H&7 
 
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS. 
 
PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR BY 
 A. TAL.BOT & Co., LONDON, ONTARIO, CANADA. 
 
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS: LEFT BY WALT 
 
 WHITMAN AND NOW EDITED BY DR. RICHARD 
 
 MAURICE BUCKE, ONE OF HIS LITERARY EX 
 ECUTORS. 
 
 . 
 
 " Waifs from the deep cast high and dry" 
 
 Leaves of Grass, p. 278. 
 
 ' 
 
 
 PRINTED 
 FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. 
 
 1899. 
 
THIS BOOK is PRINTED FROM THE TYPE, AND ITS ISSUE LIMITED TO Two 
 HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE COPIES. THIS is No. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 /AS ONE of Walt Whitman's literary executors there came to me under his will : (l) 
 Letters from himself to his mother written from Washington in war-time (1862-5) 
 and which have lately been published by Small, Maynard & Co. under the title of "The 
 Wound -Dresser." (2) Many hundred letters written by members of the Whitman family 
 to one another, as letters from Mrs. Whitman to W. W., Mrs. Heyde etc., letters from 
 George, Jeff, Mary, Hannah etc. to Mrs. Whitman, and so on. All these letters had been 
 preserved by Mrs. Whitman and upon her death in 1873 passed to Walt Whitman, who, a 
 very sick man at the time and for long afterwards, simply let them lie in old boxes and 
 bundles until at his death they passed to the present editor. (3) Quite a number of 
 books from Whitman's library, many of them annotated by the poet. (4) A great mass of 
 MS., the bulk of which is printed in this volume a good deal of the rest is of an auto 
 biographical character and is reserved for a new edition of my ' ' Walt Whitman " or to be 
 used in publications supplemental to that volume. (5) The magazine articles and 
 newspaper cuttings enumerated in Part VI. of this volume. 
 
 Each of the other two literary executors took under the poet's will the same amount of 
 material as myself, so it will be seen that these MS. remains were quite extensive, and 
 judging by the careless, haphazard manner of their preservation it would seem certain that 
 more must have been lost than were left in existence at the time of the poet's death. 
 
 These facts and considerations (when we join to them others equally well known and 
 obvious, as that he knew the Bible, Shakespeare and Homer almost by heart) bring out 
 pretty clearly the extraordinary industry of this man, who has generally been considered as 
 easy-going, careless, idle, even " a loafer," but who must have been, in fact, though almost 
 in secret, one of the most indefatigable workers who ever lived even in America. 
 
 For it must be remembered that from childhood he not only had to make his own 
 living by actual daily work ('tending office, typesetting, school teaching, editing news 
 papers, carpentering, house-building) but all his life, after early youth, he assisted in the 
 maintenance of other members of the family. And besides all this, consider the time taken 
 up by his numerous friendships his frequent trips into the country, his sails on the bay 
 with pilots, fishermen and others, the many hours spent on the ferry boats and omnibus ses, 
 and later his work in the hospitals. But (though it often seems almost or quite miraculous) 
 Walt Whitman always had time and always had money for all his purposes. 
 
 The notes printed in this volume came to me in scrapbooks and in bundles. They 
 are all on loose sheets and small pieces of paper of endless sizes, shapes, shades and qual 
 ities, (some even written on the back of scraps of wall-paper! ). Sometimes they are pasted 
 in a scrapbook but more often stuck in loose, or (as said) tied in bundles. In both the 
 scrapbooks and bundles the MS. notes are mixed with the magazine articles and the news 
 paper cuttings. These notes, cuttings etc. extend from the forties down to the seventies 
 or eighties they belong very largely to the fifties. 
 
 Every word printed in the body of this book (except in the sixth part, which con 
 tains the list of magazine articles and newspaper cuttings and excepting also headings and 
 footnotes) is before me in the handwriting of Walt Whitman. When a passage has been 
 quoted by him the quotation marks are preserved. Any words of explanation added by me 
 are given in footnotes and in a smaller type so that my words can never be confounded with 
 Whitman's. 
 
vi. Notes and Fragments. 
 
 As there are some to-day so it seems likely that in the future there will be many for 
 whom the study of Walt Whitman will possess a singular fascination. All such will desire 
 not only to know the poetry and prose that he left behind him in print but will want, even 
 more, to know whence and how this came. And above all they will desire to know as 
 much as possible of the man himself, of his spiritual genesis and of his mental evolution. 
 To such the present record of the early ideas and impulses out of which his mature works 
 grew, as giving an insight which nothing else could afford, will be warmly welcomed and 
 will seem at least as important as the finished works themselves. To receive this informa 
 tion with absolute authenticity not only in Whitman's own hand but from documents 
 absolutely private and never intended for any eye but his own seems to me a piece of 
 extraordinary good fortune. 
 
 It is made as good as certain by these notes that Whitman's original thought was to 
 publish his ideas in the form of lectures. I believe he had formed this intention some years 
 before such a book as ' ' leaves of Grass ' ' was planned or even thought of. Nor did he 
 drop the notion of lecturing as an integral part of his scheme of self -presentation after he 
 began to write the " Leaves," but held to it certainly until after the war. It is even likely 
 that the apparent impossibility of ever really publishing his verse even after this was printed 
 in '55 and '56 (for the copies of these early editions could neither be sold nor given away) 
 caused him more than ever to turn his thoughts to the lecture platform. 
 
 Be this as it may the present volume shows conclusively that Whitman planned, and 
 at least partly wrote, lectures before he began to write the " Leaves," and that he continued 
 to plan and to work at lectures, at least at intervals, almost all the test of his life. 
 
 Whitman, like Bacon, took " all knowledge for his province " though he would per 
 haps attach a slightly different meaning to that expression. In any case he aimed to know 
 as far as possible all there was to be learned. It is both interesting and instructive to observe 
 how he sought to carry out his scheme of self -education. One of the means he employed, 
 a means that, in part, gave material for this volume and is therefore mentioned here, was as 
 follows: He took a work on universal geography divided it into pieces of some fifty 
 pages each; between these pieces he distributed numerous extra maps, a large quantity of 
 blank paper (about equal in quantity to that printed upon) and every dozen or so leaves a 
 number of stub leaves then had the whole bound into a big, thick volume, which was so 
 made as to open very freely. This volume he studied and kept continually adding to. To 
 the stubs and on the blank leaves he pasted newspaper and magazine pieces each one in 
 Its proper place, those relating to Italy, Greece, Asia Minor etc. would be pasted in so as 
 to fill out and complete the text. Then when he met a man who had traveled he got from 
 him all he could, wrote out an abstract of it and placed that in its proper place in the book. 
 In this way he constructed a volume which was a storehouse of information (geographical, 
 ethnological, social, religious, industrial etc.) dealing with all parts of the world and the 
 inhabitants of each part. 
 
 Other of his scrapbooks were good -sized volumes of blank paper intermixed with 
 stub leaves into these he collected some loose, some pinned, and others pasted in news 
 paper cuttings and magazine articles, MS. notes being added either written on the margin 
 of magazine articles, on the leaves of the scrapbook or on loose paper which was either 
 pinned or pasted in, or in many instances simply placed between the leaves of the book. 
 
 R. M. B. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE, - v. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 FIRST DRAFTS AND REJECTED LINES AND PASSAGES, MOSTLY VERY FRAGMENTARY, 
 
 FROM "LEAVES OF GRASS," LARGELY ANTECEDENT TO THE 1855 EDITION, 8 
 
 PART II. 
 NOTES ON THE MEANING AND INTENTION OF " LEAVES OF GRASS," - 55 
 
 PART III. 
 
 MEMORANDA FROM BOOKS AND FROM His OWN REFLECTIONS, INDICATING THE 
 POET'S READING AND THOUGHT PREPARATORY TO WRITING " LEAVES 
 OF GRASS," 75 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 SHORTER NOTES, ISOLATED WORDS, BRIEF SENTENCES, MEMORANDA, SUGGESTIVE 
 
 EXPRESSIONS, NAMES AND DATES, 151 
 
 PART V. 
 
 NOTES ON ENGLISH HISTORY, 181 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 A LIST OF CERTAIN MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES STUDIED AND PRE 
 SERVED BY WALT WHITMAN AND FOUND AMONG His PAPERS, - 193 
 
" A Trail of Drift and Debris:' 
 
 Leaves of Grass, p. 203. 
 
PART I. 
 
 FIRST DRAFTS AND REJECTED LINES AND PASSAGES, MOSTLY VERY FRAGMENTARY, 
 
 FROM "LEAVES OF GRASS," LARGELY ANTECEDENT TO 
 
 THE 1855 EDITION. 
 
 AM become a shroud ; 
 
 I wrap a body and lie in the coffin with it. 
 
 It is dark there underground ; 
 
 It is not evil or pain there, it is the absence of all that is good. 
 
 Now it seems to me that everything in the light above must be happy, 
 Whoever is not in his coffin, and the dark grave let him know he has enough. 
 
 The retrospective ecstacy is upon me, now my spirit burns volcanic ; 
 The earth recedes ashamed before my prophetical crisis.* 
 
 Osirus to give forms. 
 
 I am he who finds nothing more divine than simple and natural things are divine. 
 
 3 
 
 Remembrances I plant American ground with, 
 
 Lessons to think I scatter as they come. 
 
 I perceive that myriads of men and women never think, 
 
 I perceive that e'er visible effects can come, thought must come, 
 
 I perceive that sages, poets, inventors, benefactors, lawgivers, are only those who 
 
 have thought, 
 
 That maugre all differences of ages and lands they differ not, 
 That what they leave is the common stock of the race. 
 
 "Written on same leaf, but see "Leaves of Grass," Song of Myself, S. 25, line 13, and The Sleepers 
 S. 2, '55 edition, pp. 31 and 72, and current edition, pp. 50 and 327. 
 
io Leaves of Grass First Drafts 
 
 "iV . v i/:;? 4 
 
 }M fiti|if$jfclj 3 ^Wfoat are you doing ? 
 Unloose me, the breath is leaving my throat ; 
 Open your floodgates ! You are too much for me. 
 
 Grip'd wrestler! do you keep the heaviest pull for the last ? 
 Must you bite with your teeth at parting ? 
 
 Will you struggle worst ? I plunge you from the threshold. 
 Does it make you ache so to leave me ! 
 
 Take what you like, I can resist you ; 
 
 Take the tears of my soul if that is what you are after. 
 
 Pass to some one else ; 
 
 Little as your mouth, it has drained me dry of my strength.* 
 
 5 
 
 Asia, steppes, the grass, the winter appearances, 
 
 The Tartar life, Nomadic pasturage, the herds, 
 
 The tabounshic or horse-herd, (taboun, a herd of horses), 
 
 The oxen, cows, women preparing milk. 
 
 I am a Russ, an arctic sailor, I traverse the sea of Kara, 
 A Kamskatkan on my slight-built sledge, drawn by dogs. 
 
 The ancient Hindostanee with his deities. 
 
 The great old Empire of India ; that of Persia and its expeditions and conquests; 
 
 The Sanskrit the ancient poems and laws ; 
 
 The idea of Gods incarnated by their avatars in man and woman ; 
 
 The falling of the waters of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara ; 
 
 The poems descended safely to this day from poets of three thousand years ago.f 
 
 And the tough Scotch sailor crosses the minch to the Hebrides, 
 
 And the Orkney boy and the Shetland boy wonder at that distant world they hear 
 of, yet love their rude cold island forever.J 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 33, and current edition, p. 53. 
 
 fCf. " Leaves of Grass," '56 edition. " Poem of Salutation," p. 103, et. seg., and current edition, p. 115. 
 
 Left out of " Poem of Salutation," '56 edition. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 11 
 
 7 
 
 And the canny Caledonian thrives and thinks anywhere between Solway Firth and 
 Noss Head.* 
 
 8 
 
 And as the shores of the sea I live near and love are to me, so are the shores of all 
 
 the seas of the earth to those who live near and love them. 
 And as the mountains of my land are to me, so are the Alps, Pyranees, the Styrian 
 
 hills, Carnacks, Balks, Sedletz mountains, to the people of those lands.* 
 
 9 
 
 You stayer by the Shannon, the Dee, the Trent, the Severn, or goer from thence, 
 You tough sailor crossing the minch to your Hebrides, 
 You Orkney boy and Shetland boy, 
 You Spaniard of Spain, you Portuguese, you Swiss.* 
 
 10 
 
 All have come out of us, and all may return to us they are ours. 
 
 ii 
 
 A soprano heard at intervals over the immense waves, 
 Audible these from the underlying chorus, 
 Occupants and joyous vibraters of space. f 
 
 12 
 
 As we are content and dumb the amount of us in men and women is content and 
 
 dumb, 
 As we cannot be mistaken at last, they cannot be mistaken. 
 
 13 
 
 Never fails the combination, 
 
 An underlying chorus, occupant and joyous vibrater of space. 
 A clear transparent base that lusciously shudders the universe, 
 A tenor strong and ascending, with glad notes of morning with power and health. 
 
 * Left out of " Poem of Salutation," '56 edition. 
 
 t Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 32, and current edition, p. 51. 
 
 Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 32, and current edition, p. 51. 
 
12 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 I have advanced from. 
 
 All that we are the solid and liquid we are we have advanced to, 
 We have advanced from what was our own cohesion and formation, 
 We advance to just as much more, and just as much more. 
 Time suffices, and the laws suffice. 
 
 15 
 
 Send any and all, no matter what, 
 We have places for any and all good places ; 
 We receive them, we have made preparation, 
 We have not only made preparation for a few developed persons, 
 We have made preparation for undeveloped persons also. 
 
 16 
 
 We effuse spirituality and immortality, 
 
 We put a second brain to the brain, 
 
 We put second eyes to the eyes and second ears to the ears, 
 
 Then the drudge in the kitchen then the laborer in his stained clothes then the 
 
 black person, criminals, barbarians are no more inferior to the rest. 
 The frivolous and the blunderer are not to be laughed at as before, 
 The cheat, the crazy enthusiast, the unsuccessful man, come under the same laws 
 
 as any. 
 
 17 
 
 My spirit sped back to the times when the earth was burning mist, 
 
 And peered aft and could see Concord beyond the aft, forming the mist, 
 
 And brings word that Dilation or Pride is a father of Causes, 
 
 And a mother of Causes is Goodness or Love 
 
 And they are the Parents yet, and witness and register their Amours eternally ; 
 
 And devise themselves to These States this hour. 
 
 And my spirit travelled ahead and pierced the stern hem of life and went fearlessly 
 
 through, 
 
 And came back from the grave with serene face, 
 And said, It is well, I am satisfied, I behold the causes yet. 
 I beheld Dilation just the same afterwards. 
 I beheld Love and Concord also in the darkness afterwards.* t 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, page 50, and current edition, page 71. 
 
Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 13 
 
 18 
 
 As the turbulence of the expressions of the earth, as the great heat and the great 
 cold as the soiledness of animals and the bareness of vegetables and minerals, 
 No more than these were the roughs among men shocking to me. 
 
 19 
 
 Remember if you are dying, that you are dying, * * * is it so then ? 
 If it be so I bring no shuffling consolation of doctors and priests, 
 I tell the truth * * * I tell with unvarying voice. 
 
 20 
 
 White, shaved, foreign, soft- fleshed, shrinking, 
 
 Scant of muscle, scant of love-power, 
 
 Scant of gnarl and knot, modest, sleek in costumes, 
 
 Averse from the wet of rain, from the fall of snow, from the grit of the stones 
 
 and soil, 
 
 A pretty race, each one just like hundreds of the rest, 
 A race of scantlings from the stony growth of America.* 
 
 21 
 
 American air I have breathed, breathe henceforth also of me, 
 American ground that supports me, I will support you also. 
 
 22 
 A procession without halt, * * * 
 
 Apparent at times, and hid at times, 
 
 Rising the rising ground, in relief against the clear sky, lost in the hollows, stretched 
 
 interminably over the plains. 
 No eye that ever saw the starting, no eye that ever need wait for the ending, 
 
 Where any one goes, however ahead, the rest duly coming, however far behind, 
 
 * * # 
 
 Marches a marching procession. f 
 
 23 
 
 A remembrance * * * * * 
 A breath to American air, 
 Remembrance for a breed of full-sized young men and women. 
 
 * This seems to be a complete poem of the time of the middle fifties. 
 
 t The march of the human race across the earth. A projected poem, never finished. 
 
14 Leaves of Grass- -First Drafts 
 
 24 
 
 O I see now that I have the make of materialism and things, 
 And that intellect is to me but as hands or eyesight, or as a vessel, 
 
 25 
 
 Give me something savage, and luxuriant, 
 Give me large, full-voiced * * * men* 
 
 26 
 
 And to me each minute of the night and day is vital and visible, 
 
 And I say the stars are not echoes, 
 
 And I perceive that the sedgy weed has refreshing odors ; 
 
 And potatoes and milk afford a dinner of state, 
 
 And I guess the chipping bird sings as well as I, although she never learned the 
 
 gamut ; 
 And to shake my friendly right hand, governors and millionaires shall stand all day 
 
 waiting their turns. 
 
 And to me each acre of the land and sea exhibits marvellous pictures ; 
 
 They fill the worm-fence and lie on the heaped stones, and are hooked to the elder 
 
 and poke weed ; 
 And to me the cow crunching with depressed head is a statue perfect and plumb.f 
 
 27 
 
 Its settlements, wars, the organic compact, peace, Washington, the Federal constitu 
 tion, are you and me, 
 
 Its young men's manners, speech, dress, friendships, are you and me, 
 Its crimes, lies, defections, slavery, are you and me, 
 
 Its congress is you and me the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me, 
 Its inventions, science, schools, are you and me, 
 Its deserts, forests, clearings, log houses, hunters, are you and me, 
 Its ships, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging, are you and me. 
 Its paved cities, wharves, wealth, avenues, dwellings, are you and me, 
 The perpetual arrival of immigrants, are you and me, 
 The north, south, east, west, are you and me, 
 Natural and artificial, are you and me, 
 Liberty, language, poems, employments, are you and me, 
 Failures, successes, births, deaths, are you and me, 
 Past, present, future, are only you and me. 
 
 * Cf. "Drum-Taps," p. 47, and current edition " Leaves of Grass," p. 244. 
 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, pp. 16 and 20, and current edition, pp. 33 and 38. 
 
Leaves of Grass- -First Drafts. 15 
 
 I swear I cannot evade any part of myself, 
 
 Not America, nor any attribute of America, 
 
 Not my body not friendship, hospitality, procreation, 
 
 Not my soul, not the last explanation of prudence, 
 
 Not faith, sin, defiance, nor any of the dispositions or duties of myself, 
 
 Not liberty not to cheer up slaves and horrify despots,* 
 
 28 
 
 Sanity and ensemble characterize the great masters, 
 
 Innocence and nakedness are resumed, 
 
 Theories of the special depart as dreams, 
 
 Nothing happens, or ever has happened, or ever can happen, but the vital laws are 
 
 enough, 
 
 None were or will be hurried, none were or will be retarded, 
 A vast, clear scheme, each learner learning it for himself, 
 Taking men, women, laws, the earth, >nd the things of the earth as they are, 
 Starting from one's-self and coming back to one's-self, 
 Looking always toward the poet, 
 Seeing all tend eternally toward happiness, 
 What is narrower than gravitation, light, life, of no account, 
 What is less than the sure formation of density, or the patient upheaving of strata, 
 
 of no account, 
 What is less than that which follows the thief, the liar, the glutton, the drunkard, 
 
 through this experience, and doubtless afterwards, that too of no account, 
 What does not satisfy each one and convince each one that too of no account. 
 
 29 
 
 Hear my fife ! I am a recruiter, 
 Come, who will join my troop ? 
 
 30 
 
 The sores on my shoulders are from his iron necklace, 
 
 I look off on the river with my bloodshot eyes, 
 
 He stops the steamboat till she take my woman and paddle away with her.f 
 
 Advance shapes like his shape the king of Egypt's shape, 
 
 Shapes that tally Sesostris gigantic in stature, wholesome, clean-eyed, 
 
 * Cf. p. 199, '56 edition, and p. 274, current edition. 
 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 74, and current edition, pp. 329-330, but eight lines dropped out 
 of last, including' those corresponding with above passage. 
 
16 Leaves of Grassy-First Drafts. 
 
 Six feet ten inches tall every limb, every part and organ in proportion strong, 
 
 bearded, supple, 
 
 Conqueror of two continents in nine years, 
 Lover most of those that repelled him sternest builder to them of phallic 
 
 memorials, 
 Ruler wisely and friendlily for sixty -two years accepter of all religions preferer 
 
 of none, 
 Freer of slaves divider among them of homesteads maker of farmers. 
 
 32 
 Under this rank coverlid stretch the corpses of young men. 
 
 Light and air ! 
 
 Nothing ugly can be disgorged, 
 
 Nothing corrupt or dead set before them, 
 
 But it surely becomes translated or enclothed 
 
 Into supple youth or a dress of living richness, spring gushing out from under the 
 roots of an old tree, barnyard, pond, yellow jagged bank with white pebble 
 stones, timothy, sassafras, grasshopper, pismire, rail-fence, rye, oats, cucumbers, 
 musk-melons, pumpkin-vine, long string of running blackberry regular sound 
 of the cow crunching, crunching the grass, 
 
 The path worn in the grass katy-did, locust, tree-toad, robin, wren. 
 
 33 
 These are the sights that I have absorbed in Manhattan island, and in all These 
 
 States, 
 These are the thoughts that have come to me some have come by night, and some 
 
 by day, as I walked. 
 
 I know that Personality is divine, and gives life and identity to a man or woman. 
 
 And I know that egotism is divine, 
 I know that the woman is to be equal to the man. And I know that there is to be 
 
 nothing excepted. 
 
 34 
 
 The crowds naked in the bath, 
 Can your sight behold them as with oyster's eyes ? 
 Do y ~>u take the attraction of gravity for nothing ? 
 Does the negress bear no children ? 
 Are they never handsome ? Do they not thrive ? 
 Will cabinet officers become blue or yellow from excessive gin ? 
 Shall 1 receive the great things of the spirit on easier terms than I do a note of hand? 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 17 
 
 Who examines the philosophies in the market less than a basket of peaches or 
 
 barrels of salt fish ? 
 Who accepts chemistry on tradition ? 
 
 The light picks out a bishop or pope no more than the rest. 
 A mouse is miracle enough to stagger bilious of infidels.* 
 
 35 
 
 Night of south winds night of the large few stars ! 
 Still slumberous night mad, naked summer night! 
 
 Smile, O voluptuous, procreant earth ! 
 
 Earth of the nodding and liquid trees ! 
 
 Earth of the mountains, misty-top't ! 
 
 Earth of departed sunset Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river 
 
 Earth of the vitreous fall of the full moon just tinged with blue ! 
 
 Earth of the limpid gray of clouds purer and clearer for my sake ! 
 
 Earth of far arms rich, apple-blossomed earth ! 
 
 Smile, for your lover comes ! 
 
 Spread round me earth ! Spread with your curtained hours ; 
 Take me as many a time you've taken ; 
 Till springing up in * * * 
 
 Prodigal, you have given me love ; 
 Sustenance, happiness, health have given ; 
 Therefore, I to you give love ; 
 O, unspeakable, passionate love !f 
 
 36 
 
 I know many beautiful things about men and women, 
 
 But do not know anything more beautiful than to be freehanded and always go on 
 the square. 
 
 I see an aristocrat ; 
 
 I see a smoucher grabbing the good dishes exclusively to himself and grinning at 
 
 the starvation of others as if it were funny. 
 
 I gaze on the greedy hog ; he snorts as he roots in the delicate greenhouse. 
 How those niggers smell ! 
 
 Must that hod-boy occupy the same stage with me ? 
 Doth the dirt doze and forget itself ? 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," p. 34, '55 edition, and p. 54, current edition. 
 t Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 27, current edition p. 46. 
 
i8 Leaves of GrassFirst Drafts. 
 
 And let tomatoes ripen for busters and night walkers, 
 
 And do no better for me 
 
 Who am a regular gentleman or lady, 
 
 With a stoop and a silver door-plate and a pew in church ? 
 
 And is the day here when I vote at the polls, 
 
 One with the immigrant that last August strewed lime in my gutter ? 
 
 One with the thick-lipped black ? 
 
 And can dew wet the air after such may be elected to Congress, 
 And make laws over me ? 
 
 Have you heard the gurgle of gluttons perfectly willing to stuff themselves 
 While they laugh at the good fun of the starvation of others, 
 But when the gaunt and the starved awkwardly come for their slices 
 The quiet changes to angry hysterics. 
 
 It is for babies to lift themselves out of the 
 
 I go not with the babies who 
 
 I am none of the large baby sort ; 
 
 I have no wish to lift myself above breathing air, and be specially eminent or 
 
 attractive ; 
 
 I am not quite such a fool as that, 
 I remain with people on average terms 
 I am too great to be a mere leader. 
 
 37 
 
 I am the poet of Reality, 
 And I say the stars are not echoes, 
 And I say that space is no apparition ; 
 But all the things seen or demonstrated are so ; 
 Witnesses and albic dawns of things equally great, yet not seen. 
 
 I announce myself the Poet of Materials and exact demonstration ; 
 Say that Materials are just as eternal as growth, the semen of God that swims the 
 entire creation. 
 
 Hurrah for Positive Science ! 
 Bring honey-clover and branches of lilac ! 
 These are the Philosophers of Nature, 
 Every one admirable and serene, 
 Traveling, sailing, measuring space, 
 Botanizing, dissecting, or making machines.* 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 28; current edition, p. 47. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 19 
 
 38 
 
 I am a curse : a negro thinks me ; 
 You cannot speak for yourself, negro ; 
 I lend him my own tongue ; 
 I dart like a snake from your mouth. 
 
 My eyes are bloodshot, they look down the river, 
 A steamboat paddles away my woman and children. 
 
 His iron necklace and red sores of the shoulders I do not mind, 
 
 The hopples at the ankles and tight cuffs at the wrists must not detain me. 
 
 I go down the river with the sight of my bloodshot eyes, 
 
 I go to the steamboat that paddles off my woman and children. 
 
 I do not stop with my woman and children, 
 
 I burst the saloon doors and crash on a party of passengers. 
 
 But for them I too, should have been on the steamer 
 I should soon * 
 
 39 
 His very aches are ecstacy. 
 
 40 
 
 I am a hell-name and a curse : 
 
 Black Lucifer was not dead ; 
 
 Or if he was I am his sorrowful, terrible heir ; 
 
 I am the God of revolt deathless, sorrowful, vast ; whoever oppresses me 
 
 I will either destroy him or he shall release me. 
 
 Damn him, how he does defile me ! 
 
 Hoppler of his own sons ; breeder of children and trader of them 
 Selling his daughters and the breast that fed his young. 
 Informer against my brother and sister and taking pay for their blood. 
 He laughed when I looked from my iron necklace after the steamboat that carried 
 away my woman, f 
 
 41 
 
 I stand at the top of the street, 
 I know the great procession is coming, 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 74; passage not in current edition. 
 
 t Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 74; nothing corresponding in current edition. 
 
2o Leaves of Grass First Drafts 
 
 I see the towering caps of pioneers far off through the dark, 
 I see the gilt-tip't staves of policemen clearing the way, 
 Above the roar I hear the clear tutti of victorious horns.* 
 
 42 
 
 Topple down upon him, Light ! for you seem to me all one lurid curse ; 
 
 Damn him ! how he does defy me, 
 
 This day or some other I will have him and the like of him to do my will upon, 
 
 They shall not break the lids off their coffins but what with pennies on their eyes I 
 
 will have them, 
 I will tear their flesh out from under the graveclothes. 
 
 I will not listen I will not spare I am justified of myself : 
 For a hundred years I will pursue those who have injured me so much ; 
 Though they hide themselves under the lappets of God I will pursue them there, 
 I will drag them out the sweet marches of Heaven shall be stopped with my 
 maledictions. 
 
 43 
 
 Where the little musk ox carries his perfumed bag at his navel, 
 Where the life car is drawn on its slip noose 
 At dinner on a dish of huckleberries, or rye bread and a round white pot cheese. f 
 
 44 
 
 I call back blunderers ; 
 I give strong meat in place of panada ; 
 I expose what ties loads on the soul. 
 Are you so poor that you are always miserly, Priests ? 
 Will you prize a round trifle like a saucer, done in red and yellow paint ? 
 
 I offer men no painted saucer I make every one a present of the sun ; 
 I have plenty more I have millions of suns left.J 
 
 45 
 
 I entertain all the aches of the human heart 
 Outside the asteroids I reconnoitre at my ease. 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 84, and current edition, p. 354. 
 
 fCf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 36, current edition, p. 56. 
 
 Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 14, and current edition, p. 30. 
 
Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 21 
 
 4 6 
 
 Poem of existence. 
 
 We call one the past and we call another the future, 
 But both are alike the present. 
 
 It is not the p*st, though we call it so nor the future though we call it so, 
 All the while it is the present only. 
 
 The curious realities now everywhere on the surface of the earth in the interior of 
 
 the earth 
 
 What is it? Is it liquid fire ? Are there living creatures in that? Is it fire ? Solid ? 
 Is there not toward the core some vast, strange, stiffling vacuum ? 
 Is there anything in that vacuum ? Any kind of curious flying or floating life with 
 
 its nature fitted ? 
 
 The existences on the innumerable stars, with their varied degrees of perfection, 
 
 climate, swiftness 
 
 Some probably are but forming, not so advanced as the earth 
 (Some are no doubt more advanced). 
 
 There is intercommunion, 
 
 One sphere cannot know another sphere, 
 
 Communion of life is with life only, and of what is after life. 
 
 Each sphere knows itself only, and cannot commune beyond itself, 
 Life communes only with life, 
 Whatever it is that follows death . 
 
 47 
 
 There can be nothing small or useless in the universe ; 
 The insignificent is as big as the noble ; 
 What is less than a touch ? 
 
 All truths wait in all places, 
 
 They wait with inclined heads and arms folded over their breasts ; 
 They neither urge their own birth nor resist it ; 
 They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon ; 
 
 They enclose to those who ever fetches the warmth of the light and the moisture 
 of rain. 
 
 Logic and sermons never convince ; 
 
 The dew of the night drives deeper into the soul. 
 
22 Leaves of Grass First Drafts 
 
 A test of anything ! 
 
 It proves itself to the experience and senses of men and women ! 
 
 Bring it to folk and you will see whether they doubt ; 
 
 They do not doubt contact or hunger or love ; 
 
 They do not doubt iron or steam ; 
 
 We do not doubt the mystery of life ; 
 
 We do not doubt the east and the west ; 
 
 We do not doubt sight.* 
 
 Of Biography, and of all literature and art. 
 
 That it has not been well written because it has not been written by authors 
 who considered their subjects with reference to the ensemble of the world because 
 everything, every subject has been made too prononce. The charm of nature is 
 that everything is with the rest and is not prononce, but yet distinct, individual 
 and complete in itself. 
 
 :; ... (t) 
 
 To a Literat. 
 
 Your subject is always too pronounced, 
 
 You have not considered your subject with reference to its place and with reference 
 
 to the ensemble of the world. 
 The great statements, censuses, poems, essays, dictionaries, biographies, etc., are 
 
 those that stand in their places with the things of the world. 
 Behold nature ! how distinct, individual, complete, 
 Each toward all and nothing supersedes the rest. 
 
 Walt Whitman's law 
 
 For the new and strong artists of America 
 
 For the fresh brood of perfect teachers, literats, the diverse savans and the coming 
 
 musicians, 
 There shall be no subject but it shall be treated with reference to the ensemble of 
 
 the world and no coward or copyist shall be any more allowed. 
 There shall be no subject too pronounced all works shall acknowledge the divine 
 
 law of indirections, 
 
 There they stand, 1 see them already, each easy in its place,' 
 Statements, music, poems, dictionaries, biographies, essays 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 33, and current edition, p. 53. 
 
Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 
 
 How complete, how interfused No one supersedes the rest. 
 
 They do not seem to me like what I saw in arriere, in the old volumes and specimens, 
 They seem to me like nature at last (America has given rise to them, and I have also.) 
 They seem to me like the sky with clouds like trees with rustling leaves, like 
 
 stretching waters with ships sailing on in the distance. 
 They seem to me at last as good as animals and as the rocks, earth and weeds.* 
 
 49 
 
 In American schools sit men and women 
 Schools for men and women are more necessary than for children. 
 
 50 
 Enough O fastened and loosened contact. 
 
 Nor humility's book nor the book of despair nor of old restrictions ; 
 
 Book of a new soldier, bound for new campaigns ; 
 
 Book of the sailor that sails the sea stormier, vaster than any. 
 
 52 
 It is no miracle now that we are to live always. 
 
 Touch is the miracle ! 
 
 What is it to be lost, or change our dresses, or sleep long, when .... 
 
 A minute, a touch and a drop of us can launch immortality 
 Little henceforth are proof, and argument needful, 
 Eternity has no time for death each inch of existence is so .... 
 
 And that to pass existence is supreme over all, and what we thought death is but 
 life brought to a firmer parturition.^ 
 
 53 
 
 I cannot guess what the entertainment will be, 
 But I am sure it will be generous enough, 
 I have never yet seen the sign of a niggard in anything but man 
 
 The great laws do not treasure chips, or stick for the odd cent ; 
 I am of the same fashion for I am their friend. 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 185, and current edition, p. 299. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 33, and current edition, p. 53. 
 
24 Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 
 
 I rate myself high I receive no small sums ; 
 I must have my full price whoever enjoys me. 
 
 I feel satisfied my visit will be worthy of me and of my Hosts and Favorites ; 
 I leave it to them how to receive me.* 
 
 54 
 
 The teeth grit the palms of the hands are cut by the turned in nails, 
 The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, though he buys and barters so 
 cooly. 
 
 I remember when I visited the asylum they showed me the most smeared and 
 
 slobbering idiot, 
 
 Yet I know for my consolation of the great laws that emptied and broke my brother 
 The same waited their due time to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement, 
 And I am to look again in a score or two of ages 
 And I shall meet the real landlord stepping forth every inch as good as myself.f 
 
 55 
 
 There is no word in any tongue, 
 No array, no form of symbol, 
 To tell his infatuation 
 Who would define the scope and purpose of God. 
 
 Mostly this we have of God ; we have man. 
 
 Lo, the Sun ; 
 
 Its glory floods the moon, 
 
 Which of a night shines in some turbid pool, 
 
 Shaken by soughing winds ; 
 
 And there are sparkles mad and tossed and broken, 
 
 And their archetype is the sun. 
 
 Of God I know not ; 
 
 But this I know ; 
 
 I can comprehend no being more wonderful than man ; 
 
 Man, before the rage of whose passions the storms of Heaven are but a breath ; 
 
 Before whose caprices the lightning is slow and less fatal ; 
 
 Man, microcosm of all Creation's wildness, terror, beauty and power, 
 
 And whose folly and wickedness are in nothing else existent. % 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 92, and current edition, p. 304. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 84, and current edition, p. 354. 
 J Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 54 ; current edition, p. 77. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 25 
 
 56 
 
 Great are the Myths. ... I too delight in them. 
 Great are Adam and Eve .... I too look back and accept them, 
 
 Great between them and me the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, 
 sages, rulers, warriors and priests. 
 
 And that's so, easy enough ; 
 
 And I am no shallowpate to go about singing them above the rest and deferring to 
 
 them ; 
 And they did not become great by singing and deferring. 
 
 Great are you and great am I, 
 
 We are just as good and bad as the eldest or youngest or any, 
 
 What the best and the worst did we can do, 
 
 What they felt do we not feel it in ourselves ? 
 
 What they thought do we not think the same ?* 
 
 57 
 
 I ask nobody's faith I am very little concerned about that. 
 
 You doubt not the east and the west, 
 
 You doubt not your desires or your fingernails, 
 
 You doubt not metal or acid or steam 
 
 Do I not prove myself ? 
 
 I but show a scarlet tomato, or a sprig of parsley, or a paving stone or some 
 
 seaweed, 
 All acknowledge and admire Savans and Synods as much as the rest. 
 
 I meet not one heretic or unbeliever, 
 
 Could I do as well with the love of the pulpit ? the whole or any part of it ? 
 
 Whatever I say of myself you shall apply to yourself, 
 If you do not it were time lost listening to me. 
 
 I think there will never be any more heaven or hell than there is now, 
 Nor any more youth nor age than there is now, 
 Nor any more inception than there is now, 
 Nor any more perfection than there is now.f 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 93. Poem omitted from current edition. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 14, and current edition, p. 30. 
 
26 Leaves of Grass- -First Drafts. 
 
 58 
 
 Of your soul I say truths to harmonize if anything can harmonize you, 
 
 Your body to me is sweet, clean, loving, strong, I am indifferent how it appears to 
 
 others or to yourself, 
 
 Your eyes are more to me than poems, your lips do better than play music, 
 The lines of your cheeks, the lashes of your eyes, are eloquent to me, 
 The grip of your hand is richer than riches.* 
 
 59 
 As of Forms. 
 
 Their genesis, all genesis, 
 
 They lost, all lost for they include all. 
 
 The earth and everything in it, 
 
 The wave, the snake, the babe, the landscape, the human head, 
 
 Things, faces, reminiscences, presences, conditions, thoughts tally and make definite 
 
 a divine indistinct spiritual delight in the soul. 
 Of the arts, as music, poems, architecture, outlines, and the rest, they are in their 
 
 way to provoke this delight out of the soul, 
 
 They are to seek it where it waits for I see that it always patiently waits. 
 Have you sought the inkling ? 
 
 Have you wandered after the meanings of the earth ? You need not wander ; 
 Behold those forms. 
 
 60 
 To an Exclusive. 
 
 Your tongue here ? Your feet haunting the States ? 
 
 But I also haunt the States, their born defender I, determined brother of low 
 persons and rejected and wronged persons espouser of unhelped women, 
 
 From this hour sleeping and eating mainly that I wake and be muscular for their 
 sakes, 
 
 Training myself in the gymnasium for their sakes, and acquiring a terrible voice for 
 their sakes. 
 
 Rapacious ! I take up your challenge ! 
 
 I fight, whether I win or lose, and hereby pass the feud to them that succeed me ; 
 
 And I charge the young men that succeed me to train themselves and acquire 
 terrible voices for disputes of life and death and be ready to respond to what 
 ever needs response, 
 
 For I prophecy that there will never come a time, North or South, when the 
 rapacious tongue will not be heard, each age in its own dialect. 
 
 * Early or middle fifties, never used. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 27 
 
 61 
 
 As procreation, so the Soul ; 
 
 As childhood, maturity, craft, lies, thefts, adulteries, sarcasm, greed, hatred, denial 
 so the Soul. 
 
 62 
 The circus boy is riding in the circus, on a fleet horse. 
 
 63 
 
 Dimly I with a young man looking together saw those we watched on the shore 
 disappear 
 
 64 
 
 O Walt Whitman, show us some pictures ; 
 
 America always Pictorial ! And you Walt Whitman to name them 
 Yes, in a little house I keep suspended many pictures it is not a fixed house. 
 It is round Behold ! it has room for America, north and south, seaboard and inland, 
 persons ......* 
 
 65 
 
 All tends to the soul, 
 
 As materials so the soul, 
 
 As procreation, so the soul if procreation is impure, all is impure. 
 
 As the shadow concurs with the body and comes not unless of the body, so the soul 
 
 concurs with the body and comes not unless of the body, 
 As materials are so the soul, 
 
 As experiences, childhood, maturity, suffering, so the soul, 
 As craft, lies, thefts, adulteries, sarcasm, greed, denial, avarice, hatred, gluttony, 
 
 so the soul, 
 As the types set up by the printers are faithfully returned by their impression, what 
 
 they are for, so a man's life and a woman's life is returned in the soul before 
 
 death and interminably after death.f 
 
 66 
 
 Lo, space, eternal, spiritual, hilarious, 
 
 Lo, the future free demesne of what is at present called death. 
 
 * Belongs about 1880. 
 
 tCf. " Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 16, current edition, p. 25. 
 
28 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 67 
 
 The woman that sells candies and apples, at the street-stand, 
 The boy crying his newspapers in the morning. 
 
 68 
 The malaria from low wet grounds. 
 
 69 
 
 The red liquid heart of the earth. 
 
 How curious is the brown, divine, coarse, substantial earth, 
 How curious the ........ 
 
 70 
 The Alleghanies climbed and descended by me, the mighty Anahuacs climbed. 
 
 National hymns, real American music, 
 
 The master's words, arrogant, fluent, final, severe. 
 
 72 
 Tar, turpentine, shingles, from North Carolina. 
 
 The slaves drive mules and oxen drawing the rude carts. 
 
 The lumber schooner. 
 
 The pack of negro-dogs chained in couples for the slave-hunt. 
 
 73 
 Who wills with his own brain, the sweet of the float of the earth descends and 
 
 surrounds him, 
 If you be a laborer or apprentice or solitary farmer, it is the same 
 
 Have you known that your limbs must not dangle ? 
 Have you known that your hands are to grasp vigorously ? 
 You are also to grasp with your mind vigorously 
 
 Remember how many pass their whole lives and hardly once think and never learned 
 
 themselves to think, 
 Remember before all realities must exist their thoughts. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 29 
 
 As to you, if you have not yet learned to think, enter upon it now, 
 Think at once with directness, breadth, aim, conscientiousness, 
 You will find a strange pleasure from the start and grow rapidly each successive 
 week. 
 
 74 
 
 After all I set up for myself I set up profit and loss, 
 He is greatest who has the most caution, 
 He only wins who goes far enough. 
 
 A little sum laid aside for burial money, 
 
 A few clapboards around, and shingles overhead, on a lot of American soil owned, 
 
 A few dollars to supply the year's plain clothing and food, 
 
 And then away ! 
 
 I issue myself in triumphant issues, 
 
 I live as I go and I wait long besides, 
 
 I never abandon myself nor the sweet of myself, nor the eternity of myself, 
 
 I will not lose the bloom and odor of the earth, flowers, atmosphere, 
 
 Nor the true taste of the women and men that like me and that I like.* 
 
 75 
 A little sum laid aside for burial money a few clapboards around and shingles 
 
 overhead on a lot of American soil owned a few dollars to supply the year's 
 
 plain clothing and food and then away. 
 
 Prudence has interminable eyes, rejects money, modern prudence, money-making. 
 Abandonment of such a being as you are to the toss and pallor of years, 
 To be a doer of deceits, underhand dodgings, infinitesimals of parlors ...... a 
 
 shameless stuffer while others starve, 
 Loser of all the bloom and odor of the earth, flowers, atmosphere, sea, and of the 
 
 true taste of the women and men you pass or have to do with in youth or 
 
 middle age, 
 Receiver of the issuing sickness and revolt at the close of a life without elevation 
 
 or naivete', 
 Chatterer of the ghastly chatter of a death without serenity or majesty.* 
 
 Will you have the walls of the world with the air and the fringed clouds ? 
 
 The Poet says God and me, What do you want from us ? Ask and maybe we 
 will give it you. 
 
 The Soul addresses God as his equal as one who knows his greatness as a 
 younger brother. 
 
 * Cf. %l Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. x . 
 
30 Leaves of Grass- -First Drafts. 
 
 77 
 
 Ships sail upon the waters some arriving, others depart, 
 Ten thousand rich, learned, populous cities they have grown or certainly to grow. 
 
 The States spread amply old States and new States they front the two seas 
 
 they are edged or cleft by the Mississippi, 
 
 Congress is in session in the Capitol, or will be in session the appointed time, 
 See ! The President is menaced face to face by the common people for his 
 
 derelictions. 
 
 7 8 
 
 Have I refreshed and elevated you ? 
 
 Though I have uttered no word about your particular employment, have you 
 
 received from me new and valuable hints about your employment ? 
 Have you gone aside after listening to me and created for yourself? 
 Have I proved myself strong by provoking strength out of you ? 
 
 79 
 I subject all the teachings of the schools and all dicta and authority to the tests 
 
 of myself 
 And I encourage you to subject the same to the tests of yourself and to subject 
 
 me and my words to the strongest tests of any. 
 
 80 
 Of recognition. 
 
 Come I will no more trouble myself about recognition, 
 
 I will no longer look what things are rated to be but what they really are to me. 
 
 81 
 To pass existence is so good, there is not chance for death 
 
 82 
 
 What would it bring you to be elected and take your place in the Capitol ? 
 I elect you to understand ; that is what all the offices in the Republic could 
 not do. 
 
 83 
 
 And their voices, clearer than the valved cornet, they cry hoot ! hoot ! to us 
 all our lives till we seek where they hide and bring the sly ones forth !* 
 
 Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 47, current edition, p. 68. 
 
Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 31 
 
 84 
 
 The power by which the carpenter plumbs his house is the same power that 
 dashes his biains out if he fall from the roof. 
 
 85 
 
 I see who you are if nobody else sees nor you either, 
 
 I see not so much that you are polite or white-faced 
 
 I see less a citizen of an old State or a citizen of a new State, 
 
 Alabamian, Canadian, British, French, or Malay or from Africa, or savage off 
 
 there in the woods, or fisheater in his lair of rocks and sand, or Chinese 
 
 with his transverse eyes, a wandering nomad, or tabounshick at the head 
 
 of his drove, 
 Man and woman and child indoors and outdoors I see . . . and all else behind 
 
 them or through them, 
 
 I see the wife and she is not one jot less than the husband 
 I see the mother and she is every bit as much as the father 
 I see you engineer, laboring person, minister, editor, immigrant, 
 I see you sailors, man- of- wars man, and merchantman and coastman, 
 I see you and stand before you driver of horses, 
 Son, progenitor * 
 
 86 
 
 Now for a legend not old, but as new as the newest 
 On the spreading land 
 
 You lusty and graceful youth ! You are great ; 
 
 You are not exclusively great in youth ; 
 
 Your middle age shall be great with amplitude and steadiness and fullblooded 
 
 strength ; 
 Your old age shall be equally great with majesty and bloom and fascination 
 
 and love. 
 
 Are the prostitutes nothing ? Are the mockers of religion nothing ? 
 
 Does the light or heat pick out ? Does the attraction of gravity pick out ?f 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 58, current edition p. 170. 
 fCf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 68, and current edition, p. 336. 
 
32 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 89 
 
 Priests ! until you can explain a paving stone do not try to explain God ; 
 Until your creeds can do as much as apples and lien's eggs let down your 
 
 eyebrows a little ; 
 
 Until 3^our Bibles and Prayer-books are able to walk like me, 
 And until your brick and mortar can procreate as I can, 
 I beg yon, sirs, do not presume to put them above me.* 
 
 90 
 
 I have all lives, all effects, all causes, all gerunds, invisibly hidden in myself, 
 This is the earth's word the round and compact earth's, 
 I and the truth are one, we are curiously welded.f 
 
 After Death. 
 
 Now when I am looked back upon I hold levee, 
 
 I lean on my left elbow I take ten thousand lovers, one after another, by my 
 right hand. 
 
 92 
 
 There are the caravan of the desert the close of the day the encampment and 
 the camels. 
 
 93 
 
 I do not expect to see myself in present magazines, reviews, schools, pulpits and 
 legislatures but presently I expect to see myself in magazines, schools and 
 legislatures or that my friends after me will see me there. 
 
 94 
 To the new continent comes the offspring of the rest of the continents to bear 
 
 offspring, 
 And these poems are both offspring and parents of superior offspring. 
 
 95 
 
 To this continent comes the offspring of the other continents, 
 And these poems are both offspring and fathers of superior offspring, 
 And from these poems launches the same spirit that launched those ships, cities, 
 
 Congress and the menaces that confront the President, 
 And these are for the lands. 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 64, and current edition, p. 175. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, p. 323, and current edition, p. 176. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 33 
 
 96 
 
 Points in Proem. 
 
 That only when sex is properly treated, talked, avowed, accepted, will the woman be 
 equal with the man, and pass where the man passes, and meet his words with 
 her words, and his rights with her rights, and 
 
 97 
 
 BROADAXE First as coming in the rough ore out of the earth Then as being 
 smelted and made into usable shape for working then into some of the earlier 
 weapons of the axe kind battleaxe headsman's axe carpenter's broadaxe 
 (process of making, tempering and finishing the axe,) inquire fully. 
 
 USES OF THE BROADAXE. 
 
 In cutting away masts when the ship is on her beam-ends 
 
 In hewing the great timbers for the old-fashioned houses and barns 
 
 Passage describing the putting up of a good styled log cabin in the western woods 
 the whole process joining the logs the company the fun the axe. 
 
 The sylvan woodman or woodboy 
 
 The cutting down of an unusually large and majestic tree live oak or other for 
 some kelson to a frigate or first-class steamship. (what wood is the kelson 
 generally ?) 
 
 Procession of portraits of the different users of the axe the raftsman, the lumber 
 man, the antique warrior, the headsman, the butcher, the framer of houses, the 
 squatter of the west the pioneer. 
 
 Founding of cities. Make it the American emblem preferent to the eagle 
 
 In ship building. In cutting a passage through the ice. 
 
 The butcher in his slaughter house. 
 
 FULL PICTURE. The antique warrior always with his great axe the brawny 
 swinging arm the clatter and crash on the helmeted head the death howl and 
 the quick tumblir g body and rush of friend and foe thither the summons to 
 surrender the battering of castle-gates and city-gates. 
 
 Building wharves and piers. 
 
 Picture full of the pioneer. 
 
 The Roman lictors preceding the consuls. 
 
 The sacrificial priest, Grecian, Roman and Jewish. 
 
 What in Scandinavia ? 
 
 All through the framing of a house all through the hewing of timbers the 
 knocking of beams in their places laying them regular. The framers wielding 
 the axe their attitudes standing, bending astride the beams driving in pins 
 as the frame is being raised they on the posts or braces holding on their 
 limbs the [one arm] hooked around the plate, the other arm wielding the axe. 
 
34 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 Episodic in the cutting down of the tree about what the wood is for for a saloon, 
 for a ceiling, or floor, for a coffin, for a workbox, a sailor's chest, a musical in 
 strument, for firewood for rich casings or frames. 
 
 In a terrible fire the use of the axe to cut down connecting woodwork to stop the fire 
 the excitement the firemen the glare the hoarse shouts the flames the 
 red faces and dense shadows.* 
 
 98 
 
 The irregular tapping of rain off my house-eaves at night after the storm has lulled, 
 
 Gray-blue sprout so hardened grown 
 
 Head from the mother's bowels drawn 
 
 Body shapely naked and wan 
 
 Fibre produced from a little seed sown.* 
 
 99 
 
 Poem illustrative of the woman under the " new dispensation." Collect all illustra 
 tive characters from history Molly Pitcher the best mothers the healthiest 
 women the most loving women. 
 
 A woman is to be able to ride, swim, run, resist, advance, refuse, shoot, defend her 
 self, sail a boat, hunt, rebel, just as much as a man. 
 
 If the woman have not the grand attributes in herself, the man cannot have them 
 afterwards, 
 
 The woman is to be athletic also. 
 
 100 
 
 I heat the hot cores within and fix the central point of the cores 
 
 And I carry straight threads thence to the sun and to distant unseen suns. 
 
 101 
 
 As nature, inexorable, onward, resistless, impassive, amid the screams and din of 
 disputants, so America. 
 
 102 
 
 Yet I strike and dart through 
 
 I think I could dash the girder of the earth away 
 If it lay between me and whatever I wanted. 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, p. 140 ; current edition, p. 148. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 35 
 
 Surely I am out of my head ! 
 
 I am lost to myself and nature in another form has laid down in my place. 
 
 I am a creased and cut sea ; the furious wind . .... 
 
 103 
 
 I am become the poet of babes and little things, 
 I descend many steps I go backward primeval 
 
 I retrace steps oceanic I pass around not merely my own kind, but all the objects 
 I see. 
 
 104 
 
 Pure water I will henceforth drink 
 
 Sunshine, space unclosed, .... I stifle in the confinement of rooms, 
 
 The flesh of animals, wheat, rye, corn, rice, 
 
 Give me that I have a clean, sweet, resistless body to myself, 
 
 Give me .... 
 
 I must have 
 
 105 
 
 I last winter observed the snow on the spree with the north-west wind ; 
 And it put me out of conceit of fences and imaginary lines. 
 
 1 06 
 The dry leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling content to the ground. 
 
 107 
 
 I shall venerate hours and days and think them immeasurable hereafter ; 
 I am finding how much 1" can pass through in a few minutes. 
 
 I was a good friend to all things before, 
 
 But now what I was seems to me limpsey and little. 
 
 1 08 
 
 Why should I subscribe money to build some hero's statue ? 
 That butcher boy is just as great a hero 
 He does not know what fear is. 
 
36 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 109 
 
 The spotted hawk salutes the approaching night; 
 
 He sweeps by me and rebukes me hoarsely with his invitation ; 
 
 He complains with sarcastic voice of my lagging. 
 
 i 
 
 I feel apt to clip it and go ; 
 I am not half tamed yet.* 
 
 no 
 
 I am a student free of a library, it is limitless and eternally open to me ; 
 The books are written in numberless tongues, always perfect and alive. 
 
 They do not own the library who buy the books and sell them again, 
 I am the owner of the library for I read every page and enjoy the meaning of the 
 same. 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 I am your voice It was tied in you In me it begins to talk. 
 I celebrate myself to celebrate every man and woman alive ; 
 I loosen the tongue that was tied in them, 
 It begins to talk out of my mouth. f 
 
 I 12 
 
 I celebrate myself to celebrate you ; 
 I say the same word for every man and woman alive. 
 And I say that the soul is not greater than the body, 
 And I say that the body is not greater than the soul J 
 
 Thought never to be forgotten in lectures. 
 
 That we, this age, pass through (now) the terrible tran>itions to the new age ages. 
 
 We are now going through the paturition. 
 
 America is an illustration of it. 
 
 Few see the result few have any faith in it, 
 Many desperately cling to the old age, 
 Yet continues the divine whirl, the conflict. 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 55, current edition p. 78. 
 
 f Cf. "Leaves of Grass," "55 edition, p. 13, and current edition, p. 29. 
 
 t Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, pp. 13 and 53, and current edition, pp. 29 and 76. 
 
No? 
 
 Leaves of Grass- -First Drafts. 37 
 
 114 
 
 Have you supplied the door of the house where need was, the old one decayed away, 
 And do you not see that you also want your foundation and the roof? 
 Have you put only doors and windows to the house where they were crumbled ? 
 Do you not see that the old foundation beams of the floor have rotted under your 
 
 feet and who knows when they may break ? 
 Do you not see that the roof is also crumbled and this day, this night, may fall in 
 
 ruin about your heads ? 
 
 Aspirations. 
 
 " Keep the secret keep it close." 
 
 A cluster of poemetta. To my Soul. 
 
 To friends. 
 
 Did you think then you knew me ? 
 
 Did you think that talking and the laughter of me, represented me ? 
 
 116 
 
 Can ? make me so exuberant yet so faintish ? 
 
 The rage of an unconquerable fierceness is conquered by the touch [of the] tenderest 
 hand. 
 
 I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, 
 
 Or else I am awake for the first time and all before has been a mean sleep. 
 
 117 
 
 This mouth is pulled by some sexton for his dismalest fee, 
 The death bell tolls there. 
 
 This face matches banners and champing horses.* 
 
 118 
 The Body. 
 
 Why what do you suppose is the Body ? 
 
 Do you suppose this that has Always existed this meat, bread, fruit that is eaten, 
 is the body ? 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, pp. 83 and 84, current edition, p. 354. 
 
38 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 No, those are visible parts of the body, materials that have existed in some way for 
 
 billions of years not entering into the form of the body, 
 But there is the real body too, not visible. 
 
 (Make this more rythmic.) 
 
 119 
 
 Divine is the body it is all it is the soul also. 
 How can there be immortality except through mortality ? 
 How can the ultimate reality of visible things be visible ? 
 How can the real body ever die ? 
 
 1 20 
 Downward, buoyant, swift on turbid waters a coffin floating. 
 
 121 
 
 The suicide went to a lonesome place with a pistol and killed himself, 
 I came that way and stumbled upon him.* 
 
 122 
 
 dirt, you corpse, I reckon you are good manure but that I do not smell 
 
 1 smell your beautiful white roses 
 
 I kiss your leafy lips I slide my hands for the brown melons of your breasts.f 
 
 123 
 
 My hand will not hurt what it holds and yet will devour it, 
 
 It must remain perfect before me though I enclose and divide it. 
 
 Only one minute, only two or three sheathed touches, 
 
 Yet they gather all of me and my spirit into a knot, 
 
 They hold us long enough there to show us what we can be, 
 
 And that our flesh, and even a part of our flesh, seems more than senses and life. 
 
 What has become of my senses ? 
 
 Touch has jolted down all of them but feeling ; 
 
 He pleases the rest so every one would swap off and go with him, 
 
 Or else she will abdicate and nibble at the edges of me.J 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 17, and current edition, p. 35. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 54, current edition, p. 77. 
 JCf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 33; current edition, p. 52. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 39 
 
 124 
 
 O I must not forget ! 
 To you I reach friendlily 
 
 I must not forget, 
 To you I adhere. 
 
 1 do not flatter, I am not polite, but I adhere to you 
 Baffled, exiled, ragged, gaunt. 
 
 125 
 
 You are English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, 
 
 To-morrow the most powerful Queen that ever reigned over earth sends her eldest 
 
 son to you, 
 
 Germany contributes to you Italy to you. 
 
 You are Spanish also, and French also adopter for good, or as noble guests. 
 You, O Libertad, do not refuse them, you welcome each and all. 
 You are of eld Asiatic also, and African. 
 
 126 
 
 Full of wickedness, I of many a smutch'd deed reminiscent of worse deeds 
 capable, 
 
 Yet I look composedly upon nature, drink day and night the joys of life, and await 
 death with perfect equanimity, 
 
 Because of my tender and boundless love for him I love, and because of his bound 
 less love for me. 
 
 127 
 
 Spirituality, the unknown, the great aspirations of the soul, the idea of justice, divin 
 ity, immortality. 
 
 128 
 
 Merely what I tell is not to justify me, 
 
 What I provoke from you and from ensuing times, is to justify me. 
 
 129 
 
 Loving every one I meet and drawing their love in return, 
 
 Never losing old friends and finding new ones every day of my life. 
 
 130 
 Where the boys dive and splash in the bath. 
 
40 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 13* 
 
 You woman, mother of children, 
 
 You young woman, thinking of man, bashful, longing, loving, thinking alone at night. 
 
 You wife of your husband, 
 
 You husband of your wife you old husband, and you middle-aged or old husband. 
 
 132 
 
 I know that amativeness is just as divine as spirituality and this which I know I 
 put freely in my poems. 
 
 133 
 Poem. Reflections. Shadows. 
 
 As seen in the windows of the shops as I turn from the crowded street and peer 
 
 through the plate glass at the pictures or rich goods 
 In Broadway, the reflections, moving, glistening, silent. 
 
 The heavy base, the great hum and harshness, composite and musical. 
 
 The faces and figures, old and young, all so various, all so phantasmic, 
 
 The omnibus passing and then another and another, the clear sky up of 
 
 134 
 
 To be at all what is better than that ? 
 
 I think if there were nothing more developed, the clam in its callous shell in the 
 sand were august enough. 
 
 I am not in any callous shell ; 
 
 I am cased with supple conductors all over ; 
 
 They take every object by the hand and lead it within me. 
 
 They are thousands, each one with his entry to himself; 
 
 They are always watching with their little eyes, from my head to my feet. 
 
 One no more than a point lets in and out of me such bliss and magnitude, 
 I think I could lift the girder of the house away if it lay between me then and what 
 ever I wanted. 
 
 135 
 I am a look mystic in a trance exaltation. 
 
 Something wild and untamed half savage. 
 
 Common things the trickling sap that flows from the end of the manly maple. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 41 
 
 136 
 
 Living bulbs, melons with polished rinds smooth to the reached hand 
 
 Bulbs of life, lilies, polished melons, flavored for the mildest hand that shall reach. 
 
 137 
 
 I am that half-grown angry boy, fallen asleep, 
 The tears of foolish passion yet undried upon my cheeks 
 
 Years with all their events pass for me, 
 
 Some are spent in travel some in the usual hunt after fortune, 
 
 I pass through the travels and fortunes of thirty years, and become old, 
 Each in its due order comes and goes, 
 And then a message for me comes, 
 
 The 
 
 138 
 Religion. ? Outset. 
 
 That these are a few casual observations thoughts projected into the future 
 There can be henceforth no system of religion. 
 
 Religion soon assuming nay already assumes grander proportions freed from fables, 
 spangles, trickeries, mounts flying to the skies touches, infuses, every one 
 
 Democracy and greater than Democracy is the only democracy, true, divine, the 
 reveler, the 
 
 139 
 
 See there is Epicurus see the old philosoph in a porch teaching 
 His physique is full his voice clear and sonorous his phrenology perfect, 
 He calls around him his school of young men he gathers them in the street, or 
 saunters with them along the banks of the river, arguing. 
 
 140 
 Sailing down the Mississippi of a clouded midnight, 
 
 How solemn ! sweeping this dense black tide 
 No friendly lights i' the heaven o'er us ; 
 
 A murky darkness on either side, 
 
 And kindred darkness all before us ! 
 
42 Leaves of Grass First Drafts 
 
 Now, drawn nearer the shelving rim, 
 Wierd-like shadows suddenly rise ; 
 
 Shapes of mist and phantoms dim 
 Baffle the gazer's straining eyes. 
 
 River fiends, with malignant faces ! 
 
 Wild and wide their arms are thrown, 
 As if to clutch in fatal embraces 
 
 Him who sails their realm upon. 
 
 Then, by the trick of our own swift motion, 
 Straight, tall giants, an army vast, 
 
 Rank by rank, like the waves of ocean, 
 On the shore march stilly past. 
 
 How solemn ! the river a trailing pall, 
 
 Which takes, but never again gives back ; 
 
 And moonless and starless the heavens' arch'd wall, 
 Responding an equal black ! 
 
 O, tireless waters ! like Life's quick dream, 
 Onward and onward ever hurrying 
 
 Like death in this midnight hour you seem, 
 Life in your chill drops greedily burying ! 
 
 Like earth O river you offer us burial, 
 Existence like is your hurrying on, 
 
 Like time with a clutch remorseless, continual, 
 That which you take is forever gone. 
 
 Unlike time you begin and end, 
 
 Unlike life you've a pathway steady, 
 
 Unlike earth's are your numberless graves 
 Ever undug, yet ever ready.* 
 
 141 
 In Song of Kisses. 
 
 The hot kiss of the new husband to the bride and the kiss of the bride to the 
 husband. 
 
 * Belongs to 1848 Cf. W. W. Complete Prose Works Small and Maynard, 1898, p. 373, where other 
 verses of the poem are given. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 141 
 
 Take O boatmen thrice thy fee, 
 
 Take I give it willingly, 
 
 For unwittingly to thee, 
 
 Spirits twain have crossed with me.* 
 
 142 
 I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors.f 
 
 Poem of Triumph. 
 Poem of Defiance. 
 
 Poem of ? Make a poem including a list of what poems are yet wanted. 
 
 .... Something to bring in a dirge, slow, murky, half-suffocated, long, drawn out, 
 
 of not being able to extricate one's self from the most agonizing sorrow, and 
 
 despair 
 
 The Triumphant Poem. 
 
 Poem of approaching death for a young man. 
 Poem of approaching death. 
 
 O for joy ! O come at last ! O strength ! O perfect content ! 
 
 O now my most triumphant poem. 
 
 O the sunset off in the heavens, westward, with fringed clouds, with long flakes, calm 
 
 with pure light, with rich wonderful colors ! 
 O the grand march, stately, maestoso wild-pealing, high-trilling, distant, the great 
 
 drum beating, and the .... 
 
 * A poem by Uhland, translated by S. N. N. , containing- six verses; the last runs: 
 
 Take now boatman, take thy fee ; 
 Thrice thy due I offer thee : 
 For with me two spirits crossed, 
 Spirits of the loved and lost. 
 
 Underneath it W. W. writes his own version, as above. 
 
 t Above passage (see "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 112, and current edition, p. 116) was taken almost 
 verbatim from a newspaper cutting found in one of Whitman's scrap-books. The words on it are as follows : 
 
 "The old Scandinavian heroes, when they died, desired to have their funeral mounds raised high above them; 
 their corpses close to the margin of the restless ocean, so that the spirit, when it grew weary of the narrow, quiet 
 grave, might rise up through the mound and gaze forth over the vast expanse of tossing billows, and then become 
 refreshed by a sense of immensity, liberty, action." 
 
44 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 144 
 
 I know as well as you that Bibles are divine revelations 
 
 I say that each leaf of grass and each hair of my breast and beard is also a revelation 
 
 just as divine 
 But do you stop there? Have you no more faith than that ? 
 
 I live in no such infinitesimal meanness as that, 
 Would you bribe the Lord with some stray change ? 
 
 I outbid you shallow hucksters ! 
 
 All you pile up is not august enough to dent the partition in my nose ; 
 
 I say that all the churches now standing were well employed in orisons to a sprig of 
 
 parsley ; 
 I tell you that all your caste have said about Belus, Osirus, and Jehovah is a shallow 
 
 description. 
 
 I claim for one of those framers over the way framing a house, 
 The young man there with rolled-up sleeves and sweat on his superb face, 
 More than your craft three thousand years ago, Kronos, or Zens his son, or Hercules 
 his grandson.* 
 
 *45 
 
 I can tell of the long besieged city ; 
 I was in its last bombardment. 
 
 No need of a reveille from the drummers that morning.f 
 
 146 
 
 And the farther south, 
 
 The early negro at daylight calling his brethren together by the sound of the 
 Carolina yell. 
 
 Shadows of men and houses glistening. 
 
 A scene phantasmic spread off before me, I see through the plate glass glistening, 
 Through the pictures of men and the landscapes over the pictures of the river-side 
 and the ocean-side gliding over the tableaux and groups. 
 
 Or as I sit at dusk and look out through the house-room window 
 Of the room, through the glass, a curious dim red with the glow the fire in the 
 stove the walls and furniture the singing purr of the kettle. 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 45, and current edition, p. 67. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 40, and current edition, p. 60. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 45 
 
 Gliding through there the three workmen returning home from their day's work, 
 
 each carrying his dinner kettle their steps sounding on the walk ; 
 The gray stones of the pavements the lamp opposite just lit, and in the wintry air 
 Or in glass windows as I pass by, my own figure, reflected, walking, 
 Or the portrait 
 
 148 
 Poem. 
 
 As of walking along a street 
 
 In this House lives 
 
 I wonder who lives in these Houses 
 
 149 
 
 And now I care not to walk the earth unless a friend walk by my side, 
 And now I dare sing no other songs only those of lovers, 
 
 For now I know the life which does not exhibit itself but which contains all the rest 
 
 > 
 
 And going forth regardless of all the rest I see substantial life that contains the 
 
 whole, 
 
 I proceed America to leave you types of athletic love for the young men, 
 I proceed to celebrate the need of comrades.* 
 
 150 
 
 ( ? Superfluous ? ) 
 
 Thought. 
 
 Of that to come of experiences of vast unknown matter and qualities lying inert 
 
 much doubtless more than known matter and qualities, 
 Of many a covered embryo, owner and fcetus of the long patience through millions 
 
 of years of the slow formation, 
 
 Of countless germs waiting the due conjunction, the arousing touch, 
 Of all these tending fluidly and duly to myself, and duly and fluidly to reappear 
 
 again out of myself.f 
 
 I am not content now with a mere majority ...... I must have the love of all men 
 
 and all women, 
 If there be one left in any country who has no faith in me, I will travel to that country, 
 
 and go to that one and stand upright before him .......... 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 341, and current edition, p. 95. 
 t Written 1855 or 1856. 
 
46 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 152 
 
 O joy of my spirit uncaged it hops like a bird on the grass mounds of earth. 
 
 A path worn in the grass 
 
 Pasture field, where the cattle and horses feed.* 
 
 153 
 Yet far sweeps your road, O martial constellation ! ever adding group ! stretches 
 
 far your journey ! 
 
 For the prize I see at issue is the world ; 
 
 All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads, spotted cloth. 
 Dreamed, again, the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unrivall'd? 
 O hasten blue and silver ! O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of 
 
 kings, 
 
 Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol run up above them all 
 Dense starr'd bunting. 
 
 O your path stretches far, martial [constellation]. 
 
 O to find your lazy seams they can turn and flap for carnage. 
 
 O long, long your road, 
 
 154 
 
 Children and maidens strong men, fighters from battle wearied, wearied, 
 Rocked in the twilight ripples, calmly they sleep lapped in the ebbing tide, 
 To the ocean borne out, the hidden and measureless ocean with room for all. 
 
 155 
 The Elder Brother of the soul my soul. 
 
 156 
 
 The Katy-did works her chromatic reed in the tree over the welLf 
 
 What babble is this about virtue ............ 
 
 I tell you I love all I love what you call vice just the same as I love virtue. J 
 
 *Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 259, and current edition p. 142. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 37, and current edition, p. 57. 
 
 J Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p, 28 : " What blurt is it about virtue and about vice." Current edition} 
 p. 46 : " What blurt is this, &c." 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 47 
 
 158 
 
 I must not deceive you you are to die, 
 
 I am melancholy and stern, but I love you there is no escape for you. 
 
 I do not know your destination, but I know it is real and perfect.* 
 
 159 
 Poem L' Envoy : 
 
 From one State to another from the east to the west, 
 From Massachusetts to Texas 
 
 1 60 
 
 foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he was 
 
 tried for forgery. 
 
 Fables, traditions and formulas are not animate things ; 
 Brick and mortar do not procreate like men ; 
 In all of them and all existing creeds grows not so much of God as I grow in my 
 
 moustache ; 
 
 I am myself waiting my time to be a God ; 
 
 I think I shall do as much good and be as pure and prodigious as any, 
 And when I am do you suppose it will please me to receive puffs from pulpit 
 
 or print ? 
 
 Doctrine gets empty consent or mocking politeness, 
 It wriggles through mankind, it is never loved or believed 
 The throat is not safe that speaks it aloud. 
 
 I will take a sprig of parsley and a budding rose and go through the whole earth. 
 You shall see I will not find one heretic against them. 
 Can you say as much of all the lore of the priesthood ?f 
 
 161 
 I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long. 
 
 They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 
 They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 
 They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God ; 
 
 Not one is dissatisfied Not one takes medicine or is demented with the mania 
 
 of owning things, if 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 398, and current edition, p. 344. 
 tCf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 46, current edition, p. 67. 
 JCf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 34; current edition, p. 54. 
 
48 Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 
 
 162 
 
 The horizon's edge, the flying seacrow, 
 
 The unearthly laugh of the laughing-gull, the salt-marsh and shore mud odor. 
 
 The song of the phcebebird, the blossom of apple-trees and the * 
 
 What, think you, does our Continent mean in reference to our race ? I say it 
 means with radical and resistless power to assert the Individual raise a 
 refuge strong and free for practical average use, for man and woman : 
 
 That will America build and curiously looking around writes thereof a poem 
 thereof. 
 
 164 
 
 Undulating, swiftly merging from womb to birth, from birth to fullness and 
 
 transmission, quickly transpiring 
 Conveying the sentiment of the mad, whirling, fullout speed of the stars, in 
 
 their circular orbits. 
 
 165 
 
 If you are black, ashamed of your woolly head 
 
 166 
 
 Do you remember your mother? Is she living? 
 
 167 
 
 Hours discourged, distracted for he, the one I cannot content myself without, 
 
 soon I saw him content himself without me ; 
 Hours when I am forgotten ( O weeks and months are passing, but I believe 
 
 I am never to forget ! ) 
 Sullen and suffering hours ! I am f 
 
 168 
 
 How can there be immortality except through mortality ? 
 How can the ultimate reality of visible things be visible ? 
 How can the real body ever die ? 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 37, and current edition, p. 57. 
 
 fCf. "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 355 poem omitted from later editions. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 49 
 
 169 
 
 Why, what do you suppose is the body ? 
 
 Do you suppose this that has always existed this meat, bread, fruit, that is 
 
 eaten, is the body ? 
 No, those are visible parts of the body, materials that have existed in some 
 
 way for billions of years now entered into the form of the body. 
 But there is the real body too, not visible. 
 
 170 
 
 I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, 
 
 Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.* 
 
 171 
 
 Have you supplied the door of the house where the old one decayed away ? 
 And do you not see that you also want your foundation and the roof? 
 Have you put only doors and windows to the house where they were crumbled ? 
 Do you not see that the roof is also crumbled and this day, this night, may fall 
 
 in ruins about your heads ? 
 Do you not see that the old foundation beams of the floor have rotted under your 
 
 feet and who knows when they may break ? 
 
 172 
 
 The divinest blessings are the commonest bestowed everywhere, 
 And the most superb beauties are the cheapest the world over. 
 
 173 
 
 Pure water, sunshine, space unclosed 
 
 I stifle in the confinement of rooms, 
 
 The flesh of animals, wheat, rye, corn, rice, 
 
 Give me that I have a clean, sweet resistless body to myself. 
 
 The dry leaf whirls its spiral whirl and falls still and content to the ground. 
 
 I know that procreation is just as divine as spirituality, and this which I know I 
 put freely in my poems. 
 
 * Referring to his recent illumination, probably written 1853. Ed. 
 
5o Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 176 
 
 Did you think then you knew me ? 
 
 Did you think that talking and the laughter of me represented me ? 
 
 177 
 Reflections Shadows 
 
 As seen in the windows of the shops as I turn from the crowded street and peer 
 
 through the plate glass at the pictures or rich goods 
 In Broadway, the reflections, moving, glistening, silent, 
 Turn from the heavy base, the great hum and harshness, 
 The faces and figures, old and young all so various, all so phantasmic 
 The omnibus passing and then another and another the clear sky up 
 
 178 
 Incident for : Soldier in the ranks.* 
 
 Describe a group of men coming off the field after a heavy battle, the grime, the 
 sweat, some half naked, the torn and dusty clothes, their own mothers would 
 not recognize them. 
 
 The moon rises silently over the battle field but red as blood coming above the 
 smoke you look over the field, you see little lights moving around, stopping and 
 moving around again, they are searching for the wounded, they are bringing off 
 the dead. 
 
 At Gettysburgh, the second day of the battle, our troops drove the secession army 
 from a position they had occupied and where the preceding night they had 
 gathered their dead the dead lay in certain spots piled three or four deep 
 where they had placed them to be ready for burial the next morning. 
 
 The Time and Lands are devoted to the Real. 
 
 Make a demand for the Ideal (or rather idea of the Ideal of the Real). 
 
 In the piece.J 
 
 Thy true development, in thy unloosen'd soaring spirit ! 
 
 Thee in thy fuller and loftier religions in the saviors latent within thee the bibles 
 
 equal with any divine as any. 
 In that thy joy in coping with Nature's ceaseless force. 
 
 * Written as basis for a poem and given here as if it was rejected lines from a poem. 
 
 t A rough jotting a suggestion for a poem. 
 
 J That is the lines that follow are for the poem that is to be written. 
 
Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 51 
 
 Or a song a chant which shall sing celebrate America, in her best, her greatest 
 her young men (? her best men), with joyful bursts, lyric, exultant all the 
 States east and west, north and south Brotherhood an equal union. 
 
 1 80 
 
 Have you found the scope of the great materialistic laws ? 
 
 The use of finding the scope of the great materialistic laws is to make politics, lives, 
 manners and all plans of the soul no less than they ? 
 
 181 
 
 He tastes sweetest who results the sweetest, 
 
 Nations, poets, inventors, knowers, must themselves make the only growth through 
 which they shall become appreciated.* 
 
 182 
 I admire a beautiful woman .... I am easy about who paints her portrait. 
 
 Poet go ! 
 
 I am ready to swear never to write another word, 
 
 183 
 
 I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, 
 
 All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, 
 
 Without any companion it grew there, glistening out with joyous leaves of dark 
 
 green, 
 
 And its look, rude unbending, lusty, made me think of myself ; 
 But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there without its 
 
 friend, its lover. For I knew I could not ; 
 And I plucked a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it 
 
 a little moss, and brought it away. And I have placed it in sight in my room.f 
 
 184 
 
 The shower of meteors this occurred in the night of I2th-i3th Nov., 1833^ 
 toward morning myriads in all directions, some with long shining white trains, 
 some falling over each other like falling water leaping, silent, white apparitions 
 around up there in the sky over my head. 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, pp. 195 and 196; current edition, p. 272. 
 
 t Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 364, and current edition, p. 105. The copy given here is not by 
 any means a first draft, yet it is altered when printed in '60 edition and altered again in later editions. A good 
 example of the thought and care Whitman gave to his work. 
 
 I He is then 14^ years old. 
 
52 Leaves of Grass First Drafts. 
 
 And there is the meteor-shower, wondrous and dazzling, the I2th-i3th eleventh 
 
 month, year '58 of The States, between midnight and morning; 
 See you the spectacle of the meteors overhead, 
 See you myriads in all directions, some with long shining trains, 
 Some rolling over each other like water poured out and falling leaping, silent, 
 
 white apparitions of the sky, 
 
 Such have I in the round house hanging such pictures name I and they are but 
 little.* 
 
 185 
 
 See'st thou ? 
 Know'st thou ? 
 The Three of the Three 
 There is on the one part 
 Between this beautiful but dumb earth, with all its manifold eloquent but inarticulate 
 
 shows and objects, 
 
 And on the other part the being Man, curious, questioning and at fault, 
 Now between the two comes the poet the Answerer.f 
 
 1 86 
 The same old mystery and problem. 
 
 Ever the puzzles of birth and death, 
 
 Ever the same old mystery and problem. 
 
 I bring, my friends, no news a passing thought, 
 
 Arrested as it flits and flutters by, 
 
 Detained a moment as of late it fluttered like a bird or insect round me. 
 
 The true New World, the World of Science, Mind and Literature. 
 
 1 88 
 The mystic roll from all AmericaJ 
 
 From wooded Maine, New England farms, from fertile Pennsylvania, 
 The boundless West, the South, the Carolinas, Texas 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," current edition, p. 191. The prose note and the lines of 184 are very early; probably 
 belong to the forties or fifties. ED. 
 
 f Cf. "Leaves of Crass," current edition, p. 416. But above lines, to judge from MS., must have been 
 written many years before "When the Full-grown Poet Came " was printed. 
 
 t The roll of the dead soldiers of the war- 
 
Leaves of Grass--First Drafts. 53 
 
 189 
 
 The fester of defeat sharper than the bayonet holes in his side ; 
 What choked the throat of the brigadier when he gave up his brigade ; 
 These become mine and me, every one ; 
 And I become much more when I like.* 
 
 190 
 Perfect serenity of mind 
 
 To take with entire self-possession whatever comes. 
 What is this small thing in the great continuous volumes everywhere ? 
 This is but a temporary portion not to be dwelt upon not to distress not to have 
 prominence 
 
 Superior nonchalance 
 
 No fumes no ennui no complaints or scornful criticisms. 
 
 To find how easily one can abstract his identity from temporary affairs.f 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 42, and current edition, p. 64. 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 267, current edition p. 147. 
 
PART II. 
 
 NOTES ON THE MEANING AND INTENTION OF " LEAVES OF GRASS." 
 
 My poems when complete should be a unity, in the same sense that the earth is, 
 or that the human body, (senses, soul, head, trunk, feet, blood, viscera, man-root, 
 eyes, hair) or that a perfect musical composition is. 
 
 Great constituent elements of my poetry Two, viz.: Materialism Spirituality 
 The Intellect, the Esthetic is what is to be the medium of these and to beautify and 
 make serviceable there. 
 
 Remember in scientific and similar allusions that the theories of Geology, His 
 tory, Language, &c., &c., are continually changing. 
 
 Be careful to put in only what -must be appropriate centuries hence. 
 
 3 
 
 I say that if once the conventional distinctions were dispelled from our eyes we 
 should see just as much. 
 
 I do not expect to dispel them by arguing against them, I sweep them away by 
 advancing to a new phase of development where they fail of themselves. 
 
 4 
 
 What shall the great poet be then ? Shall he be a timid apologetic person, de 
 precating himself, guarding off the effects 
 
 5 
 
 Poem of adherence to the good old cause the " good old cause " is that in all 
 its diversities, in all lands, at all times, under all circumstances, which promulges 
 liberty, justice, the cause of the people as against infidels and tyrants. 
 
 Poem of the People represent the People, so copious, so simple, so fierce, so 
 frivolous. , 
 
56 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass, 
 
 6 
 Write a new burial service. A book of new things. 
 
 7 
 
 Make no quotations and no reference to any other writers. 
 
 Lumber the writing with nothing let it go as lightly as a bird flies in the air 
 or a fish swims in the sea. 
 
 Be careful [not] to temper down too much 
 
 8 
 
 All through writings preserve the equilibrium of the truth that the material 
 world, and all its laws, are as grand and superb as the spiritual world and all its laws. 
 Most writers have disclaimed the physical world and they have not over-estimated 
 the other, or soul, but have under-estimated the corporeal. How shall my eye 
 separate the beauty of the blossoming buckwheat field from the stalks and heads of 
 tangible matter ? How shall I know what the life is except as I see it in the flesh ? 
 I will not praise one without the other or any more than the other. 
 
 Do not argue at 'all or compose proofs to demonstrate things. State nothing 
 which it will not do to state as apparent to all eyes. 
 
 9 
 
 Intersperse here and there pictures of athletic women sometimes just a word 
 or two sometimes an elaborated description. 
 
 10 
 
 Tell the American people their faults the departments of their character where 
 they are most liable to break down speak to them with unsparing tongue carefully 
 systematize beforehand their faults. 
 
 ii 
 
 Put in a passage in some poem to the effect of denouncing and threatening 
 whoever translates my poems into any other tongue without translating every line and 
 doing it all without increase or diminution. 
 
 12 
 
 Leading characteristics To unite all sects, parties, States, lawyers, disputants, 
 young men, women (universology) To be one whom all look toward with attention, 
 respect, love. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 57 
 
 13 
 
 It seems to me to avoid all poetical similes to be faithful to the perfect likeli 
 hoods of nature healthy, exact, simple, disclaiming ornaments. 
 
 The Great Construction of the New Bible. Not to be diverted from the 
 principal object the main life work the three hundred and sixty-five. It ought to 
 be ready in 1859 (June '57). 
 
 15 
 
 Boldness Nonchalant ease and indifference. To encourage me or any one con 
 tinually to strike out alone. So it seems good to me This is my way, my pleasure, 
 my choice, my costume, friendship, amour, or what not.* 
 
 16 
 
 Make the Works Do not go into criticisms or arguments at all. Make full- 
 blooded, rich, flush, natural works. Insert natural things, indestructibles, idioms, 
 characteristics, rivers, states, persons, &c. Be full of strong sensual germs.* 
 
 17 
 
 Friday, April 24, '57. 
 
 True vista before The strong thought-impression or conviction that the 
 straight, broad, open, well-marked true vista before, or course of public teacher, 
 " wander speaker," by powerful words, orations, uttered with copiousness and de 
 cision, with all the aid of art, also the natural flowing vocal luxuriance of oratory. 
 That the mightiest rule over America could be thus as for instance, on occasion, at 
 Washington to be, launching from public room, at the opening of the session of Con 
 gress perhaps launching at the President, leading persons, Congressmen, or Judges 
 of the Supreme Court. That to dart hither or thither, as some great emergency might 
 demand the greatest champion America ever could know, yet holding no office or 
 emolument whatever, but first in the esteem of men and women. Not to direct 
 eyes or thoughts to any of the usual avenues, as of official appointment, or to get 
 such anyway. To put all those aside for good. But always to keep up living interest 
 in public questions and always to hold the ear of the people. 
 
 18 
 
 Poems. Hasting, urging, resistless, no flagging not even in the " thoughts " 
 or meditations florid spiritual good, not from the direct but indirect meanings 
 to be perceived with the same perception that enjoys music, flowers and the beauty 
 of men and women free and luxuriant. 
 
 * Written about 1856. 
 
58 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 19 
 
 Lessons. Clear, alive, luminous, full of facts, full of physiology acknow 
 ledging the democracy, the people must have an alert character, even in the 
 reading of them. The enclosing theory of "Lessons " to permeate All The States, 
 answering for all, (no foreign imported models,) -full of hints, laws and informa 
 tions, to make a superb American Intellect and Character in any or all The States. 
 Also the Strength, Command and Luxuriance of Oratory.* 
 
 20 
 
 Book learning is good, let none dispense with it, but a man may [be] of great 
 excellence and effect with very little of it. Washington had but little. Andrew 
 Jackson also. Fulton also. Frequently it stands in the way of real manliness 
 and power. Powerful persons and the first inventors and poets of the earth never 
 come from the depths of the schools never. There is a man who is no chemist, 
 nor linguist, nor antiquary, nor mathematician yet he takes very easily the per 
 fection of these sciences, or of the belle lettres and eats of the fruit of all. 
 Brudition is low among the glories of humanity. I think if those who best 
 embody it were collected together this day in the public assembly it would be 
 grand. But powerful unlearned persons are also grand. 
 
 But all book knowledge is important as helping one's personal qualities, and 
 the use and power of a man. Let a man learn to run, leap, swim, wrestle, fight, 
 to take good aim, to manage horses, to speak readily and clearly and without 
 mannerism, to feel at home among common people and able to hold his own in 
 terrible positions. With these 
 
 21 
 
 Poet ! beware lest your poems are made in the spirit that comes from the 
 study of pictures of things and not from the spirit that comes from the contact 
 with real things themselves. 
 
 22 
 
 Behind Eluding Mocking all the text-books and professor's expositions 
 and proofs and diagrams and practical show, stand or lie millions of all the most 
 beautiful and common facts. We are so proud of our learning ! As if it were 
 anything to analyze fluids and call certain parts oxygen or hydrogen, or to map 
 out stars and call 
 
 23 
 
 Nature is rude at first but once begun never tires. Most works of art tire. 
 Only the Great Chef d'CEuvres never tire and never dazzle at first. 
 
 * 1856 or 1857. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 59 
 
 24 
 
 The greatest poems may not be immediately, fully understood by outsiders 
 any more than astronomy or engineering may. The work of the poet is as deep 
 as the astronomer's or engineer's, and his art is also as far-fetched. Science 
 proves itself. Let poets 
 
 25 
 
 In Poems bring in the idea of Mother the idea of the mother with numer 
 ous children all, great and small, old and young, equal in her eyes as the 
 identity of America. 
 
 26 
 
 America (I to myself have said) demands at any rate one modern, native, 
 all-surrounding song with face like her's turned to the future rather than the 
 present or the past. It should nourish with joy the pride and completion of man 
 in himself. What the mother, our continent, in reference to humanity, finally 
 means (where it centres around the prairies, Missouri, Ohio, the great lakes, and 
 branches away toward the Eastern and Western Seas) is Individuality strong and 
 superb, for broadest average use, for man and woman : and that most should such 
 a poem in its own form express. Of such a Poem (I have had that dream) let me 
 initiate the attempt ; and bravas to him or her who, coming after me, triumphs. 
 
 27 
 
 No, I do not choose to write a poem on a lady's sparrow, like Catullus or on 
 
 a parrot, like Ovid nor love-songs like Anacreon nor even like 
 
 Homer nor the siege of Jerusalem like Tasso nor nor as 
 
 Shakespeare. What have these themes to do in America ? or what are they to us 
 except as beautiful studies, reminiscences ? All those are good they are what 
 they are I know they should not have been different I do not say I will furnish 
 anything better but instead I will aim at high immortal works American, the 
 robust, large, manly character the perfect woman the illustriousness of sex, 
 which I will celebrate.* 
 
 28 
 
 Philosophy of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 Walt Whitman's philosophy or perhaps metaphysics, to give it a more defi 
 nite name as evinced in his poems, and running through them, and sometimes 
 quite palpable in his verses, but far oftener latent, and like the unseen roots or 
 sap of trees is not the least of his peculiarities one must not say originalities, 
 
 * Written probably in fifties. 
 
60 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 for Whitman himself disclaims originality at least in the superficial sense. His 
 notion explicitly is that there is nothing actually new only an accumulation or fruitage 
 or carrying out these new occasions and requirements. 
 
 He evidently thinks that behind all the faculties of the human being, as the 
 sight, the other senses and even the emotions and the intellect stands the real power, 
 the mystical identity, the real I or Me or You.* 
 
 29 
 
 Yet there is certainly something in Walt Whitman's works which has never 
 been ventured before something which never could have been ventured until now 
 (on the arrival and successful proof of America) something which even yet many 
 leading cities refuse to admit as a legitimate theme for verse. 
 
 Perhaps the chief and final clue to these books of Poems, with their parti-varied 
 themes, intertwinings of Prose, is the determined attempt or resolution to put 
 Democracy (we would say American Democracy, but the author himself never 
 ceases to bring in other people, the British, French, German, &c., and never loses 
 sight of them or indeed of entire Humanity) [into] an imaginative and poetical state 
 ment. Nay it is certain that this is the underlying purpose and there is no "perhaps" 
 about it. The idea of the books is Democracy, that is carried, far beyond Politics, 
 into the regions of taste, the standards of Manners and Beauty and even into Phil 
 osophy and Theology. 
 
 In one way or another, now strongly odorous, now at second or third or fourth 
 remove, now a silent background, (as in the poems of the Hospitals and the Dead in 
 Drum-Taps) this determined resolution or idea pervades the whole of both books, 
 like some indiginous scent, and, to a fine nostril will be detected in every page we 
 might almost say in every line.f 
 
 30 
 
 July, by the Pond. The same thoughts and themes unfulfilled aspirations, 
 the enthusiasms of youth, ideal dreams, the mysteries and failures and broken hopes 
 of life, and then death the common fate of all, and the impenetrable uncertainty of 
 the Afterwards which Wordsworth treats his " Intimations of Immorality," Bryant 
 in his " Thanatopsis" and in the " Flood of Years," and Whittier often in his pieces, 
 W. W. also treats in " Leaves of Grass." But how different the treatment ! In 
 stead of the gloom and hopelessness and spirit of wailing and reproach, or bowed 
 down submission as to some grim destiny, which is the basis and background of those 
 fine poems. Instead of Life and Nature growing stale instead of Death coming 
 like a blight and end-all J 
 
 * Probably written as a note to be used by some friend who was writing about " Leaves of Grass " 
 possibly as part of a notice to be given by himself to some periodical. 
 
 t See last note above 29 was written on the back of a letter dated 2ist April, 1876 it refers evidently to the 
 '76 edition, in two volumes. 
 
 J See note to 28. Written probably July, 1876. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 61 
 
 31 
 
 Amid the vast and complicated edifice of human beings many accomplishments 
 and fitments and furnishings the results of History and civilization, as they have 
 come to us the various conventions, social, ecclesiastical, literary, political the 
 resistless and precious accretion, always treated by him, [the poet] with respect and 
 even reverence. Amid this edifice or complex mass of edifices he builds, as it were, 
 an impregnable and lofty tower, a part of all with the rest, and overlooking all the 
 citadel of the primary volitions, the soul, the ever-reserved right of a deathless In 
 dividuality and these he occupies and dwells, and thence m ikes observations and 
 issues verdicts. 
 
 32 
 Preface to Democratic Vistas. 
 
 In the following book I have combined together what at first reading may 
 appear incongruous (and I had better say here at once that he or she who is not 
 willing to give the book at least two or three perusals, had better leave it untouched 
 altogether). But the truest analogies and connections are not those of the surface, or 
 of first sight, or visible; they are often like the Subterranean streams of far-apart out 
 lets and different names, but identical at bottom. So my songs refuse to be 
 described or grouped or classified in a statement and are themselves their only real 
 description and classification. 
 
 The central and dominant facts and glories of America are always to be found 
 in the mass or bulk of the People. Other lands in quite all past ages and mainly at 
 present show justifying greatness in their special, exceptional heroes and eminences 
 and kings and martyrs, sages, warriors, bards, intellectualists, or what not, making 
 a gem-like sufficient setting to the whole. If the mass, the slag, possess any 
 brilliance or importance it is reflected from these gems and as a background for 
 them. 
 
 But herein the United States, while we have curiously few " great men," in the 
 hitherto accepted sense, in any department, is a People in a sense never before seen 
 or imagined. True with tremendous streaks of crudeness, and with deficiencies and 
 faults arousing deepest anxiety, yet still, upon the whole, with all the elements, 
 promise, and certainty of a Democratic Nationality on the largest scales and humani 
 ties en-masse such as have yet existed only in dreams a People as will be seen in 
 the following pages, it is my opinion (repeated perhaps almost tiresomely) that Demo 
 cracy on New World soil, having established itself in Politics now waits for its 
 thorough percolation in Literature, in the Social intercourse of all classes, and 
 especially that between employers and employed persons. These only will breathe 
 into that corpus the breath of life and make it a living, throbbing, talking, acting soul 
 personality. 
 
 Of course it is to enforce this in various forms, in my way, that I add the 
 
62 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 The idea of Democracy to which the young men and young women of these 
 States must habituate and adjust themselves, and grow up to, is actual life in all its 
 minutiae, is not an abstract something in a theory, in the laws, or for election 
 days 
 
 33 
 
 The name of this* tells much of the story Before and Afterwards. How the 
 whole purport, history, results of Book or Life, range between and within those 
 words ! Before that nebula of thoughts and plans and misty hopes! the ardor 
 (most curious resume of all !) those starlings out, urging, clearing, beating flights of 
 wings, uncertain where you will soar, or bring up or whether you will soar at all 
 to end perhaps in ignominious fall and failure ! Those toils and struggles of baffled 
 impeded articulation those moods of proudest ambition and daring, quickly followed 
 by deeper moods of qualm, despair, utter distrust of one's self those years of ven 
 ture and callow formation ! unfoldings so copious, often inopportune so many 
 failures so much unsatisfactory a meagre dash or dot of genuine light at best 
 the vast mass of stolidity the fortunes, misfortunes, happenings, surprises, through 
 many years all carried along and merged in the Afterwards the way things work 
 the apparent terminations, the results so unexpected. Finally the looking back 
 out of the still and pensive evening a procession of ghosts in arriere in the soul's 
 twilight, of all those angry wrestlings, those absurd trusts, those high-sounding calls, 
 those contrasts, expectations, rejections, hauteurs, shames, loves, joys. 
 
 Accordingly, the reader of the ensuing book will be ushered into no palace hall, 
 a banquet, or the company of gentlemen and ladies of highest refinement. It is 
 probable nay certain that the well-established Goethean, Emersonian, Tennyson- 
 ian doctrine or principle of verse-writing : to carefully select and express the beauti 
 ful, with the most exquisite metre, polish and verbal elegance will view the bulk of 
 these writings with dismay and indignation. 
 
 Poems have long been directing admiration and awe to something in others, 
 other days. In the following book the reader is pointed in the main, and quite alto 
 gether, to him and herself, the existing day. 
 
 Finally I think the best and largest songs yet remain to be sung. 
 
 34 
 
 "The unknown refused to explain himself. 'What could I say to you that I 
 have not said in another (my own) language ? Is it my fault that you have not 
 understood me ? You think I wished to speak to your senses, and it was my soul 
 spoke to you. What do I say ! It was the soul of the whole of humanity that 
 spoke to you through mine.' " George Sand. Consuelo, Vol. 5, p. 
 
 * Seems to be a rejected passage from " My Book and I " printed in Lippincott, January, 1887, and afterwards 
 largely used in "A Backward Glance," annexed to current edition of " Leaves of Grass." 
 
 t In Whitman's hand among these MSS. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 63 
 
 35 
 
 Put in a passage in some poem to the effect of denouncing and threatening 
 whoever translates my poems into any other tongue without translating every line 
 and doing it all without increase or diminution. 
 
 36 
 
 Tell the American people their faults the departments of their character where 
 they are most liable to break down speak to them with unsparing tongue carefully 
 systematize beforehand their faults. 
 
 37 
 
 If the following book* does not contain exhaustively within itself, and forever 
 emanate when read, the atmosphere of normal joy and exhilaration which enveloped 
 the making of every page, it will be a failure in the most important respect. 
 
 38 
 
 No one of the Themes generally considered as the stock fit for or motif for 
 poetry is taken by W. W. for his foundation. No romantic occurrence, nor legend, 
 nor plot of mystery, nor sentimentalizing, nor historic personage or event, nor any 
 woven tale of love, ambition or jealousy is in his work. The usual dominant require 
 ments beauty, art, hero and heroine, form, meter, rhyme, regularity, have not only 
 not been the laws of its creation but might almost seem at first glance to have never 
 been suspected by the author. Thus compared with the rich ornamentation of the 
 plots and passions of the best other poems, the palace hall, the velvet, the banquet, 
 the master-pieces of paintings and statues, the costly vessels and furnishings, the 
 melody, the multitudinous wealth of conceit, trope, incident, florid and dulcet versifi 
 cation and the much elaborated beauty of the accepted poets, there is something in 
 Leaves of Grass that seems singularly simple and bare. 
 
 Instead of any such appetizing richness you are vouchsafed merely a spring, or 
 springs, of plain water, bubbling and cold. You stand in a cluster of silent trees at 
 sunrise, or walk a zig-zag path through the fields or pace the barren sea-beach and 
 look on nothing but airy solitude and hear only the monotonous surging of the waves 
 or sand. Yet the book is also saturated with active human life, the stir and hum of 
 cities, the noise and show of trades, factories, ships, locomotives fill page after 
 page ; with you move, all the practical activity of our aroused land and time. These 
 occupy half the book or more. Again you are met by the silent apparition of 
 domestic and other transactions common to you and every one, personal life, and 
 again by many a secret thought, wish and memory, supposed unknown. Through 
 these and through the whole world of visible shows, employments and of thought you 
 
 * Leaves of Grass. 
 
64 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 are continually hurried along while a dim form a friendly face accompanies and 
 guides you, as the phantom of the Roman bard accompanied Dante on his difficult 
 and untried way. 
 
 In these " Leaves" everything is literally photographed. Nothing is poetized, 
 no divergence, not a step, not an inch, nothing for beauty's sake, no euphemism, no 
 rhyme. 
 
 That such a course gives offense to many good people - that it violates the 
 established conventions of poetry is certain. But is there not something secretly 
 precious to the soul in this awful adherence to the truth ? 
 
 After everything is admitted against them, from the points of view of ladies and 
 gentlemen in drawing-rooms or clergymen in their pulpits is there not an inference 
 that puts us all to shame in the unmitigated and all-comprehending faith of these 
 poems ? 
 
 Indeed, the qualities which characterize " Leaves of Grass " are not the qualities 
 of a fin book or poem or any work of art but the qualities of a living and 
 full-blooded man, amativeness, pride, adhesiveness, curiosity, yearning for immor 
 tality, joyousness and sometimes of uncertainty. You do not read, it is someone 
 that you see in action, in war, or on a ship, or climbing the mountains, or racing 
 along and shouting aloud in pure exultation. 
 
 A certain vagueness almost passing into chaos (it remains to be acknowledged) 
 is in a few pieces or passages ; but this is apparently by the deliberate intention of 
 the author. 
 
 W. W. is now fifty-two years old. No worldly aim has engrossed his life. He 
 is still unmarried. None of the usual ardors of business ambition, of the acqui 
 sition of money, or the claims of society, pleasure, nor even the attractions of culture 
 or art seem to have enslaved him. The thought of and the making of this work has 
 spanned, as it were, the whole horizon of his life, almost since boyhood.* 
 
 39 
 Current Criticism. 
 
 Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person. By John Burroughs. New 
 York American News Co. 1871. 
 
 It seems as if the debate over Walt Whitman and his Leaves of Grass were not 
 only going to be kept up with more and more animation and earnestness every year 
 but that the discussion is to bring (and indeed has so brought already) an examina 
 tion, unwonted among us, of the very bases of the art of poetry, and of the high 
 original laws of ethics and criticism. These bases how do they refer to our special 
 age and country ? Those laws what are they, as applied to poets and artists of the 
 first class, for America and for the wants of American people ? 
 
 Such are the questions which the advent of Walt Whitman has evidently roused 
 and of which these notes are attempts to at least suggest the answer. 
 
 * W. W. was fifty-two on jist May, 1871 was at that time in the Attorney-General's Office, Washington. 
 It is still nearly two years before his paralysis. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 65 
 
 40 
 
 Walt Whitman's second wind. 
 
 Although the phrase may not be thought a very refined one, there is no descrip 
 tion that so thoroughly hits the mark as the foregoing one borrowed from the 
 vocabulary of the prize ring. 
 
 There is a certain poise of self-pride about the book that offends many. 
 
 It is very certain not only that its pages could not have been written anywhere 
 else except in America and at the present, but that the Secession War, or as he calls 
 it the " Union War" is their latent father, and that the result of that war gives an 
 undertone or background of triumph and prophecy to every page. 
 
 How little posterity really knows about the facts [of] a far-back person or book 
 in his or its own time ! 
 
 If my poems survive it is certain that this work of Dr. Bucke's with Mr. O'Con 
 nor's contribution* will some fair day be brought forward as unanswerable proof how 
 strong were contemporary eulogy and support of them. Alas ! We who know the 
 exact state of the case perceive in it a little exceptional half-submerged rock, breast 
 ing alone a vast and angry sea of cross winds and refusal. 
 
 42 
 For Ottawa lecture. f 
 
 For thousands of years in the history of the masses of humanity why does it 
 seem as if that history was all dominated by one word war ? All too necessary 
 to the progress, civilization, the 
 
 Now, Business does it all opens up China, Japan, Africa, colonizes, builds 
 roads, penetrates, communicates 
 
 Is there going to be but one heart to the world ? 
 
 If I should dare confess to you to-night my friends I should perhaps, rude as it 
 might seem, own up that it is more with the wish to put in shape, for my own sake, 
 the brief experiences of a late trip on the line of the St. Lawrence and the LakesJ 
 and touches at the great cities with some thoughts arising out of them, than from 
 any hope of pleasing you, that I am now speaking. I shall certainly not only be 
 unable to tell you anything new, but it may very likely prove that I have only caught 
 
 * "Walt Whitman," by Richard Maurice Bucke David McKay, Philadelphia, 1883 in which W. D. O'Connor's 
 " Good Gray Poet " is included. 
 
 t Must have been written in 1880, but I did not know until I found this fragment in 1899 that Whitman ever had 
 at that or any time any thought of lecturing at Ottawa. 
 
 % The trip made by W. W. and the editor in the summer of 1880 from London to Chicoutimi. 
 
66 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 surface and present surface impressions. Still as tlie Frenchman Taine says in 
 premising his fine ensemble of the letter and spirit of English Literature it is 
 worth something to see how these things seem to a new comer and a stranger. 
 
 43 
 Whitman's Poems Summed up. 
 
 "Two Rivulets," joined with " Leaves of Grass,'' may be summed up as the 
 result of twenty years labor and the attempt [to put] into a new, unrhymed, but 
 rhythmical expression the events, and still more the spirit of those years with all 
 their tremendous developments of war, peace, inventions, science and the 
 advent of America and Republicanism. For such may be called the general aim 
 of this author, although everything, in both volumes, revolves around the central 
 human personality. The Body and the Soul are one, and in the latter the former 
 is immortal. Thus the principal underlying and elementary qualities of all 
 Whitman's writings are a powerful sense of physical perfection, size, health, 
 strength and beauty, with great arnativeness, adhesiveness, a wonderfully buoy 
 ant joy ousness of spirit, and of immortality, not as an intellection but as a per 
 vading instinct. With these comes forward far more prominently in "Two Riv 
 ulets" than in the preceding volume, the moral law, the "inner light" of the 
 Quakers, the pure conscience, rising over all the rest, like pinnacles to some 
 elaborated building. We have, too, the radical equality of the sexes (not at all 
 from the "woman's rights" point of view however,) and the duties of these men 
 and women as practical citizens, to the National, State, and Municipal Govern 
 ments. 
 
 Undoubtedly this book could never have been written neither the prose or 
 verse except for the secession war. We do not mean its mere material statements 
 or themes, but in its spirit its tints and half tints, its singular, almost gloating 
 pride and patriotism and Nationality, the subtle bouquet palpable enough in every 
 page to him or her who has palate and nostrils to catch it, and even in that 
 negative feature of the masters which Schiller celebrates : 
 
 " Most the great artist we behold 
 In what his art leaves just untold." 
 
 The entire work is finally to be considered as, we understand, the author 
 himself markedly claims it to be, from his point of view, the first characteristic 
 literary result of the war. 
 
 With this we take our leave of these utterances and their author. Their 
 position in literature remains yet to be tried and established, for there is no deny 
 ing that they are opposed to most of the literary and art-laws, and many of the 
 decorums established by the intellects of all civilized lands, all ages, yet they are 
 perhaps the most vitalized pulsations of living, loving blood yet thrown into 
 literature, and their roots are democratic and modern far beyond anything known. 
 Their patriotism is of a vehemence hitherto unknown in American authorship. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 67 
 
 Then Whitman has a fond confidence that he will yet be absorbed and appre 
 ciated by his country. He says : 
 
 From my last years, last thoughts I here bequeath, 
 
 Scattered and dropt, in seeds, and wafted to the west, 
 
 Through moisture of Ohio, prairie soil of Illinois through Colorado, 
 
 California air, 
 For Time to germinate fully. 
 
 44 
 For criticism of "Leaves of Grass." 
 
 We have had man indoors and under artificial relations man in war, in 
 love (both the natural, universal elements of human lives) man in courts, 
 bowers, castles, parlors man in personal haughtiness and the tussle of war, as 
 in Homer-- or the passions, crimes, ambitions, murder, jealousy, love carried to 
 extreme as in Shakespeare. We have been listening to divine, ravishing tales, 
 plots inexpressibly valuable, hitherto (like the Christian religion) to temper and 
 modify his prevalent perhaps natural ferocity and hoggishness but never before 
 have we had man in the open air, his attitude adjusted to the seasons and as one 
 might describe it, adjusted to the sun by day and the stars by night. 
 
 As the Universal comrade each nation courteously saluting all other nations. 
 
 45 
 
 There is that about these assumptions that only the vastness, multiplicity 
 and vitality of America would seem able to comprehend, to be fit for, and give 
 scope to. 
 
 46 
 
 America needs her own poems in her own body and spirit different from all 
 hitherto freer more muscular, comprehending more and unspeakably grander. 
 Not importations or anything in the spirit of importations aloof, and in These 
 States exiles : not the superb chronicles, faultless, rich, perennial as they are 
 and deserve to be in their native lands of the past events and characters of 
 Europe Not the current products of imaginative persons, with tropes, likenesses, 
 piano music and smooth rhymes nor of 
 
 47 
 
 Caution Not to blaart constantly for Native American models, literature etc., 
 and bluster out "nothing foreign." The best way to promulge native American 
 models and literature is to supply such forcible and superb specimens of the same 
 that they will, by their own volition, move to the head of all and put foreign 
 models in the second class. 
 
68 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 I to-day think it would be best not at all to bother with Arguments against the 
 foreign models or to help American models but just go on supplying American 
 models* 
 
 It is not that the realities of all these things are in the books themselves in 
 the poems [ ] etc. The realities are in the realities only, in the earth, water, 
 
 plants, animals, souls, men and women. Poems are to arouse the reason, suggest, 
 give freedom, strength, muscle, candor to any person that reads them and assist 
 that person to see the realities for himself in his own way, with his own individuality 
 and after his own fashion. 
 
 49 
 
 (Of the great poet) (Finally) For preface. It is not that he gives his country 
 great poems ; it is that he gives his country the spirit which makes the greatest poems 
 and the greatest material for poems. 
 
 He could say I know well enough the perpetual myself in my poerns but it is 
 because the universe is in myself it shall all pass through me as a procession. I say 
 nothing of myself which I do not equally say of all others, men and women. 
 
 - ? (or) (Finally) (It is not that he gives you his country). 
 
 He does not give you the usual poems and metaphysics. He gives you 
 materials for you to form for yourself poems, metaphysics, politics, behavior, histories, 
 romances, essays and everything else.f 
 
 50 
 
 No one will perfectly enjoy me who has not some of my own rudeness, 
 sensuality and hauteur. 
 
 A poem which more familiarly addresses those who will, in future ages under 
 stand me, (Because I write with reference to being far better understood then than 
 I can possibly be now.) 
 
 52 
 
 (?) Other poets have formed for themselves an idea apart from positive life, and 
 disdainful of it but for me I ask nothing better or more divine than real life, here, 
 now, yourself, your work, house-building, boating, or in any factory ; and I say of 
 every male and every female, he or she can bring out of it all divine (?) growths (?) 
 fruits (?). 
 
 * Probably written in fifties. 
 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, p. 264, current edition, p. 137. 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 69 
 
 53 
 
 Mine are not the songs of a story teller, or of a voluptuous person, or of an 
 ennuyeed person, but of an American constructor, looking with friendly eyes upon 
 the earth and men and beholding the vista of the great mission of The States. 
 
 54 
 
 If I could speak to personified America I should [say] : I do not consider it of 
 so much importance, in themselves merely, what amount of wealth you and yours 
 have, nor what spread of territory, nor the curious arts and inventions, nor the 
 crowded cities and produce-bearing farms, nor whether one party or another party 
 takes the lead in the Government. But the main thing, the result of all those things, 
 upon favoring the production of plenty of perfect-bodied, noble-souled men and 
 women. 
 
 55 
 
 In future " Leaves of Grass." Be more severe with the final revision of the 
 poem, nothing will do, not one word or sentence, that is not perfectly clear with 
 positive purpose harmony with the name, nature, drift of the poem. Also no 
 ornaments, especially no ornamental adjectives, unless they have come molten hot, 
 and imperiously prove themselves. No ornamental similes at all not one : perfect 
 transparent clearness sanity and health are wanted that is the divine style O if it 
 can be attained 
 
 56 
 
 What we call literature is but the moist and wobbling cub, just born and its eyes 
 not open yet in many days. You are a living man, and think ; in that alone is a 
 more heightless and fathomless wonder than all the productions of letters and arts in 
 all the nations and periods of the earth. 
 
 57 
 
 " Don't read my books" I heard Walt. Whitman good-naturedly, yet emphatic 
 ally, say one day to an intelligent but conventional questioner whom he personally 
 liked : " You want something good in the usual sense ; a plot, a love story 
 something based on the accepted principles and on precedent. You don't want 
 something to wrestle with you and puzzle you, you want one of the good English 
 poets' books or the good and pleasing Longfellow, or such. I have written no 
 such books. I have attempted to construct a poem on the open principles of nature, 
 as comprehended not only in the material worlds of astronomy with the earth and 
 sea, but as in all the movements of history and civilization, wars, the shows of cities, 
 and in man with all his attributes, animal, intellectual, moral and spiritual. The 
 whole drift of my books is to form a race of fuller athletic, yet unknown characters, 
 
7o Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 men and women for the United States to come. I do not wish to amuse or furnish 
 so-called poetry, and will surely repel at first those who have been used to sweets 
 and the jingle of rhymes. Then every page of my book emanates Democracy, 
 absolute, unintermitted, without the slightest compromise, and the sense of the New 
 World in its future, a thoroughly revolutionary formation to be exhibited less in pol 
 itics and more in theology, literature and manners ; all of which, at present, while 
 interested in and discussing many things, America, curious as it may appear, knows 
 little of, and in fact amid all her knowledge knows almost nothing of her real des 
 tination and life. But all will come along in proper time.* 
 
 58 
 
 Rules for Composition A perfectly transparent, plate-glassy style, artless, with 
 no ornaments, or attempts at ornaments, for their own sake they only looking well 
 when like the beauties of the person or character by nature and intuition, and never 
 lugged in to show off, which nullifies the best of them, no matter when and where. 
 
 Take no illustrations whatever from the ancients or classics, nor from the myth 
 ology, nor Egypt, Greece or Rome nor from the royal and aristocratic institutions 
 and forms of Europe. Make no mention or allusion to them whatever except as 
 they relate to the new, present things to our country to American character or 
 interests. Of specific mention of them, even for these purposes, as little as possible. 
 
 Too much attempt at ornament is the blur upon nearly all literary styles. 
 
 Clearness, simplicity, no twistified or foggy sentences, at all the most trans- 
 lucid clearness without variation. 
 
 Common idioms and phrases Yankeeisms and vulgarisms cant expressions, 
 when very pat only.f 
 
 59 
 
 We suppose it will excite the mirth of many of our readers to be told that a man 
 has arisen, who has deliberately and insultingly ignored all the other, the cultivated 
 classes as they are called, and set himself to work to write "America's first dis 
 tinctive Poem," on the platform of these same New York Roughs, firemen, the ouvrier 
 class, masons and carpenters, stagedrivers, the Dry Dock boys, and so forth ; and 
 that furthermore, he either is not aware of the existence of the polite social models, 
 and the imported literary laws, or else he don't value them two cents for his purposes. 
 
 60 
 
 The origination and continuance of metre, and of rhyme afterwards, were not only 
 from their pleasantness to the barbaric ear, but more from their convenience to the 
 memory in arresting and retaining tales and recitations and passing along what they 
 
 * Written April, 1869. 
 
 t Quite early early in the fifties ? 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 71 
 
 tell from person to person, generation after generation, preserving the epic song or 
 ballad ages and ages as was often done in old times without the aid of writing or 
 print.* 
 
 61 
 
 All others have adhered to the principle, and shown it, that the poet and savan 
 form classes by themselves, above the people, and more refined than the people ; I 
 show that they are just as great when of the people, partaking of the common idioms, 
 manners, the earth, the rude visage of animals and trees, and what is vulgar, f 
 
 62 
 
 The foreign theory is that a man or woman receives rights by grant, demise, 
 or inheritance The theory of These States is that humanity's rights belong to 
 every man, every woman in the inherent nature of things, and cannot be alienated, 
 or if alienated must be brought back and resumed. f 
 
 63 
 
 The originality must be of the spirit and show itself in new combinations and 
 new meanings and discovering greatness and harmony where there was before 
 thought no greatness. The style of expression must be carefully purged of anything 
 striking or dazzling or ornamental and with great severity precluded from all that is 
 eccentric. J 
 
 64 
 
 Not to dazzle with profuse descriptions of character and events and passions. 
 The greatest poet is not content with dazzling his rays over character and events and 
 passions and scenery and does not descend to moralize or make applications of 
 morals. The soul has that measureless pride which consists in never acknowledging 
 any lessons but its own. . . .this invariably. But to bring the Spirit of all events and 
 
 persons and passions to the formation of the one individual that hears or reads 
 
 of you up there now. 
 
 65 
 
 A new doctrine leading feature. There is in the soul an instinctive test of the 
 sense and actuality of anything of any statement of fact or morals. Let this 
 decide. Does it not decide ? Thus the soul of each man, woman, nation, age, or 
 
 * '56 or '57. 
 
 t Written about '56. 
 
 J Written as note to following sentence in Magazine article, dated Oct., '51, on Keat's Hyperion: "It is per- 
 "haps safe to affirm that originality cannot be attained by seeking for it, but only eccentricity oddity and eccen 
 tricity, which the great artist avoids as he values his immortality." 
 
 Written '55 or "56. Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, p. 260, current edition, p. 291. 
 
72 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 what not realizes only what is proportionate to itself. For a new school (or theory) 
 Let the test of anything proposed in metaphysics be this instinct of the soul 
 this self-settling power. First however prepare the body it must be healthy, 
 mature, clean. 
 
 66 
 
 Other writers (poets) look on a laborer as a laborer, a poet as a poet, a Presi 
 dent as a President, a merchant as a merchant and so on. He looks on the Presi 
 dent as a man, on the laborer as a man, or the poet and all the rest, as men. 
 
 67 
 
 Many trouble themselves about conforming to laws. A great poet is followed 
 by laws they conform to him. 
 
 68 
 
 Understand that you can have in your writing no qualities which you do not 
 honestly entertain in yourself. Understand that you cannot keep out of your writing 
 the indication of the evil or shallowness you entertain in yourself. If you love to 
 have a servant stand behind your chair at dinner, it will appear in your writing ; if 
 you possess a vile opinion of women, or if you grudge anything, or doubt immortality, 
 these will appear by what you leave unsaid more than by what you say. There is no 
 trick or cunning, no art or recipe by which you can have in your writing that which 
 you do not possess in yourself that which is not in you can [not] appear in your 
 writing. No rival of life no sham for generation no painting friendship or love 
 by one who is neither friend or lover. Come, now, I will give the first lesson for a 
 young man for newer and greater literati. Absorb no longer, mon ami, from the text 
 books. Go not, for some years, to the labors of the recitation room or desk or on 
 the accepted track of tourists. Ascend to your own country. Go to the west and 
 south. Go among men in the spirit of men. Go to the swimming-bath, the 
 gymnasium, the new buildings where the working carpenters and masons are. Learn 
 of the elements and animals. Learn to master the horse. Become familiar with 
 arms. Become a good fighter, a good rower, a sure marksman, hardy, one that dress 
 and the criticisms of others and the usages of parlors can not master, one who could 
 sleep in a blanket under a tree if need be, one who does not condemn civilization 
 and refinement but grows through them to be superior to them. What is lacking in 
 literature can only be generated from the seminal freshness and propulsion of new 
 masculine persons. Books have generated upon books, and religions upon religions, 
 and poems upon poems. I say a man is to vindicate himself above all things and a 
 woman above all things. Do not grumble at any fact or condition whatever. What 
 has been has been well, and what is is well, for nothing but such as they could come 
 out of such as underlay them. They also are to underlie what could be built upon 
 
Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 73 
 
 nothing better than them. Sure as the geological developments follow each other 
 in steady and beautiful order sure as the saurian ages terminate in more advanced 
 developments sure as man was prepared for upon the earth sure as he makes his 
 resistless progress through time, over all impediments, and coming on with renewed 
 vigor from all retrogrades and delays sure as materialism sure as the soul shall 
 arise in this land the literature that shall be eligible to embody not a few phases of 
 life only, but all known and conceivable phases of life, and to identify all men and 
 women and all climates and States, New York, Canada, Texas, the Mississippi, the 
 planter, the Yankee, the Californian, the native, the immigrant, town government 
 and the State and Federal Governments. Literature this of the largest friendship, 
 and the vitalest pride and the truest freedom and practical equality ever known upon 
 the earth ; literature the roomiest and least cramped because it shall arise from the 
 broadest geography the most diverse because it shall absorb the greatest diversity, 
 the grand organs of whose head shall correspond to the grandeur of its body, 
 Literature not only of the dilletanti and few pleasant reminiscences but of all living 
 things and of the past and future. Literature for a mighty breed of male and female, 
 represented no longer in their legislatures and executives, but represented better by 
 their successions of poets, orators, debaters, readers, musicians, philosophers, equals 
 and mixers with the rest, springing from all trades and employments, and effusing 
 them, and from sailors and landsmen and from the city and the country, making of 
 the vaunted [deeds] of the past but a support to their feet and so treading them 
 under their feet, poets, musicians, philosophers whom the rest of the world shall 
 not deny, because their greatness shall accept the rest of the world as much as any, 
 and incorporate it and send back all that it has sent to them with interest more than 
 a thousand fold.* 
 
 69 
 
 After all is said and done in the way of argument, the whole bubble of the sea- 
 ooze against that unspeakable something in my own soul which makes me know 
 without being able to tell how it is that I know. Though the linguists and lore of 
 the whole earth deny what I say, it amounts but to this : So it seems to them. I 
 simply answer, So it seems to me. The greatest of thoughts and truths are never 
 put in print. They are not susceptible of proof like a sum in simple multiplication. 
 
 I see myself sweating in the fog with the linguists and learned men. I look 
 back upon that time in my own days I have no mockings or laughter. I have only 
 to be silent and patiently wait.f 
 
 70 
 
 Sept. '56. Leaves of Grass must be called riot objective, but altogether sub 
 jective " I Know " runs through them as a perpetual refrain. Yet the great Greek 
 poems, also the Teutonic poems, also Shakespeare and all the great masters have been 
 objective, epic they have described characters, events, wars, heroes &c. 
 
 * Written '55 or '56. 
 
 t Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 15, and current edition, p. 32. 
 
74 Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 7 1 
 
 I do not compose a grand opera, with good instrumentation and parts which you 
 shall sing as I have written them, and whose performance will give fits to the 
 dilletanti, for its elegance and measure. To sing well your part of opera is well ; but 
 it is not enough. You should be master of the composers of all operas and of all 
 tenors and of all violins and first violins, for they were all men like yourself, and 
 perhaps less developed than yourself. 
 
 72 
 
 America needs her own poems, in her own body and spirit. Different from all 
 hitherto freer, more muscular, comprehending more and unspeakably grander. 
 Not importations or anything in the spirit of the importations, aloof and in These 
 States exiles ; not the superb chronicles, faultless, rich, perennial as they are and 
 deserve to be in their native lands, of the past events and characters of Europe not 
 the current products of imaginative persons, with tropes, likenesses, piano music and 
 smooth rhymes nor of 
 
PART III. 
 
 MEMORANDA FROM BOOKS AND FROM His OWN REFLECTIONS INDICATING THE POET'S 
 READING AND THOUGHT PREPARATORY TO WRITING "LEAVES OF GRASS." 
 
 Space considered with reference to the earth, as all parts of the universe bear 
 reference to each other, and all other things therefore bear down their influence more 
 or less upon this earth. THE AIR, a description of those things that may be said 
 to be most closely identified with the air for movement, visibility, occupancy Sec., 
 as the orbs, space, light, heat (as Silliman says cosmical not terrestrial). THE 
 SEA, all the wonders of the sea, the sea covering three-fourths of the land. THE 
 LAND,- physical facts of the land, as first its nebulous beginning, then its geology 
 all through to the present, then its present beauty, realty and diversity as the home of 
 man. 
 
 The most perfect wonders of the earth are not rare and distant but present with 
 every person, you as much as any. Not distant caverns, volcanoes, cataracts, curious 
 islands, birds, foreign cities, architecture, costumes, markets, ceremonies, shows, are 
 any more wonderful than what is common to you, near you, now and continually 
 with you. Man ! Woman ! Youth ! Wherever you are, in the Northern, Southern, 
 Eastern or Western States in Kanada, by the sea-coast or far inland what is more 
 amazing than the sunrise, the day, the floods of light enveloping the fields, waters, 
 grass, trees, persons ? What is more beautiful than the night, the full moon and the 
 stars ? The prairies, lakes, rivers, forests ? 
 
 3 
 
 A new way and the true way of treating in books History, geography, 
 ethnology, astronomy etc., etc. by long list of dates, terms, summary paragraphic 
 statements etc. Because all those things to be carried out and studied in full in any 
 particular department need to have recourse to so many books it is impossible to 
 put them, or think of putting them, in any history so that brief DATA, all compre 
 hensive, and to be pursued as far and to as full information as anyone will, afford the 
 best way of inditing history for the common reader. 
 
76 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 The History of the World, viz.: An immense digested collection of lists of 
 dates, names of representative persons and events, maps and census returns. 
 
 4 
 
 The most immense part of ancient history is altogether unknown.* Previous 
 to ten thousand years ago there were surely empires, cities, states and pastoral 
 tribes and uncivilized hordes upon the earth. 
 
 Do you suppose that history is complete when the best writers get all they 
 can of the few communities that are known and arrange them clearly in books ? 
 Sublime characters lived and died and we do not know when or where full as 
 sublime as any that we now celebrate over the world. Beautiful poems, essays of 
 philosophy, witty replies, excellent histories, works of art and ornament. 
 
 There were busy, populous and powerful nations on all the continents of the 
 earth at intervals through the stretch of time from ten thousand years ago down 
 to twenty-six hundred years ago signs and materials of them remain. Of their 
 literature, government, religions, social customs and general civilization silence. 
 No one can now tell the names of those nations. They had in their own way 
 something corresponding to all the essentials of a modern political power. Their 
 agriculture, factories and handiwork, houses and modes of domestic life, their 
 forms of worship and what they thought of death and the soul, how they were 
 ruled, their trade or want of trade, their traditions and dress, the physiology of 
 their various and separated races, which of them were of fine person and style, 
 warm-hearted and clean, heroic, simple and of a beautiful candor and dignity, 
 what sort of marriage, what condition of schools and art and medicine, and the 
 laying out of cities, and what about liberty and slavery among them, and public 
 benevolence and war and justice, and who were witty and wise, and who were 
 brutish and undeveloped, and who were accomplished and elegant and rich all 
 these are to be thought about as facts. No dates, no statistics not a mark nor a 
 figure that is demonstrably so. 
 
 Upon America stood many of these vast nations and upon Asia, Africa and 
 Europe. In the trance of the healthy brain of man. Time, the passage of many 
 thousands of years, the total vacuity of our letters about them, their places blank 
 upon the map, not a mark nor a figure that is demonstrably so. With all this 
 they lived as surely as we do now. They lived upon America and upon Asia, 
 Africa and Europe. In the trance of the healthy brain of man these unknown 
 peoples show afar off dim and filmy in their outlines. Some grand and elaborated, 
 some with graceful faces learned and calm, some naked and savage, some like 
 huge collections of meaningless insects, some engaged in the chase living for 
 generations in the woods and unfenced fields. 
 
 Nobody can possess a fair idea of the earth without letting his or her mind 
 walk perfectly easy and loose over the past. A few definite points mark deeds 
 and national eras, lists of titles and battles and the like make up very little of 
 
 * First Sketch, in prose, of unnamed lands. The poem first printed in '60 edition, p. 412, current edition, p. 288. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 77 
 
 the movement of Humanity and events at any time. The best and most important 
 part of history cannot be told. It eludes being examined or printed. It is above 
 even dates and reliable information. It is surer and more reliable, because by far 
 the greatest part of the old statistics of history are only approaches to the truth 
 and are often discrepant and suspicious. 
 
 The native name of Egypt is Khami (black). 
 
 The Semitic and Iranian families are primitively connected with each other ? 
 Are they not the same ? 
 
 Ancient Chaldea Babylon and Assyria i.e. Nineveh Cuneiform inscriptions. 
 
 Aramaean (from Aram) a name which applies equally to Mesopotamia and 
 Syria. 
 
 Chaldean Christians in Kurdistan called Nestorians. 
 
 In Egypt and in Assyria, and doubtless in other ancient nations there were 
 separate castes in language as in men. There was one written language for 
 religion, one perhaps for the nobility and without doubt one for the common mass 
 and people. Thus there in Assyria (as in Egypt) they had a written language, 
 numerals, weights, tables, calculations, financial mediums and dispatches they 
 had an appropriate religion, poetry, history, amusements. 
 
 The inscriptions on the rocks on the road on the west side of the Sinaitic 
 peninsula, to Mount Sinai had already occupied the attention of Cosmos Indico- 
 pleustes in the earlier part of the sixth century. After many suggestions from 
 others, different ages, Niebuhr divined their contents, and scorned the idea of 
 anything but greetings and memorials of travelers in different ages. 
 
 5 
 
 The Ruins in North America the copper mines of Lake Superior which 
 have evidently been worked many centuries since probably more than a 
 thousand years ago, perhaps two or three thousand the mounds in the valley of 
 the Mississippi the vast ruins of Central America, Mexico and South America 
 grand temple walls &c., now overgrown with old trees all prove beyond cavil 
 the existence, ages since, in the Western World, of powerful, populous and pro 
 bably civilized nations, whose names, histories and even traditions had been lost 
 long before the discovery of Columbus and Vespucius. 
 
 In the big scrap-book upon which I am now working is pasted some leaves of " Graham's Magazine " (no date 
 must belong to the fifties) containing an article " Imagination and Fact." The writer says, " We should like to see 
 a history of the campaigns in Greece of Darius, Xerxes, and Mardonius written by Persians." Upon which W. W. 
 has this note : 
 
 Yes, an ancient history not written by a Greek or Roman what a face that 
 would put upon old times. 
 
 Again the writer says : " The mountains, rivers, forests and the elements that gird them round about would be 
 only blank conditions of matter if the mind did not fling its own divinity around them." W. W. makes this marginal 
 note : 
 
 This I think is one of the most indicative sentences I ever read. 
 
78 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 7 
 
 Scythia as used by the Greeks the northern part of Europe and Asia and the 
 people thereof " Kelts," viz., woodsmen. These were descendants from the same 
 ancestors as the Greeks and Romans themselves. Another name of the above the 
 " Umbri." 
 
 The Celtic, Teutonic and Gothic races are all of Japhetic stock. 
 
 Sarmatia, Ancient Russia and Poland. ? the Teutonic races originally from 
 Persia. Then the inhabitants of India and the descendants of the Keltic and Teu 
 tonic nations are all of one family and must all have migrated from one country. 
 Whether that country was Persia or Cashmir or a country further east is not easily 
 determined but it seems that, accordingly, the white man of Europe and the tawny 
 man of India have a common ancestry. 
 
 British human beings, wild men, the " Koboo." Elias Pierson (June '57) 
 describes to me a very low kind of human beings he saw in one of the Ladrone 
 islands, they were quite hairy, had a few rags for clothing and lived in earthern" 
 shelters, something like ovens, into which they crawled. Capt. Gibson affirms that 
 all his statements in his book are true and made in good faith. Then the " Koboo " 
 must be so. What difference does it make whether the lowest men are Borneans or 
 not. Their brutish nature is certain and that is enough. After all are not the 
 Rocky Mountain and Californian aborigines quite as bestial a type of humanity as 
 any ? Remember Le Brun's illustrations of comparative anatomy where he groups 
 the physiognomy of the native races of animals of a country and the physiognomy of 
 the native races of human beings of the same country. 
 
 9 
 
 ? Spinal idea of a " lesson." Founding a new American religion ( ? No 
 religion). That which is comprehensive enough to include all the doctrines and 
 sects and give them all places and chances, each after its kind. 
 
 Egyptian religion existing in nascence or development through many thousand 
 years, five or ten or perhaps even twice ten thousand years. The central idea seems 
 to have been the wonderfulness and divinity of life, the beetle, the bull, the snipe 
 were divine in that they exemplified the inexplicable mystery of life. It was a 
 profound and exquisite religion. 
 
 Greek existing through several thousand years certainly two, very likely 
 several more. Central idea, a combination of Love, Intellect and the Esthetic (the 
 beautiful and harmonious) Refined perceptions, the presence of perfect human 
 bodies, the climate, the peculiar adhesiveness or friendship of the people all are in the 
 Greek mythology. 
 
 Hebrew the most etherial and elevated spirituality this seems to be what 
 subordinates all the rest The Soul, the spirit rising in vagueness. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 79 
 
 10 
 
 ? Outlines of lecture. I imagining myself in that condition mentioned. You 
 must do the work you must think. 
 
 To you. First of all prepare for study by the following self-teaching exercises. 
 Abstract yourself from this book ; realize where you are at present located, the point 
 you stand that is now to you the centre of all. Look up overhead, think of space 
 stretching out, think of all the unnumbered orbs wheeling safely there, invisible to us 
 by day, some visible by night ; think of the sun around which the earth revolves ; 
 the moon revolving round the earth, and accompanying it ; think of the different 
 planets belonging to our system. Spend some minutes faithfully in this exercise. 
 Then again realize yourself upon the earth, at the particular point you now occupy. 
 Which way stretches the north, and what country, seas etc. ? Which way the 
 south ? Which way the east ? Which way the west ? Seize these firmly with your 
 mind, pass freely over immense distances. Turn your face a moment thither. Fix 
 definitely the direction and the idea of the distances of separate sections of your own 
 country, also of England, the Mediterranean sea, Cape Horn, the North Pole, and 
 such like distinct places. 
 
 ii 
 
 This list of one week's issue from the National Patent Office at Wash 
 ington illustrates America and American character about as much as anything I 
 know. Remember the show at the Crystal Palace and the American Institute Fairs.* 
 
 12 
 
 Salt Works. At Salina, " Salt Point," now a portion of Syracuse, Onondaga 
 Co., N. Y., (as Williamsburg is a part of Brooklyn) there are some salt springs. 
 Also they bore into the neighboring ground (sometimes 300 ft. deep) 50, 70, 100 ft. 
 A "block" is erected in which there are arches, with kettles for boiling the water 
 these are kept fired under day and night till at the end of a week they have to 
 be cleaned of the sediment, coating etc. By the kettles are baskets and ladles to 
 take out and contain the salt. A spout and trough ranging over the kettles lets in 
 the water as it is wanted. Evaporation supplies the best salt. It is put in bags and 
 large boxes and sent off on the canals. 
 
 i3t 
 
 The old-fashioned keel-boats and keel-boatmen have, of course, almost disap 
 peared with steamboating. Still they are occasionally to be seen west, north, on the 
 streams of Kanada, etc. 
 
 * Remarks by Whitman on a list of the patents issued at Washington in a week. 
 
 t Marginal note by Whitman on the word " keel-boatmen " used in a newspaper scrap pasted in. 
 
8o Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 14 
 
 The English masses (Talk with Frank Leonard, " Yank " etc. their travels 
 through English towns with the American circus). The large mass (nine-tenths) 
 of the English people, the peasantry, laborers, factory operatives, miners, workers 
 in the docks, on shipping, the poor, the old, the criminals, the numberless flunkies 
 of one sort and another have some of the bull-dog attributes but are generally minus 
 the best attributes of humanity. They are not a race of fine physique, or any 
 spirituality, or manly audacity, have no clarified faces, candor, freedom, agility, and 
 quick wit. They are short, have mean physiognomies (such as are in the caricatures 
 in Punch), fine-shaped men and women, city bred, being very seldom met with in 
 the city and becoming less and less common in the country. Bad blood, goitre, 
 consumption, and the diseases that branch out from venerealism, gin drinking, 
 excessive toil and poor diet are to-day apparent, to greater or less degree in two- 
 thirds of the common people of England, They are wretchedly poor, own neither 
 houses nor lands for themselves, have no homes, cannot look to have any homes and 
 are acquiring something fierce, morose, threatening in their physiognomy. In their 
 phrenology there is the most substantial basis of any race known, all that can make 
 a solid nation and has made it. 
 
 Among the common classes in towns chastity is dwindling out. All drink, few 
 are virtuous. In regard to intelligence, education, knowledge, the masses of the 
 people in comparison with the masses of the United States are at least two hundred 
 years behind us. With all these terrible things about the common people what grand 
 things must be said about England ! Power, wealth, materials, energy, individualism, 
 pride, command are hers and there is to-day but one nation greater than she and 
 that is her own daughter.* 
 
 15 
 
 British in China. Hong Kong (Elias Pierson tells me) is an island, something 
 like Staten Island in size. Of this the British have exclusive possession, and have 
 fortified it, and keep regiments of soldiers there. Dates referring to China. Fo, 
 a divine being, ruler, lawgiver, and teacher a God 2500 years before Christ. Silk 
 is plenty they have a white coarse stuff of grass, that makes, for foreigners, very 
 good shirts, lasting much longer than cotton or linen. The Americans are in very 
 good repute in China the English and French very bad. 
 
 16 
 
 June 23, 1857. Talk with Elias Pierson, who was in China in the rebel army 
 in Canton and all through the country. 
 
 A religious building : There would be here and there, in the cities a large long 
 building, perhaps one or two hundred feet in length, perhaps even more, and fifty or 
 
 * Pinned in scrapbook along with part of a " Brooklyn Daily Eagle," dated nth December, 1857. Doubtless 
 written about that date. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 81 
 
 sixty feet high. Along the walls on both sides range the idols, gods and " Joshes," 
 mostly of wood, some of them small, some thirty feet high, carved, gilt etc. Some 
 are devils, some on horseback, some monsters, deformed persons, half animals, fish 
 and so on. The Chinese are around with the priests, on their knees, pattering, 
 mumbling &c. 
 
 The "Josh" is the Chinese idol, in wood or clay in temples or dwelling 
 houses. It is the same in general as other pagan idols. 
 
 Tea. This is the universal beverage. It is cheap, of course. It comes in cakes 
 {like chewing tobacco here) and is boiled, not " drawn " as here. 
 
 Slavery. This exists in China. It has no regard to color. Nine-tenths of the 
 slaves are women and girls. Polygamy also exists among rich persons. 
 
 Personal size and Attributes. The " fair Chinese " are of good size and 
 proportions with brunette skin, and are generally light and nimble. They have not 
 the muscle of the beef-eating races. They feed on rice, greens, soups and similar diet. 
 
 Chinese Army. Two contending forces, arrayed against each other take it quite 
 easy, adjust their dresses, use their fans if the weather is hot, and are quite careful 
 not to have their faces injured. They are dandy soldiers. An engagement may 
 happen and no killed or wounded be the result. 
 
 Climate. A large part of China has about the same climate as New York, with 
 snow and ice in winter and some very hot days in summer. 
 
 Executions. Criminals are executed in several ways. A common mode is to set 
 the victim in a sort of box which tightens around his neck and ankles and com 
 presses his body by degrees with a special screw against his breast, this squeezing 
 him to death. Sometimes may be seen twenty or thirty such victims in rows dead 
 or dying, with their eyes protruded and their tongues hanging out of their mouths. 
 
 Pekin. Away in the interior is Pekin, the great city, the " Chinaman's heaven." 
 Here is the Emperor and the imperial government. 
 
 Lascars. Once or t*ice a year the Lascars have a characteristic spree. They 
 attire themselves fantastically, one has a chain around his neck, one around his waist, 
 another around his ankles, and the others lead them through the streets with dances 
 and music. And such music ! There are perhaps fifty or sixty primitive instru 
 ments, reeds, gongs, shells etc., all keeping in a wild sort of uniform rythm. The 
 Lascars in this way march to and fro, all eating, drinking, making merry and collect 
 ing money in a vessel which they proffer to everybody. But the strangest destiny 
 awaits this money. At night the Lascars all go together out upon the water, some 
 very deep place, and pour this money into the sea ! This is a gift to the Chinese 
 Neptune, or to Pluto, that they may have grace at the hands of those deities in their 
 voyages, or after all voyages are over. 
 
 17 
 
 Morality and talent are affected more by food, drink, physical habits, cheerful 
 ness, exercise, regulated or irregulated amativeness than is supposed. O. S. Fowler. 
 
82 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 18 
 
 A character. Ninety-four years old, keeps up with the times, reads the new 
 literature, was a chaplain in the revolutionary army, an intimate acquaintance of 
 Washington, confined in the sugar house prison in New York city, hale and vigorous 
 and sensible as a man of thirty Was never sick. 
 
 19 
 
 Of Insanity. Some are affected with melancholia, in these the organ of cautious 
 ness will be found large ; some fancy themselves the Deity, in these self-esteem 
 predominates ; some are furious, in these destructiveness, or more likely, combat- 
 iveness. But a small organ may become diseased and often does so. 
 
 20 
 
 The temperaments four lymphatic, sanguine, bilious and nervous. Depend 
 on the condition of particular systems of the body. Brain and nerves predominantly 
 active seem to produce the nervous temperament. The lungs and blood vessels 
 being constitutionally predominant give rise to the sanguine. The muscular and 
 fibrous systems being predominant give rise to the bilious (which should more 
 properly be called the fibrous) temperament. The predominance of the glands and 
 assimulating organs give rise to the lymphatic. 
 
 Lymphatic : round form, soft muscle, fair hair, pale skin, sleepy eyes, inexpres 
 sive face, brain languid, other organs ditto. The system a great manufactory 
 of fat. 
 
 Sanguine : well defined form, moderate plumpness, firm flesh, chestnut hair, 
 blue eyes, fair complexion, great fondness for exercise and air, brain active. 
 
 Bilious (Judas in Lord's Supper) : black hair, dark skin, moderate stoutness, 
 firm flesh, harsh features, great endurance and bottom. 
 
 Nervous : fine thin hair, small muscles, thin skin, pale countenance, bright eyes, 
 great mental vivacity. 
 
 These temperaments are seldom found pure, almost always mixed, as nervous 
 and bilious in Lord Brougham. This nobleman was engaged in a court of law all 
 day, went to the House of Commons at evening, remained there until two in the morn 
 ing, went home, wrote an article for Edinburgh Review, then went again to court, 
 then again to House of Commons, and only towards the next morning to bed his 
 vigor having been unabated all that time. Nervous and lymphatic are frequently 
 combined, these give great alternations of activity and indolence. Prof. Leslie 
 would, for a day or two, apply himself with vigor and success to scientific affairs- 
 then as if the nervous energy were exhausted and the nutritive system came up he 
 would sit and eat and doze and sleep, paying no attention to study then again the 
 nervous would come into preponderance. Nervous and sanguine give activity first 
 mental the other physical. The nervous is a grave, thoughtful temperament 
 sanguine has hilarity and hope, lights the countenance, impels to motion and to 
 animal gayety. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 83 
 
 21 
 
 CERVANTES (1547-1616, contemporary with Shakespeare) and DON QUIXOTE. 
 
 Bear in mind that this delightful romance was not the result of a youthful 
 exuberance of feeling and a happy external condition, nor composed in Cervantes' 
 best years when his spirits were light and his hopes high ; but that with all its 
 unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright views of the world and its 
 cheerful trust in goodness and virtue it was written in his old age, at the conclusion 
 of a life whose every step had been marked by disheartening struggles and sore 
 calamities ; that he began it in a prison and finished it when he felt the hand of death 
 pressing cold and heavy on his heart.* 
 
 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra born about 20 miles from Madrid 8th or 9th 
 Oct., 1547. 
 
 Wrote verses while a youth, attended the theatrical pieces of Lope de Rueda. 
 
 1570 (23 years old) serving at Rome in the household of a Cardinal. Whence 
 he volunteers as a common soldier in an expedition sent by the Pope and the 
 Venetians against the Turks. 1570-75 was in battles by sea and land. 1575-80 
 in 1575 was captured and carried to Algiers as prisoner; remained in durance as a 
 slave 5 years. 1580 is ransomed and returns home father dead family poor. 
 
 1581 joins the army again as a soldier serves in Portugal becomes familiar 
 with Portugese literature. 
 
 1584 is at home again in Madrid and writes and publishes "Galatea" a prose 
 pastoral. Same year marries poor but a lady. Remained united in marriage 30 
 years and his widow at her death desired to be buried at his side. 
 
 Dramatic performances. Now for several years writes plays for the theatre. 
 
 1584-5-6, does not seem to have gained much position or profit as a play-wright- 
 Two of these earlier plays are in existence yet but resemble too much the " miracle- 
 shows " of the times for modern taste. Cervantes remains poor. Was maimed from 
 an old wound. 
 
 1588 goes to Seville. Acts as agent to a government commissary and money 
 collector etc. 1588-1598 in these employments and the like he travels Audalusia 
 and Granada. Was imprisoned as a defaulter released in 1597. 
 
 From 1598 to 1603 we lose track of him, but in 1603 he is established at 
 Valladolid. The court is there under Philip III. and his favorite the Duke of Lerma. 
 
 1604-5. Don Quixote. In 1605 tne " First part" of Don Quixote was printed 
 at Madrid (licensed 1604). The received tradition in Spain is that Cervantes having 
 been employed by the Prior of the order of St. John in La Mancha to collect rents 
 due the monastery in the village of Argamasilla that he went there and was 
 persecuted and thrown into prison himself by the debtors and that while there he 
 started Don Quixote and located the hero in La Mancha perhaps in revenge. 
 
 The first part of Don Quixote was received at once with great favor a second 
 edition was immediately called for. 
 
 * This opening passage seems to have been quoted by Whitman, not known from where. 
 
84 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 1606. Follows the court back to Madrid. 1609. Joins the Brotherhood of 
 the Holy Sacrament a religious association (all this time Lope de Vega, the poet, 
 is the great literary idol of the age, in Spain). 
 
 Cervantes was full of good nature full of cheerfulness, activity and a happy 
 tolerance toward everything and everybody. 
 
 1613. Publishes " Novelas Exemplaras " (moral tales) very good, since 
 very popular in Spain but not in other countries. 1614. "Journey to Parnassus" 
 a satire poem. 1615. From this time forward writes plays, also Entremeses 
 (interludes). Eight plays for popular acceptation are inferior productions. 
 
 Don Quixote second part 1615. In this year also appears the second part 
 
 of Don Quixote dedicated to the Count de L Cervantes in this dedication 
 
 alludes to his failing health and anticipated death. This second part written in 
 very old age is said to be better than the first. 
 
 Death. 23rd April, 1616, at the age of 68 was buried in the Convent of the 
 Nuns of the Trinity but a few years afterwards this convent was removed to 
 another part of the city and what became of the ashes of the greatest genius 
 of his country is from that time wholly unknown. 
 
 1617. Persiles and Sigismunda printed by Cervantes' widow. The story is 
 a northern romance, the hero the daughter of a King of Iceland the story full 
 of savage men and frozen islands wild and strange adventures then the scene 
 changing to south of Europe. 
 
 1818. A medal in France in a series to commemorate genius. 
 
 1835. A bronze monument of Cervantes was raised in the Plaza del Esta- 
 mento, Madrid. 
 
 Don Quixote. The object, besides writing a good and amusing story, was to 
 foil the fanaticism for romances of chivalry of the Arnadis de Gaul type which 
 then generally prevailed in Spain (The esoteric meaning discovered by 
 modern critics is mostly bosh). The effect. No romance of chivalry of the old 
 pattern appeared after the publication of the First Part of Don Quixote, in 1 605. 
 The effect was perfect from that time they have been rapidly disappearing. 
 
 A bogus Second Part to Don Quixote was sent out in 1614 by Alonzo F. de 
 Avellanada very inferior, and with insulting allusions to old Cervantes. 
 
 Cervantes seems to have originally intended his hero to be a parody of the 
 character of Amadis, but soon to have made him the independent creation he is ; 
 very distinct a crazed, gaunt, dignifi knight with his round, selfish, amusing 
 squire. 
 
 22 
 
 Saturday, June 21 [1856]. It seems to me quite clear and determined that 
 I should concentrate my powers [on] "Leaves of Grass" not diverting any of 
 my means, strength, interest to the construction of anything else of any other 
 book. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 85 
 
 23 
 
 My own opinion is that myriads of superior works have been lost superior to 
 existing works in every department, except law, physics, and the exact sciences 
 1856 
 
 24 
 
 Then poets must arise to make future D' Israelis unable to say this. Why 
 the best poetry is the real history.* 
 
 25 
 
 The religion of the Bible, or rather of the New Testament, is a beautiful 
 advanced stage in the never-ending humanitarianisin of the world but as the 
 Bible admits of exhaustion like the rest and is now exhausted it may be left to 
 its fate on these terms : As long as it stands it is worthy of standing ; these are 
 perhaps the true terms of all religion s.f 
 
 26 
 
 A main part of the greatness of a humanity is that it never at any time or 
 under any circumstances arrives at its finality never is able to say : Now as I 
 stand I am fixed forever. If anyone has the feeling to say : I am fixed and 
 retains that feeling then a longer or shorter farewell to the greatness of that 
 humanity. Every day something more something unsuspected the previous 
 day. Always changing, advancing, retreating, enlarging, condensing, widening, 
 being wafted to Spirituality. Always new materialism and things. % 
 
 27 
 
 I think it probable or rather suggest it as such that Bacon or perhaps Raleigh 
 had a hand in Shakespeare's plays. How much, whether as furnisher, pruner, 
 poetical illuminator, knowledge infuser what he was or did, if anything, it is not 
 possible to tell with certain ty 
 
 Shakespeare's earliest printed plays 1597. Romeo and Juliet, Richard III., 
 Richard II. 
 
 Chapman's translation of Homer printed 1600. 
 
 The gift of the ^1000 was without doubt made about 1593 when Southamton 
 was 20 years old and Shakespeare 29. I suspect earlier than that ? 
 
 1596 his son Hamnet died, in the i2th year of his age. 
 
 1598. To this year only five of his plays had been printed although he had 
 been a public writer for twelve years. Positively he was by certain parties, more 
 
 * Marginal note on following : "I believe that a philosopher," says M. D'Israeli, " would consent to lose any 
 poet to regain an historian." 1856. 
 
 t 1856. J 1857. 
 
86 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 or less numerous, adjudged already to deserve a place among the great masters as 
 early as this date 1598, in the 35th year of his age. 
 
 The printing of Shakespeare's dramas was without his instigation or assistance. 
 It is thought quite certain he was indifferent to their appearance in print, and did not 
 mind even the blunders and omissions that marred them probably for the same 
 reason that Forrest would not like to have his plays in print now. 
 
 1598. Now (12 years after going to London) he returns to Stratford, purchases 
 and lives in one of the best houses of the place " New Place." 
 
 1 60 1. His father died aged 71 his last years were probably comfortable. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth no doubt often saw Shakespeare as an actor and applauded 
 him. 
 
 1603. James I. of England and VI. of Scotland commenced to reign. Pre 
 viously, of course, Queen Elizabeth reigned. 
 
 1607. Susanna, his eldest daughter, aged 24, was married to John Hall, 
 "gentleman," a physician. 
 
 1608 his mother died a little previous his brother died the mother was 
 probably over 70 years of age. 
 
 Shakespeare at this time, 1608, seems to have had his reputation at its height. 
 ^"400 a year is supposed to have now been his income, 1608. 
 
 Burbage died with ,300 a year. 
 
 About 1607 (15 years after the Venus and Adonis) Lord Southampton still 
 befriends Shakespeare writing a letter to the Lord Chamberlain in behalf of him 
 and Burbage. 
 
 1600 and for some time before and after juvenile companies were much patron 
 ized. They must have been very good companies too. 
 
 Shakespeare owned in both the Globe and Blackfriars Theatre. He bought and 
 sold, bargained, was thrifty, borrowed money, loaned money, had law-suits. 
 
 Richard his youngest brother died in 1612, aged 40. His brother Gilbert, two 
 years his elder, probably resided in Stratford in 1612 and before and afterwards. 
 His sister Joan (5 years younger than he) married William Hart, hatter, they called 
 their first child " William." His daughter Susanna made him a grandfather when 
 he was 45 years old. 
 
 1605 had a chancery suit. 
 
 Did right and wrong was entrusted with commissions lost by fires, thieves, 
 cheats, committed follies, debaucheries, crimes. 
 
 1616, Feb. His daughter Judith married to Thos. Quiney, a vintner. Judith 
 has three children, she died 1661-2. r 
 
 Made his will, signed it twice with unsteady hand, made an effort with firmness 
 on the final signature, " By me William Shakespeare." 
 
 Death at the age of 52. 
 
 Death. Shakespeare, Dray ton and Ben Jonson had a merrie meeting, and, it 
 seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 87 
 
 His wife Anne outlived him. She died 1623. 
 
 His last lineal descendant died 1670. 
 
 The half-length upon his monument (erected anterior to 1623) " conveys the im 
 pression of a cheerful, good-tempered, somewhat jovial man." 
 
 It is evident to me beyond cavil that Shakespeare in his own day and at death 
 was by many placed among the great masters and acknowledged.* And yet the 
 florid style of praise was applied to everybody and almost everything in those times. 
 
 "He was handsome, well-shaped man, very good company, and of a very ready 
 and pleasant and smooth wit." Aubrey. 
 
 Some think Shakespeare was lame and for that reason retired from the stage 
 came perhaps from some accident. " Gentle " is the epithet often applied to him. 
 At that time was not its signification " like a gentleman," "of high-blooded bearing " ? 
 
 Fuller speaks of the " wit-combats " between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson at 
 the Mermaid Club. 
 
 " Myriad-minded Shakespeare." 
 
 Evidently he was familiar with the Iliad. 
 
 His autograph is in a translation of " Montaigne's Essays " he then must have 
 been familiar with Montaigne. 
 
 Venus and Adonis passed through six editions in Shakespeare's lifetime, and a 
 number more afterwards. 
 
 Sonnets first printed 1609. 
 
 Milton admired and loved Shakespeare, writes praises of him, But yet he 
 charges harshly against Charles I. that the monarch had a copy of Shakespeare in his 
 cabinet for his constant use. 
 
 The character of the bastard Falconbridge his gloating pleasure over the fact 
 that he is the bastard of a King rather than the legitimate son of a Knight what 
 was this but either from a sentiment now repudiated or to please the aristocracy ? 
 Yet what was it also but a true depicting of those days ? A true depicting also of 
 thousand's of men's minds these days ? 
 
 Shakespeare is much indebted to the ancients. Hamlet's soliloquy, " To be, or 
 not to be," is taken almost verbatim from Plato. f To the Iliad everyone of his best 
 plays is largely indebted. 
 
 See Emerson* Shakespeare. 
 
 Shakespeare put such things into his plays as would please the family pride of 
 Kings and Queens, and of his patrons among the nobility. He did this for Queen 
 Elizabeth and for James I. His renderings of man, phases of character, the rabble, 
 Jack Cade, the French Joan, the greasy and stupid canaille that Coriolanus cannot 
 stomach, all these fed the aristocratic vanity of the young noblemen and gentlemen 
 and feed them in England yet. Common blood is but wash the hero is always of 
 high lineage. Doubtless in so rendering humanity Shakespeare strictly rendered 
 
 * Later Whitman has put a ? to this paragraph. 
 
 t Later Whitman writes against this as marginal note : " Is this so?" 
 
88 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 what was to him the truth and what was the truth. The class of mechanics, tailors, 
 salesmen, attendants etc., in Europe then, perhaps even now, are they or are they 
 not properly reflected by such reflections as Shakespeare gives of them ? 
 
 Illustrated London News, 25 Oct. 1856. A paper read by Wm. Henry Smith^ 
 author of " Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays?" "What Pope 
 says of some of the plays of Shakespeare is probably true of all that they were 
 pieces of unknown authors or fitted up for the theatre while under his administration 
 revised and added to by him." 
 
 It seems according to Malone that " The London Prodigal" was acted at his 
 theatre and afterwards printed with his (Shakespeare's) name on the title page and 
 though he had never written a line of it he was indifferent to the cheat and to the 
 printer's impudence. Bacon, according to W. H. Smith, was most probably the real 
 author he goes on with his reasons therefor, some of them very curious and 
 plausible, especially a contemporary letter to Viscount St. Albans saying : " the most 
 prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation or of this side of the sea, was of your 
 Lordship's name, though he be known by another." Jan. '57. Smith continued 
 these lectures. 
 
 Over-coloring. Many little things are too much over-colored in Shakespeare 
 far too much. The features of beloved women, compliments, the descriptions of 
 moderately brave actions, professions of service, and hundreds more, are painted 
 too intensely. It is no answer to this to say that a lover would so state the case 
 about a woman he loved, or that a strong, rich nature would be apt to describe inci 
 dents in that manner; and that Shakespeare is therefore correct in so presenting 
 them. Immensely too much is unnaturally colored the sentiment is piled on, similes, 
 comparisons, defiances, exaltations, immortalities, bestowed upon themes certainly 
 not worthy the same, thus losing proportion. ( ? ? Also most of the discursive 
 speeches of the great and little characters are glaringly inappropriate, both words 
 and sentiments such as could not have come from their mouths in real life and there 
 fore should not in the plays). Yet on great occasions the character and action are 
 perfect. This is what saves Shakespeare. Is he imitative of Homer ? If so 
 where and how ? 
 
 28 
 
 Edmund Spencer. Born about 1553 died 1599. Was an intimate friend of 
 Philip Sydney who was killed by a wound at the battle of Zutphen. 
 
 Wrote adulatory verses on Queen Elizabeth " Great Gloriana." 
 
 Raleigh was Spencer's next friend after Sydney. 
 
 Had a pension of ^50 from the Queen and the actual Laureatship. He danced 
 attendance like a lacky for along time at court, but without luck. He left in disgust 
 at last and went to his Irish estate on the banks of the Mulla. 
 
 Earl Leicester was his patron and friend. The " E. K." often mentioned by 
 Spencer is supposed to have been himself " E. K." has much to say of Spencer's 
 Writings commends them. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 89 
 
 Spencer took his degrees of B. A. and M. A. at Cambridge 1573 and 1576. 
 
 After serving in an Irish Secretaryship received from the Queen the profitable 
 grant of property, the Abbey of Enniscorthy in the County of Wexford making 
 the poet rich owner of and resident in Kilcolman Castle. 
 
 There in his castle he must have written or finished in 1588-89 the Fairy Queen 
 it was published in 1590 (" twelve books fashioning twelve moral virtues "). Was 
 married when 40 or over. 
 
 Kilcolman Castle attacked by insurgents Spencer and his family fled one of 
 his children burned to death, the castle being fired. 
 
 A flight from Ireland. 
 
 Poverty ensued, comparative poverty anyhow. Lived a year in London. Died, 
 was buried in Westminster Abbey. A monument erected 30 years after death by 
 Anne, Countess of Dorset. 
 
 In his poems reverence for purity and goodness is paramount to all the rest. 
 
 In person Spencer was small and delicate, and in custom precise "as became a 
 man of taste." 
 
 His face had sweetness and refinement mild almond-shaped eyes, forehead 
 lofty but not very wide was well beloved by contemporaries who all exempted him 
 from satire. 
 
 Tone of Spencer's poetry is inwardly abstracted, contemplative in the highest 
 degree loving high themes, princeliness, purity, white garments rather averse to 
 reality his personages being only half real. He is haunted by a morbid refinement 
 of beauty beauty three times washed and strained. 
 
 No doubt but he was very learned. Even at the time of writing them, Spencer's 
 words, in his poems, were many of them unusual, obsolete, or considered affected 
 and strained. 
 
 Fairy Queen personages : Red Cross Knight " Holiness," Una " Truth," 
 Sansfoy "Faithless," Arthur "Magnanimity," Orgoglio "Pride," Gloriana 
 " Glory " " Queen Elizabeth." In the Fairy Queen are also Despair, Fear, Care 
 and Mammon. 
 
 First book a king's daughter applies to a knight her parents are confined in 
 their castle -a vast and terrible dragon has laid in wait devouring the country, and 
 is now after them. The knight sets forth, encounters a monster, an enchanter, kills 
 the dragon, delivers the king and queen, marries the daughter. 
 
 29 
 
 Swedenborg born 1688 died 1772, aged 85. At 55 years of age suddenly 
 renounced the world. He is a precursor, in some sort, of great differences between 
 past thousands of years and future thousands. He was little thought of at the time. 
 Perhaps only the celebrity of his knowledge of minerals, mathematics, chemistry and 
 the classics saved him from being counted a fool ; it is wonderful the king and officers 
 
90 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 did not desert him and leave him to the usual fate of innovators, but they did not. 
 Neither Voltaire nor Rousseau notice him, probably they did not know of him ; 
 the English philosophs and literats the same ; the German the same. 
 
 He was a contemporary of the French encyclopoedists ; Goethe born 1749 ; 
 Addison 1672-1719; Sam Johnson 1709-1784 ; Pope 1688-1744; Hume 1711-1776; 
 Gibbon 1737 ; Wm. Pitt 1708-1778 ; Franklin ; Jefferson ; Washington. 
 
 30 
 
 J.J.Rousseau. Born 1712. Died 1778 (some say by suicide). An American 
 poet may read Rousseau but shall never imitate him. He is a curious study and 
 will cause some contempt. 
 
 Rousseau's confessions (Swinton's translation fall of 1856). In 1766 
 Rousseau, 54 years old took refuge in Wooton, Staffordshire, England, and wrote 
 this frivolous, chattering, repulsive book that still has a great lesson in its pages, 
 and whose revelations one keeps reading somehow to the end. 
 
 Born in Switzerland a sort of vagabond a copyist of music parents decent, 
 substantial bourgeoisie. Lost his mother early. One brother, not much together. 
 Father a quiet, easy person. 
 
 Jean Jacques left home lived with various persons worked was bashful 
 learned a little of everything his " Confessions " are a singular opening up of 
 the trivial incidents, some quite disgusting, which find their tally in every man's 
 life. 
 
 A sensitive, Frenchy, frivolous, keen, proud, unhappy, restless, contemplative 
 nature. 
 
 Note how "character" is built up after all from the beginning. How the 
 pompous " History " and " Biography '' come down to just such as we are. 
 
 Remember in those days there were no journals, no " reviews," or masses of 
 cheap literature demanded. 
 
 After many wanderings the last ten years of Rousseau's life were in and 
 around Paris. He was very poor ; he lived in a garret and earned his food by 
 copying music. He was old, discouraged, not robust, not popular, not happy. What 
 a ten years and what an ending to them. Six weeks before his death Rousseau 
 was invited to a country mansion. There he walked, meditated, thought who 
 knows what ? Spent the day in botanizing before the night of his death. Did he 
 or did he not die of suicide ? 
 
 Louis XIV. born 1638 died 1715. 
 Corneille Louis XIII. 
 
 Racine towards the last of Louis XIV. Tragedies rigidly after the antique 
 models characters Greek or Roman everything on stilts all the talk in heroics. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 91 
 
 I fancy the classical tragedies of Corneille, Racine, Voltaire &c., must 
 illustrate the vital difference between a native and normal growth (as the Greek 
 tragedies themselves) and all that comes from the mere study of that growth. 
 
 November, 1855, I saw Rachel in Athalie at the Academy of Music. 
 
 Myrrha, by Alfieri, the Italian^ lurid passions with long winded dialogues 
 about nothing. 
 
 32 
 
 Burns 1759-1796. By his poems Burns was faithful to lowly things, 
 customs, idioms, Scotland, the lasses, the peasants, and to his own robust nature. 
 He was often hard up, an improvident freehanded man. His poems succeeded 
 he made ^500, an immense sum. He took a farm, was appointed exciseman 
 a Y ear ) lived two or three years in that way, drank, sickened, died. 
 
 33 
 
 Heldenbuch Book of heroes full of half-ghostly, raw head and bloody 
 bones stories ancient German. 
 
 Nibelungenlied song of Nibelung (author unknown) it is objective like the 
 Iliad. Probably dates back to about the 6th or 7th century. Carlyle supposed it 
 to be about the third redaction (digestion) from its primitive form out of myths, 
 acts, traditions, or what not. 
 
 Characters : Siegfried the hero, a warrior King, full of courage, the usual 
 type-hero, as seen, duly followed in all modern novels and plays. 
 
 Chriemheld a beautiful princess, sister of three kingly brothers, of Worms, 
 in time Siegfried's wife. 
 
 Gunther, the principal of the three brothers. 
 
 Brunhilde, a brave, vindictive, relentless woman Gunther's wife. 
 
 Hagen a brave warrior. 
 
 Etzel (King of Hun-land) Chriemheld's second husband supposed to be the 
 historic Attila, died 450 A.D. 
 
 In their present shape these poems Heldenbuch and Nibelungenlied cannot 
 be older than the twelfth century. 
 
 The poet himself is unknown he probably made up the poem in the 
 century. 
 
 34 
 
 Shakespeare and Walter Scott are indeed the limners and recorders as 
 Homer was one before, and the greatest, perhaps, of any recorder. All belong to 
 the class who depict characters and events and they are masters of the kind. 
 
92 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 I will be also a master after my own kind, making the poems of emotions, as 
 they pass or stay, the poems of freedom, and the expos6 of personality singing in 
 high tones Democracy and the New World of it through These States.* 
 
 35 
 Keats died 1821. 
 
 Shelley born 1792 died 1822 stock English gentry must have been quite 
 such another as T. L- Harris. Went to Eton, and Oxford 1810, figure slight, 
 tall, stooped, aspect youthful, screamed loud in talking when enthusiastic, head 
 small, hair long and bushy generous, benevolent, pure early riser in winter 
 evenings lay on the rug before the fire and sleep curled round like a cat fed 
 simply, liked bread and raisins expelled from college 1811, married same year 
 separated 1813 wife died married second 1816. Was not healthy, or rather 
 not rudely so. 
 
 Gower, born 1326, died 1402, was an intimate friend of Chaucer who calls 
 him " the moral Gower." Seems to have been a devout churchman. Rich and 
 orthodox " one of the fathers" with Chaucer. 
 
 37 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer, born 1328, died 1400 aged 72, parents citizens of London. 
 Contemporary of Froissart, Walter de Manny, King Edward and Queen 
 Phillippa. 
 
 Chaucer is supposed to have seen and conversed familiarly with Petrarch. 
 
 He received in the 39th and 44th years of his age two grants or annuities 
 from the King. 
 
 He cultivated his own growth out of that of the Italian and Provencal poets. 
 
 Appointed by the King Comptroller of the customs of wool, wool-fells and 
 hides income ^1,000, equal to about $15,000 now. 
 
 After death of Edward III. held similar favor and kindness under Richard II. 
 
 Wickliffe was his contemporar}*- and friend. Ghaucer sat in Parliament 1386. 
 
 Personally (aged 30) " of a fair and beautiful complexion, his lips red and 
 full, his size a just medium, his air polished and graceful." Married at 37 to the 
 daughter of a Hainault knight. 
 
 Of course in Chaucer's time the language of the court and of learned and 
 refined persons, especially of poetical-disposed genteel persons must have assimi 
 lated to the French and mostly was French, coming on to them from William the 
 Conqueror and his nobles and their descendants. 
 
 * Probably written before 1850. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 93 
 
 Spencer copied Chaucer 200 years after his time. 
 
 Of all Chaucer's poems Driden preferred Palamon and Arcite. 
 
 As great as Spencer and Milton very easily and no obstinate quarrel about 
 Dante ; but wait awhile before putting him with Homer or Shakespeare.* 
 
 Doubtless at that time no one knew or thought those persons heroes or those 
 wars and politics important. Also Chaucer alone of eminent English poets seems 
 to have been above adulating royalty and nobles for gain's sake.f 
 
 There has been hardly a poet in the English language since 1400 but 
 imitates Chaucer more or less. 
 
 Driden founded the school under which Pope's style comes. Driden's forte 
 was satire his poems all have it more or less visibly or invisibly. 
 
 Chaucer was humorous perhaps as humorous as Shakespeare. 
 
 Chaucer was plainly a strong wholesome man with large perceptive organs, 
 friendly, amative, of independent spirit possessed of the true English tastes, 
 rude, fond of women, fond of eating and drinking, not to be quelled by priestcraft 
 or kingcraft, 
 
 38 
 
 I think all the peculiarities of poets (perhaps of all marked persons) are to 
 be taken calmly and in a spirit of latitude, not criticised and found fault with. 
 Those traits were the men facts in nature the same as facts in the landscape, in 
 mathematics, in chemistry. This must of course be applied to Milton, Pope, 
 Tennyson etc., just the same as any. 
 
 39 
 
 Most poets finish single specimens of characters I will never finish single 
 specimens ; I will shower them by exhaustless laws as nature does, indicating not 
 only themselves but successive productions out of themselves, later and fresher 
 continually. J 
 
 40 
 
 Perfect Sanity. Divine Instinct. Breadth of Vision. Healthy rudeness of 
 body. Withdrawnness. Gayety. Sun-tan and air sweetness. 
 
 * Marginal note. The writer in magazine has said : " Chaucer must be classed with Homer and Dante, with 
 Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton." 
 
 f Chaucer did not laud the heroes and beauties of his time nor celebrate the great victories of Cressy and 
 Poiters upon this fact Whitman comments as above. 
 
 Cf. " Leaves of Grass," current edition, p. 189. 
 
 Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, p. 263, and current edition, p. 137. 
 
94 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 41 
 
 Heinrich Heine (just dead 1856) Pictures of Travel (1856), portrait leaning, 
 sleeping head. Poems (as translated) seem to be fanciful and vivacious, rather 
 ironical and melancholy with a dash of the poetical craziness. 
 
 42 
 
 As to Shakespeare's translations they are the translation of so much beef and 
 bread into vital human body and soul. 
 
 43 
 
 Shakespeare, born April 1564, died (in the 53rd year of his age) 1616. One 
 of eight children. Married (on or subsequent to) 28th Nov., 1582. First child 
 christened 26th May, 1583. Wife had twins early in 1585. No more children 
 afterwards. Went to London 1586 is heard of three years afterwards as a sharer 
 in the Blackfriars' theatre. 
 
 Shakespeare first folio edition one volume nearly 1,000 pages complete 
 collection of Comedies, Histories and Tragedies published by his associates and 
 first editors Heminge and Condell 1623 (seven years after Shakespeare's death.) 
 " During the next eight or nine years from the first year of the iyth century to 
 about 1609 or '10 from the poefs thirty-seventh to about his forty-sixth year his 
 genius rose at once to its highest point of culmination. It was the era of his tragic 
 power, of his resistless control over the emotions of terror and of pity, and of his 
 deepest and most gloomy philosophy. This was the period when he appeared as 
 1 the stern censurer of man,' when his deeper insight into the human heart led him 
 to dark and sad views of human nature, sometimes prompting the melancholy 
 philosophy of Hamlet, sometimes bursting forth in the fiery indignation of Timon 
 and Lear. It was during this period that he most impressed upon his style that 
 character which we now recognize as peculiarly Shakespearian by crowding into his 
 words a weight of thought until the language bent under it. His versification be 
 comes like his diction bolder, freer, careless of elegance, of regularity and even of 
 melody a sterner music fitted for sterner themes." 
 
 44 
 
 Ben Jonson, born 1574, was a working bricklayer. 
 
 Plutarch, English translation from a French one in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Shakespeare evidently did not anticipate the fame that was to follow him ? also 
 was indifferent about fame. Did not even see to the printing of his plays and poems 
 or even correcting them when misprinted. He minded his thrift, was hospitable, 
 lived on what he made. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 95 
 
 45 
 
 Troubadours poets and singers South France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain, 
 etc. nth, 1 2th, 1 3th centuries. The troubadours of the middle ages. 
 
 The troubadours were "gentle," knightly, refined, fit for lords and ladies in 
 saloons the trouveres were in comparison fitter for the common people. Trouveres 
 (trouver to find). 
 
 Serfdom and villeinage Crusades. Dante. Petrarch. Froissart. Boccaccio 
 (all last three contemporaries of Chaucer). Feudality. With the close of the i5th 
 century the middle age period expires. Middle age architecture. Modern poetry 
 is neutral tints. 
 
 The English poet has reminiscences and continually extols them. The 
 American poet has a future, and must extol it. 
 
 46 
 
 Shakespeare. Published Venus and Adonis 1593 ; Tarquin and Lucrece 1594 ; 
 Pilgrim 1599; Sonnets 1609. 
 
 Shakespeare commenced at 2 7 years of age, in London was already the father 
 of three children seems to have hardly seen his wife afterwards (?) nor did they 
 live together (?) This last is not so certain, they possibly lived sociably in the same 
 house after Shakespeare settled in Stratford. 
 
 As a young man must have been a great pet with everybody. 
 
 Richard Burbage young man his friend the " star " of the company the 
 original actor of the leading Shakespearean characters. Burbage died 1619. Was 
 the original Hamlet. He must have been a superb man. He left children, two 
 sons. Besides Hamlet he was the original Macbeth, Brutus, Coriolanus, Shylock, 
 Romeo, Lear, Othello etc. 
 
 Venus and Adonis is dedicated to Lord Southampton, and styled by the poet 
 the " first heir of his invention." This, the Lucrece and the Sonnets all precede 
 his great dramas. 
 
 Spencer, his contemporary, already alludes to him in 1791 (Shakespeare then 
 only 27 years old) as a superior writer " whom nature's self had made to mock her 
 self," and as " our pleasant Willy." 
 
 Spencer was doubtless intimate with Shakespeare and knew what he had in 
 him. 
 
 47 
 
 Spring of '59 read Dante's " Inferno." It is one of those works (unlike the 
 Homeric and Shakespearean) that make an intense impression on the susceptibilities 
 of an age, or two or three ages of the peculiar temper fitted by previous training 
 and surrounding influences to absorb it and be mastered by its strength. But as 
 
96 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 what it grows out of and needs present for its understanding and love has passed 
 quite away it has also passed away. It rests entirely on the fame it achieved under 
 circumstances fitted to it. 
 
 The points of the " Inferno " (I am giving my first impressions) are hasting on, 
 great vigor, a lean and muscular ruggedness ; no superfluous flesh ; and the fascination 
 there always is in a well told tragedy, no matter how painful or repulsive. It sig 
 nifies, in its way, that melancholy and imperious part of humanity, or its elements, 
 out of which the whole structure of the stern and vindictive Jehovahn theology has 
 arisen from the time of the primitive Jews down vengeance, gloating in the agony 
 of sinners, bad men, enemies to be punished, and the usual distinctions of good 
 and evil. 
 
 It is a short poem. Dante's whole works appear to lie in a very moderate 
 compass. It seems strange that he should stand as the highest type of Italian 
 imaginative art-execution in literature so gaunt, so haggard and un-rich, un-joyous. 
 But the real Italian art-execution flourishes of course in other fields in music, for 
 instance, peerless in the whole earth, teaching high over the heads of all lands, all 
 times. 
 
 Mark the simplicity of Dante, like the Bible's different from the tangled and 
 florid Shakespeare. Some of his idioms must, in Italian, cut like a knife. He 
 narrates like some short-worded, superb, illiterat an old farmer or some New 
 England blue-light minister or common person interested in telling his or her story 
 makes the impression of bona fide in all that he says, as if it were certainly so. I do 
 not wonder that the middle ages thought he had indeed really descended into Hell 
 and seen what he described. 
 
 Mark, I say, his economy of words perhaps no other writer ever equal to him. 
 One simple trail of idea, epical, makes the poem all else resolutely ignored. This 
 alone shows the master. In this respect is the most perfect in all literature. A 
 great study for diffuse moderns. 
 
 Dante's other principal work, the Paradiso, I have not read. In it, I believe, 
 Beatrice, a pure and beautiful woman, conducts him through Heaven as Virgil has 
 conducted him through Hell. Probably he does not succeed so well in giving 
 heavenly pictures. 
 
 What is more effective conforming to the vulgar and extreme coarsely rank 
 pattern of Hell than the tableaux in the " ninth circle," where two brothers that 
 have hated and murdered each other are made to continually " butt " each other 
 by their heads, steeped in mud, ice and filth. 
 
 48 
 
 " Even now Jasmund, the people's poet, prefers to sing in Provengal." 
 De Vere's Comparative Philology, 1853. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 97 
 
 49 
 
 Pythagoras was very beautiful and lived to a great age. He was of athletic 
 tastes, a boxer, a dancer, wrestler, runner etc. He delighted in music and perfumes 
 wore his beard long. 
 
 50 
 
 James Macpherson, 1737-1796. Ossian, the real Ossian, if ever there were one, 
 is put down at 300 or 400 B. C. Very likely a myth altogether. Ossian, bosky 
 shield wooden shield. 
 
 The Irish swear that Ossian belongs to them that he was born, lived and 
 wrote in Ireland.* 
 
 An Ossianic paragraphf : Margaret Fuller benighted and alone on Ben 
 Lomond. 
 
 Ossian must not be despised it means that kind of thought and character 
 growing among a rude, combative, illiterate people, heroic, dreamy, poetical, on 
 mountains, not on rich lowlands, not with placid Gods and temples, not with culti 
 vated benevolence, conscientiousness, agreeableness, or constructiveness. 
 
 How misty, how windy, how full of diffused, only half-meaning words ! How 
 curious a study ! (Don't fall into the Ossianic, by any chance], 
 
 Can it be a descendant of the Biblical poetry ? Is it not Isaiah, Job, the 
 Psalms and so forth, transferred to the Scotch Highlands ? (or to Ireland?) 
 
 The tremendous figures and ideas of the Hebrew poems are they not original ? 
 for they are certainly great. (Yes they are original.) 
 
 52 
 
 Produce great persons and the producers of great persons all the rest 
 
 surely follows. What has been but indicated in other continents, in America must 
 
 receive its definite and numberless growth the time is arrived and the land got 
 
 ready and every present age is to pass the sinewy lesson and add to it. 
 
 Produce great persons (all) the rest surely follows. The time is arrived and 
 the land got ready for the free growth of that which has been indicated. J 
 
 * Ossian's Address to the Sun is pasted by W. W. on a piece of writing paper and above note appended to it 
 by him. 
 
 tsi is a marginal note to an Ossianic paragraph which is pasted on the paper on which Whitman writes. 
 Cf. "Leaves of Grass," 1860 edition, p. 109, current edition p. 265. 
 
98 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 53 
 
 Passing through the town of Borgo in old Finland, Russia. 
 
 Runeberg, the favorite poet of the Fin. He is said to possess more than 
 mediocre talent and tunes his harp gracefully to granite, furs and the rough music of 
 the northern blasts, all of which the Finnish people love. 
 
 Of Finland the roads are good, the scenery wild, pleasing landscapes, of which 
 granite boulders, hills, lakes and pine trees are the principal features prevented 
 from appearing mountainous by the endless variety of their arrangement. The 
 country is rough, the people are rough also, but friendly and strong.* 
 
 54 
 
 The florid, rich, first phases of poetry, as in the oriental poems, in the Bible, 
 Arabian Nights, Tales of the Genii, Ossian, the Indians of America (Logan). 
 
 Song of Spring from the Persian. 
 
 The primitive poets, their subjects, their style, all assimulate. Very ancient 
 poetry of the Hebrew prophets, of Ossian, of the Hindu singer and ecstatics, of the 
 Greeks, of the American aborigines, the old Persians and Chinese, and the 
 Scandinavian Sagas, all resemble each other. 
 
 55 
 
 As now are given to science many names geology, botany, astronomy, physi 
 ology, etc. But the real science is omnient, is nothing less than all sciences 
 comprehending all the known names and many unknown. 
 
 The Paradise Lost is, to us, nonsense, anyhow, because it takes themes entirely 
 out of human cognizance and treats them as Homer treats his siege and opposing 
 armies and their disputes. The Iliad stands perfectly well and very beautiful for 
 what it is, an appropriate blooming of the poet and what he had received and what 
 he believed and what to him was so in a certain sense. The Paradise Lost is 
 offensive to modern science and intelligence it is a poetical fanaticism with a few 
 great strong features but not a great poem. 
 
 Another point of difference is the Iliad was wanted to give body and shape to 
 
 the nebulous float of traditions and it gives them the beautiful, swift, 
 
 rolling, continuing shape. The Paradise Lost was not wanted for any such purpose. 
 What is in the Bible had better not be paraphrased. The Bible is indescribably 
 perfect putting it in rhyme, would that improve it or not ? 
 
 *0ct. 1855. 
 
 t The notes that follow (under this number) are written on the margin of certain pages of " Christopher Under 
 Canvas," in an 1849 magazine, and are annotations on that text. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 99 
 
 Think of a writer going into the creative action of the Deity ! 
 
 The best poetry is simply that which has the perfectest beauty beauty to the 
 ear, beauty to the brain, beauty to the heart, beauty to the time and place. There 
 cannot be a true poem unless it satisfies the various needs of beauty. 
 
 Wordsworth lacks sympathy with men and women that does not pervade him 
 enough by a long shot. 
 
 Whoever believes in the Calvinistic theology to him the thread of Paradise 
 Lost may seem strong to others it will be weak. 
 
 The difference between perfect originality and second-hand originality is the 
 difference between the Bible and Paradise Lost. 
 
 Milton's mind seems to have had the grandest sort of muscle and much of the 
 other stuff that poetry wants. The descriptions are large and definite. He has 
 nothing little or nice about him but he was in too much with sectarian theology and 
 with the disputes between puritans and churchmen. For instance what nations 
 in Asia or Africa, not Christian, would see any great point in his poem if read 
 to them ? 
 
 57 
 
 Sophocles, ^Eschylus, Euripedes flourished just before the maturity of Socrates. 
 Their best works have not come down to moderns. 
 
 In /Eschylus the figures are shadowy, vast, majestic, dreamy moving with 
 haughty grandeur strength and will born 525, died 456 B. C. 
 
 Sophocles, born 495 B. C. to 406. The dialogue and feelings are more like 
 reality (" the harmonious gracefulness of Sophocles tuning his love labored song 
 like the sweetest warbling from a sacred grove ") the interest comes home nearer. 
 Great poetical beauty. 
 
 Euripides born 495 B. C., died very old love and compassion, scientific refine 
 ment ("the subtle reasonings and melting pathos of Euripides") something like 
 skepticism. This writer was a hearer of Socrates. 
 
 Aristophanes born 480 B. C. Nineteen of his plays remain out of eighty 
 or ninety contemporary of Socrates, whom he lampoons in " The Clouds." 
 
 Aristotle born 384 B. C., at Stagira, in Macedonia, went early to Athens, 
 studied under Plato, was afterwards tutor to Alexander the Great, returned to 
 Athens, opened a gymnasium or school, left to escape a charge of atheism, poisoned 
 himself. 
 
 Plutarch born 50 A. D., lived to old age. 
 
 Zoroaster, two centuries after Moses. Menu preceded both 1700 B. C. 
 
 Confucius, China, 500 B. C. 
 
 Pindar was in his prime about the time of the birth of Socrates. 
 
ioo Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 58 
 
 The Iliad, The Bible, and The yEschylean Tragedies as Prometheus, the 
 Principal Shakespearean Tragedies as Hamletare not complete. Each of these 
 poems is but a portion of a poem each, strictly considered, is but an episode 
 neither .of them is a filled up entirely perfected work of art, though what is supplied 
 is admirable. Something far more is wanted than all that is supplied. The build 
 ing is grandly planned and what is done is done by great mastery ; but the building 
 is not even half done. 
 
 Of the Bible the parts do not have that unquestionable self-proved identity that 
 is necessary nor does Christ merge and make fruitful at all the Syrian Canticles 
 that preceded him. The real owners and heirs of the Hebrew Bible, rejecting the 
 New Testament and what it stands for still wait for the climax of the poem. Taking 
 it altogether it is wonderful how such a contradictory repertoire was brought 
 together and has held sway. Or is this diversity the very reason it has held together ? 
 Has there been something to touch or approach every phase of human want, 
 development, tenderness, fanaticism etc. 
 
 59 
 Oct. and Nov., 1857. Reading Virgil's Bucolics, Eclogues and the 
 
 The ^neid was one of the very first books (translated in English) printed after 
 the invention of printing. It was printed before 1500 by Caxton. 
 
 Virgil born 70 B.C., died 19 B.C., aged 51. Was of the patrician order was 
 well educated naturally of elegant tastes and poetical studies had patrons among 
 the leading Romans. 
 
 Of the ^Eneid, it seems to me well enough except for the fatal defect of being 
 an imitation, a second-hand article Homer's Iliad being the model. It is too plain 
 an attempt to get up a case, by an expert hand, for Roman origin and for the divine 
 participation in old Italian affairs just as much as in those of beseiged Troy and in 
 mythical Greece. The death of Turnus, at the conclusion, seems to me a total failure 
 as a piece of invention, description etc. 
 
 The Bucolics and Georgics are finely expressed they are first-rate. 
 
 60 
 
 Immortality was realized the influence of the thought of it entering into the 
 positive acts of the citizens every day, sending yet its tangible bequest to modern 
 ages, and looking with calm and rugged quaintness to-day from the slopes of the 
 pyramids. Personal qualities were accepted and obeyed (when are they not accepted 
 and obeyed ?). Through these Sesostris more than three thousand years ago 
 ruled Egypt for more than three score years. He was six feet ten inches high and 
 nobly proportioned and supple. He was considerate of the common people. He 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 101 
 
 conquered Asia and Europe, honoring most those that resisted him most. He was 
 a rugged, wholesome and masculine person and in the list of Egyptian greatness 
 comes first after Osiris. 
 
 Not only Assyria and Egypt not only Phoenicia and Lydia] it}* T,ersia/ aijd 
 Media and India had their literature growing out of the nature- and circumstances 
 and governments and enjoyments of the people, with more of j less'speciirte^is/'d ; 
 course long since lost, of the grandest and most perfect forms of expresssion but 
 the men and women of other nations, other empires and states, other mighty and 
 populous cities contemporary with them in other parts of the world, or ages 
 antecedent of them, it may be in distant regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, or it may 
 in North or South America, had their loves and passions and prides and aspirations 
 also typified and put in shape and held in compositions. Language was systematized 
 and passed on from one generation to another in methods answering to what was 
 needed. These unknown empires and cities and their literatures existed just as 
 certainly as the known ones and perhaps in greater vigor and fluency than the 
 known ones. Travellers in every age and in all parts of the world come upon 
 their dumb and puzzling relics. 
 
 In those early days the bards were the only historians. They were far more. 
 All that all times lives in men and women, the feelings, the aspirations, pride, majesty, 
 delicacy, adhesiveness, amativeness, the dread of being thought mean, the demand 
 for a vogue more and better than practical life affords, urged audiences for the 
 singers and poets of those rude races and make the bards who spoke to them sacred 
 and beloved. 
 
 61 
 
 Egypt (and probably much of the sentiment of the Asyrian empire) represents 
 that phase of development, advanced childhood, full of belief, rich and divine 
 enough, standing amazed and awed before the mystery of life nothing more wonder 
 ful than life, even in a hawk a bull or a cat the masses of the people reverent of 
 priestly and kingly authority. The definite history of the world cannot go back 
 farther than Egypt, and in the most important particulars the average spirit of man, 
 except in These States, has not gone forward of the spirit of ancient Egypt. 
 
 62 
 
 India represents meditation, oriental rhapsody, passiveness, a curious school 
 master-teaching of wise precepts and is the beginning of feudality, or the institution 
 of the lord and the serf much of the late-age lord or fine gentleman so nice and 
 delicate dates back to Hindustan. 
 
 Assyria and Egypt. 
 
 Greeks illustrating the aesthetic and intellectual development of our race in 
 fluency, poems, the beautiful, in theory and action, friendship, architecture, manners, 
 philosophy and much else. 
 
io2 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 Romans the physical, that which, makes a commanding and mighty race, 
 that which gives perfection to war, conquest, invasions, audacity, amplitude, 
 victory, the majesty and discriminations of law, the dignified in attitude, speech, 
 and the Hke.: : ; I : 
 
 1 Hebrews tHe i spiritual element, the indefinite, the immortal, sublimity, the 
 -'-realihi to. wliacli. tie material tends, the realm of shadows, meditation, the influence 
 of the stars in solitude at night, the sublime idea of a coming man or Saviour, a 
 perfect individual. 
 
 More or less undoubtedly Hindustan, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, China, 
 Phoenicia and other elder lands preceded the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews. But 
 what preceded these latter is hard to tell except by the process of reasoning from 
 effects to causes. 
 
 Back to ten thousand years before These States, all nations had, and some 
 yet have, and perhaps always will have, tradition of coming men, great bene 
 factors, of divine origin, capable of deeds of might, blessings, poems, enlighten 
 ment. From time to time these have arisen, and yet arise and will always arise. 
 Some are called gods and deified enter into the succeeding religions. 
 
 We know of no beginning in universal literature any more than in chron. 
 ology. We only [know] what is first to be mentioned. 
 
 The first literature to be mentioned is doubtless Assyrian literature and the 
 literature of Kgypt and Hindostan. Many, many thousand years since, books, 
 histories, poems, romances, Bibles, hymns, works illustrative of mechanics, 
 science, arithmetic, humor, Government, war, manners, manufactures and all the 
 principal themes of interest to civilized life and to men and women, were common 
 in the great Asiatic cities of Nineveh and Babylon and their empires, and in the 
 empire of Hindostan, and in the African Memphis and Thebes and through 
 Egypt and Ethiopia. Cheap copies of these books circulated among the com 
 monality or were eligible to them. Vast libraries existed ; there were institu 
 tions in which learning and religion grew together. Religion had a deep and 
 proportionate meaning, the best fitted to the people and the times. Astronomy 
 was understood with which no nation can be degraded nor any race of learned 
 persons remain without grand thoughts and poems. 
 
 64 
 
 Sustenance for the great geniuses of the world is always plenty and the 
 main ingredients of it are perhaps always the same. Yet nothing ever happened 
 to former heroes, sages and poets so inspiring to them, so fit to shine resplendent, 
 light upon them and make them original creators of works newer, nobler, 
 grander, as the events of the last eighty years. I mean the advent of America.* 
 
 * Written about '56. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 103 
 
 65 
 
 A poem in which is minutely described the whole particulars and ensemble 
 of a first-rate healthy Human Body it, looked into and through, as if it were 
 transparent and of pure glass and now reported in a poem. 
 
 66 
 
 Why need genius and the people of These States be demeaned to romances ? 
 Let facts and histories be properly told, there is no more need of romances. 
 
 Still more is due those episodes of France. ? Plutonic among lands, more 
 dreadful than any, yet indispensable, they, another, larger, latest among the few 
 moral strata, enfolding the globe, is theirs. They are not inviting. They are 
 not good they gashed, streaming with blood But, examining them, we know 
 the future will not have credentials, more to be envied, than, sole among men, 
 different, colossal, those dread deeds will present for the race of France ! 
 
 68 
 
 that it perpetually fibre and strengthen and vivify all which is 
 
 good, and erase all which is bad. Compulsion on the other hand, is a temporary 
 support, gained at the price of much bad feeling and reaction. Schools proud 
 of and valuing it for its good name, works of art, architecture, parks, ornaments, 
 aqueducts, avenues and the perfection of its civilization and conveniences. Every 
 one of these officers should be possessed with the eternal American ideas of 
 liberty, friendliness, amptitude and courage. It is all nonsense to fancy that the 
 sphere of such fine traits can only be on some higher and more diffused and com 
 manding scale, as Governor or Senator or President. The right sort of man will 
 exemplify them just as well here directly at our doors or in our City Hall.* 
 
 69 
 
 The true friends of the Sabbath and of its purifying and elevating influ 
 ences and of the many excellent physical and other reforms that mark the present 
 age, are not necessarily those who complacently put themselves forward and seek 
 to carry the good through by penalties and stoppages and arrests and fines. The 
 true friends of elevation and reform are the friends of the fullest rational liberty. 
 For there is this vital and antiseptic power in liberty that it tends for ever and 
 ever to strengthen what is good and erase what is bad. Compulsion is a tem 
 porary support, causing much bad blood and certain reaction. For the city or 
 state to become the general overseer and dry nurse of a man, and coerce any 
 further than before mentioned 
 
 * The MSS. of this piece is in a bad state. 
 
IO4 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 70 
 
 Of this broad and majestic universe, all in the visible world, and much in the 
 greater world invisible, is owned by the Poet. He owns the solid ground and tills it 
 and reaps from every field and harvests cotton and grain and clover. All the woods 
 and all the orchards the corn ear and stalk and tassel, the buckwheat its white tops 
 and the bees that hum there all day the salt meadows 
 
 71 
 
 In remarks on myself. What they say of him he was just like other men he 
 shall not be singled out one of the common 
 
 72 
 
 For dropping. Poem embodying the sentiment of perfect happiness, in myself 
 body and soul being all right regardless of whatever may happen. 
 
 73 
 
 Lafontaine, born about 1621, lived 73 years (1694) was ^ gd family, inherited 
 some property wrote fables in verse somewhat like Esop's also wrote poems and 
 plays lived 20 years supported by a noble lady in her house was intimate with 
 ( ? Racine, Boileau, Bossuet, Moliere). 
 
 74 
 What life hides too !* 
 
 * Among other printed slips, newspaper, and other pasted and huddled together I find the following sonnet by 
 Rev. Joseph Blanco White a sonnet which Coleridge praised highly : 
 
 Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew 
 
 Thee, from report Divine, and heard thy name, 
 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
 Yet, 'neath a current of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came, 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ? or who could find, 
 Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ? 
 Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife ? 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? 
 
 On the margin Whitman has written the above four words : " What life hides too." Cf. " Leaves of Grass," 
 '56 edition, p. 166, and current edition, p. 345. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 105 
 
 75 
 
 Goethe's complete works, last complete edition of his own revision, 1827-8 a 
 short time before his death. Goethe born 1749 died 1832. 
 
 Carlyle, in reviews and otherwise, seems to have been the introducer of Goethe 
 and the principal German writers from 1827 onward 10 years. 
 
 Goethe (reading Carlyle's criticisms on Goethe). His first literary productions 
 fell in his 23rd year. Sorrows of Werter in his 25th year. In 1776 Goethe was seen 
 by the heir-apparent of Weimar. Soon after invited to court and accordingly settled 
 at Weimar. (Goethe was tall, handsome, every way personally attractive) had the 
 title of Legations-rath (some time after). By degrees whatever was brightest in 
 Germany had been gathered in this little court. There was a classical theatre under 
 Goethe and Schiller. There Wieland taught and sang. In the pulpit there Herder 
 (was this about 1807 ?). Goethe had risen until at last he was appointed minister (I 
 suppose chief). 
 
 Here is now (January, 1856,) my opinion of Goethe. (Had I not better read 
 more of Goethe before giving an opinion ?). He is the most profound reviewer of 
 life known. To him life, things, the mind, death, people, are all studies, dissections, 
 exhibitions. These he enters upon with unequalled coolness and depth of penetration. 
 As a critic he stands apart from all men and criticises them. He is the first great 
 critic and the fountain of modern criticism. Yet Goethe will never be well beloved 
 of his fellows. Perhaps he knows too much. I can fancy him not being well beloved 
 of Nature for the same reason. A calm and mighty person whose anatomic con 
 siderations of the body are not enclosed by superior considerations makes the perfect 
 surgeon and operator upon the body upon all occasions. So Goethe operates upon 
 
 the world his office is great what indeed is greater ? He shall have the 
 
 respect and admiration of the whole. There is however what he cannot have from 
 any. 
 
 So Goethe lived amid princely persons, all ceremonies, etiquettes, ranks, ribbons, 
 caste, the classics, refinements, taxes, money plenty, deference, all that belongs to 
 a petty German court and the minutest observances of the same, with exact 
 precedence and routine for everything. Arranged art exhibitions, palace-building, 
 laws for the university and so on. 
 
 Goethe's poems, competitive with the antique, are so because he has studied the 
 antique. They appear to me as great as the antique in all respects except one. 
 That is the antique poems were growths they were never studied from antiques. 
 
 Goethe's Wander jahre was published in his 72nd year (Sorrows of Werter in 
 his 25th) its characters illustrate (in dialogue and incident) a philosophical theory of 
 the Christian religion, finely spun. The orthodox statement of Christ, the Cruci 
 fixion etc., are re-stated "the sun hiding its head when He died " etc. 
 
 1 8 Feb., 1856. There is one point of the Goethean philosophy, which, with 
 out appeal and forever incapacitates it from suiting America and the forthcoming 
 
io6 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 years. It is the cardinal Goethean doctrine too, that the artist or poet is to live in 
 art or poetry alone apart from affairs, politics, facts, vulgar life, persons and things 
 seeking his " high ideal." 
 
 22 Feb. Goethe is never carried away by his theme he is always Master. 
 He is the head person, saying to a pupil : Here, see how well this can be done. 
 
 Carlyle vaunts him as showing that a man can live even these days as an 
 " Antique Worthy." This vaunt Goethe deserves he is indeed a cultivated 
 German aristocrat, physically inextricable from his age and position, but morally 
 bent to the attic spirit and its occasions two thousand and more 3> > ears ago. That 
 is he, such are his productions. The assumption that Goethe passed through 
 the first stage of darkness and complaint to the second stage of consideration and 
 knowledge and thence to the third stage of triumph and faith this assumption 
 cannot pass, cannot stand amid the judgments of the soul. Goethe's was the faith 
 of a physical well being, a good digestion and appetite, it was not the faith of the 
 masters, poets, prophets, divine persons. Such faith he perhaps came near and 
 saw the artistical beauty of perhaps fancied he had it but he never had it. 
 
 Goethe is the result of a well-ordered, polished, learned state, not physically 
 great, acknowledging etiquette, of moving mainly among gentlemen and ladies 
 of culture, and taking it for granted that there is nothing better needed than 
 culture. The educated mind has pleasure in Goethe's works [//its passage was 
 first written : The mind has almost boundless pleasure in Goethe's works] in 
 many, perhaps all of them. Still questions arise : Why do uneducated minds 
 also receive pleasure from Goethe ? Is he really an original creator or only the 
 noblest of imitators and compositors ? Would or could he have written anything 
 without the studies of the antiques ? Is a man or women invigorated, made 
 cleaner, grander, sweeter, by his poems ? Or more friendly and less suspicious ? 
 Has he raised any strong voice for freedom and against tyrants ? Has he satisfied 
 his reader of immortality ? 
 
 What Goethe was it is doubtless best that he was. It is also eligible, without 
 finding any fault with him, to inquire what he was not. He could not have been 
 what he was without also being what he was not [i. e., without having those 
 deficiencies which he had]. To the little court of Weimar, to the poetical world, 
 to the learned and literary worlds, Goethe has a deserved greatness. To the 
 genius of America he" is neither dear nor the reverse of dear. He passes with 
 the general crowd upon whom the American glance descends with indifference. 
 Our road is our own. 
 
 Schiller, born 1759, died 1806, aged 47. Of the last 15 years of his life not 
 an hour could have been entirely free from pain. Was helped by Goethe, aided 
 to emoluments. They two were friends had frequent and learned correspon 
 dence. (It is published). 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 107 
 
 77 
 
 What are inextricable from the British poets are the ideas of royalty and 
 aristocracy, the ideas of the radical division of those who serve from those who 
 are served and a continual recognition of the principles at the bases of monarchy 
 and the societies and beliefs of caste. In the continents of the Eastern Hemis 
 phere a bard whether ancient or modern has been an attache to a nobleman or 
 a court or to the order of noblemen or courts. The skald, the harper, the trou 
 badour, Shakespeare, the feudal minstrel, the more modern poet, the laureate, all 
 write, or did write or speak for those selected persons and at their behest and for 
 the honor and largesse they gave. Shakespeare composed altogether for the 
 court and for the young nobility and the gentry ; he had no other audiences. 
 The courts have at all times pensioned eminent poets and do so at this day. In 
 all times and in all nations it has been the faith of poets to believe in the noblest 
 thoughts and deeds and to express them and to diffuse the love of beauty. In 
 this we inherit and partake of every one without distinction of place. In this is 
 the common glory of poets irrespective of period or place. In this the good of any 
 one is the good of all. Yet is no poet dear to a people unless he be of them and 
 of the spirit of them, a growth of the soil, the water, the climate, the age, the 
 Government, the religion, the leading characteristics, a height and individuality 
 for his own nation and days and not for other nations in Hgypt an Kgyptian, in 
 Greece a Greek, in Germany a German, in England an Englishman, in the 
 United States an American. 
 
 Of the leading British poets many who began with the rights of man abjured 
 their beginning and came out for kingcraft, obedience and so forth. Southey, 
 Goleridge and Wordsworth did so. 
 
 78 
 
 Barthold Niebuhr 1776-1831 55 years. Born at Copenhagen, during youth 
 visited London and Edinburgh. Was an occupant of political offices for the 
 younger-manhood years of his life but in 1823 ( a g e d 47) retired to Bonn and 
 became the great reformer of Roman History (and ancient History generally). 
 Was much excited by the French Revolution of July 1830, said to have hastened 
 his death, Jan. 1831 See pages 249-50-51 German Literature. 
 
 79 
 
 Niembsch von Strehlenau (Nikolaus Lenau), Hungarian died 1853, insane, 
 idiotic and animal from love aged 35. Tanko, the horse-herd, a popular poem 
 life of a Hungarian horse-herd, scenes, characteristic adventures, common life 
 real life. 
 
io8 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 80 
 
 Conversation with Mr. Held about German poets his talk as follows: 
 Freiligrath a democrat impulsive when he meets any one, or as he walks the road, 
 or at a meal etc. etc. he composes he improvises easily. Ruckert, Uhland, Kinkel, 
 Hoffman, Heine, Xavier. 
 
 81 
 
 Shakespeare depicts actual life, Schiller the ideal, Goethe mixes both actual and 
 ideal. 
 
 82 
 
 Niebelungen Lied scene much in the City of Worms and environs Siegfried 
 fifth century much of it dialogue, passed on from one character to another, flowing 
 out. Only experts in antique German can get along with the Niebelungen it is as 
 far different from modern German as the Saxon preceding Chaucer is from the 
 present English. 
 
 83 
 
 The secret is here : Perfections are only understood and responded to by- 
 perfections. 
 
 This rule runs through all and applies to mediocrity, crime and all the rest ; each 
 is understood only by the like of itself. 
 
 Any degree of development in the soul is only responded to by the similar degree 
 in other souls. One religion wonders at another. A nation wonders how another 
 nation can be what it is, wonders how it can like what it likes and dislike what it 
 dislikes ; a man wonders at another man's folly and so on. But what a nation likes, 
 is part of that nation ; and what it dislikes is part of the same nation ; its politics 
 and religion, whatever they are, are inevitable results of the days and events that 
 have preceded the nation, just as much as the condition of the geology of that part 
 of the earth is the result of former conditions. 
 
 84 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, born at Pallas (Ireland) Nov. 1728 father a curate and 
 small farmer moved to Westmeath ^200 a year educated Trinity College, 
 Dublin, thoughtless, heedless, credulous, gambled, was helped to money lost it 
 at 24 went to Edinburgh to lectures thence to Leyden at 27 with a smattering of 
 medical knowledge wandered through France, Switzerland, Flanders, Italy returned 
 to England lived in low life from 30 to 36 a literary hack then better known 
 and better off then prosperous, received sums of ^200, ^300, ^600 etc. for his 
 poems, histories and plays. As a talker, frivolous, weak, no good as a writer and 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 109 
 
 compiler, wonderfully ignorant. Was a gambler still got deeply in debt ^2000 
 preyed upon his mind associates regarded him with kindness and contempt he 
 was envious and showed it income, last seven years of his life, ^400 a year. Died 
 3 April, 1774, in his 46th year. He sometimes felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild 
 blundering talk brought upon him. 
 
 85* 
 
 Leigh Hunt criticized his own poems. Spencer criticized himself. Also the 
 same sort of self-criticism by other poets. The piece thus headed runs as follows : 
 " We will not go with Mr. Hunt into the critical analysis of his own poetical produc 
 tions though many of his remarks thereon are as racy as the poems themselves. 
 This method of commenting upon one s own productions is not altogether unauthorized. 
 Mr. Hunt gives for it the example of the old Italian poets, with Dante at their head. 
 He regrets that Shakespeare had not been his own commentator, and Spencer given 
 elucidations respecting his Platonic mysticisms on the nature of man. He would 
 have enjoyed ' A divine gossip with him about his wood and his solitudes, and his 
 nymphs, his oceans, and his heaven.' ' 
 
 86 
 
 The great poet absorbs the identity of others and the experience of others and 
 they are definite in him or from him ; but he presses them all through the powerful 
 press of himself loads his own masterly identity. 
 
 87 
 
 Keats' poetry is ornamental, elaborated, rich in wrought imagery, it is imbued 
 with the sentiment, at second-hand, of the gods and goddesses of twenty-five hundred 
 years ago. Its feeling is the feeling of a gentlemanly person lately at college, 
 accepting what was commanded him there, who moves and would only move in 
 elegant society, reading classical books in libraries. Of life in the nineteenth century 
 it has none any more than the statues have. It does not come home at all to the 
 direct wants of the bodies and souls of the century. 
 
 Frederick Schlegel 1772-1829 one of two celebrated literary brothers the 
 other named Augustus. Had a strong predilection toward the wonderful and 
 mysterious. 1803 entered Roman Catholic Church. Wrote "Philosophy of His 
 tory," most valuable tenet of which is, "the inexpediency of destroy ing old institutions 
 
 * This (apropos of his own later doings) is an interesting item. It is a newspaper paragraph headed in W.'s 
 hand as above. 
 
iio Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 before new ideas are prepared to develop themselves in consistency with the order of 
 society!' Lectures (" History of Literature") 1811-12 have chiefly extended his fame. 
 He makes literature the representative expression of all that is superior in a nation, 
 thus elevating it, especially poetry, far above the views of trivial and commonplace 
 criticism, and regarding it as incorporating and being the highest product of human 
 life and genius. He appreciates the great masters of all countries and sets them off 
 from crowds of temporary persons. 
 
 Prejudices. But remember in reading these lectures Schlegel was full of the 
 prejudices of a zealous, newly converted Roman Catholic.* 
 
 89 
 
 Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, born 1763 at Wunsiedel, near Bayreuth, Germany 
 died 1825 aged 62, rather poor the earlier years, father a subordinate clergyman 
 went to university his father died he was hard up for many years afterwards. 
 Resolved to make his living by writing books his first work being finished no 
 publisher tried some time, at last found one in Berlin unnoticed by the reviews, 
 except one, and that gave a scornful notice. Richter still holds his purpose writes 
 another work, " Selections from the Papers of the Devil " ransacked high and low 
 for a publisher, but found none until some years afterwards. Stood out in costume, 
 wore his shirt open at the neck etc. -horrified all the "Magisters" held out in cos 
 tume seven years, and then returned to orthodoxy. 
 
 Living in the most scanty manner for some ten years, in 1 793, when 30 years 
 old, he began to be known and his works marketable, " The Invisible Lodge," 
 " Hesperus " etc. about that time (novels). The reviews acknowledged him, and he 
 went on writing and receiving good returns. He wrote many, many works (some 
 sixty or more vols. I believe). He married 1798, a good wife of rather upper grade 
 had a pension from a princely prelate in 1802 and continued for life. His eldest 
 son died 1821. Was writing on a favorite theme, Immortality (had been quite blind 
 some years), when 14 November, 1825, he died. 
 
 Richter seems to have been a thoroughly irregular genius, according to the laws 
 and models. He was gay, sparkling, a rattler, profound one of those that to new 
 readers do not please, but once falling in with him, and reading his books, it is amply 
 made up. He seems to have " believed in Christ " and the orthodox tenets. 
 
 His person was huge, queer, irregular. He is witty, very yet a certain true 
 pathos pervades even his comedy. 
 
 I should say that he was unnatural and lurid, judged by the calm and wholesome 
 models. He is full of love and appears to be the originator of much of the soft and 
 sentimental ways of the swarms of tale-writers of the last thirty years, in Britain and 
 America. 
 
 * Above dated by W. W. '57. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 111 
 
 90 
 
 Carlyle certainly introduced the German style, writers, sentimentalism, trans 
 cendentalism etc. etc. etc. from 1826 to 1840 through the great reviews and maga 
 zines and through his own works and example. 
 
 Tennyson has a pension of ^200 a year, conferred by the Queen some time 
 since. His age now (1856) 48 years. Sept. '55 Tennyson published Maud and 
 Other Poems. It is a love story, rather tedious and affected, with some sweet 
 passages.* 
 
 92 
 
 Homer and Shakespeare (both are objective) deserve all the reward that has 
 been bestowed upon them. They did what was to be done, and did the work 
 divinely. Homer poetized great wars, persons, events, throwing together in perfect 
 proportion a perfect poem, noisy, muscular, manly, amative, an amusement and 
 excitement, a sustenance and health. 
 
 Shakespeare, the gentle, the sweet musical, well-beloved Shakespeare, delin 
 eated characters. They are better represented by him than by any other poet at 
 
 any time Kings, traitors, lovers ambition, perplexed persons, youth, 
 
 old age he easily reflects. He through them delivers many profound thoughts 
 many poetical, subtle fancies many involved, rather elaborate, unnatural compari 
 sons. Well may Homer remain, and Shakespeare remain. 
 
 Could (shall) there not be a poet of America no less than they but different 
 from, doing more than either of them ? Stamping this age, and so all ages, in his 
 poems ? Feeding character with a strong clean meat ? Riveting the passing inci 
 dents, sentiment, persons, tendencies, visible things, landscapes, voyages, politics, 
 Manhattan Island, the Yankee, the Californian, all American features and leading 
 facts in poems ? Bequeathing the most precious of all works in literature to the 
 future American woman and man ? \ 
 
 93 
 
 Samuel Johnson 1709-1784 Was born in Litchfield, England. Father a 
 book-seller, educated thoroughly read everything went through college, physically 
 queer, scrofulous, purblind, crotchety, alimentive, married a vulgar old woman that 
 painted and wore all sorts of false things was faithful and fond to the last " Dear 
 Titty " went to London struggled on there thirty years through all sorts of 
 privations and starvations sometimes lucky (a little) wrote "Idler," "Rambler'* 
 
 * Above written on margin of magazine article on Poets Laureate, 
 t Written about 1856. 
 
ii2 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 etc " Rasselas " written in a week to make money for mother's funeral expenses 
 etc. wrote Dictionary had ^1500 for it edited an edition of Shakespeare 
 (a poor one) at last received a pension of ^300 a year from the Government 
 was always of coarse behavior, wrote in a latinized style, not simple and with 
 unlearned instincts but pompous and full of polysyllables.* 
 
 94 
 
 A good article [added later\ yes it is. Yet with all this glorification of Words 
 worth read the personal traits of him, with sayings, looks, foibles etc., as given by 
 those who knew him. Died 1850 aged 80. 
 
 Of a poet Keats perhaps, His words are English and American, but his poem 
 is Greek.f 
 
 95 
 
 Wordsworth, it seems, is the originator of this kind of poem followed here by 
 Bryant and others. J 
 
 : ,. ' :' ,: . ;: ; 96 . -.....'.'- $ 
 
 Memory. Nothing makes this faculty so good as the employment of it Locke. 
 
 97 
 
 Plutarch born about the year 50 A.C. died, it may be, 125 A.C. Notes of 
 life, books etc. Translations, when appeared. 
 
 Amiots' translation (French) 1558. 
 
 A Greek text at Paris 1624. 
 
 First English translation during reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Dryden, with many others in company, also made a translation " a motley 
 work." 
 
 Born in Bceotia in Greece about the year 50 of the Christian era. Studied (like 
 the general Greek youth) acquired a great art of memory read all the books 
 (MSS.) of his time leaned toward the tenets of Pythagoras. Was of patrician 
 family supposed wealthy had two brothers his associates in study and amusements 
 he always speaks of them with pleasure and affection. Probably traveled into 
 Egypt. Certainly into Italy studied Latin quite late in life never made much 
 progress. Lectured in Rome so, lectures, it seems, there were, even in those days ; 
 
 * Written about 1856. 
 
 t Notes on magazine article on Wordsworth, date of article 1851, date of notes about 1856. 
 
 J Note on Wordsworth poem : " It is the first mild day of March." 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 113 
 
 -quite like the modern fashion, they seem to have been. Plutarch has a good 
 reputation at Rome. Some say he was preceptor to the Emperor Trajan. 
 
 Notes, in the time of Plutarch, were unknown in literary compositions this 
 accounts for his digressions and tedious episodes. 
 
 Late in life retired to Chceronea, a philosopher, priest. 
 
 Was married had five children, four sons and a daughter. 
 
 I suppose he attained a good old age " a long life." 
 
 Most of his writings, with many lives, are lost those that remain big, but a 
 portion of what he wrote. 
 
 98 
 
 Tennyson is the imitation of Shakespeare, through a refined, educated, traveled, 
 modern English dandy. 
 
 99 
 
 The Poets are the divine mediums through them come spirits and materials to 
 all the people, men and women. 
 
 100 
 Imagination and actuality must be united. 
 
 101 
 
 Dryden 1631 to 1701 seems to have been of vigorous make, sharp-tempered 
 used his poetical talent to make money, show up his enemies, those of the 
 opposite party, noblemen, politicians etc. He sings a good deal in the inflated, 
 distressingly, classical style of those times. 
 
 102 
 
 But I will take all those things that produce this condition and make them 
 produce as great characters as any.* 
 
 103 
 
 This redeems a hundred "Princesses" and "Mauds," and shows the great 
 master. 
 
 I have read " Maud," it will not live long.f 
 
 104 
 See how these fellows always take a handsome man for their God ! \ 
 
 * This is written as note to a long argument that for many reasons the modern man cannot be as heroical as 
 the ancient. 
 
 t Note to T's Ulysses date May, '57. 
 
 Referring to Keats' description of Hyperion, " Golden his hair etc." 
 
H4 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 105 
 
 Every great artist, poet etc., will be found to have some precursors or 
 first beginners of his greatness. Doubtless Honier had though we know them 
 not. 
 
 106 
 
 Dr. Priestly or Priestley conversation with Mr. Arnold 7 March, '57. Dr. 
 Priestly was quite a thorough man of science (physical science) as well as of 
 morals and mentals. Mr. Arnold says the Dr. first made the definite discovery 
 of oxygen can this be so ? He was a Unitarian came from England to the 
 United States settled on a small farm in Northumberland, Pa. His great tenet 
 seems to be " philosophical necessity," that all results, physical, moral, spiritual, 
 everything, every kind, rise out of perpetual flows of endless causes, (to state it so 
 for want of more elaboration). Mr. Arnold went to Pittsburgh to preach in a 
 little Unitarian church owned by Mr. Bakewell, a rich person, a follower, admirer, 
 and personal friend of Dr. Priestly. I infer that Dr. P. died somewhere about 1810 
 perhaps nearer '20 I cannot get it exactly. He must have been a real man. 
 He was not followed by the American Unitarians. (How these Unitarians and 
 Universalists want to be respectable and orthodox, j ust as much as any of the 
 old line people !) 
 
 107 
 
 Frances Wright Madame D'Arnsmont talk with Mrs. Rose, Feb. 9, '57 
 Frances Wright was born in Scotland of gentle lineage parents died early 
 educated by uncles noblemen was talented early of free inquiring disposition 
 republican wrote "A Few Days in Athens" when 20 years old came to 
 America lectured had to do with the *' Free Enquirer," an atheistical weekly 
 was a noble (but much scorned) woman married D'Arnsmont the great error 
 of her life he coveted her property thwarted her kept exclusive possession of 
 her child, a daughter. Frances had great wealth (Mrs. Rose says $150,000) 
 D'A. obtained all even a second bequest left to Frances by a Scotch aunt 
 Frances had even to sue for a maintenance out of her own property Judge 
 allowed her $1,000 a year. Frances died somewhere about 1853, a heartbroken, 
 harassed woman all her philanthropic schemes and ideas coming to nought. 
 (I like much her portrait-engraving where she is represented seated.) 
 
 108 
 Where he withdrew for a long time to a solitary part of the house. 
 
 In this manner just after commencing his dinner one day he felt the horrible 
 touch quicken the pulses within him and knew the sign well. He stopped, 
 pushed back the plate from under his mouth and rose to go. Mother nor any one 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 115 
 
 else spoke a word to him. Something more ghastly and blear than ever seemed 
 this time to ride upon his galloping heart. Swiftly he sped from the house and 
 along the road to the grave-yard and threw himself flat on his belly on the earth 
 and folded his arms under his open eyes. 
 
 Then the world receded from him and as it became dim in the distance he 
 plainly heard the bell of the church tolling the burial toll. Presently he saw afar 
 off the funeral ranks approaching. Slow : How slow, and how long. How noise 
 less entering the old gate and treading on that never mowed grass. They set 
 down the coffin and a cry of despair went from, him when he saw that the black 
 dressed mourners who stood nearest were his own folks. Perhaps it was himself 
 he should see in the linen shroud there. They lifted the lid and he looked on 
 the dead face of his sister who was that minute at home with the others at the 
 table and in her ordinary health. Yet it all came to pass as the young man 
 beheld it. 
 
 He certainly had the power of a foreseer. He very often knew days before 
 hand of a death that should happen, and who it was and how it was to be. This 
 terrible consciousness came to him irrespective of place or occasion. Sometimes 
 it came to him at night while he lay sleeping in bed ; sometimes while he was 
 eating at the table. When it came he would rise up and prepare himself, 
 speaking not a word, walking straight for the graveyard of the village. There 
 he would remain a short time like one with a vision. He would then sometimes 
 see mistily, the whole of the future, soon coming, funeral. The procession would 
 arrive and the minister. The coffin would be brought in and placed on the 
 trestles and the lid would be silently taken off and he with the rest would look on 
 the face of the corpse. Then they would screw the lid on for the last time and 
 the minister woiild pray, and then the burial, then a pause, after which the 
 people would leave and [ ] with [ ] return home and * 
 
 109 
 
 distinctness every syllable the flounderer spoke, up to his hips in 
 
 the snow and blinded by the sharp crystals that made the air one opaque white. 
 He swore, prayed, howled and wept. Pete was terrified himself, it was the black 
 est and bitterest night and by far the wildest storm he had ever known. The 
 snow lay deep and had many huge drifts. He went aloft in the garret and gave 
 the farm laborer a dollar cash in hand to get up and go with him in search of the 
 tipsy friend. While they stood inside the door, listening more clearly for the 
 point whence the poor fellow's cries proceeded, they could hear every word with 
 the minutest clearness ; but when one rod from the stoop, and standing in the 
 storm, of not one sound were they conscious except the soughing storm, strained 
 they ever so hard. For an hour they plunged through the drifts, guiding them 
 selves as well as they could by well known trees and fences. Pete had been 
 
 * Belongs to forties. 
 
n6 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 satisfied, while listening in the house, that the drunken youth was stuck in a certain 
 field, usually a shorter cut across the road. So they went treading to and fro over 
 that ground feeling as well as they could with their feet ; and sure enough at last 
 there they hit him, under the snow, perfectly stiff and still. They carried him back 
 to the house and had a good time fighting the death in him the whole night. But 
 they saved him. 
 
 Coarse, wild, sensual and strong was this young man's nature, for coarse, wild 
 and strong had been his life. He has large and ugly qualities enough, but he is 
 self-complete, and his very grossness and dishonesty are noble from their candor. 
 The castrated goodness of schools and churches he knew nothing of.* 
 
 1 10 
 
 20 March, '54. 
 
 Bill Guess aged 22. A thoughtless, strong, generous animal nature, fond of 
 direct pleasures, eating, drinking, women, fun etc. Taken sick with the small-pox, 
 had the bad disorder and was furious with the delirium tremens. Was with me 
 in the Crystal Palace, a large, broad fellow, weighed over 200. Was a thoughtless 
 good fellow. 
 
 Peter , large, strong boned young fellow, driver. Should weigh 180. 
 
 Free and candid to me the very first time he saw me. Man of strong self-will, 
 powerful coarse feelings and appetites. Had a quarrel, borrowed $300, left his 
 father's somewhere in the interior of the State, fell in with a couple of gamblers, hadn't 
 been home or written there in seven years. I liked his refreshing wickedness, as it 
 would be called by the orthodox. He seemed to feel a perfect independence, dashed 
 with a little resentment, toward the world in general. I never met a man that seemed 
 to me, as far as I could tell in forty minutes, more open, coarse, self willed, strong 
 and free from the sickly desire to be on society's lines and points. 
 
 George Fitch Yankee boy, driver. Fine nature, amiable, sensitive feelings, a 
 natural gentleman, of quite a reflective turn. Left his home because his father was 
 perpetually "down on him." When he told me of his mother his eyes watered. 
 Good looking, tall, curly haired, black eyed fellow age about 23 or 24 slender, 
 face with a smile, trousers tucked in his boots, cap with the front-piece turned 
 behind. 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 This singular young man was unnoted for any strange qualities ; and he 
 certainly had no bad qualities. Possessed very little of what is called education. He 
 remained much by himself, though he had many brothers, sisters and relations and 
 acquaintance. He did no work like the rest. By far the most of the time he 
 remained silent. He was not eccentric, nor did anyone suspect him insane. He 
 loved in summer to sit or lean on the rails of the fence, apparently in pleasant 
 
 * Written probably in '40*8 or early '50*5. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 117 
 
 thought. He was rather less than the good size of a man ; his figure and face were 
 full, his complexion without much color, his eyes large, clear and black. He never 
 drank rum, never went after women, and took no part in the country frolics. 
 
 112 
 
 Something that presents the sentiment of the Druid walking in the woods 
 
 of the Indian pow-wow of the Sacramental supper of the Grecian 
 
 religious rites. 
 
 Iron Works. There is a forge in the Adirondack Mountains the " Adiron 
 dack forge " To get to it you land at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain and go 
 back forty miles. 
 
 A forge would be a large rude building with from one to a dozen or more char 
 coal fires on which the ore is thrown, and melted the iron runs down and settles 
 at the bott9m, like a bushel-basket-shaped lump a " loup " or " loop," as they call it. 
 The men are around these fires with huge crowbars they have to tell the state of 
 the melting by the " feel " of the ore and iron with these crowbars. 
 
 The forge-fires in the mountains and the men around, feeling the melt with huge 
 crowbars. 
 
 The work of colliers and miners. 
 Electro-plating.* 
 
 114 
 
 The Whale. (Talk with Mr. Maher, an old whaleman). When the black- 
 whale is sculling itself along feeding, its head projected two- thirds out of water, 
 scooping up its food from the surface, its great lips turned back, it is one of the most 
 hideous looking objects that can be imagined and would frighten badly a " green 
 hand " who should see it for the first time. The sperm-whale, a good specimen, is 
 one of the grandest-looking creatures, for beauty and strength when enraged and 
 swiftly moving it is splendid. When a cow whale is struck the others never desert 
 her but new ones continually arrive as if to assist her. When a bull is struck, all 
 the rest leave. Sometimes the whales sport in the water coming straight up, perpen 
 dicular quite out others turning with their bodies half out, vibrating their flukes 
 playfully. Others again descending, after elevating their flukes a great distance 
 straight up in the air, and waving them. 
 
 The spout of air and water when dying the red spout of blood. The whale 
 boat. The harpooneersman. The blubber, the clear oil in the head. 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 62 ; '56 edition, p. 133 ; current edition, p. 173. 
 
ii8 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 An old whale is probably a thousand years old. 
 
 The cow has but one calf at a birth.* She will sometimes when alarmed enclose 
 it as with her fins and dive down into the deep sea (just like a mother protects her 
 child). 
 
 Feeding on squid large chunks a foot square or larger, are sometimes found in 
 the belly of a whale it is, I believe, like the white meat of the halibut, drum etc. 
 
 Paul Jones bore for his banner on the Bon Homme Richard, a rattlesnake with 
 thirteen rattles and the motto : " Don't tread on me." 
 
 116 
 
 Andubon proposed the wild turkey as the ensign of America he says in its 
 native woods, either in flight, or perched, it is a magnificent bird. 
 
 117 
 
 Describing the death of seven brothers and their parents who can say that 
 those were least lucky who died the earliest or under the most appalling circum 
 stances ? or that those were luckiest who made the most wealth and lived the longest 
 stretch of mortality ? 
 
 118 
 
 One good of knowing the great politics of nature is to initiate their rectitude 
 and impartiality in all the politics of the State. 
 
 119 
 
 Did you ever think for a moment how so many young men, full of the stuff to 
 make the noblest heroes of the earth, really live really pass their lives, year after 
 year, and so till death ? Constant toil ever alert to keep the wolf back from the 
 door no development no rational pleasure sleeping in some cramped dirty place 
 never knowing once a beautiful happy home never knowing once in their whole 
 lives real affection, sweetly returned, the joy, the life of life always kept down, 
 unaware of religion no habitual rendezvous except the bar-room unaware of any 
 amusements except these preposterous theatres, and of a Sunday these and those 
 equally preposterous and painful screamings from the pulpits. 
 
 * Cf. "Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 36, and '56 edition, p. 57, where text reads: "Where the she 
 whale swims with her calves ;" and '60 edition, p. 68 : " Where the she whale swims with her calf." The date, 
 then, of above note is between '56 and '60. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 119 
 
 1 20 
 
 All the nations of this earth, diverse as they appear in mind or body, are mem 
 bers of one family, and own themselves, through distant removes, and after many 
 ages, many incredible fortunes and different developments own themselves as the 
 children of a common father. 
 
 121 
 
 The two ideas of unity and progess. The great idea of humanity is progress 
 onward ! onward ! backing and filling every step contested sometimes a long 
 interregnum sometimes a retrogression but still, by degrees, a sure, resistless 
 progress. All nations, all times, show more or less of this idea but the splendid 
 centripetal place where it has collected itself, with unlimited 
 
 122 
 In this Deploying on every side, touch or start from what point you like, 
 
 are 
 
 It were unworthy a live man to pray or complain no matter what should happen. 
 Will he descend among those rhymsters and sexless priests, whose virtues are 
 lathered and shaved three times a week, to whine about sin and hell to pronounce 
 his race a sham or swindle to squall out at * 
 
 123 
 Picture of the most flowing grandeur of a man. 
 
 When a man joined to his great power and wealth and strength has the 
 knowledge of the perfect equanimity and 
 
 A man of gigantic stature, supple, healthy, accomplished, powerful and resistless 
 is a great man. 
 
 But when a man with all that is not trapped into any partiality when he strikes 
 the balance between the eternal average of the developed and the undeveloped 
 when he goes on the square with those who have not yet climbed as high as he 
 tender to children and old people and women indulging most the stupid, the sinful 
 and the vulgar because them the world is most down upon 
 
 124 
 
 steamboats and vaccination, gunpowder and spinning-jennies ; but are 
 
 our people half as peacable and happy as were the Peruvians and Mexicans ere the 
 Spanish navigators introduced to them the blessings of artificial science and of the 
 true faith ? 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 25, and current edition, p. 44. 
 
120 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 It is out of this mass of folly, wickedness and injustice and its influence that a 
 man is required to lift himself, as the very first step towards his being perfect. He 
 must have a very high faculty of independence. The mere authority of law, custom 
 or precedent, must be nothing, absolutely nothing at all with him. High * 
 
 I2 5 
 
 This is the Earth's Word the pervading sentiment or lesson is to be that the 
 only good of learning the theory of the fluency and generosity and impartiality, 
 largeness and exactitude of the earth is to use all those toward the theory of 
 character human character. 
 
 126 
 
 A City Walk Just a list of all that is seen in a walk through the streets of 
 Brooklyn and New York and crossing the Ferry. 
 
 127 
 
 When the whole combined force of the nation is champion for one human being, 
 outraged in his rights of life or liberty, no matter of what color, birth or degree of 
 ignorance or education he or she may be, then the law is grand. 
 
 128 
 
 Bloom. Broadshouldered, six-footer, with a hare lip. Clever fellow and by no 
 means bad looking. (George Fitch has roomed with him for a year and tells me 
 there is no more honorable man breathing). Direct, plain-spoken, natural-hearted, 
 gentle-tempered, but awful when roused. Cartman with a horse, cart etc. of his own 
 drives for a store in Maiden Lane. 
 
 129 
 
 Poem. There can be no greatest and sublimest character without having passed 
 through sin. Not the earth has now arrived rotund and compact with all the 
 
 beautiful life upon the surface, the trees, the running waters, the air, the 
 
 after all the geological Any more than the divine man, when he becomes, 
 
 has pas 
 
 130 
 
 In Metaphysical Points, here is what I guess about pure and positive truths. I 
 guess that after all reasoning and analogy, and their most palpable demonstrations of 
 anything, we have the real satisfaction when the soul tells and tests by its own 
 
 * Odd page (numbered 4) of a MS. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 121 
 
 archchemic power superior to the learnedest proofs as one glance of living sight is 
 more than quarto volumes of description and of maps. 
 
 There is something in vast erudition melancholy and fruitless as an Arctic sea. 
 With most men it is a slow dream, dreamed in a moving fog. So complacent ! So 
 much body and muscle ; fine legs to walk large supple hands but the eyes are 
 owl's eyes, and the heart is a mackerel's heart. 
 
 These words are for the great men the gigantic few that have plunged them 
 selves deep through density and confusion and pushed back the jealous coverings of 
 the earth, and brought out the true and great things, and the sweet things, and hung 
 them like oranges rounder and riper than all the rest, among our literature and 
 science. 
 
 These words are for the five or six grand poets, too ; and the masters of artists. 
 I waste no ink, nor my throat on the ever-deploying armies of professors, authors, 
 lawyers, teachers and what not. Of them we expect that they be very learned and 
 nothing more. 
 
 What gentlemen ! W T hat then ? Do you suppose it is for your geology and 
 your chemistry and your mathematics * 
 
 For Oratory. It is great art in a man to be able to triumph on either side of an 
 argument and get applause. But the highest art is to be able to triumph only on the 
 right side without regard to applause. 
 
 132 
 
 There are leading moral truths underlying politics, as invariable and reliable as 
 the leading truths in geology, chemistry or mathematics. These truths are the 
 foundation of American politics. 
 
 133 
 
 Such boundless and affluent souls bend your head in reverence, my man ! 
 
 They are met through all the strata of life. Their centrifugal power of love, I think, 
 makes the awfulest forces of nature stand back. Its perennial blow the frost shall 
 never touch ; and what we call death shall go round outside it forever and ever. 
 
 (Every hour of the day and night, and every acre of the earth and shore, and 
 every point or patch of the sea and sky, is full of pictures. No two of this immortal 
 brood are alike, except that they are all of unspeakable beauty and perfection, and 
 large and small alike descend into that greedy Something in Man whose appetite is 
 more undying than hope, and more insatiate than the sand with water.) 
 
 * Written about 1856. 
 
122 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 The noble soul steadily rejects any liberty or privilege or wealth that is not 
 open on the same terms to every other man and every other woman on the face 
 of the earth. Meanwhile it is the endless delusion of big and little smouchers, 
 in all their varieties, whether usurping the rule of an empire or thieving a negro 
 and selling him whatever and whichever of the ways that legislators, 
 lawyers, the priests and the educated and pious prefer certain advantages to 
 themselves over the vast retinues of the poor, the laboring, ignorant man, black 
 men, sinners, and so on to suppose they have succeeded when the documents 
 are signed and sealed, and they enter in possession of their gains. Shallow 
 dribblets of a day ! are less in their high success than the dullest of the people 
 they would overtop. 
 
 135 
 The regular time for baking bread is one hour. 
 
 The good hostess that could always make fine apple dumplings, except once 
 when she had grand company and mixed her flour up so rich that it all cooked 
 to tatters in the pot. 
 
 ? seems perpetually goading me the soul If all seems right it is not 
 right then corruption then putridity then mean maggots grow among men 
 they are born out of the too richly manured earth. 
 
 136 
 
 Of a summer evening a boy fell asleep with the tears of foolish passion yet 
 undried upon his cheeks. And there he dreamed a dream. Years with all their 
 chequered events of pain and joy rolled away. Many were spent in travel some 
 in the pursuit of power and wealth which pursuit was successful. At an 
 advanced age, and sobered down from the hot-brained fever of youth, a message 
 came that his mother was nigh to death and desired his presence. Swift wheels 
 rattled then and the patter of horses' hoofs sounded rapidly on the road but the 
 beatings of the traveller's heart were more rapid still. When he arrived at his 
 early home he found his mother dead. He stood and looked upon her face and 
 then went aside, and many a time again approached he the coffin and held up 
 the white linen and gazed and gazed. He came in the day when crowds were in 
 the rooms though all to him was a vacant blank all but the corpse of his 
 mother. And at last he came in the silence of the midnight before the burial, 
 when the tired watchers were asleep. Long long long were his eyes rivetted 
 on the features of that dead corpse, with an expecting look, as if he waited some 
 thing. He bent down his ear to the cold blue lips and listened but the cold 
 blue lips were hushed forever. Now for two little words, / pardon, that proud, 
 rich man would almost have been willing to live in poverty for ever : but the 
 words came not. From the moment when he first saw his mother's face, and 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 123 
 
 whenever he looked at her, a wondrous faculty had awoke within him. All that 
 was present everything connected with his business his schemes of ambition, 
 his worldly gains, his friendship and his plans of life, seemed entirely melted 
 from his thought. A doubly refined memory called up before him and around 
 him all he had ever done in his life that seemed directly or indirectly unfilial 
 toward his mother. Each word, each look, each action returned ; not the 
 minutest trifle connected with them but stood in brilliant light before him. 
 He remembered how on such a day in boyhood he ran from home how once, in 
 vicious spite, he terrified her by plot to make her believe he was drowned how 
 at such a time he had mocked her words and again how he had many times 
 denied her authority. And strangely distinct was the remotest, the tiniest, of all 
 circumstances involved in these memories. O, Crucified ! Who meekly at the 
 command of thy parents went down from the temple at Jerusalem, and wast 
 ever gentle to her that gave thee birth thy dreary death-agonies alone so 
 it seemed to him outdid the pangs of that gazer on the dead ! 
 
 And this was the boy's vision. Ah, happy that boy to wake and find it 
 indeed but a dream ! Covered with huge drops of sweat, and trembling in 
 every limb, the youth raised himself from his horrid slumber and blessed God 
 that the path of the future years yet lay before him.* 
 
 137 
 
 I know well enough that man grows up becoming not a physical being 
 merely, but markedly the mental being of the earth the esthetic and spiritual 
 being, the benevolent and ...... 
 
 But the main thing is, in the same connection, that he is to be the seer of 
 nature he only can celebrate things, animals, and landscapes. His mentality 
 is a quality to be used toward things, as his vision is used. 
 
 If he depart from animals and things he is lost. 
 
 In other words, man is not only an animal like the others, but he alone has 
 the quality of understanding and telling how divine a thing an animal is what 
 life, matter, passion, volition, are. 
 
 He alone carries all the substances of the world by this quality in himself 
 and illustrates them. 
 
 138 
 
 There are that specialize a book, or some one divine life, as the only revela 
 tion. I too doubtless own it whatever it is to be a revelation, a part, but I see all 
 else, all nature, and each and all that to it appertains, the processes of time, all 
 men, the universes, all likes and dislikes and developments a hundred, a 
 
 * From paper, writing, etc., I judge the above was written in the forties. 
 
124 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 thousand other Saviours and Mediators and Bibles they too just as much revelations 
 as any. The grand and vital theory of religion for These States must admit all, 
 and not a part merely. 
 
 139 
 
 How mean a person is sometimes a rich man or a man in a great office even 
 in the Presidency ! 
 
 140 
 
 A volume (dramatic machinery for localities, characters etc.) running in idea 
 and description through the whole range of recorded time Egyptian, Hindostanee, 
 Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Alb, Gallic, Teutonic, and so on down to the present 
 day. 
 
 141 
 
 One obligation of great fresh bards remains ...... the clink of words is empty 
 
 and offensive ...... the poetic quality blooms simple and earnest as the laws of the 
 
 world. 
 
 The audible rhyme soon nauseates ...... the inaudible rhyme is delicious with 
 
 out end. 
 
 142 
 
 Theory of a Cluster of Poems the same to the passion of Woman- Love as the 
 "Calamus-Leaves" are to adhesiveness, manly love. 
 
 Full of animal-fire, tender, burning, the tremulous ache, delicious, yet such a 
 torment. 
 
 The swelling elate and vehement, that will not be denied. 
 Adam, as a central figure and type. 
 
 One piece presenting a vivid picture (in connection with the spirit) of a fully 
 complete, well-developed, man, eld, bearded, swart, fiery, as a more than rival of 
 the youthful type-hero of novels and love poems. 
 
 The divinest blessings are the commonest bestowed everywhere, and the most 
 superb beauties are the cheapest, the world over. 
 
 144 
 
 Materialism (put this section forward ...... reality and demonstration with the 
 
 opening) ........ that this earth is under a constant process of amelioration as it 
 
 always has been that it, in some manner not perhaps demonstrable in astronomy, 
 expands outward and outward in a larger and larger orbit that our immortality is 
 located here upon earth, that we are immortal that the processes of the refinement 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 125 
 
 and perfection of the earth are in steps, the least part of which involves trillions of 
 years that in due time the earth beautiful as it is now will be as proportionately 
 different from what it is now, as it now is proportionately different from what it was 
 in its earlier gaseous or marine period, uncounted cycles before man and woman 
 grew. That we also shall be here, proportionately different from now and beautiful. 
 That the Egyptian idea of the return of the soul after a certain period of time involved 
 a beautiful nature mystery 
 
 H5 
 
 Outdoors is the best antiseptic yet. What a charm there is about men that 
 have lived mainly in the open air among horses at sea on the canals digging 
 clams timberers rafters steamboaters or framers of houses and mechanics gener 
 ally. Cleanly shaven and grammatical folks I call mister, and lay the tips of my 
 fingers inside their elbows after the orthodox fashion, and discuss whatever had the 
 biggest head line in the morning papers, and pass the time as comfortably as the law 
 allows. But for the others, my arm leans over their shoulders and around their 
 necks. In them nature justifies herself. Their indefinable excellence gives out 
 something as much beyond the special productions of colleges and pews and parlors 
 as the morning air of the prairie or the sea-shore outsmells the costliest scents of 
 the perfume shop. How gladly we leave the best of what is called learned and refined 
 society or the company of men from stores and offices to sail all day on the river 
 amid a party of fresh and jovial boatmen with no coats or suspenders and their 
 trousers tucked in their boots. Then the quick blood within joins their gay blood 
 and the twain dance polkas from the bottom to the top of the house. After long 
 constraint in the respectable and money-making dens of existence a man emerges for 
 a few hours and comes up like a whale to spout and breathe ! One glimpse then of 
 the eternal realities of things the real sun, burning and dazzling the old, forever 
 young and solid earth - real men and women refreshing, hearty and wicked. 
 
 146 
 
 tainting the best of the rich orchard of himself and he who any 
 way does not respect his own organs and cherish them and strengthen them, and 
 keep himself clean outside and inside let that man young or old never deceive 
 himself with the folly that the sore stuff is hid by the cloth he wears and makes no 
 avowal. Though the secret is well hid, though the eyes does not see, nor the hand 
 touch, nor the nose smell, the rank odor strikes out. 
 
 The only way in which anything can really be owned is by the infusion or 
 inspiration of it in the soul. Can I dully suppose that I may attain to certain 
 possessions as houses or stocks or lands or goods ; and when I have paid the 
 money and taken the receipts and warranty deeds such property will be mine to enter 
 
126 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 upon and enjoy. Yes, may-be as people stone blind from their birth enjoy the 
 exhibitions of pictures and sculpture. 
 
 But the true owner of the library ...... * 
 
 148 
 
 The money value of real and personal estate in New York City is somewhere 
 between five hundred millions and a thousand millions of dollars. Now what is all 
 this in itself ? Though it seems to be the [ ] of all men and women to [too ?], 
 
 though for its security the laws are made and the police drilled though [ 
 yet in its positive, intrinsic [ ] it is all nothing of account. The whole of it is 
 
 not of so much account as a pitcher of water, or a basket of fresh eggs. The only 
 way we attach it to our feelings is by identifying it with the human spirit through 
 love, through pride, through our craving for beauty and happiness. 
 
 149 
 
 ...... ground where you may rest yourself and look quietly upon such, and on 
 
 the theories of the schools and upon governments and religions. All have something 
 noble and true, all and every one of them ; but not the best that ever was built or 
 ever will be built on earth can stand as the final destination of man. Sit awhile, 
 wayfarer. I give you biscuits to eat and milk to drink ; but when afterwards you 
 have bathed and renewed yourself in sweet clothes, and stayed here a little time, I 
 shall surely kiss you on the cheek, and open the gate for your egress hence. 
 
 The law which is thus both greater and less than the finest compilation ...... f 
 
 150 
 Theories of Evil Festus, Faust, Manfred, Paradise Lost, Book of Job. 
 
 Feb. 25, '57. Dined with Hector Tyndale. Asked H. T. where he thought I 
 needed particular attention to be directed for my improvement where I could 
 especially be bettered in my poems. He said : "In massiveness, breadth, large, 
 sweeping effects, without regard to details. As in the Cathedral at York (he 
 said) I came away with great impressions of its largeness, solidity and spaciousness, 
 without troubling myself with its parts." 
 
 Asked F. Le B. same question, viz. : What I most lacked. He said : "In 
 euphony your poems seem to me to be full of the raw material of poems, but crude, 
 and wanting finish and rythm." 
 
 Put in my poems : American things t idioms, materials, persons, groups, min 
 erals, vegetables, animals etc. 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 410 " of ownership." 
 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 52, and current edition, p. 74. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 127 
 
 152 
 
 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729-87 contemporary of Voltaire very active 
 lived in Berlin, Leipsic, Breslau, Hamburg etc. Was a severe and almost perfect 
 critic exposed Klopstock's deficiencies as a poet and the false imitations of the 
 classics author of Laocoon (1766) and of good dramas also a didactic drama 
 " Nathan the Wise," inculcating Kosmos religious notions. He was the R. W. 
 Emerson of his age and paved the way for Goethe and Schiller Lessing was a Jew. 
 
 153 
 In art originality is an effect just as much as a cause. 
 
 154 
 
 1854 Alexander Smith's Poems " A Life Drama" and minor pieces. There 
 is one electric passage in this poetry, where the announcement is made of a great forth 
 coming Poet, and the illustration given of a king who, about dying, plunges his 
 sword into his favorite attendant, to send him on before. 
 
 Alexander Smith is imbued with the nature of Tennyson. He is full of what 
 are called poetical images full of conceits and likenesses ; in this respect copying 
 after Shakespeare and the majority of the received poets. He seems to be neither 
 better nor worse than the high average. 
 
 155 
 
 Bayard Taylor's poems more resemble N. P. Willis's than any others. They 
 are polished, oriental, sentimental and have as attribute what may be called their 
 psychology. You cannot see very plainly at times what they mean, although the 
 poet evidently has a meaning.* 
 
 156 
 
 The Song of Hiawatha by H. W. Longfellow. A pleasing ripply poem the 
 measure, the absence of ideas, the Indian process of thought, the droning metre, 
 the sleepy, misty, woody character, the traditions, pleased me we well enough. 
 
 157 
 
 1855. I have looked over Gerald Massey's Poems London. They seem to 
 me zealous, candid, warlike, intended, as they are, to get up a strong feeling against 
 the British aristocracy both in their social and political capacity. Massey, I hear, is 
 a youngish man, a radical, an editor now I believe in one of the Provincial towns. 
 His early life laborious, a workman in a factory I think. 
 
 * Written 1854. 
 
128 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 '58 
 
 Sculpture. Then sculpture was necessary it was an eminent part of religion, 
 it gave grand and beautiful forms to the gods it appealed to the mind, in perfect 
 harmony, with the climate, belief, governments, and was the needed expression of 
 the people, the times, and their aspirations. 
 
 It was a part of architecture the temple stood unfinished without statues, and 
 so they were made with reference to the temple they were not made abstractly by 
 themselves. 
 
 159 
 
 In the geography of poetry there are only four or five continents the rest 
 range among the plenteous archipelagos some large islands and countless little 
 ones. 
 
 1 60 
 
 You cannot define too clearly what it is you love in a poem or in a man or 
 women. A great work of a great poet is not remembered for its parts but remem 
 bered as you remember the complete person and spirit of him or her you love. 
 
 When he becomes vitalized with nationality and individuality from top to toe 
 when he seizes upon life with masculine power when he stands out in simple relief 
 as America does.* 
 
 161 
 
 Health does not tell any more in the body than it does in literature. Which is 
 the poem or any book that is not diseased. (If perfect health appear in a poem, or 
 any book, it propogates itself a great while). Show health and native qualities and 
 you are welcome to all the rest. 
 
 162 
 
 This is as one feels. One feels better satisfied with the garden trimly cut and 
 laid out, and another (I too) enjoys the natural landscape, even barrens and shores 
 and sterile hills above all gardens.f 
 
 163 
 
 The superiority of Emerson's writings is in their character they mean some 
 thing. He may be obscure, but he is certain. Any other of the best American 
 writers has in general a clearer style, has more of the received grace and ease, is 
 less questioned and forbidden than he, makes a handsomer appearance in the society 
 
 * Above paragraphs written on same piece paper at same time in fifties I should judge. 
 
 t Written on margin apropos of following passage : " Emerson seems to desire not art, but undisciplined, 
 untrimmed nature. He does not appear practically to apprehend that art is not artificiality, is only nature raised to 
 higher and more perfect degrees." 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 129 
 
 of the books, sells better, passes his time more apparently in the popular understand 
 ing ; yet there is something in the solitary specimen of New England that outvies 
 them all. He has what none else has ; he does what none else does. He pierces 
 the crusts that envelope the secrets of life. He joins on equal terms the few great 
 sages and original seers. He represents the freeman, America, the individual. He 
 represents the gentleman. No teacher or poet of old times or modern times has 
 made a better report of manly and womanly qualities, heroism, chastity, temperance, 
 friendship, fortitude. None has given more beautiful accounts of truth and justice. 
 His words shed light to the best souls ; they do not admit of argument. As a sprig 
 from the pine tree or a glimpse anywhere into the daylight belittles all artificial 
 flower work and all the painted scenery of theatres, so are live words in a book com 
 pared to cunningly composed words. A few among men (soon perhaps to become 
 many) will enter easily into Emerson's meanings ; by those he will be well-beloved. 
 The flippant writer, the orthodox critic, the numbers of good or indifferent imitators, 
 will not comprehend him ; to them he will indeed be a transcendentalist, a writer of 
 sunbeams and moonbeams, a strange and unapproachable person.* 
 
 164 
 The perfect poet must be unimpeachable in manner as well as matter. 
 
 165 
 
 Still if this be so in spirit as well as form it were a fatal defect f 
 
 1 66 
 
 One having attained those insights and contents which the universe gives to men 
 capable of comprehending it, would publish the same and persuade other men and 
 women to the same. The conditions are simple, spiritual, physical, close at hand 
 
 they are long and arduous and require faith, they exist altogether with the 
 
 taught and not with the teaching or teacher. 
 
 167 
 What is wanted is not inquiries and reviews and 
 
 We want satisfiers, joiners, lovers. These heated, torn, distracted ages are to 
 be compacted and made whole. These frothing, maddening waves are to be 
 
 * Written as note to a magazine article, date May '47. To judge by paper and writing goes back to early 
 fifties. W. (it would seem) knew Emerson pretty well in those early days. 
 
 t Marginal note to following : " There is hardly a proposition in Emerson's poems or prose which you cannot 
 find the opposite of in some other place." 
 
130 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 168 
 
 Still all kinds of light reading, novels, newspapers, gossip etc., serve as 
 manure for the few great productions and are indispensable or perhaps are 
 premises to something better. The whole raft of light reading is also a testimony 
 in honor of the original good reading which preceded it. The thousands of 
 common poets, romances, essayists and attempters exist because some twenty or 
 fifty geniuses at intervals led the way long before. 
 
 169 
 
 When American literature becomes distinct from all others. When American 
 writers become national, idiomatic, free from the genteel laws. When America 
 herself appears (she does not at all appear hitherto) in the spirit and the form of 
 her poems, and all other literary works 
 
 170 
 
 The great poet submits only to himself. Is nature rude, free, irregular ? If 
 nature be so, do you too be so. Do you suppose nature has nothing under those 
 beautiful, terrible, irrational forms? 
 
 171 
 
 It is not enough of these states that they are to hold sway over physical 
 objects, over armies, navies, wealth, manufacturers and all substantial objects. 
 They must be eminent leaders of the mind and imagination. Here must arise 
 the great poets and orators that all new centuries continually wait for. 
 
 172 
 
 Commencements ? (for review of the past Presidentiads). An idea. It is not 
 only to great heroes and representative men that the world is indebted, but it is 
 indebted to weak and shameful persons in high places. I say this nation makes 
 as great use of shallow Presidents as of its brave and just Washington, or its wise 
 Jefferson. 
 
 Torquato Tasso 1544-1595 51 years. Born at Sorrento, near Naples. 
 Father a poet (Bernardo Tasso) and educated gentleman. Mother died at his 
 i6th or 1 7th year. Torquato studied moved among the nobility, the court, the 
 learned etc. Wrote the poem "Rinaldo" in his i8th year in 10 months 
 received through Italy with great applause. At the age of 21 went to Ferrara as 
 a gentleman of the household of the Cardinal d'Este. The two ladies " the 
 Princesses," sisters of the Cardinal d'Este, Lucretia aged 31, Leonora 30 (the 
 former soon married to Prince d'Urbino), with these " Tassino" was a favorite. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 131 
 
 The father Bernardo died 1569, aged 76, "after a life marked by many 
 vicissitudes and sorrows, but cheered throughout by literary enjoyment and a 
 truly Christian philosophy." 
 
 In 1570 Tasso "attended his Lord the Cardinal to the Court of France." 
 Tasso made application some time after to be received into the service of 
 Alphonso, Duke d'Urbino, Lucretia's husband, and succeeded. He was assigned 
 a pension of 1,500 crowns of gold a month. He soon after worked faithfully and 
 at leisure on the "Jerusalem." But first finished and published his pastoral 
 poem of " Aminta," received through Italy with great applause. Completed the 
 "Jerusalem'' in 1575 (age 31). He submitted the poem to the judgment of a 
 number of his friends " a step which in the sequel involved him in the 
 greatest difficulties, not less from the diversity of opinions than from the ascetic 
 severity of some of his censors, who professed to see, in his charming fictions, 
 -something profane and seductive" etc. etc. 
 
 The "Jerusalem" underwent several revisions, two grand ones in particular 
 one of the censors read it not as a critic but as an "inquisitor." Jealousies, 
 absurd criticisms, heartsickness etc. etc. 
 
 Tasso goes to Rome but soon returns to Ferrara. Has an interview with one 
 of the Duke's greatest enemies. Italian suspicion and treachery fears doubts 
 and cross purposes. Several troubled years the "Jerusalem " printed. 
 
 Tasso had not long returned from [to ?] Ferrara ere his melancholy, induced 
 originally on his ardent temperament by the severity of his critics and the perse 
 cutions of his enemies, returned upon him more deeply than ever. He had 
 " symptoms of that mental disorder which was soon to affect his reason." He 
 disturbed himself with hundreds of fantastic fears. "At length one evening in 
 June, 1577 ( a e d 33) in the chamber of the Duchess d'Urbino he ran after one of 
 her servants with a drawn dagger." 
 
 The Duke now issued orders to have Tasso confined in his chamber. More 
 fears, groundless alarms, dread of losing the favor of the Duke. 
 
 Tasso takes flight clandestinely from Ferrara, leaving his MSS. etc. From this 
 period a wanderer from court to court in Italy, a prey to sorrow and morbid heart. 
 Goes to Sorrento to his sister goes to Rome at last returns to Ferrara under a 
 cool permission from the Duke. But leaves Ferrara again soon wanders 
 wanders wanders at last bringing up again at Ferrara. During a marriage 
 festival at the court, is neglected in a fit of invective gives loose to the keenest 
 invectives against the House of Este. The Duke is apprised of them and Tasso 
 is arrested and taken to the hospital of St. Anne, an asylum for lunatics and 
 paupers. 
 
 This was in 1579 years passed sick declining sometimes sane, some 
 times crazed over seven years pa ssed in this prison. He was liberated in 1586. 
 Again he travels up and down Italy. 
 
132 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 The last twenty years of his life seem to have passed very unhappily, wandering,, 
 insane just conscious enough of it to make it doubly poignant either persecuted 
 or (which is always worse) supposing himself to be persecuted. 
 
 Personally Tasso was of lofty stature, fair complexion (eventually pale), head 
 large, beard brown, eyes large (their look generally directed toward the heavens) of 
 attractive appearance born a gentleman in an age when the term had all its high 
 distinction. 
 
 174 
 Wm. Gilmore Simms. Notice in Emerson's United States Magazine, June '57., 
 
 " The man of great and commanding genius, who leaves his mark upon the ages, 
 inevitably takes his stand-point of observation outside of that which is current and 
 approved by his contemporaries. He in effect represents posterity more than his 
 compeers. He has an omniscient perception by which he separates the dross from 
 the crucible and finds the pure gold" etc. etc. 
 
 W. G. Simms born Charleston, S. C., April, 1806 now 51 years old is a true 
 Southerner, florid, warm, of rich nature, defends slavery etc., is a copious writer 
 rather too wordy, overloads his descriptions too self-conscious his descriptions,, 
 characters etc. are good well drawn. 
 
 175 
 SUNDAY EVENING LECTURES.* 
 
 Kant, 1724 to 1804. Fichte, 1762 to 1814. Schelling, 1775 to 1854 died in 
 Switzerland. Hegel, 1770 to 1831. 
 
 Metaphysics Hegel and Metaphysics. 
 
 Hegel born at Stuttgard in 1770 died 1831 at Berlin of cholera educated at 
 University of Tubingen student of theology matriculated in 1788, aged 18 then 
 in retirement pursued extensive and severe courses of study. At 31 was a public 
 lecturer at Jena, at the University was an associate of Schelling examined, in his 
 lectures, the difference between Fichte and Schelling edited a newspaper then 
 conducted an academy or gymnasium at latter place (as rector) inaugurated and 
 planned his great work or works. 
 
 Was professor of philosophy at Heidelberg (1816-1818) and there published his 
 Encyclopoedia, developing his whole philosophy. 
 
 I will begin by impressing upon your attention the growing and greater particu 
 larity with which the moderns use the words relating to those philosophical inquiries. 
 
 * All his life Whitman planned to deliver lectures and occasionally he did deliver one, as for instance that on 
 the assassination of Lincoln. Those in question here, on the great German metaphysicians were never completed 
 and of course never delivered. The MS. in my hands is simply a series of fragments which are here given word for 
 word as they stand. They were probably written in the late sixties or very early seventies. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 133 
 
 The realms of all words are more or less filling the past and will fill the future, getting 
 more definitely bounded. This is one of the marked characteristics of our times 
 Precision is demanded. Though they inevitably run into each other, each term in 
 the category has yet its own exact and limited area, and the best writer [illegible 
 word] often leaps beyond the proof. Science, strictly speaking, deals in positive 
 facts, practical experiments, proofs. Philosophy combines them, applies them to 
 solve the vast problem of universal harmony, ensemble, the idea of the all. Religion 
 means moral development, duty, the idea of man's duty in the abstract, and duty 
 toward his fellows, toned and colored by that something above him or enclosing him 
 out of which prayer and worship arise. Theology is the thought and science of God. 
 
 Metaphysics, defined by Kant is according to another and perhaps still 
 
 better description, that which considers the whole concrete show of things, the world, 
 man himself, either individually or aggregated in History, as resting on a spiritual, 
 invisible basis, continually shifting, yet the real substance, and the only immutable 
 one. This was the doctrine of Hegel. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, born 
 died 
 
 Hegel was a philosopher in the domain of metaphysics and in that has probably 
 rendered greater service than any man we know, past or present. 
 
 Strictly speaking the transcendental metaphysics present no new contribution 
 to morals, to the formation or guidance of character, the practice of virtue or for the 
 better regulation either of private life or public affairs. With respect to such morals, 
 virtue, or to heroism and the religious incumbency the old principles remain, without 
 notable increase or diminution, the same to-day as we trace them in farthest India, 
 Egypt, Greece, the Vedas, the Talmud, the Old Testament, Epictetus, Zerdusht, the 
 divine teachings of Christ, and as substantially agreed upon by all lands, all times as 
 far back as we can go. 
 
 Religion and morals, I say, are not palpably affected, although doubtless there 
 has to be more or less of a re-adjustment and perhaps re-statement of theology. 
 
 Nor does the Hegelian system, strictly speaking, explain the universe, either in 
 the aggregate or in detail. The senses, eyesight, life, the least insect, growth, the 
 dynamics of nature are not eclaircized. Thought is not caught, held, dissected. To 
 penetrate Nature and solve her problems the human faculties under present conditions 
 are no more eligible now than before and under mortal conditions will in all 
 probability never be eligible. The Eternal mystery is still a mystery. Then 
 after granting this there remains an entirely legitimate field for the human mind, in 
 fact its chosen ground where all had before gone by default. Because final and 
 paramount to all is man's idea of his own position in the universes of time, space and 
 materials, his faith in the scheme of things, the destinies which it necessitates, his 
 clue to the relations between himself and the outside world, his ability in intellect and 
 spirit at any rate to cope and be equal with them, and with Time and Space. These, 
 and thoughts upon these come to the soul and fill and exercise it and remain of vital 
 interest after it has exhausted all other fields. These touch all human beings without 
 exception and include everything that is of permanent importance to them. 
 
134 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 They are the greatest themes. They are greater than Science, History, Art, 
 Democracy, or any problems of the Utilities or prosperity or wealth or any sectarian 
 Religion. I would not be understood to deprecate the Great Departments, the 
 Specialties I have just named, but I say that compared with the question of man in 
 the visible and invisible worlds the others become comparatively insignificant. 
 Yourself, myself, amid the baffling labyrinths what am I, what are you here for ? 
 give us some suggestion (however indirect or inferential), or clue, or satisfying 
 reason the world with its manifold shows the beginningless, endless wonder, Time 
 the other wonder Space oneself, the darkest labyrinth, mightiest wonder. What 
 triumphs of our kind out-topples this that one, a man, has lived and has bestowed 
 on his fellow-men the Ariadne's thread to guide them through the maze ? 
 
 Only Hegel is fit for America is large enough and free enough. Absorbing 
 his speculations and imbued by his letter and spirit, we bring to the study of life here 
 and the thought of hereafter, in all its mystery and vastness, an expansion and 
 clearness of sense before unknown. As a face in a mirror we see the world of 
 materials, nature with all its objects, processes, shows, reflecting the human spirit and 
 by such reflection formulating, identifying, developing and proving it. Body and 
 mind are one ; an inexplicable paradox, yet no truth truer. The human soul stands 
 in the centre, and all the universes minister to it, and serve it and revolve round it. 
 They are one side of the whole and it is the other side. It escapes utterly from all 
 limits, dogmatic standards and measurements and adjusts itself to the ideas of God, 
 of space, and to eternity, and sails them at will as oceans, and fills them as beds of 
 oceans. 
 
 The varieties, contradictions and paradoxes of the world and of life, and even 
 good and evil, so baffling to the superficial observer, and so often leading to despair, 
 sullenness or infidelity, become a series of infinite radiations and waves of the one 
 sea-like universe of divine action and progress, never stopping, never hasting. " The 
 heavens and the earth " to use the summing up of Joseph Gostick whose brief I 
 endorse : " The heavens and the earth and all things within their compass all the 
 events of history the facts of the present and the development of the iuture (such 
 is the doctrine of Hegel) all form a complication, a succession of steps in the one 
 eternal process of creative thought." 
 
 The essential quality, nature, scope, position of Man in Time and Space. What 
 is he ? His soul ? The relations between it and this manifold nature, the world, with 
 its variegated, countless objects the other worlds the perplexing idea of immor 
 tality how fuse the material life, the fact of death, chemical dissolution, segregation, 
 with the puzzling thought of Identity's continuance, despite of death Humanity, 
 the race, History, with all its long train of baffling, contradictory events the tumul 
 tuous procession the dark problem of evil, forming half of the infinite scheme 
 these are the themes, questions, which have directly or indirectly to do with any pro 
 found consideration of Democracy and finally testing it, as all questions and as 
 underlying all questions. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 135 
 
 Who advances me to light upon these ? And without depreciating poets, patriots, 
 saints, statesmen, inventors and the like I rate [Hegel] as Humanity's chiefest 
 teacher and the choicest loved physician of my mind and soul. 
 
 It is true, analogy, comparison, indirection, suggestions are perhaps all that is 
 possible. But the soul quickly seizes the divine limits and absorbs them with avidity. 
 
 Penetrating beneath the shows and materials of the objective world we find, 
 according to Hegel (though the thought by itself is not new but very antique and 
 both Indian and Grecian) that in respect to human cognition of them, all and several 
 are pervaded by the only absolute substance which is SPIRIT, endued with the eternal 
 impetus of development, and producing, from itself the opposing powers and forces 
 of the universe. A curious, triplicate process seems the resultant action ; first the 
 Positive, then the Negative, then the product of the mediation between them ; from 
 which product the process is repeated and so goes on without end. In his " Intro 
 duction to the Philosophy of History," this is illustrated in the portion on " History 
 as a manifestation of Spirit." 
 
 He has given the same clue to the fitness of reason and fitness of things and 
 unending progress, to the universe of moral purposes that the sciences in their 
 spheres as astronomy and geology have established in the material purposes and the 
 last and crowning proof of each is the same, that they fit the mind, and the idea of 
 the all, and are necessary to be so in the nature of things. 
 
 Religions. Pagan and Christian. 
 
 Probably the great distinction of the Pagan religions grouped into one and led 
 by the Greek theology, is that they appreciated and expressed the sense of nature, 
 life, beauty, the objective world, and of fate, immutable law, the senses of power and 
 precedence, and also to a greater or less degree, the mystery and baffling unknown- 
 ness which meet us at a certain point of our investigation of any and all things. In 
 the Christian cultus, as we get it, instead of these the moral dominates, gentleness, 
 love, the distinctions of right and wrong, the ideas of purity, abnegation of self, 
 terminating often in a diseased benevolence, voluntary penances, celibacy, the blood 
 less, cast-iron virtue, gaunt Calvinism, the harping on " rights," and traversing the 
 ecstasy of Roman Catholicism, the revolt of Protestantism to Unitarianism, addressed 
 merely to the intellect. 
 
 Kant was born in Koningsburg, Eastern Prussia, in 1724, of Scotch stock on 
 the paternal side. His father was a saddler, carrying on a small business. His 
 mother seems to have been a superior woman of deep religious sensibilities. At 
 sixteen he entered the University of Koningsburg as a theological student and 
 preached occassionally in the country pulpits of the neighborhood. He was poor, 
 took employment as tutor, went from family to family among people of rank and 
 others, returned to the University as private lecturer, spending fifteen years in that 
 position. Was then and always fond of the study of physical geography and 
 astronomy. Published a series of essays and treatises, became popular as a lecturer, 
 was often sought by persons of distinction. 
 
136 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 Thus going on, increasing in fame, we find him at the age of 42 advanced to 
 the post of an under-keeper of the royal library at the salary of about $50 a year 
 and four years later promoted to the ordinary chair of logic and metaphysics at 
 $300 a year. He ripens slowly. His great work, the Critique of Pure Reason, is 
 published in his 57th year. Though in great danger of sinking into oblivion before 
 its importance can be understood, it surmounts that danger and in a few years be 
 comes famous. 
 
 Kant like Socrates and to some extent like Plato is more a searcher and 
 tester of systems than a maker of them. Like them, though in his own way, not 
 their's, he discusses, inquires, suggests, speculates, is very cautious, propounds little 
 or nothing absolutely. He clears, frees, removes, seldom absolutely furnishes or 
 fulfils. 
 
 " Metaphysics, according to Kant in which he only echoes the general voice of 
 philosophers is conversant with the world above sense, or beyond experience." He 
 is occupied with such problems as the nature of absolute being Ontology. The 
 essence and immortality of the soul Pneumatology. The prevalence of freedom or 
 fate in the world Cosmology. The being of God Speculative theology. 
 
 Before Kant two stages : Dogmatism lots of systems, each affirmed positively 
 which led by their contradictions and absurdities to : Scepticism typified in 
 Hume and some of the French philosophs. 
 
 We must sum him up briefly. Kant analyses, dissects, dissipates the vast suffo 
 cating miasma that had so long spread impediments to philosophy discusses much 
 clears away, removes, sometimes like a surgeon's knife yet in fact and after all 
 decides little or nothing is of indescribable value denies the possibility of absolute 
 knowledge of the external world begins with Hume admits that we receive all the 
 materials of our knowledge through the senses but immediately rises above that 
 admission. Long before, the speculations of Locke and the other materialists, had 
 reached the formula that " there is nothing in the understanding which has not 
 arrived there through the senses." Leibnitz had replied, " Yes, there is the under 
 standing itself." Kant's entire speculations are but a splendid amplification of this 
 reply. He endeavors to get at and state the philosophy of the understanding. The 
 problem of the relation between the understanding and the universes of material 
 nature, he did not attempt to solve. 
 
 The pursuit or examination and elaboration of the inquiry : Is a science of 
 metaphysics possible and practicable ? involves the gist of Kant's entire labors, forms 
 (leaving out much that he accepts from others) his own original contribution to 
 Metaphysics itself, and is, in some respects, probably the most illustrious service ever 
 rendered to the human mind. Previous to him, strange as it may seem, no philos 
 opher appears to have troubled himself seriously with this vast impediment rising at 
 the threshold of all metaphysics. Successive dogmatists had sprung up from time to 
 time who had treated and more or less confidently decided on absolute being, origin 
 of materials, the immortality of the soul, the question of a personal God, and the 
 other problems that have in all ages vexed human reason and cannot be escaped. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 137 
 
 Moral portrait of him (I. K.) by Herder 1795. 
 
 " I have had the good fortune to know a philosopher who was my teacher. In the 
 vigor of life he had the same youthful gaiety of heart that now follows him, I believe, 
 into old age. His open forehead built for thought, was the seat of imperturbable 
 cheerfulness and joy ; the most pregnant discourse flowed from his lips; wit, humor 
 and raillery came to him at will, and his instructions had all the charm of an enter 
 tainment. With the same easy mastery with which he tested the doctrines of 
 Leibnitz, Wolf, Baumgarten, Cousins and Hume, or pursued 'the discoveries of 
 Newton, Kepler, and other lights of science, he also took up the current writings 
 of Rousseau, such as Emile or H6loise, or any new phenomenon of the natural 
 world, and from the criticism of each, came back to the impartial study of nature, 
 and to the enforcement of the dignity of man. History in all its branches, natural 
 sciences, physics, mathematics, and experience were the materials that gave interest 
 to his lectures and his conversation ; nothing worthy of study was to him indifferent; 
 no faction or sect, no selfishness or vanity, had for him the least attraction, compared 
 with the extension and elucidation of truth. He excited and pleasantly impelled 
 us to mental independence ; despotism was foreign to his nature. This man whom I 
 name with the deepest gratitude and respect is Immanuel Kant." 
 
 The objection has been taken and well taken that the journey of philosophy 
 beginning in Kant brings us to an uncertainty about everything. The laws of sight, 
 touch, weight etc. are dethroned. Materials and material experiences amount to 
 nothing. The realities we thought so absolute are only ostensible and are either 
 scattered to the winds or permitted but a passing and temporary sway. 
 
 Fichte (1762-1814) commenced life as a poor boy, was sent to school by a 
 wealthy person, received a university education, became tutor in Prussia, was intimate 
 with Kant, absorbed his philosophy, wrote a work which passed for the master's own, 
 traveled through Germany and Switzerland, married a niece of the poet Klopstock, 
 was appointed professor at Jena, where, in his lectures, he inaugurated and gradually 
 developed his philosophy, gave offence by some of his notions, resigned, went to 
 Berlin, where he occupied himself in writing and in giving private lectures, made a 
 great impression on the learned, was appointed professor in the university of 
 Erlangen, was compelled to flee from the invading armies of France, in due time 
 repaired again to Berlin, was appointed rector of the new university of that city, 
 where he died. 
 
 Fichte is described as a fervid and telling speaker, but not so clear or acceptable 
 as a writer. His works are voluminous, in his philosophy he begins by declaring for 
 Kant. He founds and builds largely on the distinction between the / and the not I. 
 Upon the fact that a man can only realize anything in its relations to himself, and 
 from the capacities and measurements that constitute himself, he lays so much stress, 
 that the whole universe, becomes in brief, the 7 as that is the only thinking subject, 
 active principle and consciousness. His philosophy is simple, single, complete and 
 ogical as far as it goas. There will always be a select class of minds and superior 
 
138 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 ones to which Fichte's theory will be everything. And perhaps there will always 
 be a stage in the progress of every mind which it only will fill and satisfy or 
 seem to satisfy. 
 
 Fichte, as will be seen, grows out of and is closely related to Kant. But 
 while the master was satisfied with inquiry and at most with love of or compre 
 hension of the truth, the follower would put it in practical action. In his peaceful 
 life he was as noble and heroic in his way as the best and bravest warrior in war's 
 campaigns. Subjectiveness is his principle, explaining all. Strongly stated 
 nothing exists but the /. And in this the central fact is ever moral obligation, 
 duty, conscience, giving vitality to all. 
 
 Then comes Schelling (1775-1854) who professes to largely answer the 
 questions left open by Kant with a doctrine of "spontaneous intuition" in other 
 words to solve the problem left open by Kant with the theory that the human 
 mind and external nature are essentially one. That that which exists in concrete 
 forms etc. in Nature, exists morally and mentally in the human spirit. The 
 difference between him and Fichte is that Schelling' s philosophy is more largely 
 objective. 
 
 The chief forte of it seeking to counterbalance and restrain Fichte's all- 
 devouring egoism is the essential identity of the subjective and objective worlds, or, 
 in terms, that what exists as mentality, intelligence, consciousness in man, exists 
 in equal strength and absoluteness in concrete forms, shows and practical laws 
 in material nature making the latter one with man's sane intuitions. The same 
 universal spirit manifests itself in the individual Man, in aggregates, in concrete 
 Nature, and in Historic progress. 
 
 He elevates Man's reason, claims for it the comprehension of divine things, 
 demands a sort of Platonic ecstasy or inebriation as the fountain of utterance of 
 first-class philosophy.* 
 
 His palace of idealistic pantheism was never completed, is more or less 
 deficient and fragmentary, yet is one of the most beautiful and majestic structures 
 ever achieved by the intellect or imagination of man. For in Schelling's phil 
 osophy there is at least as much imagination as intellect. 
 
 These then are the illustrious four who have originated and carried out, with 
 epic succession and completeness, the modern systems of critical and transcen 
 dental philosophy. The critical is represented by Kant, who begins and ends it. 
 The transcendental rises out of and is founded upon the critical and could have 
 had no beginning or growth except from its previous existence. 
 
 There is a close relative-connection, sequence etc. between all the four even 
 in time. They fit into each other like a nest of boxes and Hegel encloses them 
 all. Taking their whole philosophy, it is the most important emanation of the 
 
 * Throughout 175, as in all Whitman's writings, the hands may be the hands of Esau (Elias Hick, Hegel, 
 Schelling etc. etc.) but the voice is always the voice of Jacob Whitman himself. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 139 
 
 mind of modern ages and of all ages, leaving even the wonderful inventions, 
 discoveries of science, political progress, great engineering works, utilitarian 
 comforts etc. of the last hundred years in a comparatively inferior rank of 
 importance outstripping them all. Because it assumes to answer and does 
 answer, as far as they can be answered, the deepest questions of the soul, 
 of identity, of purposes worthy the world and of the relation between man and 
 the material nature and workings of the external universes, not depreciating 
 them but elevating man to the spiritual plane where he belongs, and where after 
 all that physical comfort and luxury, with mental culture, and political freedom, 
 can accomplish, he at last finds, and there only finds, a satisfaction worthy of 
 his highest self, and achieves Happiness. 
 
 It is true no philosophy possible can, in deepest analysis, explain the uni 
 verse. The least insect, the eyesight, motion, baffle us. No thought can be 
 seized and dissected, and though the corporeal parts and aggregates can, the 
 main things, the atoms and vitality, remain in mystery. But subtle, vast, electric 
 is the soul, even in present relations, and restless and sad until it gets some clue 
 however indirect to itself and to the relations between itself and Time, Space and 
 all the processes and objects that fill them. 
 
 Idealism underlies the Four great philosophers, all alike. It does not crop 
 to the surface in Kant, but he necessitates it more than any of them. 
 
 Taking the advent of the igih century for a chronological centre, the years 
 surrounding it are probably of an importance in the history of metaphysical 
 science (the science that cognizes that which is above sense and beyond exper 
 ience) beyond any others known. All the Four I have mentioned were living, 
 Kant at a great age, Hegel was being formed. 
 
 I see to my own satisfaction and see very clearly, that to any individual mind 
 the ambition for universal knowledge is a vain ambition, and that it [is] already 
 carried to extravagant lengths and [is] tainting the schools. But it seems to me 
 the thought of universality the conception of a divine purpose in the cosmical 
 world and in history, the realization that knowledge and sciences however import 
 ant are branches, radiations only each one relative is not only the grand ante 
 dating background and appropriate entrance to the study of any science but to 
 the fit understanding of the position of one's self in Nature, to the performance of 
 life's duties, to the appreciation and application of sane standards to politics and 
 to the judgment upon and construction of works in any department of art, and 
 that by its realization is provided a basis for religion and theology that can 
 satisfy the modern. 
 
 Perhaps to have begun properly I ought to have mentioned Leibnitz (1646- 
 1716) a moralist and philosopher, by many considered as starting German meta 
 physics, perhaps too timid and orthodox, when tried by the great standards, but 
 of noblest mind and powerful influence. His favorite themes were natural theol 
 ogy and the moral government of the world. In his book "Th^odicee" he 
 
140 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 exhibits loftiest thoughts and doctrines, goodness, benevolence, a harmonious unity 
 in variety etc. are inculcated all through his pages. 
 
 He has read my " Vistas " to little purpose who has not seen that the Demo 
 cracy I favor (if forced to choose) willingly leaves all material and political successes 
 to enter upon and enjoy the moral, philosophical and religious ones. 
 
 I have mentioned Hegel in the preceding pages but I find I cannot be contented 
 without saying something more elaborate about him and what he stands for. 
 
 If I were asked to specify who, in my opinion, has by the operation of his indi 
 vidual mind done the most signal service to humanity, so far, I sometimes think my 
 answer would be to point to him and join with his name the name of Kant and 
 perhaps Fichte and Schelling. If I were questioned who most fully and definitely 
 illustrates Democracy by carrying it into the highest regions I should make the same 
 answer. 
 
 Finale ? It remains to be inquired and the inquiry has the most important 
 bearing upon metaphysics and especially with reference to its future discoveries 
 whether after all allowance for Kant's tremendous and unquestionable point, namely 
 that what we realize as truth in the objective and other Natural worlds is not the 
 absolute but only the relative truth from our existing point of view ; in other terms, 
 that this is what we realize of the objective world by our present imperfect senses 
 and cognizance and that what we thus realize would be entirely changed and perhaps 
 overthrown and reversed if we were advanced .to superior development and points of 
 view. It remains, I say, to be inquired (considered) whether there is not probably 
 also something in the Soul, even as it exists under present circumstances, which being 
 itself adjusted to the inherent and immutable laws of things (which laws and the 
 principal points of resemblance being the same throughout time and space, irrespec 
 tive of apparitions, partialisms, processes, moods) does not afford a clue to unchange 
 able standards and tests whether in its abysmic depths, far from ken or analysis, it 
 (the soul) does not somehow, even now, by whatever removes and indirections, by its 
 own laws, repel the inconsistent, and gravitate forever toward the absolute, the 
 supernatural, the eternal truth. Perhaps this is what Fichte finally meant. 
 
 It is certain that what is called revealed religion as founded or alleged to be 
 founded on the Old and New Testament, and still taught by the various churches in 
 Europe and America, is not responded to by the highest, devoutest modern mind. 
 Having its truths and its purposes in History, and the greatest ones, the time has 
 unquestionably 
 
 176 
 
 . . . .those stages, Egyptian, Hindu, Hebraic, Greek, Christian with a hundred 
 dimly preserved, as the 
 
 Those stages all over the world leaving their memories and inheritances 
 
 in all the continents how credulous ! how childlike and simple ! how the priests 
 revered the bloody rites, the mumeries and all puerile and bad things, redeemed 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 141 
 
 through the ages, the continents, by that one meaning underlying fervor 
 
 out of which wayward forms arose. Complaint ? Nay as I walk here I will 
 
 pause I stand silent and admirable before the movements of the great soul of man 
 in all lands and in every age. I look inward upon myself I look around upon our 
 own times and how can I complain of the past ? Of present and past, I do not 
 blame them for doing what they have done and are doing I applaud them that they 
 have done so well I applaud * 
 
 177 
 
 The celebrated old German poem we are going to make a running sketch of is 
 traceable back to the Twelfth Century, when, or soon after when, it was probably 
 put in the shape transmitted to modern times, by some rhapsodist whose name is 
 now unknown, yet it is quite certain that this remarkable epic, long antedates even 
 that far-off period. How much further back, though, it is impossible to tell, with 
 any certainty. 
 
 Of the many critical theories about the construction of the Niebelungen the 
 most plausible is that the ballads or versions floating about, were collected by this 
 rhapsodist before alluded to during the Twelfth or Thirteenth Century, and fused 
 into one connected Epic. The critics say they can tell the connecting passages ; and 
 they point to marked differences of style and contradictions. The Niebelungen is 
 thus, by high authorities, stated to have been formed from ballads belonging to 
 several ages, but having a general principle of union and character, and thus come to 
 be united upon the thread of one main plot. 
 
 178 
 
 Reading Ossian awhile this morning. 
 Ossian ? for note, Preface. 
 
 For all their restorations perhaps something worse there is to me so much 
 race (to use an old Scotch word) of the prehistoric, primitively Irish and Caledonian 
 thought and personality in these poems notwithstanding their general mistiness and 
 gossamer character, (they always bring up to me the long trailing drape of the moss 
 hanging down so profusely on the live-oaks in Florida or Louisiana, and slowly 
 moving to the twilight breezes) I have had more or less good from what they give 
 out. It [is] like the reminiscence of an odor shut up for ages in some venerable 
 chest. A witty friend of mine calls them the real ghosts of poems. 
 
 179 
 
 The idea (illustrated by Kant) that it isn't those who travel the most that know 
 the most or think the deepest, widest, clearest. I even think that sometimes a life 
 devoted to persistent travel is a squandered life. The knowingest people I have met 
 have not been the gad-abouts. 
 
 * Written on two fragments of paper both torn and indeed almost destroyed. 
 
142 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 1 80 
 
 The relations between the mass of employed persons on one side and the 
 employers (capitalists, factories, R. R. organizations, owners etc.) on the other side is 
 one of the vast, complicated, unsettled problems of America to-day one of the 
 problems to which, although I think it will be solved, I confess I do not yet see any 
 solution or indications of solution. There are to be sure plenty of reforms and 
 panaceas offered but like some of the sciences (chemistry for instance) though it 
 cannot be said that we have either got it, or see its resultant and absolute structure, 
 we are working thousands of good men are faithfully working towards that 
 resultant and absolute structure. 
 
 181 
 
 Reading. Shakespeare, Sept. 1865, Washington. Edition in eight volumes of 
 Wm. Veazie, Boston, 1859. The text regulated by the Folio of 1632 [? 1623]. 
 Portrait from the monument in Stratford Church. Ben Jonson's eulogy very fine 
 and sounding : 
 
 " He was not of an age, but for all time." 
 
 " A good Poet's made as well as born." Shakespeare born about 23 April, 
 1564 (died 1616) began his theatrical career in London (about) 1586. Was owner 
 in two theatres Globe and Black friars. 
 
 182 
 
 
 
 Richard Burbage, principal owner in theatre and principal actor of first parts, 
 must have been quite a character he was quite rich died in 1619 (worth ,300 
 a year). 
 
 Poem of the Universalities. Poem of the Universal likenesses of all men 
 humanity. Though the times, climes, differ, men do not so much differ. There is a 
 universal language. What is heroic is universal among men. Love is universal 
 among [men]. Liberty is justice is the hatred of meanness is etc. 
 
 Poem of the Longings of Friendship. Pictures of Friendship the hankering 
 for friends the memory of only a look the boy lingering and waiting. 
 
 184 
 
 In the West a vision ? Poem of vision of future. Depicting the West a 
 hundred years from now two hundred years five hundred years. (This ought to 
 be a splendid part of the poem) (? poem of Ohio ?) it ought to lay in the colors and 
 draw the outlines with a large, free and bold hand. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 143 
 
 185 
 
 The Poem. One grand eclipsing Poem. Poem of Materials. ? Several poems. 
 ? Many poems on this model the bringing together of the materials words, 
 figures, suggestions, things (words as solid as timbers, stone, iron, brick, glass, 
 planks etc.) All with reference to main central ideas. With powerful indications 
 yet loose, fluid-like, leaving each reader eligible to form the resultant-poem for her 
 self or himself. Leading Chicago poem. 
 
 186 
 
 Speaking of literary style in poems, " Nothing is more easy," said Voitaire, 
 " than to do violence to nature nothing more difficult than to imitate her." 
 
 Verse was the first writing of all we know Greek the Old Testament 
 
 187 
 
 On the other side is the " barbaric yawp " of a very different poet as different 
 as a Collin's steamship or modern locomotive tearing along the Erie railroad with 
 its train of cars well-filled with the men and women of to-day is from the Lord Mayor 
 of London's state barge or his carriage with its adorned slowness and its pageantry 
 and liveries or as different as the strong and hearty life of the people is from the 
 bookish life of cloisters and from the etiquette of the English or French Courts. 
 With 
 
 188 
 
 Cheap looking glasses and nearly all pictures distort things from the unerring 
 harmony and equilibrium of nature. 
 
 Superb and infinitely manifold as natural objects are each foot out of the 
 countless octillions of the cubic leagues of space being crammed full of absolute or 
 relative wonders not any one of these, nor the whole of them together, disturbs or 
 seems awry to the mind of man or woman. When one is sick or old or irritable and 
 the richest parlors and costliest ornaments appear unsightly and 
 
 189 
 
 Literature it is certain would be fuller of vigor and sanity if authors were in the 
 habit of composing in the forenoon and never at night. 
 
 190* 
 
 Premonitory. That these lectures are hints or en-passant toward further 
 development. That they are but primary lessons. That the Past and the Present 
 
 * This section is written on a series of slips of paper the order in which they come is not clear pieces between 
 have been dropped out. They are quite old, probably belong to early fifties. At the time these notes were made 
 Whitman seems to have had the idea of promulgating his doctrines by talks, lectures, either in place of or jointly 
 with a book to be written. 
 
144 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 [are] to be treated with perfect respect that whatever I say, I know well enough 
 
 the tremendous That man is the master and overseer of all religions. 
 
 That I stand with (not their slave) admiration and boundless awe before all the 
 growths of the Past, of men in all ages, all lands, the present, civilizations, religions, 
 politics 
 
 I do not condemn either the Past or the Present. Shall I denounce my own 
 ancestry the very ground under my feet ? that has been so long building. I know 
 that they are and were what they could not but be. When I think of the Past 
 the 
 
 Do you suppose religion consists in one particular form or creed the Christian 
 or any other ? No it is the whole universal heart of man. 
 
 In religion a modest statement, and proposition of things as if presented with 
 subdued mind, suggestive, modest, not flaunting and arbitrary. 
 
 Religion In the Introductory remarks. 
 
 While to the ordinary, the divine masses, to those whose inherent religious 
 capacity is deep enough (and it is just as deep in the American people as in any 
 race known upon the earth, old or new) While to such, thoughtless, the sublimest 
 and most spiritual facts are taken for granted as well understood and settled, and as 
 being preached in the churches and taught in the schools and books. As for me, I 
 approach these as, even in their littlest beginnings, impenetrable mysteries and yet 
 with audacious hand to be seized upon and wrestled with. 
 
 amid new combinations, more copious, more turbulent than earth's pre 
 ceding times, inaugurating a new world mental and spiritual as much as any new 
 races of men. 
 
 Of these, I, throwing my voice toward the youths of the west, rapidly draft 
 for them and myself, my lectures and [ ] in them these : That they 
 
 etc. etc. 
 
 processions of races, swiftly marching and countermarching over the 
 
 fields of the Earth the sublime creeds of different eras, some left glimmering yet, 
 others quite faded out the religions, the new ones arising out of the old ones, each 
 filling its time and land yet helplessly withdrawing in due time, giving place to the 
 more needed one that must succeed it. For all religions, all divine, are but tempo 
 rary journeys subordinate to the eternal soul of the woman, the man supreme the 
 
 decider of all. What are they to the ineffable, eternal traveler through 
 
 them all [to] man, before whom all religions, the divinest idols, the gods, these of 
 ours with the rest, sink into the [ ] corners ? 
 
 When I stand off, silent, and view how in the Present, as perhaps in the Past 
 after its ways, amid vain forms and toys, amid vermin and gnawing rust, overlaid 
 with stifling and suffocating things, corpses piled over them, smothered, as in subter 
 ranean fire, invisible, yet impossible to die, the divine ideas of spirituality, of the 
 immortal soul of the woman and the man, of another sphere of existence, of con- 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 145 
 
 science and perfect justice and goodness, have been serenely preserved through 
 millenia of years and with many traditions are here transmitted to us, to me, to you, 
 whoever you are, I receive the great inheritance with welcome joy. 
 
 I know well enough the life is in my own soul, not in the traditions, the phan 
 toms but I know the traditions help me well how could I be developed even so 
 far, and talk with decision to-day, beginning the study of these things without all 
 those traditions ? I know, too, that I am the master and overseer of all religions 
 and you shall be not their slave. 
 
 Toward the last. Finale. 
 
 Inquiries, free children of The States, aspiring to know and do greater things, 
 sweeping on with the rest, with this universe, this globe, whelmed with its mysterious 
 miracles, compact every side, every moment, as fishes in the sea inaugurating a 
 New World, mental and spiritual, as much as any rising, glittering 
 
 191 
 
 The lesson is a profound one. The Union is proved solid by proof that none 
 can gainsay. Every State that permits her faction of secessionists to carry her out, 
 shrivels and wilts at once. Her credit is the first thing that goes. A reign of terror 
 is inaugurated. All trade, all business stops. Travel by the usual routes is sus 
 pended. The best and many of the wealthiest citizens escape by flight. Incomes 
 are not paid to widows, orphans and old persons. The arm of the law ceases to lift 
 itself in any one's protection. The devils are unloosed. Theft, outrage, assassina 
 tion stalk around, not in the night only but in open day. 
 
 192 
 
 Tennyson shows how one can be a British poet laureate, elegant and 
 " aristocratic," and a little queer and affected, and at the same time perfectly manly 
 and realistic. 
 
 What, on the whole, is this man's service to his Age, to Humanity, and 
 especially to America ? 
 
 First, I should say, his personal character. He is probably not to be mentioned 
 as a rugged, evolutionary, aboriginal force, but (and a great lesson is in it) he has 
 been true to the vital, native, healthy, patriotic and veracious (though local and con 
 ventional) moral line in himself. He reflects the age, its refinement, its pale cast of 
 thought, perhaps its ennui. Then my friend John Burrough's simile is entirely true: 
 11 His glove is a glove of silk, but his hand is a hand of iron." * 
 
 * Cf. Prose works, p 404. 
 
146 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 '93 
 
 In the present state of society and literature nothing is more singular than to 
 be without singularity nothing more eccentric than to be entirely sane and 
 without eccentricity. 
 
 194 
 
 What we thought we knew all about we know little or nothing about, and 
 they who presume to teach know least of all about [it]. It is so unspeakably 
 greater than we thought. There is more miracle in a wave, a rock, a tree, than 
 we were attributing to the whole theology. What children's fables are those you 
 are gauging this mighty thing by? 
 
 195 
 Literature.* 
 
 The tendency permitted to Literature has always been and now is to magnify 
 and intensify its own technism, to isolate itself from general and vulgar life, and 
 to make a caste or order. 
 
 America has been called proud and arrogant. It may be, but she does not 
 show it in her literature. It is indirect and therefore more effective. Day by 
 day and hour by hour in tragedy and comedy, in picture and print, in every 
 importation of art and letters, she submits to one steady flow of discrepancy and 
 one supercilious and ceaseless 
 
 (Bring in a sockdologer on the Dickens-fawners.) 
 
 There is something very bitter in the tacit adoption in our great democratic 
 cities of these forms and laws imported from the royal capitals of Europe, 
 the 
 
 In the plentiful feast of romance presented to us, all the novels, all the 
 poems really dish up one only figure, various forms and preparations of one only 
 plot, namely, a sickly, scrofulous, crude, amorousness. True, the malady described 
 is the general one which all have to go through on their way to be eligible to 
 Love, but this is not love. 
 
 Books, as now produced, have reached their twentieth remove from verities. 
 Our writers have apparently forgotten that there is anything to be aimed at 
 except Literary Literature. But in its profound relations, in its origin in great 
 minds, this great medium and institute has only to do with thoughts, men, 
 things, and even the soul at first hand. 
 
 * A series of scraps under this head intended for use in some lecture or article never (I think) completed. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 147 
 
 196 
 
 Poem (subject) ? for recitation. 
 
 Something which in each verse shall comprise a call (local and native, sea or 
 land, American, wild). 
 
 As the country girl (or boy) toward sun-down letting down the bars and 
 calling the cows out of the lot Kush ! Kush ! Kush ! 
 
 Or the horses and colts, exhibiting an ear of corn with one hand and holding 
 the halter behind out of sight with the other Ku-juk ! Ku-juk ! Ku-juk ! 
 
 Or the watch at mast-head of the whaler looking out for whales There she 
 blo-o-o-ws ! 
 
 Or the quail whistling (whistling) Phoo ! Phoo ! Phooet ! 
 
 What are the peculiar calls of drovers with a great herd of cattle ? 
 
 What are if any some of the peculiar calls of raftsmen ? 
 
 How would the calls of a man driving oxen do ? What are those calls ? 
 
 Don't attempt too close or vivid a rendering of the calls a mere trick 
 leave an easy margin more poetical. 
 
 For the three-stanza-piece of out-door cries : 
 
 First, There she blows there she blows. 
 
 Second, Cu-juk ! C'juk ! C'juk ! or Co ! Co ! Co ! 
 
 Third, Here goes your fine fat oysters Rock Point oysters here they go. 
 
 197 
 
 How many deeds of moment (I have been thinking that old thought lately), 
 how many long and connected process-causes of future great results How many 
 quiet solid lives entirely unfanfaronaded, unknown, unnoted by the public talk 
 or telegrams, or newspapers often unsuspected by neighbors and friends are 
 transacting dem 
 
 198* 
 
 Had been simmering inside for six or seven years broke out during those 
 times temporarily and then went over. 
 
 But now a serious attack, beyond all cure. Dr. D., my Washington physician 
 (and a good one to whom I pay respect and faith yet) said it was the result of too 
 extreme bodily and emotional strain continued at Washington and down in front, 
 in 1862-3-4 and 5. 
 
 * A reference to his paralysis. 
 
148 Preparatory Reading and Thought. 
 
 I doubt if a heartier, stronger, healthier, physique ever lived from 1840 to '70. 
 My greatest call (Quaker) to go around and do what I could among the suffer 
 ing, sick and wounded was that I seemed to be so well. I considered myself 
 invulnerable. 
 
 199* 
 
 List of things recognized by my Lectures. 
 The Texan Ranger. 
 The Boston Truckman. 
 
 The young men and young women too of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore, 
 Chicago, St. Louis, Charleston, New Orleans. 
 
 Above all I recognize the localities and persons of my own land. The 
 Kentuckian, the Tennessean, the Kanadian, the Californian, the Alabamian, the 
 Virginian. 
 
 The lumberer of Maine, the oysterman of Virginia, the corn gatherer of 
 Tennessee. (Look in Census or rather List, MS.). 
 
 I recognize in America the land of materials, the land of iron, cotton, wheat, 
 beef, pork, fish and fruit. 
 
 I recognize all the great inventions, machines, and improvements of to-day, the 
 ten-cylinder press printing thirty thousand sheets an hour the electric telegraph 
 that binds continents and threads the bottoms of seas the tracks of railroads the 
 cheap newspaper. 
 
 [I recognize] the idea that the common American mechanic, farmer, sailor etc., 
 is just as eligible as any to the highest ideal of dignity, perfection and knowledge. 
 (I sometimes think an independent American workingman is more eligible than 
 any other). 
 
 2 oof 
 
 Railroad poem. Poem of corn and meat pork, beef, fish. Poem of mines. 
 Inland poem. Poem of the man's hand and the woman's hand. 
 
 N. B. In Western edition don't make it too west namely, it is enough if there 
 be nothing in the book that is distasteful to the west, or is meaningless to it and 
 enough if there be two or three pieces, first-rate, applicable enough to all men and 
 women, but specially welcome to western men and women. 
 
 * This note takes us back to the pre-poetical era in Whitman's life when his idea was to present his thought in 
 Lectures. 
 
 t This piece belongs to the fifties. 
 
Preparatory Reading and Thought. 149 
 
 20 1 
 
 Idea of a Poem. Day and Night. Namely, celebrate the beauty of Day with 
 all its splendor, the sun life action love strength. Then Night with its beauty 
 (rather leaning to the celebration of the superiority of the Night). * 
 
 202 
 
 Was it thought that all was achieved when Liberty was achieved ? (Shaking 
 the head no no no.) 
 
 Make a large part of lectures-meaning consist in significant gestures. 
 
 When liberty is achieved- when rage no more the red and circling rivers, with 
 death in every eddy. 
 
 When the exiles that pined away in distant lands and died have borne the fruit 
 they died for f 
 
 203 
 
 
 A poem, theme Be happy. Going forth, seeing all the beautiful perfect things. 
 
 204 
 
 I tell you greedy smoucher ! I will have nothing which any man or any woman, 
 anywhere on the face of the earth, or of any color or country cannot also have. 
 
 Remember that the clock and the hands of the clock, only tell the time they 
 are not themselves the aggregated years. Which is greatest time, which baffles us, 
 or its indexes, made of wood and brass, by a workman at ten dollars a week ? Time 
 itself knows no index, it is merely to stand us a little in help that we combine sets of 
 springs and wheels and arbitrarily divide by hours and quarters and call this 
 measuring time. J 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '60 edition, p. 234, and current edition, p. 344. 
 
 t Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '56 edition, p. 269, and current edition, p. 287. t 
 
 Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 edition, p. 29. " By God ! I will accept etc." Current edition, p. 48. The above 
 note is very early and is almost certainly a passage in a proposed lecture and belongs to the time that " Leaves 
 of Grass" as a poem had not been planned. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 SHORTER NOTES, ISOLATED WORDS, BRIEF SENTENCES, MEMORANDA, SUGGESTIVE 
 
 EXPRESSIONS, NAMES AND DATES. 
 
 Language. Religion. Numismatics, coins and medals. Topography look in 
 census reports description of a city, town or place. Geography. Government, 
 politics, parties. Marriage. Physiology. Phrenology. Literature. Education, 
 schools, teachers, leading philosophs. Commerce. Manufacturers. Products, 
 agriculture, mines etc. Rivers, bays, ports. Climate. Laws, jurisprudence. The 
 medical art. The fine arts, pictures, statues, labor-saving machinery. Architecture, 
 both city and country. Crime, criminals etc. Prisons. Legislation, newspapers, 
 tariffs, farming, ancestry. Who are the most eminent men ? also women ? Trades, 
 mechanics etc. Servants and masters. Slavery. Death. Cheapness and dearth. 
 Luxury. Wages. Domestic animals. Artificial drinks. Soirees. Licentiousness. 
 Markets. Amusements, festivals, games, holidays. War. Iron. Police. Archi 
 tecture. Fortifications. ? Individual freedom. Insurance. Condition of women. 
 Furniture. Manners, social usages, customs. Diet, food, cooking. Costumes. 
 Public meetings. Travel, roads, railroads, ships, steamers, canals. Holidays. Post 
 offices, mail, expresses. Aqueducts. Music, sculpture, painting. Fisheries. What 
 heroes ? Most eminent persons ? Poetry poets ? Erpetology (from gr.) of reptiles 
 By Cuvier into four orders, ist Chelonians, tortoises, turtles etc.; 2nd Saurians, 
 lizards, crocodiles etc.; 3rd Ophidians, slow-worms, serpents, etc.; 4th Batrachians, 
 frogs, toads, newts etc. Marine, both of peace and war. Visits. Health. Long 
 evity. Cleanliness. Philosophy, look at phrenological list. Weights and measures. 
 Express. Persons, in history and geography of the world, introduce everywhere 
 lists of persons the great persons of every age and land. Acoustics, hearing or 
 sound. Aeronautics, navigating the air. Algebra, computing abstract quantities by 
 help of signs and symbols. Casuisty, affairs of conscience. Chirography, hand 
 writing. Dialectics, reasoning, used by Plato for metaphysics. Dialling, from day, 
 an instrument to show the time of day. Dynamics, matter in motion, moving powers. 
 Entomology, insects. Ethics, right or wrong, morals. Geoponics, agriculture. 
 Horology, measuring time. Logic, reasoning, connection of ideas. Meteorology, 
 weather, air. Osteology, science of all that relates to the bones. Pathology, causes, 
 
152 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 effects and differences of diseases. Philology, words, languages, etymology, gram 
 mar, rhetoric, poetry and criticism, phonology and ideology. Ethnology, the science 
 of the different races of men, and their origins. Sociology. Theosophy, divine 
 wisdom and illumination. Phonology, sounds, writing where each sound has a 
 specific character. Philanthropy. Ideology, Science of the mind history, elucidation 
 and illustration of human ideas. Biology, Science of the mystery of life, term 
 introduced by Treviranus of Bremen instead of physiology. Psychology, science of 
 man's spiritual nature or of the soul. Etiology, an account of the causes of anything 
 particularly diseases. Mathematics, the science that treats of quantity, whatever 
 can be measured, numbered etc. Pure or speculative Mathematics considers quantity 
 abstractly, without relation to matter. Mixed Mathematics treats of magnitude etc., 
 as existing in material bodies. Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry etc. 
 are branches of Mathematics. Ethnology, the tracing of the divisions, parentage and 
 localities of races as whence they sprang and what are their typical marks. Language. 
 Politics, under this come all of what are called governments, laws, human rights, and 
 the like. Religions. Literature, Iliad, Bible, Nibelungen, Shakespeare, Ramayana, 
 Dante, books of Egypt, Persia and Assyria are lost, Emerson, Voltaire, Rousseau, 
 histories, novels, essays, newspapers. Zoology, lists of names of all animals. Gases 
 and Waters, Minerals, Vegetables, Animals. Four Kingdoms of Nature all there 
 as in the myriad forms and identities of the world and under the divine something 
 called life. 
 
 The Teutonic includes the Scandinavian the latter is a branch or a portion of 
 the Teutonic. Visigoth a western Goth, one from the western shores of the Baltic 
 in distinction from Ostrogoth, or Eastern Goth. Asia now contains and has from 
 time immemorial contained more than half the population of the earth and more 
 that one-third the land of the earth. China alone has (so estimated) 360,000,000 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Scythia, the name given to the northern part of Asia and Europe adjoining to 
 Asia from the same root as Scot from a word meaning woods, or shade viz.: Scot 
 a man of the woods. 
 
 Ancient Numidia, Gelutia etc. northern part of Africa on the Mediteranean, 
 now Algiers, Tripoli etc. 
 
 3 
 There is a river in the ocean i.e. the gulf stream. 
 
 4 
 
 Religions Gods. Supposed to be about one thousand religions. Names of 
 Gods, sects and prophets : Phtah, I sis, Osiris, Kneph, Chiven (god of desolation 
 and destruction), Mahomet with a green banner, a sabre, a bandage and a crescent, 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 153 
 
 priests : imaums, mollahs, muftis, dervish, santon with dishevelled hair. Jehovah, 
 Adonai, Christ, Brahm, Buddha, Ormuzd, god of light. Ahrimanes, god of darkness. 
 Parsees, from Persia followers of Zoroaster, their pope or high priest is called 
 " Mobed." Foraaster (Ferdusht). Vishnu, preserver of the world, image of the 
 Lingam the male sign. Fot, the Chinese god (Phtah). Bowze, Japanese with a 
 yellow rope. Tuisco, a god of the ancient Germans. Kaldee (Sabian Kaldee of 
 Assyria). Orus, the sun. Serapis or God of ensemble, I think. Hercules, Pluto, 
 Satan, Lucifer. Typhon, made up of all that opposes, hinders, obstructs, revolts. 
 Charon, the ferry man to Tartarus and to Elysium. Minos, Rhadamanthus, judges 
 of the dead, the wand, the bend, the ushers and the urn. (Mercury) Hermes, the 
 God of Science. Zoroaster 3000 B. C. (Bunsen) others say 600 or 700 B. C. Manu 
 preceded Moses 2100 B. C. The Egyptian priests (the Greeks also) regarded the 
 preservation of health as a point of the first importance and indispensably necessary 
 to the practice of piety and the service of the Gods. Confucius 550 B. C. Lamas 
 in Thibet and China. African negroes worshipping a great snake. Mithras, 
 the Persian deity the modern parsees are the representatives the mediator 
 between Ahrimanes and Ormazd. Brahma, to create. Vishnu, to preserve. Chiven 
 (Siva) to destroy. In India the Vedas all the three deities from "the eternal" 
 Siva. Zoroaster or Zerdusht, two centuries after Moses. Pouranas, Vedas (there 
 are three or four, Shastras, Sadder, Zendavesta, Bible are sacred books. Pouranas 
 treat of mythology and history. Vedas, the fourth, concerning ceremonies, is 
 lost. Boudha, Bhudda (Fot, Phtah, Mercury) the Boudha doctrine is found in 
 book of 3000 B. C. Hermes, author of Egyptian Vedas. All seems to go back to 
 Manu who preceded Zoroaster, Moses and the rest, and must have been 2100 B. C. 
 and more definitely embodied on the banks of the Ganges, the Indian theology with 
 Brahma, Vishnu and Chiven. Manu son or grandson of Brahma. Tar a nis a 
 Celtic divinity, the evil principal, sometimes confused by Latin writers with Jupiter. 
 Mithras, masculine, the sun. Mylitta, feminine, the moon. Tuisco, ancient teutonic 
 deity, leading ? Tuesday. Talmud (of Jerusalem) very old. Sybilline verses 
 among the ancients always looking for a great mediator, a judge, god, lover, legis 
 lator, friend of the poor and degraded, conqueror of powers. Krishna ( ? thence 
 Christ). Young Bacchus, the clandestine nocturnal son of the virgin Minerva whose 
 life and even death bring to mind those of Christ and have the star of day for their 
 emblem the holocaust, the libation, circumcision, baptism, ablution, prayer, con 
 fession. Apollo, the god of light, healing and deliverance. Fo, divine being, teacher, 
 god 2500 years B. C. Confucius, 531 B. C. Pan, the great whole with a forehead 
 of stars, body of planets, feet of animals. Kneph " existence " a Theban god, a 
 human figure dressed in dark blue holding in one hand a sceptre and a girdle, with a 
 cap of feathers on his head (to express the fugacity of thought),* Zeus. Pythagoras, 
 three centuries after Homer. Orpheus 1450 B. C. Ancient verses of the orphic 
 sect which originated in Egypt. Orpheus, Musaeus, 1400 B. C. in Greece. 
 Mylitta in the old Persian mysteries was the name of the moon, Mithras that of the 
 
 *See " Leaves of Grass," edition of '56, p. in current edition, Salut au Monde S. 6. 
 
154 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 sun. Sunday the sun, Monday the moon, Tuesday Tuisco, an ancient 
 Teuton deity, Wednesday Woden or Odin, Thursday Thor (thunder), Friday 
 goddess Frixa ? Frigah, equal, co-ordinate feminine principle or divinity, Saturday 
 Saturn (? Kronos). Scythian from Scythes, a son of Jupiter and founder of the 
 Scythian nation. Pelops seems to have been a son or grandson of Jupiter, who 
 came from Asia to Greece and laid the foundation of a new royal dynasty which 
 supplanted the older order of the Danadi about 1300 B. C., "Agamemnon king 
 of men " in the Iliad was his (Pelops) grandson. 
 
 5 
 
 Tacitus of the Germans (? Scythians). In ancient songs they celebrate 
 Tuisto, a god sprung from the earth, and his son Mannus, the origin and founder 
 of their nation. To Mannus they assign three sons. 
 
 6 
 
 Law, lex. Lux, light. Alcoran signifies law. Lecture, lectio (latin) to read. 
 Originally laws were promulgated by word of mouth to the people. Abrahamic 
 movement 28th or 29th century before Christ. Buddhism was the state religion 
 of India from the 3rd century before to the 6th century after Christ. 
 
 Tien or Tin was a Chinese name for the divinity. 
 
 7 
 
 Birth of Hercules 1205 B. C. Death of Hercules 1153 B. C. Trojan expe 
 dition 1136 B. C. Troy taken 1127 B. C. Very unsatisfactory previous to 776 
 B. C., when the Greek olympiads commence. Moses of course born in Egypt 
 while the Jews (descendants of Joseph and companions) were settled as a 
 sort of half-captive and degraded race there. Moses born in 1571 B. C. 
 Queens reigned in Egypt and governed absolutely. Sesostris, Remesis 2nd, 1355 
 B. C., reigned over 62 years. He partitioned the land among the peasants and 
 compounded with them to pay a fixed tax to him. Time first began to be com 
 puted " from the Christian era" the (birth of Christ) about the year 536. 
 
 8 
 
 "Give me my liar" were the words of Charles V. when calling for a volume 
 of history. " I know history to be a lie,'' said Walpole. Raleigh, 1552-1618 
 his history of the world written while in prison. He saw from his window a 
 contest between two parties of disputants. Afterwards listening to accounts of 
 the same from outsiders he says, " These must be samples of the historians all 
 liars," and threw his compilation away. 
 
 America now of all lands has the greatest practical energy. But has it not 
 also the highest infusion of pure intellect ? Well if it has, does it not want 
 something besides intellect ? What are you after in people ? Merely the intellect ? 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 155 
 
 A man more resolute in the hour of defeat than in that of tiumph. 
 
 Is not our putting up of monuments, statues to Washington etc. a poor relic 
 of the old Asiatic, Greek or Roman spirit ? 
 
 9 
 
 Russian serfs. It seems that the Russian empire, with a population of from 
 50 to 60 millions, has forty millions of serfs or slaves. Finland a large ancient 
 country, an important part of Russia. 
 
 Palestine, David 1020 B. C. 
 
 Dido 800 B. C. 
 
 ^Eneas 800 B. C. 
 
 Mahommedanism rose 600 A. D. Mahomet born 569, died 632. 
 
 Independent and Chinese Tartary the belly of Asia (one-third of that conti 
 nent) from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific. Anciently called Scythia, southern part 
 Parthia. From this region sprung Zinghis khan, a Mongol chief, 1226 A. D., 
 and ravaging, stretched his empire. Tamerlane, 1400 A. D., in time his 
 successor. He extended his rule to Hindostan, founding the Mogul rule there 
 which terminated 1803. From Tartary issued the Celts, Goths, Turks etc. 
 
 10 
 
 Asia. Peoples : Caucasians, Georgians, Turks (Asiatic) 10,000,000, Arabs 
 12,000,000, Persians 8,000,000, Afghans 5,000,000, Beloochistans 500,000, Tartars 
 5,000,000, Muscovites or Russians 66,000,000, Kamskatkans, Thibetians, Clans of 
 Nomadic Tartans, Hindoos 142,000,000, Chinese 367,000,000, Burmese 2,000,000, 
 Japanese 25,000,000, Bornese 3,000,000, Ceylonese 1,500,000, Anamese 5,000,000, 
 Siamese 3,000,000, Malays all the lands, islands, peninsulas etc. in the S. E., 
 Suinatrans 2,500,000. Ancient Celts, Goths, Chaldees, Assyrians 
 
 ii 
 
 Europe. Rivers. Britain : Thames, Shannon, Tay, Trent, Severn. France : 
 Seine, Loire, Rhone. Spain : Douro, Tagus, Guadalquiver. Rhine. Elbe 
 (Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, Austria). Danube (Austria, runs into Turkey). Oder 
 (Prussia). Po (Sardinia and divides Austria from Italy). Tiber (Papal States). 
 Arno (Tuscany). Dneiper. Volga. Ural. Cities. Christiana 27,000, Norway. 
 Copenhagen 125,000, Sweden. Bremen 53,000, Netherlands. Hague 66,000, 
 same. Cracow. Brussels 124,000, Belgium. France : Paris, Bordeaux, Mar 
 seilles. Spain : Madrid, Cadiz. Portugal : Lisbon. Edinburgh. Dublin. 
 London. Palermo, Sicily. Naples. Florence 105,000, Tuscany. Genoa 120,000, 
 Venice 120,000, Austria. Rome 184,000. Berne 24,000, Switzerland. Turin 
 135,000. Vienna 425,000, on the Danube. Prague 114,000, Elbe, North Germany. 
 Milan 205,000. 
 
156 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 12 
 
 Europe bounded : North, Arctic Ocean : East, Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, 
 Caspian Sea, Ural River and mountains ; West, Atlantic ; South, Mediterranean. 
 Countries: Iceland, 60,000: Norway, 1,328,000; Sweden, 3,440,000; Denmark, 
 2,300,000; Russia (in Europe), 54,000,000 ; England (including Wales) 18,000,000; 
 Scotland, 2,889,000; Ireland, 6,516,000; France, 36,000,000; Spain, 14,000,000; 
 Portugal ; Austria, 36,515,000 ; Prussia; Netherlands, 3,363,000; Belgium, 4,360,000; 
 Switzerland, 2,390,000 ; Sardinia, 5,000,000 ; Rome, 3,000,000 ; Naples, 9,000,000 ; 
 Hungary, 11,000,000; Venice and Lombardy, 5,000,000; Germany; Bavaria; 
 Wurtemberg ; Baden: Saxony, 2,000,000; Sicily; Greece, 1,100,000. Seas: White 
 Sea, North Russia ; North Sea, English Channel ; Bay of Biscay ; Mediterranean ; 
 Baltic (between Sweden and Russia) ; Gulf of Bothnia ; Gulf of Venice ; Black 
 Sea, (South Russia) ; Caspian, (South-west) ; Zuyder Zee, a great bay in the Neth 
 erlands ; the Schelt. 
 
 13 
 
 Two samples of Voltaire's writings. Translated from his Philosophical 
 Dictionary. See what is marked on pages 173 and 174. 
 
 Africa. The Equator on it in Africa the Guineas ; Ethiopia ; Zanzibar ; 
 Liberia, only a little north ; the Gaboon coast ; the high interminable ridged 
 mountains of the moon just north of the equator and running east and west 2000 
 miles, three miles high. 
 
 Capes. Cape Verde, the westernmost cape of the continent of Africa on the 
 coast of Senegambia not far north of Liberia ; Cape of Good Hope, southern 
 extremity ; Cape Guadafui, eastern, lat. 10 north, point dividing the Indian Ocean 
 from the Red Sea ; Cape Bon, northermost, coast of Tunis, in the Mediterranean ; 
 Cape Bajadore, on the desert, western extremity. 
 
 Isthmus of Suez. 
 
 Seas. The Red Sea ; the fresh sunned Mediterranean and from one to another 
 of its islands ; Gulf of Guinea ; Straits of Gibraltar ; small islands off the western 
 coast, and large island, Madagascar, off the eastern coast. 
 
 Mountains. Mts. of the moon ; Snow Mts. southern part Africa, Cape Colony ; 
 Red Mts. Madagascar. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope 8550 miles from New York. 
 
 Rivers in Africa: The Niger 3300 ms. long; the Congo, 1000 ms. or more 
 emptying into the Atlantic through lower Guinea ; the Nile (the black, venerable, 
 vast mother the Nile) ; White river, away down in Ethiopia emptying into the Nile ; 
 Senegal, 900 ms., emptying into the Atlantic through Senegambia; Orange river, 
 Cape Colony. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 157 
 
 Peoples. Caff res, southern extremity of Africa ; Nubians, below Egypt, up the 
 Nile ; Liberians (" free Liberians ") the new colony, only a little north of the equator ; 
 Fezzanese, of Fezzan, a province north part of Africa a little from the Mediterranean ; 
 Ashantees, in Guinea, just north of the equator, west side ; Bushnanas, of South 
 Africa, probably the same as Hottentots ; Foulahs, in Senegambia, west coast, ion. 
 lat.; Berbers, of Bebera, a city same name, province on the equator, eastern shore of 
 Africa ; Abyssinians, a large fine formed race, black, athletic, fine heads, city 
 Gondar, Abyssinia, province east coast Africa, bordering partly on Red Sea, partly on 
 Indian Ocean ; Barcanese, of Barca, on the Mediterranean ; Soudanese, of Soudan, 
 7,000,000 ; Ethyopians, quite entirely inland, on and mostly below equator, a country 
 doubtless of hot-breathed airs and exhalations, cities, ignorance, altogether unen 
 lightened and unexplored ; Fellah tas, on the Niger River in Soudan 10 n. of 
 equator. 
 
 15 
 
 Europe. Cape Clear, southern point of Ireland ; Malin head, northern point ; 
 Lands End, south-west point England ; Kinnard's head, a north-east point Scotland ; 
 Shetland islands, away north ; Hebrides, west Scotland ; " The Minch," the passage 
 between the Hebrides and Scotland. 
 
 16 
 
 Provencal and Scandinavian Poetry. Chaucer. American Poets. Remains of 
 Literature of the middle ages. Pope. Robert Southey. Characteristics of Shelley. 
 
 Shakespeare vs. Sand. Moralists, La Bruy6re, Montaigne Poets and Poetry 
 
 of Europe. Scotch School of Philosophy and Criticism, Campbell. Dr. Beattie's 
 
 life of Waller and Marvell. Wordsworth's Prelude. Speculative Philosophy 
 
 of the 1 9th Century. Keats. The Raven. E. A. Duykinck on Literature for 1845. 
 On Poetry (an excerpt). Wordsworth and Tennyson. Songs and song writers. 
 Bells and Pomegranates, Robert Browning. Casa Guidi Windows, Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning. Wordsworth, American Literature (Margaret Fuller). Tenny 
 son, Shelley, Keats. Taylor's Eve of the Conquest. Hyperion of Keats J. D. W. 
 Oliver Goldsmith. Festus, Manfred, Paradise Lost, Book of Job. Festus. Miss 
 Barrett's Poems. Lessing, Laocoon, J. D. W. Phrenology, a Socratic Dialogue J. 
 D. W. Style, J. D. W. Essay on Critics. Dialogue between Poet and Critic. 
 
 17 
 
 1854. 10,000 new books were published in Germany 2025 journals, of which 
 403 political. Prose writers of America Review of Emerson. Styles American 
 and Foreign. America and the early English Poets. Thoughts on Reading. 
 Pleasures of the Pen. New English Poets, Owen Meredith (young Bulwer), Mathew 
 Arnold, Sidney Dobell, Alexander Smith, Gerald Massey. A good word " Scant 
 lings." 
 
158 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 18 
 
 Leigh Hunt born 1784 is he now living? aged 72. Yes (July '57) he lives, 
 old and in fair condition, in London, aged 73. [Added afterwards :} Died Aug., '59, 
 aged 75. 
 
 Hexameter translation of Homer Prof. Newman's translation. Get Buckley's 
 prose trans, of Iliad republished here by Harper. 
 
 Translators of Homer. The greatest poets can never be translators of the 
 poetry of others that is in any other way than Shakespeare translated which was 
 by taking the poor or tolerable stuff of others and making it incomparable. 
 
 Sixteen English translations of Homer and more besides [1857]. 
 
 19 
 
 Hume 1711-1776. Chansoniere (song singer) Chanson (a song). 
 Driden born 1631, died 1700. Pope, 1688-1744. 
 It is the same now.* 
 
 This is very finely done criticism. Southey born I774.-J- 
 Old age of great masters Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes. 
 This article contains good stuff. J 
 See above and Beware. 
 Read, Read, Read. II 
 
 20 
 
 Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Scott, Milton, Byron, Hume, Swift, Addison. 
 
 Chaucer, Spencer and Milton were full-blooded Cockneys. Shakespeare alone 
 was not a Londoner although a long resident. 
 
 1356. The first English book " Sir John Mandeville's Travels." 
 
 1385. Polychronicon a sort of jumble of history. For to those dates there 
 was no English Literature hardly even for many years afterwards. The English 
 language was not thought of as fit for the learned or for poets. 
 
 * Written on margin of review of Pope in North British for Aug. 1848, the writer speaks of "an immoderate 
 craving for glittering effects from contrasts too harsh to be natural, too sudden to be durable, and too fantastic to 
 be harmonious." 
 
 t Written on margin of article on Robert Southey from same review (no name) printed Feb. 1851 a note by 
 Whitman. 
 
 J Written on margin of an article on egotism torn out of Graham's Magazine (Philadelphia) for March 1845 has 
 been carefully read and annotated. 
 
 Against a passage pointing out the dangers of egotism. 
 II Against another passage. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 159 
 
 21 
 
 Orphans of Vorosmarty, the greatest Hungarian poet June 1856. 
 
 22* 
 
 ? Hallam, D'Israeli. Chaucer born 1328 died 1400. John Gower born 1325 
 died 1409. Gawin Douglas, Scotch, 1474-1522. John Wickliffe (with Chaucer, 
 1324-1384. Sir Thomas Moore 1480-1535. Edmund Spencer 1558-1598. Christ. 
 Marlow 1562-1592. Shakespeare 1564-1616. Ben Jonson 15741637. Phil Mas- 
 singer 1584-1640. Sir Philip Sidney 1554-1586. Sir Walter Raleigh 1552-1618. 
 Francis Bacon 1561-1627. Milton 1608-1674. Sam Butler, Hudibras, 1612-1680. 
 John Driden 1631-1700. John Locke 1632-1704. John Bunyan 1628-1688. Alex. 
 Pope 1688-1744. Jos. Addison 1672-1719. Samuel Johnson 1709-1784. Jonathan 
 Swift 1667-1745. Daniel Defoe 1663-1731. Henry Fielding 1707-1754. Lawrence 
 Sterne 1713-1768. Tobias Smollet 1721-1771. Oliver Goldsmith 1729-1774. Henry 
 MacKenzie 1745-1831. David Hume 1711-1776. Edward Gibbon 1737. William 
 Robertson 1721-1793. Dr. Hugh Blair 1729-1774. Philip Dorner Stanhope, Earl 
 Chesterfield 1694-1773. Lady Mary Wortley Montague 1690-1762. Edmund 
 Burke 1730-1797. Letters of Junius i769-'7O-'7i. "Transition School,'' James 
 Thompson 1700-1748. William Cowper 1731-1800. Thomas Gray, Elegy in 
 Churchyard, 1716-1771. William Collins 1720-1756. Mark Akenside 1721-1770. 
 James McPherson, Ossian, 1737-1796. Thos. Chatterton 1752-1770. Dr. Thos. 
 Percy, Reliques of Ancient Poetry, 1755. Robert Burns, 1759-1796. 
 
 "Modern Literature." Sir James Macintosh 1765-1832. James Montgomery 
 born 1771. Sir Walter Scott 1771-1832. H. K. White 1785-1806. Robert Bloom- 
 field 1766-1823. Ann Letitia Barbiuld 1743-1825. Lord Byron 1788-1824. Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822. Geo. Crabbe 1754-1832. Thos. Campbell 1777-1843. 
 Thos. Moore 1780. Robt. Southey 1774-1843. Wm. Wordsworth 1770-1850. 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1773-1834. Felicia Hemans 1794-1835. L. E. Landor 
 1802-1838. T. B. Macaulay 1800 still living. Scotch: Jas. Hogg 1772-1835. 
 Robt. Tannahill 1774-1810. Allan Cunningham 1784-1842. Wm. Motherwell 
 1797-1835. Novelists : Ann Radcliffe 1764-1823. Maria Edgeworth 1771. Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton 1784. Charles Dickens, about 1812. G. P. R. James 1801. Orators: 
 Wm. Pitt, Earl of Chatham 1708-1778 2nd Wm. Pitt 1759-1806. C. J. Fox 1748- 
 1806. Henry Grattan 1750-1820. Geo. Canning 1770-1827. O'Connell 1774-1847. 
 Brougham 1779. Peel 1788. Hazlitt 1780-1830. Chas. Lamb 1775-1835. Carlyle 
 born 1795. 
 
 Of the foregoing two or three pages the lists of names on colored paper 
 Remember, these are Europeans and Americans, not the whole world's contribution. 
 Each continent, each nation, gives its contributions every one, at any time, as 
 perfect as it can be, considering what preceded it. 
 
 * The notes in this section (22) were made in 1855. 
 
160 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 Dennis Diderot 1713-1784 (71 years). His father was a cutler, good man 
 mother also. Diderot educated well by the Jesuits. Came to Paris a young man 
 Lived ten years a loafer, a rascal, a literary hack. Emerged by degrees is the back 
 bone and brain of the French encyclopoedia. (The encyclopoedia was some years 
 12, 1 6 or 20 in being finished). Diderot was befriended by the Russian Empress 
 Catherine. She gave him ,3,000. It is said of him that he had the most encyclo- 
 poedical head ever in the world, and was a most superb talker. Diderot with his 
 mouth of gold. 
 
 23 
 
 For lecture on "The Poet" Chaucer born 1328 died 1400 aged 72 was a 
 contemporary of Petrach also of Wycliffe the reformer. 
 
 About 500 years ago the English language commenced. The main thing dates 
 back about half a century ; the essentials are as old as Chaucer. The positive living 
 and sufficiently formed shape now held by us with modern improvements. 
 
 Chaucer born 1328 either in London or in the County of Kent. 
 
 In the army in 1359. In the king's household 1360-1367. In Parliament in 
 1387. Married when towards 38 years old. Was a contemporary of the poet Gower 
 and befriended him also contemporary of Petrach ; was in Italy 1374. Wife died 
 1387. Boethius' " Philosophic Consolations," year 522 then the middle ages first 
 became acquainted with the flattering doctrine that man, by the exercise of his reason, 
 becomes superior to the dominion of fortune. Zeno. Chaucer " Love." Language, 
 English Language. A reliable short resum6 of Language.* 
 
 24 
 
 Ossian Thoreau. Macpherson 1737-1796. Chaucer. An important thought 
 to open " History of Brooklyn " or any History. Names of poets: bards, scalds, 
 minstrels, minne-sangers (love singers) and meister-sangers, troubadours, trouvers, 
 minne-lieder (love songs). 
 
 Until the i6th century that Luther by his noble translation of the Bible gave to 
 Germany literature as well as religion.f 
 
 " Trobar " and " trouver " (langue d'oc and langue d'oui) signifying " to find." 
 The word poet has in Greek a similar derivation (poet maker gr.). 
 
 Niebelungens Not continuous poem of 10,000 verses. 
 Resum6 of the Niebelungen. 
 
 * The notes in this section (23) are made by W. W. on the margin of a magazine article on " Chaucer," dated 
 1849. Name of magazine does not appear nor month of issue. The article has been very carefully read and 
 elaborately marked, underscored etc. It would seem that Whitman intended basing a lecture upon it. 
 
 t He reads and marks an article in Edinburgh Review for July, 1848, on " Proveqnal and Scandinavian 
 Poetry " : for lecture on The Poet. Which lecture he was evidently planning to write and deliver. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 161 
 
 The battle of Chalons, deciding the fate of Europe 451. 
 
 Subjective out of the person himself. Objective of other persons, things, 
 events, places, characters. As the Iliad is profoundly objective, " Leaves of Grass " 
 are profoundly subjective. 
 
 Subjective or lyric, objective or epic, as for instance the Iliad is notably 
 objective but " Leaves of Grass " are profoundly subjective. 
 
 Who was Tyrtseus ? 
 Persian Poetry. 
 
 Poems among the Siamese. The cast of the southern Asiatic mind, literature, 
 poetry. Caste Suppleness, so much that the Teutonic descendant cannot 
 sympathise with 
 
 Zerdusht. Zoroaster ? " the Chaldeans or ancient Persians with their Zer- 
 dusht " Carlyle. 
 
 Cossacks, fierce, ruthless, sitting around a table drinking brandy, after a battle, 
 singing a song in praise of blood, the gallows, the knout, torture etc. 
 
 Phrase his biographer says of Diderot (1713-1784) " all the virtues which do 
 not require a great suite of ideas were his." 
 
 Of animals or very inferior persons the minus human. Of superior persons 
 the plus human. 
 
 25* 
 
 The Ramayana is the most ancient having one separate distinct thread. Vedas, 
 there are four. One was written 1400 B.C., other anterior. 
 
 Two most ancient Indian poems the Ramayana of almost unknown antiquity, 
 one continued thread of action the Mahabharata full of mixed episodes and legends. 
 
 Ramayana by the poet Valmiki. Probably Valmiki and Homer were con 
 temporaries perhaps V. was the earlier of the two. 
 
 The Athenian historical pet was Theseus; the Dorian, Hercules; the Hindo- 
 stanee Brahminic, Rama; the French, Napoleon. Who was the Roman? Scan 
 dinavian ? Briton ? Arthur Alfred. 
 
 The style of a great poem must flow on " unhasting and unresting." 
 Vyasa, poet of the Mahabharata. 
 
 26 
 
 Carlyle, born 1795, Nov. ('57), aged 62. 
 
 Dec. '57 Carlyle's Frederick the Great is announced to be now in press. 
 Byron born at Dover, England, 1788, died at Missolonghi, 1824 aged 36. 
 
 * Notes on a magazine article (1848) on Indian Epic Poetry. 
 
162 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Golridge, Southey, Moore, Campbell, Crabbe, Rogers, 
 Keats, Wordsworth, Bulwer, D' Israeli. 
 
 Appearance of Carlyle 1827. 
 
 Appearance of Dickens 1835 (then 23 years old). 
 
 27 
 
 Etymology origin and derivation. Distributes words into parts of speech,, 
 tenses, genders etc. 
 
 Syntax constructing words in a sentence. 
 
 Prosidy accent, versification, laws of harmony. 
 
 Preterit past noting the past tense of a verb as, " I wrote." 
 
 28 
 
 Ditherambic trochee iambic anapest Hexameter Pentameter 
 Pyrrhic, a poetic foot of two short syllables Spondee, two long syllables, in poetry 
 dactyl spondee . 
 
 Hexameter in ancient poetry a verse of six feet, the first four of which may 
 be either dactyls or spondees, the fifth must regularly be a dactyl, the sixth 
 always a spondee. 
 
 " So thus | having spok | en the casque | nodding | Hector de | parted." 
 
 Iambus Iambics Anciently certain songs or satires supposed to have 
 given birth to ancient comedy. 
 
 Iambus, a poetic "foot" consisting of two syllables, the first short and the 
 last long, as in " de-light." e. g. 
 
 " He scorns | the force j that dares | his fu | ry stay.'' 
 
 Trochee (from a Greek word signifying to run). A poetic foot consisting of 
 two syllables, the first long, the second short (I suppose such as this) : 
 
 " Would you | gaze up | on the | waters | of the | lordly | Missis | sippi." 
 
 Dactyl (from the Greek word for " finger," the joint nearest the hand being 
 long, the other two joints short). 
 
 A poetic foot of three syllables, the first long, the others short I suppose 
 such as : 
 
 " Thundering | upward and | downward the | surges roll'd." 
 
 Hexameters. Verses whose lines are six poetic feet either dactyls or 
 spondees : e. g. 
 
 "Then when An | dromache | ended said | tall bright | helmeted | Hector.'' 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 163 
 
 Dactyl a poetic foot of one long and two short syllables : e. g. 
 
 " Oft at the | close of the | day when the " 
 
 Spondee a poetic foot of two long syllables : e. g. 
 
 " Auro | ra now | fair daugh | ter of | the dawn." 
 
 Pentameter having five regular feet (as the line immediately above). 
 
 Iambus two short syllables. 
 
 Trochee - a long and a short syllable. 
 
 Pentameter ancient poetry a verse of five feet. The two first may be 
 either Dactyls or Spondees the third is always a Spondee and the two last 
 Anapests. A pentameter verse subjoined to a hexameter constitutes what is 
 called an Elegiac. 
 
 Anapest three syllables, the first two short the last long, the reverse of the 
 Dactyl as 
 
 "Can a bo | som so gen | tie remain | unmov'd | when her Co | rydon sighs." 
 
 29 
 
 Dithyrambus. Dithyramb. Dithyrambic. From a Greek word a title 
 of Bacchus the signification of which not settled. 
 
 In ancient poetry a hymn or song in honor of Bacchus, full of transport and 
 poetical rage. Of this species of writing we have no remains. 
 
 A song of Bacchus in which the wildness of intoxication is infused. 
 Any poem in which ecstacy and wildness are expressed in kind. 
 
 Caesura. Caesural pause (from Ceesum, the cutting thing). A pause in 
 verse so introduced as to aid the recital and make melody divides a line into 
 equal or unequal parts. 
 
 30 
 
 Menu son or grandson of Brahma and first of created beings. 
 Sadi about 1000 A. D. 
 Indian epic poetry who was Veias ? 
 
 Milton 1608-1674. Contemporary of Ben Jonson 1574-1637. Dryden 1631- 
 1700. Bunyan 1628-1688. Followed by Alexander Pope 1688. 
 
 Burns, born 1757 died 1796 aged 39. 
 
 G. M. Curtis lecture. Delivered Clinton Hall 27 Feb. '56. Subject Charles 
 Dickens. Literature of Germany. English literature, Dr. Johnson latter half of 
 last century. Walter Scott. This [referring to passage in Curtis lecture~\ is stolen 
 from Carlyle. 
 
164 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 31 
 
 Looks like Forest.* 
 
 32 
 Some ideas on Hexameter's, Poetry and Prose, and on Milton.f 
 
 33 
 
 Abraham's visit to Egypt 2000 B. C. took his handmaid Hagar their son 
 Ishmael progenitor of!the Arabs. 
 
 Birth of Hercules 1205 B. C. 
 Death of Hercules 1155 B. C. 
 
 Alexandrian Library. 700,000 vols. commenced by Ptolemy Philadelphus 
 destroyed either by enraged Christians under Theodosius the Great 390 A. C. or by 
 Saracens under Omar 642 A. C. or by .......... 
 
 Job of the land of Uz, Arabia, 2300 B. C. 
 
 Menu (first). Moses 1600 B. C. Zoroaster 1400 B. C. Confucius 500 B. C. 
 Socrates 400 B. C. 
 
 Deluge 2348 B. C. English Bible, 2346 Septuagint, Josephus makes it 3146. 
 
 Menes ist, according to Manetho 5867 B. C. Osortasen 2088 B. C. Sesostris 
 or Remeses 2nd 1355 B. C. Solomon born 1032 B. C. Solomon's temple (? finished) 
 600 B. C. Herodotus 430 B. C. Alexander the Great 332 B. C. 
 
 34 
 
 Pythagoras was of beautiful, large, person, rich, dressed elegantly, practiced 
 athletics, exercised, bathed, used perfumes. 
 
 Homer about 907 years B. C. Pythagoras about 600 B. C. Trojan expedition 
 1136 years B. C. Troy taken 1127 B. C. The Iliad. 
 
 Phydias, the Sculptor, born, 488 B. C. Socrates from 469 B. C. to 399 B. C. 
 Plato ("broad") 429347. 
 
 35 
 
 Read the latest and best anatomical works. Talk with physicians. Study the 
 anatomical plates also casts and figures in the collections of design. 
 
 ? Poem of different Incidents characters men and women without giving 
 proper names as, There was .......... There was .......... 
 
 * Written over a newspaper print of Plato. 
 
 t Written on a leaf of "Christopher under Canvas " (which is pasted in scrap book). 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 165 
 
 37 
 
 Loveblows. Loveblossoms. Loveapples. Loveleaves. Loveclimbers. Love- 
 verdure. Love Vines. Lovebranches. Loveroot. Climber-blossom. Verdure, 
 branch, fruit and vine. Loveroot. Juice Climber. Silk crotch. Crotch bulb and 
 vine. Juicy, climbering mine. Bulb, silkthread crotch and .......... * 
 
 38 
 Pekan tree honey locust black walnut persimmon Cotton wood Mulberry 
 
 Chickadee large brown water-dog black snake garter snake vinegar plums 
 
 white blossoming dog-wood sweet potato plum-trees plum orchard cedar 
 chestnut locust birch cypress buttonwood. 
 
 39 
 
 Poems. A cluster (same style as of Sonnets like, as " Calamus Leaves,") of 
 poems, verses, thoughts etc. Embodying religious emotions. 
 
 40 
 
 Editorial for insertion same day with the article. " The New Inland America." 
 American Expansion and Settlement Inland. 
 
 Sweet flag. Sweet fern. Illuminated face. Clarified. Unpoluted. Flour corn. 
 Aromatic. Calamus. Sweet-gum, bulb, and melons with bulbs grateful to the hand. 
 
 42 
 
 ? Poem of the Husband. ? Poem of the Wife. ? Poem of the Husband and the 
 Wife. ? Poem of Marriage. 
 
 43 
 The Story of Dante's " Journey through Hell." 
 
 The three great narrative poets of Italy (great Italian poetic constellation). 
 Dante, born 1265. Pulci, born 1431. Biordo, 1434. Ariosto, born 1474. Tasso, 
 born i 544: 
 
 44 
 
 On a magazine leaf dated Nov. 1845 occurs these words : "The French are 
 perfect masters of the philosophy of manners, or as they term it ' Science du 
 monde.' ' Against this Whitman made this marginal note : Yes, perfect masters of 
 French manners. 
 
 *Cf. " Leaves of Grass," '55 Edition, p. 13, Current Edition p. 30. 
 
i66 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 45 
 
 Klopstock patriotic extremely and enthusiastically and very religious. 
 Lessing Jew, critical both flourished from 1750 onward before Goethe. 
 
 Later poetical successes since Goethe and Schiller, Tieck, Chamisso, Uhland, 
 Schultze, Ruchert, Heine, Hoffman (tall in person), Freiligrath (something like the 
 English Tennyson and the American Bayard Taylor). 
 
 46 
 
 Dutch (Holland-Belgium) Netherlands. Have a literature, poets, historians, 
 essayists, first-raters. 
 
 47 
 Waller born 1605 died 1687. Was a time-server, fawner, place-hunter. 
 
 48 
 
 Orphic hymns. Izeds of the Parsees. Elohim, Achadim and Adonim of the 
 Hebrews. Lahi of the Thibetans. In spiritualism. 
 
 49 
 
 O. Goldsmith Born about 1728 Died 1774 in his 46th year his tomb is now 
 unknown. 
 
 50 
 
 THE STATES. Prairie Psalms (Psalms, Praises). Prairie Spaces. Prairie 
 Babes. Prairie Daughters and ? Sons. ? Prairie Oaks. (Commence with a proto 
 with the word " Perennial " ). Babes of the States. Prairie airs. American chants 
 do chorus. 
 
 Names. The Biblical poets David, Isaiah, the Book of Job etc. Also the 
 New Testament writers. Merlin. Thomas the Rymer, scotch, lived during I3th 
 century, died 1299 supposed 80 years old. Hafiz. Sadi Persian about the year 
 1000 A. D. Eschylus. Sophocles. Euripides. Swedenborg. Rousseau. Mon 
 taigne. Cervantes. Richter. Jacob Boehme. 
 
 Hans Sachs 1494 to about 1570 by trade a shoemaker one of the Master- 
 singers in Nurenburg from 1494 onward some 80 years contemporary of Luther 
 wrote 6048 poems (208 of these tragedies and comedies). 
 
 Greatest Homer. Hesiod. Pindar. Tyrtseus. Virgil. Horace. Anacreon. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 167 
 
 Author of the Niebelungen Lied, composed as now extant about the i3th 
 century, but dating back with its written germs may be in the 6th century. Hafiz 
 Sadi. Valmiki author of Ramayana. Vyasa Mahabarata. Ossian. Bards of 
 Wales, Scotland, Ireland Druids. Chaucer. Ferdusi, and the primeval mytho- 
 logists of Hindoostan. 
 
 " The wayward mystic gloom of Calderon." 
 
 "The lurid fire of Dante." 
 
 "The auroral light of Tasso." 
 
 " The clear icy glitter of Racine." Carlyle. 
 
 Shakespeare. Milton. Racine. Corneille. Luther. Goethe. Schiller. Dante 
 see page 186 about 75 from the beginning of this book " Master of heaven [hell], 
 of purgatory and of paradise, owning them by right of genius he could bestow 
 situation upon friend or foe, in any of them." Tasso. Petrarch. Boccaccio, con 
 temporary of Chaucer Petrarch : u Next to Dante Boccaccio was the greatest 
 contributor to the formation of the Italian language. To the former it was indebted 
 for nerve and dignity, to the latter for elegance, wit and ease." 
 
 52 
 
 " Still lives the song tho' Regnar dies." John Sterling. 
 The word is become flesh. 
 
 53 
 
 Poem. As in visions of. at night 
 
 All sorts of fancies running through the head. 
 
 54 
 
 Spencer's single object through the vast amplitude and variety of his " Faerie 
 Queene " is " to fashion a gentleman of noble person in virtuous, brave and gentle 
 discipline." 
 
 55 
 
 And as here in this article, which is written to present truthfully and plainly one 
 side of the story indispensable to the examination, (now just seriously beginning) of 
 Walt Whitman's writings, may here perhaps not improperly be given in the brief, 
 spinal idea of Walt Whitman's poetry. 
 
 56 
 
 My two theses animal and spiritual became gradually fused in " Leaves of 
 Grass " runs through all the poems and gives color to the whole. 
 
i68 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 57 
 
 See Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume. 
 Hegel, German literature, prose writers of Germany. 
 
 58 
 
 yschylus 383 Vol. II. Grote Felton Vol. I. 207. Sophocles Grote 
 Felton Vol. I. 218 et seq. Hesiod Felton Vol. I. p. 134-5. Tyrtaeus Felton 
 Vol. I. p. 1 60. 
 
 59 
 ^Esthetics Art - Science. 
 
 Plato treated philosophy as an art Aristotle as a science. That is, Plato was 
 [made up of] intuitions, and was calm, full of enjoyment, admiration, beauty, the 
 pictorial was large, flowing, relied on the feelings, and made swift and imperious 
 conclusions, often he was a mystic, can only be understood from the same platform 
 with himself. 
 
 But Aristotle was rather intellect, purer from the rest, keen, convinced by proof 
 and argument, inquiring into all things from a devouring need of knowledge in itself. 
 Aristotle represents mediums between extremes ; also experimental philosophy. (It 
 seems to be the substratum on which are based modern literature, education, and very 
 largely modern character). 
 
 Then there is the Hebrew, rapt, spiritual. 
 
 60 
 
 For example, whisper privately in your ear the studies be 
 
 a rich investment if they to bring the hat instantly off the all 
 
 his learning and bend himself to feel and fully enjoy superb wonder of a 
 
 blade of grass growing up green and crispy from the ground. Enter into the 
 thoughts of the different theological faiths effuse all that the believing Egyptian 
 would all that the Greek all that the Hindoo, worshipping Brahma the Koboo 
 adoring his fetish stone or log the Presbyterian the Catholic with his crucifix and 
 saints the Turk with the Koran* 
 
 61 
 
 Lycurgus some short time after Solomon that is about 900 years before 
 Christ. 
 
 Demosthenes aged 27 533 years before Christ. 
 Cicero born 104 years before Christ. 
 
 * Cf. " Leaves of Grass," 55th edition, p. 48, and current edition, p. 69. A very early note, the paper torn and 
 almost falling to pieces from age. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 169 
 
 62 
 
 Indian Summer (in " Leaves for the Sick") a jaunt, a long, slow, easy ramble 
 
 (the idea of ease and of being firmly and friendlily supported) the idea of. 
 
 63 
 
 A string of Poems, (short etc.) embodying the amative love of woman the 
 same as Live Oak Leaves do the passion of friendship for man.* 
 
 64 
 
 Breathjuice Airscents Airsmells Airodor Loveodor Airdrifts Breath- 
 smoke Airjuice for you Airsough. 
 
 65 
 
 That growth and tendency of all modern theology, literature, social manners, 
 diet, ?, most to be dreaded, is the feebleness, inertia, the loss of power, the loss of 
 personality being diffused spread over a vast democratic level. Per contra. And 
 yet the most marked peculiarity of modern philosophy is toward the special subject 
 ive, the theory of individuality. 
 
 66 
 In a poem make the thought of " What will be the result of this years hence ? " 
 
 67 
 
 Poem of Poets (? now) in all lands. Describing all the different phases of the 
 expression of the poetical sentiment in all lands. 
 
 68 
 
 Poem ante-dating, anticipating, prophecying great results those that will be 
 likely to exist a hundred years hence. 
 
 69 
 
 The beef, wheat and lumber of Chicago, the copper of Wisconsin the region 
 of Green Bay. The railroads with their hundreds of lines and interlines, over the 
 prairies and up into the pineries and mines, the myriad rivers the great inland 
 lakes 
 
 *So "Calamus" it seems was to have been named "Live Oak Leaves." 
 
170 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 70 
 
 Poem of the black person. Infuse the sentiment of a sweeping, surrounding, 
 shielding protection of the blacks their passiveness their character of sudden 
 fits the abstracted fit (the three picturesque blacks in the men's cabin in the 
 Fulton ferry boat) their costumes dinner kettles describe them in the poem. 
 
 71 
 Poem of Wisconsin. 
 
 Poem of Missouri. 
 Poem of Texas. 
 Poem of Lake Superior. 
 Poem of the Rifle. 
 
 for Western Edition. 
 
 72 
 
 What name ? Religious Canticles. These perhaps ought to be the brain 
 the living spirit (elusive, indescribable, indefinite) of all the "Leaves of Grass." 
 
 Hymns of ecstasy and religious fervor. 
 
 73 
 
 Sea windrows. Ocean windrows. Beach. Beach windrows. Windrows 
 with sand and sea hay. Windrows sand and scales and beach hay. Sands 
 and drifts. Windrows and Beach hay. Under foot. Walking the Beach. 
 Drift underfoot. Underfoot Drift. Wash. Drift at your feet. 
 
 74 
 
 Sands and Drifts. (This collection is to be transposed so as to come before 
 *' Calumus Leaves." * 
 
 75 
 Poem of Soldiers. Sorrow, ? just a list (string ?) merely : 
 
 Sobs of the tempest, sobs of the voice. 
 
 Passage in every " Lecture" : To those few who understand get at the 
 heart of the theme. 
 
 * With 73 and 74 compare " Leaves of Grass," "60 edition, p, 195 et seq., and current edition, p. 202 et seq. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 171 
 
 76 
 
 Poems identifying the different branches of the Sciences, as for instance : 
 Poem of The Stars ? Astronomy ? Suns, planets and moons. Poem of 
 Geology not a good word ? the processes of the earth. 
 
 Poem of Chemistry. 
 
 Poem of Arithmetic mathematics calculation figures exactitude. 
 
 Poem of Musicians tenor soprano baritone basso. 
 
 77 
 
 Poem of first line : 
 
 Manhattan, go in ! 
 
 78 
 
 Poem of the Devil counteractive of the common idea of Satan. 
 
 79 
 Poem of Young Men. 
 
 The Sumatra young man, curious, handsome, manly, gentle, that came 
 aboard the " Flirt." 
 
 Young men in all cities. 
 
 80 
 Poem of fruits and flowers. 
 
 Poem of Forms, Sounds, Colors, Tastes, and Perfumes. Poem of Joy, 
 Laughter. 
 
 81 
 Of Death the Song of Immortality and Ensemble. 
 
 82 
 
 Mithras, the grand diety of ancient Persians, supposed to be the sun, or God 
 of fire, to whom they paid divine honors. 
 
 Oromasdes. Kaaba. The Bedowee. 
 
 Look at theological dictionary. 1855. Walt Whitman. 
 
172 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 83 
 
 Poem of a proud, daring, joyous, expression for Manhattan island ! 
 Bully for you, Manhattan ! 
 
 84 
 
 Man boy child infant youth young man old man ami brother 
 father 
 
 Woman wife mother daughter sister amie aunt 
 
 Head neck hair ears eyes iris of the eye fringe nose nostrils 
 mouth lips tongue teeth throat chin cheeks temples eyebrows eye 
 lashes forehead shoulder shoulder blade scapula ? elbow upper half arm ? 
 lower half wrist arm-pit arm sinews arm joints arm bones hand palm 
 thumb knuckles forefinger finger-points finger-nails finger-joints breast 
 breast-bone breast-muscle ribs waist breast-side back spine hips man- 
 nuts thighs man-balls man-root thigh-strength knee-pan ? upper half leg ? 
 lower half knee leg-fibres ankle instep foot-ball toes toe-joints skull- 
 frame brain (in folds) spine-hinges and the marrow hip-muscles rings of the 
 windpipe stomach-sac belly bowels sweet and clean lung-sponges liver 
 tympanum of the ear roof of the mouth motion of the tongue voice articulation 
 of words whispering shouting aloud tears weeping laughter love-looks 
 love-risings broad breast-front ample chest albumen arteries veins nerves 
 digestion pulse sweat food drink sexuality health heart heart-throbs 
 blood veins list of bones large and small skin freckles lungs breathing in and 
 out ankle- sockets thigh-sockets neck-slue poise of hips feet heel tendon 
 jaw jaw-binges sleep running walking sympathies heart-valves ? palate- 
 valves nipples womb teats.* 
 
 The American people, ever sturdy, ever instinctively just, by right of Teutonic 
 descent, have only to perceive any great wrong and the work of redemption is begun 
 from that hour. I heartily approve of the action of the California Vigilance Com 
 mittee, it is worthy the promptness and just anger of the Anglo-Saxon race. But 
 the whole of these States need one grand vigilance committee composed of the body 
 of the people and especially of the young men. f 
 
 If these two old ["traitors" written and scratched ouf\ here at the outset, 
 threaten disunion unless they or the like of them are put in the Presidency, what may 
 we expect if they were placed in the Presidency ? 
 
 * Used in " I sing the Body Electric " but not in '55 edition of that poem in '56 edition is used list then 
 probably made in 1855 after '55 edition printed. 
 
 t Refers to San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1851 or 1856 or perhaps both probably part of a newspaper 
 article written at that time. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 173 
 
 86 
 Poem of Architecture. ? The Carpenter's and Mason's Poem. 
 
 Mothers precede all. Put in a poem the sentiment of women (mothers) as 
 preceding all the rest. ? Let this lead the poem of women. 
 
 88 
 
 
 The most Jubilant, Triumphant, Poem. 
 
 This ought to express the sentiment of all great jubilant glee, of athletic sort, 
 for great deaths, devoirs, works in battle falling in battle in martyrdom for 
 great renunciations for love especially for the close of life (the close of a great, 
 true life) for friendship. 
 
 89 
 
 Poem (idea). " To struggle is not to suffer." 
 
 Bold and strong invocation of suffering to try how much one can stand. 
 
 Overture a long list of words the sentiment of suffering, oppression, despair, 
 anguish. 
 
 Collect (rapidly present) terrible scenes of suffering. 
 " Then man is a God." Then he walks over all. 
 
 90 
 
 Songs (with notes written for the voice) with dramatic activity as for instance 
 a song describing the cutting down of the tree by wood-cutters in the west the 
 pleasures of a wood-life etc. 
 
 Whole Poem. Poem of Insects. 
 
 Get from Mr. Arkhurst the names of all insects interweave a train of thought 
 suitable also trains of words. 
 
 92 
 Voices, Recitatives. 
 
 The rich mans just awakened soul. 
 
 As just awaken, can I enjoy these 
 
 Now rise and troop around me. 
 
174 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 93 
 An After-Thought or Two and After Songs. 
 
 94 
 
 Rock-fish viz., striped bass more abundant in Chesapeake Bay and its tribu 
 taries than any other [in] N. A. ascend in spring to deposit eggs. 
 
 95 
 
 The whip sting ray, often met about New York, round-shaped, largest caught 
 four feet across, tail five feet long, have been known to send the tail through a man's 
 hand, are dreaded by fisherman. (The olive-green fishes and the gray and brown 
 blotched fishes). Oysters ; clams ; crab ; eel ; mussel ; scallop ; horse-foot ; lobster ; 
 sting-ray ; fiddler ; Mossbanker (spotted) ; yellow mackerel ; squetang or weak fish is 
 blotched beautifully with white and silver and blue when first caught is of a rich tint 
 of purplish red soon fades move about in shoals generally swimming near the 
 surface they take the bait at a voracious snap seldom condescending to nibble 
 seems to love in summer a slight infusion of fresh water as it concentrates about the 
 mouths of rivers ; sea-pike length eight inches appears in August back dark 
 green, sides silvery white belly dull white fins subtransparent pricked with green ; 
 blue-fish ; white-fish ; black-fish, viz., tautog ; perch ; trout; brook trout ; salmon ; bass ; 
 king-fish ; porgee ; hake really king-fish so known in New York ; halibut ; shad ; 
 horse-mackerel ; dog-fish ; stickleback ( ? mullet) ; herring ; drumm ; flat-fish ; sun- 
 fish ; flying-fish otherwise pig-fish from a strong grunt or bark it makes when first 
 caught or hauled in said to be only a summer visitor is small sized good to eat ; 
 wind fish ; cat fish ; chub ; chub-sucker ; mud-fish ; shark ; sword-fish ; whale ; silver- 
 side translucent diminutive myriads of them the little things that dart up creeks 
 and along the edges of the sea. 
 
 Poem of Kisses the kiss of love of death of betrayal. 
 
 97 
 
 Sea-cabbage ; salt hay ; sea-rushes ; ooze sea-ooze ; gluten sea-gluten ; sea- 
 scum ; spawn ; surf ; beach ; salt-perfume ; mud ; sound of walking barefoot ankle 
 deep in the edge of the water by the sea. 
 
 98 
 Poem of the Sunlight Sunshine. Poem of Light. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 175 
 
 99 
 Poem of the Trainer. 
 
 100 
 
 The Poetry of other lands lies in the past what they have been. The Poetry 
 of America lies in the future what These States and their coming men and women 
 are certainly to be. 
 
 101 
 
 A Poem. Theme. Be happy. Going forth, seeing all the beautiful perfect 
 things. 
 
 1 02 
 
 Poem (bequeathing to others a charge) what poems are wanted including a 
 long list culled from the MS. scraps. 
 
 103 
 
 Poem of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois ? Poem of Ohio. ? Poem of 
 Kentucky. ? Poem of Illinois etc. etc. ? Poem of Massachusetts. Prairie Poem. 
 The Carpenter's Poem. Poem of Brooklyn. 
 
 104 
 
 Companions (viz. Poems, cantos, of my various companions). Each one being 
 celebrated in a verse by himself or herself. 
 
 105 
 Death of an Aged Lover. Our neighbor N. the landscape painter is just dead. 
 
 1 06 
 
 A talent for conversation Have you it ? If you have, you have a facile and 
 dangerous tenant in your soul's palace. 
 
 107 
 Poems of the Ancient Earth to the Ancient Heavens. 
 
 1 08 
 
 Poem of names ; bringing in all person's names, men and women, worthy to be 
 commemorated. 
 
176 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 109 
 
 American Boys. A Book. Containing the Main Things for the formation, 
 reading, reference, and study for An American Young Man for schools for study 
 for individual use one for the upper classes of every school in the United States. 
 
 no 
 
 The th Presidency. Voice of Walt Whitman to the mechanics and farmers of 
 These States, and to each American young man, north, south, east, and west. Who 
 are the people or nation ? For instance, first, workingmen, mechanics, farmers, 
 sailors etc. constitute more than five millions of the inhabitants of These States. 
 Merchants, lawyers, doctors, teachers, priests and the like, count up as high as five 
 hundred thousand. The owners of slaves number three 
 
 n i 
 Poem. ? The cruise. A cruise. 
 
 112 
 
 Poem of Fables. A long string, one after another, of Poetical Fables, as 
 Dreams, Spiritualisms, Imaginations. 
 
 Now this is the fable of a beautiful statue ; 
 A beautiful statue was lost but not destroyed. 
 
 Last piece still another death song. Death Song with Prophecies. 
 
 " Every accession of originality of thought," says the author of Statesmen of the 
 Commonwealth of England, "brings with it necessarily an accession of a certain 
 originality of style." 
 
 114 
 Signal bell. Warning bell. Ocean bell. Storm bell. Notes. 
 
 A Cluster of Poems (in the same way as " Calamus Leaves ") expressing the 
 idea and sentiment of Happiness, Ecstatic Life (or moods), Serene Calm, Infantum, 
 Juvenatum, Maturity (a young man's moods), middle age (strong, well-fibred, 
 bearded, athletic, full of love, full of pride and joy), old age (natural happiness, Love, 
 Friendship). 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 177 
 
 116 
 
 Living Pictures. Nowhere in the known world can so many and such beautiful 
 living Pictures be seen as in the United States. 
 
 America. Here different from any other country in the world all forms of 
 practical labor are recognized as honorable. The man who tends the President's 
 horses not one whit less a man than the President. The healthy fine-formed girl 
 who waits upon the wealthy lady not less than the wealthy lady. He who carries 
 bricks and mortar to the mason not less than the mason. The mason who lays the 
 bricks not one tittle less than the builder who employs him. The architect and 
 builder of the home no less than. 
 
 117 
 
 Song of the Songs of Democracy of the Future. The song of women the 
 song of young men the song of life, here not elsewhere the song 
 
 118 
 
 In Lectures on Democracy. A course of three (or five) comprehending all my 
 subjects under the title. 
 
 Come down strong on the literary, artistic, theologic and philanthrophic coteries 
 of These States that they do not at all recognize the one grand over-arching fact, 
 these swift-striding, resistless, all conquering, en masse 
 
 Boldly assume that all the usual priests etc. are infidels, and the 
 
 are Faithful Believers. 
 
 119 
 
 Poem of Pictures. Each verse presenting a picture of some characteristic scene, 
 event, group or personage old or new, other countries or our own country. Picture 
 of one of the Greek games wrestling, or the chariot-race, or running. Spanish 
 bull fight. 
 
 1 20 
 
 The Corruption. I will confess to you I do not so much alarm myself though 
 
 very painful and full of dismay at the corruption in all public life. It is but 
 
 an outlet and expression on the surface of something far deeper namely in the 
 blood. 
 
 121 
 
 Poemet. Leaf. Chant. Song. Poem. Psalm. Hymn. Warble. Carol. 
 Cavatina. Ballad. Thought. Caprices. Fantasia. Capricea. Sonnet-Trio. 
 Sonnet-Quinto. Sonnet-Duo. Melange. Canticles. Songlet. 
 
178 Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 
 
 122 
 
 Appendage. Appendant. Appendix. Supplement ary. Annex ed. 
 Appendix-Leaves. Postscript-Leaves. Added-Leaves. Supplement-Leaves. 
 Sur- Leaves, (sur, from " supra" ? " super" over and above something added, 
 beyond). Plus-Leaves. Leaves-Over-Plus. Surplus Leaves. Leaves Super- 
 venio. Leaves Supervened. 
 
 123 
 
 Breast Sorrel. Breast Pinks. Breast Currants. Breast Apples. Calamus 
 Roots. 
 
 124 
 
 Airscud. Airdrift. Loveaxles. Lovepivot. Sleepripples. Loveripples. 
 Lovejet. Loveache. Lovestring. Glued with Love. Tiller of Love. 
 
 Native Flames. Moments of Fire. Drops of my Blood. Flames of Con 
 fession. Drops of Evil. Flames of Evil. Verses of Evil. 
 
 126 
 It was not the old custom (viz.: To abandon the Chief). 
 
 127 
 
 Breath and Spray. Breath and Drift. Drift Leaves. Ripples and Drift. 
 Sands and Drift. Eddies and Drift. Tears and Pulses and Breath. Leaves- 
 Droppings. Rain-Drops and Snow. Rain- Drops. Drops of Rain. Falling 
 Snow. Drops of Snow. 
 
 128 
 Poem as in a rapt and prophetic vision intimating the Future of America. 
 
 129 
 " The Scout.'' A good name for a poem, a magazine, a newspaper. 
 
 130 
 
 Lectures on the Future, as for instance : 
 The America of the Future. 
 The Church of the Future. 
 
Shorter Notes, Isolated Words, Etc. 179 
 
 Lectures. Ego-style. First-person-style. Style of composition an animated 
 go-style " I do not think " " I perceive '' or something involving self-esteem, 
 decision, authority as opposed to the current third-person style, essayism, didactic, 
 removed from animation, stating general truths in a didactic, well-smoothed ..... 
 
 132 
 
 Secrets Secreta. ? Theme for an immense poem, collecting in running list all 
 the things done in secret. 
 
 Poem, vocabularium. ? Names, terms, phrases, glossary, list. 
 
 Poem of Language. How curious. The immense variety of languages. 
 The points where they differ are not near as remarkable as where they resemble. 
 The simple sounds. Music. 
 
 134 
 
 See to Roman History. I discover that I need a thorough posting up in 
 what Rome and the Romans were. 
 
 135 
 
 Poem of the Drum. Cannot a poem be written that shall be alive with the 
 stirring and beating of the drum ? Calling people up ? A reveille to ? ? 
 
 136 
 
 First to me comes the People, and their typical shape and attitudes then 
 the divine minor, Literature. 
 
 '37 
 
 Dr. Bucke's travels, work and experiences 30 to 36 years ago (1854 onward) 
 in a letter from him to an uncle in England. 
 
 138 
 
 Carols Closing Sixty -Nine. Annex- Leaves to the preceding. Halcyon Days. 
 Carols at Candle-Light and other pieces, 1884-8. Sands on the Shores of Seventy. 
 Annex- Leaves to the preceding. Carols at entering Seventy. Carols at Candle- 
 Light.* 
 
 139 
 Cantaloupe. Muskmelon. Cantabile. Cacique City. 
 
 * Titles considered for " November Boughs." 
 
PART V. 
 
 NOTES ON ENGLISH HISTORY.* 
 
 Old theory started or revived by Geoffrey ap Arthur (i2th century) : That the 
 English part of the islands was " first" populated by a colony of the Trojans, guided, 
 looo B. C, by Brutus (whence Britains) a grandson of the great /Eneus, more than 
 2776 B. A., 1000 years before the Christian era. 
 
 The Romans themselves pretended to be of Trojan descent as ^Eneid. 
 Gogmagog a giant before the Trojans Trojans came 1000 B. C. 
 Albion, a giant also son of Neptune. 
 
 Samothea (from Samothes, a King of England) a name of Britain after the 
 Trojans. 
 
 The Triads, Welsh poetical histories, supposed to be written time of Edward I. 
 
 One theory is that (the islands being inhabited by Picts) they were visited and 
 settled by Phoenicians and that they were the same as the Celts also that the 
 Picts, or Caledonians, were the ancient Cimbri. 
 
 Positively. The numerous inhabitants found in Samothea at the appearance of 
 the Romans 50 years before Christ were of Celtic origin. (The British coast is 
 visible from France). 
 
 A political friendliness existed then (50 B. C.) between Gallia and Samothea or 
 Albion. 
 
 The names of the towns are Anglo-Saxon but the hills, rivers, woods etc. are 
 Celtic. 
 
 Every thing reliable, of the greatest antiquity in Albion is Celtic. 
 
 Both Celts and Goths are branches of the same paternal stem both are 
 Caucasian or Japhetic. 
 
 One author (Whitaker 1 773) says Britain means a separated people he supposes 
 Britain and France to have been at one time united by land. 
 
 Ireland, very anciently, with a highly civilized and renowned people. 
 
 * A series of notes on English history made by Whitman about 1855-6 must have been made '55 or immedi 
 ately after, because they are written on the back of unused copies of the fly-title of the 1855 " Leaves of Grass," 
 which was printed quite early in that year. 
 
182 Notes on English History. 
 
 Ireland had the name of Scotia in the yth and 8th centuries and was eminent in 
 scholarship and civilization. 
 
 Erin, Celtic name of Ireland Hibernia another form. 
 
 Some writers consider the Celts identical with the Persians Mr. O'Brien makes 
 Ireland a colony of Persia, and the Irish tongue a Persian dialect. 
 
 Positive the Irish tongue is Celtic. 
 
 Theory that the Phoenicians were a branch of Persians. 
 
 Positive from Spain the progenitors of the present population came to Ireland 
 whoever they were. 
 
 Ancient name of Scotland Caledonia. 
 
 " The Scots," the name of the most noted of the Irish tribes. 
 
 Picts they were not Celts but Teutons or Goths, north of Britain, Roman time, 
 painted or tattoo'd people. Had a kingdom and king till the middle of the 9th 
 century along the east coast of Scotland. 
 
 Ossians poems 1762 James Macpherson. 
 
 Positive Scottish Highlanders descend from Irish settlers there middle 3rd 
 century. 
 
 Erse, (Scottish dialect) Irish. 
 
 Celts classical derivation from Keles (Kelets) a horse or Kello, to move about. 
 
 Down to nth or i2th century by Scots was meant the Irish. 
 
 Quite positively, the "original" Scots of Scotland were Irish. 
 
 Scot-Scythian a scattered or wandering people. 
 
 Supposed (quite plausibly) that the (Irish original) Scots were really a tribe of 
 Scythians, a people from Germany, from the north of Europe, therefore of Teutonic 
 blood and language. If this how can they be Celts ? 
 
 Albin or Albion, an ancient name of the island of Great Britain, and that by 
 which it was first known to the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 lerne (Erin, Herne, Hibernia) the ancientest name of Ireland. 
 
 Welsh, Wales, consider themselves the hereditary representatives of the natives 
 of Albion before the arrival of the Saxons and even before the Romans. 
 
 Cymry or Cymri one of the Welsh names. 
 
 Scythia, the north of modern Germany, and Denmark a peninsular of 
 Jutland etc. 
 
 Arthur the chivalrous Welsh (he is the one of the Round Table). 
 
 Pictorial History thinks the Welsh (Cymry) are the visible representatives of the 
 Cymri of antiquity. 
 
 Migrations. That of the Celts, thirty-four hundred years before the American 
 era (1600 B. C.) from Western Asia. That of the Goths twenty-six hundred years 
 
Notes on English History. 183 
 
 before the American era from north-western Asia. That of the Slavic races some 
 centuries posterior to the Gothic migration. 
 
 Tartars, or Tatars, middle of Asia, toward the Pacific Mongol Tatars. 
 
 Phoenician alphabet is the prototype of all these of modern times (its after 
 times). 
 
 55 B. C. Julius Caesar having invaded and conquered Gaul (the present France, 
 Belgium etc.) determined to cross to England. He did so, conquered them. They 
 had helped the Gauls against Caesar. 
 
 Nineteen hundred years ago Albion was a sort of " holy land," a great centre 
 and stronghold of the Druids. 
 
 Caesar landed on the coast of Dover, was met, fought, succeeded. 
 
 Cassivellanus opponent of Caesar general of the British contributions brave 
 patriotic. 
 
 Previous to and at the time of the Roman invasion the life, huts, villages, ways 
 of Albic natives were very much like those of the Ceylonese,* thatched houses, 
 some conical etc. Still, they seem to have made a pretty good fight had war 
 chariots were certainly civilized enough to hold their own. 
 
 War chariots -these seem to have been great affairs terrible dreaded. They 
 were peculiar to the Britons some call this a link connecting them with Persia, an 
 old place of such chariots. 
 
 Horses. The ancient Britons had horses a small tough breed. 
 
 Throwing off the clothing when going to fight. All the Celts seem to have had 
 a way of throwing off the clothing when going to fight* Goths too I think. 
 
 War Weapons War British axes, stones, lances, spears, clubs, cutlasses, 
 heavy pointless swords the metal used is nearly all copper hardened with tin. 
 
 Roman javelin War Roman Roman javelin (pilum) six feet long, terminating 
 by a strong triangular point of steel, eighteen inches long. 
 
 Helmet etc. Open helmet, lofty crest breast plate or coat of mail greaves 
 (plates bent or grooved to the shape of the legs) strong shield, carried on the left arm 
 this shield or buckler, four feet high and two and a-half feet wide, framed with light 
 but firm wood, covered with bull's hide and strongly guarded with knobs of iron or 
 bronze. 
 
 Warlike facts of Romans pages 34 and 35 Pict. Hist. Eng. 
 
 For 100 years after the departure of Caesar Britain was left uninvaded by any 
 foreign soldiery internally there were dissensions and wars among the tribes and 
 kings. 
 
 Caesar did not establish government. Ninety-seven years after Caesar's departure 
 the Emperor Claudius determined to subjugate and establish government in Britain 
 making it a Roman province. 
 
 * I. e., of course, of the Ceylonese in the igth century. 
 
184 Notes on English History. 
 
 A. D. 43 Britons had a great defeat on the banks of the Severn. 
 Caractacus British hero of the second Roman invasion. 
 
 Claudius himself came to the assistance of his generals to subjugate Britain, 
 returned to Rome after six months absence and was given a triumph. 
 
 Massilia viz., Marseilles. 
 
 Propraetor proprietor. Ostorius, the Roman propraetor, had many fights 
 was a cautious and shrewd man. 
 
 Silures, inhabitants of South Wales. 
 (Amid all these things Caractacus). 
 
 The final battle. Caractacus gathered his forces, (in North Wales ?) in Shrop 
 shire and here was fought the final battle with Ostorius. 
 
 Caractacus was taken prisoner soon after, carried to Rome, preserved an 
 undaunted demeanor his final destiny is unknown. 
 
 Dauntlessness of Britons. For twenty years the Britons still resisted, harassing 
 the Romans. Subjugated at length and Roman rule established. 
 
 Anglesey (ancient name Mona) " groves of Mona." 
 
 Romans wished to destroy the Druidical institutions the Druids had taken 
 refuge in Anglesey island the battle fierceness of the religious excitement. 
 
 Romans victorious destroying the Druids. 
 
 Boadicea widow of the king of a British tribe the Iceni her wrongs dignity 
 energy of character became the head of a combination against the Roman 
 invaders. 
 
 Native British rising under Boadicea. The Romans were forced to retreat 
 from London the British entered it and slaughtered and ravaged, burnt etc. A 
 pitched battle was forthcoming. Boadicea mounted on a chariot, her long yellow 
 hair loose, her two daughters with [her] drove through the British ranks and 
 harangued. British were defeated with great loss. Boadicea poisoned herself. 
 
 Yet still the British continued more or less rebellious. 
 
 Cnaeus Julius Agricola now appeared in Roman command. (Tacitus was his 
 son-in-law). He was a great ruler (perhaps thanks to Tacitus). 
 
 Agricola endeavored to improve the British and tame them, governing them 
 wisely. 
 
 A. D. 83 Agricola makes conquest of most parts of the island goes to 
 Scotland. 
 
 Galgacus the Scotch leader at this time Scotch defeated. 
 
 A. D. 1 20 Hadrian, the emperor, visits Britain. 138 Antoninus Pius. 183 
 Commodus emperor. 207 Emperor Severus, old, landed in Britain (an iron- 
 hearted and iron-framed old man). 
 
Notes on English History. 185 
 
 Caracalla, son of Severus, departs from Britain. After that a 70 years blank in 
 British history. 
 
 Caracalla made the people of the provinces free citizens of the Roman empire. 
 70 years quiet. 
 
 A. D. 288 Roman reign of Diocletian and Maximian the Scandinavian and 
 Saxon pirates begin to ravage the coasts of Britain and Gaul. " Old pirates of the 
 Baltic." 
 
 Carausius was appointed admiral to destroy the pirates was charged with 
 collusion Roman message to put him to death he set up for himself gathered the 
 British about him. The joint Emperors of Rome were fain to purchase peace by 
 conceding him the Government of Britain and of the adjoining coast of Gaul with 
 the title of Emperor. 
 
 Under Carausius Britain figures first as a naval power. 
 
 297 Carausius was murdered by Allectus, who succeeded him, and reigned as 
 Emperor three years. 
 
 Saxons appear now to be more or less at home in England. 
 
 A. D. 296 On the resignation of the Roman Emperors Britain fell by succes 
 sion to Constantius Chlorus. 306 He died at York (Eboracum). 
 
 Constantine (afterwards called The Great) then began his reign at York. 
 Now Britain seems to have enjoyed tranquility till 337. 
 
 Roman Government removed from Rome to Constantinople. Roman power 
 decaying. 
 
 Franks, Saxons, Picts, Scots etc. harass England. Romans had various luck 
 in repelling these thieves and pirates. 
 
 London, also named Augusta. 
 
 A. D. 382 Maximus set up to be independent Emperor in Britain, had varied 
 success, was at last defeated and put to death by Theodosius The Great (This 
 monarch reunited the east and west empires). 
 
 395 Theodosius died. He divided by his will the empire he had previously 
 united. All this while the enemies harassed England. 
 
 403 The Roman decadence seem to have been quite complete. No unanimity, 
 no head, in Britain. 
 
 403 Alaric the Goth ravaging Italy on his way to Rome. 
 
 Now the standing soldiery (Romans and others I suppose) in Britain chose one, 
 two, three Emperors two deposing and putting to death directly the third " Con 
 stantine " had a longer time but fell at last. 
 
 420 Under Honorius, after many futile attempts, the Roman rule over Britain 
 finally fell the governors etc. departed after not quite 300 years. 
 
i86 Notes on English History. 
 
 After 420 dark for the historian in Britain for some years. It appears that 
 the municipal governments of cities etc. were overthrown by military chieftains 
 of Roman character principal \y. 
 
 "Kings and kinglets of the earth" now many, many kingliugs " the 
 miserable weakness of Britain on the breaking up of the Roman government" 
 causes " mad disunion " "horrid crisis." 
 
 Coracles (small British boats, for one person) shoals of these. 
 
 Thousands of Roman citizens no doubt remained after the departure of the 
 government. 
 
 4 J i Petition of the Britons to ^Stius, thrice consul, "The barbarians 
 chase us into the sea the sea throws us back upon the barbarians," (no defence 
 rendered by the Romans). 
 
 Religious dissensions also. The Britons consumed their time in sectarian 
 disputes. 
 
 449 Vortigern, head of the British as against the Roman party, invites the 
 "hardy freebooters of the Baltic" the Saxons. 
 
 Hengist and Horsa now, (perhaps the standards). It appears to have been 
 on the deck of their marauding vessels the Saxons received the invitation. 
 
 Druidism seems to have originated in Britain Anglesey (Mona) was the 
 "holy land." The Druids were judges, arbitrators etc. The}' 1 had more or less 
 learning wrote in Greek ? etc. 
 
 Doctrine of Metempsychosis the spirit at death passes into some other body. 
 Wicker-work frames, filled with living persons, fired, sacrificed to the gods. 
 
 Deities Mercury, Teutates, Taut, Thoth, Mars, Apollo, Bel, Jupiter (Jove) 
 Minerva. Mercury is probably the same as Bhuda, also Woden. 
 
 Gauls supposed themselves descended from Pluto. 
 
 They reckoned time b}' nights, not days. 
 
 Drui (Greek, an oak, a tree) Dryades, wood deities. 
 
 (Mercury figures more largely as a leading deity under various names, 
 through all ancient religions, than I supposed). 
 
 " Cromlech " the Druidical sacrificial stone literally, the stone to bow at 
 or worship at. 
 
 New year commenced loth March. 
 
 Three orders, the Druids, Vates and Bards. The Bards sung the brave 
 deeds of illustrious men sometimes composed entreaties, invectives etc. and 
 chanted them to the accompaniment of an instrument resembling the Greek lyre. 
 
 ' Vates" is frequently used for "poet" The British Vates were priests and 
 physiologists. 
 
 Faidh (modern Irish " Prophet.'') 
 
Notes on English History. 187 
 
 Druids lived together in communities or brotherhoods. 
 Kings were sometimes Druids. 
 
 (Tiberius or Claudius issued decrees Claudius 100 A. D., for the extinction 
 of Druidism). 
 
 Three Druidical precepts to worship the gods, to do no evil, and to behave 
 courageously. 
 
 Ancientest Druidical worship appears to have been of the sun and other 
 heavenly luminaries and of fire. Water was also worshipped. The serpent was 
 an emblem of use among them also. 
 
 Pythagoras is supposed to have introduced into the Greek metaphysics the 
 idea of the metempsychosis. 
 
 Probably both the Druids and Pythagoras drew their philosophy, numbers etc. 
 etc. from the same source (from the Indus or the Nile ? ). An oriental origin to all. 
 
 The Germans, Goths etc. had no Druids. 
 
 Middle of the 5th century Druidism in Ireland fell under the attacks of 
 St. Patrick. 
 
 Rich pagan temples were during the Roman occupancy built in all the cities 
 and large neighborhoods of Britain, to the deities. 
 
 A. D. 209 " Even those places in Britain hitherto inaccessible to the Roman 
 arms, have been subdued by the gospel of Christ." Tertullian. 
 
 286 St. Alban, the first British Christian martyr, perished (at this time 
 Christianity had numerous followers in Britain). 
 
 314 Christian bishops go from Britain to the great church councils. 
 Ariauism was greatly in Britain. 
 
 Pelagius, a British monk of the 5th century, who denied original sin, and 
 maintained the merit cf good works. 
 
 Before the Roman conquest Britain must have been known to the Phoenicians 
 or Tyrians. It was divided into many tribes or nations. On the coast were 
 comparatively new-comers, " Belgians" superior, having their own appearance, 
 laws etc. etc. 
 
 " Brigautes'' were the leading tribe. 
 
 Females ruled indifferently with men, in the supreme power. 
 
 Comprehensiveness of the education of a Roman, for leading public office, or 
 eligibility to it instances of the same man being juris consult, general, public 
 professor of law, pontifex maximus, consul, dictator, (war, politics, metaphysics, 
 sciences, actual knowledge of the present of the earth). Courage, sternness, a 
 hardened tough body a ready tongue. 
 
 Defence of Rome and Romans, pp. 79 and 80, Vol. I. Pict Hist. 
 
i88 Notes on English History. 
 
 Rome pursued a generous policy toward subjugated nations confirmed their 
 municipia, who were charged with their own affairs, viz., religion, administration 
 of municipal revenues, police, certain judicial function. Some were advanced to the 
 full dignity of the Freedom of Roman citizens. 
 
 In Britain, under the Romans, there were magnificent public buildings, theatres, 
 baths, palaces, roads, populous and orderly cities, laws, trades, manufactures, fine 
 wares, travel etc. etc. 
 
 Architecture as cultivated by the ancients, spoke not merely to the eye it spoke 
 far more to the mind. 
 
 Pandect, a treatise that comprehends the whole of any science (the digest of the 
 laws of Justinian) Justinian A. 0.527-565. 
 
 Tarshish (probably a general appellation for the countries lying beyond the 
 Pillars of Hercules). 
 
 Ezekiel (Bible) six centuries before Christ. 
 
 Tin used by Phoenicians (supposed from Britain) 1 500 B. C. 
 
 Bronze Copper and tin. 
 
 Brass Copper and zinc. 
 
 Himilco, the Carthegenian navigator, 1000 B. C. Supposed to have voyaged 
 to Britain. 
 
 Palmyra, (Tadmor of the desert). Supposed to have been founded by Solomon 
 1000 B. C. 
 
 Coracle. Small boat, formed of ozier twigs, covered with hide. 
 
 Lead. Britain has always produced more lead than all the rest of Europe. 
 
 Linen. The manufacture of cloth, (linen) etc. colored various hues, was pre 
 valent in Britain as in Gaul, previous to the Romans. 
 
 (The shelfish" mussel " not muscle"). 
 
 Ships. Vessels " ships" (doubtless small and rude enough) carried on commerce 
 in Britain from shore to shore, at the Roman times. 
 
 Money. They had money, in rings, or three-quarter rings. 
 
 Weights. It is quite settled that our modern " Troy Weight" and others, are 
 of antiquity long before any reliable dates of Greece, Rome, or any other ancient 
 history. 
 
 Tax money paid to Romans by the inhabitant of Britain " poll money," " corn 
 money," " sheep money" etc. 
 
 Justinian A. D. 527-565. 
 
 Vineyards existed in old Britain. 
 
 Agriculture was encouraged and improved in Britain by the Romans. 
 
 Gael Gaul the Scottish Highlanders. 
 
Notes on English History. 189 
 
 The Druids " were not merely their priests, but their lawyers, their physicians, 
 their teachers of youth, their moral and natural philosophers, their astronomers, 
 mathematicians, architects, poets, and their historians." 
 
 They did not share their knowledge with the people (do any priests ?) their 
 power depended on its exclusiveness. 
 
 Chief Druid obtained his place by election. 
 
 Reading and Writing The Druids had used a written language Greek 
 letters, it is supposed though not the Greek language. 
 
 Eloquence was certainly sedulously cultivated by the Britons, Irish, Gauls 
 indeed by the Celts generally. 
 
 " Displays of oratory in all their public proceedings. Harangues by Galgacus, 
 Boadicea and other chiefs." 
 
 Druids of Mona, with frenzied appeals and invocations. 
 
 The common mother tongue of Englishmen and Americans, uniting the two 
 nations by " a tie lighter than air yet stronger than iron " (Burke). 
 
 The Gauls represented their Hercules Ogmius (God of Eloquence) as an old 
 man surrounded by a great number of people, attached to him in willing subjection 
 by slender chains reaching from his tongue to their ears. 
 
 " Poetry and its then inseparable accompaniment, music, were doubtless also 
 cultivated by the British and Gallic Druids " or that part of them called the Bards. 
 " Hymners" Strabo calls them. 
 
 Mistleto and Vervain were the vegetables venerated and used in medicaments 
 as talismans etc. 
 
 Druidical religion full of minute formalities are modern religions any different ? 
 I see where Druids walked the groves of Anglesey I see in their hands the 
 mistletoe and Vervain* 
 
 O'Brien's " Round Towers of Ireland " assigns the creation thereof to an anterior 
 order of priests, of the Buddhist faith, who far exceeded the Druids in astronomy 
 and learning. 
 
 Astronomy was a branch [of learning] of much importance among the Druids 
 for festivals etc. certain times of the moon, constellations etc. being important. 
 
 "The national religion has been in almost all cases, the principal cement, of the 
 national civilization." 
 
 (Don't be too severe on old religious delusions or modern ones either.) 
 
 When the Romans ruled, the Britons adopted largely the Latin language and 
 applied the youth to Latin literature and art. 
 
 * This line first written : " I see the Druids in the groves of Anglesey I see the sprigs of mistletoe and 
 vervain." Then changed to above. As first used in 1856 edition it stands : "I see where Druids walked the groves 
 of Mona, I see the mistletoe and vervain." The line was not changed after that except to convert " walked " into 
 "walk'd." 
 
190 Notes on English History. 
 
 Schools (Roman) were established in all British towns. 
 Juvenal. End of ist and beginning of 2Oth century. 
 
 Thule (?) was the most northern land known to the ancients (Romans and 
 Greeks). 
 
 Manners and customs. 
 
 Aboriginal Britons before Cresar houses contained rude, plain furniture 
 tables stools beds etc. 
 
 Cannibalism is attributed to them. 
 
 Personal appearance. Large limbs, and great muscular strength. 
 
 Warlike British weapons page 121, Vol. I., Pict. Hist. 
 
 Marriage " matrimonial clubs" wives in common. Women were honored 
 and respected. 
 
 Not savage neither civilized. But partaking in parts of both, was the condition 
 (summed up) of the aboriginal Britons, before Caesar. They probably had wide 
 diversities of condition, both from individual to individual, and from tribe to tribe. 
 
 From the arrival [of the] Saxons 449 A. D. to that of the Normans 1066 A. D. 
 
 Saxon some say from Seax, the short Baltic sword others say from (and 
 this most likely) Sakai-suna, or descendents of the Sakai, or Sacae, a tribe of 
 Scythians, who were making their way toward Europe as early as the age of Cyrus 
 
 " Saxons " name applied to different tribes. They were all of the pure 
 Teutonic or Gothic blood. All their kings claimed descent from Woden or Odin. 
 
 Vortigern, smitten with Romena, daughter of Hengist, at a feast " Dear King 
 your health " (Wassail). 
 
 Saxons settled plentifully chastised the northern Scots and Picts soon quarrels 
 arose Britons revolted from any obedience to them Britons and Romish 
 remnants made common cause. 
 
 The two centuries after the Saxons' arrival are dark and perplexing historically. 
 Feast of Reconciliation Saxons " unsheath your swords " Britons slain. 
 Eric son of Hengist, King of Kent. 
 
 A. D. 477 Ella the Saxon, with his three sons, and a large force landed in 
 Sussex fought succeeded King of " the South Saxons." 
 
 Cerdric (Wessex) King of West Saxons. 
 
 527 Ercenwine [?], landing, succeeding, north of the Thames, founded Essex 
 King of the " East Saxons." 
 
 Suffolk from South folk. 
 Norfolk from North folk. 
 
 470 Gaul was overrun by the Visigoths. 12,000 British left Cornwall to 
 take part in this war (!). 
 
Notes on English History. 191 
 
 Heptarchy the seven separate and independent States or Kingdoms of the 
 Anglo-Saxons. Saxons mixed interpenetratingly with the British, the Roman 
 residuum, and all " Rustics." 
 
 A. D. 647 The Resistants the people of Strathclyde and Cumbria their 
 disposition fierce and warlike retreated fought courageously defeat followed them 
 submitted (A. D. 647) to the Anglo-Saxons " who by this time may be called the 
 English." " In this rapid sketch Saxon conquest which seems in amount to have 
 occupied nearly 200 years." 
 
 " Arthur" Pict. Hist, thinks a mythical personage. He seems to have been an 
 obstinate and bold resistant of the Saxons. 
 
 11 Bretwalda" Lord Paramount " Wielder " of Brit, (the seven States Saxon). 
 510 Ella, Sussex (South Saxons). 
 
 568 Calwin, King of Wessex, stepped into the Sussex dignity too. 
 Ethelbert, fourth King of Kent. 
 
 " For long before the Anglo Saxons subdued the Britons they made fierce war 
 upon one another." 
 
 593 Ethelbert became Bretwalda. 
 
 Christianity Ethelbert converted, with all his Court, by Augustine and forty 
 Italian monks, sent into Britain by Gregory the Great. He had espoused a Christian 
 wife before, (which accounts for it). 
 
 Ethelbert's close connection with the Christians and civilized nations of the 
 continent, and his frequent having to do with churchmen proved beneficial to 
 England. 
 
 Laws. In the code of laws Ethelbert published before his death indebted to 
 the suggestions and science of foreigners although the code has more the spirit of 
 the old German lawgivers, than of Justinian and the Roman juris consults. This 
 code was not octroyed as from an absolute sovereign, (a quality to which none of the 
 Saxon princes ever attained) but was enacted by Ethelbert with the consent of the 
 States formed the first code of written laws promulgated by any of the northern 
 conquerors. 
 
 616 Death of Ethelbert, who seems to have been a thoughtful and superior 
 prince. 
 
 616 Eadbald, son of Ethelbert, enamored of his stepmother, broke with the 
 Christians and returned to the old Teutonic idolatry. The whole Kentish people 
 set up again the rude Scandinavian altars. 
 
 The priest Laurentius persuaded Eadbald to come back again to Christianity, 
 and the people, en masse, obsequiously followed. 
 
 617 Bretwalda passed to Redwald, the Angle (the first three Bretvvaldas had 
 been Jutes). Redwald was a " kind of Christian." 
 
192 Notes on English History. 
 
 621 Edwin the fifth Bretwalda Northumbrian converted fully his people 
 followed. In writing to him (625) the Pope styles Edwin " Rex Anglorum " King 
 of the Angles. 
 
 633 Penda the Saxon prince of Mercia rebelled. 
 
PART VI. 
 
 LIST OF CERTAIN MAGAZINE AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES STUDIED AND PRESERVED BY 
 
 WALT WHITMAN AND FOUND IN His SCRAPBOOKS AND 
 
 AMONG His PAPERS. 
 
 1. An account of Buffon. 
 
 2. A long article on " French Literature " under date 4 May, '57. 
 
 3. A piece on " Driden and the poet John Clare" dated by W. April, '57. 
 
 4. Then follows a long magazine article dated Nov., '45, on, " The French 
 Moralists La Bruyere, Montaigne, Nicole." It has been carefully read and is 
 profusely scored and annotated on the margin. 
 
 5. Next we have what seems to be a piece of a paper covered book. It 
 consists of an article on " Civilization " by Guizot translated from his Hist. Gen. de 
 la Civilization en Europe. 
 
 6. Then quite a long newspaper piece, " The Old Regime and the Revolu 
 tion." Dated by W. Oct., '56. He writes at its head, " Deserves re-reading." 
 
 7. Now a long magazine article dated Feb., '49, on, " The Poetry of Sacred 
 and Legendary Art." It has been carefully read and is a good deal scored and other 
 wise marked. 
 
 8. A newspaper piece on " Lewes' life of Goethe." 
 
 9. Another on " Goethe in Old Age." 
 
 10. A newspaper piece on " Records of Mortality." 
 
 1 1. Another on " James Gates Percival." 
 
 12. Next one on " Death and Burial of Edgar A. Poe." 
 
 13. Then follows a long magazine article, dated Dec. '46, on Longfellow's 
 " Poets and Poetry of Europe" has been read carefully, is freely scored and 
 annotated on margin. 
 
 14. And another magazine article, Oct., '45, on " Scotch School of Philosophy 
 and Criticism," the writer speaks of critics "resting on a negative basis, much more 
 industrious to prevent the tenets of others than even to propogate their own " on 
 which W. has marginal note : "As Voltaire for instance, of whom so vast a portion 
 of present writers are followers often without knowing it themselves." 
 
194 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 15. At end of this comes a newspaper piece on " Cato the Younger." 
 
 16. A newspaper piece on "Cowper," at head of which W. has written, 
 " Cowper 1731 1800 an euuuyeed poet." 
 
 17. A newspaper notice of "Emerson's English Traits " dated in pencil 
 by W. August, 1856. 
 
 18. A newspaper report of a lecture on Cowper by Rev. G. B. Cheever. 
 
 19. Part of a magazine article on " Beattie's Life of Campbell" date of 
 magazine July, '49. 
 
 20. Newspaper article on (< Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell." 
 
 21. A newspaper article on "John Bunyan '' with following words by W. at 
 head, " Bunyan 1628 1688 1688 Swedenborg born. 1 ' 
 
 22. A newspaper report of a speech by Mr. Burke made on St. Patrick's, at 
 foot W. writes " Brooklyn Eagle, 18 March, '57." 
 
 23. Some leaves detached from the book to which they belonged containing 
 " Macaulay's Essay on Bunyan " headed by W. with the words, '' Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim's Progress " the essay has been carefully read, is much scored and in 
 one place annotated on margin, "Brava !" 
 
 24. Magazine article (Harper, I think) on "Robert Southey," May, 185 i t 
 has been carefully read, freely scored. 
 
 25. Another magazine article, same date as 24, on " Waller and Marvell,'" 
 has been carefully read. 
 
 26. A short piece on " Crabbe " annotated. 
 
 27. A paragraph headed in W.'s hand : "Great Cockney Poets." 
 
 28. Again from same Harper (?) May, 1851 a piece, "The Prelude," being 
 a review of Wordsworth poem so named a marginal note on it runs as follows : 
 "So it seems Wordsworth made a 'good thing' from the start out of his poetry. 
 Legacies ! a fat office ! pensions from the crown ! " 
 
 29. A newspaper piece on the " History of the Roman Republic." 
 
 30. A newspaper piece on " Death of Auguste Comte." 
 
 31. Newspaper piece on "Paolo Giocometti" taken from N. Y. Herald 8 
 Sept., '56. 
 
 32. Newspaper cutting headed " An Art Heretic." 
 
 33. A magazine article dated Nov., '48, on " Milne's Life of Keats " closely 
 read. 
 
 34. A long article cut from N. Y. Tribune on " Douglas Jerrold," dated by 
 W. 23 April, '59. 
 
 35. Newspaper piece on the " Revue des Deux Mondes." 
 
 36. Part of a magazine article on " Vaughan's Poems etc.," been carefully 
 read, dated May, '49. 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 195 
 
 37. Magazine article, "Recollections of Poets Laureate, Wordsworth and 
 Tennyson," date June, '52. 
 
 38. Newspaper piece, " Poets painted by Each Other." 
 
 39. A long newspaper piece on " Emerson's English Traits," which was 
 published 1856. 
 
 40. A magazine article on *' Modern English Poets " date of magazine 
 Dec., 1851. XV. writes on front leaf, " Bells and Pomegranates, Robert Browning. 
 Casa Guidi Windows, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Dec., '56, Aurora Leigh, a 
 new poem by Mrs. Browning." This last no doubt the date when piece read 
 by W. 
 
 41. A piece on Montaigne. 
 
 42. A magazine article on " Wordsworth," carefully read and annotated. 
 
 43. A poem of Wordsworth's on " The First Mild Day of March." 
 
 44. A piece on " Plutarch." 
 
 45. A long magazine article, date Oct., '49, on " Tennyson, Shelley and 
 Keats " carefully read and profusely annotated. 
 
 46. A piece on "Jeremy Taylor." 
 
 47. On " Tobias Smollet." 
 
 48. On " Blaise Pascal." 
 
 49. On '' Benjamin Franklin." 
 
 50. A long, carefully read and innch annotated magazine piece (April, '49) 
 on "Taylor's Eve of the Conquest." 
 
 51. Coleridge's "Dejection, an ode." Torn out of the book to which it 
 belonged, and pasted in. 
 
 52. A long, carefully read and much scored magazine article (May, '48) on 
 " Tennyson's Poems The Princess." 
 
 53. A long magazine article (April, '49) carefully read and elaborately 
 scored. 
 
 54. A long magazine article (Oct., 51) on "The Hyperion of John Keats," 
 carefully read, elaborately scored and annotated on margin. 
 
 55. A newspaper piece on " Oliver Goldsmith." 
 
 56. Newspaper piece on "Death of Hugh Miller." N. Y. Sun, 13 Jan., '57. 
 
 57. Lists of names of arts and sciences pasted in scrapbook and annotated, 
 
 58. List of names of capitals pasted in scrapbook and annotated. 
 
 59. A geography bound up with scrapbook, has been annotated here and 
 there. 
 
 60. Newspaper piece, " How America was Peopled." 
 
196 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 6 1. Newspaper piece, " Remarkable Works of Human Labor." 
 
 62. " " "Is the Sun Inhabited?" 
 
 63. <l " "Comets." 
 
 64. " " " The Great Comet." 
 
 65. " "Comets, their History and Habits." 
 
 66. " " " Dr. Boynton's Sixth Lecture." 
 
 67. " Inauguration of Dudley Observatory." 
 
 68. " " "Geological Lecture." 
 
 69. Long newspaper report of a lecture on the Progress of Science, New York 
 Daily Times, 2gth Aug., '56. 
 
 70. Newspaper report, " The Donati Comet." 
 
 71. Long newspaper report of "Scientific Convention at Montreal," i2th 
 Aug., '57. 
 
 72. Newspaper report of " Dr. Boynton's Second Lecture." 
 
 73. A magazine article dated April, '49, on " The Physical Atlas." 
 
 74. Newspaper review of Miller's " Testimony of the Rocks," loth Oct., '57 
 
 75. Long lists of geographical names pasted in many of them marked. 
 
 76. Newspaper piece, "Raleigh's History." 
 
 77. " " " Seven Wonders of the World." 
 
 78. " Imagination and Fact " from Graham's magazine, scored and annotated. 
 
 79. Newspaper piece, " Gold and Silver in the World." 
 
 80. " " " Divisions of the Bible." 
 
 81. " " Comparative Health of the United States." 
 
 82. " " Oldest Man in America." 
 
 83. ' Differences of Time." 
 
 84. " " " Ship Building." 
 
 85. " " "Tin." 
 
 86. " " "Immensity." 
 
 87. " " "Temperature of the Earth." 
 
 88. " " " Weekly Report of Deaths." 
 
 89. " " "Origin of Coal." 
 
 90. " " Scenes on the Ocean Floor." 
 91- " " " Roads and Railways." 
 
 92. " " Foreign Postage." 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 197 
 
 93. Newspaper piece, N. Y. Times, '57, "Sailing and Steamships." 
 
 94. " "A Translation from a Cuneiform Inscription." 
 
 95. " " "The Rossetta Stone." 
 
 96. Newspaper report of lecture by W. S. Studley. 
 
 97. Newspaper cutting, " Wild Men of Borneo." 
 
 98. " *"...> Fourier and His Ideals." 
 
 99. " Languages and Religions." 
 
 100. " " " Religious Beliefs." 
 
 101. A very long magazine article scored and annotated, "The Slavonians 
 and Eastern Europe." 
 
 102. A series of maps showing the geography of various ages from earliest 
 times to iQth century. 
 
 103. Newspaper cutting, " Books Mentioned in the Bible now Lost or Unknown." 
 
 104. " Bunsen's Chronology." 
 
 105. " Discovery of America." 
 
 1 06. " " " Population of the World." 
 
 107. " " " Plants and Animals." 
 
 1 08. " Man not Deteriorating." 
 
 109. A sort of pamphlet (pasted in) headed, " One Thousand Historical 
 Events." It is scored and annotated. 
 
 no. A long magazine article on Sir John Herschel, of date Feb., '48. 
 in. " " Layard's Nineveh," of date May, '49. 
 
 112. Newspaper cutting on " Key West." 
 
 113. A very long magazine article on "Early Roman History," (no date) 
 scored and annotated. 
 
 114. Magazine article on, "Arnold's Lectures on Modern History," has been 
 carefully read scored. 
 
 115. Newspaper cutting, " Physiology of the Earth." 
 
 1 1 6. " Statistics of Population and Religion." 
 
 117. " " "Our Country." 
 
 1 18. " " " With whom we Trade." 
 119- "The National Revenue." 
 
 120. " " "Who Our Soldiers Are." 
 
 121. " List of Patents Issued." 
 
 122. " " "Army and Militia." 
 
 123. " " " The State of New York." 
 
198 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 124. Newspaper cutting, "The Salt Manufacture." 
 
 125. Governor King's message in New York Times, 6th Jan., '58. 
 
 126. Newspaper cutting, "The Chesapeake and Great Lakes United." 
 
 127. " " " Amount of Salt Made." 
 
 128. " " " A Rich Slave Owner." 
 
 129. " " " Oyster Beds of Virginia." 
 
 130. " The Southern States, by an English Traveler." 
 
 131. " " " Cultivation of Cotton." 
 
 132. " " " Products of Texas." 
 
 133. " " " Carrying Mail to California." 
 
 134. " " " The Great West." 
 
 135. " " Notes on the Missouri River." 
 
 136. " " "A Letter to the Newsboys." 
 
 137. M " " Killed an Otter." 
 
 138. " " " Our Large Pictures." 
 
 139. " " " Bridge at St. Louis." 
 
 140. " " " Statistics of Ohio." 
 
 141. " " " Madison, Wis." 
 
 142. " Wisconsin and its Capital." 
 
 143. " Lake Superior Copper and Iron." 
 
 144. '' " " Oshkosh, Wis." 
 
 145. Harper's Weekly, 17 Jan., '57 " Modern Naples." 
 
 146. Newspaper cutting, " Glimpses of Iowa." 
 
 147. " " " New States." 
 
 148. " " " Size of America." 
 
 149. " Literary Institutions." 
 
 150. " " "Crops of '56." 
 
 151. " " " U. S. Army." 
 
 152. " Bayard Taylor in Northern Europe." 
 
 153. " " " The Victoria Bridge." 
 
 154. "Scenes in New Brunswick," in Ballou's Pictorial. 
 
 155. " A Ranger's Life in Nicaragua," Harper's Weekly, 25 April, '57. 
 
 156. Newspaper cutting, " Product of the Mexican Mines." 
 
 157. " News from New Granada," New York Herald, 29 March, '57. 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 199 
 
 158. Newspaper cutting, " Something about the Bay Islands." 
 
 159. " The Five Republics of Central America." 
 
 1 60. " " "Guatemala." 
 
 161. " " " Why there is no Rain in Peru." 
 
 162. Magazine Review article on Prescott's " Peru," under date Aug., '47. 
 
 163. A chapter descriptive of the country from a book called, "Travels in 
 Peru." 
 
 164. Newspaper cutting, " From Chili." 
 
 165. " " " The Commerce of La Plata." 
 
 1 66. " " " The Brazilian Empire." 
 
 167. "The Royal Families of Europe," New York Herald, 21 Feb., '58. 
 
 168. " European Correspondence," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, n Dec., '57. 
 
 169. " Foreign Correspondence," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 9 Jan., '58. 
 
 170. Magazine article on " Present State of the British Empire." 
 
 171. Newspaper cutting, " A Tunnel from England to France." 
 
 172. "Excursion to Pompeii," Burlington Free Press, i Jan., '58. 
 
 173. "Italian Travel," New York Times, 26 Dec., '57. 
 
 174. A newspaper piece, " From Rome" W.'s note at head of it : "A Traveling 
 Sight-seer's Day in Rome the usual things to look after an artist-teacher his 
 studio well written rollicking. Date is March, 1857." 
 
 175. "Bayard Taylor in Southern Europe," a letter dated 27 April, '58 
 printed in New York Tribune. 
 
 176. "The Sultan and his People," Am. Phrenological Journal, May, '57. 
 
 177. On the " Egyptian Museum" in Life Illustrated, 8 Dec., '55. 
 
 178. Correspondence from Amsterdam, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 12 Oct., '58. 
 
 179. Long newspaper piece letter from Copenhagen, dated n Aug., '57. 
 
 1 80. " " " " " Stockholm, 19 Aug., '57. 
 
 181. Bayard Taylor, letter from St. Petersburg, in New York Tribune, 
 2 Nov., '58. 
 
 182. A newspaper piece, "The Census of Russia." 
 
 183. " " " Railroads of Russia," N. Y. Tribune, April, '57. 
 
 184. " " "Russian Serfs." 
 
 185. " ' ' " Different African Races. ' ' 
 
 1 86. " " " The French in Algeria." 
 
 187. " " "The Nile." 
 
 188. " " " Population of Egypt." 
 
2oo Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 189. "Earth's Travels in Africa," Harper's Weekly, 12 Sept., '57. 
 
 190. Long newspaper piece on " Earth's Discoveries in Central Africa." 
 
 191. " " "Travels in Egypt." 
 
 192. " Livingstone's Travels in Africa." 
 
 193. " " " "Capital of Egypt." 
 
 194. "Sketches in Sierra Leone" in Ballou's Pictorial. 
 
 195. Newspaper piece, " The Sphynx." 
 
 196. " Livingstone's Travels etc. Africa," Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 
 
 197. Newspaper piece, " Rev. Dr. Livingstone." 
 
 198. " " " Travels in South Africa." 
 
 199. Long piece re RR. Mediteranean to Persian Gulf, New York Tribune, 
 2Oth March, '57. 
 
 200. Newspaper piece on " Jerusalem." 
 
 201. Magazine article on " The River Jordan and the Dead Sea." 
 
 202. "About Moscow in Russia," Life Illustrated, N. Y., 6th Dec., '56. 
 
 203. A long newspaper piece on " The Rivalry between England and Russia 
 and Asia." 
 
 204. A long newspaper piece on " Sectarianism Among the Turks." 
 
 205. " " " " The Holy Land." 
 
 206. " " " " Royal Family of Persia." 
 
 207. Newspaper piece, "Overland Mail to India and China." 
 
 208. "Geographical Discoveries of a Quarter of a Century." 
 
 209. " How Ghoorkas Can Whip Sepoys." 
 
 210. A long newspaper piece, " The Indian Empire." 
 
 211. " " " "Annexation in India." 
 
 212. Newspaper piece, " The Hunting in India." 
 
 213. " " " The Revolt in India." 
 
 214. A long newspaper piece, " The Nucleus of the Indian Mutiny." 
 
 215. " " " " British Empire in India," Oct., '57. 
 
 216. " History of the East India Company," Harper's Weekly, 24 Oct., '57. 
 
 217. " Juggernauth," Harper's Weekly, 26th Sept., '57. 
 
 218. Newspaper piece, " Burmah." 
 
 219. " Lecture on India." 
 
 220. "Commercial Relations with Siam." 
 
 221. " " " Interests of Russia in China." 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 201 
 
 222. Newspaper piece, "The Two Kings of Siam." 
 
 223. " " " Printing in China." 
 
 224. " " "Mantchoo Tartars." 
 
 225. " " " Emperor of China." 
 
 226. " " "A Brief History of China." 
 
 227. "China History of Allied Expedition," N. Y. Times, 20 Aug .., '58. 
 
 228. "The Chinese," Harper's Weekly, 25 April, '57. 
 
 229. Magazine article, " The Central Nation," (i. e. China) April, '52. 
 
 230. A magazine article, " China and the Chinese," April, '57. 
 
 231. Newspaper piece, " Migrations of Chinese." 
 
 232. " Navigation of the Yang-tse-Kiang." 
 
 233. " " A Day Among the Whales in the Sea of Japan." 
 
 234. *' Japanese Becoming Less Exclusive." 
 
 235. Long newspaper piece, " Cruise of Sloop of War John Adams," 16 
 Jan., '57. 
 
 236. " " " "Japan." 
 
 237. Newspaper piece, " The Turkish Question." 
 
 238. " Indians in Oregon and Washington." 
 
 239. " " " The Gila Expedition." 
 
 240. " " "The Gila Gold Mines." 
 
 241. "Dr. De H ass on American Antiquities." 
 
 242. " " Utah and the Great Basin," i Jan., '59. 
 
 243. Long newspaper piece, " Exploration of the Amoor," 21 Dec., '58. 
 
 244. " " " " Saginaw Valley." 
 
 245. " " " "Central America." 
 
 246. " Russian Settlements on Amoor River," 21 
 Dec., '57. 
 
 247. " " Physical Constitution of the Sun." 
 
 248. " Preadamite Man," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 24 Oct., '60. 
 
 249. Long newspaper piece, " Pacific Railroad Overland to California.'' 
 
 250. " "The Great Pacific Railway Treasury Robbing." 
 
 251. "Overland Communication with the Pacific." 
 
 252. " " " Life in the Pacific Territories." 
 
 253. " India, Its Physical Features etc.," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 16 Mar., '59. 
 
 254. Very long newspaper piece, " The Russian Empire." 
 
2O2 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 255. Newspaper report of an oration by Edward Everett at Albany, 28 
 Aug., '56. 
 
 256. Report of American Association for the Advancement of Science 
 Albany meeting, 22 Aug., 56. 
 
 257. Newspaper paragraph, "The Proposed Territory of Arizona." 
 
 258. Long newspaper piece, " Fisheries of Puget Sound." 
 
 259. " Am. Ass. for the Advancement of Science" 
 27 Aug., '56. 
 
 260. Long newspaper piece, "Am. Ass. for the Advancement of Science" 
 23 A ug., '56. 
 
 261. Long newspaper piece, " Am. Ass. for the Advancement of Science " 
 25 Aug., '56. 
 
 262. "Scientific Congress, 1 ' N. Y. Herald, 28 Aug., '56. 
 
 263. " " " " 26 Aug., '56. 
 
 264. Newspaper piece, " Raleigh." 
 
 265. " " "Bacon." 
 
 266. " " on Delia Bacon. 
 
 267. " " " Character of Lord Bacon." 
 
 268. " " "Shakespeare." 
 
 269. " "Shakespeare as a Man." 
 
 270. " " " Shakespeare's Stage." 
 
 271. " " " The Stage in Shakespeare's Time." 
 
 272. Magazine article, " Samuel Johnson." 
 
 273. Newspaper report of oration on " Shakespeare," by Richard O'Gorman, 
 dated 21 April, '57. 
 
 274. Magazine article, "Shakespeare vs. Sand," dated May, '47. 
 
 275. Newspaper piece, " Philip Massinger." 
 
 276. " " "Thos. Dekker." 
 
 277. " " "Hume." 
 
 278. " " "The New Jerusalem." 
 
 279. '*. " "Voltaire." 
 
 280. " " "Beranger." 
 
 281. " Pierre Jean de Beranger." 
 
 282. " " "Death of Beranger." 
 
 283. " " " Beranger's Lyrics." 
 
 284. " " " Shakespeare His Life and Text." 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 203 
 
 285. Magazine article, " Shakespeare's Sonnets." 
 
 286. "The Works of Alexander Pope," North British Review, Aug., '48, 
 scored and annotated. 
 
 287. " Imitation of Horace by Pope" torn from a book and pasted in. 
 
 288. Magazine article, " Robert Southey," date Feb., '51. 
 
 289. Newspaper piece, "Robert Burns.'' 
 
 290. Several leaves apparently torn from a book " Scottish Poetry" 
 selections. 
 
 291. Newspaper report of lecture by Milburn on " Dante and Milton." 
 
 292. Newspaper piece, '' Dr. Wm. Harvey." 
 
 293. Magazine article, " Egotism," date March, '45. 
 
 294. Newspaper piece, "Joseph Addison." 
 
 295. " " "David Hume." 
 
 296. " " " Dean Swift." 
 
 297. " ",..'.< Poverty of Poets." 
 
 298. " " Vanity of Poets." 
 
 299. Magazine article, " Characteristics of Shelley." 
 
 300. " Shelley's Ode to the Sky-Lark," apparently torn out of a book and 
 pasted in. N. B. Seems as if W. had a book or books of selections and that he 
 used leaves from it to fill out pictures of men which were made up in his scrap- 
 books by newspaper pieces etc. etc. 
 
 301. "Ancient English Popular Ballads," some half-dozen leaves torn from 
 a book and pasted in. 
 
 302. "John Wickliffe," from a book. 
 
 303. "Geoffrey Chaucer," from, a book. 
 
 304. Newspaper piece, "John Froisart." 
 
 305. lt Chaucer," torn from a book and pasted in, much scored and annotated. 
 
 306. Newspaper piece, "William Hazlitt." 
 
 307. " Literature of the Age of Elizabeth/' torn from a book and pasted in, 
 much scored and annotated. 
 
 308. Magazine article, " Sir Philip Sidney." 
 
 309. " Editor's Table," annotated. 
 
 3 10. Spencer's " Hymn of Heavenly Beauty," torn from a book and pasted in. 
 
 311. Magazine article, "Literature of Middle Ages," dated July, '49, much 
 scored and annotated. 
 
 312. " Death of Gerard de Nerval," N. Y. Tribune, 17 Feb., '55. 
 
 313. Newspaper piece, " Alexander Von Humboldt etc." 
 
204 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 314. Magazine article, " Chaucer," profusely scored and annotated. 
 
 315. Newspaper piece, "Our Poets." 
 
 316. " " "Owen Meredith-" 
 
 317. " "Ages of some Living Writers." 
 
 318. " " " The Waverley Novels." 
 
 319. " " " English and Scottish Ballads." 
 
 320. " " "The Poet Jasmin." 
 
 321. " " " Ossian's Hymn to the Sun." 
 
 322. " " Margaret Fuller on Ossian." 
 
 323. " Ossian,' 7 torn from a book. 
 
 324. " Macpherson," torn from another book. 
 
 325. " The Fine Arts," torn from a book. 
 
 326. Newspaper piece, " Chinese Popular Literature." 
 
 327. Magazine article, " Chaucer," dated Feb., 49. 
 
 328. Newspaper piece, " Death of Alfred de Musset, called The French 
 Tennyson." 
 
 329. Newspaper piece, "The Saga." 
 
 330. "Provencal and Scandinavian Poetry," Edinburgh Review, July, '48, 
 much scored and annotated. 
 
 331. "A Turkish Ode Mesihi," torn from a book. 
 
 332. Newspaper piece, " Persian Poetry." 
 
 333. Leaves from a book, " Gems of Wisdom." 
 
 334. " Golden Verses of Pythagoras," torn from a book. 
 
 335. Newspaper piece re Siamese poetry. 
 
 336. " " " Chronology of the Hindoos." 
 
 337. Leaves torn from a book, " The Psalms." 
 
 338. Magazine article, " Indian Epic Poetry," dated Oct., '48, much scored 
 and annotated. 
 
 339. "The Hindu Drama," magazine article dated April, '57, much scored 
 and annotated. 
 
 340. " Thackeray and Carlyle," newspaper piece. 
 
 341. Extract from Carlyle's " Past and Present," torn from a book, annotated. 
 
 342. Newspaper piece, " Leigh Hunt" 
 
 343. " " "England During War." 
 
 344. Leaves torn from a book on the " Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma." 
 
 345. " Adams' Morning Hymn '' (Milton), a piece torn from a book. 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 205 
 
 346. Newspaper piece, >( Daily Life of Milton." 
 
 347. " " " Horace and Byron." 
 
 348. Newspaper report of lecture by G. W. Curtis on "English Fiction." 
 
 349. Magazine piece on " Plato." 
 
 350. "Anacreon," a piece torn from a book. 
 
 351. Newspaper piece, "Juvenal and Perseus." 
 
 352. "Christopher under Canvas," torn from a book, much scored and 
 annotated. 
 
 353. Scrap torn from a book on " Science." 
 
 354. " Orestes : a Tragedy," torn from a book, annotated. 
 
 355. Newspaper piece on " Pindar." 
 
 356. " " Ages of Foreign Living Writers." 
 
 357. Magazine article, "Petrarch," May, '45. 
 
 358. Newspaper piece, " Future America." 
 
 359. " " "Travel." 
 
 360. " " " Night in Australia." 
 
 361. " " "Snelling." 
 
 362. " " "Size of a Whale." 
 
 363. " " "A Day on a Rice Plantation." 
 
 364. " " "An Enormous Ape." 
 
 365. " '*.'" Senseless Brains." 
 
 366. " " " The Senses." 
 
 367. " " "The Army Men in Portland." 
 
 368. " " "Nicknames." 
 
 369. "American Inventions.'' 
 
 370. " " Origin of the Name America." 
 
 371. " "A Well-Balanced Mind." 
 
 372. " " Attraction Between the Sexes." Two last very much 
 scored. 
 
 373. Magazine "The Social Revolutionist," July, '57. Some of Articles 
 scored. 
 
 374. Newspaper piece, " Remarkable Individual. 1 ' 
 375- " " "Longevity." 
 
 376. " " "Phrenology." 
 
 377. another piece on " Longevity." 
 
 378. " " " The Chaplain Elect of the House.'' 
 
206 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 379. Newspaper piece, "Cheerfulness." 
 
 380. " " " Personal Magnetism." 
 
 381. " " "The Standard Civilized Head." 
 
 382. " " " Night Eating." 
 
 383. " " " Heathen Gods and Goddesses." 
 
 384. " " "The Muses." 
 
 385. Magazine (Edinburgh Review) article, April, '49, "On Books." 
 
 386. " " " "Recorded Ages At 
 tained by Man." 
 
 387. Newspaper piece, " A Good Old Age." 
 
 388. " " " Population of the World." 
 
 389. " " " Poetical Works of Gerald Massey . " 
 
 390. " " Book-making in the United States." 
 
 391. " "Newspapers in the World." 
 
 392. " Literature and the Book Trade in the United States." 
 
 393. " Industrial Intelligence." 
 
 394. Magazine article, "The Vanity and the Glory of Literature," April, '49. 
 
 395. Newspaper piece, "Sanscrit Professorship at Cambridge," April, '49, 
 much scored and annotated. 
 
 396. Newspaper piece, "Socratic Philosophy." 
 
 397. " " "Culture." 
 
 398. " " "Robert Burns." 
 
 399. " " "Counsel/' 
 
 400. Magazine article, " Progress Its Law and Cause," April, '57, much 
 scored and annotated. 
 
 401. Magazine article, " Literature and Society,'' April, '57, much scored. 
 
 402. Torn from a book, " What is Poetry ? " ; much scored and annotated. 
 
 403. Newspaper piece, " Homer in English Hexameters.' 1 
 
 404. Magazine article, " Translators of Homer," much scored and annotated. 
 
 405. Long newspaper piece (N. Y. Daily Tribune, 10 Feb., '70), "Mr. Bryant's 
 Translation of Homer." 
 
 406. Magazine review of " Bryant's Translation of the Iliad.'' 
 
 407. Newspaper cutting, " The Unity of the Bible," scored. 
 
 408. " The Physique of the Brain from a Literary 
 Life," scored. 
 
 409. Newspaper cutting, " Walking." 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 207 
 
 410. Newspaper cutting, " Human and Animal Magnetism,'' long piece, much 
 scored. 
 
 41 1. Newspaper cutting, " Life-force Its Philosophy," long piece, much scored. 
 
 412. Magazine article, date Dec., '51, "Theories of Evil," much scored and 
 annotated. 
 
 413. Newspaper piece on a Russian poet, Akinf Jwanowitch Ul'Jonov. 
 
 414. " "Contemporary Russian Literature," N. Y. Tribune, 
 26 March, '57. 
 
 415. Newspaper piece, "The Winds." 
 
 416. Magazine article on " Festus," date Dec., '45. 
 
 417. " " Hymn of Callimachus : a translation." 
 
 418. " " "Miss Barrett's Poems," date Jan., '45. 
 
 419. "Resum6 of Life of Rogers," in Am. Phrenological Journal for Aug.. '56. 
 
 420. Magazine article, Jan., '51, " Lessing's Laocoon," much scored and 
 annotated. 
 
 421. Magazine article, Sept., '55, on " Rachel." 
 
 422. A long newspaper piece ('57) on the " Death of Eugene Sue." 
 
 423. A piece torn from a book, " Criticism on Don Quixote." 
 
 424. Magazine article by J. D. W., Jan., '46, " Phrenology a Socratic 
 Dialogue," good deal scored. 
 
 425. Magazine article, "On Style," (W. W. writes at top, " By J. D. Whelpley, 
 I think,") very freely scored. 
 
 426. Piece torn from a book on " Chaucer," freely scored. 
 
 427. " " "American Literature." W. W. writes on 
 it, " Margaret Fuller." So probably by her. 
 
 428. Newspaper piece on " Hiawatha and Kalewala," showing that former 
 imitated from latter. 
 
 429. Piece torn from a book : " A Short Essay on Critics." Much scored. 
 
 430. " " " " Poet Critic." 
 
 431. " " " "Writings of Cornelius Mathews." W. W, 
 writes: " By W. G. Simms. Very fine." 
 
 432. A magazine piece (Sept. '55), "New English Poets." 
 
 433. " " (May '47), "The Prose Writers of America." 
 
 434. " " New Poetry in New England." 
 
 435. Magazine article (April '52), " Styles, American and Foreign." 
 
 436. Newspaper cutting, " Mr. Gottschalk's Soiree. 5 ' 
 
 437. Torn from a book, " Poetry of Spain." 
 
208 Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 438. Magazine article (May, '39), " America and the Early English Poets." 
 
 439. (May, '45), " Thoughts on Reading," much scored and 
 annotated. 
 
 440. Magazine article, " The Pleasures of the Pen," Jan., '47. 
 
 441. (March, '47), " Localities of the Learned." 
 
 442. " (April, 47), " Last Words of the Learned." 
 
 443. Newspaper piece on '' Death of Quintana, Prince of Castilian Poets." 
 
 444. Magazine article (Feb., '45), " Words, " scored. 
 
 445. Newspaper piece on " Thackeray's Vanity Fair," W. W. writes on its 
 margin: "Letter, N. Y. Daily Times, Dec., '55." 
 
 446. Magazine article (Sept., '49), " The Strayed Reveller." 
 
 447. Newspaper piece on " Victor Hugo." 
 
 448. Magazine article (March, '53), " To the Author of ' The Poet.' " 
 
 449. " The Book Trade," N. Y. Herald, 6 Dec., '57. 
 
 450. " Literary Prospects of the Season," N. Y. Herald, u Sept., '56. 
 
 451. Magazine article (Sept, '55), "New English Poets." 
 
 452. Newspaper piece on " Isaac Watts." 
 
 453. " Prof. Henry " W. W. writes on margin : " Aug. 
 23, i8 5 6-Eagle." 
 
 454. Newspaper piece on opera Saffo. 
 
 455. Newspaper cutting, " The Rejected Poem." 
 
 456. " " Emerson's " Brahma." 
 
 457. " " " Statistics of the Book Trade." 
 
 458. " " " Songs of England and Scotland." 
 
 459. " " " John Greenleaf Whittier." 
 
 460. " Moose Hunting in Canada," Frank Leslie's Illustrated, 15 Jan., '59. 
 
 461. Newspaper piece, "Remittances to the Old Country," dated by W. W., 
 Feb., '54. 
 
 462. " Arrival of the Antarctic at Liverpool," Jan., '54. 
 
 463. " " " Necessity of a Pacific R. R.," 26 Nov., '58, 
 
 464. " " " An Ancient Relic." 
 
 465. " Importance of the Compass." 
 
 466. " " "Sleigh-riding." 
 
 467. Magazine piece," Prospects of the Legal Profession in America," Jan., '46. 
 
 468. " " "Ancient Practice of Painting," April, '49. 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 209 
 
 469. Magazine piece, " Society and Civilization," by John Quincy Adams, 
 '45- 
 
 470. " Sismondi the Historian," April, '47. 
 
 47 1 . Newspaper piece on " Wild Animals and Fish." 
 
 "The Lost Arts." 
 
 " Fugitive Slave Case." 
 
 " Colonization of American Continent." 
 
 "National Dances." 
 
 " Lowest Class of Animals." 
 
 " An American Woman in Paris," 24th Dec., '53. 
 
 "Chivalry." 
 
 Dr. Boynton's Sixth Lecture on Geology. 
 
 " Interesting Slave Trial." 
 
 " The Wyandotte," April, '54. 
 
 "American Travel, 1 ' Oct., '53. 
 
 " Cruelty of the Persians." 
 
 "Humboldt's Cosmos." 
 
 "Facts from History," dated by W. W., " Tribune, 
 
 472. 
 
 473- 
 474- 
 475- 
 476. 
 
 477- 
 478. 
 
 479- 
 480. 
 481. 
 482. 
 
 483- 
 484. 
 
 485- 
 27 March, '54. 
 
 486. 
 
 *' Negro Saturnalia." 
 
 " Ascent of Mount Popocatepetl," dated by W. W., 
 
 487. 
 "Tribune, 23 March, '54." 
 
 Newspaper piece on "France Americans at Court," Paris, 9 Jan., '54. 
 " Sentiments of the Mormons." 
 " Modern Books and Libraries." 
 " Errors in Printing Bible." 
 " Lecture on France," 27 Jan., '54. 
 " Animal Life on the Globe," 21 Feb., '59. 
 494 Magazine article, " Journalism," Sept., '46. 
 
 495. Torn from a book, " Hume," " Washington," " Napoleon Bonaparte," 
 Aurengzebe." 
 
 496. Newspaper piece, (l Division of Time by the Ancient Nations." 
 
 497. " New England and the African Slave Trade." 
 
 498. " " " The Tombs of Egypt." 
 
 499. " " " Trilobites." 
 
 489. 
 490. 
 491. 
 
 4Q2. 
 
 493- 
 
2io Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 
 
 500. " Cosmos Clock," in American Phrenological Journal, March, '54. 
 
 501. Newspaper piece, "A Chapter on Navies and Naval Curiosities.'' 
 
 502. " " " The Amazon Basin.'' 
 
 503. "The New York Clipper," 30 Oct., '58, containing full account of fight 
 between Heenan and Morrissey.'' 
 
 504. Magazine article, " Architecture," April, '49. 
 
 505. " Niebuhr,' 1 North British Review, Feb., '49 W. W.'s note : " Founder of 
 a New Theory of History." 
 
 506. Magazine article, " Physiognomy,'' Jan., '52. 
 
 507. " " " Margaret Fuller Ossoli," April, '52. 
 
 508. " " " Lyell's Geological Tour," Sept., 45. 
 
 509. " " " Life and Times of Wm. H. Crawford," April, '52. 
 
 510. " "Christopher Under Canvas," Aug., '49. 
 
 511. " Constantinople in the 4th Century.'' 
 
 512. " " " The Germanic Empire," July, '48. 
 
 513. " "The Mississippi Valley," May, '47. 
 
 514. " " " Ireland," May, '47. 
 
 515. " " " Laws of Menu," May, '45. 
 
 516. "The Dying Gladiator," The Penny Magazine, 12 Jan., '33. 
 
 517. Magazine piece, "The American Mind," Harper's, no date. 
 
 518. " " Botany," July, 49. 
 
 519. " " Nationality in Literature," March, '47. 
 
 520. " System of Positive Philosophy," scored, March, '47. 
 
 521. " " " Physical Atlas," August, '48. 
 
 522. " "Narrative of the French Revolution of 1848,'' North 
 British Review, May, '48, 
 
 523. Magazine article, " Herschel Southern Heavens," July, 48. 
 
 524. " " " Physical Geography," May, '48. 
 
 525. " " " Hungary," July, '49. 
 
 526. " Earthquakes in New Zealand,'' Westminster Review, 
 July* '49- 
 
 527. "The Philosophy of Art," by Charles G. Leland, in Sartain's Magazine, 
 no date. 
 
 528. " The Head of Christ," Leland, Sartain's Magazine, no date. 
 
 529. Newspaper piece, "Taste." 
 
 530. " " " Political Division of World." 
 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles. 211 
 
 531. Newspaper piece, " Tammany Hall." 
 
 532. Magazine article, " Architecture,'' April, '49. 
 
 533. u The Romantic in Literature and Art,' 1 C. G. Leland, Sartain's Maga 
 zine, no date. W. notes in pencil: "This essay has many good suggestions, its 
 principal fault is that ' Romantic ' is not the right word to use as used in it (what 
 should be the word ? ) " 
 
 534. Newspaper piece, " Populousness of China." 
 
 535. Magazine article, " The Legal Profession, Ancient and Modern," Sept., '46. 
 
 536. " "Sacred and Legendary Art,'' April, '49. 
 
 537. " " " Indian Mounds." 
 
 538. New York Herald, 31 Oct., '58, " Overland Route to the Pacific.'' 
 
 539. Newspaper piece on " Indians of Long Island." 
 
 540. " " " Singular Fact." 
 
 541. "Grains, Vegetables and Flowers." 
 
 542. Magazine article, " Historical Traditions of Tennessee," March, 1852. 
 543- " " Copper Regions," Oct., 1846. 
 
 544. " A second Visit to the United States by Sir Charles 
 Lyell," July, 1849. 
 
 545. Newspaper piece Lecture by Rev. Dr. Duryea on "The Mind." 
 
 546. Jowett's "Translation of Plato," New York Tribune, 31 March, 1871. 
 
 547. Newspaper piece on " Ages of Persons in England and Wales.'' 
 
 548. " " " Old New York Families." 
 
 549. " Pathology of Consumption." 
 
 550. " " "Starvation." 
 
 551. " Robert Stuart," New York Tribune, 22 Oct., 1853. 
 
 552. Newspaper piece, " General Resources of the Plains." 
 
 553. Magazine article, " Colds." 
 
 554. Philosophy, Psychology and Metaphysics," Eclectic Magazine, April, 
 1871 reprinted from North British Review. 
 
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