THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Days with 
 Walt Whitman
 
 
 
 cub jtb& 
 
 ia<e, of
 
 Days with ~ ~ 
 Walt Whitman 
 
 W^ith some ^otes on his 
 Life and W^ork *+ *+ *+ 
 *By Edward ^Carpenter 
 
 London : George Allen, Ruskin House 
 156 Charing Cross Road Mdccccvi 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IV AY first acquaintance with Whitman's 
 writings (William Rossetti's edition 
 of the Poems) was made at Cambridge 
 during the Long Vacation in the summer 
 of 1868 or it may have been '69. But 
 it was not till 1877 t ^ lat I crossed the 
 Atlantic and paid my first visit to him. 
 In 1884 I was again in the States, and 
 saw Whitman several times. The notes 
 made on the occasions of these visits 
 were written out at a later period, 
 and finally published in the Progressive 
 Review (February and April 1897) in
 
 Preface 
 
 the same form as they now stand. 
 The other papers in the present book 
 belong to a still later date, and, with 
 one exception, have not been published 
 
 before. 
 
 E. C. 
 
 April 1906.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE y age v 
 
 A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN IN 1877 i 
 
 WALT WHITMAN IN 1884 . . 33 / 
 NOTES AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 WHITMAN AS PROPHET . . . 7 1 
 APPENDIX TO WHITMAN AS PRO- 
 PHET ..... 94 
 THE POETIC FORM OF "LEAVES OF 
 
 GRASS" .... 103 S. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN'S CHILDREN . 137 
 
 WHITMAN AND EMERSON . . 153
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 WALT WHITMAN AT THE AGE OF 35 Frontispiece 
 
 From a Daguerrotype taken in 1854 
 (Photogravure] 
 
 WALT WHITMAN AT THE AGE OF 53 TO face p. 71 
 
 From a Photograph taken in 1872 
 (Photogravure) 
 
 R. W. EMERSON (AT THE AGE OF 52) 153 
 
 From a Photograph taken in 1855 
 (Photogravure} 
 
 viii
 
 A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 IN 1877
 
 A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 IN 1877 
 
 TT was on the 2nd of May 1877, that 
 * crossing the water from Philadelphia 
 I knocked at the door of 431 Stevens 
 Street, Camden. The house, a narrow 
 three-storied one, stood in one of those 
 broad tree-planted streets which are com- 
 mon in the States; and Whitman was 
 staying there, boarding with his brother 
 Colonel George Whitman and wife 
 making the establishment at any rate his 
 headquarters, though frequently absent 
 from it. I waited a few minutes in a sit- 
 ting-room of the usual type one or two 
 ornamental tables, with photograph books, 
 3
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 things under glass shades, &c. while 
 " Walt " was called upstairs. He soon 
 came down, slowly, leaning heavily on 
 the banisters, always dragging somewhat 
 his paralysed leg at first sight quite an 
 old man with long grey, almost white, 
 beard, and shaggy head and neck, grey 
 dress too ; but tall, erect, and at closer 
 sight not so old a florid fresh com- 
 plexion, pure grey-blue eye (no sign of 
 age there), and full, strong, well-formed 
 hands. 
 
 At the foot of the staircase he took me 
 by the hand and said, " I was afraid we 
 should miss after all" this in reference 
 to a previous unsuccessful call I had made. 
 There was no hurry in his manner ; having 
 found me a seat, and then only leaving 
 hold of my hand, he sat down himself and 
 asked me "what news I brought from 
 Britain." War had just been declared 
 between Russia and Turkey. Like other 
 
 4
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 Americans, his sympathies lay with Russia. 
 His idea was that Russia stood in need of 
 a southern outlet (Constantinople) for her 
 people and growing energies, that Turkey 
 was falling in pieces, and that England 
 was beginning to pursue "the wise policy 
 of absolute non-intervention." Conver- 
 sation then turned on England. He asked 
 about friends there ; also about myself 
 some questions. 
 
 Meanwhile in that first ten minutes I 
 was becoming conscious of an impres- 
 sion which subsequently grew even more 
 marked the impression, namely, of im- 
 mense vista or background in his person- 
 ality. If I had thought before (and I do 
 not know that I had) that Whitman was 
 eccentric, unbalanced, violent, my first 
 interview certainly produced quite a con- 
 trary effect. No one could be more 
 considerate, I may almost say courteous; 
 no one could have more simplicity of 
 
 5
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 manner and freedom from egotistic 
 wrigglings; and I never met any one who 
 gave me more the impression of knowing 
 what he was doing than he did. Yet away 
 and beyond all this I was aware of a 
 certain radiant power in him, a large 
 benign effluence and inclusiveness, as of 
 the sun, which filled out the place where 
 he was yet with something of reserve 
 and sadness in it too, and a sense of re- 
 moteness and inaccessibility. 
 
 Some such impressions, at any rate, I 
 gathered in the first interview. I re- 
 member how I was most struck, in his 
 face, by the high arch of the eyebrows, 
 giving a touch of child-like wonder and 
 contemplation to his expression ; yet his 
 eyes, though full of a kind of wistful 
 tenderness, were essentially not contem- 
 plative but perceptive active rather than 
 receptive lying far back, steady, clear, 
 with small definite pupils and heavy lids of
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 passion and experience. A face of majestic 
 simple proportion, like a Greek temple as 
 some one has said ; the nose Greek in 
 outline, straight (but not at all thin or 
 narrow, rather the contrary), broad be- 
 tween the brows, and meeting the line of 
 the forehead without any great change 
 of direction ; the forehead high, with 
 horizontal furrows, but not excessively 
 high ; the head domed, and rising to a 
 great height in the middle, above the ears 
 not projecting behind ; ears large and 
 finely formed ; mouth full, but almost 
 quite concealed by hair. A head alto- 
 gether impressing one by its height, and 
 by a certain untamed " wild hawk " look, 
 not uncommon among the Americans. 
 
 After some conversation Whitman 
 proposed a walk across to Philadephia. 
 Putting on his grey slouch hat he 
 sallied forth with evident pleasure, and 
 taking my arm as a support walked slowly
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 the best part of a mile to the ferry. 
 Crossing the ferry was always a great 
 pleasure to him. His " Brooklyn Ferry " 
 and the section entitled " Delaware River 
 Days and Nights " in " Specimen Days," 
 sufficiently prove this. The life of the 
 streets and of the people was so near, so 
 dear. The men on the ferry steamer 
 were evidently old friends ; and when we 
 landed on the Philadelphia side we were 
 before long quite besieged. The man or 
 woman selling fish at the corner of the 
 street, the tramway conductor, the loafers 
 on the pavement a word of recognition 
 from Walt, or as often from the other 
 first. Presently a cheery shout from the 
 top of a dray; and before we had gone 
 many yards farther the driver was down 
 and standing in front of us his horses 
 given to the care of some bystander. He 
 was an old Broadway "stager," "had not 
 seen Walt for three or four years " ; and
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 tears were in his eyes as he held his hand. 
 We were now brought to a standstill, and 
 others gathered round ; " George " was ill, 
 and Walt must go and see him. There 
 was a message for the children, and in his 
 pocket the poet discovered one or two 
 packets of sweetmeats for absent little 
 ones. But for the most part his words 
 were few. It was the others who spoke, 
 and apparently without reserve. 
 
 Thus we rambled through Philadel- 
 phia mostly using the tramcars. The 
 Yankees do not walk ; the trams in their 
 large towns are very complete, and are 
 universally used for all but short distances. 
 Whitman could not walk far. I was 
 content being with him anyhow. He 
 certainly was restfulness itself. When we 
 reached the Ferry on our return, the last 
 bell was ringing we might have caught 
 the boat, but Whitman seemed not to 
 think of hurrying. The boat went, and
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 he sat down to enjoy life waiting for the 
 next. 
 
 A few days later, Walt having gone 
 into the country to stay with his " dear 
 and valued friends," the Staffords, I paid 
 him a visit there. " White Horse," or 
 Kirkwood, was the third or fourth 
 station from Camden on the Camden 
 and Atlantic line ; and consisted at that 
 time of only some half-dozen houses and 
 stores, forming a centre to the scattered 
 and outlying farmsteads of that part. The 
 Staffords' little farm lay a mile and a 
 half or so from the station a five or 
 six-roomed wooden house, a barn, one or 
 two fruit trees, and a few fields running 
 down 300 or 400 yards to a little stream. 
 The country level, very slightly undulat- 
 ing, wooded here and there, not unlike 
 some parts of Cambridgeshire that I have 
 seen neither particularly attractive or 
 unattractive. Here on this farm, and
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 working it himself, lived Mr. Stafford 
 with his family ; he a loyal Methodist, 
 sometimes acting as local preacher, silent- 
 mannered, dark-skinned, of bilious tem- 
 perament, subject to illness, hard-working, 
 and faithful ; his wife a fine woman of 
 cultured expression and spiritual mind, 
 pretty well absorbed in domestic work ; 
 two sons, young fellows, one of whom, 
 Harry, at this time working in a printer's 
 office in Camden, was a great ally and 
 favourite of Walt's ; a grown-up daughter, 
 and one or two children. Here Whitman 
 would often stay, weeks or months at 
 a time, boarding and living with the 
 family, and attracting the members of 
 it to him, and himself to them, with 
 the ties of enduring friendship. Mrs. 
 Stafford once said to me : " He is a 
 good man ; I think he is the best man 
 I ever knew." 
 
 It was his delight, and doubtless one of
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 the chief attractions of this favourite re- 
 sort, to go down and spend a large part 
 of the day by the " creek " which I have 
 spoken of and which figures so largely 
 in " Specimen Days." At a point not a 
 quarter of a mile distant from the house 
 it widened into a kind of little lake sur- 
 rounded by trees, the haunt of innumer- 
 able birds ; and here Whitman would sit 
 for hours in an old chair ; silent, enjoying 
 the scene, becoming a part of it, almost, 
 himself; or would undress and bathe in 
 the still, deep pool. At this time he 
 was nearly sixty years old, and for some 
 eight years on and off had been stricken 
 with paralysis. As is well known, he attri- 
 buted his partial recovery very largely to 
 the beneficence of this creek, with its 
 water-baths and sun-baths and open-air 
 influences generally. 
 
 That day being Sunday I found the 
 family all at home, and Whitman in the
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 midst of them. When the opportunity 
 occurred I told him something of the 
 appreciation of his writings that had 
 grown up in England during those years. 
 After a pause he asked if the Rossetti 
 edition was out of print. I said I thought 
 so. W. : " I hope it is ; I approved of 
 Rossetti's plan for the time being, but 
 now would rather appear without altera- 
 tion." [I am here simply transcribing 
 my notes made a day or two after ; these 
 are not his exact words, but as good 
 as I could remember.] " I had hardly 
 realised that there was so much interest in 
 me in England. I confess I am surprised 
 that America, to whom I have especially 
 addressed myself, is so utterly silent. 
 Lowell, and indeed almost all the critics, 
 say that I am crude, inartistic do you 
 think that ? " I said I had heard such 
 criticisms, but I did not myself think his 
 work crude and hasty ; on the contrary,
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 much of it seemed to me to have been 
 written very deliberately and carefully ; 
 and as to the question of art, I thought 
 he had laid an altogether broader basis of 
 style (instancing some of his poems) 
 a great foundation ; others would build 
 here and there upon it, but he had 
 struck the main lines. W. : " I did, in 
 fact, re-write and destroy much before I 
 published ; I cannot think that I have 
 altogether attained, but I have planted 
 the seed ; it is for others to continue the 
 work. My original idea was that if I 
 could bring men together by putting be- 
 fore them the heart of man, with all its 
 joys and sorrows and experiences and sur- 
 roundings, it would be a great thing ; up 
 to this time I have had America chiefly 
 in view, but this appreciation of me in 
 England makes me think I might per- 
 haps do the same for the old world also. 
 I have endeavoured from the first to get 
 14
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 free as much as possible from all literary 
 attitudinising to strip off integuments, 
 coverings, bridges and to speak straight 
 from and to the heart." [In reference to 
 this, he said at another time that it had 
 been a " whim " of his when writing " to 
 discard all conventional poetic phrases, 
 and every touch of or reference to ancient 
 or mediaeval images, metaphors, subjects, 
 styles, &c., and to write de novo with 
 words and phrases appropriate to his 
 own days."] 
 
 When we went in to dinner Mr. Stafford 
 was already seated ; I think he was about 
 to say grace. Walt, with greater grace, 
 stood for a moment bending over him 
 from behind, and clasped Stafford's head 
 in his great hands; then passed on in 
 silence. What a large sweet presence 
 so benign, yet so determined ! The chil- 
 dren loved him, and the little boy would 
 lie coiled, lost, on his knees, half-asleep,
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 half-awake, Walt's hand covering and 
 compressing his entire face. 
 
 In Philadelphia, the day before, Whit- 
 man had introduced me to his English 
 friends, the Gilchrists. Mrs. Gilchrist, 
 widow of Alexander Gilchrist, the bio- 
 grapher of Blake, was a capable and large- 
 minded woman. A year earlier she, with 
 two daughters and a son, had come from 
 England for a two or three years' visit to 
 the States, and had settled in Philadelphia. 
 As is well known, she was the first of 
 Englishwomen to fully and publicly re- 
 cognise (as she did in some printed letters) 
 the splendid genius of the poet, and that 
 at a time (1868 or '69) when "Leaves of 
 Grass " to most of the literary world was 
 little better than the incoherent ramblings 
 of a maniac. More than once did she 
 relate to me how, on first opening the 
 volume, when her eye fell upon the fine 
 nearly full-length engraving (taken from 
 
 16
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 a daguerrotype) of the author, she ex- 
 claimed : " Here at last is the face of 
 Christ, which the painters have so long 
 sought for"; and she always maintained 
 that the reading of the book itself did 
 but confirm and deepen that first impres- 
 sion. 
 
 At the Gilchrists' house Whitman would 
 not unfrequently stay. Indeed there was 
 a kind of prophet's chamber for him 
 there, always ready. And as it happened 
 that he was about to pay a visit there, it 
 was arranged that I also should come. 
 They lived at No. 1929, North 22nd 
 Street. If the American method of 
 numbering streets and houses is prosaic, 
 it certainly has the advantage of being 
 practical. Philadelphia is like a chess- 
 board ; you find your way by co-ordinate 
 geometry. The streets are straight, 
 parallel, and not far from infinite in 
 length. The address being put in your 
 17 B
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 hands, you know at once the exact spot 
 to which you are destined. 
 
 I remember very well arriving, bag 
 in hand, and finding the whole family 
 (a general custom in Philadelphia on those 
 warm evenings) sitting out on the door- 
 steps Whitman in the midst, in an arm- 
 chair, his white beard and hair glistening 
 in the young moonlight, looking like 
 some old god the others grouped around 
 him or at his feet. After this for a week 
 of evenings I made one of the party. 
 How pleasant it was ! Whitman had 
 a knack of making ordinary life enjoy- 
 able, redeeming it from commonplaceness. 
 Instead of making you feel (as so many 
 do) that the Present is a kind of squalid 
 necessity to be got over as best may be, 
 in view of something always in the future, 
 he gave you that good sense of noivness, 
 that faith that the present is enjoyable, 
 which imparts colour and life to the 
 il
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 thousand and one dry details of existence. 
 As I have hinted before, he was no great 
 talker, and would generally let the con- 
 versation ebb and flow at its own will, 
 without effort, ready apparently for grave 
 or gay alike. 
 
 Unlike many highly important people 
 who seem to enjoy holding forth to a 
 general audience, Whitman, as I thought, 
 preferred to let conversation turn on the 
 pivot of personal relationship. Often as 
 not he would have his listener by the 
 hand ; and his words too had an attractive 
 force, from their very simplicity and 
 purity from affectation or display. I think 
 he did not really care to have conversa- 
 tional dealings with people except on such 
 a basis of personal affection. To such 
 as he did not like to all mere gab- 
 blers, bores, spying and prying persons 
 he became as a precipice, instantly and 
 utterly inaccessible. Certainly it was one
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 of the pleasures of his society that you 
 always felt he was there in person, bond 
 fide, not by deputy ; and no current notion 
 of politeness could make him do a thing 
 he did not enjoy doing. One evening we 
 were looking over some fine engravings, 
 mostly portraits, Gainsboroughs, Reynolds, 
 Lelys, and others, from Mrs. Gilchrist's 
 collection. He enjoyed them greatly, 
 and very deliberately, dwelling long and 
 long over some of them, criticising style, 
 workmanship, composition, character, &c. 
 But when he had had enough of it all 
 well, he said so ! I have seldom known 
 any one who, though so cordial and near 
 to others, detached and withdrew himself 
 at times more decisively than he did, or 
 who on the whole spent more time in 
 solitude. Also no rough draft of his 
 character would be complete which did 
 not take into account the strong Quaker 
 element of obstinacy which existed in
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 him but this might require a separate 
 chapter ! 
 
 To return to our evenings. I have said 
 something about Walt Whitman's manner 
 in conversation ; I cannot attempt to 
 reproduce its effect, but I will just 
 transcribe such notes of some of his 
 remarks as I have by me. 
 
 One evening conversation turned upon 
 the Chinese. W. : " I fancy they are like 
 the Germans, only more refined. My 
 notion is that the Germans are simple, | 
 true, affectionate folk, but there is a kind 
 of roughness, one may almost say brutish- 
 ness, about them ; the Chinese have the 
 same good qualities, with a certain alert- 
 ness and grace which the Germans lack." 
 I quoted some accounts of Japan by a man 
 who had lived there for a long time, and 
 who told me that the manners of the old 
 Japanese aristocracy were so elaborately 
 perfect that he himself would go any
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 distance to get out of their way, feeling 
 such a boor compared with them ! This 
 amused Whitman ; seemed to " tally 
 with his own idea." Mrs. Gilchrist 
 wondered, with regard to the natives 
 of India and Orientals generally, that 
 the degradation of the women did not 
 bring about a gradual deterioration of 
 the whole race. W. : " I suppose that 
 among the masses of the people the 
 women (and men too) live, after all, 
 much as they do in the West, and 
 as they must do in all times and 
 climes ; and that the special treatment 
 of women in the East only applies to 
 the upper classes. The masses in every 
 part of the globe are dominated by the 
 necessities of Nature. Thus also among 
 the Greeks and Romans the peasant-life 
 must have had its races of fine women." 
 And here he cited Juvenal, and his 
 comparison of the effeminate lady of
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 his time with the " stern magnificent 
 mothers" of the early days of Rome. 
 
 Going on to Oriental literature, Whit- 
 man spoke of " Sakuntala," the Indian 
 drama, its " modernness " the comic 
 scenes especially being as of the times of 
 Shakespeare ; and of the great Hindu epic, 
 the "Ramayana" ; and told the story of 
 Yudisthura, which occurs as an episode 
 in the latter. Conversation got round 
 presently I think in reference to the 
 cramped life of " high-born " women in 
 the East to the shoddiness and vulgarity 
 of modern well-to-do life. W. : " It 
 seems a strange thing to me, this love 
 of gilt and upholstery among the Ameri- 
 cans that people leading a free natural 
 open-air life should, directly they make 
 a little money, want to go in for sofas, 
 expensively furnished rooms, dress, and 
 the like; yet it seems to be a law, a 
 kind of necessity, that they should do so.
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 I suppose it is partly that each man 
 wishes to feel himself as good as others, 
 to feel that he can have of the * best ' too ; 
 democracy showing itself for a time in 
 that way, reducing the borrowed old-world 
 standard of superiority to an absurdity ; 
 and I guess it will not last for ever." 
 
 We did not generally sit up later than 
 eleven. Breakfast was at 7.30 or 8. 
 Walt's arrival in the morning was as ex- 
 hilarating as a fine sunrise. After break- 
 fast and a chat we would separate to our 
 respective occupations. In the afternoon, 
 almost every day I was there, the poet 
 went off to Camden to visit his sister-in- 
 law, who was at that time confined to the 
 house, and to whom, I believe, he was 
 much attached. As I have said, Walt was 
 very simple and domestic in his ways; 
 and would quite enjoy, on a rainy after- 
 noon, having a game of twenty questions 
 such as he had " often played in camp with 
 24
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 the soldiers during the war," or would take 
 pleasure in preparing some little dish of 
 his own devising for the evening meal. 
 One evening we pressed him to read. 
 He would not recite anything of his own ; 
 but he read out Tennyson's " Ulysses " 
 in a clear, strong, and rugged tone. The 
 subtle harmonies of the Tennysonian verse 
 effloresced under the treatment, but the 
 sterner qualities of the poem stood out 
 finely. We expressed admiration. He 
 said : " I guess it is about the best Tenny- 
 sonian poem." Another evening, I re- 
 member, he told us how, when living at 
 New York, he had had a " fancy " to visit 
 Sing-sing prison, the great penal establish- 
 ment up the Hudson river. He obtained 
 permission to do so, got to know one or 
 two of the warders, and for some time 
 went there pretty frequently. He wrote 
 letters for the prisoners, &c. "It was a 
 whim."
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 We had a long talk on manual labour. 
 Most of us agreed it would be a good 
 thing for all classes to take part in not 
 to be left to one class only. Walt main- 
 tained with regard to reforms and the 
 like, that it was no good trying to benefit 
 people (labouring people for instance) 
 who did not feel the need of any change. 
 " Many people came to me at one time 
 about slavery, and ' wondered ' that I 
 was so quiet about it; but, in truth, 
 I felt that abolitionists were making 
 quite noise enough, and that there were 
 other things just as important which 
 had to be attended to." We got talk- 
 ing of Abraham Lincoln I suppose in 
 reference to slavery and I mentioned 
 the story that Lincoln went out of his 
 mind and nearly committed suicide over 
 a love affair. Walt, who always was a 
 great admirer of Lincoln, and who knew 
 
 a good deal about him and his history, 
 26
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 gave this a most emphatic denial, saying 
 that Lincoln was " never even near being 
 crazy." 
 
 One of the most amusing incidents of 
 my stay occurred one morning shortly 
 after breakfast, when a visiting card was 
 handed in bearing the ominous inscription 
 " Madame Dorbiney D'Aubigne," and was 
 quickly followed by the appearance of an 
 elderly and loquacious little lady. She 
 was one of those detached women with a 
 reticule who travel about the world in 
 quest of anything " interesting." She had 
 been, she told us, all over the States and 
 seen many celebrities, but could not return 
 to Europe without visiting Whitman 
 and it was only by a piece of luck that 
 she had found out where he was stay- 
 ing. However, it soon began to appear 
 that her interest in Walt was not so 
 great, naturally, as in herself; for after a 
 few preliminary compliments she settled
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 down to tell us all about the wonderful 
 D'Aubigne family to which she belonged. 
 It ramified all over the civilised world, 
 she said ; and the name was spelt in 
 ever so many different ways, but they 
 were all branches of the same family, 
 they were all related to each other 
 as her own name indeed showed. Walt 
 listened in an amused manner, and for 
 about ten minutes was quite decently 
 courteous and patient. Then I suddenly 
 perceived that his face was becoming 
 * precipitous ' ; the little woman of 
 course was addressing him, no one else 
 being of any importance ; but he seemed 
 to be becoming deaf, there was no 
 speculation in his eyes ; it was rather 
 awful ; for a minute or two she tried 
 vainly to effect a lodgment for her 
 words, to get any kind of handhold on 
 the sheer surface, and then gathering 
 up her tackle, she made the best of
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 a bad job, bade a hasty good-bye, and 
 disappeared. 
 
 I told Walt about a visit I paid to Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, and the criticisms of 
 " Leaves of Grass " which I heard on that 
 occasion. I saw the " Autocrat of the 
 Breakfast Table " at his house in Boston. 
 He was then about 70 years of age a 
 dapper active little man, full of life and 
 go, rather enjoying the visits of strangers 
 " Oh yes, I have a large ' parish ' 
 people write to me and come and call from 
 all parts of the world we authors are 
 rather vain, you know, and quite enjoy a 
 little homage ; but my parish is not as big as 
 Longfellow's not as big as Longfellow's. 
 But this is not a good time for you to see 
 Boston. Boston is very empty now 
 (getting up and glancing through the 
 window) very empty ; you might almost 
 see a fox run down the street ; &c., 
 &c." I said something about American
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 literature and " Leaves of Grass." " Oh ! 
 Whitman," he said, "well well well 
 Whitman is all very well he has 
 capacity, but it won't do it won't do. 
 I tell you what, it's something like this : 
 you know, skilful cooks say that the 
 faintest odour, the merest whiff, of assa- 
 fcetida, will give a piquant flavour to a 
 dish and I can believe that ; but to drench 
 it in assafcetida, no, that won't do. The 
 poets coquette with Nature and weave 
 garlands of roses for her ; but Whitman 
 goes at her like a great hirsute man no, 
 it won't do. Now," he continued, "the 
 other day Lowell and Longfellow and I 
 were chatting together, and the subject 
 of Whitman turned up. Said Lowell, 
 * I can't think why there is all this 
 stir about Whitman ; I have read a good 
 deal of his poetry, but I can't see any- 
 thing in it / can't see anything in //.' 
 
 4 Well,' said Longfellow, 'I believe the 
 
 30
 
 Whitman in 1877 
 
 man might have done something if he 
 had only had a decent training and edu- 
 cation.' As to my own opinion, why," 
 said Holmes, "I have already given you 
 that. So you see what we think of him 
 in America." Whitman was a good deal 
 amused, and took it all in good part, 
 saying he knew pretty well already what 
 they thought. 
 
 As the days went by I began to see 
 more clearly the depths which lay behind 
 the poet's simple and unconcerned ex- 
 terior. Literary persons, as a rule, write 
 over their own heads ; they talk a little 
 bigger than themselves. But Whitman 
 seemed to fill out " Leaves of Grass," and 
 form an interpretation of it. I began to 
 see that all he had written there was 
 matter of absolute personal experience 
 that you might be sure that what was said 
 was meant. There was the same de- 
 liberate suggestiveness about his actions 
 3 1
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 and manners that you find in his writings 
 only, of course, with the added force of 
 bodily presence ; and far down too there 
 were clearly enough visible the same 
 strong and contrary moods, the same 
 strange omnivorous egotism, controlled 
 and restrained by that wonderful genius 
 of his for human affection and love. 
 "Who has the most enamoured body?" 
 were words which somehow his presence 
 often suggested. It was with real re- 
 luctance that, a week after my arrival, I 
 bade adieu to all that friendly household ; 
 and the next morning but one, from 
 the stern of the Siberia, watched the 
 flat shores of New England, and the 
 lighthouse that marks the entrance to 
 Boston Harbour, recede and dip below 
 the broadening waters of the Atlantic.
 
 WALT WHITMAN IN 1884
 
 WALT WHITMAN IN 1884 
 next time I saw Walt Whitman 
 
 * was the iyth June 1884. He had 
 then left Stevens Street, owing to the re- 
 moval of his brother, but was still living 
 in Camden, in a small house which he 
 had himself part-purchased 328 Mickle 
 Street. He had at that time, for house- 
 keepers, an elderly workman and his wife, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lay, with whom he was on 
 easy terms, and with whom he had his 
 meals. In appearance I thought him much 
 the same as in 1877 a trifle thinner per- 
 haps, and certainly more infirm. Some 
 expression of weariness too I thought I saw, 
 which would likely arise from the increased 
 
 35
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 confinement of his life. " I keep going," 
 he said, " much the same. Visits from 
 English friends are perhaps my chief diver- 
 sion." Then, after tender inquiries, espe- 
 cially for Mrs. Gilchrist (who was now in 
 London), " have just had a visit from 
 Oscar Wilde who told me about Eng- 
 land ; I made him do the talking rather 
 liked him. I have occasional letters from 
 Dowden a steady friend and others. 
 Bucke's book 1 is going off slowly not 
 much cared for by my friends but I 
 like it. I opposed the book all along, 
 till Bucke, getting fairly out of patience, 
 came one day and said, 'Now I am just 
 as obstinate as you, and I intend to 
 bring it out whether you like it or no 
 so you had better make the best of the 
 matter and help to make it authentic as 
 far as you can'; whereupon I caved in, 
 
 1 "Walt Whitman," by R. Maurice Bucke, M.D. 
 Philadelphia, 1883. 
 
 36
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 laughing heartily, and wrote the account 
 of my birthplace and antecedents which 
 occupies the first twenty-four pages of 
 the book." 
 
 " I thought that there was a germinal 
 idea in Bucke's book the idea that 
 ' Leaves of Grass ' was above all an ex- 
 pression of the Moral Nature. As to 
 O'Connor's letters I must say I like 
 them. They are comforting. Just as 
 any woman likes a man to fall in love 
 with her whether she returns it or not 
 so to have once aroused so eloquent 
 and passionate a declaration is reassuring 
 and a help to me." We then spoke of the 
 money-making and gentility business at 
 New York I remarking that I thought 
 it had all increased considerably since I 
 was there in '77, and he corroborating, 
 though holding that it probably had to 
 be gone through " for reasons." 
 
 Here I find the following passage 
 
 37
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 among my notes : " I am impressed 
 more than ever with W.'s contradictory, 
 self-willed, tenacious, obstinate character, 
 strong and even extreme moods, united 
 with infinite tenderness, wistful love, and 
 studied tolerance ; also great caution [he 
 says : * the phrenologists always say that 
 caution is my chief characteristic did 
 you know that ? '] and a certain artful- 
 ness, combined with keen, penetrating and 
 determined candour ; the wild-hawk look 
 still there, * untamable, untranslatable,' yet 
 with that wonderful tenderness at bottom." 
 The next day Walt came over, at 
 noon, to Crowell's hotel, where I was stay- 
 ing ; we dined and went to Fairmount 
 Park in the afternoon. Talked a little 
 about social questions. W. : " I believe, 
 like Carlyle, in men ; I think that not- 
 withstanding all set-offs the great capi- 
 talists and masters of private enterprise 
 have, in America at least, been useful. 
 38
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 I have myself had all along a tender feel- 
 ing for Co-operation, but for that doubt 
 whether a committee or an elected person 
 could or would do the work." As to 
 England, he seemed to think that emi- 
 gration would relieve it, and he looked 
 upon the law and custom of entail as 
 the " hard-pan underlying your social 
 institutions." " I like and welcome all 
 agitation, even the fiercest, but like 
 Carlyle have little belief in reform talk. 
 Society, like a person in middle life, is set, 
 and you have to make the best of it. I 
 am, I hope, a bit of a reformer myself. 
 Yes, we must grow generous, ungrasping 
 masters of industry; absurd as the idea 
 would seem to most now-a-days, I believe 
 that is the upshot of what is going on. 
 The creation of a large, independent, 
 democratic class of small owners is the 
 main thing though it is never once men- 
 tioned by our economists and politicians. 
 
 39
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 I am satisfied that for America Free Trade 
 and open admission of all foreigners is an 
 integral part of its theory ; the future of 
 the world is one of open communication 
 and solidarity of all races ; and if that 
 problem cannot be solved in America it 
 cannot be solved anywhere." 
 
 We drove to Fairmount Park in a 'bus, 
 walked a little, sat at the refreshment 
 tables, and listened to the band Walt 
 absorbed and quiet for the most part, 
 recognised by a few among the well-dressed 
 crowd, but seeming to hold himself aloof 
 with almost an air of hauteur looking 
 fine withal in his grey suit and with 
 grey uncovered head, tho' perhaps a little 
 weary. He asked me somewhat about 
 my life and doings at home. 
 
 The following evening I stayed to 
 supper with Whitman in the little kitchen 
 of his home, in company with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Lay. They seemed homely decent
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 people, rather dull and quiet. Walt, who 
 was dressed just in shirt and trousers for 
 the weather was hot kept things going. 
 Afterwards we sat in the front room with 
 Folger McKinsey, a young Philadelphian 
 of literary leanings, who had come in. 
 Walt talked about Shakespeare, the Bacon 
 theory, the greatness of the historical plays, 
 the " dragon-rancours " of the barons, King 
 Lear, &c. " I will not be positive about 
 Bacon's connection with the plays, but I 
 am satisfied that behind the historical 
 Shakespeare there is another mind, guid- 
 ing, and far, far reaching, giving weight 
 and permanent value to what would other- 
 wise have been only two plays a year 
 written for a witty, alert, jocose audience 
 chiefly of young gallants." 
 
 The conversation turned somehow on 
 death. W. : "It is in reality a very dif- 
 ferent affair from the romantic stage view 
 of it ; deathbed speeches and * scenes ' are 
 41
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 of the rarest occurrence. I have witnessed 
 hundreds of deaths, and as a rule it seems 
 just a matter of course like having your 
 breakfast, or any other event of the day, 
 and met with indifference at the last, 
 and with apathy, or unconsciousness." 
 
 After an hour or two we went out and 
 walked a little through the Camden streets 
 Walt, as usual, with plentiful greetings 
 to passers-by. He would insist on our 
 coming into a shop and having some re- 
 freshment, and then a few minutes later at 
 the corner of a street, left us, I remember, 
 with that queer brusque manner of his 
 which so often offended his friends just 
 coldly saying "Ta-ta," and going off as if 
 he didn't care if he never saw us again ! 
 
 The next morning (June 30) was my 
 last visit to Whitman; we had a long 
 and intimate conversation. He was very 
 friendly and affectionate, and sat by the 
 open window downstairs enjoying the wafts
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 of fragrant air, while he talked about 
 " Leaves of Grass." " What lies behind 
 * Leaves of Grass ' is something that few, 
 very few, only one here and there, perhaps 
 oftenest women, are at all in a position to 
 seize. It lies behind almost every line; 
 but concealed, studiedly concealed ; some 
 passages left purposely obscure. There is 
 something in my nature furtive like an old 
 hen ! You see a hen wandering up and 
 down a hedgerow, looking apparently quite 
 unconcerned, but presently she finds a 
 concealed spot, and furtively lays an egg, 
 and comes away as though nothing had 
 happened ! That is how I felt in writing 
 ' Leaves of Grass.' Sloane Kennedy calls 
 me 'artful' which about hits the mark. 
 I think there are truths which it is neces- 
 sary to envelop or wrap up." I replied 
 that all through history the old mysteries, 
 or whatever they may have been called, had 
 been held back ; and added that probably 
 
 43
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 we had something yet to learn from India 
 in these matters. W. : " I do not myself 
 think there is anything more to come 
 from that source ; we must rather look to 
 modern science to open the way. Time 
 alone can absolutely test my poems or any 
 one's. Personally, I think that the ' some- 
 thing ' is more present in some of my small 
 later poems than in the ' Song of Myself.' " 
 This was the last I saw of Whitman. 
 I left him sitting there by the window 
 in his downstairs room, close to the street 
 and the passers-by his clear eye un- 
 dimmed by age, his rugged, loving nature 
 unaltered ; though there was a certain 
 grave weariness in his otherwise majestic 
 presence, which gives one a touch of 
 sadness when one thinks that he had still 
 nearly eight years to pass of increasing 
 physical disablement and of continually 
 diminishing vitality, culminating at last in 
 serious bodily misery and wretchedness,
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 before death might relieve him of the 
 burden of the flesh. 
 
 It seems strange at first that Whitman's 
 death should have been of such a lingering 
 character three months, from Christmas 
 1891, to near the end of the following 
 March, in a dying state nearly all the 
 time, with much restlessness, sleeplessness, 
 misery, and even pain at times. But in 
 some ways this was in consonance with his 
 physical temperament his extraordinarily 
 voluminous hold on life, all phases of it, 
 his extreme tenacity, his strong implication 
 in the life of the body and the senses, his 
 affectionate and unceasing love towards 
 his friends, and his marked and obdurate 
 egoism all things which held him to life, 
 and needed a long process of disentangle- 
 ment, fibre by fibre as it were, before he 
 could be released. 
 
 Volume voluminousness was one of 
 Walt's most notable features. Physically 
 
 45
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 it was so as witness his ample propor- 
 tions, his keen and well-furnished senses ; 
 mentally the same a mind well stocked, 
 interested in every subject, balancing, 
 weighing, comparing, slow-moving, but 
 never retracing its steps ; emotionally and 
 by temperament the same, with an im- 
 mense range of emotion, and volume of 
 feeling when roused, but slow, deliberate, 
 cautious, lethargic, and at times even lump- 
 ishly immovable. This voluminousness 
 is the key to his literary style, which at its 
 best is magnificent thought after thought 
 culled from every side and department of 
 life, ranged in successive line and phrase, 
 marshalled and held in suspense as it were 
 in huge array, till at last they are hurled 
 upon the reader in one mass and with 
 overwhelming power; but which style at 
 its worst is cumbersome and disjointed. 
 It is this voluminousness which goes with 
 
 the whole florid full emotional nature of 
 4 6
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 the man, fond of materials and plenty of 
 materials, not especially careful of order 
 or arrangement, not too studiedly clear 
 or concise in thought and expression, but 
 always ample and inclusive. 
 
 Another main point in Whitman's char- 
 acter is, I think, best expressed by the 
 word " cussedness." I have touched on 
 it once or twice : the contrary moods, 
 the spirit of refusal, the wilfulness, which 
 by their at times necessary opposition 
 and antagonism to his ample and loving 
 humanity formed, I believe, a great 
 tragic element in his nature and possibly 
 prevented him ever being quite what is 
 called " happy in love affairs." He cele- 
 brates in his poems the fluid, all-solvent 
 disposition, but often was himself less the 
 river than the rock. In these moods, 
 fixed, silent, and unquestionable, he was 
 a thing you might try your strength upon, 
 but which you were not likely to move ! 
 
 47
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 In the slow downward slope of his head 
 from back to front, and in the lines of 
 his eye and brow, tenacity was written ; 
 it looked out upon you from the small, 
 well-defined pupil set under its long, 
 curtain-like lid ; and there was at times 
 in his face, as I have said, the look as of 
 a precipice, sheer, with breakneck ledges. 
 One can imagine how this portion of his 
 character, at any rate in his younger days, 
 must have conflicted with his equally 
 innate and imperious craving for human 
 love and fellowship, and what suffering 
 the conflict must have brought to him at 
 times. R. W. Emerson said to me once 
 (1877) of Whitman that when he came 
 to know him he found him " a wayward, 
 fanciful man." * This was not probably 
 meant to be a complete account of the 
 man, yet it indicates Emerson's perception 
 of certain characteristics in him. In later 
 
 1 See infra, p. 166. 
 48
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 years the large, equable human heart 
 asserted itself more and more, and nothing 
 could be more beautiful than the tolerance 
 towards old and young of all sorts which 
 he exhibited ; while the waywardness be- 
 came refined into something majestic. I 
 remember old Mr. Pearsall Smith, of 
 Philadelphia, who knew Whitman very 
 well, saying that one of the things which 
 impressed him most about Walt was his 
 " magnificent No ! " how sometimes when 
 invited out, or asked to do anything which 
 he did not care to do, there would roll 
 forth unqualified by any thanks, or ex- 
 planation, or excuse the simple negative, 
 with a great round O, and yet, as a rule, 
 with a large sunny amiability which made 
 offence impossible. 
 
 I have two portraits photographs 
 which I am fond of comparing with each 
 other. One is of Whitman, taken in 
 1890 ; the other, taken at about the same 
 
 49 D
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 time and at the same age (seventy years), 
 is of an Indian Gnani or seer. Both are 
 faces of the highest interest and import ; 
 but how different ! That of Whitman 
 deeply lined, bearing the marks of life- 
 long passion and emotion, aggressive and 
 determined, yet wistful and tender, full 
 of suffering and full of love, indicating 
 serenity, yet markedly turbid and clouded, 
 ample in brow and frame and flowing hair, 
 as of one touching and mingling with 
 humanity at all points withal of a 
 wonderful majesty and grandeur, as of 
 the great rocks (to return always to that 
 simile) whose summits pierce at last the 
 highest domain. 
 
 The other portrait, of a man equally 
 aged, shows scarcely a line on the face ; 
 you might think for that and for the 
 lithe, active form that he was not more 
 than forty years old; a brow absolutely 
 calm and unruffled, gracious, expressive
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 lips, well-formed features, and eyes the 
 dominant characteristic of his countenance 
 dark and intense, and illuminated by 
 the vision of the seer. In this face you 
 discern command, control, gentleness, and 
 the most absolute inward unity, serenity, 
 and peace ; no wandering emotions or 
 passions flit across the crystal mirror of 
 the soul ; self-hood in any but the highest 
 sense has vanished the self has, as it 
 were, returned to its birthplace leaving 
 behind the most childlike, single-hearted, 
 uncensorious, fearless character imaginable. 
 Yet just here one seems to miss some- 
 thing in the last character the touch of 
 human and earthly entanglement. Here 
 is not exactly the great loving heart which 
 goes a few steps on the way with every 
 child of man ; here is not the ample- 
 domed brow which tackles each new 
 problem of life and science. Notwith- 
 standing evident signs of culture and 
 5*
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 experience in the past, notwithstanding 
 vast power of concentration in any given 
 matter or affair when necessary, the face 
 shows that heart and intellect have be- 
 come quiescent, that interest in the actual 
 has passed or is passing away. 
 
 Whitman's immense moody and emo- 
 tional temperament he calls it "tur- 
 bulent" himself forms a factor of his 
 character and writings, which has perhaps 
 not been sufficiently considered especially 
 by some of his admirers, who, as so often 
 happens, are more concerned to present 
 an ideal personality than a real portrait. 
 There are indeed some of his biographers 
 who are at pains to explain that many of 
 his expressions of sympathy and participa- 
 tion in the weaknesses and sins of humanity 
 are to be taken as theoretical or allegorical 
 expressions, having by no means a personal 
 interpretation. Yet surely this is to take 
 the clay out of the brick, the marble out 
 5*
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 of the statue. While it is obvious that 
 no man could have in one lifetime run 
 through all the experiences mentioned in 
 " Leaves of Grass," the whole point of the 
 matter is that the author actually finds in 
 himself the capability of these experiences, 
 and quite personally identifies himself with 
 them. It is, in fact, just these earth- 
 entanglements, in a character so cosmic in 
 its range as his, which are of special im- 
 port as giving direction and effect to his 
 individuality and to his work. Not only 
 is it clear that without his voluminous 
 enfoldment in the earth-life the Nessus- 
 shirt of Hercules he could not well have 
 performed the mighty works that he did ; 
 but it is difficult to see how, without some 
 of that obduracy and egotism of his, he 
 could have held his own against the 
 great surge of obloquy and ridicule which 
 covered his first appearance on the field 
 of literature. Whitman saw (somewhere 
 
 53
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 within himself) the typical man of a new 
 era ; and he gave himself to the utterance 
 of what he saw. It stood in the most 
 glaring and irremediable contrast to the 
 genteel ideal of the civilisation around 
 him. Alone, he had to confront the 
 whole of modern society. Now then, if 
 ever, strength was needed. Now then 
 tenacity, obstinacy, wilfulness ; they had to 
 be made the most of. If they were faults 
 they were such as could ill be spared. 
 His was perhaps the most deliberately 
 daring advance ever made in literature ; 
 and it is difficult to believe that it could 
 have been made except by one in whom 
 the rocky elements of character were 
 abundantly present. " Leaves of Grass " 
 itself has this quality of undeniable 
 "thereness" ; and when the critics have 
 had their say and expended all their shafts 
 upon it, it still remains solid and un- 
 touched like the earth, which survives 
 
 54
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 all the theories of the geologists and sur- 
 renders itself to none. 
 
 There is a third point. In many ways 
 Whitman marks a stage of human evolu- 
 tion not yet reached, and hardly suspected, 
 by humanity at large ; but in no respect is 
 this more true than in respect of his 
 capacity of Love. If you consider Whit- 
 man's life you will see that Love ruled it, 
 that he gave his life for love. There 
 were other motives no doubt, but this one 
 ultimately dominated them all. It per- 
 meates like a flame his entire writings ; it 
 took him to the battlefield and the hospi- 
 tals in succour of the wounded soldiers ; 
 it led him (before the war) deep into the 
 life and comradeship of the people all 
 phases ; after the war it united him in 
 bonds of tender and life-long friendship 
 with many, 1 both men and women ; it 
 
 1 See his Letters to Pete Doyle, published under the 
 title " Calamus," by Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 
 U.S.A. 
 
 55
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 surrounded his death-bed with devotion, 
 and brought thousands to his funeral. 
 For it he gave away his possessions and 
 the material means of life, he gave his 
 prospects of professional success, he gave 
 health, fame all that a man can give 
 and accepted illness and obscurity, and 
 oftentimes long and painful loneliness 
 and betrayal even of love itself. 1 
 
 He was a man in whom the power of 
 
 1 See that remarkable poem printed in the 1860 
 edition of " Leaves of Grass" (p. 355), but afterwards 
 omitted, perhaps as being too personal : 
 
 " Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted, 
 Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome 
 
 and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning 
 
 my face in my hands ; 
 Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go 
 
 forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or 
 
 through the city streets, or pacing miles and 
 
 miles, stifling plaintive cries ; 
 Hours discouraged, distracted for 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 !) 
 56
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 love was developed to an extraordinary 
 degree. Yet (thanks to him) this was 
 no attenuated or merely spiritual love, 
 but was a large and generous passion, 
 spiritual and emotional of course, but 
 well rooted in the physical and sexual 
 also. In him the various sides and mani- 
 festations of the passion were so blent, 
 that instead of weakening they recognised 
 and reinforced each other ; and, coming 
 
 Sullen and suffering hours ! (I am ashamed but 
 
 it is useless I am what I am ;) 
 Hours of my torment I wonder if other men ever 
 
 have the like, out of the like feelings ? 
 Is there even one like me distracted his friend, 
 
 his lover, lost to him ? 
 Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the 
 
 morning, dejected, thinking who is lost to 
 
 him ? and at night, awaking, think who is lost ? 
 Does he too harbor his friendship silent and 
 
 endless ? harbor his anguish and passion ? 
 Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention 
 
 of a name, bring the fit back upon him, 
 
 taciturn and deprest ? 
 Does he see himself reflected in me ? In these 
 
 hours does he see the face of his hours 
 
 reflected ? " 
 
 57
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 into touch with humanity, as he did with 
 a kind of careless equalness from all 
 these sides ; piercing through the layers 
 and folds of caste, through differences 
 of race, climate, character, occupation ; 
 despising distances of space and time ; 
 he drew men and women of the most 
 varied nature and habits to himself, 
 saved them from their own little selves 
 from their own little virtues and vices 
 and united them in the solidarity of 
 humanity, by their common attachment 
 to him. "Leaves of Grass" is the meet- 
 ing-ground of the human race. There 
 every nationality, every creed, every 
 trade, every atom of humanity is repre- 
 sented, and all are fused in the great 
 loving soul that overbroods them. 
 
 If it seems difficult to reconcile this 
 great and abounding charity of Whitman 
 with his strong egotism, it is perhaps 
 not needful to reconcile them. They
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 may have been two necessarily opposite 
 poles of his nature. At any rate to assert 
 this love physical, sexual, emotional, 
 spiritual extending to all races, castes, 
 to the most despised and degraded, to the 
 near home and far off, to the virtuous 
 and to the criminal, to men as well as to 
 women, to the animals even in all its 
 phases and utterances; and to assert this 
 egoism, plainly, unblushingly, in all its 
 forms confidence, pride, self-esteem, 
 desire, and delight in all the natural 
 powers and appetites Whitman de- 
 liberately set himself. In doing so he 
 (necessarily) upset all former and formal 
 moralities, and exposed himself to the 
 fiercest opposition ; but some day when 
 it has come to be recognised that the 
 medium in which the true ego^ the soul, 
 lives and moves is neither gain nor 
 fame, nor duty nor denial, but indeed 
 love and love alone it will be seen that 
 
 59
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 " Leaves of Grass " is, perhaps of all 
 books ever written, the most natural and 
 nobly inevitable. 
 
 A fourth point which I will venture 
 to touch on in this estimate of Whitman 
 perhaps the most vital of all, but 
 impossible to be adequately seized or 
 expressed is what may be called his 
 'illumination.' "Leaves of Grass," of 
 course, would not have been written 
 without it ; it runs behind every page 
 " the vision and the faculty divine." This 
 perception in the universal, this power of 
 seeing things apart from the mundane 
 self, and independent of their relation to 
 that self, appears to be a kind of trans- 
 cendent faculty in man ; which occasion- 
 ally manifests itself, and which brings him 
 it may perhaps be said into relation 
 with another order of existence. Indeed 
 the strangeness of the sensation, and 
 the intoxication of this vision, appears 
 60
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 sometimes to be so great that as in the 
 case of the blinding glare at the mouth 
 of Plato's cavern (" Republic," bk. vii.) 
 the beholder after witnessing it is un- 
 hinged for ordinary life, and can neither 
 see the things of the world in their 
 accustomed light, nor describe clearly 
 what else it is that he has seen. This 
 it is, no doubt, that constitutes the partial 
 * mania ' of the poet (Plato's " Phaedrus"), 
 and which accounts also for the fact that 
 many people of mystical tendency, after a 
 momentary illumination of the kind, re- 
 lapse into a sort of drivel for the rest of 
 their natural lives circling always round 
 something which they have neither clearly 
 apprehended nor can conclusively forget 
 but out of the memory of which they 
 hatch systems and 'revelations' and 
 dogmas without end. And indeed, if 
 we suppose, with Dr. Bucke, that the 
 faculty is one that is gradually evolving 
 
 61
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 in human nature, there can be nothing 
 more likely than that its first exercise 
 should be accompanied by much doubt 
 and illusion and disturbance of the 
 intelligence generally, and even of the 
 moral nature. 
 
 In the case of Whitman, however, the 
 immense sanity of his intelligence and 
 his immense grasp of the actual world 
 prevented any serious dislocation of the 
 kind ; and, though the mania and intoxi- 
 cation are at times almost terrific (as in 
 the 'Song of Myself), he never loses his 
 hold on actual facts, but manages at last 
 to draw them in a great web over himself, 
 and to show the whole world transparent 
 with the illumination within. 
 
 This faculty of perception in the uni- 
 versal must not be looked upon as a mere 
 intellectual discrimination of certain facts 
 or objects; it is rather, I take it, a con- 
 scious identity with the object ("I am the 
 62
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 mash'd fireman with breastbone broken"); 
 in which consciousness the emotional and 
 sensational elements are fused with the 
 intellectual, just as they are in the con- 
 sciousness of one's own existence and 
 actions. It is a universal light which 
 falls as it were on the interior side of all 
 objects, enabling the person that moves 
 along it to penetrate to their very essence 
 and to perceive their abiding relation to 
 each other. And the faculty begins to 
 develop itself normally in those (as one 
 would expect) whose emotional and in- 
 tellectual nature is becoming universal. 
 When sympathy and intelligence on the 
 ordinary plane have grown so far as to 
 bring the man into free and unprejudiced 
 relation with almost every phase of exist- 
 ence, then this new perception dawns 
 upon him ; the scales fall from the eyes 
 which have always before seen by the 
 light of self, and he sees by the light
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 "which never was on sea or land." 
 " Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten, 
 geh' nur im Endlichen nach alien Seiten," 
 says Goethe ; not that the mere travelling 
 through the finite of itself brings one to 
 the ' infinite,' but that it prepares the 
 human being as it were for his transla- 
 tion into it, when the time comes. 
 
 With Whitman it would seem that he 
 had travelled along the finite in pretty 
 well every direction, when, about the age 
 of thirty-five or thirty-six, or near that 
 time, this new order of consciousness, 
 and of being, opened out upon him. In- 
 stead of upsetting his broadly-based volu- 
 minous nature, it immediately established 
 that nature, forming the nucleus to its 
 endless ramifications, and the key and 
 reconcilement of its contrary moods. 
 His luxuriant turbulent emotional pas- 
 sional self acknowledged instantly its 
 
 Lord in the universal ("swiftly arose and 
 6 4
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 spread around me the peace and the 
 knowledge that pass all the argument of 
 the earth ") ; and became dedicated to 
 that service thenceforward ; and all the 
 conflicting elements of his own nature 
 and of general nature were seen as they 
 must be in such a case to have their 
 justification and their use. "The moth 
 and the fish-eggs are in place." 
 
 With Whitman the new perception was 
 eminently sane and undistorted. It is 
 probable indeed that never in historical 
 times has the cosmic intuition found a 
 fuller and more complete utterance ; for 
 it was not dwindled away into any mere 
 thin and other-worldly ecstasy, denying 
 in a kind of spiritual excess the claims of 
 the body and the intellect, but was blent 
 and harmonised, in fiery union, with the 
 very widest practical experiences and the 
 inferences of a singularly rich nature. 
 For the first time in history do we hear 
 65 E
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 the voice of a prophet who really knows 
 and really accepts the whole range of 
 human life. 
 
 The last twenty-five of Whitman's years 
 were overshadowed by the clouds of par- 
 tial and intermittent paralysis. From the 
 miracle of health and strength which he 
 had been before the war, it was his destiny 
 to come near to being a chronic invalid. 
 Unfitted for active life, unfitted even for 
 much literary work, he quietly accepted 
 his lot ; and being unable to express his 
 message in any more resounding way, was 
 content to fashion the commonplaces of 
 his daily life to its utterance ; and no one, 
 I think, could witness the dignity and 
 simple beauty of this later life without 
 feeling that here, in its way, was a poem 
 as pregnant as " Leaves of Grass." Gentle 
 and humane in manners, the rocky bases 
 of his nature if such had been conspicu- 
 ous before now covered with tender 
 
 66
 
 Whitman in 1884 
 
 herbage and flowers, making the most of 
 small details, fond of children, and with a 
 pleasant cheery word for all, letting life 
 come and go with large equanimity, he was 
 a man whom the simplest could approach 
 without effort, and who was loved by 
 hundreds who never read a word of his 
 writing. If he had a preference, it was 
 for the " common people." The uncon- 
 scious, uncultured, natural types pleased 
 him best, and he would make an effort to 
 approach them. The others he allowed 
 to approach him.
 
 NOTES AND APPRECIATIONS
 
 WHITMAN AS PROPHET 
 
 DR. R. MAURICE BUCKE, in his 
 "Memories of Walt Whitman," 1 
 speaking of the years 1853-55, and of 
 the inception of "Leaves of Grass," says, 
 " A very few years before these dates we 
 find Walt Whitman writing tales, essays, 
 sketches, and even poems, which are in no 
 way distinguishable from that * mighty 
 tide of ditch water' which Carlyle tells 
 us flows day by day from the power- 
 presses of civilisation. All at once he 
 writes the greatest book of a great cen- 
 tury. Where did he get the stuff to 
 
 1 "Walt Whitman Fellowship Papers" (Phila- 
 delphia, 1894), p. 42.
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 put in it? How did he get it all in a 
 minute, as it were? Or, if it was in 
 him before, why did it not show itself? 
 My memories of Walt Whitman include 
 many talks, in which I did my best to 
 obtain light upon these and related pro- 
 blems. Generally, he would pass over 
 the subject with a half-answer or a return 
 question ; at other times he would be 
 more explicit, as he was one day in the 
 summer of 1886, when he said * Leaves 
 of Grass was there, though unformed, 
 all the time, in whatever answers as the 
 laboratory of the mind. I was more or 
 less conscious of it, and thought often of 
 taking action in that direction. But, you 
 can understand, there was much to deter 
 that until the impulse to move had 
 become very strong, nothing would be 
 done. I could clearly see that such an 
 enterprise would meet with little favor 
 at all events at first that it would be 
 
 7*
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 hooted at (as it was) and perhaps hooted 
 down. The Democratic Review essays 
 and tales came from the surface of the 
 mind, and had no connection with what 
 lay below a great deal of which indeed 
 was below consciousness. At last came 
 the time when the concealed growth had 
 to come to light, and the first edition of 
 Leaves of Grass was written and pub- 
 lished.' " 
 
 This phrase, " the concealed growth 
 had to come to light," thus preserved for 
 us by Dr. Bucke, helps much towards the 
 appreciation of the prophetic and unex- 
 pected character of " Leaves of Grass." 
 We do not of course understand why out 
 of green foliage and branches a sudden 
 and unexpected blossom yet evidently 
 long prepared in the heart of the plant 
 should appear ; nor do we understand 
 why, often amid quite unpromising foliage 
 of the human mind, a great work of art 
 
 73
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 or prophecy arises ; yet we seem to see 
 that the processes are very similar. A 
 centre of growth, hitherto unnoticed, 
 long hidden, has come to light. 
 
 Prophecy at all times has this inevit- 
 able spontaneous character, as of some- 
 thing arising from below the ordinary 
 consciousness, which just for the very 
 reason that it so arises cannot be deliber- 
 ately quenched or stopped something 
 almost inarticulate, hardly gaining the 
 sphere of definition ; irrational, and out 
 of joint with accepted things ; subversive, 
 inconvenient, contrary ; annunciative of a 
 new order. The prophets are stoned ; 
 for they are obviously liars and icono- 
 clasts. They are charged with inconsis- 
 tency, and, poor things ! they cannot deny 
 the charge. They cannot help themselves. 
 The flower unfolding out of its own roots 
 cannot unfold other than it does. 
 
 By many such marks Whitman's work 
 
 74
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 shows a prophetic character. And while 
 he does not claim to deliver a new Gospel, 
 he seems to claim to take his place in the 
 line of those who have handed down a 
 world - old treasure of redemption for 
 mankind. In his poem, "To Him that 
 was Crucified," l he says : 
 
 " My spirit to yours, dear brother, 
 Do not mind because many sounding your name 
 
 do not understand you, 
 
 I do not sound your name, but I understand you, 
 I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute 
 
 you, and to salute those that are with you, 
 
 before and since, and those to come also, 
 That we all labor together transmitting the same 
 
 charge and succession, 
 We few equals, indifferent of lands, indifferent 
 
 of times, 
 We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers 
 
 of all theologies, 
 
 Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men, 
 We walk silent among disputes and assertions, 
 
 but reject not the disputers nor anything 
 
 that is asserted, 
 
 1 " Leaves of Grass," p. 298. 
 75
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 We hear the bawling and the din, we are 
 reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recrimi- 
 nations on every side, 
 
 They close peremptorily on us to surround us, 
 my comrade, 
 
 Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, 
 journeying up and down till we make our 
 ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse 
 eras, 
 
 Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and 
 women of races, ages to come, may prove 
 brethren and lovers as we are." 
 
 It will be noticed that in this great 
 poem he speaks not merely as a successor 
 of him that was crucified, but as a con- 
 tinuer of some world-wide and agelong 
 tradition. And in truth we cannot doubt 
 that the root of it all has been known and 
 realised since the farthest history ; the 
 charge and succession have certainly de- 
 scended out of dim obscurity from the 
 earliest times. How much exactly Walt 
 Whitman may have known of the Vedic 
 and other early writings is doubtful ; but 
 that he had read here and there among 
 7 6
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 them, quite enough to gain an insight into 
 the heart of them, and to know that 
 his message was continuous with theirs, 
 is quite certain. "These are really the 
 thoughts of men in all ages and lands, 
 they are not original with me." In the 
 Vedic scriptures, and, in lineal succession 
 from these, in the Buddhist and Platonist 
 and Christian writings, in the Taoists of 
 China, the Mystics of Egypt, the Sufis 
 of Persia, the root is to be found 
 and is clearly distinguishable the very 
 same from which " Leaves of Grass " 
 has sprung. [It would be too long at 
 present, by quotations from all these 
 writings, to attempt to prove this; but 
 in an Appendix to this paper I have, 
 in very imperfect fashion, dotted in a 
 number of parallel passages from them 
 and from "Leaves of Grass," and these 
 may serve to illustrate what I mean.] 
 A glance at these ancient and modern 
 
 77
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 utterances assures us that all down history 
 the same loving universal spirit has 
 looked out, making its voice heard from 
 time to time, harmonising the diverse 
 eras, enclosing continents, castes, and 
 theologies. The same charge and suc- 
 cession has passed on, and Whitman 
 voices and transmits it in his turn. 
 
 Yet of course there are differences. 
 We cannot say that Whitman is more 
 subtle, more penetrating, more profound 
 than many of those who have gone 
 before. It would be hard to imagine 
 anything more subtle and profound than 
 passages in the Upanishads. But in one 
 respect he is certainly unique among the 
 prophets, and that is in the universality 
 and breadth of his appeal. He seems 
 to liberate the good tidings and give it a 
 democratic scope and world-wide appli- 
 cation unknown in the elder prophets, 
 even in the sayings of Buddha. 
 78
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 The difficulty with the earlier prophets 
 no doubt was that around them limita- 
 tions existed on every hand. Races, 
 peoples, religions, were sharply divided 
 from each other. In the early world 
 exclusiveness was indispensable. The 
 peoples and nations could not have grown 
 up if each had not believed that its own 
 customs, morals, religion, race, &c., were 
 infinitely superior to those of the others. 
 Exclusiveness and war were the nurses 
 of growing humanity's powers of com- 
 radeship, organised life, community of sen- 
 timent, courage, self-sacrifice, and all the 
 early virtues. Problems of social life 
 and character, which could never have 
 been solved in a general ocean of man- 
 kind, were easy to define and determine 
 in small communities. Ignorance and 
 prejudice were necessary fences between 
 one state or system of society and 
 another. And however great certain 
 
 79
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 individual teachers may have been in the 
 past however generous and wide their 
 real outlook on life, they still could only 
 act and speak subject to the very definite 
 limitations prevailing around them. 1 The 
 Joels, Jeremiahs, Mohammeds, Carlyles, 
 stung no doubt by incontrollable im- 
 pulse to blaze forth that which was 
 in them have delivered their special 
 messages : have called the people of 
 their time to gather themselves round 
 some new centre of life and inspiration, 
 moral or religious or racial ; and in 
 doing so have anathematised every other 
 code of morals or form of religion, 
 called all outside people Gentiles or Bar- 
 barians, and put them to the sword. 
 They have done work priceless in their 
 
 1 We have to remember, too, that their sayings 
 have come down to us only through priestly, local, 
 racial media. There is not a sacred book that has 
 not been tampered with, and its teaching distorted 
 in the direction of narrowing and exclusiveness. 
 80
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 time and locality, insisting on and com- 
 pelling each some certain and necessary 
 step in human progress ; and having done 
 so, they have gone their way and been 
 superseded, because their message was 
 only a part-message. Only a few have 
 not been superseded. Teachers like the 
 Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, St. Francis, 
 and the Syrian Bab, 1 belong to no race 
 or nationality ; if they press the claims 
 of religion or morality, it is with so little 
 insistence on any particular scheme or code, 
 that their net may be said to be spread 
 to catch all humanity. They are accepters 
 rather than deniers ; they represent the 
 prophetic gift in its deepest and most 
 inclusive utterance ; and it is difficult to 
 think of them as becoming antiquated or 
 out of date. 
 
 Yet though it would not be acceptable 
 
 1 See "Abbas Effendi," a study of the religion of 
 the Babis, by M. H. Phelps (Putnams, 1903). 
 
 81 F
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 or desirable to make comparisons of great- 
 ness we may say that even among these 
 Whitman was (with the exception perhaps 
 of the Bab) unique in the realisation of 
 the world-wide and universal character of 
 his message. The others had messages 
 of world-wide import to deliver, though 
 perhaps they hardly knew this at the 
 time ; but Whitman realised from the 
 first that this universality was the very key 
 and centre of his utterance, and set him- 
 self deliberately to emphasise it. Many 
 things conspired, with him, to this re- 
 sult the girdling of the earth in his 
 time, and the extraordinary developments 
 of locomotion and intercommunication 
 which were bringing together East and 
 West, and all races and classes, creeds and 
 customs, into close touch and acknow- 
 ledgment of each other. The peoples 
 were being compelled to see that none of 
 them has a monopoly of excellence or 
 
 8z
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 defect, but that all illustrate, in their 
 various ways, forms of necessary life. 
 The Press, the Locomotive, the Wire, 
 were pushing more and more insistently 
 to this conclusion. The fences were 
 breaking down ; a new Era was shaping ; 
 and Whitman himself, by a nature and 
 temperament of extraordinary balance and 
 fulness, physical, mental, and moral ("I 
 can resist anything better than my own 
 diversity"), was fitted to respond to it 
 all to swim in this ocean of humanity 
 as in a sea. 
 
 [Yet even so, and allowing for the 
 occasioning causes, it must be said that 
 his utterance, in its dsemonic reach and 
 sweep, is somewhat staggering ! Through 
 " Leaves of Grass " pours a torrent of 
 trades, classes, characters, occupations, 
 races, nations, morals, manners, incidents, 
 opinions things generally accounted 
 beautiful, and things unbeautiful, things
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 good or evil, proper or improper in 
 huge indifference, all apparently accepted 
 on an equality, dismissed on an equality. 
 It is, to certain folk, most confusing, 
 and at times even revolting and terri- 
 fying.] 
 
 Of this new Era, with all its splen- 
 dours and terrors, Walt Whitman may 
 be said to be the prophet. Through the 
 " barbaric yawp " and seeming-random 
 medley of his verse inarticulate enough 
 at times in its very endeavour to include 
 and accept every phase and feature of 
 human life break out the deep-rolling 
 organ-tones of Creation's primal music. 
 We hear the same agelong theme and 
 symphony of all historic time, gaining, 
 through whatever imperfections, a larger 
 freer expression by virtue of its so much 
 more extended key-board and orchestra, by 
 virtue of its discords and sequences more 
 daring than ever used in literature before.
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 And the Theme ? Whitman has de- 
 fined it very directly at the first outset 
 of his poems : 
 
 " One's Self I sing, a simple separate person, 
 Yet utter the word Democratic, the word 
 En-Masse." 
 
 The Self, individual and separate, yet 
 conjoined and continuous throughout 
 Creation's mass that is the theme which 
 undoubtedly runs through the whole of 
 his poems and prophetic utterances. And 
 it is the theme of the eldest Upanishads 
 of the Vedic sages. It is the theme 
 which has come down through the ages 
 variously balanced, with now some- 
 what more insistence on one aspect, now 
 somewhat more on another ; variously 
 expressed and illustrated, in poetical, 
 religious, or philosophical form ; variously 
 coloured, confined, or conventionalised by 
 race and tradition ; but inevitably gaining
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 in the long-run in freedom and fulness 
 of utterance. In Whitman it breaks out 
 almost unconsciously certainly less as 
 the result of any intellectual process or 
 argument than by force of an irresistible 
 impulse into a strange torrential paean 
 of identity. Everything, the whole earth, 
 all its shows, men and women, sinners 
 and saints, the stars, insects, solar systems 
 all beings are envisaged in order to 
 be identified with the One ; they are 
 accorded each their unique unapproach- 
 able character and perfection, only to 
 be embraced : 
 
 " We make our ineffaceable mark upon time and 
 
 the diverse eras, 
 
 Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and 
 women of races, ages to come, may prove 
 brethren and lovers as we are." 
 
 So in Whitman all the purblind morals 
 and moonlight ideals of the past are, 
 whether directly or by implication, broken 
 
 86
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 up (hence storm and terror to many) and 
 led back to their most central motive, 
 the world-old revelation of the Self, 
 eternal and inseparate. 
 
 " I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the 
 
 night, 
 I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday 
 
 sunbeams reflected, 
 And debouch to the steady and central from the 
 
 offspring great or small." 
 
 Always the inward, the enduring, the 
 central, the vital, is acknowledged and 
 honoured ; the external, the temporary, 
 the unessential thrown off. Underneath 
 all morals, manners, races, titles, classes, 
 the original human soul and its affections, 
 greater than all. Underneath clothing, 
 costume, ranks, trades, and occupations, 
 the bodily form, its needs and physiology. 
 Underneath all art and social life, sex 
 and fraternity. Greater than all houses, 
 temples, galleries, and museums, the life 
 87
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 of the open air and its lessons. In such 
 simple elementary things as these in the 
 universal human soul, rediscovering itself 
 in all forms, in the healthy and beautiful 
 human body, in sex and fraternity, in 
 the life with the earth and the open air, 
 Whitman sees the root out of which 
 future humanity will spring (as it has 
 sprung in the past) : out of which a 
 society of proud, strong, free individuals, 
 who shall also be brethren and lovers, 
 may easily and naturally arise : 
 
 " Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear 
 
 it would not amaze me, 
 
 Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women 
 appear'd it would not astonish me." 
 
 We may indeed say that, with the 
 signal appearance of "Leaves of Grass," 
 the hour has struck for mankind of liber- 
 ation, of emancipation, from mere outer 
 rules and limitations ; the hour for the 
 reference of all life, irrespective of colour, 
 creeds, and principles, to its central essence. 
 
 88
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 It may be, for reasons already hinted, an 
 hour of danger. Not a few, accustomed 
 only to walk by well-worn paths and 
 formulae, will lose their way. "Take 
 warning ! He traveling with me needs 
 the best blood, thews, endurance.'* But 
 it is an hour which must needs come ; 
 and it opens for humanity on an era of 
 unexampled glory. 
 
 And here a word about Individuals. 
 It will be recognised by all readers of 
 Whitman that his insistence on the per- 
 manence, the immortality, the supreme 
 life of the Individual, is a most marked 
 feature of his teaching. " The sum of 
 all known reverence I add up in you 
 whoever you are." "Yourself! yourself! 
 yourself for ever and ever ! " "I sing 
 the songs of the glory of none, not God, 
 sooner than I sing the songs of the glory 
 of you." For Whitman every Self in 
 its essence is individual, eternal, perfect, 
 accruing to itself alone : " I swear I think
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 now that everything without exception 
 has an eternal soul ! " 
 
 " Each man to himself and each woman to herself 
 is the word of the past and present, and the 
 true word of immortality ; 
 
 No one can acquire for another not one ; 
 
 No one can grow for another not one." 
 
 And yet (strange paradox ! ) all are One. 
 
 " Have you thought there could be but a single 
 
 Supreme ? 
 
 There can be any number of Supremes one does 
 not countervail another any more than one 
 eyesight countervails another, or one life 
 countervails another." 
 
 Each is a simple separate person, and 
 yet en-masse with the rest. I think we 
 may say that no former teacher has quite 
 dared to give this side of the truth as 
 Whitman has done, nor given it with 
 so free and so splendid an expression. 
 
 Thus it may seem that if in the matter 
 of pure philosophical statement Whitman 
 
 does not stand out in the great charge 
 9 o
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 and succession so strongly as some of 
 his predecessors, yet in two respects at 
 least his work is unique : namely, in the 
 universality and determination of his 
 appeal to, and brotherhood with, all 
 creation, and in his insistence on the 
 root -existence of every Individual from 
 everlasting to everlasting his protest, 
 in fact (though quite indirect), against 
 a mere doctrine of absorption in the 
 Universal. 
 
 One other point I should like to note 
 and it goes with the preceding remarks 
 namely, Whitman's extraordinary con- 
 creteness, and his consistent and set avoid- 
 ance of abstract doctrine in the highest 
 regions of thought. " I swear I see what 
 is better than to tell the best, it is always 
 to leave the best untold." This avoidance 
 is so subtle and determined that many 
 readers are deceived by it into not per- 
 ceiving " beautiful things well envelop'd,"
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 and into thinking Whitman himself did 
 not perceive them. The reason of it is 
 clear. Whitman refused to address him- 
 self to the Brain alone. He saw that 
 with regard to the highest truths it is 
 useless to try to seize or impart them 
 that way. They must be felt as well 
 as thought. To try to think them alone, 
 as one would prove a syllogism, is a 
 kind of blasphemy. And to create the 
 feeling, the direct awareness and con- 
 sciousness of the highest facts, one must 
 proceed in another way; one must use 
 the method of Indirection the method 
 of Life and Time and the Earth, as well 
 as of all great Art and Literature the 
 appeal through sense and all concrete ex- 
 perience, penetrating, far-reaching, cumu- 
 lative in its power, till it wake the 
 profoundest deeps of the soul. Through 
 Whitman's pages all the shows of the 
 
 Earth, and myriads of concrete images, 
 9*
 
 Whitman as Prophet 
 
 surge and break upon the sensitive mind- 
 surface of the reader who in many cases 
 as little understands or suspects what 
 their meaning and intention is, as every 
 child of Man suspects the meaning of 
 the winds and waters that play around 
 him as he walks. Nevertheless they con- 
 vince by their presence. They wake and 
 build up new ranges of feeling in him. 
 They filter and fibre his blood. And it 
 is this concreteness, this power of indirect 
 appeal, which constitute Whitman great 
 among the Poets even as his unrivalled 
 knowledge of the actual world and of 
 actual life, and his absolute acceptance of 
 the same, give him so high a distinction 
 among the Prophets. 
 
 93
 
 APPENDIX TO WHITMAN AS 
 PROPHET 
 
 (Seepage 77) 
 
 Passages from early prophetic writ- 
 ings 1 : 
 
 " He, the Highest Person, who is awake in us 
 while we are asleep, shaping one lovely sight 
 after another ; that indeed is the Bright, that 
 is Brahman, that alone is called the Immortal." 
 Katha Upanishad. 
 
 " He is the one God, hidden in all beings, all 
 
 1 Compare the following from " Leaves of Grass " : 
 
 " O Thou transcendent, 
 Nameless, the fibre and the breath, 
 Light of the light, shedding forth universes . . . 
 Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God, 
 At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and 
 
 Death, 
 But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou 
 
 actual Me, 
 
 And lo ! thou gently masterest the orbs, 
 Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death, 
 And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space." 
 
 (p. 321.) 
 94
 
 Appendix to Whitman as Prophet 
 
 pervading, the Self within all beings, watching 
 over all works, dwelling in all beings, the wit- 
 ness, the Perceiver, the only one, free from 
 qualities." Svetasvatara Upanishad. 
 
 "The sun does not shine [show] there, nor 
 the moon and the stars, nor these lightnings, and 
 much less this fire. When he shines, every- 
 thing shines after him ; by his light all this 
 [world] is lightened." Svetasvatara Upanishad. 
 
 " As rain water that has fallen on a mountain 
 ridge runs down on all sides, thus does he who 
 sees a difference between qualities run after 
 them on all sides. 
 
 " Light rare untellable, lighting the very light, 
 
 Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages." (p. 324.) 
 " Whoever you are ! you are he or she for whom the 
 
 earth is solid and liquid ; 
 You are he or she for whom the sun and moon 
 
 hang in the sky." (p. 178.) 
 " I celebrate Myself, 
 
 And what I assume, you shall also assume," (p. 29.) 
 
 " Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, 
 
 Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, 
 
 unitary, 
 Both in and out of the game, and watching and 
 
 wondering at it." (p. 32.) 
 
 " Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me, 
 I stand indifferent." (p. 46.) 
 95
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 "As pure water poured into pure water re- 
 mains the same, thus, O Gautama, is the Self of 
 a thinker who knows." Katha Upanishad. 
 
 " By the serenity of his thoughts a man blots 
 out all actions, whether good or bad. Dwell- 
 ing within the Self with serene thoughts he 
 obtains imperishable happiness." Maitrayana- 
 Brahmana Upanishad. 
 
 " And he who beholds all beings in the Self, 
 and the Self in all beings, he never turns away 
 from it. 
 
 "When to a man who understands, the Self 
 has become all things, what sorrow, what trouble, 
 can there be to him who once beheld that 
 unity ? " Vagasaneyi-Samhtta Upanishad. 
 
 The Blessed one [Buddha] said to Ananda : 
 "Both the ocean and my doctrine become 
 
 " What is called good is perfect, and what is called 
 bad is just as perfect." (p. 337.) 
 
 " Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and 
 knowledge that pass all the argument", of the 
 earth." (p. 32.) 
 
 " No array of terms can say how much I am at peace 
 about God and about death." (p 76.) 
 
 " My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determina- 
 tion around the whole earth. 
 
 I have look'd for equals and lovers, and found them 
 ready for me in all lands." (p. 120.) 
 96
 
 Appendix to Whitman as Prophet 
 
 gradually deeper. Both preserve their identity 
 under all changes. Both cast out dead bodies 
 upon the dry land. As the great rivers, when 
 falling into the main, lose their name and are 
 thenceforth reckoned as the great ocean, so 
 all the castes, having renounced their lineage 
 and entered the Sangha [brotherhood], become 
 brethren and are reckoned the sons of Shakya- 
 muni. The ocean is the goal of all streams and 
 of the rain from the clouds, yet is it never 
 overflowing and never emptied ; so the dharma 
 is embraced by many millions of people, yet it 
 neither increases nor decreases. As the great 
 ocean has only one taste, the taste of salt, so my 
 doctrine has only one flavour, the flavour of 
 emancipation. Both the ocean and the dharma 
 
 " Agonies are one of my changes of garments. I do 
 not ask the wounded person how he feels, I 
 myself become the wounded person." (p. 60.) 
 
 " I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him 
 or her who shall be complete." (p. 179.) 
 
 " All parts away for the progress of souls, 
 All religion, all solid things, arts, governments all 
 that was or is apparent upon this globe, or any 
 globe, falls into niches and corners before the 
 procession of souls along the grand roads of the 
 universe." (p. 127.) 
 
 97 G
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 are full of gems and pearls and jewels, and both 
 afford a dwelling-place for mighty beings. 
 
 " My doctrine is pure, and it makes no dis- 
 crimination between noble and ignoble, rich and 
 poor. My doctrine is like unto water which 
 cleanses all without distinction. My doctrine is 
 like unto fire which consumes all things that exist 
 between heaven and earth, great and small. My 
 doctrine is like unto the heavens, for there is room 
 in it, ample room, for the reception of all, for 
 men and women, boys and girls, the powerful and 
 the lowly." Mahaparinibbana Suttanta y iii. 22. 
 
 " He who believes that this spirit can kill," 
 says Krishna to Arjuna, "and he who thinks 
 that it can be killed, both of these are wrong in 
 judgment. It neither kills, nor is killed. It is 
 not born, nor dies at any time. It has had no 
 origin, nor will it ever have an origin. 
 
 " As a man abandons worn-out clothes and 
 takes other new ones, so does the soul quit 
 
 " Aliens ! whoever you are come travel with me ! 
 Traveling with me you find what never tires." 
 
 (p. 125.) 
 " This is the meal equally set, this the meat for 
 
 natural hunger, 
 
 It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous ; 
 I make appointments with all." (p. 43.) 
 98
 
 Appendix to Whitman as Prophet 
 
 worn-out bodies, and enter other new ones. 
 Weapons cannot cleave it. Fire cannot burn 
 it, nor can water wet it, nor can wind dry it." 
 Bhagavad Gita. 
 
 " I am the same to all beings. I have neither 
 foe nor friend. But those who worship me 
 with devotion dwell in me and I also in them. 
 
 " He who discovers inaction in action, and 
 action in inaction, is wise among mortals. 
 
 " The practiser of Yoga, whose spirit is puri- 
 fied, who has subdued himself and vanquished 
 his senses, whose Self is the Self of all creatures, 
 is not polluted even by action." Ibid. 
 
 " I swear I think now that everything has an im- 
 mortal soul ! 
 I swear I think there is nothing but immortality." 
 
 (P- 337-) 
 
 " Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, 
 not for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, 
 dates, generations, 
 The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, 
 
 inseparable together." (p. 304.) 
 " I doubt not I have myself died ten thousand times 
 
 before. 
 
 I receive now again of my many translations, from 
 my avataras ascending, while others doubtless 
 await me." (p. 382.) 
 
 " You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will 
 infold you." (p. 66.) 
 99
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 "Tao as it exists in the world is like the 
 great rivers and seas which receive the streams 
 from the valleys. 
 
 " All pervading is the great Tao. It can be at 
 once on the right hand and on the left. All 
 things depend on it for life, and it rejects them 
 ndt. Its task accomplished, it takes no credit. 
 It loves and nourishes all things, but does not 
 act as master. It is ever free from desire. 
 
 "We may call it small. All things return 
 to it, yet it does not act as master. We may 
 call it great. 
 
 " The whole world will flock to him who 
 holds the mighty form of Tao. They will come 
 and receive no hurt, but find rest, peace, and 
 tranquillity." Sayings of Lao-tzu. 
 
 "By non - action there is nothing which 
 
 " All truths wait in all things, 
 
 They neither hasten their own delivery nor re- 
 sist it, ... 
 
 The insignificant is as big to me as any." (p. 53.) 
 " I am possess'd ! 
 
 Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering." (p. 64.) 
 " I will toss a new gladness and roughness among 
 
 them, 
 
 Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, 
 Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and 
 shall bless me." (p. 123.)
 
 Appendix to Whitman as Prophet 
 
 cannot be done. Failure is the foundation of 
 success, and the means by which it is achieved. 
 Success is the lurking-place of failure ; and who 
 can tell when the turning-point will come ? 
 
 " He who acts, destroys ; he who grasps, loses. 
 Therefore the sage does not act, and so does not 
 destroy ; he does not grasp, and so he does not lose. 
 
 " Only he who does nothing for his life's sake 
 can truly be said to value his life. 
 
 " When the great Tao falls into disuse, bene- 
 volence and righteousness come into vogue. 
 Cast off your holiness, rid yourself of your 
 cleverness, and the people will benefit an hun- 
 dredfold."/^. 
 
 "I am the Way [Tao, the open Road], the 
 Truth, and the Life. 
 
 " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites ! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven 
 against men : for ye neither go in yourselves, 
 neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 
 
 " Vivas to those Avho have fail'd ! " (p. 43.) 
 " What is providence is indivisible, 
 Declines to separate one part of life from every 
 
 part, . . . 
 
 Knows that the young man who composedly peril'd 
 his life and lost it has done exceedingly well 
 for himself without doubt." (p. 291.) 
 101
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites ! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a 
 pretence make long prayers : therefore ye shall 
 receive the greater damnation. 
 
 "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take 
 my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I 
 am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find 
 rest unto your souls. 
 
 " For whosoever will save his life shall lose it ; 
 but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and 
 the good tidings, the same shall save it. 
 
 " And lo ! I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world." Jesus in the Gospels. 
 
 " Sleep I and they keep guard all night ; 
 Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger 
 
 upon you. 
 I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you 
 
 to myself, 
 And when you rise in the morning you will find 
 
 what I tell you is so." (p. 66.) 
 " Camerado, I give you my hand, 
 I give you my love more precious than money." 
 
 (p. 129.) 
 
 " Toward you all, in America's name, 
 I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the 
 
 signal, 
 
 To remain after me in sight forever, 
 For all the haunts and homes of men." (p. 120.) 
 
 102
 
 THE POETIC FORM OF 
 "LEAVES OF GRASS" 
 
 OF all the tribes of specially literary 
 people (one sometimes thinks), of 
 the Popes, Drydens, Swinburnes, Paters, 
 the Brownings or Tennysons even, not to 
 mention hosts of lesser names which of 
 them, after all, as time goes on, and 
 except for certain antiquarian interests 
 and a few passages which represent the 
 real unloading of the writers' hearts, will 
 really be affectionately remembered or 
 persistently read ? A few pithy passages, 
 of verse or tale, enshrining some vivid 
 sharp experience and for the rest what 
 a deluge of words ! The touch on actual 
 103
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 life so thin, so poor, so ignorant. The 
 society, yes, which animates itself round 
 a Rape of a Lock, or discusses Broad 
 Church questions over the walnuts and the 
 wine, is there but of the great world, 
 what? A shade of sentiment or of 
 thought, interesting enough, no doubt, 
 and which may happen to be in vogue 
 among a certain class but of the great 
 reaches of human passion and experience 
 how much or how little ? Words, words, 
 and fine-spun forms out of the thinnest 
 basis of material ! At every turn of the 
 page gross misapprehensions and igno- 
 rance of the actual lives and conditions 
 of life and heart of the thousands and 
 millions and thousand-millions of the 
 earth ! How can these things hold any 
 readers except those whose outlook is 
 equally blinkered? The purely literary 
 work has its interest, has its place ; but 
 
 its appeal is so limited. 
 
 104
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 With Whitman^ the workman, the 
 normal (or "average") man for of 
 course the man who deals with materials 
 and wins his living from them is the 
 normal man comes, for the first time, 
 in a deliberate and representative way, 
 into literature. He comes, not as a man 
 who abandons his former mode of life 
 in order to seek a literary ideal, but as 
 the master-workman who stays where 
 he is and uses literary form for his own 
 expression and with the same direct- 
 ness and mastery that he uses towards 
 Jje. Hence a new era of literature 
 a literature appealing to all who deal 
 with life directly, and know what it is, 
 a literature which will be read and 
 lovingly absorbed by the millions as 
 time goes on. 
 
 We may perhaps say that in every great 
 artist there is something of the manner 
 of the workman. In Michel Angelo, in 
 105
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 Beethoven, in Velasquez, in Pheidias, in 
 Dante a certain clearing for action, 
 economy, directness, decisiveness. The 
 good workman wants to make his work 
 absolutely effective. That is his first 
 thought. The great artist will not stop 
 short of the most clear and perfect expres- 
 sion. He will do nothing to cloud it. 
 In a note of Whitman's, for his own use, 
 we find recommended as a rule for com- 
 position " the most translucid clearness 
 without variation." 1 And every one must 
 feel that the first and root-criterion of 
 form is Expression. If the work conveys 
 the meaning perfectly, then obviously any 
 change of form (which necessarily must 
 bring some change of meaning with it) 
 will be a loss. Therefore, the expression 
 being perfect, the form is also perfect. 
 The two cannot be separated. We may 
 
 i " Notes and Fragments," left by Walt Whitman, 
 and edited by R. M. Bucke (1899), P- 7 
 106
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 analyse or examine the form in such a 
 case but to propose to alter it is mere 
 foolishness. Read again the poem "To 
 Him that was Crucified," quoted in the 
 preceding paper, and realise the wonderful 
 burden of thought and emotion conveyed, 
 and then also realise that a single word 
 displaced or altered anywhere in the poem 
 would blur or diminish its total message 
 and expression. 
 
 Is it possible indeed in these cases of 
 perfect excellence, to stop and examine 
 the form as a thing apart ? I do not say 
 that it is impossible ; but it is surely very 
 difficult. Are there not some pieces of 
 music so beautiful, that though we try 
 again and again while hearing them to 
 analyse their form, we simply fail to 
 do so ? And are there not poems of 
 which the mind refuses to count the 
 syllables. Read, for example, the follow- 
 ing from " Leaves of Grass " : 
 107
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 RECONCILIATION 
 
 WORD over all, beautiful as the sky ! 
 
 Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage 
 
 must in time be utterly lost ; 
 That the hands of the sisters Death and Night 
 
 incessantly softly wash again, and ever 
 
 again, this soil'd world. 
 For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself 
 
 is dead. 
 I look where he lies white-faced and still in the 
 
 coffin I draw near ; 
 Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the 
 
 white face in the coffin. 
 
 Here underneath, all the time, one _ 
 feels a subtle impalpable metre pulsing. , 
 Some one possibly may be able to dis- 
 entangle and define that metre ; but I 
 confess that I can't simply because, each 
 time I read, the meaning holds and fills 
 my mind too full. Let a thing be said 
 with such animation and directness that 
 you try in vain to think of the form, then 
 surely that form is perfect, whatever it is ! 
 The form vanishes in the meaning ; and
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 that is what our bodies will one day do 
 not disappear from sight, but so glow 
 and be suffused in what they convey, as 
 to cease to have any separate existence. 1 
 
 There is no need, to - day, to justify 
 Whitman's forms and rhythms, any more 
 than there is need to justify those of 
 Beethoven or Brahms or Wagner. There 
 are good country folk who delight to sit 
 and beat time with hand or foot to the 
 village band ; and there are folk who only 
 recognise a ballad metre in poetry; but 
 they need not detain us. Ballad metres 
 have an excellent and charming use and 
 
 1 " I had not dreamed," says Mrs. Gilchrist in A 
 Woman 's Estimate of Walt Whitman, "that words 
 could cease to be words, and become electric streams 
 like these. I do assure you that, strong as I am, I 
 sometimes feel as if I had not bodily strength to read 
 many of these poems. In the series headed ' Calamus,' 
 for instance, in some of the ' Songs of Parting,' the 
 ' Voice out of the Sea,' the poem beginning ' Tears, 
 Tears,' c., there is such a weight of emotion, such 
 a tension of the heart, that mine refuses to beat under 
 it stands quite still and I am obliged to lay the book 
 down for a while." 
 
 109
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 quality, but they do not cover the whole 
 ground. 
 
 There are two things in literature 
 which demand expression -mughly, brain 
 and heart. On the one hand, mere 
 fact, description, argument ; on the other, 
 mood, emotion, mental colouring. As 
 the extreme type of the one, we have 
 books of law, science, mathematics ; as 
 the extreme type of the other, and lying 
 beyond literature, music. In literature 
 proper, there is always of course a blend 
 or admixture of the two elements ; but 
 those works which express a predomi- 
 nance of the mental and scientific element 
 come under the head of prose, and those 
 which express predominant emotion come 
 under the head of poetry and approach 
 the musical in form. Just as in music 
 every mood has its rhythm light jingles 
 of dances, lulling, swaying cradle-songs, 
 ballad-refrains, swelling love-songs, strong
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 marches, or great symphonic metres in- 
 cluding these so in poetry. " Wherever 
 there is emotion concerned in the thought 
 there will be emotional effects in the 
 language that is, there will be rhythm ; 
 and the wave-like rhythms and rhymes 
 and recurrences will take on the simplest 
 and briefest, or the most complex and far- 
 reaching forms, according to the character 
 of the emotion concerned." 1 
 
 The underlying and dominant mood of 
 Whitman's poems, corresponding to his 
 theme, is extraordinarily vast and in- 
 clusive and it requires for its expression 
 a rhythm of similarly broad and flexible 
 character. It is obvious that such emo- 
 tions as he deals with could never be 
 caged in a symmetrical verse or stanza. 
 
 " I have not so much emulated the birds that 
 
 musically sing, 
 I have abandoned myself to flights, broad circles, 
 
 1 "Angels' Wings," by E. Carpenter (1898), p. 73. 
 in
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 The hawk, the sea-gull, have far more possess'd 
 me than the canary or mocking-bird. 
 
 I have not felt to warble and trill, however 
 sweetly, 
 
 I have felt to soar in freedom and in the fulness 
 of power, joy, volition." 
 
 But in thus soaring in .freedom and 
 
 the fulness of power and joy he finds a 
 rhythm and a music of his own. " I see," 
 says Anne Gilchrist, " that no counting of 
 syllables will reveal the mechanism of 
 the music ; and that this rushing spon- 
 taneity could not stay to bind itself with 
 the fetters of [formal] metre. But I 
 know that the music is there, and that 
 I would not for something change ears 
 with those who cannot hear it." 1 
 
 Whitman needed for his expression a 
 poetical form of the utmost flexibility 
 capable of adaptation to the widest ranges 
 of his immense personality. It is, in fact, 
 
 1 " A Woman's Estimate," now republished among 
 the papers in "In re Walt Whitman" (McKay. 
 Philadelphia, 1893).
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 his personality which forms the organic 
 centre of " Leaves of Grass." He calls 
 the latter (see " A Backward Glance o'er 
 Travel'd Roads ") " an attempt from first 
 to last, to put a Person^ a human being 
 (myself, in the latter half of the Nine- 
 teenth Century, in America) freely, fully, 
 and truly on record." As a work of art, 
 therefore, " Leaves of Grass " ought to 
 stand whole, unbroken, undivided, and 
 grouped round the central presence of the 
 author. "Who touches this, touches a 
 man." " In regard to the unity and con- 
 struction of the poems," says John Bur- 
 roughs in "The Flight of the Eagle," 1 
 " the reader sooner or later discovers the 
 true solution to be, that the dependence, 
 cohesion, and final reconciliation of the 
 whole are in the personality of the poet 
 himself. . . . When Tennyson sends out 
 a poem, it is perfect, like an apple or a 
 1 " Birds and Poets" (New York, 1877), p. 234. 
 113 H
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 peach ; slowly wrought out and dismissed, 
 it drops from his boughs holding a con- 
 ception or an idea that spheres it and 
 makes it whole. It is completed, distinct, 
 and separate might be his, or might be 
 any man's. It carries his quality, but it 
 is a thing of itself, and centres and de- 
 pends upon itself. Whether or not the 
 world will hereafter consent, as in the 
 past, to call only beautiful creations of 
 this sort Poems, remains to be seen. But 
 this is certainly not what Walt Whitman 
 does, or aims to do, except in a few cases. 
 He completes no poems, apart and sepa- 
 rate from himself, and his pages abound 
 in hints to that effect : 
 
 " * Let others finish specimens I ne?er finish 
 
 specimens ; 
 
 I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature 
 does, fresh and modern continually.' 
 
 His lines are pulsations, thrills, waves 
 
 of force, indefinite dynamics, formless, 
 114
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 constantly emanating from the living 
 centre, and they carry the quality of the 
 author's personal presence with them in a 
 way that is unprecedented in literature/' 
 
 And again Whitman says {I am quot- 
 ing from the edition of 1860) : 
 
 " I will not make poems with reference to parts, 
 But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, 
 
 says, thoughts, with reference to ensemble ; 
 ft, And I will not sing with reference to a day, but 
 
 with reference to all days, 
 And I will not make a poem, nor the least part 
 
 of a poem, but has reference to the Soul, 
 Because, having looked at the objects of the 
 
 universe, I find there is no one, nor any 
 
 particle of one, but has reference to the 
 
 Soul." 
 
 The ultimate form therefore of Whit- 
 man's poems is the form of himself, of 
 the Soul as individualised and uttered in 
 him. As looking at the ocean, boundless 
 and reaching far beyond our ken, we yet 
 recognise in each wave the form of the 
 sea which gives it birth ; so in reading 
 "5
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 "Leaves of Grass" we recognise in each 
 poem or poemet the form and unifying 
 law of the author. Indeed there is a 
 singular resemblance in the great mea- 
 sured yet irregular roll of Whitman's 
 lines to the onset of waves along a shore 
 now creeping white and low in long 
 successive array, now madly surging and 
 towering in spray, now lipping sunlit and 
 blue upon the land. Every mood, at one 
 time or another, is there and to be recog- 
 nised yet underneath, and greater than 
 all, and illustrated by them all, the law 
 and life of the ocean itself. 
 
 While all Whitman's poems are thus 
 parts of a whole, and must gain their deepest 
 meanings and interpretations through a 
 study of the whole, there are some which 
 are almost unintelligible except in this re- 
 lation mere ejaculations, single sentences, 
 or not even so much as single sentences 
 (see Kosmos, "Leaves of Grass," p. 303, 
 
 Hi
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 *also pp. 217, 218). Of these, Burroughs' 
 remarks about their non-completion, except 
 in relation to the poet's personality, are 
 true in the most literal way. Of others, 
 there is a decided sense of artistic com- 
 pletion in themselves, though still sub- 
 sidiary to the total work. And it is 
 interesting, with regard to this subject of 
 form, to see how Whitman gains in these 
 latter cases his artistic unity. 
 
 (?)) One of the most frequent and char- xJ 
 acteristic devices of his writing is the use 
 of a very long sentence. By the phrasing 
 of his lines the construction of a very 
 lengthy sentence can be kept clear and 
 effective, while the meaning and burden 
 of it can be piled up and elaborated, 
 till at last the total can be discharged 
 upon the reader with overwhelming effect. 
 Many of his poems (e.g. " When I heard 
 the learn'd astronomer," p. 2^4; or, "I 
 sit and look out," p. 245 ; or those
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 two from Children of Adam^ "Ages and 
 ages returning," and " We too, how long 
 we were fool'd," pp. 92 and 93), are 
 | constructed on this plan. They are just 
 /one single sentence, and convey one uni- 
 tary effect. Others, though consisting of 
 more than one sentence, are still the same 
 in principle. Often by repeating the form 
 of the sentence (" I see, I see ; " "I hear, 
 I hear "), he gains a like result. What a 
 wonderful poem is that Salut au Monde y 
 in which these sights and sounds, of the 
 whole world, these lists and processions 
 of earth-dwellers, these appeals to you, 
 you, you, "whoever you are," pile up, 
 in strange surging and swelling reiteration 
 till at last they break out and break 
 down in the final four lines : 
 
 " Toward you all, in America's name, 
 I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the 
 
 signal, 
 
 To remain after me in sight for ever, 
 For all the haunts and homes of men." 
 ill
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 Here the picture of the immense earth, 
 and the poet's relation to it, is the central 
 motive. In another, the open road is 
 the figure which holds all together. In 
 another, the Brookl"^ Ferry. In another, 
 the broad axe. And in all, as I have said 
 before, a deep pulsating music, easy to 
 catch, though difficult to define. 
 
 Often the music is tkat-tjf " recitative " 1 
 sonorous, bold, free, not returning into \ 
 itself like a melody, but moving forward 
 with suggestions of things to follow. \ 
 This is perhaps the most general and / 
 characteristic of Whitman's musical effects/ 
 See, for instance, that strange poem : 
 
 " As Adam early in the morning, 
 Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep, 
 Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach, 
 Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my 
 
 body as I pass, 
 Be not afraid of my body." 
 
 How finely that might be set to music 
 solemn, mystic, appealing, oracular ! Or 
 r-ead "Old Ireland" (p. 284) in the same 
 
 "9
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 connection, and countless other poems or 
 portions of poems. In the " Ox-tamer " 
 (p. 307) there is much the same -recitative 
 effect, with more metrical return and 
 melody. More rhythmical and melodic 
 still is that beautiful " Vigil Strange," on 
 p. 238, or the "Sight in Camp," p. 240; 
 and more so still perhaps, the well-known 
 v " Come up from the fields, father," p. 
 236. In many of these we notice dis- 
 tinct refrains and recurrences, not only 
 of lines, but of metres often a return 
 at the end to the refrain of the beginning, 
 as in the " Ox-tamer " or the " March in 
 the ranks hard prest," or " The bivouac's 
 fitful flame " ; often a recurrence through- 
 out of a certain type of line as of 
 anapests (six-foot) in "Come up from 
 the fields " : 
 
 " But now from the fields come, father, come at 
 
 the daughter's call, 
 
 And come to the entry, mother, to the front 
 door come right away,"
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 or some other sort of refrain, as in " Beat, 
 Beat, Drums!" (p. 222), or in "Gods" 
 
 (P- 2I 3)- 
 
 " Lover divine and perfect comrade, 
 Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain, 
 Be thou my God." 
 
 Finally we have a few in distinct stanzas 
 and set metre (or nearly so) like "O 
 Captain" (p. 262), or "Pioneers" (p. 
 183), or the " Dirge for Two Veterans" 
 (p. 246) ; but on the whole these are not 
 the most characteristic or satisfactory of 
 his pieces. 
 
 For short poems held together by a 
 distinct mood and music of their own 
 (even if the latter be hard to define), turn 
 to " To Him that was Crucified," already 
 quoted, or to "To a Common Prosti- 
 tute," or to those wonderful lyric ejacu- 
 lations "Tears" (p. 204), or " Darest 
 thou now, O soul" (p. 338), or "The
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 Last Invocation " (p. 346), with their 
 solemn organ-tones. 
 
 In two of his long poems, namely, 
 "Out of the Cradle "(p- 196), and'^When 
 lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed," 
 Whitman has by a combination of some 
 of the devices above mentioned produced 
 an artistic effect and unity which is very 
 remarkable, and which has made these 
 poems general favourites. The unitary 
 scene and landscape in both cases, the 
 recurrence of certain emblems, lilac and 
 star and grey-brown bird or sagging 
 moon and sea, the rhythmic songs intro- 
 duced of love and death, and the sobbing 
 melody of the surge throughout the first 
 mentioned poem, and the repeated music 
 of the Lincoln Hymn : 
 
 *' O how shall I warble myself for the dead one 
 
 there I loved ? 
 
 And how shall I deck my song for the large 
 sweet soul that has gone ?
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 And what shall my perfume be for the grave of 
 him I love ? 
 
 Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of 
 my soul," 
 
 all these things give to these two great 
 poems an artistic unity and distinction 
 which single them somewhat out from 
 the rest, and grant them (unlike some 
 others of Whitman's) to stand alone as it 
 were, and on their own merits. 
 
 Nevertheless it must be said, and some- 
 what in defence of John Burroughs' posi- 
 tion, that these two poems, beautiful as 
 they are, are not so characteristic, so deeply 
 fascinating and impressive, so central in 
 the whole scheme and cosmos of " Leaves 
 of Grass," as those other great poems, 
 which, though not so obviously metrical 
 or artistically balanced and complete, are 
 governed more directly by the presence 
 and direct utterance of the personality 
 behind them : I mean, of course, first and 
 
 "3
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 foremost, the " Song of Myself," and after- 
 wards the two series, Children of Adam 
 and Calamus ', and such poems as " By 
 Blue Ontario's Shore," " The Answerer " 
 (p. 134), "The Sleepers" (p. 325), "To 
 Think of Time" (p. 333), "Sunset" 
 (P- 374), "Vocalism" (p. 297), "So 
 Long " (p. 380), and many others. There 
 is in these poems an extraordinary oracular 
 prophetic utterance which lifts them right 
 through the sphere of art, and out of it, 
 into something above. " No one will get 
 at my verses," he says, 1 " who insists upon 
 viewing them as a literary performance, 
 or attempt at such performance, or as 
 aiming mainly towards art or aestheti- 
 cism." It is in this quality in Whitman's 
 work, transcending art, yet indeed only 
 possible through the patient study, through 
 the perfection and final surrender of art, 
 
 1 See " A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads," 
 the prose Appendix to " Leaves of Grass " (Small, 
 Maynard & Co., Boston, 1897). 
 114
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 that the secret of his power lies. In his 
 poems of this order a technical unity is 
 not demanded (though it may be found 
 in some of them) because they speak in 
 the name of that Self which is and re- 
 mains the unity of all things the wind 
 which bloweth where it listeth over the 
 world. They have no need to seek for 
 unity and beauty, because in uttering the 
 Self these things are already given and 
 found. Here is a great mystery, difficult 
 to express. No wonder that in that truly 
 oracular poem, " Vocalism " (p. 297), 
 Whitman announces so great, so almost 
 terrifying and impossible an apprentice- 
 ship before " the divine power to speak 
 words " can come and be loosened in man 
 or woman nothing less than the circling 
 of all experience, and the final surrender : 
 
 " For only at last after many years, after chastity, 
 friendship, procreation, prudence and naked- 
 ness, 
 
 "5
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 After treading ground and breasting river and 
 
 lake, 
 After a loosen'd throat, after absorbing eras, 
 
 temperaments, races, after knowledge, free- 
 dom, crimes, 
 After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations, 
 
 and removing obstructions, 
 After these and more, it is just possible there 
 
 comes to a man, a woman, the divine 
 
 power to speak words. . . . 
 Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, 
 
 him or her I shall follow, 
 As the water follows the moon, silently, with 
 
 fluid steps, anywhere around the globe." 
 
 It is here no case of neglecting art ; 
 but technical art and all its devices are 
 only a very very small part of the ap- 
 prenticeship. Before the deep music and 
 beauty of these greatest poems we can 
 only stand silent, absorbing indeed, but 
 in no mood to analyse. Something 
 greater than mortal speaks to us in 
 them, some voice blended of ages and 
 ages and vistas of human experience. 
 
 Something more even than human ; for 
 126
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 Nature, the prairies and the lakes, the 
 ocean and the forest by some hidden 
 magic become vocal in them : 
 
 " I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven, 
 O suns O grass of graves O perpetual transfers 
 
 and promotions, 
 If you do not say anything how can I say 
 
 anything ? " 
 
 " The woodman that takes his axe and jug with 
 
 him shall take me with him all day, 
 The farm-boy, ploughing in the field, feels good 
 
 at the sound of my voice, 
 
 In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with 
 fishermen and seamen and love them. 
 
 The soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine, 
 On the night ere the pending battle many seek 
 
 me, and I do not fail them, 
 On that solemn night (it may be their last) those 
 
 that know me seek me." 
 
 Whitman, by his vast command of and 
 sympathy with the things of the actual 
 world, by his strange interpenetration and 
 identity with the elemental whole, has 
 in these great poems revealed a presence 
 
 IZ 7
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 which,! as long as the waters glisten and 
 the leaves rustle, can never pass or 
 cease to speak to us ; and as in ancient 
 days, from some cavern on a mountain 
 side, a voice in divine frenzy issuing was 
 taken to be that of the Earth-god before 
 whose eyes past and future are one, so 
 from these writings the music arising 
 seems to be the inspiration and part- 
 utterance even of ageless Nature herself. 
 
 For the rest there are, of course, defi- 
 . J ciences and weaknesses. As hinted earlier 
 J / in this book, the voluminous power which 
 marshals and holds in leash whole bat- 
 talions of phrases, to hurl them finally 
 on the reader with irresistible effect, some- 
 times fails ; and then we get a lumbering, 
 disjointed, effbrted movement which is 
 the reverse of admirable. Whitman's 
 later poems, though interesting in many 
 ways, do often show this deficiency of in- 
 spiration and some consequent lapse into 
 128
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 mannerisms ; and his prose perhaps shows 
 the same more frequently. 
 
 To the reader coming to these works 
 for the first time, the disregard of con- 
 ventions in every direction is so great, 
 that it sometimes attracts all his atten- 
 tion, rendering him insensible to the 
 interior message, and annoying him with 
 a suspicion of mere affectation. "If he 
 only were not obscene," says such a 
 reader, " or slangy, or prosaic, or contra- 
 dictory ; if he only would not put in 
 lists of trades, or of seaport towns, or 
 lines that ramble at large across all the 
 proprieties of metre and grammar we 
 could endure him ! But thus and thus 
 he is intolerable." It is only after some 
 familiarity and a gradual change of the 
 point of view and perspective, that the 
 reader begins to see that much which he 
 thought affected is perfectly natural and 
 
 in place. "To speak with the perfect 
 129 i
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 rectitude and insouciance of the move- 
 ments of animals, and the unimpeachable- 
 ness of the sentiment of trees in the 
 woods, and grass by the roadside," is 
 Whitman's own standard, and the more 
 one reads the more I think one is com- 
 pelled to acknowledge his near approach 
 to it. That he uses the parlance of 
 common folk instead of the set phrases 
 of the learned is not an affectation, but 
 simply what Dante, and Chaucer, and 
 Pushkin, and many another pioneer of 
 a national literature has done ; that he 
 speaks freely of physiological things is 
 not obscenity, but a deliverance from it ; 
 that his handling of facts appears prosaic 
 or unemotional may easily arise from the 
 reader's own want of association with the 
 facts that are handled. 
 
 In all these cases of a new or unfamiliar 
 style (as in painting or music) the inter- 
 pretations do not yield themselves till 
 130
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 the new point of view has been seized. 
 ( Whitman has often been accused of want 
 of humour and it is notorious that 
 nothing is more elusive and variable as 
 between people and people English, 
 Scotch, French, German, American than 
 just this sense of humour. But no one 
 who knows "Leaves of Grass" well can 
 fail to detect the fund of quiet humour 
 constantly flowing there beneath the 
 surface. It has been said, No one with 
 any sense of the comic could have written 
 the lines : 
 
 " Now I absorb immortality and peace, 
 I admire death, and test propositions." 
 
 But does it follow that because a minor 
 poet might fear to use such an expression, 
 lest it should excite a smile, Whitman 
 would also have been afraid, and have 
 refused it, even though the expression 
 exactly conveyed his meaning? And 
 
 again, a phrase like "test propositions" 
 131
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 may well appear comic at Oxford or 
 Cambridge, and yet perfectly serene and 
 sensible on an American prairie. These 
 things are a little difficult to locate. 
 
 All the same it must be said that the 
 poet does, in this way and at times, put 
 a considerable strain upon his admirers ! 
 as when he writes : 
 
 " O setting sun ! though the time has come, 
 I still warble under you, if none else does, un- 
 mitigated adoration," 
 
 or again 
 
 " I will report all heroism from an American 
 point of view." 
 
 And there are affectations or rather I 
 think I should say, cases in which he has 
 of set purpose adopted forms and attitudes 
 not perfectly natural and spontaneous. 
 For the most part his work is marvellously 
 spontaneous, and, in its prophetic way, 
 deriving at once from instinctive and 
 
 I 3 Z
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 subconscious regions ; but there is no 
 doubt (he says so himself) that in parts 
 he "set himself" very deliberately to do 
 certain things. And it is in these parts 
 that I think he is least successful. Thus 
 he set himself to vaunt and magnify 
 " these States " in season and out of season 
 (a good purpose in moderation, but rather 
 overdone) ; to ignore all stock-poetic 
 and classic forms and allusions whatever 
 (a practice which cripples him at times), 
 even to the extent of proscribing May and 
 June in favour of Fifth-month and Sixth- 
 month ; and to coin and introduce if 
 possible various hybrid and denationalised 
 words, like Camerado, Santa Spirita, I ex- 
 pose, and so forth (a matter in which he 
 has often been anything but successful). 
 These set efforts, which also appear some- 
 times in the construction of his poems, 
 detract at such times from the winging 
 singing quality of his work, and give
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 a sense as of chains dragged along the 
 ground. 
 
 Of these weaknesses and deficiencies, 
 however, I must say that in the long-run 
 they do not seem to me to bulk very 
 largely. Though they may do so at first, 
 and may seem serious, yet it is surprising 
 how with continued reading they wane 
 and lose their importance in the general 
 splendour and adequacy of expression. 
 And personally with regard to the many 
 quaint and outlandish things in Whit- 
 man though they may cause a ripple 
 in the mind, I find that they do not 
 for me spoil the general effect, any more 
 than for one sailing into New York 
 harbour the splendid vista of shipping 
 and shores is spoiled by the sight of a 
 bottle or other such object borne on 
 the blue and sunlit tide. 
 
 And when on the other hand one 
 regards the extraordinary and admitted 
 134
 
 Poetic Form of " Leaves of Grass " 
 
 felicity and perfection of a vast number 
 of his phrases, the absoluteness of the 
 rendering and expression of some of the 
 most difficult and subtle things, one sees 
 that these quaintnesses, whatever may be 
 their cause, certainly do not arise from 
 lack of literary ability. The man who 
 could write "the large unconscious 
 scenery of my land with its lakes and 
 forests," or " the gentle soft-born measure- 
 less light," or " dark mother always 
 gliding near with soft feet," or "the 
 yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, 
 sinking sun, burning, expanding the air," 
 was without doubt a master of expres- 
 sion. And I may conclude this paper 
 with the words of Addington Symonds 
 ("A Study of Walt Whitman," p. 150) : 
 " The countless clear and perfect phrases 
 he invented, to match most delicate 
 and evanescent moods of sensibility, to 
 picture exquisite and broad effects of 
 
 '35 
 
 , <L*^.. &* 
 
 TOjW Uy<Ji\ AjuL/
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 natural beauty, to call up poignant or 
 elusive feelings, attest to his artistic 
 faculty of using language as a vehicle for 
 thought. They are hung, like golden 
 medals of consummate workmanship and 
 incised form, in rich clusters over every 
 poem he produced. And, what he aimed 
 at above all, these phrases are redolent 
 of the very spirit of the emotions they 
 suggest, communicate the breadth and 
 largeness of the natural things they indi- 
 cate, embody the essence of realities in 
 living words which palpitate and burn 
 for ever." 
 
 
 130
 
 WALT WHITMAN'S 
 CHILDREN 
 
 HENRY B. BINNS, in his " Life of 
 Walt Whitman," lately published, 
 discusses at some length the question of 
 Whitman's paternity ; and seems to arrive 
 at the conclusion that the poet formed 
 at least one relationship (this one probably 
 at New Orleans in 1848) which led to 
 the birth of a child or children. 
 
 Mr. Binns founds his discussion on an 
 article of mine originally published in the 
 Reformer (Feb. 1902); and, premising 
 that in his book (pp. 51-3 and 349-50) 
 he has added not a little to the evidence, 
 I reprint the main portions of my article 
 below, as follows : 
 '37
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 " In regard to Whitman's most personal 
 and intimate relations there is curiously 
 little known. Every one is aware that he 
 was never married that is, in any formal 
 and acknowledged way. His life after 
 the Civil War was clouded by intermittent 
 paralysis, bringing with it invalidism and 
 infirmity; and of his history before his 
 arrival in Washington, i.e., prior to the 
 age of forty-four or so the period when 
 he would be most likely to knit up 
 such relations only the barest outline 
 is known. 
 
 " ' Leaves of Grass,' that extraordinary 
 piece of self -revelation, gives us the 
 mental attitude of the author. And per- 
 haps (it may be said) we ought to be con- 
 tent with that ; because if we know the 
 mental and emotional attitude of a man 
 we know the main, thing. His external 
 life and actions depend largely on 
 accidental circumstances and conditions, 
 138
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 his inner attitude is the expression of 
 himself alone. * Leaves of Grass ' 
 reveals to us a man, to whom the most 
 intimate relations with his fellow men 
 and women were familiar (at any rate in 
 thought), and beautiful (at least in their 
 proper time and place). The urge 
 to closest contact appears everywhere 
 through his poems : ' I sing the body 
 electric' 'the body of my love, the 
 body of the woman I love, the body of 
 the man, the body of the earth.' He is 
 not satisfied with communication through 
 words and printed pages, or by the mere 
 looking at photographic portraits : 
 
 " Not words of routine this song of mine, 
 But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet 
 
 nearer bring : 
 This printed and bound book but the printer 
 
 and the printing-office boy ? 
 The well-taken photographs but your wife or 
 
 friend close and solid in your arms ? ' 
 
 " And in the poet's announcement and
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 summary of his own work, written by 
 Whitman close after the issue of the first 
 edition of 'Leaves of Grass,' he says of 
 himself: 'Right and left he flings his 
 arms, drawing men and women with un- 
 deniable love to his close embrace, loving 
 the clasp of their hands, the touch of 
 their necks and breasts, and the sound of 
 their voices. All else seems to burn up 
 under his fierce affection for persons.' 
 
 " It would not of course be reasonable 
 to suppose that all the personal utterances, 
 of acts done, of passions expressed, of ex- 
 periences lived through, or of individuals 
 loved which are to be found in * Leaves 
 of Grass ' are to be taken as literal 
 records of things which actually happened 
 to the author himself. They could 
 hardly be gathered into a single lifetime. 
 Yet one can see that they are to be taken 
 as experiences, either actual or potential, 
 for which his inner spirit was prepared
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 and as a record of things which he could 
 freely accept, understand, and find place 
 for. 'Through the period from 1837 to 
 1848,' says John Burroughs, 'without 
 entering into particulars, it is enough to 
 say that he sounded all experiences of 
 life, with all their passions, pleasures, and 
 abandonments. He was young, in perfect 
 bodily condition, and had the city of 
 New York and its ample opportunities 
 around him. I trace this period in some 
 of the poems in the Children of Adam^ 
 and occasionally in other parts of his 
 book, including Calamus}- Certainly at 
 times in these poems one can hardly avoid 
 the conclusion that he is describing an 
 actual bit of his own history as in that 
 poem : 
 
 ' " Once I passed through a populous city imprinting 
 my brain for future use with its shows, 
 architecture, customs, traditions, 
 
 1 John Burroughs, in " Walt Whitman : as Poet 
 and Person." (New York, 1867.) 
 141
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 Yet now of all that city I remember only a 
 woman I casually met there, who detained 
 me for love of me, 
 
 Day by day and night by night we were together 
 all else has long been forgotten by me. 
 
 I remember I say only that woman who passion- 
 ately clung to me. 
 
 Again we wander, we love, we separate again ; 
 
 Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go, 
 
 I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and 
 tremulous." ' 
 
 " In a life so full and rich as Whitman's 
 there must have been many such personal 
 experiences, of which the world knows 
 nothing, and will know nothing. He 
 has himself told his friends that he had 
 children and in a letter to J. Addington 
 Symonds (dated I9th August 1890), he 
 mentioned that he had had six. Symonds 
 writing to me in 1893 quoted the passage 
 in question from this letter of Whitman's, 
 and it runs as follows : 
 
 " * My life, young manhood, mid-age, 
 
 times South, &c., have been jolly bodily, 
 142
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 and doubtless open to criticism. Though 
 unmarried I have had six children two 
 are dead one living Southern grandchild, 
 fine boy, writes to me occasionally cir- 
 cumstances (connected with their fortune 
 and benefit) have separated me from inti- 
 mate relations.' 
 
 " This is all, apparently, that the letter 
 contained with reference to the fact of 
 Whitman's paternity; but it is sufficient 
 to establish the fact. Concerning the said 
 children, and their mother, or mothers, 
 there may be other evidence or infor- 
 mation in existence ; and if so, it would 
 be interesting and important to elicit it. 1 
 
 " I have heard people affirm their 
 
 1 For some evidence that Whitman in his later 
 years not unfrequently alluded to the fact of his 
 fatherhood, see Binns' " Life of Whitman," p. 349. 
 It is also supposed that, the lady at New Orleans 
 being of aristocratic connection, her family would 
 only recognise the children on condition of their 
 fatherhood being concealed; and that these were 
 the circumstances which separated Whitman "from 
 intimate relations" with them. 
 H3
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 ' moral certainty ' that Whitman never 
 had any intimate relations with women, 
 and that all the expressions in ' Leaves of 
 Grass' which seem to point that way, are 
 merely Platonic, or fanciful, or allegorical 
 but it is not very easy to see on what 
 such ' moral certainty ' could in any case 
 be founded ; and in the face of the above 
 extract from Whitman's own letter, it 
 would certainly have to be abandoned. 
 
 " On the other hand it would be a 
 rash, and I think a wrong conclusion 
 to suppose that because Whitman had 
 several children (out of the bounds of 
 formal marriage) he was therefore a dis- 
 solute and uncontrolled person, much 
 given to casual liaisons with the opposite 
 sex. We know nothing, as I have said, 
 of the circumstances which led to these 
 connections, nor have we the material for 
 passing any judgment of the kind referred 
 
 to even if we were so disposed. We 
 
 144
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 know at any rate that in his later life 
 Walt was singularly discreet, almost re- 
 served, in his relations with women ; and 
 in that very interesting interview with 
 Pete Doyle, which is given by Dr. Bucke 
 in his edition of Whitman's letters to 
 Pete l one of the best running accounts 
 of Walt which we have, though of course 
 quite extempore Pete says in one pas- 
 sage : * I never knew a case of Walt's 
 being bothered up by a woman. In fact, 
 he had nothing special to do with any 
 woman, except Mrs. O'Connor and Mrs. 
 Burroughs. His dispositon was different. 
 Woman in that sense never came into his 
 head.' 
 
 "Though there are points in the in- 
 terpretation of this passage which are 
 not quite clear, it at any rate conveys 
 the impression of Whitman's reserve 
 
 1 " Calamus : A Series of Letters," &c. (Small, 
 Maynard & Co. Boston, 1897.) 
 
 145 K
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 towards the other sex ; and seems in 
 one part to suggest that his ' disposition ' 
 was unfavorable to close relations with 
 women. 1 
 
 " Pete's view in either case may appear 
 a little difficult to reconcile with the six 
 children ; but then we must remember 
 that the inception of the latter and the 
 ' times South ' of Whitman's letter would 
 belong to an early date including pro- 
 bably his visit to New Orleans in 1848-49 
 before he was thirty years of age. And 
 the Whitman of that time might well 
 differ somewhat in disposition from the 
 Whitman of twenty years later when Pete 
 knew him. 
 
 1 In a conversation reported by Horace Traubel 
 (" In re Walt Whitman," p. 34), George Whitman, 
 the poet's brother, seems to take much the same 
 general view as Pete. He says : " Although I am 
 asked that question, I am confident I never knew 
 Walt to fall in love with young girls, or even to 
 show them marked attention. He did not seem to 
 affect the girls." 
 
 146
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 " That Whitman was not by any means 
 insensible to the charms of the fair sex, 
 even in this later period, is indicated by 
 the following extract (dated October 
 1868), from one of his own letters to 
 Pete though it will be seen that there 
 is a certain histrionic air about the passage 
 which suggests that it should not be taken 
 too seriously : * I also made love to the 
 women, and flatter myself that I created at 
 least one impression wretch and gay de- 
 ceiver that I am. The truth is, Peter, 
 that I am here at the present time mainly 
 in the midst of female women, some of 
 them young and jolly, and meet them 
 most every evening in company ; and the 
 way in which this aged party comes up 
 to the scratch and cuts out the youthful 
 parties and fills their hearts with envy is 
 absolutely a caution.' 
 
 " Pete Doyle was one of Walt's dearest 
 friends perhaps his dearest; and Walt's 
 147
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 letters to Pete are veritable love-letters. 
 The story of their meeting, as given by 
 Pete in his ' interview ' is quite romantic : 
 'It is a curious story. We felt to each 
 other at once. I was a conductor (on a 
 tram). The night was very stormy he 
 had been over to see Burroughs before he 
 came down to take the car the storm 
 was awful. Walt had his blanket it 
 was thrown round his shoulders he 
 seemed like an old sea-captain. He was 
 the only passenger, it was a lonely night, 
 so I thought I would go in and talk with 
 him. Something in me made me do it, 
 and something in him drew me that way. 
 He used to say there was something in me 
 had the same effect on him. Anyway I 
 went into the car. We were familiar at 
 once I put my hand on his knee we 
 understood. He did not get out at the 
 end of the trip in fact went all the way 
 back with me. I think the year of this 
 148
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 was 1866. From that time on we were 
 the biggest sort of friends.' 
 
 " Their intimacy, as shown by the cor- 
 respondence, lasted on undiminished for 
 over ten years. Through the letters peep 
 in and out the forms and names of other 
 friends, mostly young fellows, tram-con- 
 ductors, fire-engine men, &c., to whom 
 Walt sends his love and messages. His 
 devotion to his friends of this kind, the 
 'bus-drivers in early days in New York, 
 the ferry-men, the soldiers in the war, and 
 others, is of course well known ; and it 
 appears to have been in many cases 
 ardently returned. ' Many a soldier's kiss 
 dwells on these bearded lips.' In fact, in 
 his poems we find his expressions of love 
 towards men and towards women put 
 practically on an equality if anything 
 indeed the references to the former are the 
 more frequent and the more passionate. 
 
 In actual life, too, during that later period 
 149
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 after the war, there can be no doubt that 
 his intimacies with men were much more 
 numerous and close than with women. 
 We have no record, I think, during that 
 time, of any very close intimacy with a 
 woman, though of warm friendships with 
 women we have several instances. 
 
 " Summing up then all that has been 
 said, I gather that in his early years 
 Walt had some liaisons with the fair sex ; 
 certainly one such relation, which may have 
 lasted several years, and which may (see 
 the already quoted poem) have been 
 chiefly initiated and pressed from the 
 lady's side; but that in his later period 
 (after the age of forty-five or so) 
 whether from a change of temperament 
 or any other cause these ceased to play 
 a part in his life ; at any rate there is 
 no indication of them. It is clear also 
 that throughout his life his intimacies 
 with men were very close and ardent ; 
 150
 
 Walt Whitman's Children 
 
 and it seems possible that these, in the 
 later period, to some extent supplied the 
 deficiency on the other side. 
 
 "Walt's attitude in 'Leaves of Grass' 
 towards men or women is, as I have 
 already remarked, singularly uniform. 
 Both sexes seem to come equally within 
 the scope of his love. And there is a 
 passage in Pete Doyle's already quoted 
 interview which curiously corroborates 
 this. Pete probably never read ' Leaves 
 of Grass,' or took much account of it ; 
 but he gives the following from his own 
 observation : ' Towards women generally 
 Walt had a good way he very easily 
 attracted them. But he did that with 
 men, too. And it was an irresistible 
 attraction. I've had many tell me men 
 and women. He had an easy gentle way 
 the same for all, no matter who they 
 were, or what their sex.' 
 
 "Whether this large attitude towards
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 sex, this embrace which seems to reach 
 equally to the male and the female, indi- 
 cates a higher development of humanity 
 than we are accustomed to a type super- 
 virile, and so far above the ordinary man 
 and woman that it looks upon both with 
 equal eyes ; or whether it merely indicates 
 a personal peculiarity ; this and many 
 other questions collateral to the subject I 
 have not touched upon. It has not been 
 my object in making these remarks to 
 enter into any vague speculations, but 
 rather to limit myself to a few conclusions 
 which seemed clear and obvious and fairly 
 demonstrable." 
 
 15*
 
 about Aim, .ew J855 (
 
 WHITMAN AND EMERSON 
 
 TTHE relations between Whitman and 
 -* Emerson form an interesting sub- 
 ject. There is little doubt that the two 
 men had a deep mutual respect and 
 admiration for each other ; and however 
 any chance expression dropped at any 
 time, on either side, might seem to belie 
 this, I believe it lasted to the end. It is 
 quite likely that Whitman owed some- 
 thing in the inception of " Leaves of 
 Grass " to Emerson's writings. This 
 does not mean of course that, without 
 Emerson, Whitman would have failed of 
 his work ; but, as so often happens in 
 such cases, when a mass of material is 
 153
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 forming somewhat undefinedly, and seek- 
 ing outlet, the work of the predecessor 
 comes to give it a decisive touch, and 
 bring it to birth. 
 
 In his very interesting " Reminiscences 
 of Walt Whitman" (originally printed 
 in the Atlantic Monthly, February I9O2 1 ), 
 John Townsend Trowbridge touches on 
 this subject; and without endorsing his 
 remarks in every particular, it may be 
 interesting to quote them. Relating a 
 conversation he had with Whitman one 
 Sunday at Boston, in the spring of 1860, 
 when Whitman had come over to Boston 
 to see his third edition through the press, 
 Trowbridge says : 
 
 " I was extremely interested to know 
 how far the influence of our greatest 
 writer (Emerson) had been felt in the 
 making of a book which, without being 
 
 1 Now substantially reproduced in his book, " My 
 Own Story." 
 
 '54
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 at all imitative, was pitched in the very 
 highest key of self-reliance. In his letter 
 to Emerson, printed in the second edition 
 of * Leaves of Grass,' speaking of * Indi- 
 viduality, that new moral American con- 
 tinent,' Whitman had averred : ' Those 
 shores you found; I say, you led the 
 States there have led me there.' And 
 it seemed hardly possible that the first 
 determined attempt to cast into literature 
 a complete man, with all his pride and 
 passions, should have been made by one 
 whose feet were not already firmly planted 
 on * those shores.' Then there was the 
 significant fact of his having mailed a 
 copy of his first edition to Emerson. 
 
 "Whitman talked frankly on the sub- 
 ject, that day on Prospect Hill, and told 
 how he became acquainted with Emer- 
 son's writings. He was at work as a 
 carpenter (his father's trade before him) 
 in Brooklyn, building with his own hands 
 '55
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 and on his own account small and very 
 plain houses for laboring men ; as soon 
 as one was finished and sold, beginning 
 another, houses of two or three rooms. 
 This was in 1854; he was then thirty-five 
 years old. He lived at home with his 
 mother; going off to his work in the 
 morning and returning at night, carrying 
 his dinner-pail like any common laborer. 
 Along with his pail he usually carried a 
 book, between which and his solitary meal 
 he would divide his nooning. Once the 
 book chanced to be a volume of Emer- 
 son ; and from that time he took with 
 him no other writer. His half-formed 
 purpose, his vague aspirations, all that 
 had lain smouldering so long within him, 
 waiting to be fired, rushed into flame at 
 the touch of those electric words, the 
 words that burn in the prose - poem 
 ' Nature,' and in the essays on ' Spiritual 
 
 Laws,' the 'Oversoul,' 'Self-reliance.' The 
 156
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 sturdy carpenter in his working-day garb, 
 seated on his pile of boards ; a poet in 
 that rude disguise, as yet but dimly con- 
 scious of his powers ; in one hand the 
 sandwich put up for him by his good 
 mother, his other hand holding open the 
 volume that revealed to him his greatness 
 and his destiny this is the picture which 
 his simple narrative called up, that Sun- 
 day so long ago, and which has never 
 faded from my memory. 
 
 "He freely admitted that he could 
 never have written his poems if he had 
 not first ' come to himself,' and that 
 Emerson helped him to * find himself.' 
 I asked if he thought that he would 
 have come to himself without that help. 
 He said, ' Yes, but it would have taken 
 longer.' And he used this characteristic 
 expression : ' I was simmering, simmer- 
 ing, simmering ; Emerson brought me to 
 a boil.' 
 
 57
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 "It was in that summer of 1854, while 
 he was still at work upon his houses, that 
 he began the * Leaves of Grass,' which he 
 wrote, and rewrote, and re-rewrote (to 
 quote again his own words), and after- 
 wards set in type with his own hand. 
 
 " I make this statement thus explicit 
 because a question of profound personal 
 and literary interest is involved, and be- 
 cause it is claimed by some of the later 
 friends of Whitman that he wrote his 
 first * Leaves of Grass ' before he had 
 read Emerson. When they urge his own 
 authority for their contention, I can only 
 reply that he told me distinctly the con- 
 trary, when his memory was fresher. 
 
 " The Emersonian influence is often 
 clearly traceable in Whitman's early 
 poems ; seldom in the later. It is in 
 the first line of the very first poem in 
 which he struck the keynote of his defiant 
 
 chant : ' I celebrate myself.' Yet the 
 158
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 form Whitman chose for his message 
 was as independent of Emerson's as of 
 all other literary forms whatsoever." 
 
 One of the " later friends " to whom 
 Trowbridge refers is no doubt John Bur- 
 roughs, who on page 1 6 of his " Walt 
 Whitman as Poet and Person" (New 
 York, 1867) says, speaking of the first 
 edition of " Leaves of Grass " : 
 
 " I take occasion to say that Whitman, 
 up to the time he published the quarto 
 edition, here mentioned, had never read 
 the * Essays ' or * Poems ' of Mr. Emerson 
 at all. This is positively true. In the 
 summer following that publication, he 
 first became acquainted with the * Essays ' 
 in this wise : He was frequently in the 
 habit of going down to the sea-shore at 
 Coney Island, and spending the day bath- 
 ing in the surf and rambling along the 
 shore, or lounging on the sand ; and on 
 one of these excursions he put a volume 
 '59
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 of Emerson into the little basket con- 
 taining his dinner and his towel. There, 
 for the first, he read ' Nature,' &c. 
 Soon, on similar excursions, the two 
 other volumes followed. Two years still 
 elapsed, however, and after his second 
 edition was issued, before he read Mr. 
 Emerson's poems." 
 
 It is interesting, in these two quo- 
 tations, to find the incident of the Emer- 
 son volume in the dinner-basket repeated, 
 yet placed by one writer in the year 
 1854, and by the other, equally decisively 
 in 1856! The matter is not extremely 
 important ; but it illustrates the extreme 
 and eternal difficulty of getting reliable 
 historical evidence. In this case there 
 are three memories, either of which may 
 be at fault, and one of which must be 
 Whitman's, Trowbridge's, and Burroughs'. 
 Did Whitman, in forgetfulness, give to 
 
 Burroughs, sometime between '63 and 
 1 60
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 '67, a different account from what he 
 gave to Trowbridge in '60 ? or did either 
 Burroughs or Trowbridge only imper- 
 fectly remember the account he heard ? 
 It is difficult to say. Whitman in his 
 quite late years seems to have adopted 
 the Burroughs views; but Whitman's 
 memory in his later years became very 
 unreliable. In his " Backward Glance o'er 
 Travel'd Roads" (published in 1888) he 
 says, speaking of the importance of the 
 Secession War in his own life and thought, 
 that " Without those three or four years 
 and the experiences they gave, 'Leaves 
 of Grass ' would not now be existing " ; 
 and that although he had " made a start 
 before," the beginnings of "Leaves of 
 Grass" might except for this have 
 come to naught, " almost positively would 
 have come to naught." This, considering 
 that far the larger and more important 
 part of " Leaves of Grass " was already 
 
 161 L
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 printed and published in the 1 8 60 edition, 
 a year or more before the war broke out, 
 is rather disconcerting ; and suggests that 
 his memory may have been equally at 
 fault with regard to Emerson's part in 
 " Leaves of Grass," as it was with regard 
 to the part played by the war. 
 
 I say the matter is not very important ; 
 because it is obvious that whatever part 
 Emerson's teaching played it was only 
 a small part and of brief duration. It 
 may very possibly only have come in 
 after a start of some kind had already 
 been made on "Leaves of Grass" (see 
 letter quoted, infra, p. 186); it certainly 
 had nothing to do with the long " fore- 
 ground" of Whitman's early life on farms, 
 in cities, and by the sea-shore, where the 
 book was really prepared ; nor anything to 
 do with the special developments of the 
 poems, as in Children of Adam, or their 
 
 literary style things which Emerson 
 162
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 distinctly disapproved of. At the same 
 time it seems to me quite likely that 
 at some moment the magnificent intel- 
 lectual intuitive outlook of Emerson, 
 as of an eagle in high-soaring vision of 
 seas and continents, sweeping the whole 
 world into the compass of his thought, 
 did give to Whitman just what he might 
 have been waiting for (though probably 
 in any case it would have come to him 
 some time), the magic touch and inspira- 
 tion which set his kosmos in order. No 
 doubt an outside push of some kind is 
 often required for the launching of a 
 big ship. On the whole the evidence 
 brought forward by Trowbridge seems 
 to me to favour his case the fact of 
 Whitman's sending a copy of his first 
 edition to Emerson (showing that he 
 already thought something of Emerson's 
 opinion), his printed letter to Emerson 
 in the second edition, " those shores 
 163
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 you found . . . have led me there," his 
 addressing Emerson as "Master" in the 
 same letter, and so on. In the " Notes 
 left over" of "Specimen Days" (p. 321) 
 Whitman himself says : " The remi- 
 niscence that years ago I began like most 
 youngsters to have a touch (though it 
 came late, and was only on the surface) 
 of Emerson on the brain that I read 
 his writings, and addressed him in print 
 as * Master,' and for a month or so 
 thought of him as such I retain not 
 only with composure, but positive satis- 
 faction. I have noticed that most young 
 people of eager minds pass through this 
 stage of exercise." 
 
 With regard to Emerson's opinion about 
 the new poems at this period, it is clear 
 from his letter of July 21, 1855, to Whit- 
 man : " Dear Sir, I am not blind to the 
 worth of the wonderful gift of * Leaves of 
 Grass.' I find it the most extraordinary 
 164
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 piece of wit and wisdom that America 
 has yet contributed," &c., it is very 
 clear, I say, that Emerson was greatly 
 impressed, and indeed delighted, with the 
 volume. With his clear and piercing vision 
 he seems to have at once (or in a wonder- 
 fully brief time) reached through the odd 
 rough husk to the sweet and precious 
 kernel of the book ; and for this as well 
 as for his hearty expressions of appre- 
 ciation the world must ever be grateful 
 to him. Nevertheless the book, as was 
 inevitable, roused in him queer doubts 
 and heart-searchings. Either in 1855 or 
 in the early part of 1856 Emerson called 
 twice upon Whitman ; and though in 
 these visits the foundation of a personal 
 friendship was laid, it is clear that they 
 revealed also great gulfs of difference. 
 Emerson could not quite stomach Walt 
 Whitman, the rough, with his invas- 
 
 ively democratic ways, nor see anything 
 165
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 particularly interesting in his working-folk 
 chums and pals ; while Whitman, on the 
 other hand, found his visitor too literary 
 and intellectual. On the occasion of my 
 own visit to the States in 1877, I stayed a 
 night at Emerson's house at Concord 
 most pleasantly and hospitably received 
 and enjoyed greatly his talk as we 
 walked up and down the old-fashioned 
 garden, or sat in his book-lined study. 
 When I spoke of Whitman, and asked 
 what he thought of him, he laughed 
 (a little nervously, I thought) and said, 
 " Well, I thought he had some merit at 
 one time : there was a good deal of 
 promise in his first edition but he is a 
 wayward, fanciful man. 1 I saw him in 
 New York, and asked him to dine at my 
 
 1 I am here simply transcribing notes made a few 
 days after the interview. He used a third epithet 
 beside wayward and fanciful, something like " violent," 
 but I hardly think it was so strong as that. (See 
 supra, p. 48.) 
 
 166
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 hotel. He shouted for a ' tin mug ' for 
 his beer. Then he had a noisy fire-engine 
 society. And he took me there, and was 
 like a boy over it, as if there had never 
 been such a thing before ! " He went on, 
 in words which I do not recall, to object 
 to the absence of metre in " Leaves of 
 Grass " ; and ended, I remember, by 
 taking down a volume of Tennyson from 
 the shelf handling it affectionately and 
 showing me the author's autograph on the 
 fly-leaf and dwelling on the beauty of 
 the Tennysonian diction and metre. 1 
 
 1 I may as well here transcribe my further notes 
 of Emerson's personal appearance at the time, as 
 follows : " Emerson's failure of memory for names 
 is quite painful [his age was then 74], and there is 
 the fixed look of age in his eye, yet he is active in 
 body and full of fun and enjoyment of intellectual 
 life. His eyes are greyish blue, the corners of his 
 lips are often drawn upward, and there is a wonderful 
 bird-like look about the face, enhanced by his way 
 of jerking his head forward as he speaks. His eyes 
 sometimes look very straight and intense : and then 
 comes a moonlight smile over the face, very charm- 
 ing. His domestic life seems admirable." 
 167
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 These few words about Whitman, 
 spoken by Emerson to a casual visitor, 
 must of course not be given too much 
 weight, or supposed to represent his total 
 and final estimate. But I insert them 
 here, as they probably represent pretty 
 fairly certain points of difference and 
 even disagreement which he discovered on 
 personal acquaintance. On further read- 
 ing, too, doubtless Emerson felt that he 
 could not corroborate or justify a great 
 deal of the matter, as well as the metre, 
 of " Leaves of Grass." He was probably 
 swayed to and fro by various currents of 
 feeling with regard to it, and could not 
 settle clearly in his mind what he did 
 think. This is illustrated by a letter he 
 wrote to Thomas Carlyle in 1856, to 
 accompany a copy of the book, which he 
 was sending : 
 
 " One book, last summer, came out in 
 New York, a nondescript monster, which 
 
 168
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 yet had terrible eyes and buffalo strength, 
 and was indisputably American which 
 I thought to send you ; but the book 
 throve so badly with the few to whom I 
 showed it, and wanted good morals so 
 much, that I never did. Yet I believe 
 now again, I shall. It is called 'Leaves 
 of Grass,' was written and printed by a 
 journeyman printer in Brooklyn, New 
 York, named Walter Whitman ; and 
 after you have looked into it, if you 
 think, as you may, that it is only an 
 auctioneer's inventory of a warehouse, 
 you can light your pipe with it." 
 
 It could only have been a few weeks 
 after the above letter had been written to 
 Carlyle about the first "Leaves of Grass," 
 that quite unexpectedly to Emerson 
 a second edition of the book appeared, 
 with Emerson's complete letter of 2ist 
 July 1855, printed in an Appendix, and 
 
 an extract from the same letter, " I greet 
 169
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 you at the beginning of a great career," in 
 gold upon the cover ! Besides this, there 
 was a long reply-letter from Whitman 
 to Emerson, addressing the latter as 
 " Master," and containing the above- 
 quoted passages about " those shores you 
 found," &c. 
 
 Whitman has been often blamed for 
 this quite unauthorised use of Emerson's 
 letter and certainly according to our 
 Cis-Atlantic literary codes it was a cool 
 thing to do : very cool considering of 
 course that in this second edition were 
 many pieces that Emerson had never even 
 seen ! But though the act may be diffi- 
 cult to defend, it must be remembered 
 that public opinion and practice on the 
 other side of the water was and is de- 
 cidedly more lax and easy-going in such 
 matters than on this side. Whitman 
 probably failed to realise (it was hardly 
 
 his nature to do so), the reaction this 
 170
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 advertisement might have upon Emerson 
 and his interests. He was thinking of 
 his own bantling first edition, flouted, 
 scorned, neglected, and like to perish, and 
 of the splendid testimony from one of 
 the greatest of living names in letters, 
 which would suddenly lift it into fields 
 of life and light. " I supposed the letter 
 was meant to be blazoned," he said one 
 day to Trowbridge "I regarded it as 
 the chart of an emperor." It did not 
 occur to him that its blazoning might 
 possibly cost the emperor his throne ! 
 
 But indeed the matter was serious, 
 comically serious. Here was Emerson, 
 the imperial one, whose finger laid on a 
 book was like a lighthouse beam to all 
 the coteries of Boston, actually recom- 
 mending some new poems to the whole 
 world in terms of unstinted praise. The 
 whole world, of course, went to buy 
 them. A hundred parlors of mildly 
 171
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 literary folk or primly polite Unitarian 
 and Congregational circles beheld scenes 
 over which kind history has drawn a veil ! 
 the good husband or head of the 
 house, after tea or supper, settling down 
 in his chair, " Now for the new book, so 
 warmly spoken of ! " The ladies taking 
 their knitting and sewing, their dresses 
 rustling slightly as they arrange them- 
 selves to listen, the general atmosphere 
 of propriety and selectness ; and then the 
 reading ! Oh, the reading ! The odd 
 words, the unusual phrases, the jumbled 
 sequences, the stumbling uncertainty of 
 the reader, the wonderment on the faces 
 of the listeners, and finally confusion 
 and the pit ! the book closed, and hasty 
 flight and dispersion of the meeting. 
 Then, later, timid glances again at the 
 dreadful volume, only to find, amid 
 quagmires and swamps, the reptilian 
 author addressing the beloved Emerson
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 as "Master," and saying, "these shores 
 you found ! " Was it a nightmare ? Had 
 the emperor gone mad ? or was his printed 
 letter merely a fraud and a forgery ? 
 
 One can imagine the annoyance all 
 this caused to Emerson himself the 
 deluge of letters and inquiries, the whirl- 
 pools of controversy among his myriad 
 followers, the would-be champions who 
 gaged their word and everlasting destiny 
 on his entire innocence, &c. Truly the 
 throne rocked for a season. But it was 
 too well based to be upset. Indeed I 
 cannot but think that Emerson, with his 
 sterling good sense and mental solidity, 
 rather enjoyed it all at bottom the 
 uproar, the searchings of heart, and the 
 confusion of his congregations and coteries 
 (whose narrowness and provincialism were 
 often a trial to him). In his heart of 
 hearts though doubtless he thought 
 Whitman had played him unfair, and 
 
 '73
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 though certainly he did not think 
 Whitman's manner of speech on sexual 
 questions either wise or gracious still 
 I believe he must have recognised and 
 did at that time recognise that the 
 book, "Leaves of Grass," was a tremen- 
 dous gain to the world, and that it was 
 even going to do pioneer work for him, 
 Emerson, along his own line. 
 
 I think I am right in saying that there 
 was no public retaliation by Emerson 
 against the author of the offending book. 
 I have, at any rate, not heard of any. 
 There was, however, considerable public 
 stir against it. It was savagely criticised, 
 and " so extreme was the feeling excited 
 by it, that some good people in New 
 York seriously contemplated having the 
 author indicted and tried for publishing 
 on obscene book." J The publishers, 
 Fowler & Wells, fearing injury to their 
 1 See Bucke's "Walt Whitman," p. 141. 
 '74
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 business, threw the book up ; and so after 
 a brief career its publication ceased, and 
 for the next four years it remained as a 
 thing dead. 
 
 It was in 1860 that Emerson and 
 Whitman met again. Whitman had come 
 to Boston to superintend the printing of a 
 third edition, to be issued by Thayer and 
 Eldridge. Heroic, calm, and undaunted, 
 unresentful even of neglect, he simply 
 went on his way. If the first and second 
 editions of " Leaves of Grass " had aroused 
 opposition, the third was still more likely 
 to do so. It gathered together many of 
 the most offending poems, with new ones 
 of the same character, in two groups, 
 Children of Adam, and Calamus, which 
 were certain to attract attention. It 
 was bold indeed of Thayer and Eldridge 
 to undertake the publication. Whether 
 by any chance one of the firm may 
 have persuaded Emerson to intervene 
 175
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 with the author, in favour of a general 
 toning down of the book, I know not. 
 But it is certain that Emerson came 
 to see him, and taking him out onto 
 Boston Common, walked with him for 
 two hours discussing this very subject. 
 Of that memorable conversation Whit- 
 man must speak for himself. In " Speci- 
 men Days," p. 191, under date 10-13 
 Oct. 1 88 1, he says: "Up and down this 
 breadth by Beacon Street, between these 
 same old elms, I walked for two hours, of 
 a bright sharp February midday twenty- 
 one years ago, with Emerson, then in 
 his prime, keen, physically and morally 
 magnetic, arm'd at every point, and when 
 he chose wielding the emotional just as 
 well as the intellectual. During those 
 two hours he was the talker and I the 
 listener. It was an argument, statement, 
 reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing 
 home (like an army corps in order, 
 176
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 artillery, cavalry, infantry), of all that 
 could be said against that part (and a 
 main part) in the construction of my 
 poems, Children of Adam. More precious 
 than gold to me that dissertation. It 
 afforded me, ever after, this strange and 
 paradoxical lesson ; each point of Emer- 
 son's statement was unanswerable, no 
 judge's charge ever more complete or 
 convincing, I could never hear the points 
 better put and then I felt down in my 
 soul the clear and unmistakable conviction 
 to disobey all, and pursue my own way. 
 * What have you to say then to such 
 things ? ' said Emerson, pausing in con- 
 clusion. 'Only that while I can't answer 
 them at all, I feel more settled than ever 
 to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify 
 it,' was my candid response. Whereupon 
 we went and had a good dinner at the 
 American House. And thenceforward 
 I never wavered or was touched with 
 
 177 M
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 qualms (as I confess I had been two or 
 three times before)." 
 
 Very fine is this scene between the two 
 men. Emerson bearing no grudge against 
 the buffalo poet, candidly doing his best to 
 give "Leaves of Grass" its proper scope, 
 and save it (as he thought) from its own 
 indiscretions Whitman, loyal to himself 
 and to Emerson, equally candidly refusing 
 to budge. A hearty dinner afterwards, 
 and separation with mutual respect. 1 
 
 It is probable that for the next twenty 
 years the two friends did not see each 
 other. I find no evidence of their meet- 
 ing. The war broke out ; Whitman went 
 
 1 In a letter to W. D. O'Connor (see New York 
 Tribune, i8th June 1882) Whitman wrote, "What 
 made and ever makes the argument of Emerson in 
 that walk on the Common dear and holy to me was 
 its personal afTectionateness, as of an elder brother to 
 a younger. It was a vehement and even passionate 
 well-wishing, which I felt then, and feel to this hour, 
 the gratitude and reverence of my life could never 
 repay." (W. S. Kennedy's " Reminiscences of Walt 
 Whitman," p. 77.) 
 
 178
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 south and remained at Washington, and 
 afterwards at Camden, New Jersey, with 
 only occasional and brief visits to New 
 York. There was not much chance or 
 likelihood of their meeting. Nevertheless 
 their communications were not broken, 
 and the elder man had not ceased to be 
 interested in the younger ; for we find, 
 according to Trowbridge, that in Novem- 
 ber 1863, Whitman (who was then look- 
 ing about for some official work or post 
 at Washington) had by him two letters 
 of recommendation written by Emerson 
 the one to Senator Sumner, and the other 
 to Secretary Chase. Of what other cor- 
 respondence or meetings there may have 
 been between them for the next twenty 
 years, we do not hear much. 1 Emerson's 
 
 1 Emerson seems to have helped Whitman in the 
 matter of hospital funds ; and the two appear to have 
 just seen each other at the re-burial of Poe at Balti- 
 more in 1875. (See Binns' "Life of Whitman," pp. 
 198 and 258.) 
 
 179
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 respect for " Leaves of Grass " as a feasible 
 contribution to literature seems to have 
 waned. He respected of course much of 
 the matter of it, but could not stomach 
 the manner. He told his friend Sanborn 
 once that the book read like " a mixture 
 of the Bhagvat-Gita and the New Tork 
 Herald"^- He included no specimen of 
 it in his collection "Parnassus" (1874); 
 and detested its metre or want of metre. 2 
 [Whitman says somewhere " Specimen 
 Days," p. 321 "I see he covertly or 
 plainly likes best superb verbal polish, 
 or something old or odd Waller's * Go, 
 lovely rose,' or Lovelace's lines 'To 
 Lucasta' and the like."] Yet for the 
 Man, as well as I think for his Message 
 in its real essence, Emerson had a great 
 and enduring respect. 
 
 1 "Reminiscences of Walt Whitman," by W. S. 
 Kennedy (1896), p. 78. 
 
 2 Nevertheless Emerson himself at an earlier age 
 had made experiments in the same direction. 
 
 1 80
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 In 1 88 1 Walt came once more to 
 Boston to superintend a new edition of 
 his poems. Since 1860 much had hap- 
 pened. The first two editions (1855 and 
 1856) had been scouted by the public 
 and hastily dropped by the publishers ; the 
 1860 edition fell almost dead through the 
 War. Walt Whitman went to Washing- 
 ton. It was not till 1867 that he printed 
 a fourth edition (New York), including 
 "Drum Taps." The fifth came in 1871 
 (Washington). The sixth in 1876 (cen- 
 tennial and author's edition, Camden) in 
 two volumes, including prose. And the 
 seventh is the one of which we are 
 speaking (Osgood & Co. Boston, 1881-2). 
 Hardly was the book out, and selling 
 well, when the Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice in Boston pounced. The Attor- 
 ney-general for Massachusetts, through 
 the District Attorney, served a notice on 
 Osgoods (early in '82). Osgoods appealed
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 to Whitman to withdraw some of the 
 poems. Whitman absolutely refused ; 
 and once more the publishers threw the 
 book up and left the edition on his 
 hands ! 
 
 But to return to our subject. Emerson 
 of course was not ignorant of the stir that 
 was being made. Indeed there can be 
 little doubt that both by his own family 
 and from outside he was urged to dis- 
 sociate himself from the book and its 
 author. But he was not going to do 
 anything of the kind. 1 In September 
 1 88 1, Whitman came over from Boston 
 (from his proof-reading) to stay a night 
 with Sanborn at Concord. Emerson (now 
 quite an old man, seventy-eight) and 
 
 1 " The true fact is, R. W. Emerson had a firm and 
 deep attachment to Whitman from first to last, as 
 person and poet, which Emerson's family and several 
 of his conventional literary friends tried their best in 
 vain to dislodge/' (See W. S. Kennedy's " Reminis- 
 cences of Walt Whitman," p. 77.) 
 182
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 other friends came in for the evening 
 " a long and blessed evening " Walt 
 calls it ("Specimen Days," p. 189). 
 He describes in fact how, without being 
 rude, he was able to take a good look 
 at Emerson most of the time, and speaks 
 of " the well-known expression of sweet- 
 ness in his face, and the old clear-peering 
 aspect quite the same." Then the next 
 day, Sunday, the Emersons asked him 
 to dinner. "Several hours at Emerson's 
 house, and dinner there. An old familiar 
 house (he has been in it thirty-five years), 
 with surroundings, furnishments, roomi- 
 ness, and plain elegance and fulness, signi- 
 fying democratic ease, sufficient opulence, 
 and an admirable old-fashioned simplicity : 
 modern luxury, with its mere sumptuous- 
 ness and affectation, either touched lightly 
 upon or ignored altogether. Dinner the 
 
 same. Of course the best of the occasion 
 
 183
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 (Sunday, Sept. 18, '81) was the sight of 
 Emerson himself." 
 
 This dinner and hearty reception by 
 Emerson Whitman looked back upon 
 with something like pride, as a "victor- 
 event" in his life. (See letter of 1887 
 to W. S. Kennedy, p. 76 of his book.) 
 The next year, May 6, 1882, he stood by 
 Emerson's grave. " How shall I hence- 
 forth dwell on the blessed hours when, 
 not long since, I saw that benignant face, 
 the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth, 
 the form yet upright in its great age to 
 the very last, with so much spring and 
 cheeriness, and such an absence of de- 
 crepitude that even the term venerable 
 hardly seemed fitting. . . . We can say, 
 as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It 
 is not we who come to consecrate the 
 dead we reverently come to receive, 
 
 if so it may be, some consecration to 
 184
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 ourselves and daily work from him." 
 ("Specimen Days," p. 197.) 
 
 With these words we may leave the 
 personal relation between the two men. 
 The nobility of them both, the grandeur, 
 sincerity, and simplicity of their relation, 
 the hearty accord, affection, and admira- 
 tion, beneath grave and acknowledged 
 differences of habit and opinion all 
 make up a picture of deep and lasting 
 significance, and one which future ages 
 can hardly fail to cherish. On the purely 
 literary side, however, it was perhaps 
 only natural that, as time went on, they 
 should distinctly drift apart. Emerson 
 was less and less able to adapt himself 
 to Whitman's strange new departures. 
 Whitman more and more avowedly sepa- 
 rated his respect for the man from his 
 respect for the writer. In latest years 
 
 he seemed almost anxious that he should 
 185
 
 Days with Walt Whitman 
 
 not be thought to have learnt anything 
 from Emerson's books. In the letter 
 already alluded to, of 1887, to W. S. 
 Kennedy, he says : "It is of no import- 
 ance whether I had read Emerson before 
 starting 'Leaves of Grass' or not. The 
 fact happens to be positively that I had 
 nof;" 1 and later in the same letter: 
 " If I were to unbosom to you in the 
 matter I should say that I never cared 
 so very much for Emerson's writings, 
 prose or poems, but from his first 
 personal visit and two hours with me 
 ... I had a strange attachment and 
 love for him and his contact, talk, 
 company, magnetism." In Whitman's 
 "Specimen Days," also (pp. 3 2 i~ 2 ) 
 he has some keen criticisms of the 
 
 1 This letter is odd and jumbley and a little con- 
 fusing in style, and I must say (considering also its 
 date) does not carry entire conviction to me.
 
 Whitman and Emerson 
 
 "bloodless intellectuality" and other 
 defects of Emerson's style criticisms 
 which, though decidedly good on the 
 whole, seem to me needlessly stringent, 
 and even a bit captious in parts. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by BALLANTVNK, HANSON & Co. 
 Edinburgh <5r London

 
 vf/so by EDWARD CARPENTER 
 
 The Art of Creation 
 
 Essays on the Self and its Powers 
 
 Crown 8vo, Cloth, gilt top, 266 pp. 55. net. 
 
 The Book is an attempt to explain the 
 Creative process in the light of modern (and 
 ancient) thought. It suggests as the title 
 would indicate that the Creation of the 
 World, like a work of Art, proceeds by per- 
 fectly definite laws from inner states of being 
 and feeling to outer manifestation ; and that 
 Man himself, as soon as he understands, can 
 take part in this art of creation. The book 
 is both theoretical and practical. In its pages 
 there is a reconcilement of Spirit and Matter, 
 of Plato and Darwin, of Religion and Physi- 
 ology, of the Gods and Evolution ; and the 
 chapters on Creation and Transformation 
 lead on to the development of the highest 
 orders of knowledge and power in mankind. 
 
 Manchester Guardian. "Written with great 
 simplicity and charm, and no thoughtful reader who 
 takes it up will fail to find interest and profit in it. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN 
 
 i
 
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 TOWARDS DEMOCRACY : Complete Poems. Library 
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 THE SAME, Pocket Edition, India paper, with limp 
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 ANGELS' WINGS : Essays on Art and Life, with nine full- 
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 ADAM'S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA : sketches in Ceylon 
 and India. New Edition, 1903, cloth gilt, 45. 6d. 
 
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 Homer's Iliad done into English, and frontispiece, cloth 
 gilt, 2s. 6d. 
 
 IOLAUS : An Anthology of Friendship. Printed in red and 
 black inks, with ornamental initials and side notes ; cloth, 
 gilt edge, 2s. 6d. net. 
 
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 of men and women, price 6d. net. 
 
 PRISONS, POLICE, AND PUNISHMENT : an Inquiry 
 into the Causes and Treatment of Crime and Criminals. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. net. 
 
 EDWARD CARPENTER : THE MAN AND His MESSAGE. 
 Pamphlet by TOM SWAN, with two portraits and copious 
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