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. $1.00); the dainty American reissue of George Meredith's subtile sonnet sequence, 'Modern Love" (with

These works of two American and one English poet represent a great deal that is most salient in modern

For if those pre-successes were all—if they ended at that—if nothing more were yielded than so far appears—a

gross materialistic prosperity only—America, tried by subtlest tests, were a failure—has not advanced

Both the cash and the emotional cheer were deep medicines; many paid double or treble price.

printer, carpenter, author, and journalist, domiciled in nearly all the United States and principal cities

of that time, tending the Northern and Southern wounded alike—work'd down South and in Washington city

In an essay on "National Literature" he finds the essential traits of the American people to be good-nature

Whitman; and were followed in his theatrical enjoyments by a long list of other artists.

James Henry Hackett (1800-1871) was an American actor notable for his character parts.

.; James Henry Hackett (1800-1871) was an American actor notable for his character parts.

That the great magazines were right and Walt Whitmon sic wrong the contents of this thin, crazy-quilt

The generous recognition of Tennyson and Ruskin and the other English and American admirers has offset

Such are 'A Death-Banquet,' 'Some Laggards Yet,' 'Splinters,' 'Health,' 'Crossing from Jersey City,'

extract only one short poem with its characteristic foot-note: FOR QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIRTHDAY An American

—"Very little as we Americans stand this day, with our sixty-five or seventy millions of population,

auditor's smile or half sneer at the author's sometimes forced rhymes or prosy lines; as though that were

uniting the whole" may be lost "just in moving this trifle or that," and so you "Take away, as it were

One more utterance from our old original individualistic American poet, now, as he tells us, in his seventy-second

year, and not expecting to write any more; this, indeed, written as it were in defiance of augury.

mention, but we must now turn to the volume of the year, which should be specially precious to the American

people,—that of the poet who has most firmly grasped the "American Idea" in its deepest and broadest

Upon one we find this faultless epigram on "The Bravest Soldiers": "Brave, brave were the soldiers (high

Sands at Seventy" contain no word that is objectionable as certain passages of the "Leaves of Grass" were

I too am untranslatable' look about him, more developed even perhaps in age than when those words were

say that "November Boughs" (Philadelphia: David McKay) is an important permanent contribution to American

Take, for example, this epigram on "The Bravest Soldiers:" "Brave, brave were the soldiers (high-named

He published many volumes of poems and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to

For more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, " McKay, David (1860–1918) Walt Whitman's Book

" presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served as correspondent of the New York World from 1860

He published many volumes of poems and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to

Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).; David McKay (1860–1918) took over Philadelphia-based

For more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia

Whitman says, in a manner which, if irony were not a mode rather foreign to him, we should consider ironical

We should be very much surprised if they were not. William O'Connor and Dr.

Glance o'er Travel'd Roads" amounts to an acknowledgment by Walt Whitman himself, not that his critics were

the rising and sinking waves—over the myriad fields and the prairies wide: Over the dense-packed cities

so—was indeed not in the original "Leaves of Grass," as it appeared more than thirty years ago, nor were

breadth, the democratic kindliness, and homespun sense that marks the very soul and gait of our American

Whitman's parents were "Hicksite" Quakers; and Whitman himself, in his early days, saw something of the

Two lines called "The Bravest Soldiers" are characteristic: "Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named

It is a matter of no little significance that here has appeared in American literature a man who has

absurd delusion that the inhabitants of London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome, and the lands which these cities

In 1876 Robert Buchanan, the Scotch poet, published an appeal "eulogizing and defending the American

A Danish critic has said in a Copenhagen magazine: "It may be candidly admitted that the American poet

But, although he calls them the "most precious bequest to current American civilization from all the

the social import of his first book ("without yielding an inch, the working-man and working-woman were

especially, he sought for:— I have allowed the stress of my poems from beginning to end to bear upon American

I think this pride indispensable to an American.

gives breath to my whole scheme that the bulk of the pieces might as well have been left unwritten were

and Mario being his special favourites: others on the native Indians, on the Spanish element in American

values the poem too highly and that it cannot in any sense be taken as the voice of a representative American

Whitman has always seemed very un-American in many of his traits, notably in his acceptance of gifts

Whitman passing his last years across the river from the great Quaker City, always using the quaint Quaker

Whitman's opinion of Tennyson is of particular interest, since the British laureate is one of our great American's

breath of life to my whole scheme that the bulk of the pieces might as well have been left unwritten were

consider "Leaves of Grass" and its theory experimental—as, in the deepest sense, I consider our American

Candidly and dispassionately reviewing all my intentions, I feel that they were creditable—and I accept

But, regarding "Leaves of Grass," let the author speak further:— I should say it were useless to attempt

millions of equals, with their lives, their passions, their futures—these incalculable, modern, American

poetry with cosmic and dynamic features of magnitude and limitlessness suitable to the human soul were

Yet, as these latter are nearly all very brief, many of them not exceeding a dozen lines each, there

If it were spread out as often is done, the poetry alone would fill a thin volume, while another could

be skipped," he must be studied by whomever would lay claim to the name of critic or student of American

Candidly and dispassionately reviewing all my intentions, I feel that they were creditable, and I accept

People in general are coming to think that his intentions were creditable, and no one who has really

being called a poet, but with those who raise the point (happily they are few now) that his intentions were

Whitman and gave him a long and important discussion, but referred to Whitman's attitude toward other American

Whitman and gave him a long and important discussion, but referred to Whitman's attitude toward other American

What we especially admire in him is his stout, tough Americanism, his faith in his country, its government

tribute to Lincoln (not so tender as the really rhythmic verses "My Captain"), are things for young Americans

It is rather the poet's review in his old age of what he conceives were his intentions in his manhood's

breath of life to my whole scheme that the bulk of the pieces might as well have been left unwritten were

But the great American poem when it comes will certainly not be written with deliberate intent.

He ought to winter in some pleasant Southern city where he could sit by open windows.

, of Sunderland (to whom Ruskin's letters—entitled Time and Tide —"to a working man of Sunderland" were

If his worldly gains were small, there was compensation in the modesty of his wants.

Nay, have we not felt we were in some sort worse than those others, because, being guilty, we were praised

A thousand copies were printed.

Few if any copies of the book were sold.

Among Whitman's personal friends were Bryant and Longfellow.

.; American writer (1825–1878) who wrote for newspapers, travel books, novels, poetry, and critical essays

the finest strain that a human ear can hear, yet conclusively and past all refutation, that there were

It is curious that the writings of the "Poet of Democracy" have had to wait so long before they were

family and ancestors; notes of his experiences during the Civil War, contributed at the time they were

The "familiar letter" method has advantages of its own, "portraying American eyesights and incidents

America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; I will make inseparable cities

time; privileged to evoke, in a country hitherto still asking for its poet, a fresh, athletic, and American

the English language is spoken—that is to say, in the four corners of the earth; and in his own American

He has not omitted, as some editors might have done, In a City Dead House and The Flight of the Eagles

Whitman says that "the volumes were intended to be most decided, serious, bona fide expressions of an

If the critic or the laborious reader were to devote himself to this "poem," what would he find in it

Cicero, Virgil, and Horace were not trammeled by the polished completeness of Latin.

In all his labor there were system, consecutiveness, and art; otherwise, he would have failed.

Whitman desires an original American literature, his plea is praiseworthy.

Bucke informs us, were given away, most of them were lost, abandoned, or destroyed. ∗ According to Mr

'On the whole, it sounds to me,' were his words, 'very brave and American, after whatever deductions.

First we may notice that in spirit he is intensely American.

There is little in them that is distinctively American.

Were it not that we have Mr.

communist and utopian communities in the United States, including La Reunion in Texas and North American

cultivated of Whitman's compatriots should be won over by his gorgeous anticipations of the "fruitage" of American

Wilson and McCormick is apparently printed from the same plates as the American edition, but upon better

at any rate, a very familiar idea to be found; but we have to confess that after careful reading we were

ye were, in your atmospheres, grown not for America, but rather for her foes, the feudal and the old—while

Unless, too, the reader possesses considerable familiarity with American slang, he will frequently be

My father's side—probably the fifth generation from the first English arrivals in New England—were at

The theatre, too, he delighted in, and saw all the great actors and singers, American or European, in

native Americans.

Second, there were in the Northern army men from every State in the Union, without exception.

Garfield said, "Do gentlemen know that (leaving out all the border States) there were fifty regiments

The popular American humorist Artemus Ward (1834-1867) (pseudonym of Charles Farrar Browne) influenced

It is not an English word, nor is it Americanized, according to the standard dictionaries; yet Mr.

Whitman has made it good American, so far as in his power lies, and stamped it with more than ordinary

about Carlyle and Emerson was too recently published (in these pages) to need present notice, and so were

'The Poetry of the Future' and 'A Memorandum at a Venture' (in The North American ).

poem and this volume of essays and notes form in themselves a literary inter-state exhibition or American

Into this volume he has gathered fragments of writing, some of which were produced as long ago as 1860

, and all of which are illustrative of his thoughts and his experiences in the woods and the city, in

Dowden, for instance, associates him with Shakespeare, and a recent commentator of American literature

It contains many of those brief, sketchily written notes on nature which were, it is apparent, jotted

of our Western world; and it includes, above all, those widely discussed prefaces, touching upon American

poetry to-day, and especially upon the future of American poetry, as this is viewed by Whitman.

, upon four American poets—Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and Emerson.

.; The American poet and critic Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) was part of a circle of genteel writers

It is time, however, that an attempt were made to arrive at a sober estimate of his real value; and to

Nor does it mean that the merit of the author was quite unrecognized: on the contrary, by some who were

But the mass of his countrymen were not and are not strong enough to accept him; they have perhaps too

If we were asked for justification of the high estimate of this poet, which has been implied, if not

They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not; The living remained and suffer'd.

The first writings of Carlyle and Emerson were despised and rejected; and yet these very writings have

had so profound an influence in forming the thought of our period, that it were impossible to imagine

It seems as if, so far, there were some natural repugnance between a literary and professional life,

A large part of the volume is occupied by Whitman's diary during the American War.

Some of the sketches were written as letters to friends during the war and afterwards.

Half-Paralytic"—these and other titles for his bundle of jottings, made during and after the war, were

Whitman's liking; and in his criticism of modern society, although at bottom he believes that the American

—these, with a few inevitable reserves, were all acceptable to, and accepted by, the author of Leaves

There were two or three I shall probably never forget.

Elsewhere there is eloquent recognition of the work done for American literature by Longfellow, Bryant

when the Red Birds and Yellow Birds, the Knickerbocker and Fourth avenue and the old Broadway lines were

The contents are brief essays or sketches, mostly fragmentary, many of them dated as if they were leaves

The several prefaces to , 1855, 1872, 1876, succeed; then the North American Review paper on "Poetry

Daniel Webster (1782-1852), the American orator and politician.

William Walker (1824-1860) was an American adventurer and soldier who attempted to conquer several Latin

American countries.

.; Daniel Webster (1782-1852), the American orator and politician.; Henry Clay (1777-1852) was an American

He was also Secretary of State from 1861-1869.; William Walker (1824-1860) was an American adventurer

and soldier who attempted to conquer several Latin American countries.

president of the Republic of Nicaragua from 1856-1857 and was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860

political reformer Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894)led Hungary's struggle for independence from Austria.; The American

while he was still in his teens are so melodramatic and unreal, that they would be unworthy of notice were

The great cities reek with respectable as much as non-respectable robbery and scoundrelism.

the spirit of civilized communism and socialism is not far enough removed from the minds of our American

But his greatest grievance is that there is no American literature, as such.

But Artemus Ward is as redolent of the American soil as Walt Whitman, and while he is not, in any sense

But granted that we have no distinctive American literature, with the exception of Walt Whitman himself

. ∗ ∗ ∗ The successive growth-stages of my infancy, childhood, youth and manhood were all pass'd on Long

He has visited Boston and the principal cities in Canada and in the West.

The hospital notes are printed in the slovenly shape in which they were written in his diary.

in his assertion of it he has imitated the owner of a forest who assured a lumberman that his trees were

Freeman to use in his essay on the peculiarities of American speech.

putting in identity of the wayside itemizings, memoranda and personal notes of 50 years under modern American

(To city man, or some sweet parlor lady, I now talk.)

The others surrender'd; the odds were too great.)

The rebels were driven out in a very short time.

You Russians and we Americans!

stoppage and never can be stoppage, If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, Were