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truly what is commonest

About This Item

  • Title: truly what is commonest
  • Date: Before or early in 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.05641
  • Source: The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1842–1937, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: The words that appear near the beginning of this scrap are similar to a line from "Song of Myself," in which Whitman writes "What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me." Thus, it is likely that this manuscript dates from before or early in 1855.
  • Related Item(s):
    • This manuscript is written on three pasted-together paper scraps. A crossed-out fragment of a letter is on the back of one of the scraps. See loc.07460.
    • See wwa.00149.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "truly what is commonest." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 24 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.05641.xml (TEI)

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 green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto]

[cut away] Truly, what is commonest, readiest ?, cheapest, of our lives, is often the profoundest, the most curious—has its beginnings the farthest back, and is the hardest problem for thought or science. [cut away]

X 456 A from the start [cut away]   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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