Recollections of Whitman

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Recollections of Whitman.

The February issue of the Journal of Hygiene and Herald of Health contained an interesting article by Mr. Thomas Proctor of this city, giving some personal recollections of Walt Whitman. These reminiscences begin three or four years before the Civil War and extend over ten or twelve subsequent years. At one time Mr. Proctor resided in the same house with Whitman, and their relations were somewhat intimate. His account relates to the personality of the man and he gives his readers a very interesting glimpse of him. It is evident that Mr. Proctor was not impressed with Whitman's poetic faculty, for he narrates, in concluding his article, that in 1868, when he bade goodby to Whitman, in Washington, the poet presented him with a copy of his volume of poems entitled "Drum Taps," writing his autograph in the book with a large, blue pencil. Then Mr. Proctor naively remarks that this little book has ever since remained unopened, until, when penning this article, it was referred to for the purpose of verifying" a quotation. The following quotation is also of interest as showing how Whitman impressed his intimates who did not happen to follow the same lines of thought that he did: "Leisureliness—leisureness​ in everything was one of his striking characteristics. Some of us thought he was physically lazy and mentally hazy. His manner of speech was always very slow, but impressive when engaged with a subject beyond the commonplace. It was then apt to abound in the enigmatic, and tended to attract the attention of the listener, especially one of an imaginative or fanciful turn of mind. The attention of such a one, might, perhaps, be held for a considerable time—even through intervals of silence—in the momentary expectation of something luminous to follow an impressive utterance. But the listener was usually, if not ever, doomed to find impressive phrases not connected with what followed, nor made clear in meaning. They seemed mere adumbrations, and their promise vanished. To me often his mind appeared pictured as a vista abounding in mists through which now and again one was on the verge of catching glimpses of rare jewels, but just at the critical moment of expectancy there fell a thick curtain, shutting off from the earnest gazer all gleams of gems or rare pearls."