FEINBERG/WHITMAN Box 24 Folder 3 LITERARY FILE BOOK FILE –– Specimen Days & Collect Manuscripts Original Printer's Copy pp. 248-312 Includes verso notes.( This appeared in [??????]) [248] (Feb 12 '81) Feb 10 '81 DEATH OF (Thomas) CARLYLE AND so the flame of the lamp, after long wasting and flickering, has gone out entirely. As a representative author, a literary figure, no man else will bequeath to the future more significant hints of our stormy era, its fierce paradoxes, its din, and its struggling parturition periods, than Carlyle. He belongs to our own branch of the stock too; neither Latin nor Greek, but altogether Gothic. Rugged, mountainous, volcanic, he was himself more a French Revolution than any of his volumes. In some respects, so far in the Nineteenth Century, the best equip, keenest mind, even from the college point of view, of all Britain; only he had a ailing body. Dyspepsia is to be traced in every page, and now and then fills the page. One may include among the lessons of his life—even though that life stretched to amazing length—how behind the tally of genius and morals stands the stomach, and give a sort of casting vote. Two conflicting agonistic elements seem to have contended in the man, sometimes pulling him different ways, like wild horses. He was a cautious conservative Scotchman, fully aware of the foetid gas-bag must of modern radicalism is; but then his great heart demanded reform, demanded change—[as always sympathetic, always human bear]—often terribly at odds with his scornful brain. No author ever put so much wailing and despair into his books, "sometimes palpable, oftener latent. He reminds me of that passage in Young's poems where as Death presses closer and closer for his prey the Soul rushes hither and hither, appealing, shrieking, berating, to escape the general doom. Of short-comings, even positive blur-spots, from an American point of view, he has serious share (but this is no time for specifying them. When we think how great changes n ever go by jumps in any department of our universe, but) that long preparations, process, awakenings, are indispensable, Carlyle was the most serviceable democrat of the age. NOT for his merely literary merit, (though that was great)—not as "maker of books, " but as launching into the self-complacent atmosphere of our days a rasping, questioning, dislocating agitation and shock, is (the man's) Carlyle's final value. (It is time the English-speaking peoples had some true idea about the verteber of genius, namely power. As if they must always have it cut and biased to the fashion, like a lady's cloak!"[249] What a needed service he performs ! How he shakes out comfortable reading circles with a [249] touch of the old Hebraic anger and prophecy- and indeed it is just the same. Not Isaiah him- self more scornful, more threatening : "The crow of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: And the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower." (The word prophecy is much misused; it is narrowed to prediction merely. That is not the main sense of the Hebrew word translated "prophet;" it means one whose mind bubbles up and pours forth as a fountain, from inner, divine spontaneities revealing God. Pre direction is a very minor part of prophecy. The great matter is to reveal and outpour the God- like suggestions pressing for birth in the soul. This is briefly the doctrine of the Friends or Quakers.) Then the simplicity and amid ostensible frailty the towering strength of the man- a hardy oak knot, you could never wear out- an old farmer dressed in brown clothes, and not handsome- his very foibles fascinating. Who cares that he wrote about Dr. Francia and "Shooting Niagara," -and "the Nigger Question," -and didn't at all admire our United States? (I doubt if he ever thought or said half as bad words about us as we deserve.) How he splashes like the leviathan in the seas of modern literature and politics! Doubtless, respecting the latter, one needs first to realize, from actual observation, the squalor, vice and doggedness ingrain'd in the bulk-population of the British Islands, with the red tape, the fatuity, the flunkeyism everywhere, to understand the last meaning in his pages. Accordingly, "though the was no chartist or radical, I consider Carlyle's by far the most indignant comment or protest anent the fruits of feudalism to-day in Great Britain- the increasing poverty and degradation of the homeless, landless twenty millions, while a few thousands, or rather a few hundreds, possess the entire soil, the money, and the fat berths. Trade and shipping, and clubs and culture, and prestige, and guns, and a fine select class of gentry and aristocracy, wit every modern improvement, cannot begin to salve or defend such stupendous hoggishness. The way to test how much he has left were to consider, or try to consider, for a moment the array of British though, the resultant and ensemble of the last fifty years, as existing to-day, but with Carlyle left out. It would be like an army with no artillery. The show were still a gay and rich one- Bryon, Scott, Tennyson, and many more- horsemen and rapid infantry, and banners flying- but the last heavy roar so dear to the ear of the train'd soldier, and that settles fate and victory, would be lacking.[*Footer*] [*stet*] [*207*] 250 For [the last] three years we in America [have] had transmitted glimpses [of Carlyle's [?prostration?] and bodily decay – pictures] of a thin-bodied, lonesome, wifeless, childless, very old man, lying on a sofa, kept out of bed by indomitable will, but, of late, never well enough to take the open air. [News of this sort was brought us last fall by the sick man's neighbor, Moncure Conway ; and] I have noted [it] this news from time to time in brief descriptions in the papers. A week ago I read such an item just before I started out for my customary evening stroll between eight and nine. [*run in*] In the find cold night, unusually clear, (Feb ; 5, '81,) as I walk[e]d some open grounds adjacent, the condition of Carlyle, and his approaching--perhaps even then actual-- death, filled me with thoughts / eluding statement, and curiously blending with the scene. The planet Venus, an hour high in the west, with all her volume and lustre recovered, (she has been shorn and languid for nearly a year,) including an additional sentiment I never noticed before--not merely voluptuous, Paphian, steeping, fascinating--now with calm, commanding, [dazzling] seriousness and hauteur-- the Milo Venus now. Upward to the zenith, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon past her quarter, trailing in procession, with the Pleiades following, and the constellation Taurus, and red Aldebaran. Not a cloud in heaven. Orion strode through the south-east, with his glittering belt-- and a trifle below hung the sun of the night, Sirius. Every star dilated, more vitreous, nearer than usual. Not as in some clear nights when the larger stars entirely outshine the rest. Every little star or cluster just as distinctly visible, and just as nigh. Berenice's Hair showing every gem, and new ones. To the north-east and north the Sickle, the Goat and Kids, Cassiopea, Castor and Pollux, and the two Dippers. [*run in*] While through the whole of this silent indescribable show, enclosing and bathing my whole receptivity, ran the thought of Carlyle dying. (To soothe and spiritualize and, as far as may be, solve the mysteries of death and genius, consider them under the stars at midnight.) And now that he has gone hence can it be that Thomas Carlyle, soon to chemically dissolve into ashes and by winds, remains an identity still? In ways perhaps eluding all the statements, lore, and speculations of ten thousand years-- eluding all possible statements to mortal sense--does he yet exist, a definite, vital being, a spirit, an individual--perhaps now wafted in space among those stellar systems, which, suggestive and limitless as they are, merely edge more limitless, far more suggestive systems? [*run in*] I have no doubt of it. In silence, of a fine night, such questions are answer[e]d to the the soul, the best answers that can be given. With me too, when depress[e]d by some specially sad event, or tearing problem, I wait till I go out under the stars for the last voiceless satisfaction. [Walt Whitman]251 [*Nouh ital*] Later thoughts and Jottings Cah Lend Carlyle from American point of view.- There is surely at present an inexplicable rapport [inexpled] (all the more piquant [bec] from its contradictoriness.) between that deceased [dead] author [and America -] [the] our United States of America in no matter whether it lasts, or not. [* *note*] As we [here] Westerners assume definite shape, [and] and [begin to] result in formations and fruitage unknown before, ti is curious with what a new sense [the] our eyes [of one thought last wer] turn to respresentative outgrowths of crises and personages in [Europe] the Old World. [And now] Beyond [you] question, since Carlyle's death and the publication of Frounde's [books] memoirs, not only the interest in his books but every [thing personally] personal [matter] bits regarding the famous Scotchman - his dys.252 pepsia, his buffetings, his parentage, his paragon of a wife, his career in Edinburgh, in the lonesome nest on Craigenputlock moor and then so many years in London - are probably wider and livelier to-day in [these United States] this country than in his own land. [and with no present appearance of Domination]. [*run in*] Whether I succeed or no, I too rushing across the Atlantic and taking [Carlyles] the man's dark fortune telling of humanity and politics [will] would offset it all, (such is the fancy taht come to me.) by a far [profous] more profouns [horoscope caster] - horoscope casting of [the same] those themes - G. F. Hegel's.- [* * note*] [with reference to current occasions and days here in America. [* *note*]](to page 251 copy) nole+bottom of page It will be difficult for the future – judging by his books, personal Dis-sympathies , etc., to account for the deep hold the author has take on the present age in the way he has colored its method and thought. I am certainly at a lose to account for it all, as affecting myself. But there could be no [?] view, or even partial picture, of the middle and latter part of our Nineteenth century that did not markedly include Thomas Carlyle. In his case (as to many others, literary productions, works of art, personal [?] events.) There has been an impalpable something more effective than the palpable. Then I find no better text, (it is always important to have a definite special, even oppositional living man to start from.) to bar seeing out certain speculations and comparisons, for home use. Let us see what they amount to – those reactionary doctrines, fears, mournful analyses of democracy – even from the most erudite and sincere mind of Europe[*Note at bottom [page 2 U.S.] of page smaller type*] [*(to page 252 copy)*] * * Not the least mentionable part [*note*] of the [matter], case, ([a touch x] a streak, it may be of that humor [almost the coni,] with which [life and] history and fate love to [streak and] contrast their gravity.) is that although neither of [those day] my great authorities [dur] during their lives considered the United States worthy of serious mention, all the principal works of both [authorities] might [this day] not inappropriately be this day collected and bound up under the conspicuous title, [*ital:*] "Speculations for the use of [the United States of] North America, and Democracy there, with the relation of the same to Metaphysics, including Lessons and Warning (encouragements too and of the vastest.) from the Old World to the New."253 ¶ First, about a chance, a never = fulfill'd vacinity of this pale cast of thought - this [H new Brit] British Hamlet from Cheyne Row, more puzzling than the [old] Danish one, [perhaps and is thought,] with his contrivances for settling the broken and sprained joints of [the] [world,] the world's government, especially to [ones] democratic dislocations. Carlyle's grim fate was cast [cast] to live and we'll in, and [himself] largely [represent and] embody. [himself.] the parturition agony and qualms of the old order, amid crowded accumulations of ghastly morbidity, giving birth to the new. But conceive of him, (or his parents before him,) coming to America, recuperated by the cheering realities and activity of our people and country - growing up and delving face-to-face resolutely among us here, especially at the West - in haling and exhaling our limitless air and [s] eligibilities - devoting his mind to the theories and developments of this [New World] Republic amid its practical facts as exemplified in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, [Canada], [Texas and California.] Tennesse or Louisiana. I say facts, and face-to-face confrontings - so different from books and all those gruddities and mere reports in the[4] 254 libraris, upon which [Carlyle], the man, (it was wittily said of him at the age of 30. that there was no [man] one in Scotland who [knew] had glean'd so much and [had] seen so little,) [upon which Carlyle] almost wholly fed, and which even his sturdy and vital mind but reflected at best. ¶ Something of the sort [indeed] it seems narrowly escaped happening. In 1835. after more than a dozen years of trial and non=success, the author of "Sartor Resartus," [lately removed] removing to London, very poor, a confirmed hypochondriac, [Sator Resartus] "Sartor" universally scoffed at, no literary prospects ahead, deliberately [resolved] settled on one last casting - throw of the literary dice - resolved to compose and launch forth a book on the subject of the French Revolution - and if that won no [more] higher guerdon or prize than hitherto, to sternly abandon the trade of author forever, and emigrate for good to America. But the venture turn[e]'d out a lucky one, and there was no emigration. 255 [*5*] Walker ¶ Carlyle's work [and service] as he commences and carries it out in the sphere of literature is the same in one or two leading respects that Emmanuel Kant's was in speculative philosophy. But the Scotchman had non of the stomachie phlegm and [abstract] never perturbed placability of the Koninsberg sage, and did no like the latter, perfectly, understand himself and his own limits, and stop when he got to the end of them. He clears away jungle and poison vines and underbrush – at any rate hacks valiantly at them, smiting lip and thigh. Kant did the like in his sphere, and it was all he professed to do; his labors have left the ground fully prepared ever since – and greater service was probably never performed by mortal man. But the pang and hiatus of Carlyle seem to me to consist in the evidence every where that amid a whirl of fog and fury and[all page 6 of MS] [note bottom of page smaller type] [note to page 255 copy] note *I hope [in the article "Specimen"] I shall not myself fall into the error I charge upon him of prescribing [a medicine] a specific for indispensable evils. My utmost pretension probably but to offset [has] that old claim of the exclusive curative power of first class individual men as leaders and rulers, by the claims and general movement and result of ideas. Something of the latter kind seems to me the instructive theory of [the modern] and of the modern of American [and] of Democracy, – or rather, I should say, it is Democracy, and is the modern.256 [6] cross-purposes he firmly believed he had a clue to the [cure] medication of the world's [miseries] ills, and that his bounden mission was to exploit it. * note ¶ There were two anchors, on sheet: anchors for steadying, as a last resort, the Carlylean ship. One will be specified presently. The other, perhaps the main, was only to be found in some marked257 [7] form of personal force [exceptional] an extreme degree of competent urge and will, a man or men "born to command." Probably there ran through every vein and current of [Carlyles] the Scotchman's blood something that warmed up to this kind of trait and character above aught else in the world and which makes him in my opinion the chief celebrater and promulger of it in literature--more than Plutarch, more than [Shakespeare] Shakspere. The great masses of humanity stand for nothing--at least nothing but nebulous raw material & only the big planets and shining suns for him. To ideas almost invariably languid or cold a number one forceful [man] personality was sure to rouse his eulogistic passion and savage joy. In such a case [and for him], even the [great] standard of duty herein, after raised, [could be] was to be instantly lowered and258 [8] vailed. All that is comprehended under the terms Republicanism and Democracy, were distasteful to him from the first, and as he grew older they became hateful and contemptible. For an undoubtedly candid and penetrating faculty such as his, the bearings he persistently ignored were marvellous. For instance, the promise, nay certainty of the democratic principle, to each and every State of the current world, not so much of helping it to perfect legislators and executives but as the only effective method for surely, however slowly, training people on a large scale toward voluntarily ruling and managing themselves (the ultimate aim of the political and all other development)--to gradually reduce the fact of governing to its minimum and to subject all its staffs and their doings to the telescopes and microscopes of committees and parties--and greatest of all to afford (not stagnation obedient and content which went well enough with the feudalism259 [9] and ecclesiasticism of the antique and medieval world, but a vast and sane and recurrent ebb and tide action for those floods of the great deep that have henceforth palpably burst forever their old bounds--seem never to have entered Carlyle's thought. It was splendid how he refused any compromise to the last. He was curiously antique. In that harsh, picturesque and most potent voice and figure one seems to be carried back from the present of the British Islands more than two thousand years, to the range between Jerusalem and Tarsus. His fullest best biographer justly says of him, He was a teacher and a prophet, in the Jewish sense of the word. The prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah have become a part of the permanent spiritual inheritance of mankind, because events proved that they had interpreted correctly the signs of their own times, and their prophecies were fulfilled. Carlyle, like them, believed that he had a special message to deliver to the present age. Whether he was correct in that belief, and whether his message was a true message, remains to be seen. He has told us that our most cherished ideas of political liberty, with their kindred corollaries, are mere illusions, and that progress which has seemed to go along with them is a progress towards anarchy and social dissolution. If he was wrong, he has misused his powers. The guide upon a road of which he had no knowledge; and his own desire for himself would be the speediest oblivion both of his person and his works. If, on the other hand, he has been right; if, like his great predecessors, he has read truly the tendencies of this modern age of ours, and his teaching is authenticated by facts, then Carlyle, too, will take his place among the inspired seers, and [smaller type] brev.260 [10] To which I add an amendment that under no circumstances, and no matter how completely time and events disprove his lurid vaticinations should the English-speaking world forget this man nor fail to hold in honor his unsurpassed conscience, his unique method, and his honest fame. Never were convictions more earnest and genuine. Never was there less of a flunkey or temporiser. Never had political progressivism a foe it could more heartily respect. ¶ The second main point of Carlyle's utterance was the idea of duty being done. (It is simply a new codicil--if it be particularly new which is by no means certain--on the time-honored bequest of dynasticism, the mould-eaten rules of legitimacy and kings.) He seems to have been261 [11] impatient sometimes to madness when reminded by persons who thought at least as deeply as himself, that this formula, though precious, is rather a vague one, and that there are many other considerations to a philosophical estimate of each and every department either in general history or individual affairs. ¶ Altogether I don't know any thing more amazing than these persistent strides and throbbings so far through our Nineteenth Century, of perhaps its biggest, sharpest, most erudite brain, in defiance and discontent with everything, contemptuously ignoring, (either from constitutional inaptitude, ignorance itself or more likely because he demanded a definite cure-all here and now,) the only solace and solvent to be had. 262 [12] ¶ There is [-----------] apart from mere, intellect, in the make-up of every superior human identity (in its moral completeness considered as ensemble not for that moral alone, but for the whole being, including physique,) a wondrous something that realizes, without argument, frequently without what is called education, (though I think it the goal and apex of all education deserving the name) — an intuition of the absolute balance in time and space, of the whole of this multifarious, hoggishness—this revel of fools, and incredible make-believe and general unsettledness we call the world; a soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things, all history and time, and all events however trivial, however momentous, like a leashed dog in the hand of the hunter. 263 [13] run in Such soul-sight and root-centre for the mind--mere optimism explains only the surface or fringe of it-- Carlyle was mostly perhaps entirely, without: He seems instead to have been haunted in the play of his mental action by a spectre, never entirely laid from first to last, (Greek scholars, I believe find the same mocking and fantastic apparition attending Aristophanes his comedies,)--the spectre of world-destruction. ¶ How largest triumph or failure in human life in war or peace, may depend on some little hidden centrality-- hardly more than a drop of blood a pulse-beat or a breath of air! It is certain that all these weighty matters, democracy in America, Carlylism, and the temperament for deepest political or literary exploration, turn on a simple point in speculative philosophy. [-----------------][*30*] 264 [*14*] ¶ The most profound theme that can occupy the mind of man--the problem on whose solution science, art, the bases and pursuits of nations and everything else, including intelligent human happiness (here to-day, 1882, New York, Texas, California, the same as all times, all lands,) subtly and finally resting, depends for competent outset and argument is doubtless involved in the query: What is the fusing explanation and tie--What the relation between the (radical Democratic) Me, the human identity of understanding, emotions, spirit, &c, on the one side, of and with the (conservative) Not Me, the whole of the material objective universe and laws, with what is behind them in time and space on the other side? Immanuel Kant though he explained, or partially explained, as may be said, the laws of the human understanding left this question an[*31*] 265 [*15*] open one. Schelling's answer or suggestion of answer is, (and very valuable and important, as far as it goes,) that the same general and particular intelligence passion, even the standards of right and wrong, which exist in a conscious and formulative state in man, exist in an unconscious state, or imperceptible analogies, throughout the entire universe of external Nature, in all its objects large or small, and all its movements and processes-- thus making the unpalpable human mind and concrete Nature, notwithstanding their quality and convertibles, and in centrality--and essence one. But Heyels fuller statement of the matter probably remains the last best word that has been said upon it up to date. Substantially[*32*] 266 [*16*] adopting the schema just epitomised, he so carries it out and fortifies it and merges everything in it with certain serious gaps now for the first time filled, that it becomes a coherent metaphysical system and substantial answer (as far as there can be an answer) to the foregoing question--a system which, while I distinctly admit that the brain of the future may add to revise, and even entirely reconstruct it at any rate learns for the to-day, in its entirety, illuminating the thought of the universe and satisfying the mystery thereof to the human mind, with a more consoling scientific assurance than any yet.[33] 267 Foosett ¶ According to Hegel the whole earth (an old nucleus – thought, as in the Vedas, and no doubt before, but neve hitherto brought so absolutely to the front a full [?] charged with modern scientism and facts, and made the sole entrance to each and all,) [the cosmos] with its infinite variety, [history], the past, the [facts around us] surroundings of today or what may happen in the future, [or] the contrarieties of material with spiritual and of [or] natural with artificial are all to the eye of [philosophy] the esemblist but nesessary sides and unfoldings different steps or links, in the endless process of creative thought, which amid numberless apparent failures and contradictions is really held together by central and never-broken unity – not contradictions or failure at all, but radiations of one consistent and [divine] eternal purpose; [In the moral world especially according to Hegel.] The whole mass of everything steadily (involuntarily][34] 268 [18] unerringly tending and flowing toward the permanent utile and morale as rivers to oceans. As life in the whole law and incessant effort of the visible universe and death [is really] only the other or invisible side of the same, so the utile so truth so health are the unseeing but immutable laws of the moral universe and vice and disease with all their perturbations are but [the] transient even if ever so prevalent expressions. ¶ So politics throughout Hegel applies the same like catholic standard of and [ensemble and] faith. Not any one part, nor any one form of government is absolutely and exclusively true. Truth consists in the just relations of objects to each other. A majority or democracy may rule as outrageously and so as great harm as and oligarchy or despotism – though far less likely to do so. But the great[55] 269 [18] evil is either a violation of the relations just referred to or of the moral law. The specious, the unjust and what is called the unnatural the cruel though not only permittes but in a certain sense (like shade to light,) [or desire to health] inevitable in the divine scheme are by the whole constitution of that scheme, partial inconsistent temporary and though having ever so great an ostensible majority – [they] are certainly destined to failure after causing great suffering. ¶Theology Hegel translates into science. [*note I am most indebted to the J. Gostick's abstract] [In] All the apparent contradictions in the statement of the Deific nature by different ages, nations, [devotees], churches points of view are [to be] [considered as] but fractional and imperfect expressions of one essential unity from which they all proceed [as] crude endeavors o distorted parts, to be regarded both as distinct and united. In short ( to put it in [note brev.] 270 [20] our own form, or summing up, that [cosmical] thinker or analyzer or over looker who by an inscrutible combination trained of wisdom and nature intuition most fully accepts in perfect faith the moral unity and sanity of the creature scheme in history, science, and all life and time, present and future, is both the truest cosmical devotee or religioso, and the profoundest philosopher while he who by the spell of himself and his circumstances sees[only] darkness and despair in the sum of the workings of God's providence, and who in that, denies or prevaricates is no [mush] matter how much piety plays on his lips, is the most radical sinner and infidel.* Note [to page 21 ???] (to page 271 copy) smaller type -(bottom of page I have deliberately repeated it all, [this] not only in offset to Carlyle's ever : lurking pessimism and world decadence, but, as presenting the most thoroughly American points of [?] view I know. In my opinion [those] the above formulas of Hegel are an essential and crowning justification of [American] New World [D]emocracy in the creative realms of time and space. There is that about them [that] which only, the vastness, the multiplicity and the vitality of America would seem able to comprehend, [to be fit f] to give scope and illustration to, or to be fit for, or even originate. It is strange to me that they were born in Germany, or in the old world at all. While a Carlyle, I should say, is quite the legitimate European product to be expected. 271 [21] ¶ I am the more assured in recounting Hegel a little freely here, *note not only for offsetting the Carlylean letter and spirit -- cutting it out all and several from the very roots, and below the roots -- but to counterpoise, since the late death and deserved [ape of] apotheosis of Darwin, the tenets of the evolutionists. Unspeakably precious as those are to biology, and henceforth indispensable to a right aim and estimate in [every] study, they neither, comprise nor explain everything, and the last word or whisper still remains to be breathed, after the utmost of those claims [and] floating high and forever above them all, and above technical metaphysics, [Let me go even a little further] While the contributions, [of] which [the] German Kant and Fichte and Schelling and Hegel have bequeath'd to humanity -- and which [the] English Darwin has [too] also 272 [22] in his field -- are indispensable to the erudition of [the] America's future I should say that in all of them and the best of them, when compared with the lightning flashes and flights of the old prophets and exaltés, the spiritual poets and poetry of all lands, (as in the Hebrew Bible,) there seems to be, nay certainly is, something lacking [even in Hegel's and Darwin's philosophy] -- something cold, a failure to satisfy the deepest emotions of the soul -- a [c] want of living glow, fondness, warmth, which the old exaltés and poets supply, and which the keenest modern philosophers so far do not.[23] 273 ¶Upon the whole, and for the purpose, this [This man ?] man's name certainly belongs on the list with the [great just named greatest] just specified first class moral physicians of our [the] current [our] era—[with] [Kant, Hegel, Darwin, Emerson], and with Emerson and two or three others—though his prescription in oratic and perhaps destructive, while theirs is assimilating normal and tonic. Feudal at the core, and mental offspring and radiation of feudalism as [they] are his books they afford [most] ever valuable lessons, and [even] affinities to democratic America, nations or individuals we surely learn [our] deepest [lessons] from unlikeness, from a sincere opponent from the light thrown even scornfully [moralessly] or dangerous spots and liabilities (Michael Angelo invoke Heaven's special protection [mainly] against his friends and affectionate flatterers [? haller] palpable foes he could manage for himself. [run in next][although neither of those great authorities considered the mention of the United States worth of mention except in the most casual and far off way, and one of them certainly considered it[run in] 274 24 In many particulars Carlyle [?] [Thomas Carlyle] was indeed, as Froude terms him, one of those far off Hebraic utterers, [are unloosen] a new Micah or Habakkuk. His words at time bubble forth with [genuine] abysmis inspiration. Always precious, [such urgent] such men; [?] as precious now as any time. [Such] is rude rasping taunting, contradictory tones— what ones are more wanted amid the supple polished, [flunkey] monkey worshipping Jesus and Judas equalizing suffrage sovereignty [averaging] echoes of [our] [Nineteenth in] current America? [No] [such influence had yet appeared in English literature almost announcing a new order of power.] [25] 275 [*run in)*] [// Thomas Coolyle 2 shoule] [ay] He has lit up our Nineteenth Century with the light of a powerful, penetrating and perfectly honest intellect of the first class turn[e]'d on British and European politics, social life, literature, and representative personages. [merciilessly exposing the illness of all the] thoroughly dissatisfied with all, and mercilessly exposing the illness of all. But while he announces the [disease] malady, and scolds and raves about it, he himself born and bred in the same atmosphere [of it] is [in more than one sense] a mark[e]'d illustration of [the] it. [malady.] [Walt Whitman] [*next page is 275 1/2*]275 1/2 Foster [*cap head*] A couple of old friends - a coleridge bit. [Mid] Latter April. - Have run down in my country haunt for a couple of days, and am spending [most of] them by the pond. I had already discovered my kingfisher here - (but only one-- [for there are two, I have noticed three] the mute [is] not here yet.) [summers past).] This fine bright morning, [as I am] down by the creek, he has come out for a spree, circling, flirting, chirping at a round rate. While I am writing these lines he is disporting himself in scoots and rings over the wider parts of the pond, into whose surface he dashes, once or twice, making a loud souse--the spray flying in the sun,-- beautiful ! I saw his white and dark-gray plumage and peculiar shape plainly, as he has deigned to come very near me. The noble, graceful bird ! Now he is sitting on the limb of an old tree, high up, bending over the water--seems to be looking at me while I memorandize. I almost fancy he knows me. [*run in*] Three Days Later.--My second kingfisher is here with his (or her) mate. I saw the two together flying and whirling around. I had heard, in the distance, what I thought was the clear, rasping staccato of the birds, several times already--but I couldn't be sure the notes came from both until I saw them together. To-day, at noon, they appeared, but apparently either on business or for a little limited exercise only. No wild frolic now full of free fun and motion, up and down, for an hour. Doubtless, now they have cares, duties, incubation responsibilities. The frolics are deferred till summer-close. ¶ I don't know as I can finish to-day's memorandian [my rendition] [let piece] better than with collridges lines, curiously appropriate in more ways than one: [*brev:*] All Nature seems at work - slugs leave their lair The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing, And winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring; And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.A week visit to Boston May 1, '81 Seems as if all the ways and means of American travel today had been settled, not only with reference to speed and directness, but for the comfort of women, children, invalids, and old fellows like me. I went on by a through train that runs daily from Washington to the Yankee metropolis without change. You get in a sleeping-car soon after dark in Philadelphia, and after ruminating an hour or two, have your bed made up if you like, draw the curtains, and go to sleep in it- fly on through Jersey to New York- hear in your half-slumbers a dull jolting and bumping sound or two -are unconsciously toted from Jersey city by a midnight steamer around the Battery and under the big bridge to the track of the New Haven road- resume your flight eastward, and early the next morning you wake up in Boston. All of which was my experience. I wanted to go to the Revere house. A tall unknown gentleman (a fellow-passenger on his way to Newport, he told me- I had just chatted a few moments before with him) assisted me out through the depot crowd, procured a hack, put me in it with my traveling bag, saying smilingly and quietly, "Now I want you to let this be my ride," paid the driver, and before I could remonstrate bow'd himself off. The occasion of my jaunt, I suppose I had better say here, was for a public hearing of "the death of Abraham Lincoln" essay, on the sixteenth anniversary of that tragedy; which reading duly came off, night of April 15. Then I lingered a week in Boston- felt pretty well (the mood propitious, my paralysis lulled)- went around everywhere and saw all that was to be seen, especially human beings. Boston's immense material growth- commerce, finance, commission stores, the plethora of goods, the crowded streets and sidewalks -made of course the first surprising show. In my trip out West, I thought the wand of future prosperity, future empire, must soon surely be wielded by St. Louis, Chicago, beautiful Denver, perhaps San Francisco; but I see the said wand stretch'd out just as decidedly in Boston with just as much certainty of staying; evidences of copious capital- indeed no centre of the New World ahead of it (half the big railroads in the west are built with Yankees' money, and they take the dividends) -new Boston with its miles upon miles of large and costly houses- Beacon street, Commonwealth avenue, and a hundred others. But the best new departures and expansions of Boston, and of all the cities of New England, are in another direction. TheIn the letters we get from Dr. Schliemann (interesting, but fishy) about his excavations there in the far Homeric area, I notice cities, ruins, as he digs them out of their graves, are certain to be in layers, that is to say upon the foundation of an old concern, very far down indeed, is always another city or set of ruins, and upon that another superadded- and sometimes upon that still another- each representing either a long or rapid stage of growth and development, different from its predecessor, but unerringly growing out of and resting on it. In the moral, emotional, heroic, and human growths (the main of a race, in my opinion), something of this kind has certainly taken place in Boston. The New England metropolis of to-day may be described as sunny (the is something else that makes warmth, mastering even winds and meteorologies, though those are not to be sneez'd at), joyous, receptive, full of ardor, sparkle, a certain element of yearning, magnificently tolerant, yet not to be fool'd; fond of good eating and drinking- costly in costume as its purse can buy; and all through its best average of houses; streets, people, that subtle something (generally thought to be climate, but it is not- it is something indefinable in the race, the turn of its development) which effuses behind the whirl of animation, study, business, a happy and joyous public spirit, as distinguished from a sluggish and saturnine one. Makes me think of the glints we get (as in Symonds's books) of the jolly old Greek cities. Indeed there is a good deal of the Hellenic in B:, and the people are getting handsomer too- padded out, with freer motions, and with color in their faces. I never saw (although this is not Greek) so many fine-looking grey-haired women. At my lecture I caught myself pausing more than once to look at them, plentiful everywhere through the audience- healthy and wifely and motherly, and wonderfully charming and beautiful- I think such as no time or land but ours could show. My tribute to four poets. April 16. - A short but pleasant visit to Longfellow. I am not one of the calling kind, but as the author of Evangeline kindly took the trouble to come and see me three years ago in Camden, where I was ill, I felt not only the impulse of my own pleasure, on that occasion, but a duty. He was the only particular eminence I called on in Boston, and I shall not soon forget his lit-up face and glowing warmth and courtesy, in the modes of what is called the old school. I did not see Emerson, and I have never seen Whittier. I found Mr. Longfellow troubled by neuralgia, but free from it just at the hour of my visit. The good, gentle, handsome old man- the true poet! And now just here I feel the impulse to interpolate something about the mighty four who stamp this first American century with its birth-marks of poetic literature. In a late magazine one of my reviewers, who ought to know better, speaks of my "attitude of contempt, and scorn, and intolerance" toward the leading poets- of my "deriding" them, and preaching their "uselessness." If anybody cares to know what I think- and have long thought and avow'd- about them, I am entirely willing to propound. I can't imagine any better luck befalling these States for a poetical beginning and initiation, than has come from Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. Emerson, to me, stands unmistakably at the head, but for the others I am at a loss where to give any precedence. Each illustrious, each rounded, each distinctive. Emerson for his sweet, vital-tasting melody, rhym'd philosophy and poems as amber-clear as the honey of the wild bee he loves to sing. Longfellow for the rich color, graceful forms and incidents- all that makes life beautiful and love refined- competing with the singers of Europe on their own ground, and, with one exception, better and finer work than that of any of them. Bryant pulsing the first interior verse-throbs of a mighty world - bard of the river and the wood, ever conveying a taste of open air, with scents as from hay-fields, grapes, birch- borders- always lurkingly fond of threnodies- beginning and ending his long career with chants of death, with here and there, through all, poems, or passages of poems, touching the highest universal truths, enthusiasms, duties- morals as grim and eternal, if not as stormy and fateful, as anything in Eschylus. While in Whittier, with his special themes- his outcroping love of heroism and war, for all his Quakerdom- his verses at times like the measur'd step of Cromwell's old veterans- in Whittier lives the zeal, the moral energy, that founded New England- the splendid rectitude and ardor of Luther, Milton, George Fox- I must not, dare not, say the wilfulness and narrowness- though doubtless the world needs now, and always will need, almost above all, just such narrowness and wilfulness. April 18. -Went out three or four miles to the house of Quincy Shaw, to see a collection of J. F. Millet's pictures. Two rapt hours. Never before have I been so penetrated by this kind of expression. I stood long and long before "the Sower", I believe, what the picture-men designate "the first Sower," as the artist executed a second copy, and a third, and, some think, improved in each. But I doubt it. There is something in this that could hardly be caught again- a sublime murkiness and original pent fury. Besides this masterpiece there were many others (I shall never forget the simple evening scene, "Watering the Cow"), all inimitable, all perfect as pictures, works of mere art; and then it seemed to me, with that last impalpable ethic purpose form the artist (most likely unconscious to himself) which I am always looking for. To me all of them told the full story of what went before and necessitated the great French Revolution- the long precedent crushing of the masses of a heroic people into the earth, in abject poverty, hunger- every right denied, humanity attempted to be put back for generations- yet Nature's force, Titanic here, the stronger and hardier for that repression- waiting terribly to break forth, revengeful- the pressure on the dykes, and the bursting at last- the storming of the Bastile- the execution of the king and queen- the tempest of massacres and blood. Yet who can wonder? Could we wish humanity different? Could we wish the people made of wood or stone? Or that there be no justice in destiny or time? The true France base of all the rest, is certainly in these pictures. I comprehend "Field-People Reposing," "the Diggers," and " the Angelus" in this opinion. Some folks always think of the French as a small race, five or five and a half feet high, and ever frivolous and smirking. Nothing of the sort. The bulk of the personnel of France, before the revolution, was large-sized, serious, industrious as now, and simple. The revolution and Napoleon's wars dwarf'd the standard of human size, but it will come up again. If for nothing else, I should dwell on my brief Boston visit for opening to me the new world of Millet's pictures. Will America ever have such an artist out of her own gestation, body, soul? Sunday, April 17. - There are little episodes in life's experience which you cannot define, or say how it is they do affect you; yet they filter into one's heart, and tinge its blood forever. Such was an hour and a half, late this afternoon, in silence and half light, in the great nave of Memorial Hall, Cambridge, the walls thickly cover'd with mural tablets, bearing the names of the students and graduates of the University who fell in the secession war. It was well I got away in fair order, for if I had staid another week I should have been killed with kindness, and with eating and drinking. Birds - and a caution May 14 - Home again; Down Temporary in the Jersey woods (between 8 and 9 am, in the woods; A full concert of birds from different quarters in keeping with the fresh scent. The peace. The naturalness all around me. Away the birds are lately noticing the sunset back, he is almost the size of the robin, or trifle less, light breast and shoulders, with irregular 281 [213 266] Dark stripes—tail long— sits hunched up by they hour these days, [by the hour on the] top [sprig] of a tall brush or some tree singing blithely. I often get near and listen as he seems tame; I like to watch the working of his bill and throat [and] the quaint sidle of his body, and flex of his long tail. I hear the woodpecker, and nightly and early mornings the shuttle of the whip poor will [nights and early mornings], [the cluck of the robin may the] noons the gurgle of thrush delicious and meo-o-ow of the cat bird many I cannot name; but I do not very particularly seek information. You must not know too too precise or scientific much or be about birds and trees and flowers and water craft; a certain free margin and even vagueness perhaps ignorance, credulity, helps your enjoyment [of the sentiment] of these282 214 257 [Things?] and of the sentiment of feathered wooded, and and river or marine Nature generally. I repeat it- don't want to know- too much or too exactly, or the reason why. My own notes have been written off-hand in the latitude of middle New Jer- sey, though they describe what I saw- what appeared to me- I dare say the expert ornithologist, botanist or entomologist will detect more than one slip in them. [cells head?] Samples of my common place book. I ought not to offer this record of these days, interests, renuberations, without including a certain x old, well thumb'd common place book, filled with favorite excerpts, carried in my pocket for three summers, absorb'd over and over again, when the mood was invited. I find so much in having a poem or fine suggestion sink into me (and a little then goes a great ways) prepared by these vacant same and natural influences[*All these four leaves (mark'd * p 282 copy) form a big note - (will probably have to spread wider 3 perhaps 4. pages) - the red lines divide the ¶'s and need a lead each - (Brev: bottom of pages)*] [*note * ital*] Samples of my common place bood down at the crack: ¶ I have [said old] - says old Pindar - many swift arrows in my quiver which speak [clearly] to the wise though they need an interpreter to the thoughtless. ¶ Such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand. #2 Thoreau [*a lead*] ¶ If you hate a man dont kill him but let him live. Buddhistic. [*a lead*] ¶ Famous swords are made of refuse scraps, thought worthless. [*a lead to every [red line] red line*] ¶ Poetry is the only verity--the expression of a sound mind speaking after the ideal, and not after the apparent. - Emerson ¶ The only form of oath among the Shoshone Indians is, "The earth hears me. The sun hears me. Shall I lie?" ¶ The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops--no, but the kind of a man the country turns out. Emerson The whole wide ether is the eagle's way: The whole earth is a brave man's fatherland. Euripides Spices crush'd their pungense yield, Trodden scents their sweets respire; Would you have its strength reveal'd Cast the incense in the fire. A mighty pain to love it is And it is a pain that pain to mix; But of all pain the greatest pain It is to love, but love in vain - The wind blows north, the wind blows south, The wind blows east and west : No matter how the free wind blow[,]s, Some ship will find it best;2d N Note * 282 Copy (Brev Preach not I to others what my should eat, but eat as becomes you, & be silent." Epictetus Victor Hugo, makes a donkey meditate and apostrophise [translate] thus: My brother, man, if you would know the truth, We both are by the same dull walls shut in; The gate is massive and the dungeon strong. But you look through the key-hole out beyond And call this knowledge; yet have not at hand The key wherewith to turn the fatal lock. William Cullen Bryant surprised 'me once," says Stoddard, "by saying that 'prose was the natural language of composition, 'and he wondered how anybody came to write 'poetry." (relates or written in a New York paper) Farewell! I did not know thy worth; But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized: So angels walked unknown on earth. But when they flew were recognised. Hood. John Burroughs writing of Thoreau says: He improves with age--in fact re- quires age to take off a little of his asperity and fully ripen him. The world likes a good hater and refuses almost as well as it likes a good lover and accepter only it likes him farther off.[*3d p note - * p 282 copy Brevi Matthew Arnold [say 's] speaks of "The huge Mississippi of falsehood called History." Louise Michel at the burial of Blanqui, (1881) Blanqui drilled his body to subjection to his grand conscience and his noble passions, and commerce as a young man broke [in youth] with all that is sybaritish in modern civilization. Without the power to sacrifice self, great ideas will never bear fruit. Out of the leaping furnace flame A mass of molten silver came; Then, beaten into pieces three, Went forth to meet its destiny. The first a crucifix was made, Within a soldier's knapsack laid; The second was a locket fair, Where a mother kept her dead child's hair; The third--a bangle, bright and warm, Around a faithless woman's arm. Maurice F Egan on De Guérin. A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he, He follow[e]'d Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed, Till earth and heaven met within his breast : As if Theocritus in Sicily Had come upon the Figure crucified And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest. And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me, Is. Leave the mind that now I bear, And give me Liberty. Emily Brontë.[*4th p note p 282 copy Brev: I travel on not knowing, I would not if I might; I would rather walk with God in the dark, Than go alone in the light; I would rather walk with Him by faith Then pick my way by sight Prof Huseley in a late lecture. I myself agree with the sentiment of Thomas Hobbes of Malmebury that "the scope of all 5 peanlution is the performance of some action or thing to be done." I have not any very great respect for, or interest in, mere "Knowing", as such. Prince Metternich Napoleon was of all men in the world the one who most profoundly despised the [human] race. He had a marvelous insight into the weaker sides of human nature, (and all our passions are either foibles themselves or the cause of foibles.) [* * * He had a habit of telling me the most tremendous whoppers. I always let him go to the end and contented myself when he got through with saying, "That is not so." He would look steadily at me, burst out laughing, and turn off, saying, "Sono bugie per i Parigini" - they are bams for the Parisians. [*run in*] All may be said in to word. Napoleon] He was a very small man of imposing character. He was ignorant, as a sub-lieutenant generally is: a remarkable instinct supplied the lack of knowledge. From his mean opinion of men he never had any anxiety lest he should go wrong. He ventur[e]'d everything, and gain[e]'d thereby an immense step toward success. Throwing himself upon a prodigious arena, he amazed the world and made himself master of it, while others cannot even get so far as being masters of their own hearth. Then he went on and on until he broke his neck[*Fossett*] [*[215]*] [*283*] [*[258]*] [*cap head*] [*[Lorry [?] h &c.]*] [Off to] My native [Shores once more] sand and salt once more. [*sm caps & ital side [side] ital*] July 25, '81.--Far Rockaway, L. I. - A good day here on a jaunt amid the sand and salt, a steady breeze setting in from the sea, the sun shining, the sedge-odor, the noise of the surf, a mixture of hissing and booming, the milk-white crests curl -ing over. I had a leisurely bathe and naked ramble as of old, on the warm- gray shore-sands. [In a distant spot,] my companions off in a boat in deeper water - ( I shouting to them Jupiter's [threats to] menaces against the gods, from Pope's Homer.) July 28 - to Long Branch. - 9½ a.m., on the steamboat "Plymouth Rock," foot of 23d street, New York for Long Branch. Another fine day, fine sights, the shores, the shipping and bay - every thing comforting to the body and spirit of me, (I find the human and objective atmosphere of New York[,] City and Brooklyn [yet] more affiliative [to me] to me than any other.) An hour later - Still on the steamer, now sniffing the salt very plainly - the long pulsating swash as our boat [as she] steams sea-ward - the hills of Navesink and many passing vessels - the air the best part of all. [so] [pure of] At Long Branch [we had] the bulk of[*284*] [210] [259] the day, stopt at a good hotel, took it very leisurely, had an excellent dinner, and then drove for over two hours about the place, especially Ocean Avenue, the finest drive one can imagine, seven or eight miles right along the beach. In all directions costly villas, palaces, millionaires -- (but few among them I opine like my friend George W. Childs, whose personal integrity, generosity, unaffected simplicity --, go beyond all worldly wealth.)[*[Aug 15 '81]*] [* 285 [217] [260] *] [CITY NOTES IN AUGUST.] [LETTER FROM WALT WHITMAN. HOT WEATHER CONSOLATION—UPPER NEW-YORK— IDLING BY HARLEM RIVER—-"CUSTER'S LAST RALLY"—NEW TRAITS OF THE CITY.] [To the Editor of The Tribune.] [SIR :] [*cap head*] Hot weather New York. [*ital - side*] August. —In the big city awhile. [I] [*run in*] Even in [the] height of the dog-days there is a good deal of fun about New-York; if you only avoid fluster and take all the buoyant wholesomeness that offers. More comfort, too, than most folks think. A middle-aged man, with plenty of money in his pocket, tells me that he has been off for a month to all the swell places, has disburs'd a small fortune, has been hot and out of kilter everywhere, and has return'd home and lived in New-York city the last two weeks quite contented and happy. People forget when it is hot here [in the city] it is generally hotter still in other places. New-York is so situated, with the great ozonic brine on both sides, it comprises the most favorable health-chances in the world, (if only the suffocating crowding of some of its [living quarters and of the] tenement houses could be broken up.) [Go through those East Side streets that intersect the Bowery, or along Centre-st., any hot evening, and see the swarms and sweat interminably covering the stoops and curbstones. And yet they seem to be curiously jolly and hearty. UPPER TWO-THIRDS OF NEW-YORK.] [*run in*] I find I never sufficiently realized how beautiful are the upper two-thirds of Manhattan island. I am stopping at Mott Haven, and have been familiar now for ten days with the region above One-hundredth[-st.] street, [especially Mott ave.] and along the Harlem river and Washington heights. [*run in next*] [You get here by steam from Forty-fourth-st. in fifteen minutes, and the fare is but six cents. Real estate is pretty high though ; a nice corner plot, a hundred feet square, looking down on the river sixty rods off, they ask $11,000 for ! The city for miles is pleasantly varied and broken—the finest elms I have seen out of New-Haven, and many old oaks and other trees; nothing much of course in the farming line, but plenty of rural shows, gardens, flowers, lawns and small fruits. The August nights are cool and wonderfully bright here, with the harvest moon rising large and pale-yellow, and its plenteous sheen presently falling on water or shore, as we go out for an hour's rowing and floating in a boat.][* 286 [218] [261] *] [HARLEM RIVER AT SUNSET,] [aUG. 8.--] [*run in*] Am dwelling a few days with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. J., and a merry houseful of voting [young] ladies. Am putting the last touches on the printer's copy of my new volume of [poems] the "Leaves of Grass"--the completed book at last. Work at it two or three hours, and then go down and loaf along the Harlem [R]river ; have just had a [half afternoon] good spell of this recreation. The sun sufficiently veil[e]'d, a soft south breeze, the river full of small or large shells (light taper boats) darting up and down, some singly, now and then long ones with six or eight young fellows practising--very inspiriting sights. Two fine yachts lie anchor[e]'d off the shore. I linger long enjoying the sundown, the glow, the streak[e]'d sky, the heights, distances, shadows. [FORENOON RIVER SCENE.] [*ital side*] Aug. 10.--As I haltingly ramble an hour or two this forenoon by the more secluded parts of the shore, or sit under an old cedar half way up the hill, the city in near view, many young parties gather to bathe or swim, squads of boys, generally twos or threes, some larger ones, along the sand-bottom, or off an old pier close by. A peculiar and pretty carnival, at its height a hundred lads or young men, very democratic, but all decent behaving. The laughter, voices, calls, responses--the springing and diving the bathers from the great string-piece of the decay[e]'d pier, where climb or stand long ranks of them, naked, rose-color[e]'d with movements postures ahead of any sculpture. To all this, the sun, so bright, the dark-green shadow of the hills the other side, the amber-rolling waves, changing as the tide comes in to a transparent tea-color--the frequent splash of the playful boys, sousing--the glittering drops sparkling, and the good western breeze blowing. [*Walker Gal. 4*] "CUSTER'S LAST RALLY." [*brev: caps*] [I] W[w]ent to-day to see this just finish[e]'d painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far [Montana] Dakota on the spot at the [F]forts, and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two [or three] years on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. [I s]Sat for over an hour before the picture, completely absorb[e]'d in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a little time to get used to it. There are no tricks ; there is no throwing of shades in masses ; it is all at first painfully real, overwhelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish and detail, [life-size,] in the mid ground, with three times that number, or more, through the rest--swarms upon swarms of savage Sioux, in their war-bonnets, frantic, mostly on ponies, driving through the background, through the smoke, like a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonderful[,]. Although a [W]western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost [;] - nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakespeare ;] Shakspere ; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men brought to bay under terrible circumstances[.] - [D]death ahold of them, yet every man undaunted, not one losing his head, wringing out every cent of the pay before they sell their lives. [*run in next*][*287 [219] [262]*] [*run in*] Custer (his hair cut short) stands in the middle with dilated eye and extended arm, aiming a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, but aiming his carbine coolly, half kneeling (his body was afterward found close by Custer's). The slaughter[e]'d or half-slaughter[e]'d horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar feature. Two dead Indians, herculean, lied in the foreground clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimm[e]'d [W]western hats, the powder-smoke in puffs, the dying horses with their rolling eyes almost human in their agony, the clouds of war-bonneted Sioux in the background, the figures of Custer and Cook, with, indeed, the whole scene, [inexpressible,] dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain [fore or] in my memory. With all its color and fierce action a certain Greek continence pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light envelop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western. [*run in*] I only saw it for an hour or so ; but it needs to be seen many times--needs to be studied over and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring[.] ; [I]it is very tonic to me[.] ; [T]then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all great art must have. [*run in*] The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk[e]'d of. I advised him if it went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there--nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others. [Altogether, "Custer's [L]last [R]rally " is one of the very few attempts at deliberate artistic expression for our land and people, on a pretty ambitious standard and programme that impress[e]'d me as filling the bill.] [COSTOPOLIFANISM.] [*[¶ Aug 15.] I get around Manhattan Island more or less every day--get down in the city on Broadway or to the ferries--have gone once or twice to Brooklyn--wherever humanity is most copious and significant--let it all filter into me. The amelloration, superior growth, expansion, robustness, sympathy, good-natured universality, I noted two years ago as prevailing characteristics of average New-York everywhere are confirmed by this visit. New York loves crowds and I do too. [I can no more get along without houses, civilization, aggregation of humanity, meetings, hotels, theatres, than I can get along without food. Have, I, too, somewhere in my writings been shallow enough to speak of living absolutely alone ? of how good it were to hear nothing but silent Nature in woods, mountains far recesses ? to see no tormenting sights, reeking presence of men, women, children? Ah, the permanent mood for one's clear and normal hours refuses such philosophy--such absence of philosophy rather. W.W. Mott Haven, Aug. 13, 1881.][* [263] 288 [370] *] [? and] [*Foster*] Some Old acquaintances' memories. [*side ital*] Aug: 16.--"Chalk a big mark for to-day!" was one of the [dry] sayings of an old sportsman-friend of mine, when he had had unusually good luck - come home thoroughly tired, but with satisfactory results of fish or birds. Well, to-day might [have] warrant such a mark for me. Every thing propitions from the start. An hour's fresh [motion] stimulation, coming down 10 miles of Manhattan Island by railroad and 8 o'clock stage. Then an excellent breakfast at Pfaffs restaurant, 24th street. Our host himself an old friend of mine, quickly appear[e]'d on the scene to welcome me and bring up the news, and (first opening a big fat bottle of the best [champagne] wine in the cellar,) talk about [old] ante-bellum times '59 and '60 and the jovial suppers at [the old] his then Broadway place near Bleecker street. Ah, The [old times - the] friends and names, and frequenters, [of[ those times, that place. Most are dead - Ada Clare, Wilkins, Daisy Sheppard, O'Brien, Henry Clapp, Shanley, Mullin, Wood, Brougham, Arnold - all gone. And there Pfaff and I, [I] sitting opposite each other at [on] the little table. gave a rememberance to them in a style they would have themselves fully confirmed, namely, big, [and] [as I] brimming, filled-up, champagne-glasses, [filled to the top and silently drained to the last drop, in mundry perfect silence, very leisurely, to the last drop,] drained, [for thought of those old times, and those old friends,] in abstracted silence, very leisurely, to the last drop. (Pfaff, is a [good] generous Germiyan fellow restauranteur, silent, [jol] stout jolly, and I should say the best selecter of champagne in America.) [*next page of copy is 288 1/2*][*288 ½*] [*cap head*] A Discovery of Old Age. Perhaps the best is always cumulative. one's eating and drinking, one wants fresh, and for the [nonce?] right = off, and have done with it - But I would not give a straw for that person or poem, or friend, or [place] city, or work of art, that was not more grateful the second time than the first - and more still the third. Nay, I do not believe any [good] [first rate] grandest eligibility ever comes forth at first. In my own experiences, (persons, poems, places, characters,) I discover the best hardly ever at first, (no absolute rule about it however,) sometimes suddenly bursting forth, or stealthily opening to me, perhaps, after years of unwitting familiarity, unappreciation, usage.[*289 [221] *] [*cap head*] - A visit, at the last, to R. W. Emerson. [*[264]*] [*289.*] [caps & ital side*] Concord, Mass., [Sept. 17.]—Out here on a visit—elastic, mellow, Indian-summery weather. Came to-day from Boston (a pleasant ride of 40 minutes by steam, through Somerville, Bel-mont, Waltham, Stony Brook, and other lively towns), convoy[e]'d by my friend F. B. Sanborn, and to his ample house, and the kindness and hospitality of Mrs. S. and their fine family. Am writing this under the shade of some old hickories and elms, just after 4 P.M., on the porch, within stone's throw of the Concord river. Off against me, across stream, on a meadow and side-hill, hay-makers are gathering and wagoning-in probably their second or third crop. The spread of emerald-green and brown, the knolls, the score or two of little hay cocks dotting the meadow, the loaded-up wagons, the patient horses, the slow-strong action of the men and pitch-forks—all in the just-waning afternoon, with patches of yellow sun-sheen, mottled by long shadows—a cricket shrilly chirping, herald of the dusk—a boat with two figures noiselessly gliding along the little river, passing under the stone bridge-arch—the slight settling haze of aerial moisture, the sky and the peacefulness expanding in all directions[,] and overhead—fill and soothe me. [*side ital*] [ R. W. EMERSON AS HE LOOKS TO DAY.] [*run in ital*] Same Evening.[—]Never had I a better piece of luck befall me : a long and blessed evening with Emerson, in a way I couldn't have wish[e]'d better or different. For nearly two hours he has been placidly sitting where I could see his face in the best light near me. Mrs. S's back parlor well fill'd with people, neighbors, many fresh and charming faces, women, mostly young, but some old. My friend A. B. Alcott and his daughter Louisa were there early. A good deal of talk, the subject Henry Thoreau—some new glints of his life and fortunes, with letters to and from him— one of the best by Margaret Fuller, others by Horace Greeley, Channing, [etc.]—one from Thoreau himself most quaint and in-teresting. (No doubt I seem[e]'d very stupid to the room-full of company, taking hardly any part in the conversation ; but I had " my own pail to milk in," as the Swiss proverb puts it.) My seat and the relative arrangement were such that, without being rude or anything of the kind, I could just look squarely at E., which I did a good part of the two hours. On entering he had spoken very briefly[, easily] and politely to several of the company, then settled himself in his chair, a trifle push[e]'d back, and, though a listener and apparently an alert one, remain[e]'d silent through the whole talk and discussion. A lady friend quietly took a seat next him to give special attention. [*run in*] [And so, there Emerson sat, and I looking at him.] A good color in his face, eyes clear, with the well-known expression of sweet-ness and the old clear-peering aspect quite the same. [*ital side] Next Day.—Several hours at E.'s house, and dinner there. An old familiar house (he has been in it thirty-five years), with [the] surroundings, furnishment, roominess, and plain elegance and fulness signifying democratic ease, sufficient opulence, and an admirable old-fashion[e]'d simplicity—modern luxury, with its mere sumptuousness and affectation , either touch[e]'d lightly upon, or ignored altogether. Dinner the same. [(It was not my first din-ner with Emerson. In 1857, and along there, when he came to New York to lecture, we two would dine together at the Astor House. And some years after, I living for a while in Boston, we would occasionally meet for the same purpose at the American or Parker's. [Before I get through these notes I will allude to one of our dinners, following a pretty vehement discussion.)] [*run in*] Of course the best of the [present] occasion ( Sunday, September 18, '81) was the sight of E. himself. As just said, a healthy color in the cheeks and good light in the eyes, cheery expression, and just the amount of talking that best suited, namely, a word or short phrase only where needed, and almost always with a smile. Besides Emerson himself, Mrs. E., with their daughter Ellen, the son Edward and his wife, with my friend F. S. and Mrs. S. and others, relative and intimates. Mrs. Emerson, resuming the subject of the evening before (I sat next to her), gave me further and fuller information about Thoreau, who years ago, during Mr. E.'s absence in Europe, had lived for some time in the family, by invitation.[* 290 [282] [285] *] [*cap head*] OTHER CONCORD NOTATIONS. Though the evening at Mr. and Mrs. Sandborn's, and the memorable family dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Emerson's, have most pleasantly and permanently fill[e]'d my memory, I must not slight other notations of Concord. I went to the [O]old Manse, walk[e]'d through the ancient garden, [and] enter[e]'d the rooms[.]--[*run in*] [Here Emerson wrote his principal poems. (The spot, I see as I look around, serves the understanding of them like a frame does a picture. The same of Hawthorne's " Mosses".) One] note[s] the quaintness, the unkempt grass and bushes, the little panes in the windows, the low ceilings, the spicy smell, the creepers embowering the light. [*a certain severity, precision and melancholy - even a twist to all nothwithstanding the pervading calmness and normality of the scene. The house, too, gives out the aroma of genet[?] of buried New England. Puritanism and its ministers.] [*stet*] [I went to the Concord [B]battle [G]ground, which is close by, scand[e]'d French's statue, " the Minute Man," read Emerson's poetic inscription on the base, linger[e]'d a long while on the [B]bridge, and stopt by the grave of the unnamed British soldiers buried there the day after the fight in April, '75.] [*run in*] Then riding on, (thanks to my friend Miss M. and her spirited white ponies, she driving them) a half hour at Hawthorne's and Thoreau's graves. I got out and went up of course on foot, and stood a long while and ponder[e]'d. They [lay] lie close together in a pleasant wooded spot well up the [C]cemetery [H]hill. "Sleepy [H]hollow." The flat surface of the first was densely covered by myrtle, with a border of arbor-vitae, and the other had a brown head-stone, moderately elaborate, with inscriptions. By Henry's side lies his brother John, of whom much was expected, but he died young. [*run in*] [Also] Then to Walden [P]ond that beautifully embower[e]'d sheet of water, and spent over an hour there. On the spot in the woods where Thoreau had his solitary house is now quite a cairn of stones, to mark the place ; I too carried one and deposited on the heap. As we drove back, saw the "School of [P]philosophy," but it was shut up, and I would not have it open[e]'d for me. Near by stopp[e]'d at the house of W. T. Harris, the Hegelian, who came out, and we had a pleasant chat while I sat in the wagon. [*run in*] I shall not soon forget [my] these Concord drives, and especially that charming Sunday forenoon one with my friend Miss M., and the white ponies. The town BOSTON COMMON--MORE OF EMERSON. [*cap head*] Oct. 10-13, ['81.] - I spend a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights--every mid-day from 11.30 to about 1--and almost every sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially, the old elms along Tremont and Beacon Streets, and have some to a sociable-silent understanding with most of them in the sunlit air (yet crispy-cool enough), as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks. [*run in*] Up and down this breath by Beacon [S]street, in between these same old elms, I walk[e]'d for two hours, of a bright sharp February midday twenty-one years ago with Emerson, then in his prime, keen, physically and morally magnetic, arm[e]'d at every point, and when he chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual. During those two hours, he was the talker and I the listener. It was an argument-statement, reconnoitering, review, attack, and pressing home (like an army corps, in order artillery, cavalry, infantry), of all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems, " Children of Adam." More precious than gold to me that dissertation[--(I only wish I had it now, verbatim). It] it afforded me, ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson ; each point of E.'s statement was unanswerable, no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put--and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. " What have you to say then to such things ?" said E., pausing in conclusion. " Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it," was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. [*run in*] And thenceforward I never wavered or was touch[e]'d with qualms, (as I confess I had been two or three times before).[*Walker*] [*291 [223 266]*] An Ossianic night—dearest friends Nov. '81.—Again back in Camden. As I cross the Delaware in long trips to-night between 9 and 11 [10], [(again back in Camden.)] the scene overhead is a peculiar one—swift sheets of [rapidly] flitting vapor-gauze follow[e]'d by dense clouds throwing an inky pull on everything. Then a spell of that [clear] transparent [clear] steel=gray black sky I have noticed under similar circumstances, on which the moon would be am for a few moments with calm lustre, through down a [brce] broad dazzle of highway on the waters ; then the [swift] mists careering again. All silently yet driven as if by the [F]furies. They sweep along, sometimes quite thin sometimes thicker—a real Ossiance night—amid the whirl absent or dead friends, the old, the past, somehow tenderly suggested—while the Gael strains chant themselves [in] from the mists—["Be they soul blest, [*run in—mind the brackets quiblings &c*]292 [224 267] [run in] [Be thy soul ?] O Carril! in the midst of thy eddying winds. O that thou woulds’t come to my hall when I am alone by night! And thou dost come my friend I hear often thy light hand on my harp when it hangs on the distant wall, and the feeble sound touches my ear. Why dost thou not speak to me in my grief and tell me when I shall behold my friends? But thou passed away in thy murmuring blast; the wind whistles through the gray hair of Ossian."]293 [85 268] ¶ [Like the ghost of a giant in some dream after reading the wild rhythm—["Who comes with the locks of age It is the Lou of songs Hail Carril of uther times! Thy voice is like the harp in the halls of Tura. Thy words are like the shower that falls on the sunny fields]] ¶[more than] But most of all those [those the wild] changes of moon and sheets of hurrying vapor and black clouds with the sense of rapid action in weird silence, recall the [old Ossiance] far back east belief thus such above were the preparations [above in person] for receiving the wraiths of just slain warriors—["We [*294 [226] [269] *] [We] sat that night in Selma, round the strength of the shell, The wind was abroad in the oaks, The spirit of the mountain roar[e]'d, The blast came rustling through the hall, and gently touch[e]'d my harp, The sound was mournful and low, like the song of the tomb. Fingal heard it the first. The crowded sighs of his bosom rose. Some of my heroes are low, said the gray-hair[e]'d King of Morven. I hear the sound of death on the harp. Ossian, touch [the] trembling string. Bid the sorrow rise, that their spirits may fly with joy to Morven's woody hills. I touch[e]'d the harp before the King ; the sound was mournful and low. Bend forward from your clouds, I said, ghosts of my fathers ! bend, Lay by the real terror of your course, Reserve the falling chief ; whether he comes from a distant land, or[*295 [227] [270] *] rises from the rolling sea. Let his robe of mist be near ; his spear that is form[e]'d of a cloud. Place a half-extinguish[e]'d meteor by his side, in the form of the hero's sword. And oh! let his countenance be lovely, that his friends may delight in his presence. Bend from your clouds, I said, ghosts of my fathers, bend. Such was my song in Selma, to the lightly trembling harp."] [*¶*] How or why I know not, just at the moment, but I too [dwell and] [think] muse and think of [in] [absent] [of the friends dear] friends my best) (in their distant hour - of William O'Connor, of Maurice Bucke, of John Burroughs, and of Mrs. Gilchrist - friends of my soul - [fri] staunchest friends of my other soul, my [book of] poems.[*296*] [* [228] [271] [1882] *] [* [¶ side] *] ONLY A NEW FERRY BOAT. [*cap head*] [*side ital*] Jan: 12—'82—Such a show as the Delaware presented an hour before sundown yesterday evening all along between Philadelphia and [this city] Camden is worth weaving into an [impromptu] item. It was full tide, a fair breeze from the southwest, the water of a pale tawny color, and just enough motion to make things frolicsome and lively. Add to these an approaching sunset of unusual splendor, a broad tumble of clouds, with much golden haze and profusion of beaming shaft and dazzle. [*run in all*] In the midst of all, [this,] in the clear drab of the afternoon light, there steam'd up the river the large, new [Camden ferry] boat, "the Wenonah," as pretty an object as you could wish to see, lightly and swiftly skimming along, all trim and white, cover'd with flags, transparent red and blue, streaming out in the breeze. [*run in*] [Indeed the boat and the scene made a picture worth contemplating.] Only a new ferry-boat, and yet in its fitness comparable with the prettiest product of [n]Nature's cunning, and rivaling it. High up in the transparent ether gracefully balanced and circled four or five great sea hawks, while here below, amid the pomp and picturesqueness of sky and river, swam this creation of artificial beauty and motion and power[,] in its way no less perfect.[April 8, 1882]] [* [272] 297 [229] *] [*cap head*] Death of Longfellow. [*s. caps & ital side*] Camden, [N. J.,] April 3, '82.--I have just return[e]'d [from a couple of weeks down in some primitive woods were] from an old forest haunt where I love to go occasionally away from parlors, pavements and the newspapers and magazines--and where, of a clear forenoon, deep in the shade of pines and cedars and a tangle of old laurel-trees and vines, the news of Longfellow's death first reach[e]'d me. For want of anything better, let me lightly twine a sprig of the sweet ground-ivy trailing so plentifully through the dead leaves at my feet, with reflections of that half hour alone, there in the silence, [the mottled light, 'mid those earth-smells of the Jersey woods in spring] and lay it as my contribution on the dead bard's grave. Longfellow in his voluminous works seems to me not only to be eminent in the style and forms of poetical expression that mark the present age (an idiocrasy, almost a sickness, of verbal melody[)],) but to bring what is always dearest as poetry to the general human heart and taste, and probably must be so in the nature of things. He is certainly the sort of bard and counteractant most needed for our materialistic, self-assertive, money-worshipping Anglo-Saxon races, and especially for the present age in American--an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufacturer, the merchant, the fancier, the politician and the day workman--for whom and among whom he comes as the poet [*gabe Walker*] of melody, courtesy, deference--poet of the mellow twilight of the past in Italy, Germany, Spain, and in Northern Europe--poet of all sympathetic gentleness--and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask[e]'d to name the man who has done more, and in more valuable directions for America. I doubt if there ever was before such a fine intuitive judge and selecter of poems. His translations of many German and Scandinavian pieces are said to be better than the vernaculars. He does not urge or lash. His influence is like good drink or air. He is not tepid either, but always vital, with flavor, motion, grace. He strikes a splendid average, and does not sing exceptional passions or humanity's jagged escapades. He is not revolutionary, brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows. On the contrary his songs soothe and heal, or if they excite, it is a healthy and agreeable excitement. His very anger is gentle, is at second hand, (as in ' the Quadroon Girl ' and ' the Witnesses'). There is no undue element of pensiveness in Longfellow's strains. Even in the early translation, the Manrique, the movement is as of strong and steady wind or tide holding up and buoying. Death is not avoided through his many themes, but there is something almost winning in his original verses and renderings on that dread subject--as, closing ' the Happiest Land ' dispute, And then the landlord's daughter [*brev*] Up to heaven rais[e]'d her hand, And said, ' Ye may no more contend, There lies the happiest land.' To the ungracious complaint-charge [(as by Margaret Fuller many years ago, and several times since,] of his want of racy nativity and special originality, I shall only say that America and the world may well be reverently thankful--can never be thankful enough--for any such singing-bird vouchsafed out of the centuries, without asking that the notes be different from those of other songsters ;[--]adding what I have heard Longfellow himself say, that ere the New World can be worthy original and announce herself and her own heroes, she must be well saturated with the originality of others, and respectfully consider the heroes that lived before Agamemnon. [Without jealousies, without mean passions, never did the personality, character, daily and yearly life of a poet, more steadily and truly assimilate his own loving, cultured, guileless, courteous ideal and exemplify it. In the world's arena, he had some special sorrows--but he had prizes, triumphs, recognitions, the grandest. Extensive and heartfelt as is to-day, and has been for a long while, the fame of Longfellow, it is probable, pay certain, that years hence it will be wider and deeper. WALT WHITMAN.][all deleted by red lines] one. It will contain a poem on Longfellow by Mr. Whittier, with a frontispiece portrait of the former, engraved by Closson; and Canon Kingsley's ballad, 'Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever," set to music by Prof. Payne, of Harvard University. The authorized edition of the works of the late President Garfield will be published (probably in November next) by Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co. It will be edited by President Hinsdale, of Hiram College, Ohio, the General's life-long friend, and will comprise two octavo volumes, adorned with new portraits of Mr. Garfield. Lafayette Place is rapidly becoming a publishing centre. Already Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, the Churchman, the North American Review and THE CRITIC are located there. The Christian Union has just leased one of the large old-fashioned brick houses a few doors below THE CRITIC office; and Messrs. William Wood & Co., publishers of medical books, have taken possession of a handsome double house, near the corner of Astor Place, until recently occupied by a branch of the Astor family. The Astor Library is in Lafayette Place and the Mercantile is opposite the upper end of the street. The Zuni Indians, under the charge of Mr. Cushing, spent a large part of last Monday in New York City, on their way to Washington. They went first to Sarony's, where a number of photographic groups were taken. They they lunched at the Century rooms, and passed several hours in the building, dancing for awhile and singing a number of their hymns, and then visiting Mr. La Farge's studio of glasswork on the top floor of the building, from which they ascended to the roof. The Century will publish an account of their visit to the East and religious ceremonies at the sea-side; and a full narrative, by Mr. Cushing, of the years he has passed as a member of the tribe. The photographs taken by Mr. Sarony will be used in illustrating these articles. We clip the following from Puck: 'E. S. Nadal now has spoken Of the perils which environ The poetic works of Byron. E. S. Nadal's also spoken In a patronizing way Of the works of Tachke-ray. E. S. Nadal's likewise spoken, Telling us how very tart Are the writings of Bret Harte. E. S. Nadal thus has spoken— Tell us, tell us, tell us, pray, Who is Nadal, anyway?' Certainly—with pleasure: Mr. E. S. Nadal is a graduate of Yale College; an ex-member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post; an acute and graceful essayist; and the author of a very interesting work, entitled 'Some Aspects of London Social Life.' For the past few years he has held the post of Assistant Secretary of the Legation of the United States of America to Great Britain. We shall be happy to keep our esteemed contemporary informed as to his future literary work and diplomatic services. In the preface to the American edition of his biography of Carlyle, the first part of which, covering the first forty years of Carlyle's life, has been very well received in England. Mr. Froude makes the following extract from Carlyle's diary, bearing date, 8 Feb., 1839: 'Yesterday came a letter from Emerson at Concord, New England, enclosing me a draft for £100, the produce of my French Revolution there! Already £50 had come; this is £150 in all; not a farthing having yet been realized here by our English bibliopoly. It is very strange, this American occurrence, very gratifying; nothing more so has occurred in the history of my economics. Thanks to the kind friends across the salt waters yonder. This American cash is so welcome because I am so poor. Had I been rich I could not have had that true pleasure. Sic de multis; I must own it, bitterly as I often grumble over my poverty. On the whole I shall[* 298 [273] [230] *] [*Foster*] [*brev: caps*] Starting newpapers. [*side ital*] Reminiscences - (from the Camden Courier) - [June 1. '82.) -] As I sat taking my evening sail across the Delaware in the staunch ferry-boat "Beverly," a [*roman*] night or two ago, I was join[e]'d by two young reporter friends. "I have a message for you," said one of them the [COURIER] [*C*] folks told me to say they would like a piece sign[e]'d by your name to go in their first number. Can you do it for them?" "I guess so," said I : "what might it be about?" "Well, anything on newspapers, or perhaps what you've done yourself starting them." And off the boys went, for we had reached the Philadelphia side. [*run in*] The hour was fine and mild, the bright halfmoon shining ; Venus, with excess of splendor, just setting in the west, and the great Scorpion rearing its length more than half up in the southeast. As I cross[e]'d leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night-scene, my young friend's words brought up quite a string of reminiscences. I commenced when I was but a boy of eleven or twelve writing sentimental bits for the old [*"Long Island*] [*roman*] Patriot" in Brooklyn ; this was about 1832. Soon after I had a piece or two in George P. Morris's then celebrated and fashionable "Mirror," [*roman*] of New York City. I remember with what half-suppress[e]'d excitement I used to watch for the big, fat, red-faced, slow-moving, very old English carrier who distributed the "Mirror" in [*roman*] Brooklyn ; and when I got one, opening and cutting the leaves with trembling fingers. How it made my heart double-beat to see my piece on the pretty white paper in nice type [!][*.*] My first real venture was the "Long-Islander, "[*roman*] in my own beautiful town of Huntington, [Long Island, New York,] in 1839. I was about twenty years old. I had been teaching country school for two or three years in various parts of Suffolk and Queens counties, but liked printing[.] [*;*] [I] had been at it while a lad, [and] learn[e]'d the trade of compositor, and was encouraged to start a paper in the region where I was born. I went to New York, bought a press and types, hired some little help, but did most of the work myself, including the press-work. Everything seem[e]'d turning out well ; (only my own restlessness prevented my gradually establishing a permanent property there.) I bought a good horse, and every week went all round the country serving my papers, devoting one day and night to it. I never had happier jaunts--going over to [S]south [S]side, to Babylon, down the [S]south [R]road, across to Smithtown and Comac, and back home. The experiences of those jaunts, the dear old-fashioned farmers and their wives, the stops by the hay-fields, the hospitality, nice dinners, occasional evenings, the girls, the rides through the brush, [and the smell from the salt of the [S]outh roads,] come up in my memory, to this day[, after more than forty years.] The Long-Islander has stuck it out ever since--is now in the hands of Charles E. Shephard, who was born to brevier, the chase, and the ink-block and prints the best country weekly for local news I know of anywhere.[* 299 [274] [237] *] I next went to the "Aurora" daily in New York [*roman*] City—a sort of free-lance. Also wrote regularly [*roman*] for the "Tattler," an evening paper. With these and a little outside work I was occupied off and on, until I went to edit the "Brooklyn [*roman*] Eagle," where for two years I had one of the pleasantest sits of my life—a good owner, good pay, and easy work and hours[;]. [it came out about three every afternoon.)] The troubles in the Democratic party broke forth about those times (1848-'49) and I split off with the radicals, which led to rows with the boss and "the party," and I lost my place. Being now out of a job, I was offer'd impromptu, (it happen'd between the acts one night in the lobby of the old Broadway theatre near Pearl street, New York [C]city,) a good chance to go down to New Orleans on the staff of the "Crescent," a daily to be started there [*roman*] with plenty of capital behind it[,]. [in opposition [*roman*] to the "Picayune."] One of the owners, [Mr. McClure,] who was north buying material, met me walking in the lobby, and though that was our first acquaintance, after fifteen minutes talk (and a drink) we made a formal bargain, and [McC.] he paid me two hundred dollars down to bind the contract and bear my expenses to New Orleans. I started two days afterwards ; had a good leisurely time, as the paper wasn't to be out in three [or four] weeks. I enjoy'd my journey and Louisiana very much. [I [*run in*] believe the Crescent is an institution there yet.] Returning to Brooklyn a year or two afterward I started the "Freeman," first as a weekly, [*roman*] then daily. Pretty soon the [S]secession war broke out, and I, too, got drawn in the current southward, and spent the following three years there[.] as memorandized presiding. [*¶*] Besides starting them, as aforemention'd, I have had to do, one time or another[,] during my life, with a long list of papers, at divers places, sometimes under queer circumstances. During the war the [H]hospitals at Washington, among other means of amusement, printed a little sheet among themselves, surrounded by wounds and death, the "Armory Square Gazette," to which I [*roman*] contributed. The same long afterward, casually, to a paper—I think it was call'd the [*roman)*] "Jimplecute"—out in Colorado, where I stopp'd at the time. [*run in*] When I was in Quebec province, in Canada, in 1880, I went into the queerest little old French printing office near Tadousac. It was far more primitive and ancient than my Camden friend William Kurtz's place up on Federal street. [*run in*] I remember, as a youngster, several characteristic old printers of a kind hard to be seen [at all] these days.[*300*] [*cap head*] The great unrest of which we [I got in a] are [a] part. My thoughts went floating on [a] vast and mystic currents, as I sat to-day in [the] solitude and half shade, by the creek - returning mainly to two principal centres. One of my cherished themes for a never achiev[e]'d poem has been the two [I]impetuses of [M]man and the [U]universe - in the [later] latter, creations incessant unrest, [* (note **note.*] exfoliation (Darwin's evolution, I suppose.) [What] Indeed, what is Nature but change, in all its visible, and still more its invisible processes? Or what is humanity in its faith, love, heroism, poetry, even morals, but emotion?[*see page 300 copy*] [*Note at bottom **] [*brev: "*] [*Note*] [ *No REST. "Science teaches us that the crust of our earth is perpetually moving, and that the sea level is constantly changing. Our globe has its daily rotation on its axis and its yearly revolution about the sun. The sun, with all its satellites, sweeps on toward a moving point in the constellation Hercules. Every so called fixed star is in motion. * ] "Fifty thousand years ago the constellation of the Great Bear or Dipper was a starry cross; a hundred thousand years hence the imaginary Dipper will be upside down, and the stars which form the bowl and handle will have changed places. The misty nebulæ are moving, and besides are whirling around in great spirals, some one way, some another. Every molecule of matter in the whole universe is swinging to and fro; every particle of ether which fills space is in jelly-like vibration. Light is one kind of motion, heat another, electricity another, magnetism another, sound another. Every human sense is the result of emotion; every perception, every thoght is but motion of the molecules of the brain translated by that incomprehensible thing we call mind. The processes of growth, of existence, of decay, whether in worlds or in the minutest organisms, are but motion."[*301*] By Emerson's Grave. [*(brev. cap)*] May 6, '82.—WE stand by Emerson's new-made grave without sadness —indeed a solemn joy and faith, almost hauteur—our soul-benison no mere 'Warrior rest, thy task is done," for one beyond the warriors of the world lies surely symboll'd here. A just man, poised on himself, all loving, all-enclosing, and sane and clear as the sun. Nor does it seem so much Emerson himself we are here to honor—it is conscience, simplicity, culture, humanity's attributes at their best, yet applicable if need be to average affairs, and eligible to all. [*run in*] So used are we to suppose a heroic death can only come from out of a battle or storm, or mighty personal contest, or amid dramatic incidents or danger, (have we not been taught so for ages by all the plays and poems?) that few even of those who most sympathizingly mourn Emerson's late departure will fully appreciate the ripen'd grandeur of that event, with its play of calm and fitness, like evening light on the sea. How I shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when, not long since, I saw that benignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth, the form yet upright in its great age—to the very last, with so much spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude, that even the term venerable hardly seem'd fitting. Perhaps the life now rounded and completed in its mortal development, and which nothing can change or harm more, has its most illustrious halo, not in its splendid intellectual or esthetic products, but as forming in its entirety one out of the few, (alas! how few!) perfect and flawless excuses for being, of the entire literary class. We can say, as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is not we who come to consecrate the dead—we reverently come to receive, if so it may be, some consecration to ourselves and daily work from him. [Walt Whitman.][*Fossett*] [*302*] [*(cap head*] At present writing - personal. [*line by itself now ital*] A letter to a German friend - extract. [*ital side*] May 31, '82. - From to-day I enter upon my 64th year. The paralysis that first affected me [o] nearly ten years ago, [and] has since remain'd, with varying course, - seems to have settled quietly down, [will probably] [now continue] and will probably continue. I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; [B]but my spirits are first = rate. [;] I go around in public almost every day - now and then take long trips, by railroad, or boat, hundreds of miles - live largely in the open air - (- am sunburnt and stout, (weigh 190) - Keep up my activity and interest in life, people, progress, and the questions of the day. (About two thirds of the time I am quite comfortable.) What mentality I ever had [rem] remains entirely unaffected; [But] [but] though physically I am a half = paralytic, and [am] likely to be so, long as I live. [The] But the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish'd - I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate relatives - and of enemies I really make no account."[a publisher think answer very [?] not in the first second rank]303 After trying a certain book [I jotted the following] I tried to read a beautifully printed and scholarly envelope volume on "The Theory of Poetry" received by [in the] mail this morning from England, but gave it up at last for a bad job. Here are some [the] capricious pencillings that follow'd, as I find them in my notes: book:[I wrote the following today in answer response to a young Texan [friend] man of 25 a particular friend (if [??] lived (he will yet make his mark)) of mine I had known his father in '63 in the war, southern side304 [long primer regular [?] of book] a lead In youth and maturity Poems are charged with sunshine and [the] varied pomp of day: but as the soul more and more takes precedence, (the sensuous still included,) the Dusk becomes the poets atmosphere here. [soon] I too have sought and ever seek, the brilliant sun and make my songs according. But as I grow old the half light of evening are far more to me. [lead] The play of [the] imagination with the sensuous objects of nature for [the] symbols, and faith with love and pride as the unseen impetus and moving power of all [and sure qua non of all] make up the curious chess game of a poem [a lead]I have made a bargain [*305*] [The] Common teaching, or critics [is] are always asking "What does it mean?" [The] [s]Symphony of a fine musician, [v] or [the] sunset, or [the] sea=waves rolling [in their] [rolls upon] up the beach - what do they mean? - Undoubtedly in the [highest] most subtle = elusive sense they mean something - as love does, and religion does, and the [br] [re] best poem ; - but who shall fathom and define [the] [that] those meanings? ( I do not intend this as a warrant for wildness and [sol] [foolish or] frantic escapades - but to justify the souls' [in its] frequent [likings] joy [of] in what cannot be defined to the intellectual part, or to calculation.) [to] - a leadSelphia Jun 27 1882 Whiman The note you ? is the latter was out tonigth. If ? appear. ? sincerely Eilo H Williams ? Camden N. J. Jan 28 2pm RECO Whitman Author Camden N.[*306*] At its best, poetic lore is like what may be heard of conversation in the dusk, from speakers far or hid, of which we get only a few broken murmurs. [as we stand on the shore, or] [somewhere,] What is not gather'd is far more - perhaps the main thing. [* ------ a lead*] Grandest poetic passages are only to be taken at free removes, as we sometimes look for stars at night, not by gazing directly toward them, but off one side. [* ------ a lead*] (To a poetic student and friend.) - I only seek to put you in rapport. Your own brain, heart, evolution, must not only understand the matter, but largely supply it.[*307*] [*cap head*] [A] [f]Final Confessions - literary tests. So draw near their end [may] these gurrulous notes. T[T]here have doubtless occurr'd some repetitions, technical errors, in the consecutiveness of dates, [as they have run on,] [and] in the minutia of botanical, astronomical &c exactness and perhaps elsewhere ; - ; - for in gathering up writing [promptly] peremptorily dispatching [my] copy, this hot weather, (last of July and through August, '82,) and delaying not the printers, I have had to [dispatch,] [move] hurry along, [and] no time to spare. [Only] But in the [faithful] [invisable] deepest veracity of all - in reflections of objects, scenes, Nature's outpourings, to my senses and receptively [truly] [inveriably] as they seem'd to me [- in it at first hand] - - in the work of giving to those who care for it, [a certain] some [few] authentic, glints, [of] specimen days [that] of my life [out of] - and [literally] in the bona fide spirit and relations, [as far as they go,] from author to reader, on all the subjects design'd and as far as they go, I feel to make unmitigated claims.[*308*] [*¶*] The synopsis of my early life, Long Island, New York city, and so forth, and the [the and then the] [with my] diary-jottings in the Secession war, - tell their own story. My plan in starting what [now] here makes most of [the middle section] the middle of the book was originally [as] for hints and data [for] 6 of a Nature [P]poem that should carry one's experiences [for] [through] a few hours, commencing at noon = flush, and so through the after-part of the day - I suppose led to such [attempt and] idea by my own life's afternoon having arrived. But I [find I can] soon found I could move at more ease, [and] [avoid committing myself] by giving [simply] the [notes alluded to] narrative at first hand. (Then there is a humiliating lesson one learns - in serene hours, [to the soul,] of a fine day or night. Nature seems to look [even on the best] on all fixed=up poetry and art as something [foreign, something] almost impertinent.)[* [369] 309*] ¶[As I yon go in,] Thus I went on, years following various seasons and areas, spinning forth [I just spin out the the undulations] [of] my thought beneath the night and stars or as I was confined to my room by half-sickness, or at midday looking out upon the sea, or far north steaming over the Saguenay's black breast, jotting all down in the loosest sort of chronological order, and [have] here printing from [the] my impromptu notes, [different years,] hardly even the seasons group[e]'d together or any thing corrected—so afraid of dropping what smack of outdoors or sun or starlight [may] might cling to [them] the lines I [have not] dared not try to meddle with or smooth them. [*run in next] [Memoranda of casual days here and there —now in New York, now railroad traveling now in [Canada]- some solitary recess of the woods - ) no order, or finish [or chronology] capricious, jumping backward or forward, - only tied together by all being from the same identity, drops from the same one-flowing stream, different moods lights, shades, under no [authority] law, no [rule systems.-][* 310 [302] *] [*run in*] Every now & then, (not often, but for a [what and] foil,) I [took] carried a book in my pocket - or perhaps tore out from some broken, [or old] or cheap edition a bunch of [clusters of] [some] loose leaves; [& carried them] [with me, to rendi] [Indeed I] I most always had something of the sort ready [in my pocket] [with me], but only took it out when the mood [favored] [or quite] demanded. In that way, [there,] [afar from] utterly out of reach of [schools and libraries, and] [all] literary conventions, I re-read many authors. [*¶*] I cannot [I cannot] divest [myself] my appetite of literature, yet I find myself [continually] eventually trying it all by [first premises] Nature - (first premises many call [but] it but really the [last] crowning results [and] of [the] all laws, tallies [of and test of all] and [tests] proofs. [*e. c.*] [*run in*] HAS IT never occurred to any one [that] how the last deciding tests applicable to a book, are [indeed] entirely outside of [literary tests] technical or grammatical ones, and that any truly first-class production has little or nothing to do with the rules and calibres of ordinary critics, ? [or the bloodless chalk of Allibone's [*stet*] [D]dictionary ?] I have fancied the ocean and the daylight, the mountains and the forest, putting their spirit in a judgment on our books. I have fancied some disembodied human soul giving its verdict.[*311*] [*Brev: caps*] Nature and Democracy - Morality. Democracy [more than] most of all affiliates with the open air, is sunny and hardy and same only with Nature - just as much as Art is. Something is required to temper both - to check them, restrain them from excess, morbidity . I [specially] have wanted, before departure, to bear [my] special testimony to a very old lesson and requisite. American Democracy, in [all] its myriad personalities, [not only on farms, but] in [st] factories, [mechanics] work-shops, stores, offices, - through the dense street and houses of cities and all them manifold sophisticated life, - must either be [fused,] filred, vitalized, by [this loving realization of, and] regular contact with [Nature in practical] out-door [shows,] light and air and growths, farm-scenes, animals, fields, trees, birds, [sunlight,] [sun,] [flowers] sun-warmth and free skies, or it will morbidly windle and pale. We cannot have [a grand], [Democracy] - grand races of mechanics [and] work people and commonality (the only specific purpose of America,) [-] on any less terms. I [cannot] conceive of [a] no flourishing and [capious and sane] heroic elements of Democracy in [America] the United States or of Democracy maintain itself at all, without the Nature=element forming a [large] main part - to be its health-element and beauty-element - [its under a vivid those to heroisms men's and women's] - - to really underlie the whole politics, sanity, [and] religion and art of the New World.[*last page Specimen Days Collect comes now same type—same arrangement*] [*312*] [*¶*] Finally the [The] morality: [too]: "Virtue," said Marcus Aurelius, "what is it, only a living and enthusiastic sympathy with Nature?" [*run in*] Perhaps indeed the [finality] efforts of the true [last] poets founders [art], religious, [and] literature[s], all ages, [India, Egypt, Greece, Judea], [Rome] have [has] been [-] and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same—to bring [per] people back from their [sickly] persistent strayings and sickly abstractions to the costless average, wine, [original,] original [average] concrete,