To be at all a machine readable transcription Walt Whitman Kenneth M. Price Ed Folsom Transcription and encoding Kenneth M. Price Nicole Gray Brett Barney Andrew Jewell Kati Robertson Ashlyn Stewart Kevin McMullen The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities University of Iowa Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln The National Endowment for the Humanities The United States Department of Education 2004 The Walt Whitman Archive
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities 319 Love Library University of Nebraska-Lincoln P.O. Box 884100 Lincoln, NE 68588-4100

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 duk.00001 Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The first several lines of the manuscript are drafts of lines in the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself."

These lines are a draft of the following lines in the first poem of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, a poem that was later titled "Song of Myself": "To be in any form, what is that? / If nothing lay more developed the quahaug and its callous shell were enough. / Mine is no callous shell, / I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop, / They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me" (1855, p. 32)

 Whitman, Walt To be at allBetween 1850 and 1855 Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Transcribed from digital images of the original. On the back of this manuscript is a list of words and other draft lines of verse that include language and images used in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. updated relations encoding regularized name for infrastructure updated image names added LG line corresp blessed edited work relations information, transcription checked, corrected split file into two, reconciled final conversion to P5, checked, corrected partial conversion to P5, added schema and schematron declarations Addition of Date Markup Blessed Edited Checked, revised Encoded Transcribed To be at all—what is greater better than that? I think if there were nothing more developed, the clam in its callous shell in the sand, were august enough.—| I am not in any callous shell; I am cased with supple conductors, all over; They take every object by the hand, and lead it within me.— They are thousands, each one with his entry to himself; They are always watching with their little eyes, from my head to my feet. One no more than a pencil's point, lead, lets in and out of me, of me more bliss than I thought the spheres could carry. such bliss and magnitude, I think I could then dash lift put the girder of the earth a globe the house away if it lay between me then and whatever I wanted.— My The