FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose "Some Personal and Old Age Memoranda" (Mar. 1891). (DCN9) Lippincott's Magazine. Broadside & A. MS. note. Includes verso letter from Henry Austin, undated. From [cont.] 35-3 (oversz 4-15)696 1855 EMERSON TO WHITMAN; part of Some Personal and Old-Age Memoranda. A. MS. and Broadside (1p. 41 x 19 1/2 cm.) The Broadside reproducing Emerson's latter to Walt Whitman (see No. 144) and a newspaper clipping were pasted lengthwise into slit backs of envelopes, leaving space for an autograph note by Whitman. This was Whitman's personal copy of the Broadside explaining in the following note the circumstances under which the famous letter was reproduced in print: "I met Chas H. Dana (he was always friendly to me--he was then managing editor of the Tribune in the street in New York where we had a confab; and he requested the latter to print, but I refused. Some time after at a second request of Dana and knowing he was a friend of Mr. Emerson I consented." The broadside, the note, and the clipping were published in the article Some Personal and Old-Age Memoranda in Lippincott's Magazine March, 1891 (See MS. of this article, No. 111). {9}Concord, Mass'tts, 21 July, 1855. Walt Whitman - Dear Sir, I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "Leaves of Grass." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean. I give of you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground some- where, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if the sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging. I did not know until I last night saw that book advertised in a newspaper that I could trust the name as real and available for a post-office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks and visiting New York to pay you my respects. R. W. Emerson I met Chas H Dana (he was always friendly to me - he was then managing editor of The Tribune) in the street in New York where we had a confab and he requested the letter to print, but I refused. Some time after at a second request of Dana and knowing he was a friend of Mr. Emerson I consented. The following from a newspaper of Aug. 1890 contains an authentic and further explanation of the matter: "A person named [Woodbery] Woodbury says in a just published book that R. W. Emerson told him how Walt Whitman appeared at a dinner party, in New York, coatless, in his shirt sleeves. Of course and certainly Walt Whitman did not so appear, and quite as certainly, of course, Emerson never said anything of the sort. The extreme friendliness of a few critics toward Walt Whitman is met by the extremer malignance and made up falsehoods of other critics. One of the latter printed in a New York weekly that Whitman always wore an open red flannel shirt. Another story was that the Washington, D. C., police [']'run him out[']' from that town for shamelessly living with an improper female. In a book of Edward Emerson's a full account of his father's opinion of Walt Whitman is sneaked in by a foot note. The true fact is, R. W. Emerson had a firm and deep attachment to Whitman from first to last, as person and poet, which Emerson's family and several of his conventional literary friends tried their best in vain to dislodge. As Frank Sanborn relates, Emerson was fond of looking at matters from different sides, but he early put on record, that to his mind, [']'Leaves of Grass'['] was '[']the greatest show of wit and poetry that America had yet contributed,'['] and to his mind he steadily adhered throughout." note - smaller type bottom of page see lst page of copy This in small type at bottom of page as note let it run over to next page if necessary *This letter and its publication may be worth a note. Here it is verbatim:To Walt Whitman, Esq. Camden, N.J. Dear Sir, I have sent you by this mail a little book of verses as a slight token of my esteem. I hope that you may find something in the book worthy of your consideration. I have the honor to be your most obedient servant, Henry Austin, Boston Walt Whitman Camden, N.J.