Search Results

Asked me who were yet to be heard from in the American symposium.

The two letters that follow were dictated to a stenographer and signed by Redpath.North American Review

Coates were in today? Well, they were.

Now I read the letters.The North American Review, New York City, Oct. 20, 1885. Dear Mr.

My dear Walt—Nine years ago I delivered before a German Society of New York city a lecture on American

Kennedy returned me Harrison Morris' American piece with comments.

We were thrown much together—very much—in Washington: were like chips off the same block—members of a

We were both silent for awhile.

These poems were written when he was in his very worst recent condition. Several bad breaks.

I composed the article under great affliction, for as the devil would have it, there were several days

Voltaire never was of a mind to condone Shake-speareShakespeare: Shake-speareShakespeare's crudities were

Even as it is, today, were I eligible, I would take the trouble to write, if do no more by him.

It was a curious controversy—there were great men on both sides of it—many things were said both pro

The literary fellers in Washington (there were many of them there—there are many of them there still)

one sort or another who today are not even a memory—writers for papers, hacks, penny-a-liners: they were

the period of the War recedes I am more than ever convinced that it is important for those of us who were

People went there for all sorts of reasons, none of which were my reasons: went to convert, to proselyte

The Methodists were entitled to Lincoln's attention—not his alone but everybody's—for their loyalty in

Hay and Nicolay were for Harlan at that time, but Hay, at least, warmed towards me later on and has been

Those old writers were made for an age of smartness: they write in sounding phrases, make stiff speeches

He spoke of the cities he liked best: Brooklyn, Washington, New Orleans, St. Louis, New York.

"But Washington, New Orleans, Brooklyn—they are my cities of romance.

They are the cities of things begun—this is the city of things finished." He paused.

Asked me who were yet to be heard from in the American symposium.

I said, 'No—none of a decided sort that I knew: I knew you were a free trader but that was all.'"

Such tall, wholesome looking fellows are rare among American youngsters."

There were features in his mysticism with which I had little sympathy but the purport of his message

I have found by experience that when I undertook to make a historic statement my facts were straight.

Some of them were landscapes. W. said: "They make me feel home-sick for the open air.

He and Ingersoll were dear friends, I am told.

I have heard many stories about him and they were all the right kind—all on the side of love.

Tells me of the Hicks: "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago.

Yesterday I turned a hive up and pruned it, that is cut out a lot of old dirty comb; the little fellows were

He had put "last" into the title because the incidents cited "were left over after the close of the war

"I had my temptations, but they were not strong enough to tempt.

Was there not something grand—and a perennial proof of American grandeur—in that war.""

affections, soothe them, brace them up, kiss them, discard all ceremony, and fight for them, as it were

The days in the hospitals were too serious for that."

Take Democracy, for instance: the American, the average American, thinks he has a new idea.

Here was my first tally of life—here were my first tries with the lute—in that book I am just like a

[The contents of the book were afterwards included by Dr.

left to go into type except the Hicks notes and the Fox paper.W. asked me whether I had seen The American

They received me with open arms when I was rejected—they were my dearest, dearest friends, staunchest

adding: "You know William never stopped to invent, to manufacture, such things—they just came to him, were

Sir: I have received the copy of the Specimen Days and Collect which you were so kind as to send me,

"He takes you to task a bit about your strictures on the American poets."

himself in the universe, saying "Here at least, in the spirit, I have freedom and empire inalienable," were

some time intended to write to you when that would happen.I saw in the Academy a paragraph saying you were

To say the truth, I never could quite accept your utter condemnation of all American authors, expressed

And do not Americans do this also to a certain extent?

He affects American.

Cooper, Bryant, and the portrait painter, Chares Elliot, were the great American geniuses fifty years

In Canada I was always astonished to hear people speak of us as Americans—as if they were not as really

American as we were."

Americans he thought "worked like the devil till they were all worked out"—though sometimes he "envied

Oh, what scenes of human horror were to be found in this city last winter.

"I only said you were misunderstood—that what you meant was that the American people did not sufficiently

so many were against me the few who were for me were extra, extra precious!

W. somehow talked of American poets who were "hardly of international scope."

Davis were witnesses to the will.W. had been reading Charles Morris' screed on himself in The American

in fact, I had contemplated something quite other: contemplated having it done in facsimile: if we were

"If you have to be either I'd rather you were poor."

But when we were out on the street alone afterwards Bucke said to me: "Did you ever hear anything so

It was fine to get back into the quiet of that dear room again after the rush of the city and tiresome

and I rambled off once right round by Snowdon to Carnarvon, where the remnant of the Cymric races were

For my own sake, as well as yours, I wish it were!

"But there were papers: quite a budget of them." Told him of Bucke's letter from Mrs. O'Connor.

fifty devil-knows-whats if there were two: I had to work hard over it: now it is in very good shape.

They were favorable.

Doctor said that in his translation some things were "not literal" but were "what Sarrazin said"—and

B. said outside: "In spite of his bluff I could see that we were wearying him." Room severely hot.

As yesterday, were at Harned's office all day. Then down to W.'s. Bucke and Gurd along.

But the troubles were "by no means in an active stage." B. asked for information about W.'s eating.

I have always supposed we were veteran adepts at the business."

W. said: "Maurice, you astonish me: you destroy one of my cherished beliefs: I hoped you were better

W. said: "No: I'd rather take offense if you were not free."

These things, like that of the fish, were often said of him by others.

Again: "But I never thought of his manners when I heard him: they were not present: they were easy to

I was poor: it was a time of need: they were not greatly endowed in the way of money—yet had enough:

There were two communicating small rooms. In the front room were the beds and chairs. Two windows.

In the back room were O'Connor's books—what he called his "study."

O'Connor's whole form dilated, his arms were spread out, his eyes were fixed on me, as he said these

The stars were all out.

Bucke and William and I were face to face. William looked up at us.

at all changed—I do not think his feelings now towards O'Connor are different at all from what they were

"—indicating his body's width with his hands.W. asked me many questions concerning Washington, the city

"Then there were none of the pecuniary results Brisbane speaks of?"

We were known to one another perhaps twelve hours. Yet I cannot forget him.

In a couple of weeks more, Congress will meet, and then the city will be quite lively.I am out a good

He said: "That stuff must have been dinned into Emerson's ears: the enemy were everywhere—in all the

"Did you say the legs were all gone? dead? that no improvement is to be expected?

The changes in the city must have been momentous." Nellie's nephew with them now.

But Donnelly's publishers were considering it.

The Williams poems were type-written. W. said: "I have not read them: should I?

"No: I don't think he took me in on that side: we were friends in the human way."

"Were they crazy?"

—I am obliged to you for the notice in the North American (G.E.M.).

There were forty persons present. Among them Gilchrist, Salter, Morris, Harned, Doctor Thomas.

I said: "They all seemed to admit last night that you were a big man, but how big they didn't undertake

W. said: "That would be a great virtue were it so: is it so?"

Presidential office I consider that inaugural address the other day the most gassy, diffused: if I were

in detail just what she wants, then go back and in all points do precisely the opposite of what you were

When I was in Canada with Doctor Bucke we were invited by some prominent man—(he was in the government

, I think—a high-cockalorum, even, if I'm not mistaken)—were invited by him—to take dinner with a group

I was grieved, dear Walt, that you were still confined to W. and not able to go home; but your faith

W. still puzzled: "What were you thinking, Maurice?"

W. gave me a letter as we were going out.

I said: "Walt, there were no Rabelaisian passages in your relations with Emerson, I'll bet."

There were two letters tied together.

So I let go.Hartford, July 11th, 1860. Know Walt Whitman that I am a woman!

Bucke said: "We will make a new examination of your urine: let Ed take some of it to the city tomorrow

s condition he might "live for some time," but: "He is worse than when we were there: if there should

boarding place: they all liked him: he had come, not knowing whether to go into the War or stay in the city

The "nigger" was faced: "the facts were put together so the public would be satisfied in what way the

Even while in this clerkship he had got himself a little place outside of the city—a little house with

of an item I saw in the Critic here last evening as I rode up in the street cars, stating that you were

But they were all wrong—it was an engorged liver, which the battery relieved instanter, and the lady

They were in an envelope addressed.

Not more than half the leaves of the book were cut.

The leaves cut were not consecutive—they jumped all over.

There were papers and there was some music.

They were at it all the evening.

The North American ReviewNew York, July 14, 1885.

Ed went to the city with me. W. gave me an old Schmidt letter. It was very striking.

The King and the Crown Prince were in the church, reporters for foreign papers, also from America, swarmed

In June I met with professors and teachers of the university who in all earnest were Buddhists, believers

you brought back from him to me, has given me as well as him a great lift: I am sure William, Nelly, were

W. spoke of filth—the streets of cities—of his "extreme sensitiveness to anything like foulness in the

There were speeches by C.C. Everett, of Harvard, Prof. Leidy, and some others.

I remembered that Bucke had left one of the two sheets with O'C. when we were there.

"Those Southern prisons were hells on earth!—hells on earth!"

"Washington is one of the easiest—perhaps the easiest—city in the Union to understand, to learn to get

reason, was very bitter against the U.S. authorities in not having them exchanged, so that such as were

On the shelf out there were piles of letters, portraits, the whole copy of Specimen Days—all deep in

In thus describing these persons I have not sought to convey to my readers, for it were hopeless, their

W. gave Bucke a copy of The American containing Frank Williams' first paper, and in an envelope a copy

They were tied in a piece of red tape. I asked: "Did you want me to stay to read you these?"

"It is nearly comical," writes a young married lady to me, "to see the critics cut the broad American

I said: "I brought the Doctor this morning before you were up." "Is Doctor here?"

We were too apt to lose sight of this "cardinal fact," Yet this alone "gives such men a permanent fame

I said: "Bucke and I were talking the other day about the old woman in your ancestry who chucked chips

amiss (they were slavery days, with all the odd ends of life that exist with slaverydom anywhere) she

A quaint lithographed business card and a portrait were included.

I never can say how anxious I was about you when you were here.

was so lucky that you left just when you did, for the three or four days succeeding your departure were

But, on the whole, every feeling submerges in gratefulness and thankfulness that you were away from this

["It was not so written, William: but other things, perhaps better things, were written!"]

that at the time looked possible or were hoped for."]At all events I hope you will get well very soon

I suppose they were very busy. Doctor goes home direct, Gurd to New York—the meters with him.

Probably Doctor took a hack: finished up in the city the many things he told me he had to do."

unutterably shocking to our grandmothers—the dear old ladies, who thought Jane Eyre and Adam Bede were

What were they? "It says that I make three hundred dollars a year.

The earth was eloquent to him, but the skies were silent."

One could perhaps put up with these peculiarities of Whitman were he not at the same time a sovereign

He is a poet in whom American Democracy has at last found a voice.

Indeed, if I were to speak as a true Whitmanite, I should describe the strange influence of his poems

His father was a missionary—an American: it was at some place with a queer name in Asia or Africa, I

better comprehension of man and of the democratic idea, it would (I think) be a misfortune if you were

Johnston is fine: he is a New Yorker: he is an American of Americans: and he is an old friend, too, as

Of course, I know very little about matters as they were: only what I heard: only what you fellows told

me: you know I was never on fire over it: Doctor's millions were always no more to me than someone's

"As I understand it, Gurd, the Doctor, their men, were to control the larger part of the stock: they

were secured: I am sorry they would not yield the rest."

I said: "No wonder you were alarmed."

It had been said Aldrich and Howells were neither of them college men.

"But," said W., "I always had the other impression, or that if they were not that since their early life

What were we to do about covers? We will need copies bound at once. We are all out.

I had taken a long walk trough the city, out Broad Street, into the Park, with Kemper and May.

There were tears in his eyes.

I mentioned the proposed pension for you, and he said that if you were in need of assistance he thought

from him some time ago telling me he expected to go, but have not since heard from him.C.W.E. and I were

This gives points to Herod, and is worse than the slaughter of the innocents, because they were Jew babies

the collected statement of my life— of my work: a statement of what I signify in the literary, the American

Would even acquiesce in my idea of "dealing direct with big wholesale booksellers in other cities."

But I should bring more—they were "good to have on a fellow's lap here."

Two were by Sarony. One was by Potter, Philadelphia. One was Alexander Gardner's, Washington.

There can scarcely be a doubt that bed-sores would exist were it not for the scrupulous cleanliness that

Hood.W. said: "It looks as if we were right up against our great bereavement—as if the story was rapidly

It occurs to me we have so far not had one American play—not one.

It contains Winter's long paper on the drama and the American press. Would he read it?

"I saw at once how baseless Frank Williams' suspicions of Walsh were when I looked through the matter

omni-prevalent sophistication of people in these matters.I am glad you are to have an article in the North American

, and only wish it were to be longer.

I only wish I were not tied up as I am with this weary office, and work monstrous and endless, as it

Spoke of O'Connor again: "He is from Lynn: whether his parents, mother or father—or both—were born in

We were serious about it—partly from selfish reasons: we would have been glad to keep him here: but no—it

Sidney was here: we were all the better for his visit: we love him—follow his wanderings with interest

W. explained: "Yes—that was an actual moth: the picture is substantially literal: we were good friends

I told him I'd be back again after lunch on the way to the city.

—and while we were talking of the new ideas of many things, we spoke of 'death,' and I quoted to him