Note 4 — WALT WHITMAN IN 1884
Reading edition
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!) 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?”
[5] “Walt Whitman Fellowship Papers” (Philadelphia, 1894), p. 42.
[6] “Leaves of Grass,” p. 298.
[7] 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.
[8] See “Abbas Effendi,” a study of the religion of the Babis, by M. H. Phelps (Putnams, 1903).
[9] 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.) “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.) “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 determination around the whole earth. I have look’d for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands.” (p. 120.) “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.) “Allons! 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.) “I swear I think now that everything has an immortal 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.) “All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist 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.) “Vivas to those who 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.) “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.)
[10] “Notes and Fragments,” left by Walt Whitman, and edited by R. M. Bucke (1899), p. 70.
[11] “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.”
[12] “Angels’ Wings,” by E. Carpenter (1898), p. 73.
[13] “A Woman’s Estimate,” now republished among the papers in “In re Walt Whitman” (McKay. Philadelphia, 1893).
[14] “Birds and Poets” (New York, 1877), p. 234.
[15] See “A Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads,” the prose Appendix to “Leaves of Grass” (Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1897).
[16] John Burroughs, in “Walt Whitman: as Poet and Person.” (New York, 1867.)
[17] 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.
[18] “Calamus: A Series of Letters,” &c. (Small, Maynard & Co. Boston, 1897.)
[19] 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.”
[20] Now substantially reproduced in his book, “My Own Story.”
[21] 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.)
[22] 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 charming. His domestic life seems admirable.”
[23] See Bucke’s “Walt Whitman,” p. 141.
[24] In a letter to W. D. O’Connor (see New York Tribune, 18th 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 affectionateness, 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.)
[25] 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 Baltimore in 1875. (See Binns’ “Life of Whitman,” pp. 198 and 258.)
[26] “Reminiscences of Walt Whitman,” by W. S. Kennedy (1896), p. 78.
[27] Nevertheless Emerson himself at an earlier age had made experiments in the same direction.
[28] “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 “Reminiscences of Walt Whitman,” p. 77.)
[29] This letter is odd and jumbley and a little confusing in style, and I must say (considering also its date) does not carry entire conviction to me.