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It made my heart glad. McAlister had left his weekly report for me to forward to Bucke.

To 328 on my way home. Happened in a little earlier than normal—and when W. shortly called Mrs.

I went over my mail categorically. "What does Sarrazin say? He is still sick? Poor fellow!

Give him my sympathy.

he asked, and to my, "Well," exclaimed, "Dear girl!" I adding, "She was here last night."

You need not be surprised to receive a dispatch warning you of my approach.

And to my explanation, "Oh! It is slow—slow!" Then suddenly, "Was it A. Q.

Respond with my love—memories—admiration." And he curiously, "You hear from Bucke every day?

Always give him my choice good prayers."

best affection and regard—my best: tell them"—and here he broke off of sheer feebleness, and I cried

I think they cause a huskiness in my throat, a peculiar huskiness."

Give my best regards to Whitman.

He laughed gently and responded, "Yes, caution, caution—it is my old virtue!"

Now he inquired, "Is there any news of the literatures—anything at all my kind?"

I consider Ingersoll and Symonds my proof.

"You are not the least of my comforts, Horace!" he exclaimed.

My Captain! I want to learn it to speak in school."

It is my nephew—the second son of my sister.

Captain: Could you give me a little further information about my brother Capt. George W.

my boy!

way back to my central thought again—my spinal conviction: I resent my resentment—am ashamed of my questions

"I went silently, so as not to disturb Mary, but I realized my exhaustion."

—and on my shaking my head: "Well—I intended to: it escaped me."

own way—not to be unnecessarily interfered with even here, even in my incompetencies."

faith—in the end my faith prevails.

"Yes—just that: though I don't get into a boil over it I keep up a devil of a thinking in my corner—my

Yet said in reply to my question: "I can say I am here—little else, nothing else."

Gets great pleasure out of my recital of average experiences—particularly street incidents: likes me

He asked me about my reading.

I can't see that it leads to anything worth while: but I 'mI'm not responsible for it: I wash my hands

I drifted into fuller details of my talk with Brinton.

I described to W. my hunt most of my spare time to-daytoday for the steel plate.

He pushed the paper into my hand.

I must be on my guard: I must take care not to grow helpless before my time."

He placed his hand on mine and looked into my face affectionately.

I have given my oath to the Union.'

spent most of the day arguing it over with myself: I needed you to bring me to a conclusion—to end my

We talked politics: Tom is hot about the election but I don't feel my pulse stirred a bit: even my hopes

one regard: it seems to give me a superior niceness which I have never thought of as an element in my

In the Spring Song and the Song of the Depths my orbit responded to the new attracting sun.

Imagine that I have expressed to you my sincere conviction of what I owe to you.The essay is my first

"That is wholly true: you give me my resolution back: I have something I want to say: I still expect

he is eminently present to me always here: no matter what happens, remains vitally with me, sharing my

"Ed, this is one of my friends—this is Horace Traubel." Ed scanned me.

I await it with interest.Please give my best regard to Mr.

W. said: "Tom—here is Ed Wilkins: Ed, this is my friend Tom Harned."

W. lying on the bed when I came, but at once got up and with my assistance crossed the room to his chair

"Yes," W. nodded: "it was justified in him: I only hope my own titles will be justified in me."

Yet my heart turns to Sand: I regard her as the brightest woman ever born."

If anything went wrong I would get my stick and hobble down to the water."

I think of Emerson's 'why so hot, my little man?' That seems to me to apply—I adopt it.

I am very warmly disposed towards the South: I must admit that my instinct of friendship towards the

What you tell me goes to confirm my old faith in the masses.

He says: "My head must be much better: otherwise the clatter would have worried me."

I found a copy of The Esoteric under my feet. He regarded me with amused eyes.

publish his book, I will strive to refurbish my contribution and make it better.Dr.

I had asked my usual questions.

He followed my mild "yes" with a sort of joy. "Wasn't it a rouser?

I was putting the letter in my pocket.

It gives me a new conception of my own importance in the world.

(Give him my hearty greetings!)

And to save further signs of dissent W. objected: "No—that is not my view: I do not think that is settled

"It is my opinion that there will be a reaction: we will see"—here he paused: "It will be seen before

This is bound to come: I rest my faith in the final good sense of the nation.

Finally at my suggestion it was understood that I should take it with me in the morning.

He at once replied: "Yes: my reasons against it might be stated that way."

Whitman:I talked last night to my Waltham class (of forty ladies) about your work and read to them.

I always advise my pupils so.

I always found myself saying that in spite of my reservations.

faith, my sympathy, all leans to the one side."

I picked a sheet of paper up from under my feet. It was written over in W.'s handwriting.

written you long before, as well as after, but have been in a wretched condition with the misery in my

I don't improve in my back and legs as rapidly as I ought and am nearly as lame and heavy as you are,

Often as I have read it, I can't keep the tears out of my eyes."

White, even at my expense. Reason, Shakespearean hostility to the subject. This is a pretty note!

I wrote my mother voluminously from the War: ah! those letters! my dear, dear mother!

Was aroused at my entrance. "Oh! it 'sit's Horace!" How had he been to-daytoday?

is my audience literary, artistic, scientific—to be pleased as such?

I pointed my finger that way. He looked around.

Karl Knortz and his judgment on my translation, which letter I asked him to forward to you.

Take my love to all the boys: the typos: tell them Walt Whitman not only was but is one of them.

"If anybody asks you give them my love: tell them I feel better to-daytoday than I have felt any day

He gave me a letter which I did n'tdidn't read at the moment but put into my pocket and found on the

"The great party of those days was the Know-Nothing party: it was rather before my time that they were

Dear Walt Whitman:I have received your book and Ms. and send, with my hearty thanks, a New York check

My Captain! I want to learn it to speak in school."

Aroused by my entrance he was at once cordial and inquisitive. Talked well. Looked well.

Yet I have made up my mind to be cheerful: to sustain myself by what philosophy I can."

"Yes, I often think of it, especially of late days—how fortunate I have been in my friends: I doubt if

This is the very centre, circumference, umbillicus, of my whole career.

So it was with me: I had to cut up my capers.

I looked at my muddy boots, my flannel shirt—and then W. exclaimed: "Go!

own satisfaction, for last ten years.But my dear comrades I will now tell you something about my own

folks—home here there is quite a lot of us—my father is not living—my dear mother is very well indeed

in my mother's house.

dear comrades, and I pray God to bless you my darling boys, and I send you all my love, and I hope it

He passed slowly over to the chair, leaning the one side on the cane, the other on my arm.

"My father was always a Democrat—a Democrat of the old school." "Was he anti-slavery?"

He went on to say, however, anent my remark that nearly all Quakers were opposed to slavery: "My father

"They make quite a bulk: I gave them to my own people—my dear friends: some of them close, O so close

My relations with the boys there in Washington had fatherly, motherly, brotherly intimations— touched

"Yes, I don't know but that now I like it better than my own: I know Bucke don't—know you don't."

quality, which comes uppermost—most forces itself upon my attention.

Remarked: "My friend Julius Chambers, I see, has gone on The World."

"there have been ten or twelve sent to me for my signature."

I looked over my shoulder at the door of the adjoining room. "Ned Wilkins!

W. said: "My friends there—I think Kennedy for one—say he was put up to it—that there was more in the

to The Critic piece he said again as he had said before: "It is nothing: I sent it because it was in my

Yes, I have no reason to question it: but better than all that—than anything else—seems the word of my

I was a tough—obscene: indeed, it was my obscenity, libidinousness, all that, upon which they made up

Dear Walt:I have been so ill, and so burdened with the office charge, being scarcely able to hold my

He motioned me to a seat—questioned me about my day's work, etc.

W. said: "I am confident of it: but I always plant myself on my own plans in the end."

But my book has aroused his suspicions.

I said something in my note to Bucke to-daytoday about the possibility of W.'

Lanier was once my friend—once thought himself on my side: he shied off later—could n'tcouldn't stand

I said my question was: Do I want to go back to it? W. approving.

My inquiry then was: "Then you don't like Brown?" "No.

"No," he said, "but I have my eye out sharply for it: it seems as if it must be there in the mix—yet

W. said: "My father had been an acceptor of Paine: Paine had been much vilified."

My dear Mr.

My dear Mr. Whitman:Allow me to introduce to you Mr.

My eye caught on the woodpile a bunch of manuscript. I picked it up. "What is this?

I stopped: that was always the case—always my habit."

He is seven years my senior, I believe: Herbert says, shows age, is round-shouldered, stoops."

After a pause: "My mental work was always taken easy: more-over, I have never forgotten what I owe my

"My position had been simple: sitting here day after day in this litter"—looking around—"my one idea

My dear Mr.

As to Walt Whitman, I am glad that my little note pleased the good and grand old man.

I often feel that the succession of events and of work is a thing hardly in my own hands.

It has been about me now for fifty years: I am very close to it: it is one of my bibles."

My experience is a peculiar one: something like this"—working his hand circularly—"it is as if things

Had not suffered any from the fall in temperature.We talked of my work—of my bookkeeping: how at times

He had been "put in charge of the Attorney General's letters: cases were put into my hands—small cases

to them all so passed some of them over to me to examine, report upon, sum up: which I did mainly by my

I had a copy of Harper's Bazar in my pocket.

As to "Why should my dog inhabit heaven if I?" W. said: "Why not?

I took it out of my pocket. "Read that passage to me again." I did so.

Adams, my last news of your health, and enclosing also a copy of my last circular (summer of 1876) regarding

My wife received lately a letter from Mrs.

I can but repeat my delight in this prospect, were it to be realized, and my wife's hope and my own that

My father had reinforced W. in his Goethean views. I had repeated these views from my notes.

Please don't mention my name in connection with what I write about Harlan.

Van Rensallaer.W. must have seen the big smile on my face. He looked extra pleased himself.

I turned the letter over and over in my hands.

He held my hand for an extra clasp. "Don't let our fight prejudice you against me," he said.

My friendships are my own—for Ingersoll or another.

" (from the Independent) and his comment upon W. was this:In some cases, as in Whitman's O Captain, My

"I am all of a jumble today—my stomach, my head."

It is loyal, generous, correct, and true, and doesn't labor to prove that "My Captain" is the best of

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, "We have not struck," he composedly cries

I have followed it right along, myself—often to the horror of my friends.

Now there ought to be someone to write up about my Dutch forebears.

I may say I revel, even gloat, over my Dutch ancestry. Burroughs? Yes, perhaps, or some other.

"Not the least of my blessings," said W. on my entrance to his bedroom, where he sat reading, "is this

northwest breeze, which has been blowing in my window all the day long," and he added, "Last night we

I described Cooper's early influence over my father: that Cooper's books had much to do with my father's

s on my way home, and found him in his bedroom, making up some papers etc. for Bernard O'Dowd, Victoria

very free, yet making no emphatic statements either way, except now and then to express some assent to my

through this paralysis pretty sadly disabled," but he always tells me (which he hardly needs to), "My

W. said, "Morris will be one of us yet," and to my, "Yes, don't you remember the walk I told you of only

Callingham has my everlasting thanks for this happy introduction.Below please find a copy of Mr.

Carnegie's letter on my new Year's Greeting to Whitman.Yours sincerely,James D.

I know nothing better—little as good—it fits in with all my theories of democracy. Mrs.

Spoke of "the wonderful beauty of the pictures—all of them: they raise my wonder and admiration.

I on my way home.

With him half an hour, having a delightful talk, he fanning himself all the time of my stay.Dr.

Also of Beemer, Bucke's assistant and friend of W.Gave me a bag containing three apricots to give to my

W. sent a twig of the flowers to my father—"I want him to see them.

Since then I have not seen my hat," which I found after some search downstairs in the parlor.Left with

I come," she cried, in toneLike sweetest siren song,"Though I have tarried long,I come, my own, my own

Thou art too late; in soothNaught earthly makes me glad;Where wert thou in my mad,My eager, fiery youth

Nay, grieve not thine," she said,"For I have loved full oft,And at my lovers scoffed,Alive to woo them

I think the house might well be used with my article.W. said, "I am still curious about the Atlantic,

to remember is that our old house is on a flat—that the Hills proper are a little distance off—where my

A grandson, I think, of the man who bought it from my father, so you see it has direct descent.

And again: "His 'Prose Writers of Germany' has been one of my longest treasures.

I can never be shaken from my love of it.

Those two pieces on Shakespeare in 'November Boughs' are my best statement of the case, of my case.

My mind will not stick by me for consecutive work." Did his eyes fail him?

"No, my eyes are pretty good, though dimming."

the following, which Morris gave me as "the only part" of his letter from Sarrazin not contained in my

I do not think my writing in that article would be called remarkable for clearness, especially that passage

I confess the book has taken a strong hold of me—it has opened my eyes, made me feel that we have a master

If I found it in my line, I should write out all I have been telling you—put it in print somewhere.

But in the first place it is not in my line. Then, I am too lazy.

And then as to Bucke's warnings about taking cold, "I have thought myself that was my worst danger: I

He laughed and said, "I am unchanged about him: my impression lasts."

And to my expression, "Each spring all think must be the last, but the next surpasses it," he assented

talked of Sarrazin pleasantly for some time, W. urging me to write.Later, Harned's children, who were at my

I had my champagne and oysters—a favorite mixture. Clifford was there and a Dr. Gould.

And then he said, "Lowell threatens to be another of the old men—he is about my age."

It is not new, particularly to you, to my friends. But it is one of my choice notes.

," and on my explanation: "Yes, that is good."

No, I do not see that my presence is necessary, indispensable.

I do not know but that it could be best to have it understood all is to go in my pocket."

"They will give you notions of how I pass my life." Tuesday, September 16, 1890

demonstrative of his cordiality.I gave W. the following extract from letter from Stedman to Morris: "Do give my

Think of it: think of that as a reflection of my work, of my life, of my own dear, dear mother!

And still in the same line: "There are liars by inclination—born liars—and I seem to have had my share

I put in, "Yes, to say: I am in the hands of my friends."

In the points wherein we differ I think my work makes our difference plain and sets me up in my own individuality