not worthy of his message."
We sat there in silence ten or fifteen minutes together. Then I passed out. W. said nothing further except as to Ferguson: "Try to keep Ferguson patient."
I did not wait to examine the Conway envelope, which contained a letter from Conway to Rossetti, a newspaper clipping and a letter from Conway to W.
I.
2 Pembroke Gardens, Kensington, W. Apr. 21, '76. Dear Rossetti,
I send you a note received from Roden Noel, to whom you had best send circulars. Thanks for your note. I don't know what the synopsis telegraphed to America was, which troubles Whitman, but the basis of it was a paragraph running thus:
"Walt Whitman. Mr. M. D. Conway writes us concerning the letters which have appeared in our columns, that the reports that Walt Whitman is in want, or dependent on his relatives, is unfounded.
At the same time Mr. Whitman is gratified at the proposition of his friends in this country to circulate his works more widely, as in his present state of health he must depend upon the sales of his poems." I have quoted the paragraph from memory, but nothing material is left out of it.
Of course, if I had permitted the assertion of Austin ("while we talk, he starves") to pass uncorrected, I would have been a conniver with falsehood; and should have consented to the dishonor of the whole Whitman family; and should have allowed Whitman to suffer a danger,—that of being charged with obtaining money under false pretences.
The letter of Buchanan was sure to bring upon W. W. serious damage if he could be supposed to let it go uncontradicted; for everybody in America knows that it would be just as easy to collect money for him in America as in England, and that in a country where two volumes have been written in eulogy of him, and where he has as many admirers as here, he is in no more danger of starving than the President. Ever yours, M. D. Conway.
II.
[NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH.]
III.
2 Pembroke Gardens, W. London, April 24, '76. Dear Whitman,
William Rossetti has shown me your letter indicating annoyance at some telegram which has reached America concerning a statement of mine in the Daily News. There was no letter of mine in the paper or any paper, but a paragraph which I enclose to you written by the editor on the basis of a private letter from me. I wrote to him on receipt of a letter from you saying that you wished money to build on your Camden lot and paid board to your relatives. My motive was the necessity of saving you and your relatives from the degradation implied in Mr. Austin's letter to the same paper in which he said "While we talk, he starves"; to defend your American friends (such as Burroughs, O'Connor, myself and others) from the outrageous insults heaped by that fellow Buchanan upon those of your countrymen who would share their last loaf with you; and to free you from the charge of getting aid on false pretences of which you were in danger, and myself from equal peril of abetting what I knew to be a lie by silence; and you are not the man I take you for if you would have had me act otherwise. I can only suppose you have seen some bungled and mutilated telegram embodying part of the statement of which I now send you the whole. You may remember that I talked to you in my bedroom about your circumstances, after I had conversed with your sister-in-law, and gathered from you just what you have been kind enough to write to me, except that you did not tell me that you wished to build. In such matters as this the true thing is obviously the politic thing to do.
It is ludicrously false for Buchanan to say that you are in danger of starving, or that you have no appreciation in America (where books have been written about you, and where you have enthusiastic admirers!)—such absurd and false statements are sure to bring down contempt on those who make them, and sometimes imperil the good fame of those about whom they are made. Your friends here are quite at one on the subject, and Rossetti wrote to me that he knew Buchanan's statements were "exaggerations," before I wrote to the News. The effort to circulate your books by a subscription will be successful. Rossetti has had printed for private circulation your letter to him which gives substantially the same account of your affairs which is contained in the paragraph of the Daily News enclosed. I am much oppressed with work, and cannot write letters. I trust this will find you improving in health. Pray remember me kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Whitman and believe me your faithful friend
M. D. Conway.
"In that way,"
he said, "I am decidedly mended."
Excused himself for his inability to attack the proofs. "There they are, untouched—God help me!"
I referred to the Conway correspondence."Yes, it was quite a little tempest in a teapot: I suppose no one was finally hurt. I want to tell you about it some day—the whole story: Buchanan had a story, too: I am not equal to it now."
"Yes: I will come across the slip some day—will lay a copy aside for you."
Ferguson is getting impatient—wants us to release his long primer."That is too bad—it ought not to be"
—stopping a minute—"I shall make an extra extra pull tomorrow—see if I can't get outside myself—above myself."
Said he had new matter on page thirty-eight (verse)—but was not quite ready to close in thirty-seven. Discussed hurry. W. aware of the situation. "If I can't get at it for good tomorrow I'll resign the whole business into your hands."
Added: "Hurry was never another name for Walt Whitman."
W. questioned me concerning the Chicago convention."Is it to be Harrison?"
"You don't say Blaine?"
"No—with Blaine the funeral is ready."
Was the Republican platform to reassert the tariff? "If they do that will end it—let them do it—their time is near.
Had I written notes for him today? Yes, lots of them. To Bucke, Burroughs, Morse, Kennedy, others. "That's first rate,"
said W., "particularly the note to John. Did you write at length? And what did you tell him—and them? I had a long letter from Morse but laid it aside for another time: the first two pages floored me."
Back to Burroughs."Burroughs is still what he was in the early days—true to Leaves of Grass and his original instincts. Of late years something has been added to him—sophistication, I may call it. He has mixed too much with the New York literary crowd—has been influenced by them, not always for good. Still, John is too deeply rooted—the soil in him is too firm—not to resist the pressure of that gang: he is too natural, too truly endowed. John's style has grown somewhat more
After striking a light W. attempted to read Morse's letter aloud but had to surrender it to me."I don't approve of it—I don't want money—I have enough for all I need!"
—adding with the same fire: "My 'verbal' suggestion would be for him to stop the whole thing at once. I have not so far said anything about it but should have done so. Horace—we must stop this thing before it goes any further."
Insisted on my taking Burroughs' Pepacton to read."It's not John's best book but shows his quality."
Pete Doyle was in yesterday and brought some flowers. "It was Pete who gave me the cane,"
explained W., "the cane with a crook in it.
Baker is very anxious. "Mr. Whitman is about cleared up mentally—in that way—but he seems to be getting physically weaker.
I can see good omens in the old man's refreshing candor about himself. He seems to know better than the doctors what is the matter with him."Tell the fellows the worst,"
but does not hesitate to say afterwards: "The worst is not the worst."
W. has been receiving affectionate messages all around. Spoke of some of the fellows: "Give my love to Clifford—Clifford is a man-minister, not a minister-man."
"There's Tucker, now—Benjamin: I love him: he is plucky to the bone: I don't know that I bank much on his anarchism or at all but on Tucker—well, he is a safe risk."
"I suppose William [O'Connor] tops us all for vehemence and consecutiveness of life."
"shied some at O'Connor's directness but I don't admit that that's William's fault."
"Stedman is always to me almost—an almost man: almost a genius, almost writing the best poems, what not: almost in everything but the affections: altogether affectionate."
"I cannot be unfair to Dick Stoddard though he is always unfair to me.
"Maybe I have enemies because I have friends. My few friends are a great host—my many enemies are a few."
"Tell Anne Montgomerie that if she don't come to see me soon I shall think she has gone back on me.
"I have said a good many things to you about William O'Connor—but there's Ellen, too—superb woman—without shams, brags: just a woman.
"In most of us I think writing gets to be a disease. We scribble, scribble, scribble—eternally scribble: God looks on—it turns his stomach: and while we scribble we neglect life."
"Sit up here by the light and read it: I will be quite still."
Some passages of it I read aloud.
Life-Saving, Feb. 20, 1883. Dear Walt:
I have sent you the MS. of my letter to Bucke. It goes this day by Adams Express, addressed to you. I sent you a card this morning just before your letter came. There is not the least bit of "pestering" in the
matter, and of course I appreciate the necessity for despatch. I only got the MS. from R. M. B. on Saturday, and set to work revising it the next day. I am so driven with work, and so weary and worn, that I cannot always be as quick as I would like to in these offices. The collection of my anti-Comstock letters has been positively prevented up to date, by simple lack of time. I shall soon have some let up. We have had a horrid fight with the navy, and flaxed them awfully—rousing Congress and the Seaboard upon them. I send you a pamphlet, which has some of the shrapnel we swept their decks with. The paper on Life-Saving transfer is mine—some touches in the others. I was thinking of you when I wrote the first and third of my three reasons against transfer. I am rejoiced that G. G. P. still seems good in your eyes.
I should be glad to leave out some sentences in the last page, and originally intended to, but thinking it over, could not see my way clear, inasmuch as the whole publication is a matter of history, and ought to stand, follies and all, and several of my abusive critics at the time quoted the very passages I want to omit, for animadversion, which makes it more difficult now to withdraw them. Do you see my dilemma? The sentences sending the pamphlet to a number of persons named on the last page, are an absurdity, yet I don't see very well how I can honorably back out of it now, and escape twitting. How does this view strike you? It was Bucke's wish that I should write the prefatory letter I send, and I accepted the chance of supplementing the pamphlet with a few remarks upon the Harlan transaction; of paying my respects to some of your recent critics, teaching them that there are blows to take as well as to give; and of putting you, where you properly belong, in the line of succession from Shakespeare, which will make some of our literati howl.
I hope you will think it good, and effective. Like everything I write, it has been done in a hurry, and without those leisures of the soul which are requisite to satisfactory work. I trust it will be in good type. Where is it to go? The pamphlet, of course, belongs to the appendix. Let me have proof of all, which I will return promptly.
The MS. on copying press paper is my little tilt with Lanman, and should come on after the pamphlet in the appendix.
Bucke wanted it at first, but in his last letter thinks it best to omit it, although he leaves it to me. Now I think it ought to go in as it finishes the Harlan affair handsomely. But do as you think best. It is a rather crushing rejoinder to Lanman, and a punishment to Stoddard, who is awfully mean, and it has a good effect of toneafter the fiery pamphlet.I hope Bucke's book will be a success. It comes in good time. He has a rare chance. I aimed, also, in my contributions to the volume, to add to its interest and attractiveness.
I see by the extracts in Sunday's Tribune that you are in the Carlyle and Emerson letters. Did you see it? I shall want to see the volume.
The letter, as printed, is very characteristic of Emerson—his reserve, his shrinking, like a woman's, because of the rebuff; his deceptive concessions to the enemy, in a vein of pleasantry, almost like irony, almost like a sneer, when he says the book "wanted good morals so much" that he did not send it. Of course, some people will take a different view. But I think I understand Emerson's real feeling, which is in his first letter to you, and there is no denying it. I am suspicious of Professor Norton as an editor of this correspondence.
I hope he would not suppress things favorable to you, but have little faith in him since I read a sketch of his lecture on Greek art, in which he held that the later Greek sculpture began to be indecent with nudity—the great or earlier Greek being always draped, as in the work of Phidias; which precious assertion made me think of the Parthenaic frieze of Phidias where a row of soldiers charges, all naked, and the phallus in each man not only bare, but erected—stiff with valor—which is good for Professor Norton! Selah! I must close. More anon. W. D. O'C.
When W. saw I was through reading he said amusedly: "Well—how does that strike you—especially the tilt there with Norton?
W. did not think Emerson "showed up strong"
in that reference to him to Carlyle. "Emerson should have said yes or no—not yes-no."
I referred to O'Connor's Good Gray Poet."William is right—I do not cease or reduce my admiration: I have often had the idea of getting out an edition of the Leaves with the Good Gray Poet as the preface."
O'C. in this letter is discussing Bucke's life of W. W., then in course of preparation, W. being an active factor in its production.
To W. at 8. Still in his bedroom. Got up off his bed at once and handed me proofs, remarking: "I have had a good afternoon—perhaps a slight trace (very slight but perceptible) of my old vigor."
"The two songs on this page are eked out during an afternoon, June, 1888, in my seventieth year, at a critical spell of illness.
The new poems were, Now Precedent Songs, Farewell, and An Evening Lull. He has filled out these pages—36, 37, 38—with great struggle—"after the drawing of blood,"
he says."Do they seem to you to lack in dignity?"
he asked. "I am aware,"
he added, "that they are feeble, feeble enough, like an old man who has to lean on a cane, but they belong where they are—are necessary to round my story."
He still insists that his "grip is gone—irretrievably lost: I seem to have lost the power of consecutive thought, work—mental volition, I might say: as if the ground had been swept from under my feet—as if I had nothing whereon to stand.
I said: "Walt, you're only fooling me: all this time you're laying out your plans to get well. What do you want your brain to solidify for anyway? What use would it be to you after it had solidified?"
W. laughed outright: "You think I'm a bit foxy? Well—I don't want to
assume my cure.""Why not? You say you used to
assume cures for the soldiers after the doctors had assumed something else and your men got well.""Damn you! you're right! Well, let's assume I'm to get well and see how the assumption will work. I do believe I feel a trifle better already!"
Said he had "tried to go over the Hicks manuscript"
but "didn't get far along: ten minutes of it did me up. I stop work the instant I feel tired."
Someone had told him he had lost flesh. Did it seem so to me? "I used to weigh—still weigh, probably—two hundred pounds.
W. asked me if I knew anything in particular about the convention. Spoke of a leg of mutton sent in by my sister,
"I greatly relished it—took several slices of it: ate the best meal in a fortnight. The asparagus, too, was so good. I want you to thank her and tell her what I have said to you. Her cooking is in itself a treat—everything gets appetizing in her hands: she has a decided genius that way. A good cook is born, not made.
W. asked me: "Do you remember the Booth letter I gave you some time ago?
As to Edwin himself W. said: "Edwin had everything but guts: if he had had a little more that was absolutely gross in his composition he would have been altogether first class instead of just a little short of it.
This was Booth's brief letter:
Newport, Aug. 24th, '84. Dear Sir
—I shall go to Boston Tuesday and will endeavor to get a portrait of my father—I have none here. Many thanks for your kind offer of a copy of your book which I gladly accept.
Truly yours, Edwin Booth.
I kicked a letter from under my foot and picked it up. "What have you got there?"
I did not know. Handed the envelope to W. He put on his glasses and leaned towards the light."Oh!"
he exclaimed—"that's from Frederick York Powell—English—a great man in his way over there among the cultivated college men. It is a warm letter, too!—it not only satisfies me, it would satisfy you. My
Laughed. "Powell is one of the men, the tribe of the Oxford-Cambridge Israel, who have felt that despite their great scholarship—layers on layers of erudition—that they had something in common with Leaves of Grass.
Christ Church, Oxford, Nov. 1, '84. Dear Sir.
I wish to thank you most heartily for your gift to me which I have just received from Mrs. Wharton. I could not have received anything from America which I should prize as I do this volume of the Leaves of Grass.
Since I first read your poems years ago now they have always had a great influence on my thoughts and wishes. I should have liked to write to you then, but I did not think I had a right to, and I wished to see you and talk to you, but I never had the opportunity.
Your gift has given me at least the right to thank you now not only for it but for the great good I have got from your work. Every man I suppose worries out some idea of the right life for himself, but your books have helped me much in getting a truer view of things than I started with. I have found out the truth of your words too from my short experience of life in deed as well as in thought. You have many more worthy listeners but none more grateful than myself. Your Leaves of Grass I keep with my Shakespeare and my Bible and it is from these three that I have got more sympathy than from any other books. I should like to tell you that you have many more friends here than you can even have heard of by letter or paper, men and women who have got a good hold of your poems and their pith.
If you should ever come back to the old country how pleased we should be. I wish it may yet be possible for you to do so.
You will not I hope think that I wish to give you the trouble of sending or writing any answer to these few lines.
I have not written for that at all, but simply because I wanted you to know that I am very grateful to you and that I am yours faithfully. York Powell. Fredk Frederick
"cultive."
Disrespectfully? "No—as specifying his tribe. The English cultive seems sometimes to enjoy deserved honors—his scholarship does not necessarily destroy him. Powell is exceptionally sincere."
W. still anxious to get all the Sands "safely into type."
Then, he said, he could "depart in peace"
—after an interval continuing—"if it is necessary!"
"a victim of progressive paralysis, which has a certain inevitable result."
I quoted Jane Welsh's assurance to Carlyle that she preferred Goethe to Schiller because Goethe "did not make her cry." W. took an opposite view."The Greeks were very free, frank—not afraid of pain: to suffer, to hatchel each other—but going off when hurt bellowing, screaming, weeping in anger and pain: even Mars, we are told, among them—and at all times, also, sensitive to the humor, the fun, of the moment. Goethe's constraint was Roman (Stoic) not Greek: the Greek let go; in sorrow, in joy, let go."
"If I had been a little more vigilant I should have cut out five or six lines. I like chapters in books to end short of a page—it pleases my eye better so."
"I was fortunate in striking Ferguson—not only Ferguson but his men. I never met men in all my experience who caught on so well."
"When you go to Ferguson in the morning sit about fifteen or twenty minutes and chat with them—see that I am well understood."
It has been hard work getting W. keyed to the work. We have discussed every detail together. He is stubborn about having his punctuation, abbreviations and general arrangement strictly followed.
In at W.'s at eight. W. sitting up, awake, the gas burning. Greeted me heartily with his accustomed: "Eh—is that you, Horace?"
"I do poorly, poorly: this has been as bad a day as any since my sickness began. I do not suffer pain—only great feebleness, inertness, incapacity to think, to see—yes, a sort of general debility of the system. I am convinced that I am in a baddish state—that I have received a severe shock which is not easily, maybe not at all, to be shaken off.
Got from Ferguson today pages 36 to 54.
An Evening Lull.
After a week of physical anguish,
Restless and pain, and feverish heat,
Towards the hapless day a calm and lull comes on,
Three hours of peace and soothing rest and brain.
W. took my reference to the blemishes kindly. "I shall examine them in the daytime. I always thank my friends for pointing out any oversights that occur in my book. I do not just now see your point but I am pretty sure you are right.
I showed him some other evidences at other points in the proofs all of which he conceded. He asked my opinion of page 37. "Does it seem crowded? Yes? Well, we can throw a line away."
"Don't you love your lines too much for that?"
"No—not enough to let them spoil the page."
Referred to the convention. "All is at sea out there still, I suppose. And who is it to be?
"Tell Anne I am well alive yet though not gay—that I may still survive to do the work we laid out to do together."
Asked me about Lindell at the ferry."Give my love to all the boys at the ferry—tell them I dream of the ferry: of the water—of the boats going across—of the wagons—everything: it all belongs to me."
"I wish I did suffer
"It is here and there about Lord Houghton. I always had the devil's own time reading Miller—in fact, I always left the half of him unread: I could catch the drift but no more. If you can read this letter you beat me: I tried my best at it again this morning but it left me out in the cold.
I did have some trouble deciphering the letter, but I managed to read it aloud to W., who listened and said: "That's the first time the letter has been read, I guess, in full—the first time: why, it is thirteen years old.
Highland Falls, Orange Co., New York State, Sept. 5, '75. My Dear Walt Whitman:
I have been wandering up and down the house and waiting to hear from Lord Houghton so as to get you two together here on the banks of the Hudson, but he was gone on West the other way. He will return this way as soon as he has donethe West when I hope to catch him, and then if we do not get down to see you you are to try and get up here if possible.Yet it may be that Houghton will not get back too late for me here. In that case we will try and get together in New York city. I am off today for Boston on till until and pleasure and as usual know not when I shall get back: but let me hear from you Biz business herefor I am very anxious indeed to hear of your health. Do keep up my dear fellow there is lots in the tomorrows for you and I want you to live to see the great sunrise. Now youmustanswer me and send me that proof-sheet. Bythat time I shall have returned and will know more about what I shall do the next month. Yours ever Joaquin Miller.
"no letters of interest"
today. Had done no proof-reading. "I will put up a stiff fight tomorrow—try to get the stuff ready for you. You must set me right with Ferguson."
Referring to Philadelphia Press again W. said: "Smith is the sort of man I find it hard to include even in my philosophy, but Williams, Talcott, he is easy: Talcott is the one excuse the Press has for its existence."
Baker says W. has had "an extra bad day."
W. mentally clear though slow. He is quite well aware of his condition. "My mind works laboriously,"
he said."It takes me a long time to get anywhere though I do arrive."
W. humorously said: "Music is my worst punishment."
I asked: "How's that?"
"Oh!"
he replied, "the bands out in the street—the drum and fife corpses that go rattling and banging past: they beat my miserable head like hammers."
W. again: "I have read the little Stedman poem you left—The Discoverer.
I asked W. "Are you going to die or live? You know more about yourself than the doctors do. You are going to live?"
He was very prompt and decisive: "Live? Yes—that's it: live: I've got to live: what else is there for me to do?
"That's the way to talk!"
I exclaimed. I kissed him goodnight. "God bless you, boy!"
he cried. Then I left.
Eight o'clock, evening. W. up out of bed—better by a good deal than yesterday. Eats more comfortably. Feels sounder. Says he is not confident "beyond the immediate
Repeatedly dwells upon his "loss of grip"
—"grip" the constant word: "grip" on Hicks, "grip" on proofs, "grip" on this and that."I do not seem to have the mental grasp: I find my mind unwilling or unable to apply itself to the proofs, the manuscripts, as it should, methodically, systematically: I am only imperceptibly if at all regaining my strength in that respect from day to day."
I reminded him of what he said yesterday—that he was determined to live. "Yes,"
he replied, "I do not forget that—I am doing all I can to buoy myself up, to move back or ahead on secure ground again."
W. had returned yesterday's proofs through Baker today."If I am to work with you it must be on this condition."
He at once came down. "I see it was a mistake—it shall not occur again—we will lose rather than gain if I do anything to confuse you. You are quite right. I wish you would go to Ferguson's the first thing in the morning and see what I did with the returned pages. I know page 37 is lame and weak—that it contains some faltering lines—but I guess it must go as it is. Anyway, we will have a chance to get at it again."
Received a note today from Bucke."Your father has been in—we had a slight talk: he is the most learned man in German literature I have ever met—full of enthusiasm, too—still a young man in the real sense."
"In that sense you yourself are young enough."
"I hope so,"
said W. fervently: "when I get old in that sense I want to step out of the way."
"was hypochondriacal?"
adding: "Well—he is a suf-
W. referred to Frederick Marvin, also, as "a consistent friend when consistent friends were none too many."
"All my friends are more ardent in some respects than I am: for instance, I was never as much of an abolitionist as Marvin, O'Connor, and some of the others.
"dissents from partisanship whatever its name or form,"
for, said he this evening, "after the best the partisan will say something better will be said by the man."
W. sat fanning himself during our talk, and was mentally clearer, I think, than for several days. He clouds up. He
"The right word won't answer—my tongue gets unruly—I lose my cues.
Anent the Miller letter W. produced a Lord Houghton note of the same month and year. W. laughed over the writing. "It is as bad a hand as Miller's or worse."
He was rather surprised when I read it outright."Bravo! bravo!"
he said—and then asked: "What shall be your reward?"
I thought a minute and said: "Give me the letter."
W. without hesitation saying: "Is that all you ask? Why certainly—take it."
This is what I read:
Brevoort House, New York, Sept. 29th. Dear Mr. Whitman,
I was only in Philadelphia for a few hours, but I propose to return there for some days the end of next month or the beginning of November. It will give me real pleasure to make your acquaintance having been, I think, one of the first to welcome you into our great old world literature. I remain
Yours very trulyHoughton.
"Sept. 27, '75 from Lord Houghton."
I asked W.: "Did he come?"
"Yes—although I understand that they tried all round, in Boston, in New York,
W. was quiet for a few minutes and returned
I have been through all that mortal flesh need have to test its fidelity: I have had good enemies and bad enemies—and friends—friends false, friends true (is there a worse enemy than a humbug friend?)—you know more or less who I mean.
He laughed and added: "What nonsense such speculation is! It interferes with the healthy business of life."
I picked up a slip of paper from the floor under my feet. W. asked: "What is that?"
I quoted his own line: "Wherever I go I find letters from God dropped,"
&c. He smiled: "Read it—my eyes are no good."
"Mem
W. recognized the note. for Life. The Macready riot occurred on the night of May 10th 1849—I was then publishing 'the Freeman' cor Middagh & Fulton sts. Brooklyn had returned from N.O.""Yes: I have used it somewhere. Such little reminders sometimes open a very big door of reminiscence—but I am no good tonight even for that, even to talk—to look behind or look ahead."
When I left W. remarked: You must use all your diplomacy with Ferguson—we are lagging at a sad pace: there is no help for it, of course, but he naturally objects to us when we clog the wheels of his business."
"You make me think seriously of dropping the extra matter altogether."
I objected. He continued: "Well—perhaps I won't do that, but I am inclined to think it is not suitable for use that way."
Spoke
"I am subject to a new development of my trouble—a new phase—seen the last few days—what is it I do not know—shall not until I have seen more if it"
. I asked him what he meant."a strange, soggy, wet, sticky ineligibility as of tar, falling down over me each morning for three or four hours, putting me into a state of almost death—like impotency—though I am always aware of things all the time just the same."
I referred this to Baker, who said it was an important fact for Osler to know, W. being so exceedingly reticent with both of them.
"
To proof reader—My dear sir, I shall mainly have to depend on you—shall mainly have to rely on your judgment and the copy—I find my brain has no grip on the copy and proof—I have done the best I can—my head is sick and weak—after the corrections and renewed pagination (45 to 55) with the added matter &c. I "It's just about so—you and the proof-reader will have to do the work—I don't seem to be worth the work—I don't seem to be worth my weight in feathers."
"I have no mail today except an autograph mail—an autograph mail, yes, and that I get every day. They all write me—hundreds write—strangers—they all beg autographs—tell funny tales about it, give funny reasons (some of them are pitiful—some of them are almost piteous)—I practically never answer them anymore. It takes about all the strength I have nowadays to keep the flies off. I make what use I can of the return stamps and let the rest of the matter go."
"Who is the man? or likely to be? or best to be? Blaine? Well,
He was silent for a minute and then added: "It all seems so stale—so stale: these conventions are dead, stone dead: they never realize their age and its lessons—their age and its demands—the cry to them to get out of the ditch, up into the road, and push on, on, on, with a new impulse of life.
"I told Mary to tell him my head was too sore. You can imagine how I must have felt at the time to refuse to see Eakins. He is always welcome—always: except. Today it was except."
In reply to a question W. said: "I have lots of pictures of myself about here—I want you to take any of them any time that you choose.
Reference being again made to his own condition he submitted this notable statement: "I suppose I should have been free of all this today—free at least in part—if in those last years 63-4-5 I had gone off to a place of safety, avoided the hospitals—kept away from them—taken special care of my own person: but here I am, sick, nearly gone, and I do not regret what I did.
"There was a great rattling of dry bones over there and here that time about my poverty—whether I was starving to death or wasn't—whether the Americans deserted me or didn't desert me: Conway particularly seemed to take it particularly hard that America should be supposed to have neglected me.
He took my hand. blame America for not wanting me—I only remarked it. Maybe it was America that was right and England that was wrong: I do not know.
"You are sensitive—I know you well, well, so you must believe me when I say that my good-night is not a dismissal—it is only good-night! A good-night and a God bless you!"
"(must have gone 17th by Scotia from N.Y.")
"Your two letters including the cheque for £25 reached me, for which accept deepest thanks. I have already written you my approval of your three communications in L. D. News and saying that in my opinion (and now with fullest deliberation reaffirming it) all the points assumed as facts on which your letter of March 13 is grounded are substantially true and most of them are true to the minutest particularas far as could be stated in a one column letter."Then let me quite definitely explain myself about one or two things.
I should not have instigated this English move, and if I had been consulted should have peremptorily stopped it—but now that it has started and grown, and under the circumstances, and by the person, and in the spirit, (and especially as I can and will give, to each generous donor, my book, portrait, autograph, myself as it were) I am determined to respond to it in the same spirit in which it has risen—to accept most thankfully, cordially and unhesitatingly all that my friends feel to convey to me, which de- termination I here deliberately express once for all. This you are at liberty to make known to all who feel any interest in the matter.
"The situation at present may be briefly and candidly told. I am, and have for three years during my paralysis, been boarding here with a relative, comfortable and nice enough, but steadily paying just the same as at an inn,—and the whole affair in precisely the same business spirit. My means would by this time have entirely given out but that have been temporarily replenished from sales of my new edition and as now by this most welcome present and purchase—the £25 herein acknowledged. "Though without employment, means or income you augur truly that I am not in what may be called pinching want—nor do I anticipate it.
"My object I may say farther has lately been and still is to build a cheap little three or four room house on a little lot I own in a rural skirt of this town—for a nook, where I can haul in and eke out in a sort of independent economy and comfort and as satisfactorily as may be the rest of my years—for I may live several of them yet.—To attain this would be quite a triumph, and I feel assured I could then live very nicely indeed on the income from my books.
"I shall (as I see now) continue to be my own publisher and bookseller. Accept all subscriptions to the New Edition. All will be supplied upon remittance. There are Two Volumes. Leaves of Grass, 384 pages, $5, has two portraits. Then Two Rivulets, poems and prose, (including Memoranda of the War) with photos, 359 pages—also $5. Each book has my autograph. The Two Volumes are my complete works, $10 the set. "I wish the particular address of each generous friend given, so as he or she can be reach'd by mail or express—either with the autographic volume Two Rivulets or a com-
plete set of my works in Two Volumes, with autograph and portraits, or some other of my books. "It may be some while before the books arrive but they
willarrive in time.
"There is doubtless a point of view from which Mr. Conway's statement of April 4th might hold technically—but essentially, and under the circumstances—"
There was no more.
"I woke right up this morning, which is significant—escaping, this time, the usual strange extreme lethargy. I have eaten freely and seem to digest my food: have felt altogether better, except, perhaps, at the top, which will finally feel the effects of my bodily rehabilitation I am sure.
In his mail was a postal card from Paris addressed to him as "the American poet." This is what was written on the card:
Catholic life of Jesus Christ. Pray
"When I was in Washington it was surprising how many Catholic priests I came to know—how many took the trouble to get acquainted with me—on what good terms we kept with each other. I
Harned came in. Back from Chicago today. W. inquired a little about events connected with the convention but seemed soon tired of discussing it. Harned said: "The candidate of the convention is as good as elected."
W. shook his head. "I don't know about that, Tom. The two hundred thousand strangers in Chicago, the enthusiasm—hurrah—of the convention; the parades, the torchlights, the hilarity, may mean a good deal or seem to; but back of all that, beyond all that, there is a great broad margin of fact in the country at large to be considered.
"Walt, you used to call yourself a Republican?"
"So I did."
"And don't you still call yourself a Republican?"
"God help me, no. I suppose I don't call myself anything. I'm no Democrat, either. Republican? with the Republican high tariff, high property principles or no principles? Hardly."
Then W. added: "Anyway, Tom, you look well—the convention did you good: that's the best thing I've heard in connection with it. As to its forty-nine articles—they scare me."
Asked for the "news."
"My Herald is stopped and I do not regret it: my subscription is run out.
Had read some proof today. I brought over two additional galleys of matter. "I hope for the real privilege this time,"
said W.;"for strength—renewed life.
"plagiarizing"
him "unmercifully"
in The American last week. This seemed to excite W.'s humor. He laughed in his quiet hearty way. "Nonsense,"
he said: "Kennedy is over-vehement. Frank don't need to steal—he has treasure enough in himself. And Kennedy?—why should he get excited? We might steal a lot from Kennedy and he would have plenty left.
"It is like them—very like them: to rush into the arena without the necessary weapons. When Morris said that he pleaded guilty—his paper was out of court."
Says Bucke saved his life—"his skill, decision, brotherliness, pulled me ashore."
Bucke's letter of 21st asks if W. has yet signed the will. He has not. The original will, written by himself, and Harned's draft of another, still lie on the table."Bucke has not heard: we are not going to die yet."
W. was elected a member of the Society of Old Brooklynites in 1880. "I submitted to it as to a necessary courtesy—that was all."
I read him Sidney Morse's long letter of the 20th. He spoke appreciatively of Morse's "vivid and telling style."
"Sidney writes with great ease—without the slightest ponderosity—straight to the point. The best writing has no lace on its sleeves."
"I'm burning up,"
he said: "in a little bit there'll be nothing left of me but cinders."
Had written to Dr. Bucke what he called "a quite extended letter."
Also a postal to his sister in Vermont. Postal rather shaky and signed "brother Walt."
"I am not jubilating much,"
W. remarked: "the tide—rather, the flame—is against me a day like this. I just sit still and try to make living terms with the weather."
W. said to Harned today: "If it was not for Horace I should be like a ship without a rudder."
"I hate like hell to confess that I need you but I am mighty glad, needing you, to find you here to assist me."
"An old veteran hates to resign his old tasks to new hands,"
he said again.
Still arguing over the book."I am afraid if I don't pay my debt to Hicks now I will never do it at all. And it is a sort of filial debt, too—a debt I owe my father, who loved Hicks."
I am having a hard time getting him to straighten up pages 36, 37, 38. He has made one change at my suggestion, substituting "ending"
for "hapless"
in An Evening Lull. We discussed illustrations. "I leave that mostly in your hands,"
he said. "I am feeble, inaccurate, unsteady, in my work just now,"
he explains: "things come to me, all things, but somehow they do not always come in order."
"It would do no harm Walt to get it into ship-shape and safely put away."
"That's so—I am aware of it—it should be done—I shall do it."
W. spoke of the Leaves: "It is a book for the criminal classes."
Harned asked: "How do you make that out?"
"I don't make it out: it is the fact. The other people do not need a poet."
"Are you in the criminal class yourself?"
"Yes, certainly. Why not?"
Harned laughed heartily. "Let me in?"
"hardly of international scope."
Had we any great poets living? "Not one—not one."
Then he added: "We don't need great poets, though they come. We need great men: and great men we have. I often think how much greater all the fellows are than they allow themselves to be—fellows like Gilder, Stedman—if they would only let themselves go. Some of the fellows seem afraid of their own size—pare themselves down wherever they can."
"Do you let yourself go?"
"In the main, yes—and that has both advantages and disadvantages. I don't see how a fellow can do anything else and be honest with himself."
"Most men tie themselves fast and then wonder why they are not free."
"Precisely—that's a touch on the nerve.
"I have been reading over an old letter from Pete Doyle: so simple, true, sufficient: without even the knowledge of professional things—yet a rounded man. The real Irish character, the higher samples of it, the real
Harned left. We then discussed our work together. W. very slow but clear. Before we got through he gave me an old Kennedy letter, saying of it: "It was along in the period when we were introducing ourselves to each other: Kennedy was still staggering some under the shock of the sex poems.
W. laughed. "I think by this
Laughed again. "Sometimes I have won the fellows against themselves—Kennedy is one case, Bucke was another."
"How did you win me?"
"I suppose I didn't win you—we just
I kissed W. good bye. He said: "On my bad days I like to kiss you good bye. One of these times when you come back—well, I won't say any more."
He grew very quiet, looked very gently into my face, pressed my hand, and turned to the window.
I copy Kennedy's letter right here. W. had written on it in red ink: "from W. S. Kennedy a college-bred man of thirty, southern born but northern educated, an author and magazine writer."
1107 Girard St., Philadelphia, Jan. 20, '81. Dear Mr. W.
Thanks for the N. A. Review. I had already read two or three times your admirable, cheerful and spirited paper, and wanted to buy it, but did not feel able. I think (though I am not sure) that an article on it will appear in The American soon by a couple of us. You will be safe in attributing the praise to me, though I "have somewhat against you" for rapping the dii minoresamong our poets so hard over the coxcombs. Still it will do them good doubtless. They have treated you ungenerously and foppishly—always (most of them). You have no idea how I welcome an utterance of yours. I get so utterly sick of the idiocy and knavery of the mess that it is like a sea-breeze to feel and hear your voice.It tickles my diaphragm to see you run your huge subsoil prairie plough so deep down under the feet of the Lilliputians—knocking down their sham structures and leaving them either sprawling on the ground or looking foolishly at one another because exposed in their small trickeries and small literary bookeries. I
heartilycongratulate you, dear friend, that at last you are having justice done you (in some degree) by the literary class of this country.Myheart, at least, swells with gladness and pride on account of your honors this winter. It is a red letter season in your life. The honor is not much; but then one likes to stand well at home, too, as well as abroad;—one likes it a little better, too. But I have never wondered that you werecaviareto the general; because, although I see clearly that your object in treating the passions as you do is a noble and pure one, yet I have thought that the world was not ready for such a move yet.And besides, I am inclined to think with Stedman that (to such poor limited and petty creatures as we bipeds are) there is something intrinsically disagreeable in the various grosser functions of the body. I hope we shall grow to be such giants sometime that this will not be so. But that it is the case now, I do not see how we can help admitting. I can't for my poor self at any rate. But never mind this. I congratulate you again on this success. Your friend cordially, W. S. Kennedy.
In at 7.45. W. sitting on bed, scantily dressed. "Mrs. Davis tells me you have been better today."
He shook his head."Mary takes too much for granted: I am always improved in the evenings. Then again I don't like to put on a poor mouth when she's round—so when she comes in I am apt to steady up and look almost proper."
He paused and
"Have you heard of my latest splurge? No? Well—listen: I pulled a tooth today! The next thing you will hear I have amputated one of my own legs!"
No letters of importance. Day depressing.
"So it is to be Harrison!"
W. exclaimed referring to the Presidential nomination: "I don't think I take much interest in Harrison either as a man or as a principle. I am losing interest in the old political policies."
Referring to November Boughs. "The Hicks is simple
W. actually let me look for half an hour among his papers for a memorandum. As a rule he does this himself.disjecta membra: a pretty good dig which will make about thirty pages in the book, which I think now will go as high as a hundred and fifteen pages. I am sure to get the Lincoln article in, too. The fact is, I am on the move again, in spite of my disabilities.""I thought you would like that for your records"
—then going on to fan himself again. I had pushed several documents out of the pile I was examining. We talked of them. One was a William Rossetti letter. First he said: "Let me see it."
He put on his glasses and started to read. Stopped. "My eyes are poorly. It's so hot. You read it—read it for yourself—read it aloud."
I read.
56 Euston Sq. London, N.W. 9 . '70. Jany January Dear Mr. Whitman:
I was exceedingly pleased at receiving your recent letter, and the photograph followed it immediately afterwards. wh. which I admire the photograph very much; rather grudge its having the hat on, and so cutting one out of the full portraiture of your face, but have little doubt, allowing for this detail, it brings me very near your external aspect. May I be allowed to send you, as a very meagre requital, the enclosed likeness of myself? I gave your letter, and the second copy of your portrait, to the lady you refer to, and need scarcely say how truly delighted she was.
She has asked me to say that you not have devised for her a more welcome pleasure, and that she feels grateful to me for having sent to America the extracts from what she had written, since they have been a satisfaction to you. She also begs leave, with much deference, to offer a practical suggestion:—that if you see no reason against it, the new edition might be issued in 2 vols, lettered, not vols. 1 and 2, but 1st series and 2nd series, so that they cd could be priced and sold separately when so desired. cd could She adds: "This simple expedient wd, I think, overcome a serious difficulty. Those who are not able to receive aright all Mr. Whitman has written might, to their own infinite gain, have what they canreceive, and grow by means of that food and be capable of the whole perhaps; while he wd stand as unflinchingly as hitherto by what he has written. I know I am glad that your selections were put into my hands first, so that I was lifted up by them to stand firm on higher ground than I had ever stood on before, and furnished with a golden key before approaching the rest of the poems." She also, as a hearty admirer of your original Preface, hopes that that may reappear—either whole or such portions as have not since been used in other forms.
I know, by a letter from O'Connor, that, since you wrote, you have seen the further observations of this lady I sent over in Novr. I replied to O'Connor the other day; also, still more recently, took the liberty of posting to you a little essay of mine, written for one of our literary societies, on Italian Courtesy-books of the Middle Ages. Some of the extracts I have translated in it may, I hope, be found not without their charm and value. wh. which I wrote to Conway giving him your cordial message: probably you know that he was not long ago in Russia. Also I heard the other day from a man I am much attracted to, Stillman, of his having re-encountered you in Washington. As he told you, there is a chance—not as yet morethan a chance—that I may make my way over the Atlantic for a glimpse of America in the summer. If so, how great a delight it will be to me to see and know you need not, I hope, be stated in words.Perhaps before that I shall have received here the new edition you refer to—another deep draught of satisfaction.
I
run on a great deal further on these and other topics; but shd have to come to a close at last somewhere and may perhaps as well do so now. cd could Yours in reverence and love, W. M. Rossetti.
"The mysterious lady is Mrs. Gilchrist. She, too, like Sloane Kennedy (we talked of him yesterday), shied at the Children of Adam poems at the start. Sex is a red rag to most people. It takes some time to get accustomed to me, but if the folks will only persevere they will finally feel right comfortable in my presence. Children of Adam—the poems—are very innocent: they will not shake down a house.
'Don't you feel rather sorry on the whole that I am Walt Whitman?'
I never met Rossetti—he did not get over after all."
"Part of
As this letter was originally written and all studied over and fixed up in W.'s own hand I asked him to tell me about it. He did not remember clearly whether O'C. had used it or not. "I must
W. added that I "might take it along if"
I chose. I did choose.
"I did nothing but wander from my bed to the chair and back again—nothing but that: it was all a great weariness. I am not losing ground but I do seem almost to stand still."
Is thinner. Eats little. Digestion generally good. Pulse strong. Looks uncomfortable—ill at ease—is very lethargic—quiet."gummy—sticky."
Dr. Osler was not over today, W. objecting to having him come. Did no writing. Expresses no desire to leave his room or get out doors. Warren exercised his horse today. Baker says he and Mrs. Davis never say anything more to W. than they have to."You are about the only one he talks to at all freely."
W. gave me half a dozen names of people he wished me to write to about his health. "I am unable to do it myself: my pen can't go even on crutches."
"Sloane is in general very techy—he flies off at the first touch: has a womanish excess of nerves: but below all that he is a loyal guardsman."
I took the Whitman-O'Connor manuscript along with me to read at home, W. said: "I won't need it again—keep it in a safe place."
"how he did"
W. replied: "Weakly, weakly: weak as death, Mary."
And to me on my entrance: "I have had a bad day but then nature seems always to have a way of her own of mending me. I have been very feeble—O my! very feeble: sick feeble—even to the point of not being able to stand on my pins—but now that the evening has come on I am improved
"could make anything out of the Conway document"
I had "taken away yesterday?"
Said further of it himself: "I do not remember the incident with which it seems to belong. For one thing, it gives my idea of my own book: a man's idea of his own book—his serious idea—is not to be despised.
I might as well copy "the Conway document" right here.
sine qua non of current literary or esthetic standards. The Book is a product, not of literature merely, but of the largest universal law and play of things, and of Kosmical beauty, of which literature, however important, is but a fraction. This is the clue to, the explanation of, the puzzle of the widely vexatious literary and esthetic questions involved in Leaves of Grass.
Ensemble.
Modernness.
"The foregoing points my dear Conway, I wish through you, to submit to Mr. Rossetti. I have mentioned to Mr. Whitman my intention of writing him through you, and he, W., has made no objection.
"Again asking pardon of Mr. Rossetti for intruding these suggestions and placing them in any and every respect at his service should they be so fortunate as to strike him favorably.
sine qua non of literary standards.
"Personally the author is a man of normal characteristics, and of moderate, healthy, following a regular employment, averse to any display.
"The words which belong to the Book are the words Modernness and Ensemble."
"See this—it came today: the Walter Scott fellows have done it—done it well. A Backward Glance on My Own Road was the title I selected for that review of myself when I gave the copy to Rhys—but I am better pleased with our revision—A Backward
"Tell him, Horace, that last night—that is, tonight—you found me here and we had this good talk together. Tell him I have felt the duty upon me to write him from time to time but could not do it—was not up to it—conscious as I was of my neglect. Tell him I have many hopes of my getting about again—no expectation of being altogether physically what I was, but still of being in the main myself once more.
W. dictated this to me. He asked: "Have you got all that down?"
"They are surpassingly sweet, true, helpful."
Reminiscently said: "I am what the boys call a stayer—I am very cautious: my caution has kept me out of many scrapes: has saved me from this death scrape.
celebres in phrenology gave my head a public dissection in a hall—for one point, marked my caution very high—seven and over. Their seven was backed by my experience with myself.
W. subsequently talked on politics. "I have been considering the convention today—taken a pretty thorough look at it—am not at all so certain as I was of Cleveland's election. Has it struck you that the nomination of Morton was a keen move?
"the laughing philosopher,"
the Cox N.Y. picture of 1887—"the best of the several he took on that occasion,"
W. said. The second was a Washington (Gardner) picture of 1863. The third was a large hatted W. W. "between the other two in date,"
W. explained. I at once chose the Washington picture, whereupon he quickly remarked: "You have chosen wisely—chosen best, Horace.
To W.'s at 8, evening. Going into his bedroom I picked up trailed beyond the doorway into the hall what proved to be an old Symonds letter. I said to W.: "See what I found outside."
He took it, handed it back. "What is it? Read it."
I read it aloud.
Clifton Hill House, Bristol, Feb. 25, 1872. Dear Mr. Whitman:
I received the Washington newspaper with your new poem, for which I hasten to thank you. It is, I think, in your finest style. The conception is most impressive: for this transference to the unseen spiritual influences of the night of what the poet feels of past splendor, and of Love and Struggle in the present life, and of Faith for the future, strikes somehow a soul-thrilling and elevating chord that tunes the whole poem to the pitch of a Heroic Symphony. Movements V and VIII are especially grand. Who indeed but you are the singer of Love and Faith in their new advent? I have nothing worthy to send you in return. But yet I must exchange my token for yours—brazen for golden gifts, as the Greek poet said. Therefore I venture to enclose a study of Greek friendship. The misfortune of my poem is that it presupposes much knowledge of antiquity—as for instance that this Aristodemus returning alone from Thermopylae to Sparta was visited there with universal disgrace, that the Spartan youths lived not at home but in bands called "Herds," that the Spartans sacrificed to Love as the inspirer of Heroism before engaging in battle, and that, as a mere matter of recorded history, Callicrates was the most beautiful man among the Spartans and that he died in the ranks at the very opening of the battle of Platea. You to whom all things seem at first sight clear will need no further explanation. I wrote to you some days since. More now I will not add—except that I am ever yours
J. A. Symonds.
"That was before Symonds addressed me as 'master,'"
said W. "Symonds surely has style—do you notice? His simplest notes are graceful—hang about sweetly after they are done—seem to be heartbeats. I am very fond of Symonds—often regret that we have not met: he is one of my real evidences: is loyal, unqualifying—never seems ashamed—never draws back—never seems to be asking himself, Have I made a mistake in this Wait Whitman?
"I have not seen them—cannot,"
said W. "I know them but could not ask them up: my head is so like a raw sore—I cannot describe it in any other, better way: it worries me to receive strangers—I cannot stand it."
Doctor not over today. Since it has got generally understood that no one is admitted to his room fewer visitors come. Reads but only for brief snatches of time. "Any consecutive reading hurts my head—I cannot apply myself."
Examined the Lincoln paper this evening—is trying to get it ready to put into November Boughs. Returned the proofs of pages to sixty-five."Half done!"
he exclaimed jubilantly: "half the way home!"
Frank Harned is getting Hicks and W. W. portraits ready for the book. Returned W. Burroughs' Pepacton."It is not his best work—I often wonder why John wrote it: it has good points but interests me less than almost anything he has written."
What of the new German Emperor?"I am not very hopeful of the empire—not disposed to trust him—I mean the new man there—the martinet emperor. Perhaps the time has not yet come for so good a man as Frederick—Germany was not ready for him."
"Mr. Whitman, what a charming, winning face this lady has. I take a look at her every time I come into the room."
"Ah! do you think that?"
"Yes."
"Some day when I feel more like it than I do now I will tell you about her.
"Is she living yet?"
The question seemed to stir W. profoundly. He closed his eyes, shook his head: "I'd rather not say anything more about that just now."
"I promise you that I will attend to the matter in a day or two at most,"
adding: "Write to Bucke to that effect—it will console him."
"Walt Whitman taken from life 1863 War time Washington D.C."
To the right he wrote: "to Horace Traubel, from his friend W. W., June, 1888."
Wrote in a firm hand in my presence, the card resting on his knees. "I can't say more, Horace, than that I want you to have it.
"Yes,"
he said, "it was suggested by the picture in Harned's parlor: "that's me—that's my old hulk—laid up at last: no good any more—no good"
—pausing—"a fellow might get melancholy seeing himself in such a mirror—but I guess we can see through as well as in the mirrors when the test comes."
"You always come into this room hungry and I always try to feed you but I don't believe you ever get enough. Did you ever go home satisfied?"
Then he laughed. And after his laugh he spoke again: "After all you may be doing a public service, as Bucke calls it. Bucke said to me when he was last here: 'Walt, every scrap of paper in this room is precious
I said: "I don't expect you to agree with us about the value of these odds and ends.
"Yes—I suppose I have: many of them."
"Don't do it any more—give them to me."
W. burst out in the midst of a laugh: "Is that a request or a command?"
"Neither—but you once promised to do it."
"So I did—and haven't I pretty decently kept my promise?"
"I think you have."
Then he grew earnest."God knows boy you are welcome to the stuff—most of it seems to have no value to me: if you think it has any significance—is data for history—take it—preserve it—welcome—welcome."
"I've had a bad day—a very bad day: am better now, however. Dr. Osler came over a couple of hours ago—said he did not like my feebleness—spoke of it for the first time today—made up some prescription of wine and cocoa which has helped me. How life plays itself back and forth!—what a chapter of ups and downs! I wonder how I am going to come out of all this? Right, I suppose, whatever happens—if death happens, life happens—either way."
"I like to look at him—he is health to look at: young, strong, lithe."
But when Warren came W. did not talk. Handed me back yesterday's proofs. "You fellows between you are giving me the cleanest proofs I have ever received. I seem to be in a safe environment."
Asked me: "Didn't you say, Horace, that Ferguson was printing Poore's book?
Alluding to the portrait he gave me yesterday: "How well I was then!—not a sore spot—full of initiative, vigor, joy—not much belly, but grit, fibre, hold, solidity.
Ferguson thinks our offer to McKay for the Specimen Days plates is fair."So do I. Dave mustn't think I am wholly ignorant in such matters. Of course I don't blame Dave, either, for standing out for all he can get. That is business. It's not pretty in him or in me—it's business. Dave has Napoleonic qualities. I admire him."
Referring to the management of headlines W. says:"I have no doctrine about such things: all ways are good if they are good ways—if they pan out well. I remember I used to have an intense dislike for eating in theatres—in such public places—seeing people eat—eating myself—especially women eating: but one evening I went into a theatre—it was hot and close—with a friend—and in the course of the play he nudged me:
'Look there!'
he said:
Turning over some proof-sheets he quoted a line from his own Burns paper, removing his glasses and looking at
"Some of my friends think the Burns piece the best of all: I don't look on it that way.
We spoke of the will. "I really got to work at it today—you have egged me on—on.
First draft in pencil. Mrs. Davis yesterday persuaded boys on the street to take their firecrackers around the corner."Don't send them away, Mary: the boys don't like to be disturbed either. Besides who knows but there may be a sicker Man around the corner?"
W. jollied with Baker anent what he called his "grog."
"Baker fills me full—then wants to fill me all over again. But I am like another fellow I have heard of—I only hold a pint.
We talked a little about a letter in which Roden Noel complained to W. that though he had been among W.'s earliest adherents in England Bucke had not included him in the list of W.'s English friends."I am sorry the thing occurred: it was an accident: an accident for which I was probably responsible. Noel is right: he was on the spot—I knew
This is Noel's whole letter:
London, May 16, 1886. Dear Sir.
I am so sorry to hear of your illness! and very sorry to hear the book has not reached you. I have now told my publisher to send another copy to your correct address and shall be glad to hear you are not dissatisfied with the essay on yourself. I'll send a copy too of my last book, Songs of the Heights and Deeps. I formerly sent you some of my poetry, but it was early work. I hope I have been getting on since, and have now got a place—perhaps as permanent as this sort of thing can be!—among our poets—though I am not popularhere, or in America. I could wish to be more known in America.
I am glad that youareat lasttaking your rightful place among the best. My debt to you is great. Would that I could express it in person! I have often said the chief (if not the only) reason why I want to go to America is to see Niagara, the Yosemite, and Walt Whitman!
You didsend me your works, and I value the present not a little. But I was sorry to see Dr. Bucke did not mention me among your early admirers, for I published in Dark Blue an essay you and Mr. Burroughs liked long ago (this one is an enlarged republication of that).I venture to send a photo of myself in return for some you sent me of yourself formerly.
Yours with sincere respect, Roden Noel.
W. also showed me a letter from Burroughs. "It contains some mighty interesting reading—criticism—a touch and go at Curtis, Arnold, Emerson, Carlyle. John is extra fine at that sort of work, especially in letters, where he qualifies nothing, just lets himself go on free wing.
West Park, Jan. 8, '84. Dear Walt:
That piece of writing of yours in the last Critic is to me very impressive. It is seldom you have fallen into such a noble and lofty strain. As I am myself trying to write a little these days, it makes me sad. It is like a great ship that comes to windward of me and takes the breeze out of the sail of my little shallop. I shall have to lay by today and let the impression wear off. I think you have hit it exactly with that word physiological. It lets in a flood of light. The whole essay is one to be long conned over.
I went down to New York to hear Arnold on Emerson Friday night. Curtis—the pensive Curtis—introduced the lecturer. I wonder if you have heard Curtis speak? 'Tis a pity he is not a little more robust and manly. He fairly leans and languishes on the bosom of the Graces, one after another. Arnold looked hearty and strong and spoke in a foggy, misty English voice, that left the outlines of his sentences pretty obscure, but which had a certain charm after all. The lecture contained nothing new. The Tribune report you sent me is an admirable summary—the pith of the whole lecture. He does not do full justice to Emerson as I hope to show in my essay. At least Emerson can be shorn of these things, and left a more impressive figure than Arnold leaves him. He had much to say about Carlyle, too, but would not place him with the great writers! Because he was more than a great literary man he denied him literary honors. Drop me a line when you feel like it. Winter is in full blast up here and the river snores and groans like a weary sleeper.
With much love, John Burroughs.
"When John is wholly John,"
said W., "he can't be beat. I think that probably the best part of that letter, which is
"An author's letters are like an artist's sketches—they often contain his best art."
"You are right, Horace. Nobody's looking at a man when he is writing a letter: he just writes: writes: is wholly honest with himself. Of course all letters are not honest letters: I am speaking of honest letters: John's letter is an honest letter."
"I seem to have improved this afternoon and evening: my mind is clearer than any day yet: less sore—with less of the drowsy befuddled feeling."
Voice stronger, eye clearer. But when I helped him to his chair I found him almost a dead weight. Even suggested going down stairs to supper. Baker headed him off by appearing in the room with the meal. "I felt that if I was ever going to make a move I had to start sometime."
Osler not over today or to be over until Monday.
"Oh, it is done, Horace—I got it through today—my last will and testament and so forth—it is all signed and sealed. I wrote a short note to Dr. Bucke about it today: not much, but telling him: and if you write in the morning (I hope you will) you may tell him again—it won't hurt. If I keep on fooling with one will and another I won't know which is my last. I will have to look the will over a little for slips before letting it go: I am not certain of it as it stands: then it can be put in Tom's safe."
Baker and Mrs. Davis were witnesses to the will.
"It is a surprising hubbub he makes, indeed—it reminds me of little children playing with jackstraws or brass ninepins or toy balloons. As to Frank's piece—Frank Williams'—I'm afraid that too failed to im-
"Charles Morris started out by saying he knew nothing about Walt Whitman and proved it."
W. amused. "After all these literary fellows are so much alike—almost the whole crew (always excepting a fellow like Frank, who contains real stuff): I often find myself lost, absolutely lost, in their monkey-like mediocrities."
"In a general way Dana was favorable to my work—not in any thorough-going fashion. I interest the newspaper men as one of the strange fellows—they look for freakish characters—it is among these I come in. How few of them—of all of them—actors, writers, professional men, laborers—on whom you can't put a tag.
Talked of his "medicine men,"
as he calls them. "Dr. Baker is a faithful henchman—obeys orders—puts me through the mill—I have to submit. Osler, too, has his points—big points. But after all the real man is Dr. Bucke.
"I see that I shall write no more."
"Nonsense,"
I exclaimed. He laughed outright. "More nonsense?"
he
"And you say—"
"Then I tell them a few of your stories and get them convulsed."
"Does that convince them?"
"It makes an impression.
W. added: "So they think I am funereal—that I live in a coffin—that I am solemn—never laugh—look down my nose—so—"
and to prove that he never laughs he laughed."I have been intending for forty years to put on record the fairest picture I could conjure of Elias Hicks. Now I seem too far gone to do the job. I think I am or have been peculiarly fitted, equipped—having the run of certain facts—to do this for him."
"Some day you will be writing about me: be sure to write about me honest: whatever you do do not prettify me: include all the hells and damns."
Adding: "I have hated so much of the biography in literature because it is so untrue: look at our national figures how they are spoiled by liars: by the people who think they can improve on God Almighty's work—who put an extra touch on here, there, here again, there again, until the real man is no longer recognizable."
"You remember that Dowden alluded to him in one of the letters I turned over to you? He seems to have been a young man of great spirit—talent: of high and masterful ambition."
I found W. had put this memorandum on the letter: "from Standish O'Grady: sent photos to him Dec. 14, '81."
Where was Standish O'Grady now? "I do not seem to know."
"Did he get diverted?"
"Possibly: he does not seem to have kept me on his list. The young fellows come—the old men go—often, often: they serve an apprenticeship with me, in their youth, when they are getting their roots well in the soil—then they die, maybe become professional, adopt institutions, find that Walt Whitman will no longer do."
Dublin, October 5, 1881. Dear Sir,
My friend Mr Bagenal has written to me from America describing his interview with you and the kindness with which you spoke of myself. For years it has been a hope to me that I may see you and be able to tell you personally what your writings have been to me, every line breathing hope, admiration, trust and love. For myself I can safely say that except William Rolleston no reader or student of your poetry has studied it so closely or so taken it into his nature as myself. As a practical advice I would suggest that you would cause a certain number of advertisements to appear in our and the English press announcing that copies might be had from you personally. I procured mine from Trubner & Co. London paying two pounds ten when as I understand they may be had from you for two pounds, and I see no reason why publishers should fatten while the producer is neglected.
When Mr. Bagenal was in Ireland, I remember, he used to laugh copiously at the form of your poetry forgetting that account given by Alcibiades of the outer form of Socrates with the images of the gods within.
Now I find that from having met you and conversed, seen and heard, he is also one of us, and reads, marks, learns and inwardly digests. One thing in your poetry I will refer to, that is the love of the heroic successful or unsuccessful. It chances that I have given a good deal of time to the study of the primitive literature of this country, a race in which the note of heroism and chivalry ever sounds. My impressions regarding this literature I have published in various works. One of these recently published is History: Ireland,
I, Critical and Philosophical. I directed Scribner & Co. to send you a copy of this knowing your acquaintance and love of early Norse literature, which is kin to the Irish, with the heroes of the Niebelungen Lied: you are well acquainted and have Vol. Volume praised them, but I think our primitive Irish hero is equal to any of them, but English literature has the ear of the world and wilfully ignores everything of the kind. Cuculain Cuchulain May I ask whether you have received the book? If not I shall send one direct. My other works are History of Ireland, Heroic Period, Vols I and 2, an epical representation chiefly of career but not blameless as I have molded the chaotic poems and tales into a complete whole and so the student can never be exactly certain what is and what is not my own. Cuculain's Cuchulain's
I dare say like most men but for you I would have swung round to the theory of strong , an aristocratic ruling class, &c. I think from your comments on English literature that you don't appreciate Shelley. In the Revolt of Islam he has a fine Panegyric on the future of America. For my own part I put him high very high; his meaning lies fold within fold never to be exhausted. govts governments For example, his love poetry is chiefly mystical religious, the divine bride, "perfect wife," is the object. I find as I change I cannot so change as that I do not meet in you the expression of every changing ideal penetrating even the remotest parts of my nature with a profound sympathy as of his who knew what was in man.
Farewell. Know that there are many in the "ancestor continents" of whom towards you might be said what was sung of our Irish hero meeting his friend, "He poured forth a torrent of friendly welcome and affection." Cuculain Cuchulain Standish O'Grady.
"From the medical point of view they tell me I'm getting on all right, but from the point of view of my own comfort I'm in a pretty boggy condition indeed. But so the doctor feels all right about it I don't suppose it mat-
"I met Brick Pomeroy in New York."
"The mischief you did! What's Brick doing now? It is remarkable how many of us live on and on long after we are dead."
The boys on the street annoy W. with their firecrackers but he will not have them disturbed."There's a certain allowance of deviltry in all boys. The boys out in this street probably know there is a sore, nervous old man up in this room, so they fling their malignant rattle-snake poison about with special vehemence. Boys could not get along without that. But let them go on—don't interfere with them. It would worry me more to have that done than to bear with the noise."
Harned put it: "You talk in a familiar way about the devil, Walt, but you don't believe in him even a little bit."
"You're right, Tom—not even a little bit—not even the littlest bit: I ought to send my apologies out to the boys."
Seemed feeble. Talked with Harned about politics—only briefly. "My head is no good tonight. Last night I felt extra strong."
Had not read much proof today."I'll have to trust myself to your diplomacy with Ferguson again: these delays are tantalizing."
No visitors, he said—"and only two letters—both requests for autographs—so you see I sort of drew a blank today. One of the autograph fellows intimated that I might die soon, which made his request a very urgent one.
"You ought to die, also, at once, in order to please him."
W. laughed quietly: "That's so,"
he said, "bring me some poison."
Harned withdrew. W. said: "When Tom came in he was grumpy enough to hit me.
We discussed the book some. W. in no shape to be worried. Had not alluded to the will. W. had tied up some letters in a string."Sit down and read them."
"What are they?"
"A few tid-bits for your treasure box,"
he said, with about half a smile. "A couple of letters from John—a letter from Sidney Morse: John's letters are old—Sidney's came only a week or more ago. Burroughs takes exception to O'Connor's vehemence—he often does it: it seems to be too strong for John's nerves: but what's the use of kicking?
I read one of the Burroughs letters and then left."You don't go home starved tonight, do you?"
And finally with his good night cried after me the admonition to "keep on the good side of Ferguson"
"Write to any of the boys you may think want to hear from or about me. Tell them I cannot write myself—describe my situation: tell them how helpless I am. I need your co-operation in such matters."
This is the Burroughs letter I read:
Esopus, N.Y., Aug. 17, '83. Dear Walt:
Drop me a line where and how you are and what your plans are for the fall. We are just back from Roxbury where we went in July. We are all pretty well. I
Dr. Bucke's book and thank you for it. I had already purchased and read it. I cannot say that I care much for what Dr. Bucke has to say; he gives me no new hint or idea. rec'd received O'Connor's letter is a treat, with a little too much seasoning. Wm. William If would only practise a little more self-denial, he would be much more effective. He Wm. William couldwrite so that his critics could not laugh at him. The review of the book in the Tribune was by a woman—a Miss H—(I forget her name)—regularly employed upon the paper. The latter part of June Gilder and I went to Concord and spent a couple of days there. Called on Mrs. Emerson, liked her much, supped and breakfasted with Sanborn and had a pleasant time.Young Dr. Emerson seems a worthy son of his father. I liked him much. If we ever get another girl in this house and the kitchen machinery running smoothly again, I shall come for you and take no denial. I think it would lengthen my days to see you once more.
With love John Burroughs.
This is the Burroughs letter which W. spoke of yesterday:
West Park, N.Y., Oct. 7, '85. Dear Walt:
We left Ocean Grove the next day after I was with you, and are now all home again, safe and snug. I gave up the trip for the present. Gilder said next spring would do, so I expect to go next May, and see the season open down there. Ky. Kentucky I hope you are still mending, Walt. I am almost certain you eat too heartily and make too much blood and fat; at least that you eat too hearty food. As I told you, I was profoundly impressed by a couple of articles in the Fortnightly Review by Sir William Thompson, on Diet with relation to Age and Activity.
He shows very convincingly that as our activities fail by the advance of age, we must cut down in our food. If not the engine makes too much steam, things become clogged and congested and the whole economy of the system deranged. He says a little meat once a day is enough, and recommends the cereals and fruits. I think you make too much blood. This congested condition of your organs at times, shows it. Then you looked to me too fat; and fat at your age clogs and hinders the circulation. I shall talk to my Dr. about you when I see him again, but if I were you I would adopt such a diet as would make my blood as thin as possible, and so lessen the arterial strain. This is common sense and I believe good science. In the best health, we grow lean, Sir William Thompson says, like a man training for the ring. I gained much flesh this summer, and am dull and spiritless this fall, as a consequence. I must work it off some way. Drop me a card if you can how you are. With much love, John Burroughs.
"A good letter—read again,"
W. had written on the outside. "Yes,"
he said, "John about hit the truth.
Morse's letter:
Richmond, , Ind. Indiana June 15, 1888. Dear W—
I sent word by Horace one day that I had an intuition that you were about to enter upon a new lease of life. The next day the telegraph announced you were slightly improved from a severe attack of "heart failure." Now Horace writes you are quite yourself again. I take it my spirit sense of your condition is not likely to fail after all. But the hot weather is coming, and we shall get it by July good and hot. I hope you can get into comfortable shape by the time it reaches Camden.
Am glad Horace is at hand to afford any help you might need. I have about concluded not to go to the
Exposition. There is so much red tape it will cost me all of twenty dollars to exhibit a few busts. I am calculating on starting for Chicago middle of next week. I'd like to look in on the Chicago Convention—just to see the shape of the heads that are prominent. Cin. Cincinnati
I notice a marked difference in the political atmosphere here and in People here are more Mass. Massachusetts rambunctious;they get mad. The Republicans are high toned and look down on Democrats. If you show any proclivities of Democratic color they wonder how you can. How can white think well of black? And then, the anti-copperhead talk is still rampant here. Theare sore some over the slaughter of Gray, and Harrison would catch many sorehead votes. Dems Democrats If the Republicans have got to have a rushing campaign, they'll get it sooner with the grandson of old Tippecanoe, than with the cold-blooded Sherman. But I believe Blainewould sweep the States. Everybody fairly dances when his name is mentioned. Strange. I can't understand it. Somehow I am drawn personally more to Cleveland than any one of the others.And yet he's a kind of a pork.Well, this is a hot day here. I hope you keep mending and that you only went back a little for a new start.
Kindly, Morse.
W. amused over Morse's allusion to Cleveland. "'A kind of pork.' How good. I am like your father, too: I never can quite forget that Cleveland once hung a man with his own hands.
I will also put the W. letter to Schmidt in here.real is happening. New issues are forming and grave issues (among the gravest)—but they are not yet politically expressed.""It is first-rate autobiography—I rather let myself out in that letter—gave him pointers, this and that, so as to set him right in certain particulars—in matters he could not have known nor even learned about at such a distance."
In reply to my question W. said: "Yes, I was at Ocean Grove with Burroughs: it was there that I wrote With Husky Haughty Lips O Sea—a rare experience: John himself was in extra good feather."
"Supposing that the books and papers I sent you in response to your letter have safely arrived, I thought I would now write you a few lines. What I have to submit and say I will just say without ceremony—confident you will receive it in the same spirit in which it is written. I sent you (By Mr. Clausen) my poems Leaves of Grass, and little prose work Democratic Vistas. Also a piece I recited at the opening of the American Institute in New York; and then several criticisms, sketches &c. about the books and about myself by different persons, from different points of view. These will furnish you with sufficient material for your examination, digest and proposed review.
"When you are composing your review, I would like to have you bring in, in the proper place, the following mentioned facts—that neither my book of poems or Democratic Vistas is cordially accepted in the United States—nor do any of the chief Literary persons or organs of that country admit Leaves of Grass as having (possessing) any value or recognize the author as a poet at all—that he has indeed been ignominiously dismissed from a moderate government employment by special order of a cabinet officer at Washington, for the sole and avowed reason that he was the writer of the book—that, up to this time, no American publisher will publish it (the author having had to print its various editions himself)—that many of the bookstores refuse to keep it for sale—and that the position of the author both as to literary rank and worldly prosperity, in his own country, has been and remains to day under a heavy and depressing cloud.
"Of course at the same time you will hardly need to be told that my book is written in the sun, and with a gay heart—for these surely fully belong to me. But I think a good foreign criticism of my works would be more complete by giving these facts above, for they are substantial facts, notwithstanding a very few exceptions, and in truth they are a necessary part of any complete criticism.
"Abroad, my book and myself have had a welcome quite dazzling. Tennyson writes me friendly letters. Freiligrath translates and commends me. Robert Buchanan, Swinburne, the great English and Dublin colleges, affectionately receive me and doughtily champion me. And while I, the author, am without any recompense at all in America, the English pirate-publisher, Hotten, draws a handsome annual income from a bad London reprint of my poems.
"I wish you to speak of the purpose of Democratic Vistas—(It is at present in danger of falling still-born here.) "I should be glad to hear more from you, your magazine, your country too. For all, accept my friendliest good wishes.
"Direct, W. W. Solicitor's office. Treasury, Washington, D.C. United States America.
Later.Upon reading over my letter, previous to mailing it, I had almost decided not to send it as a part of it may be open to the suspicion of querulousness—yet as nothing can be further from my real state of mind (which is more than satisfied with my literary fortune upon the whole) I will let it go."
I said to W.: "I'm glad you put your 'Later' in the Schmidt letter."
"Why?"
"I hate to seem to hear you growl over the treatment you have received. You have never growled to me."
"I should hope not. Did the letter sound like a growl?"
"Part of it—yes."
"I must have suspected that myself—that's probably the explanation of the 'Later.'"
I asked W.: "Did you ever meet with any experience you did not expect? When you started out doing an unusual thing did you not expect an unusual reception or no reception at all?"
"Yes—yes: to be sure."
"Then a growl would not have been in order."
"No—it would not: and if I have ever said or written anything to you or anybody which seemed to be a growl I ought to be ashamed of myself."
"After all—did you care what the world thought of you?"
"Yes, I cared—but not enough to give up my fight."
This day, Sunday, in at W.'s at 7.30. Day had been a bad one again, though he had eaten somewhat better than yesterday, especially towards evening. He said to me earnestly: "Physically I seem to be about done for—and mentally, too—all done for, for that matter."
"Do you mean that you give up?"
This fired him. "Hardly that—hardly that: but I don't seem no good nohow"
—laughing gently. He has spoken much in the same vein to Mrs. Davis. He went on in this way to Mrs. Davis: "I feel that Dr. Bucke brought me out of the last bad spell. The Doctor called it vertigo, but he's not entirely right—it's paralysis, Mary.
I know if Bucke don't, for I've had many of these attacks—know just what they are—all of them coming from the severe illness I had after the war.
W. reading the N. A. Review Lincoln vol. when I entered."Lincoln don't need adorers, worshippers—he needs friends. I take this book up a little now and then, to see what can be made of it. The great danger with Lincoln for the next fifty years will be that he will be overdone—overexplained, over-exploited—made a good deal too much of—gather about himself a rather mythical aureole. There was James Parton, who used to say of Washington: 'He's no real man—no such man ever existed—history warrants no such character.' The same danger threatens Lincoln—dear Lincoln: threatens to remove him from the list of living men and women and set
W. reading "tariff talk" in "I believe all this argument in favor of a tariff is stale, flat—utterly and irretrievably stupid beyond any conceivable limit. Such tariff talk is utterly asinine.
W. showed me a copy of the English edition of his prose—Democratic Vistas, &c.—just out, and of Specimen Days. "I got fifty copies of the book—have given twenty-five away.
"Your enemies never really hurt you?"
"Never: they delayed me some, that's all."
Mrs. Davis brought him an apron full of chicks. He fondled them, called them "dears"
—was pleased—hated to have them taken away. Clifford today gave me two portraits of Hilda, his little girl. W. studied them with greedy eyes. "How lovely they are! They make me feel young again—they put new blood into me: they revive my dead ambitions."
"I think highly of the medallion—very highly indeed: it impresses me as a very significant piece of work. Morse gets the spirit of a face: gives up the letter if need be for the spirit."
W. gave me an envelope containing a clipping from Bell's Weekly Messenger and Farmers' Journal treating of the celebration of W. W.'s birthday."Yes, we leak out into other countries, too."
Said he had as yet no note from any one abroad concerning his recent illness. Sent one of the new English books to Bucke. Gave me copy up to the Hicks. "I hate to admit it,"
he said, "but I am so devilish poorly I shall be forced to ask you to extricate the Hicks hodge-
"You will be hearing from Gilder, Burroughs, Stedman, Kennedy, the boys everywhere: you will know what to say to them: say the right word—say it as from me: say it with love—yes, with dear love: tell them how helpless I am to act for myself except through you: but give them my love—always that, to the last always that."
To W's at eight o'clock. Frank Harned present for awhile. He had his own photos of the Morse W. W. bust and of the Hicks. W. discussed them. Wants to put them in the book. W. in bed when I got in. We helped him to a chair. Pretty feeble. Frank withdrew in a little while. We continued to talk. W. spoke of himself."I'm turned clean over—off my keel—am badly shaken. I seem to see things all right with my mind but my body won't see things at all!"
Mildly laughed. "There's the book—the dear book—forever waiting—and I seem to be more feeble than ever.
—and he raised himself a bit in the chair—"there's no use dying now when there's still a job of work to do."
W. handed me a newspaper reprint of Stedman's The Discoverer. "I never read that poem,"
said W., "but it powerfully affects me. Why do you suppose that is?"
Had had a short note from Bucke—"a whiff of fresh air from the north,"
he described it. I read him a letter I had from Burroughs today. But he would not listen at all to B.'s suggestion that W. should go off to the shore. "John is fine, fine, about all that, but he does not quite take in the situation here. All my good friends suggest different cures, places, diets—changes of geography: one sort and all sorts of revolutions: but I am bound after all to keep to my own path.
I had to hunt up some proofs for W. They had been mislaid on his table."This room is full of lost and found."
Then laughed again. "Mary thinks it an utterly indecent place—disorder added to disorder. But then you remember what some one said writing about the Leaves: 'This book is a confused book—that's its main trouble: the author got mixed up at the start and was never put to order again.' That explains this room."
Said again: "Pearsall Smith has got abroad, into England, to his new home, safely: a letter arrived today—says the voyage did him good—I am glad—he had been ill."
"Did Sidney say that?"
Pausing for a minute or so. "I wonder if I have seemed to be amenable to such an accusation?"
I said nothing, whereat he went on; "It may be true—I don't know: I don't intend it to be true, God knows!
When he stopped I said: "That gives a pretty good notion of the stand you take. Did you say all that to Harned?"
"I don't remember—maybe not—but I might have said it all: I don't like to be thought querulous—I like to give the biggest meanings to people, things, events, that I can."
I was still poking about looking for the proofs. I turned up numerous odds and ends in the search. One sheet of paper ("Yes,"
adding: "It is not new—I think I have used it somewhere in my prose."
Suddenly called to me: "Horace! Horace! I must get to my bed: my head reels: I feel as though a minute more on my feet—on my feet—here—would finish me—be my last."
I sprang to his side. His head fell forward—he seemed about to faint. He reached out, took my hand. "My cane! My cane!"
I put the cane in his hand."Keep on your hunt, Horace—take what you need: when you are done turn the light down."
"Shall I go for Dr. Baker?"
He spoke up: "No! No! I need no doctor! I will be all right in a minute: the doctor could do nothing for me."
He kept my hand for some time. Then be said more calmly:
"Now I am easier—easier—much easier."
I returned to the search. He was dead still. He did not seem to sleep."Have you found it?"
"Any luck yet?"
"Haven't you got it yet?"
Finally the papers turned up. He laughed slightly. "We lose but we also gain,"
he said.
W. gave me a message for John Burroughs. Also Bucke. "Doctor is the kingpin."
"Good bye! Good bye or good night! I believe you prefer good night!"
I had said to him: "Good bye means for all time—good night means for a little while."
I will copy here the sheet of pencilled paper. It had had a headline—"The question of form"—which was marked out.
the Ocean. Its verses are the liquid, billowy waves, ever rising and falling, perhaps sunny and smooth, perhaps wild with storm, always moving, always alike
Evening. W.'s day miserable. "The minute I attempt to work my brain gets into a snarl."
Expressed pleasure hearing I had written to Burroughs. "The good John,"
he called him."For the present I must stay where I am. Events might arise to make a change advisable, but for all I can see now I am best here, best at home."
Was up only about ten minutes this evening, though he talked from the bed in an easy, cheery way. I handed him some proofs. He was happy over it. "This looks like getting on the move again"
—asking me: "Does Ferguson make any comments on my snail-like method of work?"
"Do not take a gloomy view of Whitman's case—he will come around."
W. says of Osler: "He's a fine fellow and a wise one, I guess: wise, I am sure—he has the air of assurance. Doctor Bucke was to select a man—selected Osler: said Osler was at the head of the band. Osler goes to the University, or somewhere—lectures students."
Some one set some fire crackers off right under his window."Don't that beat the devil? Mary wanted to go out today and raise a racket about the firing, but I would not let her. I would rather have a headache than interfere with the boys."
Gave me a check for fifty dollars for Ferguson—our first payment. Hobbled about the room. "This cane was given me by Pete Doyle,"
he reminded me: "Pete was always a good stay and support."
"How sweet the bed—the dear bed! When a fellow is physically in the dumps the bed gives him a sort of freedom."
W. handed me an old letter of Swinton's to him. "Read it: it is crisp—straight-to."
Enve-
"care Major Hapgood, paymaster U. S. Army."
"The Editor of Harpers Weekly begs to return the enclosed verses to Mr. Walt Whitman with his compliments and many thanks. Harpers Weekly, Feb. 26, 1863."
How did that get there? W. did not know. It was in Alden's hand. "Read the letter,"
said W. again.
Times Office, Wednesday Night 2 O'Clock. My dear Walt
—You will find the article you sent will be in the Times of this morning, when it is published. I have crowded out a great many things to get it in, and it has taken the precedence of army correspondence and articles which have been waiting a month for insertion. It is excellent—the first part and the closing part of it especially. I am glad to see you are engaged in such good work at Washington. It must be even more refreshing than to sit by Pfaff's privy and eat sweet-breads and drink coffee, and listen to the intolerable wit of the crack-brains. I happened in there the other night, and the place smelt as atrociously as ever. Pfaff looked as of yore. I read your article in proof and hope it's all accurate enough. "The field large—the reapers few"is the finest paragraph. Everything in New York moves on pretty much as usual. It's the same old town—only different.My brother William sailed for Port Royal ten days ago—to be present at the attack on Charleston—if it is to be attacked.
Do you know Conway of Kansas? He is a good man. If you don't know him, and if he would be of any service to you in any way, I know he would be rejoiced to serve you, if you mentioned my name to him. The article has some things in that I could recognize you by, but not many. I like it better on that account than I should otherwise.—Hoping that Vicksburg may soon fall.
J. Swinton.
W. said: "Considering the historic importance of Charleston and Vicksburg John's mention of them by the way, so matter-of-factly, is very impressive.
W. has not said a word to Harned about the will since his return. It still lies in its place—endorsed, tied up, in condition to hand over. Did not feel able to sign the bas-reliefs today.
W. asks me every night as I enter: "Well, Horace, what is going on in the world?—what has the world been doing today?"
Then he will adjust his glasses and ask his second question almost as unfailingly: "And the proofs—are there proofs?"
"We're moving on—moving on: this is my tomorrow's job of work."
Usually when I hand him today's package he gives me yesterday's. Lately, being conscious of his own unsteadiness, he has got into the habit of cautioning me: "Look everything over—leave nothing absolutely to me: I am not to be depended upon."
Again, he has said: "Always keep yourself informed: it will be better for the printers, for the book, for you, and chiefly for me."
"It is a June letter—worthy of June: written in John's best out of doors mood. Why, it gets into your blood and makes you feel worth while. I sit here, helpless as I am, and breathe it in like fresh air. I enjoyed it better reading it today than I did when it came, which was during the worst of my very bad spell. It was salvation to John to get back on the land: he was fast getting use-
West Park, N.Y., June 11, '88. Dear Walt:
I hear through Kennedy that you are ill or were so last Monday. I do hope you are well again. Drop me a card if you are able and tell me how you are. I want to find time soon to come down and see you, if company does not bore you. I shall think of you as able to be out occasionally enjoying these June days. The world has not been so beautiful to me for a long time as this spring; probably because I have been at work like an honest man. I had, in my years of loafing, forgotten how sweet toil was. I suppose those generations of farmers back of me have had something to do with it. They all seem to have come to life again in me and are happy since I have taken to the hoe and crowbar. I had quite lost my interest in literature and was fast losing my interest in life itself, but these two months of work have sharpened my appetite for all things. I write you amid the fragrance of clover and the hum of bees. The air is full these days of all sweet meadow and woodland smells. The earth seems good enough to eat. I propose for a few years to come to devote myself to fruit-growing. I have seventeen acres of land now, nearly all of it out in grapes and currants and raspberries. I think I can make some money and maybe renew my grip upon life.
I was glad to see Kennedy. I like him much.
How I wish you were here, or somewhere else in the country where all these sweet influences of the season could minister to you. Your reluctance to move is just what ought to be overcome. It is like the lethargy of a man beginning to freeze. We are all well. Julian goes to school in
, and is a fine boy. He goes and returns daily on the little Po'keepsie Poughkeepsie steamer. I hope O'Connor is no worse. Do drop me a line. With much love John Burroughs.
"You see,"
said W., "John writes letters—real letters. He does not strike you as a maker of phrases. I get so many letters that are distinctly literary—written for effect—labored over—worked upon to be made just so, just so: every phrase nicely balanced—all the words in place. John has the real art—the art of succeeding by not trying to succeed: he is the farmer first, the man, before he is the writer: that is the key, index, anything you may call it, of his success."
I quoted a remark made by Stoddard to Brinton or a friend of Brinton (Brinton repeated it to me): "Whitman is sore on the literary class."
"It's the other way about—the literary class is sore on me."
"Does it make you feel bad?"
"Not at all. If it did, I should go and train with them instead of staying and training with myself."
Evening, 7.30. W. stood the noise today heroically. Sitting talking with Mrs. Davis. He was urging her to go and see the fireworks. She dissented. Baker not about. She spoke of the danger from fire. He laughed."That is very funny, Mary—very funny. It makes me think of a story I once heard of a Bridget whose mistress found her weeping bitterly before a roaring big fireplace. 'What is the matter with you, Bridget?' asked the mistress, and Bridget, still weeping, said: 'O mum, it's just this way: I might be after marrying Pat and we might have three or four children around and Oh the brats might fall into the fire and be burned to death!' That seems like you, Mary—anticipating trouble. Now that Horace is here I am secure enough for you. Go out—go out—see what you can see—
Turning to me: "Mary thinks men ain't much use for taking care of themselves nohow. I am keen about all that myself—jealous of my right to fall down and break my neck if I choose."
He called my attention to the medallions, duly signed, tied up, with a label on the outside designating them as my property."I don't seem to get up any steam—nothing has occurred to enthuse me. The Harrison boom is nearly done for—it came too soon: tired itself out before the campaign had got under way."
Clifford in with me. W. alluded to Bar Harbor. Clifford said: "It is a place for the thrifty."
"For the thrifty—yes: that sort of thrifty: it is an affair of electric bells, cottages, swell dinners, and all the damnation that goes along with such."
Working over the Hicks headline. "I want to show that it is disjecta membra rather than a pretentious study: notes off hand set down with no attempt to put them into sequence."
"You will get well?"
W. answering: "I guess so—but if I don't it will still be all right. I've arranged it with Horace here that we are not to worry over trifles."
Laughed lightly.
W. has not seemed to like Frank Harned's pictures. Why? "I don't know why—never do. I have feelings about things. nothing more.
Clifford had waited down stairs until I told W. he was there. "Clifford must come up,"
said W.—"Come right away: he belongs to our church—we will let him in on the front bench: that's a great stretch of courtesy from us to a minister."
"I don't know whether to accept that as a pleasant or an unpleasant tender of grace."
W.
"Do as the fellow did who unexpectedly found himself in heaven. He didn't ask himself whether he deserved it—he just kept quiet and stayed."
"a few leading questions,"
W. adding as he laughed: "only a few—just a few."
Had he consented to be interviewed? "No—I sent him down my picture—told him I was in no shape for the encounter—whereupon he left, not altogether satisfied, they told me, with the result of his mission."
"Some—only some—not much. I seem to go back to the old things sometimes. There's a lot occurring in the world of books these days that I do not seem to understand: no doubt the young fellows coming up are preparing to go still farther on—still on.
W. questioned Clifford concerning his church work. Some talk about the book.
W. in affable mood and seemed more or less at ease. "I did not expect to survive the noise of the Fourth but here I am, safe and sound—even my head is pretty natural. You know,"
turning to Clifford, "my head sometimes beats like a drum, even when nothing is going on outside. With the infernal turmoil raised by the boys—their firecrackers—added, I looked forward to today with terror. Somehow, I feel better instead of worse."
I had been in at the house once in the forenoon for a bit in the midst of the racket.
W. asked me: "Do you think you assimilate all the memoranda I turn over to you?"
I did not answer at once. Then he answered for me. "I think you do: if I didn't
"I've had a bad day—a miserable day—all the symptoms of another spell—everything but the spell itself."
Then stopped and added: "I suppose you get disgusted coming here every day to hear my perpetual whine—my everlasting growl."
No. Only anxious at times. "Thank you, boy: I am glad it's no worse than that. After all I do not kick—I am willing to take what comes—death or life—half life, half death—everything. I clearly perceive that I shall never get back where I was—I have slipped down a notch or two. But I don't care.
Yet he also said: "I am determined to make a break for getting down stairs before long. Doctor Bucke writes about it—says, don't go: but I am going to break out of bond—make the effort—whatever results."
"But how can you do it now lame as you are?"
"Did I say
Laughed. now?""That was brag. I didn't mean it. Some day."
Gave him proofs. Addressed two letters for him. "Both my fingers and my memory gave out."
Very calm. Kindly,
"I have made up my mind not to worry—not to let even the worst upset me—not to look with dread upon anything.
Was rather playful about his disturbed stomach. "It is in a bad enough way, but let it have its turn—I have only to be quiet and wait."
"Well, Mary, what's the news?"
Mrs. Davis replied: "Mrs. Cleveland has stopped wearing a bustle—now bustles are no longer the thing!"
W. took up the subject in the same playful vein: "I thought I heard some boys crying 'extra' on the street. That must have been it!
"I have been thinking a good deal about Sands at Seventy today—a good deal. I want to know whether you feel that they will be out of place in Leaves of Grass—not integral—too distinctly different in character to connect with the story? Bucke seems pleased and satisfied—thoroughly so: do
I spoke of the "dignity" of the Sands. He caught up the word at once. you? Has Tom said anything to you about it? How do these poems stand in relation to the whole?"Dignity, did you say? Is it dignity?
"But I only throw out my question for you to chew on: I want your opinion. Take it with you and see what comes of turning it over—of seeing it all sides."
Then he smiled and clenched his fist and raised his arm from the bed. "You know, boy, we must face all that and more: we must not be afraid of the worst—indeed, we must invite the worst—must bear all, brave all, and, coming to the test, throw or be thrown by it.
In discussing some points involving the sale of November Boughs W. suddenly said to me: "And now that that point is up, Horace, I want to say to you that I rely upon you when the occasion arises to bear testimony to Dave McKay's fair dealing and general good will as toward me. Several of my friends have been to me lately and said: 'You'll have to watch McKay—he's foxy—he'll do you up.' I asked them: 'Why do you suspect Dave more than others—pick him out for criticism?' They said: 'We don't—he is a publisher: that is enough: all publishers do it.' Which of course sets Dave free.
"Anyhow they seem to be more conscientious over there in the trades—not in printing only but from the top down."
Bucke reports that the English edition sent him by W. has not arrived. W. wondered if he "had misdirected it."
"My memory is shamefully abusing my faith nowadays."
"I always bear you in mind: I am getting together such things as have ceased to be of use to me—which may be of practical service to you.
Maybury, Woking Station, Surrey, England, Nov. 1871. My dear sir,
I send by this mail the second part of my study of your works. I hope I may not unintentionallyhave misrepresented you, but if I could be one of the means of drawing more general attention to your great works than they have yet received in this country, I believe I should have done something worth the doing.May I venture to hope I may have a line from yourself when you have time?
And may I again repeat the hope I expressed to you in a former note when I sent you my own of poems—the first—and which I am rather ashamed of now—on account of its Byronism—and too much leaven of aristocracy which is born with me— vol. volume that you will not visit this country without coming to us?I want to get hold of the American
of your work—which was lent me by Buchanan, but I understand it is difficult to procure. ed. edition The proclamation of comradeship seems to me the grandest and most momentous fact in your work and I heartily thank you for it.
Yours with much respect and in all sincerity, Roden Noel.
"The fact remains, that the English are still ahead—that I have made no gains this side to equal my victories across the sea—that the crowd on the other side is in the main willing to give me a hearing—that the crowd this side is in the main dubious about me, if not actually antagonistic."
I put in: "But who cares? Do you?"
"No—I do not: I take what comes. I think I must sometimes seem to take it more seriously than I do."
"Besides maybe the English crowd is wrong and the American crowd is right. Maybe you're after all no good!"
"That's so: I wake up at night sometimes for thinking of it!"
"Some, a few—very few: they are rather good—show some skill in architecture—they are well built: but Noel will scarcely last out."
No more tonight. W. admonished me: "You must help me to keep up with Ferguson: he has had great patience.
I demurred. "It's not my diplomacy it's his respect for you."
W. would not have it that way. "You say that—but I still believe it's your diplomacy."
Said he had "Noel's book about somewhere."
Did I care to look at it? Yes. "You shall have it."
Left."Kiss Anne Montgomerie for me even if it is not lawful; give my love to the boys: tell Lindell, at the ferry, that I often think of him, as I lie here—of his damned old fiddle—I wish I could hear him again: and then there are all the fellows about everywhere to write to—I must neglect them all: you must do what you can to
"You find me weak again: but the day on the whole has been fair—certainly an improvement over yesterday—though now for an hour and a half I have felt a sudden turn for the worse again. I find the bad hours rather more frequent and they stay longer."
During the pause he laughed very gently and took my hand and said:"See—I am off again—talking about my health—as if there was nothing in the world but my pains and aches to be considered."
Osler over late in the afternoon."as well as usual."
That is, not more sick than usual. W. thought this "significantly meaningless."
Spoke of "between six and seven"
as "the holy hour"
—"the hour of the man who returns from work: the hour of the family, the table, the story, love, frolic: O how precious is that hour!"
Day had been hot. W. fanned himself as he lay on the bed. Talked less than usual. Told him I had written again to Burroughs and Kennedy."That was right. That eases my conscience."
We exchanged rolls of proofs. He put the roll I left under the pillow of the bed. Said: "Here's a budget for you tonight—several documents: you needn't look them over here: take them away with you—look them over at your leisure. If there's anything in them you want to ask me about, ask the next time you come."
"It's like sitting in an oven."
My sister Gussie had sent him in some asparagus. "Oh! it was princely! I made two fine
To Burroughs again. "You must never write him without sending him my love. And, Horace, do not forget the wife, Mrs. Burroughs, for she, too, has been kind and noble to me and I want her to know that I think of her."
Then he paused. I interjected nothing."John is one of the true-hearts—one of the true-hearts—warm, sure, firm—I feel that he has never wavered in his friendship for me: never doubted or gone off—that I can count on him in all exigencies: and I think affection plays a great part in John's regard for me as it does in mine for him. John is making an impression on his age—has come to stay—has veritable, indisputable, dynamic gifts."
Referring to Frank Harned's efforts to make photos to please him W. said: "Frank has
kindness as a first quality: and kindness should be first—should not be only incidental.""On the whole he is better. Osler is right."
No chance to read the documents tonight. Spent the rest of my time
7.45 P.M. W. sitting by the window fanning himself. Greeted me heartily. And his health? "Oh, I am improved just this minute but I have been bad all day!"
Add-
"Don't feel bad about it—I don't."
"That was a mine of great treasure you gave me last night."
"Do you think so? Well—so do I. Love is always a great treasure—always: these fellows have been very dear to me when I most needed adhesion.
Another Whitman article in The American—this one by Harrison Morris. W. said: "The young men should steer clear of me—avoid me—stay outside my pickets—that is the only safe method for them.
W. paused for a laugh and went on in this way: "Indeed, I am a little surprised at some of my friends. Take Ken-
I said Burroughs suggested coming down to see him. W. demurred. 'I love to drive out with Jessie—she is a perfect companion.'
"Tell him to
No letter from Bucke today. I get to look for Bucke as I look for my breakfast."
"then the continual mental unrest, lasting through the whole night and through all today until an hour ago, when, suddenly, I was relieved."
What did all this mean to him? "I don't know what it means. Spurzheim says we cannot know mind—but is there anything surprising about that? I say so too. The wonderful phenomena of lunacy—what does that mean? Has it a physical basis? or physical entanglements? or what? It is a lesson to see Bucke's asylum at London—the hundreds on hundreds of his insane.
Said he did not agree with Bucke that his recent troubles could be assigned to vertigo. "The matter is deeper than that—Doctor will have to guess again."
W. read no proofs today. He said while I was alone with him: "America, I said many years ago, has accomplished
'Does he forget Emerson? Longfellow? and others?'
After these long years, not forgetting any of the eminent ones or what we owe them, I still stick to my original statement—though I look for the day when literature, too, in America, will come to its own—realize its full inheritance."
As I left W. held my hand for a long time (his hand was very warm) and said: "What I say of my head does not accord very well with the way I have been chattering—talking—tonight—rattling away like a house afire!"
I put yesterday's Noel letter in here. It is postmarked Thornton Heath, April 4, 1886, though written on the 30th of the preceding month:
My dear sir.
I have sent through my publishers a of my essays on Poetry and Poets, containing an essay on your own work, reprinted with additions from our Taste some years ago—which I have been sorry not to see mentioned in the volumes of Dr. Bucke and John Burroughs—for I understood that you, and Mr. Burroughs, had approved of it and (as you know) I have long been a grateful and warm admirer. Please let me have a line, if you are well enough, as I hope may be the case, to write. vol. volume
I welcome the of young Mr. Rhys, and trust it will make you well known among us. vol. volume If you should come to England, I hope you will not forget that you would find a warm welcome in our house.
I hope you may have seen and cared for some of my own
work in poetry. I believe I sent you an early and immature volume, but not hearing from you did not send later and stronger work. Ever yours with affectionate respect, Roden Noel.
"I said to you yesterday that I was rather in than of the literary class,"
said W. in allusion to Noel's letter: "and the more the literary guild discuss me the more I seem outside the particular interests they chew upon with such relish. I do not refer to any one in particular but to the class. Now and then a man steps out from that crowd—says: 'I will be myself'—does, because he is, something immense. The howl that goes up is tremendous. Some step back.
"You stayed out and went on!"
"Well—I hope so. But the main thing is the people—the people: not how faithful I have been to the book class but how faithful I have been to the people, but for whom the book class could not exist."
"He is not the biggest man I know but his 'hello' is just as sweet to me as any other 'hello.'"
"Well, Mrs. Davis, I think your old man is better."
Afterwards O. added: "It looks as though he would go all right through the summer in this way."
W. not so sure. Said to Mrs. Davis: "I'm done for, Mary."
"But you'll be better tomorrow."
"I mean I'm all done for."
"Nonsense."
"Nonsense? I guess I know."
"Ah! these doctors! after all, Horace, do they know much?"
Again: "I love doctors and hate their medicine."
Tom Donaldson over in the forenoon and saw W. W.
"Eakins, I am told, is quite a Rabelaisian.
I recalled the Stilwell letter. "It is very beautiful—very wholesome,"
I said. He remarked: "I hope wholesome is the word: I like to feel that the things I do are wholesome.
After I had repeated myself he talked of it again: "I did a lot of that work in the hospitals: it was in a sense the most nearly real work of my life. Books are all very well but this sort of thing is so much better—as life is always better than books—as life in life is always superior to life in a book."
I read the letter aloud—rather to myself than to him. I noticed that he listened intently. When I was through—parts of it put a shake into my voice—he said fervently: "I thank God for having permitted me to write that letter."
"I, too, thank God for having permitted you to write that letter—and others thank God, and others, and you could not count them all."
"Do you say that, Horace? Thank God again, Horace!"
The letter was drafted in pencil on Sanitary Commission paper. It was addressed to Julia Elizabeth Stilwell, South Norwalk, Connecticut, and was memorandumed as having been "sent Oct. 21, '63."
Dear friend,
Jimmy is getting along favorably but of course slowly. I was with him night before last and am going again this afternoon. It requires a good deal of patience in him to lay so steadily confined in bed, but he has the good luck to continue remarkably free from any acute suffering so far. Night before last he had some pain and swelling in the foot below the wound, but nothing of serious account. They bandaged it pretty tightly and that relieved it. He wished me to write to youthis time, and I promised him to do so night before last. I wrote at that time fromthe hospital to your parents at Comac, and sent the letter yesterday. Jim is not satisfied unless I write pretty often, whether there is anything to tell or not.
My friend I received your note about your folks getting your dear brother's body from down in Virginia. Lately, as you doubtless know, the Rebels have advanced upon us, and have held Culpepper and around there for many days past; and of course nothing could be done. The rumor just now is that they are falling back, and may soon yield us our old ground. At present still I should think nothing could be done. The authorities here don't grant passes yet. But I suppose you inferred all this from what you read in the papers.
Dear friends all I say to you as I have to Jimmy's parents, that I shall try to keep watch of the boy, as according to all I know at present I shall probably continue in Washington for some time, and if any thing should occur I will write you. Dear friends, as it may be some reliance to you and make you feel less uneasy to know Jim can have nothing happen to him without you being informed. Though as far as now appears he will go on favorably, and his wound will heal up, so that he can sit up, and then gradually move about, and then in due time be able to travel.
So farewell for [the] present, and I pray that God may be with you, and though we are strangers I send my love to you and Jimmy's sisters and brothers in law, for in times of trouble and death, I see we draw near in spirit, regardless of being separated by distance, or of being unknown.
W. speaks of "ours."
Will say, for instance, of some one or other, "he is not our friend,"
or "he is favorably disposed towards us,"
or "we must face that criticism and see what it means to us,"
or "that is wrong—we must brave it down."
"our portion"
—ours, us, rarely says, mine.
"This affair is our affair, not any one
Even speaks of November Boughs as "our" book. "Leaves of Grass is not one man's book but all men's book."
"You radical young fellows don't see it as I do—don't quite so plainly comprehend, concede, that it is best for any man to be tried by fire, to draw all the shot of the reactionaries, the wise conservatives and the fool conservatives, the asses in authority, the granitic stupidities of the average world. It all has its place—all. I, too, used to grow impatient, angry, about it, but now I want it all to be spoken, heard, passed upon: I want the full fire of the enemy.
As to "It does not seem like my book—it is your book, too: anybody's book who chooses to claim it."
"Leaves of Grass stands for a movement—a new-born soul—the Adamic democracy: is significant (if significant at all) as affecting a world, not simply an American, purpose.
Again: "Leaves of Grass may be only an indication—a forerunner—a crude offender against the usual canons—a barbaric road-breaker—but it still has a place, a season, I am convinced.
I copy the letter from William Michael Rossetti given me by W. day before yesterday.
London, 1 , '85. Jany January Dear Whitman,
Some while ago I received your kind present of the 2 vols—Leaves of Grass and Specimen Days: received them, I am certain you will believe, with extreme pleasure, and with a grateful sense of your continuing to re- member me across a somewhat long lapse of years. To be remembered by Walt Whitman is what any man shd be proud of, and none is more so than I.
I have read the Specimen Days right vol. volume finding various new things, and continual pleasure in renewing my acquaintance with the old ones. Am extremely pleased to find in this copy of the book something which is absent even from Mrs. Gilchrist's copy—the photographs of your mother and father. If you were blessed with an unsurpassably good mother, I can with truth say the same of myself. thro: through My mother is still with us—aged nearly eighty-five: health and faculties sound on the whole, but naturally bowed and stricken with the weight of years.
I have also scanned with a good deal of attention (short of complete re-reading) my old and constant admiration, the Leaves of Grass I observe that some edition (I think the Philadelphia edition is named, but my vol. volume is not under my hand at the moment for reference) is mentioned as the only final and complete form of Leaves of Grass. The vol. volume with which you favored me is not the Philadelphia edition, but I am in hopes it may none the less be regarded as complete. vol. volume
I am glad to notice in this country from time to time symptoms of the increasing appreciation of your works, especially something written by Ruskin and the Sonata from the Lincoln Dirge. Accept as heretofore the affectionate respect and regard of
Yours always W. M. Rossetti.
"When Burroughs was abroad,"
said W., "he went once to see Rossetti—the first visit—they did not seem altogether to hit it—were not in the right mood to mix up pleasantly: I could never quite make it out: I know it could not have been John's fault—I know it could not have been Rossetti's fault—probably it was nobody's fault. Sometimes our tem-
In at W.'s at 7.45, evening. W. lying on bed. Inclined to chat—speaking at ease. I let him go on. He hates questions. Voice a bit husky. Very forcible, however, in manner. "You must be better,"
I said. "I believe I am—just a trifle."
"I had letters from Bucke today again—two of them."
Stopped. Then resumed. "I was glad to hear from Doctor. One of the letters was very gloomy—for him. I got to reading between the lines—catching the tone, the undertone—and somehow I seemed to catch him a little off guard, saying: 'you are sinking—steadily, surely sinking—there is no way out of it'—and I don't know but he's right.
Bucke's letter palpably affected
"But however it results it is all right—all right: all right for life, all right for death. If only the book was done!
"I have no thought of surrender,"
he finally said.
All the reprint in shape. Only the Hicks left. "I am laying low for the right hour to tackle that: when the game appears I will spring on it."
I overruled him on a head-line decision today. First he said: "Damn you!"
"Bless you!"
Got a check for forty dollars from N.Y. Herald last week. Returned it. Had not written anything for the past month. The check reappeared. "That's what I call very unbusiness-like in The Herald,"
he said, adding however more seriously: "That was downright decent in somebody. Who is the somebody?"
Brought him over a big batch of proofs. I watch them more critically than I did when he was well. He says of it: "I only read the commas—I leave all the rest to you."
"It was a mighty thin mess,"
he replied upon my questioning him, "no body to it all: only ignorance, ignorance—then more ignorance still."
"I have gone over it—glanced it through (without closely reading it): see enough to comprehend what it amounts to. Harrison is greatly superior to that other Morris who got into this discussion—Charles. It appears that Harrison means to be friendly to me—to accept me as far as he can—to decide a few ugly doubts in my favor—to recognize in me some gleam of literary righteousness: but I am yet far off—very far off. If the canons are to sit in judgment what will become of us?
He added that the case of H. M. reminded him of Kennedy's early experience with the Leaves."Kennedy was choked to the mouth with canons, rules, whatnot—had them all to contend with, to get rid of: the scholastic divinities: but finally he broke loose—got over the fences—was wholly at liberty. He experienced several severe years—was full of doubts, qualms—his growth was gradual—the approval of Leaves of Grass a succession of conquests. Yes, Horace, I am inclined to adopt your assenting view of Kennedy—of his sterling scholarliness—of his plucky adherence to his convictions. Kennedy has roots deep down in good soils—he is like a soldier who has proved himself in many campaigns."
"John had no great skill—he was honest—honest: was eminently conscientious: that's how he fitted into the job. Sometimes we see united in one man the very highest type of conscientiousness—the most exalted, superior, one may say perfect, moral sense—the largest consideration of the transcendental impetus to action—with an average capacity for taking care of everyday life, bank bills, farms, houses, stocks, and so forth. John is a man in whom the thing is well illustrated—O yes, capitally illustrated—and somebody in the government had sense enough to see it.
"I am glad Johnston came—sorry I could not see more of him. He came at a time when my head was having one of its most infernal turns. I told Johnston that Doctor Bucke had saved my life. That is true, too. Saved it, not as a doctor but as a man. I have no great faith in or fear of doctors—they don't seem to do much good or much harm."
I had Dowden's letter with me—the letter W. gave me two days ago. Read it again—part of it aloud—and asked W. some questions suggested by it.
50 Wellington Road, Dublin, April 12, 1873. My dear Mr. Whitman
Thank you for the kind thought which sent me the newspaper containing good news of your health. It concerns me and others here very much. A few days before the paper came I had heard for the first time—through a friend in Italy—a report authenticated that you were very seriously ill. The paragraph in the newspaper was therefore a relief as well as a sorrow. One's feeling about such apparent evil I find is much controlled by the nature of the person to whom it befalls. Over and under all feeling which the fact of your illness produces lies the one feeling (which the growth of my own way of thinking together with your poems and other causes has made very real and strong)—that for some persons, and for you among such persons, casual misfortune or calamity is not a supreme affair. We give our grief to you with the reserve that after all Walt Whitman has not been really laid hold of by chance and change—that after all he eludes them and remains altogether untouched. And if I should happen to live longer than you I believe I should have the same conviction about what death could do to you. (Other persons seem like pathetic little flowers who have no title to permanence of being—but such an aristocratic theory of the ownership of a future life ought rather to be addressed to Goethe than to you, whose faith is larger and more charitable.)
The best piece of the news about you is that you are likely to be strong again and to continue your work. I trust thatmay be so, and rely a good deal on your previous health and vigor, and on the fact that you are not of an age which ought to discourage hope of full recovery. We had been looking forward with very strong satisfaction towards seeing you over among us this year. That I suppose cannot now be expected: but it may come to be a fact at some later time.One thing I will ask—that occasionally some friend, if not yourself, will let me hear of your health—a line of writing would be enough. I think Mr. Burroughs would be willing to take the trouble; (and he would add to my gain if he would mention to me the name of anything you may have published since Democratic Vistas. I think I saw some small collection of poems mentioned as having appeared at New York). My wife joins with mine her love and both go to you together. We are well. I have taken to an attempt at the making of poems since twelve months.
It has always seemed to me more my proper work than prose, but if a sufficient experiment proves the reverse I shall return in a business-like fashion to prose. I mean to go on quietly, and not print any poems for three or four years at soonest. I have just written an article on Victor Hugo's poetry; and, when it is printed, I will send it to you. There is much in common between Victor Hugo and you, but if I had to choose between Leaves of Grass and La Légende des Siècles I should not have a moment's hesitation in throwing away La Légende. There is a certain air of self-conscious beauty or sublimity in the attitudes which Victor Hugo's soul assumes that greatly impairs their effect with me. The poems, or many of them, are not thoroughly simple—there is something manufactured in them—they do not adhere and cling quite close, and become an invisible part of the reader. (But I must stop this.) I think within twelve months of publishing a volume of essays, and intend to include the Westminster one on your poems (I shall remove from it one or two expressions which may have done you wrong with some readers, and which on that account I regret).
It happens that several of the essays will be concerned with democratic or republican leaders—V. Hugo—Edgar Quinet—Lamennais—Landor—Milton—Whitman. Please before very long, if it is convenient, let me somehow hear of your health.
And dear friend believe me
Always affectionately yours, Edward Dowden.
"Read it again."
I did so. Then he said: "One part of that would suit O'Connor and one part would suit Burroughs but as a whole it would suit neither. O'Connor always said I was like Hugo—that he saw us sometimes almost like twin brothers. There was a Washington picture of me which he called the Hugo Whitman. But William would not admit that Hugo was artificial—attitudinized. He and John used to quarrel over this, John contending, sure enough, that Hugo was the victim of a sort of divine professional calculation, and denying, with equal vehemence, that he could see any resemblance between Hugo's work and mine.
"I have taken to an attempt at the making of poems."
"What's the matter?"
asked W. I read that allusion to the end. Then stopped, waiting to see what he would say. He looked at me fixedly, then broke out into a smile. "I'll bet I know what you're thinking,"
he remarked. "Well—what was I thinking?"
"Why—that that's rather a cold blooded way to talk about writing poetry: that he would start, try, maybe succeed, maybe fail—that if the venture proved unsuccessful he would in business-like fashion go back to the writing of prose.
"Exactly."
"That real poems sort of make themselves—will not be held back?"
"Exactly."
W. was quite abstracted for several minutes. Then he came back to me; "You are right—wholly right. I do not know whether Dowden ever wrote, published, the poems.
"Day not a bad one for me,"
he said at once. "The doctors keep dosing me. But what's the good? It's no use trying to put there what is not there—it can't be put in from the outside."
Complains of his eyes. Read some today—in the N. A. Review Lincoln volume. Had written nothing—"not even letters to Bucke, Burroughs and Kennedy—to whom I owe my biggest debts."
Then: "The main trouble is to know what to say. What can I say? The outlook is too uncertain—I have no knowledge: only hope. I had a card from Kennedy today,—a scrambly
"The work on the book does me good—stimulates me—bears me up. I think I should die if I didn't have the book to do. It is necessary to have an ambition—purpose—something you must absolutely, personally, do. Tell the doctors not to worry—I do not worry. Tell them we are working out a job together and that I have promised you not to die until the work is done.
I told him there would be no proofs tomorrow. "Good! then I can work on the Hicks."
W. had received a copy of The Academy. "That's the last thing from abroad—contains a review of the Walter Scott book by Walter Lewin—well written enough, true—but I can't see that it amounts to much: it is scholarly and all that, but light weight.
"And what did he say to that?"
asked W. "He said, the canons must not be forgotten."
"I thought so: they all stand it off in that way."
"That,"
continued W., "is the bane of the Philadelphia fellows in The American—the style, the dress, the outside manner of the man—they stop with that, never go a step farther.
W. went all through this with great fire. Paused. Started on again. is a poet anyway, what can be said for the canons?""And that's the method of the critics everywhere. Why—there was Grant—see how he went about his work, defied the rules, played the game his own way—did all the things the best generals told him he should not do—and won out! Suppose the poet is warned, warned, warned, and wins out?
"they are all about my bowels, head, symptoms, diet—the professional facts which a doctor knows what to do with."
Had not yet put the will into Harned's hands. "I neglect it wickedly."
I alluded to a Whitman poem in The Ledger and remarked that a Ledger reference to W. was rare."That is so and has a good reason. Its editor, McKean, and I don't hitch. That may be my fault. No doubt he's a good man in his place—and his place is important, too—but he is not the sort of man with whom I would have much in common.
"Did he ever express himself to you?"
"No—not to me but to Childs. He told Childs that he regarded me as a poseur whose work was bound to disappear ten years after my death if it lasted that long."
"And you can never disprove him except by dying!"
"Good—so it seems. I'll have to leave
He spoke of the Herald check—of its several trips—of his final acceptance of it. Referring to Lowell W. said: "I have always been told by the New England fellows close to Lowell that his feeling towards me is one of radical aversion.
"Do you mean by that that you think Lowell is to be of very little permanent consequence in literature?"
"I suppose I do. I do not mean to say he is momentarily useless: I only mean to say he is not likely to be eternally useful."
"That is—as Shakespeare or Emerson or Goethe are likely to be eternally useful?"
"You say it for me but you say it all right. That is the idea."
"As for the indigestion—I do not mind it. Now that my mind has got back to good weather again I feel more or less satisfied. I am more sensitive to intelligent impressions, mentally speaking, and am almost comfortable physically.
"I am more and more persuaded that I can never work it out according to the original design—I do not seem to be able to stand the strain.
Describing Bucke's philosophy with regard to handling the insane: "His method is peaceful, uncoercive, quiet, though always firm—rather persuasive than anything else. Bucke is without brag or bluster. It is beautiful to watch him at his work—to see how he can handle difficult people with such an easy manner.
"reconcile"
himself to Thoreau's and Carlyle's treatment of the common man: "They stood about with a wall around them. I guess friendship is constitutional, or in great part so—you like cabbage or you don't and that's all there is about it.
'Walt Whitman, I think the one thing for you to do is to go to Europe—to England, France, Germany—and see the new life there—see what you can make of it—get it, too, reflected in your work.'
'Walt Whitman, I used to think a trip to Europe—to England mainly—was what you needed but now I see that that would not do—would never do: it would not help you along in what you are trying to do—would rather hinder you: what you need is simply to stay here, stay, stay—and die here.'"
"I think Carlyle saw all the horrors of life in European centres of population—that
"Bucke has an immense faith in the people at large—immense—in civilization, in modern mechanical devices—miracles of power."
"Do you say that Bucke has more faith in the people than you have?"
"I think he has. I have seen in the later years of my life exemplifications of devilishness, venom, in the human critter which I could not have believed possible in my more exuberant youth—a great lump of bad with the good."
"That may be admitted. But you do not think there is enough bad to do away with the good?"
"I do not—I do not: only I would not originally have believed it to be there. You know that I never admit that men have any troubles which they cannot eventually outgrow."
He quoted from Tennyson's Northern Farmer, "the poor in a lump is bad."
"But then,"
I persisted, "suppose you refuse to consider them in a lump?"
He laughed. "That's true—that's another point."
I quoted an old woman, my friend, a Presbyterian, who said: "My head says hell but my heart won't say it at all."
"That's beautiful, beautiful,"
said W. Then: "Bucke is an optimist—thoroughly so, without qualification or compromise—so are you—but I could hardly call myself that in the strictest sense of the word."
Cabot's Emerson contains a note from Burroughs describing a meeting with E. at West Point. W. greatly interested—had me repeat the story."After I hear all that it sounds a little familiar. I think John may have told me about it."
W. called my attention to a newspaper paragraph stating that Harrison once taught a Bible class of
"That seems very funny to me,"
he said: "too funny to be even laughed at—funny enough almost to be sad. Do you know, Horace, a tremendous deal of the public objection to Leaves of Grass came straight from the Sunday School?
I said to W.: "Anne Montgomerie says this is the Sunday School: 'I think so. Don't you? Yes.'"
W. very heartily responded: "That's mighty good: very cute—it leaves nothing to be said."
Paused and added: "It's really most capital."
Repeating the formula aloud: "It is a complete picture. I must not forget it."
"It is a noble letter—I am proud of it—proud of it not because it is addressed to me but because Rhys had the sort of soul which makes that sort of letter possible. And I entirely sympathize with what he says about the poor—the gospel of life for the poor—with his resentment as towards those who would make Leaves of Grass exclusive—keeping it as a choice morsel for the palates of the well-to-do.
Then he added: "I read Rhys' letter over and over again today. Such a letter makes everything worth while—sickness, sorrow, even death: makes everything worth while."
59 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, S.W. 7th July, 1885. Dear Walt Whitman,
More than a month back I addressed a letter to you, which misfortune of one kind or another may have overtaken, or which you may not have had time or inclination to answer. It was referring to the scheme of a new edition of your Poems in England here, but I'm afraid was not clear enough as to the rights and reasons of such an edition, or the way it would be carried out. In the letter I explained something of this, but not enough; and it was careless of me to do this and then expect you to reply to an insufficient proposal, when you must have already more to do in this way than can be easily compassed. For fear too that the letter never reached you at all, it will be better to state the whole matter afresh.
A series of poets was last year begun by Walter Scott, the publisher, under the occasional editorship of my friend, Joseph Skipsey, poet and former coal-miner; (I have been a coal miner—a mining engineer that is—myself; hence the connection!) and in their list a month or two after my arrival in London as a student of life and letters this year, I saw rather to my astonishment your name amid the rest, and feeling that in some ways I had a special right and knowledge I ventured to write in, offering to prepare the Skipsey's influence did the rest. vol. volume At first it seemed rather out of place to have your work in a series of this kind called, rather stupidly, The Canterbury Poets, and got up in a cheap and prettified fashion, with red lines, &c.
But afterwards it struck me that there might be gain in the end through it. Now I have succeeded in one hope: the publishers will give up the red lines and trivial design of cover. Next will be to have your Poems issued in a different shape—quite square I should like to have it—so as to give your long lines full play! And the very including of Leaves of Grass in a series like this gives them a chance of reaching people who would otherwise never see them. What I—and many young men like me, ardent believers in your poetic initiative—chiefly feel about this is, however, that an edition at a price which will put it in the reach of the poorest member of the great social democracy is a thing of imperative requirement. You know what a fervid stir and impulse forward of Humanity there is today in certain quarters! and I am sure you will be tremendously glad to help us here, in the very camp of the enemy, the stronghold of caste and aristocracy and all selfishness between rich and poor!Some people want to class you as the property of a certain literary clique,—a
rara avis, to be carefully kept out of sight of the uneducated mob as not able to understand and appreciate the peculiar qualities of your work. This does harm in many ways, and it would be a very good thing to make a fair trial of the despised mob. The price of Wilson & McCormick's edition—half a guinea—practically damns the popular circulation of the book, and gives color to the notion of its being a luxury only for the rich.What we want then is an edition for the poor, and this proposed one at only a shilling would be within reach of every man willing and caring to read. I did not know until a week or so back that Wilson & McCormick had any direct authorization for their
, or should certainly have advised Walter Scott to communicate his intention to them. edn edition Now someone has written on their behalf resenting—very naturally—his appearance in the field. But this difficulty might be easily settled by Scott paying, say ten guineas outright or a certain royalty per copy, to them on your account, if W. & McC. would not like a new contract with you by Scott. The fact of the new proposed edn being one of smaller scope [the would not hold more than two-thirds of the poetry;] would no doubt weigh with them too, reference being clearly made to the complete vol. volume works to which this would serve as a pilot for the time being, and increase the sale in the end.
As for my own share, all I really care about is to procure a serviceable popular edition, giving all the help an earnest and enthusiastic sympathy can devise. On mere literary grounds I have very little claim, but I have a great love and desire to help the struggling mass of men, to be a true soldier in the War of liberation of Humanity. I should strive to just say what would best bring your Ideal to the hearts of such as the coal-miners and shepherds of the north—dear friends of mine many of them—many consciously, all unconsciously—and being a young man myself to make Leaves of Grass potent for comradeship and chivalry and manliness all through in the young men who are in the forefront today. I feel very much inclined to say a good deal more about my hopes and ideals, but tonight perhaps it is better not. One thing though I must say a word about—how much in noblest knowledge and inspiration I have to thank you for, in life and religion and poetry and manhood, a debt it will not suffice to pay in words at all, but which some day you will see, I hope, may be fairly written off the score.
Meanwhile, receive the greeting of one more follower on this side the Atlantic,—very earnestly. Any suggestions or directions as to the scheme and scope of the book I will thank you for most heartily; and will furnish fuller details as they are arranged.
Ernest Rhys.
"I cannot reasonably expect complete physical rehabilitation: but I still hope to get my head cleared up. If I can make that much gain I may be able to do my work.
"A bit in the Bible. After you have got rid of all your dogmas then you can read the Bible—realize its immensity—not
"I never forget Natty Bumppo—he is from everlasting to everlasting."
"I can now read a little without the terrible sensation as of the ground sinking under my feet."
Actually worked a bit on the Hicks today. "A few bold strokes—a very few: then I stopped. Why, Horace, the first thing you know I will actually be getting sassy again."
"just for trial glimpses."
His head "stood it quite handsomely."
"But do not get anxious—I do not force anything—I let everything travel its natural course."
Asked me: "You remember our talk about Lowell yesterday? Yes? Well—I have thought a lot of it since. The New England crowd has always seemed to be divided about me, with Emerson, Alcott, Longfellow on the one side—Lowell, Whittier and Holmes on the other.
The Whittier picture of horror amused W.
Harned was in today. Also Dr. J. K. Mitchell."The young man Mitchell did not take me by storm—he did not impress me. I start off with a prejudice against doctors anyway. I know J. K.'s father somewhat—Weir: he is of the intellectual type—a scholar, writer, and all that: very good—an adept: very important in his sphere—a little bitter
Our printer Mirick had been much interested in W.'s Bowery piece going into the book. "Whitman must have been one of the boys,"
said Mirick. "So I was,"
said W. "I spent much of my time in the theatres then—much of it—going everywhere, seeing everything, high, low, middling—absorbing theatres at every pore. That was a long, long time ago—seems back somewhere in another world.
I spoke of Salvini.
"I am willing to admit the exceptions—all that I have heard of Salvini seems to confirm your view—I feel somehow as if he must be our man—a Leaves of Grass man: tell me more about him."
"I feel that all you say is true: it sounds like correct criticism—discrimination.
"Tell John that I find at last that I am getting physically cleared up again—that the bad weather seems to be gradually passing off: tell him I realize a sense of comfort—some ability to enjoy food, to do a bit of work, to look a little over the horizon into tomorrow: tell him that I have not got well
W. went over some of the proof-sheets today. Clifford wrote today: "My love to dear Walt Whitman. It has been an increasing good to have known him. Long life to him we need not cry. He has it already."
Touched W."My love to dear John Clifford! Whatever he says to me I say over again to him. Tell him that."
Speaks of the tendency of his mind "to melt all things together—sometimes beyond separation, extrication. I often find myself misplacing names, things—find that I must go back and rectify my errors—retrace my steps—review my work."
W. sent me to the table to get him a letter. "You will find it thrust under the inkpot."
I found a letter in the place specified. "Who is it from?"
he asked. I looked. "From Symonds."
"That's the letter: I want you to have it."
In lifting the letter off the table I caught along with it a little slip of paper which "Did you lose something?"
he asked. "I threw this off the table."
Holding the slip in the air. "What is it?"
There was little light over by the bed. I moved towards the lowered gas jet. Read the memorandum W. had preserved, a "for sale" advertisement from the Natchez Free Trader of May 11th, 1848. I read it aloud:
Asa L. Thomson.
Forks Road, Natchez, May 2, 1848.
When I had finished W. at once spoke out: "I recognize it.
Free Trader, too! What a lot of nonsense has got current in the world with that word. It has been made to stand for both the most devilish and most divine of human instincts. The way Mr. Thomson expresses himself is very cute.
I asked W. again whether he intended me to keep the Symonds letter. "Yes,"
he replied—"it is in rather a mussed up condition: I found it on the floor under my feet.
This is the Symonds letter given me by W. yesterday:
Clifton Hill House, Clifton, Bristol, Jan. 23, 1877. My dear Sir,
I hardly know through what a malign series of crooked events—absence chiefly on my part in Italy and Switzerland, pressure of studious work, and miscarriage of letters—I should have failed to make earlier application to you for your new books. I do so now, however, begging you to send me copies of Leaves of Grass and Two Rivulets, and enclosing a check on my bankers for five pounds. I see by Mr. Rossetti's circular that the price of each volume is one pound. If you will send me two copies of each, the other one pound will serve for postage. I shall then have copies for myself and copies to give to a friend. May I ask that in one of the volumes at any rate your loved and revered autograph may be found?
Some time since, my friend Roden Noel gave me by token of comradeship one of two photographs signed with your own name, which you gave him. This is now framed and hangs in my bedroom.
I see it daily—opposite the similar signed photograph of Alfred Tennyson, from whom as a boy I learned much. To me as a man your poems—yourself in your poems—has been a constant teacher and loved companion. I do not know whether you are likely to have heard that I make literature my daily work. I wait the time when I shall be able here in England to raise my voice with more authority than I yet have in bidding men to know you: for I feel that you have for us here in the old country a message no less valuable to us than to your own people.
I seem to know you as a friend and father; and those who love me best, make me gifts recalling you—like Roden Noel's I have mentioned, and like that of a lady who some time since sent me a copy of Leaves of Grass Boston [Brooklyn] 1855.
More than this I need not now write: unless it be to ask you whether, by way of remembrance, you would care to receive any works printed by me—echoes of my studies in the history of Greece and Italy for the most part?
I am with all love and reverence yours John Addington Symonds.
W. noticed that Symonds said Boston instead of Brooklyn. "The personal quality of that letter attracts me most—I mean the emotional, affectional, quality—that something in me, in him, which brings us together as men.
I said: "Would going to Europe help or hurt Leaves of Grass?"
"I don't know—I don't know: yet I think it is best as it is—the book worked out its entire fate on this side—it is a this-side book: I see no reason to feel sorry for myself or for the book."
I did not get to W.'s this evening until towards eight."I made two meals of it—at supper eating the last shred. It was a delicious morsel. She is a genius—your sister is a genius, Horace. She never fails in knowing just when to stop—just what to do to make the mark: her cooking is inevitable."
Alluding to N.Y. Graphic writer whose writing about W. was full of mistakes: "That man is a Rip Van Winkle—not up to the time: is still hurrahing for King George! A certain kind of no that was addressed to me in the fifties is hardly in order any more." A letter from O'Connor. W. said of it: "There's nothing particular in it: it comes nearest to being a pot-boiler of all the notes I ever had from him.
"I would read it if I was you, Horace. It's the only thing from Arnold that I have read with zest. Heine! Oh how great! The more you stop to look, to examine, the deeper seem the roots, the broader and higher the umbrage. And Heine was free—was one of the men who win by degrees. He was the master of a pregnant sarcasm: he brought down a hundred humbuggeries if he brought down two.
W. talked about the French people. "I never had the common Puritan ideas about France: I have long considered the French in some ways the top of the heap. We too generally lack the elemental affinities to judge the Latin races with anything like justice. Did I hear you say that things you saw in Emerson's journal were very favorable to the French? I should not have thought it—it was hardly to be expected: Emerson was so soaked in and in with English currents of ancestry.
W. had a note from Bucke: "He never saw Slang in America before—wrote that he thought it the best thing I had ever done in prose—or something which comes to about that in the end.
A statement is made in Current Literature that all the magazines fought shy of W. W. except Harper's. "That exception seems very funny. Harper's is the great shyer.
"Stoddard, I think, made against me, once the filthiest fling I have ever encountered. Stoddard is not a bad fellow, but is disappointed, soured, gray, old—not sweetened with the reassurances of life—a man who started out promising much—wrote a few good things—then slowed up, got out of the race."
"I like it better and better,"
he said. He handed me his copy of Epictetus. "What do you think of that? I have been thinking of putting November Boughs into such a cover."
Epictetus is flexible cloth. "Ah! you like it! I'm glad to hear you say that. All my own tastes are towards books you can easily handle—put into your pocket. I once argued this point out with Mrs. Gilchrist—she was vehement the other way—was so keen I yielded—going on year by year violating my first idea of what is proper.
"The arrangement of these things I leave to you.
Asked me if The American was liable to fire off at him again this week? Gave me a message to his bookbinder.
When I arrived this evening W. had lying there in front of him an old envelope with the "Walt Whitman" marked out and "Horace Traubel, personally" substituted across the face of it. It contained a galley slip—a French Opinion of Walt Whitman from Revue des Deux Mondes, and an old Whitelaw Reid letter. I did not stop to read them."things you should have to put away in your storehouse."
Said this was "a good Canada season."
"You should see the barley fields, Horace—they are so beautiful, so beautiful. Canada is a miracle this season of the year: I want you to take a trip to Bucke some year just about this time."
I did not read the Reid letter until I got home. It was written on the stationery of The Tribune. I will copy it here before I stop.
New York, Dec. 22, 1874. Dear Mr. Whitman:
I was sorry the article about the Camden school seemed to you unkind in its reference to your health. I shall have a paragraph within a day or two which will, I think, relieve you of the idea that we had any such intention. I sincerely hope you are getting better, and will soon be out of the woods.
Very truly yours, Whitelaw Reid.
"I am almost strong tonight—this has been my best day in five weeks."
Mitchell over today. W. said: "They still insist on dosing me. I had a quarrel with them today over that. I guess they were right but somehow I felt as if I had to make the fight."
"It was quite a good-sized note—written with pencil: saying nothing in particular however—rather aiming to give him something right from my own hand—that's all. Dear John!"
W. read a little today. Bucke writes advising W. that he should sell his horse and carriage."Which means that in Doctor's opinion I am never to find much use for them again."
Referred in this way to Sidney Morse: "Morse is a good deal like me: the spirit to write dies in him for days and weeks and months—then it revives and he is at it again like a steam plough!"
"I cannot just remember. It used to be the habit of some of the papers—some do it still when they want to fling themselves—to refer my illness back to my dissipations. This may have been a case of the kind. I do not recall the details of the incident.
Advised me
"keep in constant touch with Kennedy, Burroughs and Bucke,"
adding: "I always feel comfortable for believing that what I cannot write them about myself you can and do write."
"It came from Hugh Hastings' Commercial Advertiser and was written by De Hayes Janvier, then its editor but afterwards connected with the Public Building Commission in Philadelphia—a man who seemed well pleased with me and friendly, I could hardly tell why.
"The French writer contradicts himself on several points. Here is another of his magnificent phrases: 'Virility is a fine thing but the ideal is finer.' I have long thought of literature by just such light as this man throws on it. The easy touch of French writers does not necessarily come from frivolity, insincerity: Arnold was wrong if he ever thought that.
I referred to a Western criticism in America (Chicago) copied in The Critic, signed E. J. M.: "Walt Whitman was the Jack Cade of American literature.
W. listened intently as I repeated this. Then he said: "Go over it again,"
which I did. "Was that in The Critic? I missed it.
We discussed book culture. W. laughed."They all tell me I know nothing about culture—nothing about the uses of formal literature—that my revolt is the revolt of ignorance. Well—let it go at that."
One of the points I advanced in the matter was this: "I always claim that a man has a right to as much culture as he can carry, but that when he gets more than he can assimilate, when the culture turns around to carry him, culture has exceeded its office."
W. heard this and had me say it over again. Then acquiesced: "That is
"Yes, now I remember—so it is. What America did for the Fourth France did for the Fourteenth: both acts were of the same stock. Horace, there's nothing here to drink it with but we'll drink a toast anyway: Here's thanks to the old revolution and death to all new Bastiles!"
"It has a sort of before-the-flood-look."
I handed it to him. "It is earlier work,"
he said, "as you can see by the handwriting. I don't know what it belongs to: the substance of it (not the actual words probably) is no doubt in Specimen Days or the Leaves somewhere.
At his suggestion I read the thing aloud.
"Come, let us not be more indulgent with theolo [blank here and a ?] than we are with the circulating medium.
Shinplasters and paper from the Bank of Possum Creek may pass current in that swampy settlement of fine log houses and an unpiped steamboat, but for the journey of the globe we need coinage of gold. "Yes, more still we demand.
In these noble days we say of laws of physical philosophy that we must try them and examine them for ourselves; they shall be exhibited to us. Nothing carries the day now but the clearly authenticated narrative and the solid, touchable, weighable, seeable, demonstrable substance and its action, and the plain reasons and proofs how and why. No mandamus or writ of court can be served here. Men wait not for the conge-delire of the king; and a hundred popes' bulls would get less respect than an inch or an ounce of the cabin-boy's or the dung-pitcher's word who testified that he saw."
"But can you get rid of mystery?"
I asked. "No—nor get rid of reason: the two belong together—each is necessary to the other."
I quoted this from something I had myself just written: "Emerson says that one with God is a majority. I say so too. And I also say that mystery with God is the highest wisdom."
W. said: "That is good enough to hear again: say it once more."
I did so."I think I see all you mean and I think I meant the same thing in that piece of ramble. Mystery is not the denial of reason but its honest confirmation: reason, indeed, leads inevitably to mystery—but, as you know, mystery is not superstition: mystery and reality are the two halves of the same sphere."
I had said in writing recently about W.: "Leaves of Grass is not all flat on the ground. Some of it is on wings way up in the air."
I quoted this to W. He responded: "So it ought to be—so I hope it is: there would be no excuse for the book if it trailed and lost its banners in the mud."