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The Lady’s Man

About This Item

  • Title: The Lady’s Man
  • Date: 13 August 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01020
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 13 August 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Kevin McMullen Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Lady’s Man." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01020.xml (TEI)
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THE LADY'S MAN.—

His face is externally wreathed with unmeaning smiles, and when he addresses a lady it is always in such a strain of absurd nonsense, that we have often been surprised that a lady armed with a fan and so addressed, did not brain the animal on the spot. If the lady’s man does, by any possibility, possess the gift of common sense, he takes special pains to conceal it, for somehow he has taken it into his wise head that empty sentimentality and absurd nothings are the only offerings fit for the female mind. And in order to be true to what he conceives to be the entertainment and amusement of the ladies, he turns traitor to manhood, and so becomes epicene himself, without a just claim to be classed with either the male or female sex. His best qualities are those which he possesses in common with certain kinds of dogs—to fetch and carry. Ladies who laugh in their sleeves at the fool, may not object to the attentions of the servant; and so out of mere commiseration, may allow him to carry a fan or escort them to the opera, when the men of their acquaintance are not accessible. The lady’s man is sufficiently rewarded for attending them through a whole evening’s entertainment, if they will only drop a smile into his hat at parting. With this substantial blessing he is encouraged to future exertions in this wide field of masculine ambition. If a man’s duty to a lady consisted in picking up a dropped pocket handkerchief and fan, or twirling her round to the point of giddiness and exhaustion in the waltz, we should, perhaps, envy the accomplishments of the lady’s man.

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