Rule in all addresses
Key
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| Overwritten | brown with strikethrough |
| Added inline | purple with double underline |
| Uncertain | gray with wavy underline |
| Supplied from another source | turquoise with brackets |
| Metamark | |
| Long deletion | gray background with top and bottom border |
Rule in all addresses—and poems and other writings, etc.—Do not undertake to say anything however plain to you, unless you are positive it will be ^are making it perfectly plain to those who hear or read.—Make it plain.—
Unhappy character.—One who depends mostly upon others for his or her happiness, will never have any at all.—To be constantly watching the changes in people you love is [illegible]
One must be contained within himself—otherwise the world is all in vain.—
A line in this manuscript is similar to the following line, in the poem later titled "Song of Myself": "I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself" (1855, p. 17). Another line is similar to the lines "And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is" (1855, p. 53) and "And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man" (1855, p. 26).
I say to my own greatness, Away! I will not be a leader of men, I will always be theirmate and companion! I do not desire eminence, I desire equality. I will break up this demention that man is the
servant of God, or of many gods; I say that
every woman to herself; And that to take an inferior place or be humble
is unbecoming
Several of the phrases and lines from this section of the manuscript are likely related to portions of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." One manuscript line is similar to the line "Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man" (1855, p. 23). And several manuscript lines are similar to the lines beginning "Not merely of the New World but of Africa Europe or Asia . . . . a wandering savage, / A farmer, mechanic, or artist . . . . a gentleman, sailor, lover or quaker, / A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician or priest" (1855, p. 24). Three other lines are similar to: "Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning, / Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing, / I tread day and night such roads" (1855, p. 38). Edward Grier speculates that Whitman's note "Don't forget the bombardment" relates to the "bombardment" of the "old artillerist" in "Song of Myself": "I am an old artillerist, and tell of some fort's bombardment . . . . and am there again" (1855, p. 40).
is pure and heroic, Ignorant and accomplished, a chaos and
This line may relate to the following line from the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": "I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise" (1855, p. 23). This line may be related to the following lines from the poem: "The universe is a procession with measured and beautiful motion" (1855, p. 80) and "I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, / And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim of the farther systems. / Wider and wider they spread, expanding and always expanding, / Outward and outward and forever outward" (1855, p. 51).
This line may be related to a similar phrase in the poem eventually titled "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?": "The stupid and the wise thinker" (1855, p. 92).
This line may also relate to the following line in the poem eventually titled "I Sing the Body Electric": "The universe is a procession with measured and beautiful motion" (1855, p. 80).
In me are the old and young the fool
Several phrases of this prose were probably later used, in somewhat revised form, in the following lines from "Sun-down Poem" in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass: "The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious, / My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? Would not people laugh at me?" (1856, p. 216). The poem was later titled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."
DepressionsEvery thing I have done seems to me blank and shallow and suspicious.—I doubt whether who my greatest thoughts, as I had supposed them, are not shallow.—and people will most likely laugh at them.— me.—My pride is impotent; my love gets no response.—The complacency of nature is hateful—for I am so filled with restlessness.—I am so incomplete.—
We do not so much care what people say—we are deeply interested in what they do.—If we can imagine nothing left of a man but talk,—would not that be a ridiculous remnant?—Yet a deaf and dumb person might still be one of the heroes.—
It is possible that some of these poetic lines contributed to the prose preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. These lines may relate to the sentence from the preface that reads: "Other states indicate themselves in their deputies....but the genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors...but always most in the common people" (1855, p. iii). This line may also be related to the following line in the preface: "The messages of great poets to each man and woman are, Come to us on equal terms" (1855, p. vii).
It is also possible that these lines relate to the following, from the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": "I speak the password primeval . . . . I give the sign of democracy; / By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms" (1855, p. 29). These lines also appear in another manuscript: see tex.00031.
It is only the shallow who Do you suppose I would lift themselves myself out oftheir race by something eminent and specially attractive.— I am not quite such a fool as that I am too great to be a mere President or Major General I
and common people; I remain with them all on equal terms
It is possible that some phrases and words from this section contributed to the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. The phrase "mother of many children" appears in the preface: "Does it solve readily with the sweet milk of the nipples of the breasts of the mother of many children?" (1855, p. xii).
The phrase "mother of many children" also appears in the poem later titled "Faces": "The sacred faces of infants . . . . the illuminated face of the mother of many children" and "The old face of the mother of many children" (1855, p. 82 and p. 84).
There are many great painters—they paint scenes from the books, and illustrate from what the romancer and rhymster has prepared before them.—This artist does not illustrate or paint any such scenes or groups or characters.—He delineates for from himself.—Do you not like this magnificent disdain? of—
(housekeeper, cook, mother of many children.) Poem
What is beauty?
Beauty is simply health.