In Whitman's Hand

Manuscripts

About this Item

Title: that it fibre and strengthen

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: About 1854

Whitman Archive ID: loc.07869

Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from The Walt Whitman Archive I: Whitman Manuscripts at the Library of Congress, ed. Joel Myerson (New York: Garland, 1993), 2:522-523; Major American Authors on CD-Rom: Walt Whitman (Westport, CT: Primary Source Media, 1997). The transcription was then checked against digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.

Editorial note: This manuscript is a partial draft of "Memorial in Behalf of a Freer Municipal Government, and Against Sunday Restrictions," a public letter printed in the Brooklyn Star on October 20, 1854. Whitman probably drafted the manuscript shortly before the piece was published.

Related item: Draft lines of poetry on the back of this manuscript leaf relate to early versions of "Song of Myself" and "To Think of Time." See loc.00042.

Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Brett Barney, Kenneth M. Price, Farrah Lehman, Amy Hezel, Justin St. Clair, Jean Dickinson, and Ed Folsom



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[cut away]—that it ^[cut away] fibres and strengthens and vital[cut away] all good things, and thatwhich is good, and weaken erase all which is bad.—Compulsion, on the other hand is a temporary support, gained at the price of much bad feeling and reaction.—


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schools—proud of ^and valuing it for its good name works of art architecture parks, ornaments, ^aquaducts and avenues ^and the perfection of its civilization and [conveniences?][illegible]and possessed ^Every one of these officers should be possessed with the genuine eternal American ideas of liberty, friendliness amplitude and ^ native courage.—It is all nonsense to suppose fancy that the [sole?] sphere of these fine such fine traits must necessarily can only be on some diffused and higher and more diffused ^and commanding scale, as Governor or Cabinet Senator or President.—The right sort of men will exemplify them just as well here directly at our doors or in our City Hall.—

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