FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads: introduction." AMS. draft. (May 1889.) L of G (1889). (OVERSIZE) from [?] 34-5 (?OVERSZ 4-15)79 1889 May A Backward Glance: introduction. A.MS.s. (2p. 48 x 19 and 29 x 21 cm.) Written in ink, with some pencil instructions to the printer, on a page of lined paper pasted to a proof-sheet; and another page written in pencil, with a scrap (containing three lines) pasted to the bottom in ink: the introduction to A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads. About 200 words in Whitman's hand, first paragraph of the introduction. Above this is '3 & 4's; below is the notion: 'Make the above the first ¶ You can as well make up these in the two pages--the 3d and 4th of Backward Glance'. This is pasted to the proof, on which 18 corrections are made; the word 'Morrison' is also on the proof (typesetter?). The other page, smaller, is signed near the top, with this [over]79A notation: 'Set up in 1 p to match the rest of the book--to make two pages (3d and 4th) for Backward Glance--if not enough I will give you more lines to eke out'. These 200 words make up a little more than half of the material in the proof. All of this first appeared in the 1889 edition of Leaves of Grass with Sands at Seventy & A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads. The copy in the Feinberg Collection is a presentation copy: 'Rob't G Ingersoll from the author Walt Whitman'.3&4 To:day completes my three-score-and- ten years - rounds and coheres the successive growth and stages of [the] L. of G. with the following essay and (sort of) testament - my hurried epilogue of intentions, [and] compound word = bequest - and gives me the crowning content, (for these lines are written at the last) of feeling and definitely, perhaps boastfully, reiterating, For good or bad, plain or not plain, I have [now] held out and now concluded my utterance, entirely [my] its own way; the main wonder being to me, for the fore-going 404 pages entire, amid their many faults and omissions, that, (after looking over them leisurely and critically, as the last week, night and day,) they have [held] adhered faithfully to and carried out, for nearly 40 years, over many gaps, through thick and thin, peace and war, sickness and health, clouds and sunshine, my latent purposes, &c, even as measurably well and far as they do between these covers. (Nature evidently achieves specimens only - plants the seeds of suggestion - is not so intolerant of what is called evil - [and] relies on law and character more than special cares or partialities; and in my little scope I have followed, or tried to follow, the lesson: .... Probably that is about all.) Make the above the first ¶ You can as well make up these in the two two pages - the 3d and 4th of Backward Glance May 31, 1889. Camden, New Jersey, U. S. America Yes, to-day finishes my 70th year ; and even if but the merest additional preface, (and not plain what tie-together it has with the following Backward Glance,) I suppose I must reel out something to celebrate my old birthday anniversary, and for this special edition of the latest completest L. of G. utterance. Printers send word, too, there is a blank here to be written up-- and what with ? . . . Probably I may as well transcribe and eke out this note by the following lines of a letter last week to a valued friend who demands to know my current personal condition : . . "First asking pardon for long neglect[.] - The perfect physical health, strength, buoyancy, (and inward impetus to back them,) which were vouchsafed during my whole life, and especially throughout the Secession War period, (1860 to '65,) seem'd to wane after those years, and were closely track'd by a stunning paralytic seizure, and following physical debility and inertia, (laggardness, torpor, indifference, perhaps laziness,) which put me low in 1873 and '4 and '5--then lifted a little, but have essentially remain'd ever since ; several spirts or attacks--five or six of them, one time or another from 1876 onward, but gradually mainly overcome--till now, 1888 and '9, the worst and most obstinate seizure of all. . . . Upon the whole, however, and even at this, and though old and sick, I keep up, maintain fair spirits, partially read and write--have had printed last and full and revised editions of my poems and prose (records and results of youth and early and mid age--of absolute strength and health-- o'erseen now during a lingering ill spell)--but have had a bad year, this last one--have run a varied gauntlet, chronic constipation, and then vertigo, bladder and gastric troubles, and the foremention'd steady disability and inertia ; bequests of the serious paralysis at Washington, D. C., closing the Secession War --that seizure indeed the culmination of much that preceded, and now with all these, (a body and brain-action dull'd, while the spirit is perhaps willing and live enough,) I get along more contentedly and comfortably than you might suppose--sit here all day in my big, high, strong, rattan-bottom'd chair, (with great wolf-skin spread on the back in cool weather)--as writing to you now on a tablet on my lap, may be may last missives of love, memories and cheer."