FEINBERG/WHITMAN   NOTES and NOTEBOOKS   NOTES--Literary   UNDATED   Model American  (DCN125)

Box 40   Folder 1[*829*]

MODEL AMERICAN; ideas for a poem or essay.  
A.MS. (3p. 30  x 13 cm. largest)
Whitman dwells on the idea and elaborates on the theme that the picture
and character of "The American" has yet to be drawn.      {125}Draw a picture of a model
American young man
his physique, his mentality,
his spirituality

I have now to conclude
my New Suggestions of America,
[with a [???? picture I]
portrait I have rapidly
drawn [of the] an ideal
or model [of an American]
[a] young man of These]
[plac] by placing before myself
[here] the portrait of the future
[an] ideal or model young
man of These States, and
rapidly transcribing [who]
some of [the] its features for you. [I see]
[in him] The portrait is
mental and spiritual, as
[much] well as physical. It
represents a young man
[??] such as we must in time copiously [might easily]
see in any city of America,
in the factories or shops,
or on any farm, or upon the
lakes or rivers, or along
the sea-coast. Of this ideal young American, the physique is [and he seems]
to [me to be ??] [as I see]
now that we see
such a one
[him. then I know the] mark genius
of [America.] These States
the exterior first and then [beef, fruit??]
[we will] the interior.
Mark the robust and perfect physique 
inherited  from [?] children and carefully [?] through
by exercise and [??][We do not] absolutely reject the 
claims of the genre Culturists [but] we grant 
them their fullest proportions; Then we 
say there is something larger yet, more 
invigorating, [as] we needed offset, fusing all, 
oxygenating, pervading more indispensable to 
American life, & the free play of American life. 

But it seems to me this Character 
is yet to be drawn, pourtrayed, 
& set in this piece.

[I have said these such]
[these last] such things 
[?] because [I would] 
perceive of [America] [These] The
[?] had the [?] men and women of the
States, they
States they cannot begin
to understand themselves, or fulfil themselves [unless]
[they] without realizing their [our] their intimate
mental and moral counescious
(of others of course more intense and ample every day) Europeans
with all [the ancestor] and modes
--perhaps [they] They have their [forms] stages of devel:
lands--all lands.---persist - We have ours
I [would draw ?] [Have we then to
Bonds rapport [?] with 
[Are we then be to be]
[where lands are] theirs are not [?] to [America!]
but are [to] be drawn close.
[Mere repeaters?  No we]
[?]