Thursday, January 10, 1889.

Thursday, January 10, 1889.

7.49 P. M. W. reading Stedman's Poets of America, which he put down on my entrance. I had had a note from Stedman just to-day. Read the last paragraph from it to W. and much talk of Stedman ensued. W.: "I was reading Stedman's essay on Bryant when you came in: reading it critically." I asked: "He does not say as much of Bryant as you would?" "No: I don't think he fishes with a very deep sinker. Stedman don't seem to have vision, soul—depth of nativity—sufficient to make him capable of the highest interpretations." Did Stedman lack emotion? Was he too intellectual? "That is just it: I doubt if the big fellow—the great critic—is ever the artist so-called—the reader, student." I instanced S.'s letters. They certainly contained fire, feeling. W.: "Yes, I know it: yet that something is the all—the last, I may say the finalest, quality." Again: "Stedman in his person is full of that essence which you demand: he is emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, to the core: the whole man of him honest, generous, true." Well, why did n't he let himself go then? "He 's afraid: he dare not: but it 's all there." "That means failure, don't it?" "It does indeed." Had he ever read The Discoverer? "No—I am sure I have not." W. then: "The devil with all the fellows is 'style': as you say, it 's the graveyard of too many reputations." He said again: "That is Lowell's canon: how is it done? not, what does it?" He "feared after all that influence of the New York crowd" was "baleful": "Stedman lives too near it: I don't want to be unjust, to be severe—to attach undue meanings to it: but there 's something in the touch of it of which a man must beware." Then he said: "If you write to Stedman to-morrow, give him my love: tell him I still keep my head up: that I am easier, freer—probably never to recover, to be get-about-able again, but cheerful, inclined to accept all things as they come: reading some: writing some: spending all my days in this room between a bed and a chair." W. gave me an old slip from a Washington paper—some year during or after the war—using the Marine Band for a subject, in which this reference to him occurred: "The tall gray-clad figure of Walt Whitman, with his red and tan face, was faithful to the last." He "came across it to-day": had "had it about" there "all these years": "it is an odd or end: it will interest you a bit."

Paragraph on W. in to-day's Press. I sent paper to Bucke. W. also. Who was the writer? "Bart Bonsall, I am sure. He was here two or three days ago: stayed quite awhile. When he asked downstairs I sent word that he could come up for two minutes, but when he got up once he stayed for a long talk. Too many of them do that. I did n't mind it much that day: I was not feeling bad at all." He spoke of Bart's "apparent bad health," saying further: "He has that flea in his head: he thinks he must write: enlighten the world." McKay did not keep engagement to-day. Renewed same for to-morrow. Gave W. copy complete book bound for his personal use. Contains memos and cor- rections. On the first fly-leaf he has written the page nearly full, evidently at different times. This was in ink: "Walt Whitman Camden N. J. Dec. 7, 1888." Then this in pencil: "(first stitched then bound copy as a specimen to see that the plates &c: are all right—as they seem to all be)." And again the following, still in pencil: "I examine [keep] it to mark errors—typographical ones—corrections for the future—(see last of Vol:) Am in my sick room in Mickle street, Camden—to-day Dec: 31 '88-9 9:20 a.m.—have just had my breakfast: feeling middling: have now been seven months—confined all that time in this room (bed & chair)—have put through the printing office November Boughs & the big 900 page Complete Works Vol: in that time faithful helped by Horace Traubel."

W. said: "I have wished to go through the whole book, annotating it so to say: pencilling a note here and there—giving figures, poem starts, what this came from—what that came from: such things: I will keep it by me and make entries from time to time. I could make it finally into a book that would be very valuable to you." "I should say so: do you mean to will it to me?" "I meant it for you, willing or not willing." He chuckled over his little joke. Then: "When I have lighted out you must put in your claim for the book." W. received to-day The Century Guild Hobby Horse from England. Told me to "Take it along." Laughed at Ford Madox Brown's illustration—Réné's Honeymoon. "Honey humbug!" he cried. "The book is more to be looked at as a fine piece of mechanical work than for any other reasons: its content, the text, seems utterly weak: the printing, particularly the paper, superb." Took him a copy of Springfield Republican of 25th containing a book note on N. B. written by Mrs. Goodale. W. said: "I know that Mrs. Goodale: she is the mother of the two little girl poets—the Skye Farm poets they call them. I do not mean I have met her: but I have had letters from her—from one of the daughters: letters which did not seem to require any answer—which I churlishly laid aside. The letters were warm in spirit. I think somebody sent me the little book of poems but I am afraid I never read them."

W. had a great stew over a letter he said had come from Edward Carpenter to-day. "You know about Edward Carpenter? We have often talked of him. He sends me the duplicate of a draft he says was mailed way back last year—May of last year. Edward is rich: his money burns his pocket: he and two or three ladies over there have repeatedly sent me money—drafts: this undoubtedly is another. He speaks of a 'duplicate': I never got an original." Could not find the letter on the table. Took over onto his lap a pile of letters, &c. I said: "If you only had these pigeon-holed!" "Ah! if I only had them any way that was an orderly way it would be an improvement." Wheeled his chair about the floor searching. Ed afterwards said: "I wondered what you were at up there." He was in the parlor below. Several times W. threw himself back into the chair as if to give up the hunt. "Never mind: his paragraph about the draft was only a little one at the end of the letter: it is substantially as I have told it to you: the letter is mainly personal." But he would resume again and again. I picked a letter up from under the stove. It was unstamped. He looked it over. "Curiously that 's the letter of introduction: and by the way, he says the book has come: I sent it, you know, by the visitor." Finally he hit upon C.'s note in the easiest place imaginable—on a box by the fire.

W. showed me the draft—for a hundred and seventy-four dollars and some cents. What should we do with it? Was certain E. had not sent the other: date May 17, 1888. "He is often very absent-minded: I have known that in him myself: somehow the draft never was sent." He could not believe it lost. "I have never lost anything that way in the mail." I did not read C.'s letter while there. W. said: "Take it with you: you are going straight home? Take it with you: read it at your ease." Found this to be C.'s reference to the draft: "Enclosed draft is only a duplicate of one we sent you in May—which probably you got all right—but not having heard I thought I would send you this instead of destroying it. You can destroy it." W. said he had no record of receipt of corresponding amount at any time. "It may have been intended as a birthday gift." Thought he would "simply deposit it." Gave me a Bucke letter of the 8th. "I think you should see it: I have not shown it to you." Rather dubious about his health to-night. "I don't gain any strength at all: I wonder what it means? Although I feel much better all through, I am as little able to move about as ever." Speaks frequently of his seventieth birthday. I wonder if he will reach it? Expresses no confidence—nor doubt either for that matter. "The books done! who can measure what that means to me?" Dwells on this—"the difficulties through which it has been accomplished." Reads many papers: lays them over the back of a chair: the chair is now piled up as high nearly as my shoulders. "This is not a habit," he says: "this is a disease!" When W. has things to give me he often leaves it to the last minute before my going to hand them out. To-night he gave me an unstamped envelope addressed in O'Connor's hand to "Walt Whitman, Attorney General's Office." He said: "It did not come through the mail: William must have handed it to me or sent it by a messenger. He and Sarah Helen Whitman were great friends: he sends me here a few bits from one of her letters to him. I am also giving you a Trowbridge letter which bears upon the sale of Leaves of Grass—has to do with the business of Leaves of Grass editions. You are so eager to know the who and what of my history that I am doing what I can to supply you with material."

The Trowbridge letter of which W. spoke follows. He interrupted me once in the reading to say: "The way Trowbridge stuck by me through thick and thin was beautiful to behold. He had objections to me always: has objections to-day: but he accepted me on general principles and has never so far as I know revised his original declaration in my favor." I said: "You do not class him among your radical friends?" "No—I don't: but that, not because I like to draw lines: I don't: only, some of the fellows do these things in totals and some do them in halves: William, you fellows—you are wholesale: you enter no qualifications: Trowbridge I rather guess would have some serious negations to charge up to me if it came to a rough and tumble test. I hate to debate this way about a man: it seems ungracious, if not insulting." I read the letter to him.