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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56536 ***
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 56536-h.htm or 56536-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/56536/56536-h/56536-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/56536/56536-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/lifeofwaltwhitma00binnuoft
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
+
+
+
+
+
+A LIFE OF WALT WHITMAN
+
+
+    BY THE SAME WRITER
+
+    MOODS AND OUTDOOR VERSES
+
+                ("RICHARD ASKHAM")
+
+    FOR THE FELLOWSHIP
+
+
+[Illustration: _Walt Whitman at thirty-five_]
+
+
+A LIFE OF WALT WHITMAN
+
+by
+
+HENRY BRYAN BINNS
+
+With Thirty-three Illustrations
+
+
+
+
+
+
+METHUEN & CO.
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+First Published in 1905
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+
+  MY MOTHER
+
+  AND
+
+  HER MOTHER
+
+  THE REPUBLIC
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+To the reader, and especially to the critical reader, it would seem
+but courteous to give at the beginning of my book some indication
+of its purpose. It makes no attempt to fill the place either of a
+critical study or a definitive biography. Though Whitman died thirteen
+years ago, the time has not yet come for a final and complete life
+to be written; and when the hour shall arrive we must, I think, look
+to some American interpreter for the volume. For Whitman's life is
+of a strongly American flavour. Instead of such a book I offer a
+biographical study from the point of view of an Englishman, yet of
+an Englishman who loves the Republic. I have not attempted, except
+parenthetically here and there, to make literary decisions on the value
+of Whitman's work, partly because he still remains an innovator upon
+whose case the jury of the years must decide--a jury which is not yet
+complete; and partly because I am not myself a literary critic. It is
+as a man that I see and have sought to describe Whitman. But as a man
+of special and exceptional character, a new type of mystic or seer.
+And the conviction that he belongs to the order of initiates has
+dragged me on to confessedly difficult ground.
+
+Again, while seeking to avoid excursions into literary criticism, it
+has seemed to me to be impossible to draw a real portrait of the man
+without attempting some interpretation of his books and the quotation
+from them of characteristic passages, for they are the record of his
+personal attitude towards the problems most intimately affecting his
+life. I trust that this part of my work may at any rate offer some
+suggestions to the serious student of Whitman. Since he touched life at
+many points, it has been full of pitfalls; and if among them I should
+prove but a blind leader, I can only hope that those who follow will
+keep open eyes.
+
+Whitman has made his biography the more difficult to write by demanding
+that he should be studied in relation to his time; to fulfil this
+requirement was beyond my scope, but I have here and there suggested
+the more notable outlines, within which the reader will supply
+details from his own memory. As I have written especially for my own
+countrymen, I have ventured to remind the reader of some of those
+elementary facts of American history of which we English are too easily
+forgetful.
+
+The most important chapters of Whitman's life have been written by
+himself, and will be found scattered over his complete works. To
+these the following pages are intended as a modest supplement and
+commentary. Already the Whitman literature has become extensive, but,
+save in brief sketches, no picture of his whole life in which one may
+trace with any detail the process of its development seems as yet to
+exist. In this country the only competent studies which have appeared
+are that of the late Mr. Symonds, which devotes some twenty pages to
+biographical matters, and the admirable and suggestive little manual of
+the late Mr. William Clarke. Both books are some twelve years old, and
+in those years not a little new material has become available, notably
+that which is collected in the ten-volume edition of Whitman's works,
+and in the book known as _In re Walt Whitman_. On these and on essays
+printed in the _Conservator_ and in the _Whitman Fellowship Papers_ I
+have freely drawn for the following pages.
+
+Of American studies the late Dr. Bucke's still, after twenty years,
+easily holds the first place. Beside it stand those of Mr. John
+Burroughs, and Mr. W. S. Kennedy. To these, and to the kind offices of
+the authors of the two last named, my book owes much of any value it
+may possess. I have also been assisted by the published reminiscences
+of Mr. J. T. Trowbridge, Mr. Moncure Conway, and Mr. Thomas Donaldson,
+and by the recently published _Diary in Canada_ (edited by Mr.
+Kennedy), and Dr. I. H. Platt's Beacon Biography of the poet.
+
+Since I never met Walt Whitman I am especially indebted to his friends
+for the personal details with which they have so generously furnished
+me: beside those already named, to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Johnston, Mr.
+J. Hubley Ashton, Mrs. W. S. Kennedy, Mrs. E. M. Calder, Mr. and Mrs.
+(Stafford) Browning of Haddonfield (Glendale), Mr. John Fleet of
+Huntington, Captain Lindell of the Camden Ferry, and to Mr. Peter G.
+Doyle; but especially to Whitman's surviving executors and my kind
+friends, Mr. T. B. Harned and Mr. Horace Traubel. To these last, and
+to Mr. Laurens Maynard, of the firm of Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co.,
+the publishers of the final edition of Whitman's works, I am indebted
+for generous permission to use and reproduce photographs in their
+possession. I also beg to make my acknowledgments to Mr. David McKay
+and Mr. Gutekunst, both of Philadelphia.
+
+Helpful suggestions and information have been most kindly given by my
+American friends, Mr. Edwin Markham, Professor E. H. Griggs, Mr. Ernest
+Crosby, Dr. George Herron, Professor Rufus M. Jones of Haverford,
+Mr. C. F. Jenkins of Germantown, and Mr. and Mrs. David Thompson
+of Washington. Mr. Benjamin D. Hicks of Long Island has repeatedly
+replied to my various and troublesome inquiries as to the Quaker
+ancestry of Walt Whitman, and Dr. E. Pardee Bucke has furnished me
+with an admirable sketch of his father Dr. R. M. Bucke's life and the
+photograph which I have reproduced. In England also there are many to
+whom I would here offer my most grateful thanks. And first, to Mr.
+Edward Carpenter, whose own work has always been my best of guides in
+the study of Whitman's, and whose records of his interviews with the
+old poet in Camden have given me more insight into his character than
+any other words but Whitman's own. He has also read the MS., and aided
+me by numberless suggestions. Mrs. Bernard Berenson, who for some years
+enjoyed the old man's friendship, has supplied me with an invaluable
+picture of his relations with her father, the late Mr. Pearsall Smith,
+and his family, and has generously lent me various letters in her
+possession, and permitted me to make reproductions from them. Mr. J.
+W. Wallace, of the "Bolton group," has allowed me to read and use his
+manuscript description of a visit to Camden in 1891; and another of the
+same brotherhood, Dr. J. Johnston, whose admirable account of a similar
+series of interviews in the preceding year is well known by Whitman
+students, has supplied me with a photograph of the little Mickle Street
+house as it then was.
+
+To Mr. William M. Rossetti and to Mr. Ernest Rhys I am indebted for
+valuable suggestions; and for similar help to my friends, Professor W.
+H. Hudson and Messrs. Arthur Sherwell, B. Kirkman Gray and C. F. Mott.
+Finally, the book owes much more than I can say to my wife.
+
+While gratefully acknowledging the assistance of all these and others
+unnamed, I confess that I am alone responsible for the general accuracy
+of my statements, and the book's point of view, and I wish especially
+to relieve the personal friends of Whitman from any responsibility for
+the hypothesis relating to his sojourn in the South, beyond what is
+stated in the Appendix. To all actual sins of commission and omission
+I plead guilty, trusting that for the sympathetic reader they may
+eventually be blotted out in the light which, obscured though it be,
+still shines upon my pages from the personality of Walt Whitman.
+
+                                        H. B. B.
+
+LONDON, _January, 1905_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                           PAGE
+
+  PREFACE                                   vii
+
+  TABLE OF CONTENTS                        xiii
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS                      xv
+
+  ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED IN THE NOTES      xvii
+
+  INTRODUCTION: WHITMAN'S AMERICA           xix
+
+
+   CHAP.
+
+      I. THE WHITMAN'S OF WEST HILLS          1
+
+     II. BOYHOOD IN BROOKLYN                 10
+
+    III. TEACHER AND JOURNALIST              28
+
+     IV. ROMANCE (1848)                      46
+
+      V. ILLUMINATION                        56
+
+     VI. THE CARPENTER                       79
+
+    VII. WHITMAN'S MANIFESTO                 95
+
+   VIII. THE MYSTIC                         110
+
+     IX. "YEAR OF METEORS"                  134
+
+      X. THE TESTAMENT OF A COMRADE         148
+
+     XI. AMERICA AT WAR                     171
+
+    XII. THE PROOF OF COMRADESHIP           190
+
+   XIII. A WASHINGTON CLERK                 205
+
+    XIV. FRIENDS AND FAME                   221
+
+     XV. ILLNESS                            247
+
+    XVI. CONVALESCENCE                      258
+
+   XVII. THE SECOND BOSTON EDITION          278
+
+  XVIII. AMONG THE PROPHETS                 289
+
+    XIX. HE BECOMES A HOUSEHOLDER           301
+
+     XX. AT MICKLE STREET                   314
+
+    XXI. "GOOD-BYE, MY FANCY"               325
+
+  APPENDIX A                                347
+
+  APPENDIX B                                349
+
+  INDEX                                     351
+
+  METHUEN'S CATALOGUE OF BOOKS
+
+  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                             FACING PAGE
+
+  WALT WHITMAN AT 35, from a daguerrotype                 _Frontispiece_
+    in possession of Mr. J. H. Johnston
+
+  HIS MOTHER, from a daguerrotype in possession of Mr. Traubel         6
+
+  WEST HILLS: THE WHITMAN HOUSE FROM THE LANE (1904)                   8
+
+  W. W.'S FATHER                                                      14
+
+  WEST HILLS: HOUSE FROM YARD                                         28
+
+  NEW ORLEANS ABOUT 1850                                              48
+
+  R. W. EMERSON                                                       92
+
+  W. W. AT 40, from a photo, in the possession of Mr. D. McKay       140
+
+  W. W. AT 44, from photo, in possession of Mr. Traubel              179
+
+  WILLIAM DOUGLAS O'CONNOR                                           190
+
+  JOHN BURROUGHS IN 1900                                             201
+
+  ANNE GILCHRIST, from an amateur photograph                         225
+
+  W. W. AT ABOUT 50                                                  227
+
+  PETE DOYLE AND W. W., by permission of Messrs. Small, Maynard      231
+    & Co., from a photo, by Rice, Washington, 1869
+
+  PETER G. DOYLE AT 57, from a photo, by Kuebler, Philadelphia       233
+
+  NO. 431, STEVENS STREET, CAMDEN (1904)                             240
+
+  FACSIMILE OF MS. OF PORTION OF PREFACE TO 1876 EDITION,            243
+    _L. of G._
+
+  TIMBER CREEK, THE POOL                                             259
+
+  TIMBER CREEK, BELOW CRYSTAL SPRING                                 261
+
+  EDWARD CARPENTER AT 43                                             267
+
+  DR. R. M. BUCKE                                                    270
+
+  W. W. AT 61                                                        276
+
+  MR. STAFFORD'S STORE, GLENDALE (1904)                              286
+
+  MART WHITALL SMITH (MRS. BERENSON) IN 1884                         302
+
+  W. W. AND THE BUTTERFLY; AGED 62; from photo,                      304
+    by Phillips & Taylor, Philadelphia
+
+  FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO MR. R. P. SMITH,                  315
+    in possession of Mrs. Berenson
+
+  MICKLE STREET, CAMDEN, from a photo, by Dr. J. Johnston            317
+
+  FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH POST CARDS (1887-88),                       326
+    in possession of Mrs. Berenson
+
+  W. W. AT 70, by permission of Mr. Gutekunst, Philadelphia          331
+
+  ROBERT G. INGERSOLL                                                334
+
+  W. W. AT 72, from a photo, of Mr. T. Eakins,                       338
+    by permission of Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co.
+
+  HORACE TRAUBEL                                                     342
+
+  THE TOMB, HARLEIGH CEMETERY (1904)                                 346
+
+
+
+
+ABBREVIATIONS
+
+_The following abbreviations are used in the Notes._
+
+
+  Bucke = R. M. Bucke's _Walt Whitman_, 1883.
+
+  Burroughs = John Burroughs' _Note on Walt Whitman_, 1867.
+
+  Burroughs (2) = John Burroughs' _Note on Walt Whitman_. Second
+    Edition.
+
+  Burroughs (_a_) = John Burroughs' _Whitman: A Study_, 1896.
+
+  Carpenter = E. Carpenter's "Notes of Visits to W. W." in _Progressive
+    Review_: (_a_) February, 1897; (_b_) April, 1897.
+
+  _Camden's Compliment_ = _Camden's Compliment to W. W._, 1889.
+
+  _Cam. Mod. Hist._ = _Cambridge Modern History: United States._
+
+  _Comp. Prose_ = _W. W.'s Complete Prose_, 1898.
+
+  Calamus = _Calamus, Letters of W. W. to Pete Doyle_, 1897.
+
+  Camden = _Camden Edition_ (10 vols.) _of W. W.'s Works_, 1902.
+
+  Donaldson = T. Donaldson's _W. W.: The Man_, 1897.
+
+  _En. Brit. Suppt._ = _Encyclopædia Britannica: Supplement, United
+    States._
+
+  _Good-bye and Hail_ = _Good-bye and Hail, W. W._, 1892.
+
+  _In re_ = _In re W. W._, 1893.
+
+  Johnston = Dr. J. Johnston's _Notes of a Visit to W. W._, 1890.
+
+  Kennedy = W. S. Kennedy's _Reminiscences of W. W._, 1896.
+
+  _L. of G._ = _Leaves of Grass_, complete edition of 1897: followed by
+    numerals in brackets, edition of that year.
+
+  _Mem. Hist. N.Y._ = J. G. Wilson's _Memorial History of New York_.
+
+  Roosevelt = T. Roosevelt's _New York_, 1891.
+
+  Symonds = J. A. Symonds's _W. W.: A Study_, 1893.
+
+  _Wound-Dresser_ = _The W. D., Letters of W. W. to his Mother_, 1898.
+
+  _Whit. Fellowship_ = _Whitman Fellowship Papers_, Philadelphia, 1894.
+
+
+MANUSCRIPTS.
+
+  MSS. Berenson = Letters in possession of Mrs. Bernard Berenson.
+
+  MSS. Berenson (_a_) = Reminiscences contributed to this volume.
+
+  MSS. Carpenter = Letters in possession of E. Carpenter.
+
+  MSS. Diary = A Diary (1876-1887) in possession of H. Traubel.
+
+  MSS. Harned = Papers in possession of T. B. Harned.
+
+  MSS. Johnston = Papers in possession of J. H. Johnston, New York.
+
+  MSS. Traubel = Papers in possession of H. Traubel.
+
+  MSS. Wallace = J. W. Wallace's Diary of a Visit to W. W. in 1891.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+WHITMAN'S AMERICA
+
+
+The men of old declared that the lands of adventure lay in the West,
+for they were bold to follow the course of the sun; and to this day the
+bold do not look back to seek romance behind them in the East.
+
+Whether this be the whole truth or no, such is the notion that
+comes upon the wind when, journeying westward in mid-Atlantic, you
+begin to know the faces on ship-board, and to understand what it is
+that is in their eyes. Strange eyes and foreign faces have these
+voyagers--dwellers upon Mediterranean shores, peasants from the borders
+of the Baltic, or dumb inhabitants of the vast eastern plains, huddled
+now together in the ship. But in them is a hope which triumphs over
+the misery of the present as it has survived the misery of the past,
+and to-day that hope has a name, and is America. For America is indeed
+the hope of the forlorn and disinherited in every land to whom a hope
+remains. From the ends of the earth they set out, and separated from
+one another by every barrier of race and language, meet here upon the
+ocean, having nothing in common but this hope, this dream which will
+yet weld them together into a new people. For the comfortable dreamer
+there is Italy and the Past, but for many millions of the common
+people of Europe and of Italy herself--and the common people too have
+their dream--America, the land of the Future, is the Kingdom of Romance.
+
+Nor to these only, but, as I think, to every traveller not unresponsive
+to the genius of the land. For it is the genius of youth--youth with
+its awkward power, its incompleteness, its promise. And the home
+of this genius must be the land not only of progress and material
+achievement, but also of those visions which haunt the heart of youth.
+America is more than the golden-appled earthly paradise of the poor,
+it is a land of spiritual promise. And more perhaps than that of any
+nation the American flag is to-day the symbol of a Cause, and of a
+Cause which claims all hearts because ultimately it is that of all
+Peoples.
+
+And America has another claim to be regarded as truly romantic. Hers is
+the charm of novelty. It is not the glamour of the old but of the new,
+and the perennially new. Some four centuries have passed since the days
+of Columbus, centuries which have dimmed the lustre of many another
+adventurous voyage into dull antiquity, but America is still the New
+World, and the exhilarating air of discovery still breathes as fresh in
+the West as on the first morning.
+
+With that discovery there dawned a new historic day whose sun is not
+yet set. We instinctively put back the beginning of our own era to the
+time of Elizabeth, that Virgin Queen in whose colony of Virginia the
+American people was first born, to grow up into maturity under its
+statesmen.
+
+And if we see but vaguely in the greyest hours of our dawn the figure
+of the Discoverer, while beyond him all seem strange as the men of
+yesterday--if we behold our own sun rising on the broad Elizabethan
+hours--how fitting it is that the New World should be peopled by those
+who still retain most of the temper of that generous morning! The
+American of to-day with his thirst for knowledge, his versatility,
+his quick sense of the practicable, his delight in the doing of
+things, his directness and frankness of purpose, his comradeship
+and hospitality, his lack of self-consciousness--with all the naïve
+inconsistencies, the amiable braggings, the mouthings of phrases, and
+the love of praise which belong to such unconsciousness of self--with
+his glowing optimism, his belief in human nature, his faith and
+devotion to his ideals--the American of to-day is in all these things
+the Elizabethan of our story. America is the supreme creation of
+Elizabethan genius--its New World, to which even that world which we
+call "Shakespeare" must give place.[1]
+
+The Romance of America is not only new, it is like a tale that is being
+told for the first time into our own ears. And like some consummate
+story whose chapters, appearing month by month, hold us continually
+in expectant suspense, its plot is still evolving and its characters
+revealing themselves, so that as yet we can only guess at its
+_dénouement_.
+
+I call it a Romance, for it is indeed a tale of wonder; but unlike
+the old romances its bold realism is not always beautiful. The style
+of its telling is often loud, its words blunt, its rhythm strange and
+full of changes. But it has a large Elizabethan movement which cannot
+be denied. Denounce and deprecate as we will, all that is young in us
+responds to it. The story carries us along, at times by violence and in
+our own despite, but so a story should. It may be the end will justify
+and explain passages that to-day are but obscure: no story is complete
+until the end, and America has not yet been told. It is still morning
+there: and the heart of it is still the heart of youth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The unprejudiced and candid visitor will be provoked to criticism by
+much that he sees in the United States; but even his criticism will be
+prompted by the possibilities of the country. It is this sense of its
+possibilities which captures the imagination, and fills the mind with
+the desire to do--to correct, it may be--but in any case to do.
+
+The incentive to action is felt by everyone, American or immigrant, and
+dominates all. Here for the first time one seems to be, as it were,
+in a live country, among a live people whose work is actually under
+its hand and must occupy it for years to come. In England things are
+different; the country does not so audibly challenge the labourer to
+till and tame it. It does not say so plainly to every man--_I want you:
+here is range and scope for all your manhood_. Only the seer can read
+that word written pathetically across all this English countryside
+whose smooth air of completion conceals so blank a poverty. In America
+the very stones cry out, and all who run must read. And thus the whole
+American atmosphere is that of action.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Chinese, that most practical of peoples, have an old saying that
+the purpose of the true worship of heaven is to spiritualise the earth.
+It is a reminder that materialism and mysticism should go hand in hand.
+
+Now the American is often, and not unjustly, accused of sheer
+materialism. But by temper he is really an idealist. The very
+Constitution of the United States, not to mention the famous
+_Declaration_, is no less transcendental than the _Essays_ of Emerson,
+nor less weighty with deep purpose than the speeches of Lincoln. All
+these are characteristic utterances of the American genius; they have
+been attested by events, and sealed in the blood of a million citizen
+soldiers.
+
+And how, one may ask, could the citizens of a State which more than
+any other manifestly depends for its life upon communion in an ideal
+be other than idealists? Gathered from every section of the human
+race, this people has become a nation through its consciousness of a
+Cause; its members being possessed not of a common blood, tradition
+or literature, but of a purpose and idea sacred to all. If then the
+national life depends upon the living idealism of the people, the
+actual unquestionable vigour of this national life may be taken as
+evidence of the strength of that idealism. But, on the other hand,
+the nation's present pre-occupation with its merely material success
+conceals the gravest of all its perils, because it threatens the very
+principle of the national life.
+
+Thus held together by its future, and not as seem most others,
+by their past, the American nation has been slow in coming to
+self-consciousness, slow therefore in producing an original or
+national art. Hitherto it has been occupied with its own Becoming; and
+to-day, to virile Americans, America remains the most engrossing of
+occupations, the noblest of all practicable dreams.
+
+The spirit of the Renaissance has here attempted a task far graver than
+in Medician Florence or Elizabethan London: to create, namely, not so
+much a new art as a new race. It has here to achieve its incarnation
+not in line and colour, not in marble nor in imperishable verse, but
+in the flesh and blood of a nation gathered from every family of Man.
+And for that, it is forever assimilating into itself scions of every
+European people, and transforming them out of Europeans into Americans.
+
+Vast as such a process is, the assimilation of all their surging
+aspirations and ideals into one has been hardly less vast. It is little
+wonder then that America has been slow in coming to self-consciousness.
+What is wonderful is her organic power of assimilation. And now there
+begin to be evidences in American thought of a spiritual synthesis, the
+widest known. As yet they are but vague suggestions. But they seem to
+indicate that when an American philosophy takes the field it will be
+pragmatical in the best sense; too earnestly concerned with conduct and
+with life to be careful of symmetry or tradition; directed towards the
+future, not the past. It will be a philosophy of possibilities founded
+upon the study of an adolescent race.
+
+It seemed natural to preface this study of Whitman with a sketch of the
+American genius. Doubtless that genius has other aspects than those
+here presented, and to some of these, later pages will bear witness;
+but the impression I have attempted to reproduce is at least taken from
+life. It is, moreover, not unlike that of Whitman himself as presented
+in his first Preface, and is even more suggestive of the America of his
+youth than that of his old age.
+
+Every thinker owes much to his time and race, and Whitman more than
+most. He always averred that the story of his life was bound up with
+that of his country, and took significance from it. To be understood,
+the man must be seen as an American. As a Modern, we might add, for the
+story of his land is so brief.
+
+Dead now some thirteen years, and barely an old man when he died,
+his personal memory seemed to embrace nearly the whole romance. His
+grandfather was acquainted with old Tom Paine, whose _Common Sense_
+had popularised the Republican idea in the very hour of American
+Independence: he himself had talked with the soldiers of Washington,
+and as a lad[2] he had met Aaron Burr who killed the glorious Hamilton,
+sponsor for that Constitution which when Whitman died was but a century
+old.
+
+In the seven decades of his life the American population had multiplied
+near seven-fold, and had been compacted together into an imperial
+nation. It seemed almost as though he could remember the thirteen poor
+and jealous States, with their conflicting interests and traditions,
+their widely differing climates, industries and inhabitants, separated
+from one another by vast distances--and how they yielded themselves
+reluctantly under the hand of Fate to grow together in Union into the
+greatest of civilised peoples; while central in the story of his life
+was that Titanic conflict whose solemn bass accompaniment toned and
+deepened loose phrases and popular enthusiasms into a national hymn.
+
+Himself something of a poet--how much we need not attempt to
+estimate--he did continual homage to that greater Poet, whose works
+were at once his education and his library--the genius of America. None
+other, ancient or mediæval, discoursed to his ear or penned in immortal
+characters for him to read, rhythms so large and pregnant. It was the
+prayer and purpose of his life that he might contribute his verse to
+that great poem; and his life is like a verse which it is impossible
+to separate from its context. That he understood, and even in a sense
+re-discovered America, can scarcely be denied by serious students of
+his work. I believe that the genius of America will in time discover
+some essential elements of herself in him, and will understand herself
+the better for his pages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Belonging thus to America as a nation, the earlier scenes of Walt
+Whitman's story are fitly laid in and about metropolitan New York.
+It was not till middle life and after the completion and publication
+of what may be regarded as the first version of his _Leaves of
+Grass_--the edition that is to say of 1860--that he removed for a
+while to the Federal capital where, throughout the War, the interest of
+America was centred. Afterwards he withdrew to Camden, into a sort of
+hermitage, midway between New York and Washington.
+
+Though his heart belonged to the West, the Far West never knew him.
+Both north and south, he wandered near as widely as the limits of
+his States. He knew the Mississippi, the Great Lakes, and the Rocky
+Mountains; but all that vast and wonderful country which reaches west
+from Colorado towards Balboa's sea was untrodden by his feet. A circle
+broadly struck from the actual centre of population, and taking in
+Denver, New Orleans, Boston and Quebec, includes the whole field of his
+wanderings within a radius of a thousand miles. He was not a traveller
+according to our modern use of the word; he had never lost sight for
+many hours of the shores of America; even Cuba and Hawaii were beyond
+his range.
+
+But he had studied nearly all the phases of life included in the
+Republic. His birth and breeding in the "middle States" gave him a
+metropolitan quality which neither New England nor the South could
+have contributed. Of peasant stock, himself an artizan and always
+and properly a man of the people, he was of the average stuff of
+the American nation; and his everyday life--apart from the central
+and exceptional fact of his individuality--was that of millions of
+unremembered citizens. Whitman was not only an American type, he was
+also a type of America.
+
+The typical American is not city born. Rapidly as that sinister fate
+is overtaking the Englishman, the native American is still of rural
+birth.[3] And, as we have said, Whitman was of the average; he was born
+in Long Island of farming folk.
+
+But he was a modern, and the modern movement throughout the world is
+citywards. Everywhere the Industrial Revolution is destroying the
+economy of our ancestors and creating another; diverting all the
+scattered energy which springs out of the countryside into the great
+reservoirs of city life, there to be employed upon new tasks.
+
+Modern life is the life of the town, and for many years it was
+Whitman's life. But again every town depends for its vitality and
+wealth upon the countryside. The city is a mere centre, factory and
+exchange. It cannot live upon itself. It handles everything but
+produces none of all that raw material from which everything that
+it handles is made. Especially is this true of the human stuff of
+civilisation. Men are only shaped and employed in cities--they are not
+produced there. The city uses and consumes the humanity that is made
+in the fields. And Whitman, who was drawn into the outskirts of the
+metropolis as a child, and as a young man entered into its heart, was
+born among wide prospects and shared the sane life of things that root
+in the earth. He was the better fitted to bear and to correlate all the
+fierce stimuli of metropolitan life.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Cf._ _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 736; Burroughs (_a_), 240; Bryce's
+_American Commonwealth_, i., 10, 11, etc.; _L. of G._, 436 n.
+
+[2] MSS. Harned.
+
+[3] _Cf._ _En. Brit. Suppt._
+
+
+
+
+WALT WHITMAN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WHITMANS OF WEST HILLS
+
+
+The old writers[4] tell how Long Island was once the happy hunting
+ground of wolves and Indians, the playing place of deer and wild
+turkeys; and how the seals, the turtles, grampuses and pelicans
+loved its long, quiet beaches. Seals and whales are still occasional
+visitors, and its coasts are rich in lore of wrecks, of pirates and of
+buried treasure.
+
+A hundred years ago it could boast of hamlets only less remote
+from civilisation than are to-day the villages of that other "Long
+Island"--the group of the Outer Hebrides--which, for an equal distance,
+extends along the Scottish coast from Butt of Lewis to Barra Head. The
+desultory stage then occupied a week on the double journey between
+Brooklyn and Sag Harbour. Beyond the latter, Montauk Point thrusts its
+lighthouse some fifteen miles out into the Atlantic breakers. Here the
+last Indians of the island lingered on their reservation, and here the
+whalers watched for the spouting of their prey in the offing.
+
+A ridge of hills runs along the island near the northern shore, rising
+here and there into heights of three or four hundred feet which
+command the long gradual slope of woods and meadows to the south, with
+the distant sea beyond them; to the north, across the narrow Sound,
+rises the blue coast line of Connecticut.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is on the slopes below the highest of these points of wide vision
+that the Whitman homestead lies, one of the pleasant farms of a land
+which has always been mainly agricultural. Large areas of the island
+are poor and barren, covered still with scrub and "kill-calf" or
+picturesque pine forest, as in the Indian days. But the land here is
+productive.
+
+From the wooded head of Jayne's Hill behind the farm, the township of
+Huntington stretches to the coast where it possesses a harbour. It was
+all purchased from the Indians in 1653, for six coats, six bottles,
+six hatchets, six shovels, ten knives, six fathom of wampum, thirty
+muxes, and thirty needles.[5] The Indians themselves do not seem to
+have caused much anxiety to the settlers; but a generation later, it
+is recorded that in a single year no fewer than fifteen of the wolves,
+which they had formerly kept half-tamed, were killed by the citizens of
+Huntington.
+
+The next troublers of the peace were the British troops. For here,
+a century later, during the last years of the War of Independence,
+Colonel Thompson of His Majesty's forces pulled down the Presbyterian
+Church, and with its timbers erected a fortress in the public
+burying-ground, his soldiers employing the gravestones for fire-places
+and ovens.[6] They seem to have occupied another meeting-house as a
+stable. Such are the everyday incidents of a military occupation;
+arising out of them, claims to the amount of £7,000 were preferred
+against the colonel by the township; but he withdrew to England, where,
+as Count Rumford, he afterwards became famous upon more peaceful fields.
+
+In Whitman's childhood, Huntington was, as it still remains, a quiet
+country town of one long straggling street. It counted about 5,000
+inhabitants, many of them substantial folk, and in this was not far
+behind Brooklyn. In those days the whole island could not boast 60,000
+people. But if they were few, they were stalwart. The old sea-going
+Paumànackers were a rough and hardy folk, and travellers remarked the
+frank friendliness of the island youth.[7]
+
+Inter-racial relations seem upon the whole to have been good; the
+Indians being treated with comparative justice, and the negro slaves
+well cared for. Between the Dutch and the English there was friction in
+the early years. Long Island, or Paumanok--to give it the most familiar
+of its several Indian names[8]--had been settled by both races; the
+Dutch commencing on the west, opposite to their fortress and trading
+station of New Amsterdam (afterwards New York), and the English, at
+about the same time, upon the east. They met near West Hills, and
+Whitman had the full benefit of his birth upon this border-line, Dutch
+blood and English being almost equally mingled in his veins.
+
+As to the Dutch of Long Island, they were marked here as elsewhere by
+sterling and stubborn qualities. There is a reserve in the Dutch nature
+which, while it tends to arouse suspicion in others, makes it the best
+of stocks upon which to graft a more emotional people. Slow, cautious,
+conservative, domestic, practical, they have formed a bed-rock of
+sound sense and phlegmatic temper, not for Long Island only, but for
+the whole of New York State, where, till the middle of the eighteenth
+century,[9] they were predominant. Perhaps no other foundation could
+have adequately supported the superstructure of fluctuating and
+emotional elements which has since been raised upon it.
+
+The Dutch homesteads of the island were famous for their simple, severe
+but solid comfort, their clean white sanded floors, their pewter and
+their punches. From such a home came Whitman's mother. She was a van
+Velsor of Cold Spring, which lies only two or three miles west of the
+Whitman farm. Her father, Major Cornelius van Velsor, was a typical,
+burly, jovial, red-faced Hollander.
+
+But Louisa, his daughter, was not wholly Dutch, for the major's wife
+was Naomi Williams, of a line of sailors, one of that great Welsh clan
+which counted Roger Williams among its first American representatives.
+Naomi was of Quaker stock.[10]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Quakers appear early in the story of the island, whose settlement
+was taking place during the first years of their world-wide activity.
+Within a quarter of a century of the first purchase of land from the
+Indians, an English Quaker, Robert Hodgson,[11] was arrested in a Long
+Island orchard for the holding of a conventicle. He was carried to New
+Amsterdam, cruelly handled, and imprisoned there.
+
+In 1663, John Bowne,[12] an islander of some standing who had joined
+the Friends, was arrested and transported to Holland, there to undergo
+his trial for heresy. This was in the period when the district was
+under Dutch control. A year later this came to an end, and when, in
+1672, George Fox preached under the oaks which stood opposite to
+Bowne's house[13] at Flushing, and again from the granite rock in the
+Oyster Bay cemetery, he seems to have been met by no opposition more
+serious than that which was offered by certain members of his own
+Society.
+
+We read[14] of the settlement of a group of substantial Quaker families
+near the village of Jericho, where they built themselves a place of
+worship in 1689; and here, a century later, lived Elias Hicks, perhaps
+the ablest character, as he was the most tragic figure, in the story of
+American Quakerism. He was a friend of Whitman's paternal grandfather,
+and thus from both parents the boy inherited something either of the
+blood or the tradition of that Society which, directly or indirectly,
+gave some of the noblest of its leaders to the nation. Such men, for
+instance, as William Penn, Thomas Paine, and, indirectly, Abraham
+Lincoln.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The earliest of the Whitmans of whom there appears to be any record
+is Abijah, apparently an English yeoman farmer in the days of
+Elizabeth.[15] His two sons sailed west in 1640 on the _True-Love_.
+One of these, Zechariah, became a minister in the town of Milford,
+Connecticut, and sometime before Charles II. was crowned in the old
+country,[16] Joseph, Zechariah's son, had crossed the Sound and settled
+in the neighbourhood of Huntington. Either he or his successor seems
+to have purchased the farm at West Hills, where Walt Whitman was
+afterwards born; and in 1675 "Whitman's hollow" is mentioned as a
+boundary of the township.
+
+The garrulous histories of Long Island have little to tell us of the
+family. One of Joseph's great-grandsons was killed in the battle of
+Brooklyn,[17] that first great fight between the forces of England
+and her rebellious colonies, when in 1776 Howe and his Hessians drove
+Putnam's recruits back upon the little town. Lieutenant Whitman was one
+of those who fell on that day before Washington could carry the remnant
+of his troops across the East River under the friendly shelter of the
+fog.
+
+Another great-grandson, Jesse, married the orphan niece of Major Brush,
+also a "dangerous rebel" who suffered in the British prison of "the
+Provost".[18] Brushes, Williamses and Whitmans all seem to have served
+in the armies of Independence, and one at least of their women would
+have cut a figure in the field. For Jesse's mother was large-built,
+dark-complexioned, and of such masculine manners and speech that she
+seemed to have been born to horses, oaths and tobacco. As a widow she
+readily ruled her slaves, surviving to a great age. In contrast with
+her, Jesse's wife, who also displayed remarkable ability, was a natural
+lady.[19] She had been a teacher, and was a woman of judgment. Perhaps
+Jesse himself was of gentler character than his terrible old mother; he
+had leanings towards Quakerism, and was a friend and admirer of Elias
+Hicks.[20] So too was Walter, the father of Walt, and one of Jesse's
+many sons.
+
+Born in 1789--the year in which the amended Constitution of the
+United States actually came into force--Walter grew up into a silent
+giant,[21] a serious solid man, reserved and slow of speech, kindly but
+shrewd and obstinate; capable too, when he was roused, of passion. He
+was a wood-cutter and carpenter, a builder of frame-houses and barns,
+solid as himself. He learnt his trade in New York, and afterwards
+wandered from place to place in its pursuit. For a time after his
+marriage in 1816, he appears to have lived at West Hills, probably
+farming a part, at least, of the lands of his fathers. Their old house
+had recently been replaced by another at a little distance. This is
+still standing, and here, three years later, his second son was born.
+The child was called after his father, but the name was promptly
+clipped, and to this day he remains "Walt."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LOUISA (VAN VELSOR) WHITMAN AT SIXTY]
+
+His mother,[22] Louisa van Velsor, was a well-made, handsome young
+woman, now in her twenty-fourth year. Fearless, practical and
+affectionate, hers was a strong and happy presence, magnetic with
+the potency of a profound nature, as large and attractive as it was
+without taint of selfishness. She seemed to unite in herself the
+gentle sweetness and restraint of her Quaker[23] mother, with the
+more heroic, full-blooded qualities of the old jolly major. She
+had a natural gift of description and was a graphic story-teller, but
+of book-learning she had next to none, and letter-writing was always
+difficult to her. She lacked little, however, of that higher education
+which comes of life-long true and fine relations with persons and with
+things. She had been an excellent horsewoman, and in later years her
+visitors were impressed by her vitality and reserve power. Her words
+fell with weight; she had a grave dignity; but withal her oval face,
+framed in its dark hair and snowy cap, was full of kindness; and about
+the corners of her mouth, and under her high-set brows, there always
+lurked a quaint and quiet humour. Little as we know of Louisa Whitman,
+we know enough to regard her as in every respect the equal in character
+of her son, whom she endowed with a natural happiness of heart. She
+became the mother of eight children, and lived to be nearly eighty
+years old, somewhat crippled by rheumatism, but industrious, charming
+and beloved to the last.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first four years of his life, little Walt spent at West Hills. He
+is not the only worthy of the place, for here, half a century earlier,
+was born the Honourable Silas Wood,[24] who now and for ten years to
+come, represented the district in Congress. Already, doubtless, he was
+collecting materials for his _Sketch of the First Settlement of Long
+Island_, soon to appear.[25] But neither he nor his history greatly
+concerns us.
+
+Some two or three miles of sandy lane separate the old Whitman farm
+from the present railway station. On an autumn day one finds the way
+bordered by huckleberries and tall evening primroses, yellow toad-flax,
+blue chickory and corn-flowers, and sturdy forests of golden-rod
+among the briars and bushes. In the rough hedgerows are red sumachs,
+oaks, chestnuts and tall cedars, locusts and hickories; the gateways
+open on to broad fields full of picturesque cabbages, or the plumed
+regiments of the tall green Indian corn. It is a farming country, and
+a country rich in game--foxes and quails and partridges--and populous
+now with all kinds of chirping insects, with frogs and with mosquitoes.
+The wooded hills themselves are full of birds; beyond them there are
+vineyards.
+
+The road winds to the hills which give the place its name. To be
+precise, the Whitman farm, as my driver assured me, belongs to the
+hamlet of Millwell, but the title of West Hills is better known. The
+other name may, however, serve to recall those cold sweet springs which
+rise along the foot of the hills and keep the country green, and whose
+waters are highly esteemed in New York.
+
+The lane passes by the end of an old grey shingled farmhouse, boasting
+a new brick chimney. A delicate, ash-like locust tree stands by the big
+gate.
+
+Here, if you turn into the farm road under the boughs of the orchard,
+and then, through the wicket in the palings, cross the weedy garden
+square, you may enter under the timber-propped porch into the
+low-ceiled house where Walt was born. It is small but comfortable,
+of two stories and a half. The morning sun streams through the open
+door, blinks in at the sun-shutters, and filters through the mosquito
+netting. On the left of the hall[26] are a bedroom and parlour, and the
+dining-room is on the right, where a wing of one story has been added.
+Beyond this there is a lower extension; and beyond again, extend the
+chocolate-coloured barns and sheds and byres and stables of the farm.
+At one corner of the garden palings stands the little well-house with
+its four neat pillars, and a big bell swings in its forked post by the
+side gate to summon the men from the fields into which one sees the
+farm road wandering. The fields run up to the wood. Across the road
+from the garden is an apple orchard, where the pigs root, and the hens
+scratch and cluck and scuffle. It was planted by Walt's uncle Jesse.
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN'S BIRTHPLACE AT WEST HILLS, FROM THE LANE, 1904]
+
+This is not the first ancestral cabin of the Whitmans; that lies
+at a little distance, nearer to the woods. It belongs now to another
+farm--the former holding having been divided--and the old cabin has
+become a waggon-shed. Both farms have long since passed out of the
+family; but near the first house, on a little woody knoll,[27] you may
+still see the picturesque group of unlettered stones which cluster on
+the Whitman burying hill.
+
+Neither Walt himself nor his father and mother are buried here among
+their relatives and ancestors; but the boy, so early pre-occupied with
+the mysteries of life, must have often stolen to this strange solitude
+to commune with its silence and to hear the wind among the branches,
+whispering of death. There is a big old oak near by, old perhaps as the
+first Whitman settlement, and a grove of beautiful black walnuts, and
+this, too, was one of the children's haunts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the old Whitman home and country, to which the boy's earliest
+memories belonged, where he spent some of the years and nearly all
+the holidays of his youth and early manhood, and in which his later
+thoughts found their natural background, his deepest consciousness its
+native soil. It is, as we have seen, no tame or narrow country, but
+wide and generous, and it is within sound of the sea. In the still
+night that succeeds a storm, you may hear the strange low murmur of
+the Atlantic surf beating upon the coast.[28] The boy was born in the
+hills, with that sea-murmur about him.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] See _inter alia_ Furman's _Antiquities of Long Island_; and his
+_Notes Relating to the Town of Brooklyn_; Silas Wood's _Sketch of
+First Settlement of L. I._; B. F. Thompson's _History of L. I._; N.
+S. Prime's _History of L. I._; _A Brief Description of New York_, by
+Daniel Denton (1690), ed. by G. Furman.
+
+[5] Wood, 73 n.
+
+[6] See Wood's, Thomson's, and Prime's _History of L. I._
+
+[7] _Comp. Prose_, 7; _cf._ Furman's _Antiquities_, 249; Denton, 14.
+
+[8] Wood, 65; _cf._ _Comp. Prose_.
+
+[9] _In re_, 197.
+
+[10] See Appendix A.
+
+[11] S. M. Janney's _History of Friends_, vol. i.
+
+[12] Furman's _Antiq._, 97; Janney, vol. ii.
+
+[13] Furman's _Antiq._, 229.
+
+[14] Thompson, _op. cit._
+
+[15] Symonds, xii.; _Savage Genealog. Dict._
+
+[16] _Comp. Prose_, 3; Bucke, 13.
+
+[17] Camden Introd.
+
+[18] _Ibid._
+
+[19] _Comp. Prose_, 6; Camden, xix.
+
+[20] _In re_, 202.
+
+[21] Burroughs, 79; Bucke, 15; _Whit. Fellowship_, '94 (Brinton and
+Traubel); _Wound Dresser_, 115, etc.
+
+[22] Bucke, 16; _Comp. Prose_, 274; Camden, xvii.; _In re_, 195, etc.
+
+[23] See Appendix A.
+
+[24] Wood, 5 (ed. by A. J. Spooner).
+
+[25] 1828.
+
+[26] _Whit. Fellowship_, _op. cit._
+
+[27] _Comp. Prose_, 4.
+
+[28] _Ibid._, 6.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BOYHOOD IN BROOKLYN
+
+
+The hill-range which forms the back-bone of Long Island, and upon
+whose slopes Walt Whitman was born, terminates on the west in Brooklyn
+Heights, which overlook the busy bay and crowded city of New York.
+
+The heights recall Washington's masterly retreat; and the hint is
+enough to remind the shame-faced English visitor that the American is
+not without cause for a certain coolness in the very genuine affection
+which he manifests for the mother country. 'Seventy-six and the six
+years that followed, with all their legacy of bitter thoughts, was
+succeeded by 1814 and the burning of the Capitol. In this later war it
+was Virginia, not New England, that took the initiative; Massachusetts
+and Connecticut even opposed it, and it may have been none too popular
+in adjacent Long Island.
+
+It is doubtful whether Major van Velsor or his sons actually took
+the field against the British. But this second and last of the
+Anglo-American wars was still a bitter and vivid memory when in May,
+1823,[29] towards Walt's fourth birthday, his father, the old major's
+son-in-law, left the farm, removing with his family to Front Street,
+Brooklyn, near the wharves and water-side.
+
+Though but a country town with great elm-trees still shading its main
+thoroughfare,[30] Brooklyn was growing, and its trade was brisk. It is
+likely that the carpenter, Whitman, framed more than one of the hundred
+and fifty houses which were added to it during the year.
+
+In the meantime, Walt took advantage of his improved situation to study
+men and manners in a sea-port town. He watched the ferry-boats that
+for the last ninety years had plied to and fro, binding Brooklyn to
+its big neighbour opposite upon Manhattan Island. For another sixty
+years their decks provided the only roadway across the East River,
+and they still go back and forward loaded heavily, in spite of the
+two huge but graceful bridges which now span the grey waters. The boy
+gazed wondering at the patient horse in the round house on deck, which,
+turning like a mule at a wheel-pump, provided the propelling power for
+the ferry-boat till Fulton replaced him by steam.
+
+The boy in frocks must have wondered, too, at the great shows and
+pageants of 1824 and 1825 which filled New York with holiday-making
+crowds. For in August of the former year, came the old hero of two
+Republics, General Lafayette, to be received with every demonstration
+of admiring gratitude by the people of America. Some scintilla of the
+glory of those days--pale reflection, as it was, of the far-away tragic
+radiance that lighted up the world at the awakening of Justice and of
+Liberty on both sides of the sea--fell upon the child. For when the old
+soldier visited Brooklyn to lay the corner-stone of a library there, he
+found the youngster in harm's way and lifted him, with a hearty kiss,
+on to a coign of vantage.[31] Thus, at six years old, Walt felt himself
+already famous.
+
+Again, a few months later, the city was all ablaze with lights and
+colour and congratulations on the opening of the Erie Canal, which
+connected New York with Ohio and promised to break the monopoly of
+Western commerce held hitherto by the queen city of the Mississippi.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By this time, the family counted four children; two brothers, Jesse
+and Walt, and two little girls, Mary and Hannah, all born within six
+years. Of the children, Walt and Hannah appear to have been special
+friends, but we have little record of this period. As they grew old
+enough, they attended the Brooklyn public school and went duly to
+Sunday school as well.[32] In the summers they spent many a long
+holiday in the fields and lanes about West Hills.
+
+A reminiscence of those times is enshrined in one of the best known
+of the _Leaves of Grass_,[33] written more than a quarter of a
+century later, a memory of the May days when the boy discovered
+a mocking-birds' nest containing four pale green eggs, among the
+briars by the beach, and watched over them there from day to day till
+presently the mother-bird disappeared; and then of those September
+nights when, escaping from his bed, he ran barefoot down on to the
+shore through the windy moonlight, flung himself upon the sand, and
+listened to the desolate singing of the widowed he-bird close beside
+the surf. There, in the night, with the sea and the wind, he lay
+utterly absorbed in the sweet, sad singing of that passion, some
+mystic response awakening in his soul; till in an ecstasy of tears
+which flooded his young cheeks, he felt, rather than understood, the
+world-meaning hidden in the thought of death.[34]
+
+This self-revealing reminiscence, even if it should prove to diverge
+from historic incident and to take some colour from later thought,
+illumines the obscurity which covers the inner life of his childhood.
+Elsewhere we can dimly see him as his mother's favourite; towards her
+he was always affectionate. But with his father he showed himself
+wayward, idle, self-willed and independent, altogether a difficult
+lad for that kindly but taciturn and determined man to manage. Walt
+retained these qualities, and they caused endless trouble to every
+ill-advised person who afterwards attempted the task in which worthy
+Walter Whitman failed.
+
+Among his young companions, though he was not exactly imperious, Walt
+seems to have played the part of a born leader; he was a clever boy; he
+always had ideas, and he always had a following. And as a rule he was
+delightful to be with, for he had an unflagging capacity for enjoyment
+and adventure.
+
+But there must have been times when he was moody and reserved. The
+passionate element in his nature which the song of the mocking-bird
+aroused belongs rather to night solitudes than to perpetual society
+and sunshine. As he grew older, and, perhaps, somewhat overgrew his
+physical strength,[35] he was often unhappy in himself. There was
+something tempestuous in him which no one understood, he himself
+least of any. Probably his wise and very human mother came nearest to
+understanding; and her heart was with him as he fought out his lonely
+battles with that strange enemy of Youth's peace, the soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little brothers were added from time to time to the family group;
+Andrew, George and Jeff, and last of all poor under-witted Ted, born
+when Walt was a lad of sixteen, to be the life-long object of his
+mother's affectionate care. The names of Andrew and Jeff reflect
+their father's political sentiments; the latter recalling the founder
+of the old Jeffersonian Republicanism; and the former being called
+after Andrew Jackson, the popular and successful candidate for the
+presidency, in the year of the boy's birth, who afterwards reorganised
+his party, creating the "Democratic" machine to take the place of what
+had hitherto been the "Republican" caucus. Thus Republicanism changed
+its name, and the title did not reappear in party politics for a
+generation.
+
+As Walter Whitman built, mortgaged and eventually sold his
+frame-houses, the family would often move from one into another: we
+can trace at least five migrations[36] during the ten years that they
+remained in Brooklyn. He was a busy, but never a prosperous man; with
+his large family, the fluctuations of trade must have affected him
+seriously; and scattered through his son's story, there are fast-days
+and seasons of privation. Walter Whitman was, in short, a working man
+upon the borders of the middle-class: thrifty, shrewd, industrious,
+but dependent upon his earnings; mixing at times with people of good
+education, but of little himself; a master-workman, the son of a
+well-read and thoughtful mother, living in the free and natural social
+order which at that time prevailed in Brooklyn and New York.
+
+He was not outwardly religious; he was never a church-goer; even
+his wife, who called herself a Baptist, only went irregularly,[37]
+and then, with an easy tolerance, to various places of worship--the
+working mother of eight children has her hands full on Sundays. In
+the household there was no form of family prayers. But when old Elias
+Hicks[38] preached in the neighbourhood, they went to hear him, tending
+more towards a sort of liberal Quakerism than to anything else.
+
+[Illustration: WALTER WHITMAN, SENIOR]
+
+The Whitmans were not an irreligious family--Walt was, for instance,
+fairly well-grounded in the Scriptures--but they thought for
+themselves, they disliked anything that savoured of exclusion, and
+their religion consisted principally in right living and in kindliness.
+Their devotion to the old Quaker minister is interesting. Hicks was
+a remarkable man and a most powerful and moving preacher. He was
+large and liberal-minded; too liberal, it would seem, for some of
+his hearers. His utterances had however passed unchallenged till an
+evangelical movement, fostered by some English Friends among their
+American brethren, made further acquiescence seem impossible.
+
+That which complacently calls itself orthodoxy is naturally intolerant,
+it can, indeed, hardly even admit tolerance to a place among the
+virtues; and the evangelical propaganda must be very pure if it is to
+be unaccompanied by the spirit of exclusion. It may seem strange that
+such a spirit should enter into a Society which gathers its members
+under the name of "Friends," a name which seems to indicate some
+basis broader than the creeds, some spiritual unity which could dare
+to welcome the greatest diversity of view because it would cultivate
+mutual understanding. But the broader the basis and the more spiritual
+the bond of fellowship, the more disastrous is the advent of the spirit
+of schism masking itself under some title of expediency, and here this
+spirit had forced an entrance.
+
+Between Hicks--who himself appears to have been somewhat intolerant of
+opposition, a strong-willed man, frankly hostile to the evangelical
+dogmatics--and the narrower sort of evangelicals, relations became
+more and more strained, until, in 1828, the octogenarian minister was
+disowned by the official body of Quakers, after some painful scenes. He
+was however followed into his exile by a multitude of his hearers and
+others who foresaw and dreaded the crystallisation of Quakerism under
+some creed.
+
+Soon after the crisis, and only three months before his death, Elias
+Hicks preached in the ball-room of Morrison's Hotel on Brooklyn
+Heights. Among the mixed company who listened on that November evening
+to the old man's mystical and prophetic utterance, was the ten-year old
+boy, accompanying his parents.
+
+Hicks sprang from the peasant-farming class to which the
+Whitmans belonged; and, as a lad, had been intimate with Walt's
+great-grandfather, and with his son after him. It was then, with a
+sort of hereditary reverence, that the boy beheld that intense face,
+with its high-seamed forehead, the smooth hair parted in the middle
+and curling quaintly over the collar behind; the hawk nose, the high
+cheek bones, the repression of the mouth, and the curiously Indian
+aspect of the tall commanding figure, clad in the high vest and coat
+of Quaker cut. The scene was one he never forgot. The finely-fitted and
+fashionable place of dancing, the officers and gay ladies in that mixed
+and crowded assembly, the lights, the colours and all the associations,
+both of the faces and of the place, presenting so singular a contrast
+with the plain, ancient Friends seated upon the platform, their
+broad-brims on their heads, their eyes closed; with the silence, long
+continued and becoming oppressive; and most of all, with the tall,
+prophetic figure that rose at length to break it.
+
+With grave emphasis he pronounced his text: "What is the chief end
+of man?" and with fiery and eloquent eyes, in a strong, vibrating,
+and still musical voice, he commenced to deliver his soul-awakening
+message. The fire of his fervour kindled as he spoke of the purpose of
+human life; his broad-brim was dashed from his forehead on to one of
+the seats behind him. With the power of intense conviction his whole
+presence became an overwhelming persuasion, melting those who sat
+before him into tears and into one heart of wonder and humility under
+his high and simple words.
+
+The sermon itself has not come down to us. In his _Journal_,[39] Hicks
+has described the meeting as a "large and very favoured season." It
+seems to have been devoid of those painful incidents of opposition
+which saddened so many similar occasions during these last years of his
+ministry.
+
+The old man had been accused of Deism, as though he were a second Tom
+Paine and devotee of "Reason": in reality his message was somewhat
+conservative and essentially mystical. A hostile writer[40] asserts
+truly that the root of his heresy--if heresy we should call it--lay in
+his setting up of the Light Within as the primary rule of faith and
+practice. He always viewed the Bible writings as a secondary standard
+of truth or guide to action; as a book, though the best among books.
+And as a book, it was the "letter" only: the "spirit that giveth life"
+even to the letter, was in the hearts of men.
+
+In his attitude toward the idea of Christ, he distinguished, like
+many other mystics, between the figure of the historic Jesus of
+Nazareth and that indwelling Christ of universal mystical experience,
+wherewith according to his teaching, Jesus identified himself through
+the deepening of his human consciousness into that of Deity. In the
+mystical view, this God-consciousness is in some measure the common
+inheritance of all the saints, and underlies the everyday life of
+men. And to it, as a submerged but present element in the life of
+their hearers, Fox and the characteristic Quaker preachers have always
+directed their appeal, seeking to bring it up into consciousness. Once
+evoked and recognised, this divine element must direct and control all
+the faculties of the individual. It is the new humanity coming into the
+world.
+
+Hicks recognised in Jesus the most perfect of initiates into this
+new life; and as such, he accorded a special authority to the Gospel
+teachings, but demanded that they should be construed by the reader
+according to the Christ-spirit in his own heart. Properly understood,
+the doctrine of the Inner Light is not, as many have supposed it to be,
+the _reductio ad absurdum_ of individual eccentricity. On the contrary
+it tends to a transcendental unity; for the spirit whose irruption
+into the individual consciousness it seeks and supposes, is that
+spirit and light wherein all things are united and in harmony. In this
+sense, the Quaker preacher was appealing to the essence of all social
+consciousness--that realisation of an organic fellowship-in-communion
+which the sacraments of the churches are designed to cultivate.
+
+However dark his great subject may appear to the trained gaze of
+philosophy, the old man's words brought illumination to the little boy.
+The sense of human dignity was deepened in him; he breathed an air of
+solemnity and inspiration.
+
+Hicks died early in the new year, and with him there probably fell
+away the last strong link which held the Whitmans to Quakerism. But the
+seed of the ultimate Quaker faith--that faith by which alone a quaint
+little society rises out of a merely historic and sectarian interest
+to become a symbol of the eternal truths which underlie Society as
+a whole, a faith which declares of its own experience that Deity is
+immanent in the heart of Man--this seed of faith was sown in the lad's
+mind to become the central principle around which all his after thought
+revolved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although, as these incidents make evident, Walt's nature was strongly
+emotional, he never went through the process known as conversion.
+Religion came to him naturally. Responsive from his childhood to the
+emotional influence of that ultimate reality which we call "God" or
+"the spiritual," he can never have had the overwhelming sense of
+inward disease and degradation which conversion seems to presuppose.
+Well-born and surrounded by wholesome influences, it is probable that
+the higher elements of his nature were always dominant. The idea of
+abject unworthiness would hardly be suggested to his young mind. He was
+not ignorant of evil, insensible to temptation, or innocent of those
+struggles for self-mastery which increase with the years of youth. We
+have reason to believe that he was wilful and passionate; though he was
+too affectionate and too well-balanced to be ill-natured. Harmonious
+natures are not insensitive to their own discordant notes, and the
+harmony of Whitman held many discords in solution.
+
+He had then in his own experience, even as a child, material sufficient
+for a genuine sense of sin. But this sense, never, so far as we know,
+became acute enough to cause a crisis in his life, never created in his
+mind any feeling of an irreparable disaster, or any discord which he
+despaired of ultimately resolving. He had not been taught to regard God
+as a severe judge, of incredible blindness to the complexity of human
+nature;[41] and perhaps partly in consequence of this, he was ever a
+rebel against the Divine Justice.
+
+There is, it may be said, another kind of conversion, a turning of the
+eyes of the soul to discover the actual presence and power of God at
+hand: the sequel may show whether Whitman felt himself to be ignorant
+of this change.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Honest, upright and self-respecting, his parents never took an ascetic
+view of morality. They did not share in that puritanical hostility
+to art and to amusements which too long distorted the image of truth
+in the mirror of Quakerism. Even as a lad, Walt discovered those
+provinces of the world of romance which lie across the footlights,
+and in the dazzling pages of the _Arabian Nights_;[42] and, as a
+youth, he followed the wizard of Waverley through all his stories and
+poems, becoming, soon after Sir Walter's death, the happy possessor of
+Lockhart's complete edition, in a solid octavo volume of 1,000 pages.
+From this time forward he was an insatiable novel-reader, especially
+devoted to Fenimore Cooper, who was then delighting the younger
+generation with stories of pioneer life.
+
+It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the boy's life at this
+time was all amusement. At eleven years of age he was in a lawyer's
+office,[43] proud in the possession of a desk and window-corner of his
+own. The master found him a bright boy and was kind to him, forwarding
+his limited education a step further. He also subscribed on his behalf
+to a circulating library which supplied the lad with a continuous
+series of tales. But for whatever reason--one fears it was not
+unconnected with those stories--Walt soon found himself running errands
+for another master.
+
+In his thirteenth year he was put to the printing trade, and ceased, at
+least for a while, to live under his father's roof.[44] The mother was
+out of health for a long time, during the period of the youngest son's
+birth and infancy, and when in 1832 the town was visited by a severe
+epidemic of cholera, the Whitman family removed into the country. But
+Walt stayed behind, boarding with the other apprentices of the Brooklyn
+postmaster and printer. Mr. Clements and his family were good to the
+lad while he was with them, and some effusions of his--for like other
+clever boys he was writing verses--appear to have found their way into
+the _Long Island Patriot_.
+
+From the _Patriot_ he soon removed to the _Star_, another local weekly,
+whose proprietor, Mr. Alden J. Spooner, was a principal figure in
+the Brooklyn of those days, and who long retained a vivid memory of
+a certain idle lad who worked in his shop. If he had been stricken
+with fever and ague, he used to say laughing, the boy would have been
+too lazy to shake.[45] At thirteen, Walt was too much interested in
+watching things to take kindly to work; most of his time was spent in
+learning what the world had to teach him; but in the end he learnt his
+trade as well.
+
+No place could have been better chosen to awake his interest in the
+many-sided life around him than a printing office, the centre of all
+the local news. Here he developed fast in every way, shot up long
+and stalky, scribbled for the press as well as learning his proper
+business, and became a very young man about town. Already, he felt the
+attraction of the great island city of Mannahatta, where, according to
+its earliest name, for ever "gaily dash the coming, going, hurrying
+sea-waves."[46]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+New York had for a time been crippled by the collapse of American trade
+which followed the close of the Napoleonic wars in Europe,[47] but had
+recovered again, and was now growing rapidly--a city of perhaps 200,000
+inhabitants, the English element predominating in its curiously mixed
+population. Though it was prosperous, it had its share of misfortune.
+Serious riots--racial, religious and political--were not infrequent.
+Epidemics of cholera swept through it; and in December, 1835, thirteen
+acres of its buildings were burnt out in a three days' conflagration.
+
+In spite of these disasters the town grew and extended, and means
+of locomotion multiplied. The stages were running on Broadway from
+Bowling Green to Bleecker Street, that is about half-way to Central
+Park, and the great thoroughfare was crowded with traffic, presenting a
+scene busier even and certainly more picturesque than that of to-day.
+Fashionable folk still lived "down town" below the present City Hall,
+in a district now given up as exclusively to offices and warehouses as
+is the City of London. Ladies took their children down to play upon
+the open space of the Battery, looking down the beautiful bay; and did
+their shopping at the various Broadway stores. Upon their door-steps,
+on either side of the street, citizens still sat out with their
+families through the summer evenings; they condescended to drink at
+the city pumps, and to buy hot-corn and ices from the wayside vendors,
+while the height of diversion was to run with the engine to some fire.
+In a word, New York life was still natural and democratic; palaces
+and slums were as unknown to the democracy of the metropolis as the
+sky-scrapers which render the approach to-day, in spite of its wooded
+hills, its ships and islands, among the least beautiful of the great
+sea-ports of the world.
+
+Of diversions the citizens had no lack, for the population was now
+sufficient to support a good native stage and to attract foreign
+artists. The year 1825 saw the advent of Italian opera at the Old Park
+theatre, which stood not far from the present Post Office; and Garcia
+and Malibran appeared in the "Barber of Seville".[48] It was here that
+Edwin Forrest was first seen by a New York audience; while fashionable
+English actors like Macready and the Kembles were among its visitors.
+But even more interest centred in the Bowery, the great popular
+theatre built to seat 3,000, where the elder Booth and Forrest played
+night after night before enthusiastic houses of young and middle-aged
+artisans and mechanics capable of thunderstorms of applause.
+
+There were other theatres, too, such as Niblo's and Richmond Hill, and
+to all of these young Whitman presently found his way armed with a
+pressman's pass. He must have spent many an evening in the city while
+he was still working for Mr. Spooner, and one unforgettable night, when
+he was fifteen or so, he was present at a great benefit in the Bowery
+when Booth played "Richard III."[49] Fifty years later, the scene of
+that evening remained as clear before his eyes as when he sat in the
+front of the pit, hanging on every word and gesture of that consummate
+actor. Inflated and stagy his manner might be; but he revealed to
+the lad, watching his studied abandonment to passion, a new world of
+expression. For the first time, he understood how far gestures, and a
+presence more powerful than words, can express the heights and depths
+of emotion.
+
+On that night in the Bowery, as upon those memorable nights on the
+Long Island Beach, and in Morrison's Ballroom, Walt came face to face
+with one of the supreme mysteries. On these occasions it had been the
+mystery of Death, which alone brings peace to the heart of passionate
+love, and the mystery of the Immanent Deity; now it was that other
+equal mystery, the mystery of Expression, the utterance of the soul
+in living words and acts and vivid presence. Love and Religion were
+already significant to him; he had now been shown the meaning of Art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime he had begun, as boys will, to take an interest in
+politics. And before going further, we must glance at the outstanding
+events and tendencies of the period.
+
+Those two famous documents, _The Declaration of Independence_ and the
+_Constitution of the United States_, are associated respectively with
+Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton,[50] and represent two currents
+of political theory which beat against one another through subsequent
+years. Jefferson was saturated with the political idealism of the
+school of Rousseau, which sums itself up in the demand for individual
+liberty and rights, the declaration of individual independence, and
+freedom from interference.
+
+Hamilton on the other hand--who was by temper an aristocrat, and once
+at a New York dinner described the people as "a great beast,"[51]--was
+possessed by the idea of the Nation; he dwelt upon the duty of each
+member to the whole, promulgating doctrines of solidarity and unity
+in the cause of a common freedom. The two views are, of course,
+complementary; their antagonism, if it gave the victory to either,
+would be fatal to both; and their reconciliation is essential to the
+life of the Republic. But between their supporters, antagonism has
+naturally existed.
+
+The ideal of the Jeffersonian Republicans became associated with
+popular or "Democratic" sentiment,[52] standing as it did in opposition
+to the more conservative and constitutional position of the Hamiltonian
+Federalists. For a time the two parties dwelt together in such amity
+that the Federalists were actually merged with the Republicans; but
+the uncontested election of Monroe was a signal for the outbreak of
+the old contest. At the next election,[53] an Adams of Massachusetts
+was returned to the White House; and Jackson of Tennessee, one of the
+defeated candidates, built up a Democratic party of opposition whose
+organising centre was New York. On the other side, the followers of
+Adams and his secretary, Henry Clay, came eventually to be known as
+Whigs, "Republican" ceasing for a quarter of a century to be a party
+label.
+
+The titles of the parties serve approximately to indicate their
+different tendencies; though it must be remembered that the Whiggery
+of Adams was coloured by New England idealism, while the material
+interests of the South turned their energies to capture the naturally
+idealistic Democracy of Jackson. Eventually the division became almost
+a geographical one; though certain of her interests and perhaps her
+jealous antipathy to New England, gave New York's sympathies to the
+South.
+
+In 1832, when Walt was studying the world through the keen eyes of
+thirteen, and the windows of a Brooklyn printing shop, Democratic South
+Carolina was offering a stubborn resistance to the Federal tariff.
+Theoretically, and one may add ethically, any tariff was contrary to
+the Jeffersonian doctrine of universal freedom; and practically, it was
+disastrous to the special interests of the South. Carolina, under the
+poetic fire and genius of Calhoun, was the Southern champion against
+Northern, or, let us say, Federal aggression. She stood out for the
+rights of a minority so far as to propose secession. The South was
+aggrieved by the tariff, for, roughly speaking, its States were cotton
+plantations, whose interests lay in easy foreign exchange; they grew no
+corn, they made no machinery, they neither fed nor clothed themselves.
+The North on the other hand was industrial, anxious to guard its infant
+manufactures against the competition of Great Britain. The West was
+agricultural, demanding roads and public works which required the funds
+provided by a tariff. Now even these public works, these high roads and
+canals, were calculated directly to benefit the Northern manufacturers
+rather than the planters of the South whose highway to the West was
+the great river which had formerly given them all the Western trade to
+handle, and whose cheapest market for machinery and manufactured goods
+lay over the high sea whither its own staple was continually going.
+
+The tariff imposed for the benefit of the Northern section was, then,
+opposed by the South on grounds of industrial necessity as well as of
+political theory. And it may be noted the argument of the Southerner
+was equally the argument of many an artisan in the metropolis, who saw
+in free trade the sole guarantee of cheap living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus there was a certain antagonism between the interests of the two
+geographical sections of the American nation; and this was emphasised
+by another cause for hostility. Every statesman knew that, although
+unacknowledged, it was really the question of slavery which was already
+dividing America into "North" and "South". And recognising it as beyond
+his powers of solution, he sought by maintaining a compromise to
+conceal it from the public mind.
+
+The "Sovereign States," momentarily united for defence against a
+domineering king, had at the same hour been swept by Tom Paine's and
+Jefferson's versions of the French Republicanism, and North and South
+alike adhered to a doctrinaire equality. The negro, they were willing
+to agree, should be voluntarily and gradually emancipated.
+
+But the hold of this policy on the South was soon afterwards undermined
+by the economic development which followed the introduction of the
+cotton-gin. The new and rapidly growing prosperity of the planter
+depended on the permanence of the "institution". And from this time
+forward the Southern policy becomes hard to distinguish from the vested
+interests of the slave-owner. The prosperity of the South seemed to
+depend upon the extension of the cotton industry: the cotton industry,
+again, upon slave-labour; thus it was argued, the institution of
+slavery was necessary to the prosperity of the South. The North, so the
+Southerner supposed, had its own interests to serve, and only regarded
+the South as a market. It was, he felt, jealous of the dominance of
+Southern statesmanship in the Union; and its desire to destroy "the
+institution" was denounced as the sectional jealousy of small-minded,
+shop-keeping bigots, of inferior antecedents. By the brute force of
+increasing numbers, by a vulgar love of trade, and the accidents of
+climate and of mineral resources, the North was beginning to establish
+its hold upon Congress, and arrogating to itself the Federal power.
+
+Hitherto, with the exception of the Adamses and of Jackson, every
+President had been of Virginian birth, bred, the Southerner declared,
+in the broader views of statesmanship. But the North was now
+predominant in the House of Representatives, and a balance could only
+be preserved in the Senate, where each State appoints two members, by
+constant watchfulness. Thus the rapid settling of the middle West by
+Northerners must be balanced by the annexation of new cotton-growing
+regions in the South-west. The famous Missouri Compromise of 1821 fixed
+the frontier between future free-soil and slave States at the line of
+the southern boundary of Missouri, while admitting that State itself
+into the Union as a member of the latter class. Hence it was only in
+the South-west that slavery could develop, and extension by conquest of
+cotton territory became henceforward an object of Southern politicians.
+
+While, then, it was the aggression of the South which finally drove
+the nation into civil war, the South for many years had viewed itself
+as an aggrieved partner in the inter-State compact, victimised in the
+interests of the majority. It felt, perhaps not unjustly, that it was
+being overridden, and that the Federation was becoming what Jefferson
+described as "a foreign yoke".[54] It became excessively sensitive to
+hostility: every rumour of the spread of Abolition sentiment in the
+North--a sentiment which favoured a new attitude towards the Federal
+power, and would give control to it over the domestic affairs of what
+hitherto had literally been "Sovereign States"--raised a storm of
+indignation and evoked new threats of secession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But while slavery was already playing its part in American politics
+it had not yet become the main line of party cleavage. Although the
+party of free trade and of State rights was the party of the South,
+it was not yet the party of slavery. It was still throughout America
+the "people's party," and the slave power was the last to desire that
+it should cease to hold that title, especially in the North. For many
+a year to come there would be stout Abolitionists who could call
+themselves Democrats; while "dough-faces," or politicians who served
+the party of slavery, were always to be found amongst the Whigs.
+
+Even while party feeling ran high, the increase of the means of
+communication and the introduction of steam transport, both on land and
+water, favoured the larger Federal sentiment and quickened the national
+consciousness. Talk of secession had been heard in New England as well
+as in South Carolina; but actual secession became more difficult as
+the manufacturers of the East, the cotton-growers of the South, and
+the farmers of the Mississippi basin had tangible evidence of the many
+interests and privileges which were common to them, and beheld more
+and more clearly the future upon which America was entering. Year by
+year the idea of the Union gained in vitality; and in spite of party
+feeling, President Jackson had a nation behind him when he refused to
+yield to South Carolina's threat of secession.
+
+A compromise was effected, and Carolina submitted to the collection
+of duties under a somewhat mitigated tariff: the relation of the
+constituent States to the Federal power remaining still undefined,
+waiting, for a generation to come, upon the growth of national
+sentiment on the one hand, and the accumulation of resentment upon the
+other.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] _Comp. Prose_; Bucke; MSS. Harned.
+
+[30] Descriptions of Brooklyn at this time in _Mem. Hist. N.Y._;
+Roosevelt; Thompson, 179 n.; Furman's _Brooklyn_; Furman's _Antiq._,
+390-97; Burroughs; _Comp. Prose_, 10 n., 510, etc.
+
+[31] _Comp. Prose_, 9 n.
+
+[32] _W. W.'s Diary in Canada_, 5.
+
+[33] _L. of G._, 196.
+
+[34] _Cf._ especially:--
+
+    Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
+    Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
+    Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what
+      there in the night,
+    By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
+    The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within,
+    The unknown want, the destiny of me.
+
+
+[35] _Comp. Prose_, 10; Grace Gilchrist in _Temple Bar_, cxiii., 200.
+
+[36] MSS. Harned; _Comp. Prose_, 9.
+
+[37] _In re_, 38.
+
+[38] _Comp. Prose_, 9, 457-474; E. Hicks' _Journal_, under 1829; _The
+Friend_ (Philadelphia), _or Advocate of Truth_, i., 216 (1828).
+
+[39] 3rd ed., 438.
+
+[40] _The Beacon_, 145.
+
+[41] Bucke, 61.
+
+[42] _Comp. Prose_, 9; _L. of G._, 440.
+
+[43] Bucke; MSS. Harned.
+
+[44] _Comp. Prose_, 9, 10; MSS. Harned.
+
+[45] MSS. Johnston, paper by Chandos Fulton.
+
+[46] _L. of G._, 385; Kennedy, 64.
+
+[47] For New York see esp. _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, and Roosevelt.
+
+[48] _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iv., 171, 477.
+
+[49] _Comp. Prose_, 13, 14, 426-431.
+
+[50] _Camb. Mod. Hist._; Bryce, i., 1-31.
+
+[51] Goldwin Smith, _The United States_ (1893), 132.
+
+[52] _En. Brit. Suppt._, and G. Smith.
+
+[53] 1824-25.
+
+[54] _Cf._ _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 375, 376.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TEACHER AND JOURNALIST
+
+
+The spring of 1836 found Whitman in New York.[55]
+
+He was in his seventeenth year, had now learnt his trade, and had begun
+to write for the weekly papers; among others, contributing occasionally
+to the handsome and aristocratic pages of the _Mirror_, perhaps the
+best of its class.[56] He lived in that journalistic atmosphere which
+encourages expression and turns many a clever lad into a prig. Walt was
+self-sufficient, but there was nothing of the prig[57] in him. Limited
+as his schooling had been, he was naturally receptive and thoughtful,
+and his education went steadily forward; he made friends with older
+men, and with men of education from whom he learnt much. And now he
+became a teacher.
+
+He was a healthy boy, but had somewhat overgrown his strength, and
+perhaps this was among the causes of his leaving the city in May, and
+going up Long Island into the country. He joined his family for awhile,
+who were living at Norwich;[58] and subsequently settled for the winter
+as a country teacher at Babylon, boarding round, as was the custom, in
+the homes of his various pupils.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN'S BIRTHPLACE FROM THE FARM-YARD, 1904]
+
+The little town of Babylon stands on the swampy inner shores of the
+Great South Bay, which is a spacious lagoon separated from the Atlantic
+by a narrow beach or line of sand hills. This outer beach bears
+here and there a ridge of pine forest or a lighthouse; but for the
+rest, it is abandoned to sea-birds and grass, to the winds and a few
+sand-flowers scattered among the wind markings which are stencilled
+in purple upon the sand in some delicate aerial deposit. Outside,
+even upon quiet days, the surf beats ponderously with ominous sound,
+the will and weight of the ocean in its swing. Within, across the
+wide unruffled waters of the lagoon, populous with sails, is the
+far-away fringe of the Babylon woods, and over them, pale and blue, the
+hill-range above Huntington.
+
+The bay itself is a glorious mirror for the over-glow of the sky at
+sunset or sunrise. Standing upon its inner rim at Babylon, as the
+colour begins to die into the dusk, you may see mysterious sails
+moving by hidden waterways among fields still merry with the chirrup
+of innumerable crickets; while beyond the rattle of cords and pulleys
+and the liquid murmur of the moving boats, beyond their lights that
+pierce the darkening water like jewelled spears, glimmers a star on
+Fire Island beach to greet the great liners as they pass by. In summer
+it is a field of many harvests; famous for its blue-fish, its clams
+and oysters; and neither the lads of Babylon nor their young master
+were behind-hand in spearing eels, catching crabs and gathering birds'
+eggs.[59] In a hard winter it is frozen over for months together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the greater part of the next four or five years, Walt remained in
+the country, moving about from place to place, and paying occasional
+visits to New York. He is said to have been a good and popular
+teacher;[60] and if his equipment was not great, it was sufficient;
+he liked boys and had the gift of imparting knowledge. He took his
+work seriously, was always master in the schoolroom, and knew whatever
+passed there. He followed methods of his own; breaking loose from
+text-books, to expound his knowledge and impart his own interests to
+his scholars. The element of personality told throughout his teaching;
+already it was notable as the power behind all that he did. An
+impression of himself, of his universal kindliness, of the sympathetic
+quality of his whole person, his voice and look and manner, and of a
+certain distinction and dignity inseparable from him, was retained by
+his pupils in after years.
+
+His favourite method of punishment is worth recording, as
+characteristic of his power and of his theory of pedagogics. An
+admirable story-teller, he would chastise any scholar who had behaved
+dishonourably, by describing his conduct to the whole school, and
+without the mention of a name, the guilty boy or girl was sufficiently
+self-condemned and punished in his own shame. Graver offences were made
+more public.
+
+In recess and away from school, Walt was a sheer boy, heartily joining
+in the most boisterous games and sharing every kind of recreation
+consistent with his kindly spirit. "Gunning" was never included.
+
+Among the scholars there must often have been those of his own years,
+and the fact that he could preserve his status as a teacher while
+living on terms of frank comradeship with his scholars, declares him
+born to the office. They were mixed schools which he taught, and
+towards the girls his attitude was one of honest equanimity. He was
+the same with them as with the boys, betraying neither a sentimental
+preference nor a masculine disdain. Perhaps American girls with their
+friendly ways and comparative lack of self-consciousness, call for less
+fortitude on the young teacher's part than some others; but Walt's
+own temperament stood him in good stead. It seems improbable that he
+was ever subject either to green-sickness or calf-love, and he was no
+sentimentalist.[61]
+
+Perhaps the idleness of which Mr. Spooner retained so lively a
+recollection, might have hindered his becoming an ideal dominie. His
+thoughts must sometimes have been far afield, his pupils and their
+tasks forgotten. It was not, as I have already suggested, that he was
+lazy; he worked hard and fast when his mind was upon his work, and best
+of all perhaps as a teacher in contact with human beings; but he was
+never so busy that he could refuse to pursue an idea, never so occupied
+that he could miss a new fact or emotion.
+
+Like other young teachers, Walt probably learnt at least as much as he
+taught, if not from his pupils, then from their parents. Boarding with
+them, he came to know and to love his own people, the peasant-yeomanry
+of the island.[62]
+
+He was a favourite with the friendly Long Island youths and girls of
+his own years, but his closer friendships seem to have been with older
+people: the well-balanced, but strongly marked fathers and mothers
+of families. He loved the country too, and all the occupations and
+amusements of the open-air, into which he had been initiated as a
+child. Thus he learned his island by heart, wandering over it on foot,
+by day and night; sailing its coasts and out into the waters beyond,
+in pilot and fishing boats, to taste for himself the brave sea life of
+those old salts, Williamses and Kossabones, his mother's ancestors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the spring of 1838, we find him again at Huntington; and here, in
+June,[63] he founded a weekly journal, the _Long Islander_, which is
+still published. Full of interests, self-sufficient and ready with his
+pen, and in close touch with his readers, he conducted the paper for a
+while with success. He was nineteen and an enthusiast; and he was both
+printer, editor and publisher.
+
+Like others of the time, his paper was probably a humble sheet of
+four small pages, and his task was not so heavy as it may sound. He
+thoroughly enjoyed the work, as well he might: the new responsibility
+and independence were admirably suited to his years and temper. He
+purchased a press and type, and his printing house was in the upper
+story of what is now a stable, which stood on the main street of the
+town.
+
+There he did most of the work himself, but I have talked with an old
+man who shared his task at times. And not his task only; for the
+printing room was, we may be sure, the scene of much beside labour.
+Walt loved companionship, and was an excellent story-teller; he loved
+games, especially whist, which he would play--and generally win--for a
+pumpkin pie. But when he worked, he "worked like the mischief," as the
+saying is;[64] and when he said so his companions knew that they must
+go. They must have recognised, if they thought about him at all in that
+way, that while he made no display of his knowledge he knew far more
+than they, and while he was an excellent comrade, it would not do to
+treat Walt with too great familiarity.
+
+As to his talk, it was clean and wholesome and self-respecting. He
+was too much of a man already to resort to the mannish tricks of many
+youths. He had, moreover, at this time, a tinge of Puritanism, which
+did him no harm: he neither smoked nor drank nor swore. He contemned
+practical jokes. Maybe there was less of Puritanism about him than
+of personal pride. He was himself from the beginning, belonged to no
+set, and went his own ways. He seemed to be everywhere and to observe
+everything without obtruding himself anywhere. And having purchased
+a horse, he carried the papers round to the doors of his readers in
+the surrounding townships. Often, afterwards, he recalled those long
+romantic drives along the glimmering roads, through the still fields
+and the dark oak woods under the half-luminous starry sky, broken by
+friendly faces and kind greetings.
+
+But before the year was out the appearance of the _Long Islander_
+became more and more irregular, till the patience of its owner and
+subscribers was exhausted. In the spring it ceased for a time, and
+when it reappeared it was numbered as a fresh venture under new
+management.
+
+Walt had gone back to school teaching at Babylon.[65] He continued this
+work for two years more, wandering from place to place, now at the
+Jamaica Academy, now at Woodbury, now at Whitestone. He was, at this
+time, a keen debater and politician, an Abolitionist, a Washingtonian
+teetotaler, and ardently opposed to capital punishment. He took an
+active share in the stump oratory of 1840, when Van Buren of New York
+was for the second time the Democratic nominee for President. The fact,
+with the knowledge he always showed of the art of oratory, and the
+plans for lecturing which he afterwards drafted, seems to testify to a
+native capacity for public speaking, as well as a genuine and serious
+interest in the affairs of the nation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walt Whitman was becoming recognised as a young man of ability: in
+spite of his nonchalant and friendly unassuming ways, he had pride
+and ambition. He felt in himself that he was capable of great things,
+and that it was time to begin them. Not very clear as to what his
+proper work might be, he took the turning of his inclination, and
+early in the summer of 1841 entered the office of the _New World_,
+as a compositor,[66] to become for the next twenty years one of the
+fraternity of New York pressmen.
+
+His first success was achieved in the August number of the _Democratic
+Review_, one of the first American periodicals of the day, which
+counted among its contributors such writers as Bryant, Whittier,
+Hawthorne and Longfellow. His "Death in the Schoolroom,"[67] appearing
+over the initials of "W. W.," caught the public fancy, and was widely
+copied by the provincial press. It is the study of a gruesome incident
+in Long Island country life; by turns sentimental and violent in its
+horror, and evidently intended as an argument against school flogging.
+It has a sort of crude power and its subject matter would have appealed
+to Hawthorne. It is by no means discreditable; but to us it seems
+verbose, and it is clumsy in its exaggerated style. Lugare is shown to
+us at one moment standing as though transfixed by a basilisk--and at
+another, "every limb quivers like the tongue of a snake".
+
+Whatever its faults, they did not offend the taste of the hour: the
+Review welcomed his contributions, and some study from his pen appeared
+in its pages each alternate month throughout the next year, some being
+signed "Walter Whitman" in full. To the _New World_ he had meanwhile
+been contributing conventional and very mediocre verses in praise of
+Death and of compassionate Pity.[68]
+
+The remorse of a young murderer; an angel's compassionate excuses for
+evil-doers; the headstrong revolt of youth against parental injustice,
+and the ensuing tragic fate; the half-insane repulsion of a father
+toward his son, prompting him to send the lad to a madhouse and thus
+wrecking his mind; the refusal of a young poet to sell his genius; the
+pining of a lover after the death of his beloved; the lonely misery of
+a deaf and dumb girl, who has been seduced and deserted; the reform
+of a profligate by a child; the sobering of a drunkard at his little
+sister's death-bed; and an old widow's strewing of flowers on every
+grave because her husband's remains unknown: such are the subjects
+with which he dealt.[69] His wanderings in Long Island had supplied
+him with incidents upon which to exercise his imagination. Those which
+he selected have always some pathetic interest, while several have an
+obviously didactic purpose.
+
+Whitman's moral consciousness was still predominant: he was an
+advocate of "causes". But his morality sprang out of a real passion
+for humanity, which took the form of sentiment; a sentiment which was
+thoroughly genuine at bottom, but which in its expression at this time,
+became false and stilted enough to bear the reproach of sentimentality.
+In view of their author's subsequent optimism, it is interesting to
+note that all these studies are of figures or incidents, more or less
+tragic.
+
+Whitman was puzzling over the ultimate questions: the problem of evil,
+as seen in the sufferings inflicted by tyrannical power, and by callous
+or lustful selfishness, upon innocent victims; on the inscrutable
+tragedies of disease and insanity; and again, upon the power of
+innocence, of sorrow and of love to evoke the good which he saw
+everywhere latent in human nature, and which a blind and heavy-handed
+legalitarian justice would destroy with the evil inseparable from it.
+The more he thought over these problems, the more he recognised the
+futility of condemnation, and the effectiveness of understanding love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _New World_, upon which he was working, published the first
+American versions of some of the principal novels of the day; it
+reprinted several of the new poems of Tennyson from English sources
+and contained long notices of such works as Carlyle's _Heroes and
+Hero-worship_. In November, 1842, it issued as an extra number
+Dickens's _American Notes_, the sensation of the hour--the author
+having been _fêted_ at the Park Theatre in February--and announced
+Lytton Bulwer's _Last of the Barons_ to follow. On the 23rd of
+the month, in the same fashion, appeared _Franklin Evans, or The
+Inebriate_, a tale of the times, by Walter Whitman. It was advertised
+as a thrilling romance by "one of the best novelists in this country";
+and the proprietors of the magazine expressed their hope that the
+well-told incidents of the plot and the excellence of the moral would
+commend the book to general circulation. Nor were they disappointed. It
+is said that twenty thousand copies were sold. The book, then, achieved
+a tolerable success, and its author profited to the extent of some
+forty pounds.
+
+Copies of _Franklin Evans_ are now excessively rare, and one may
+say with confidence they will remain so. For the tale will never be
+reprinted. It claims to be written for the people and not for the
+critics, and even the people are unlikely to read it a second time.
+
+It is an ill-told rambling story of a Long Island lad who, going to
+the metropolis and taking to drink, falls through various stages of
+respectability till he becomes a bar-tender. He marries and reforms,
+but presently gives way again to his habit; his wife then dies, and he
+falls lower. Eventually he is rescued from gaol, and signs the "old"
+pledge against ardent spirits. Then he goes to Virginia, where he
+succeeds in fuddling his wits with wine, and marries a handsome Creole
+slave. Forthwith he becomes entangled with a white woman who drives his
+wife to the verge of madness, until a tragic fate releases him from
+them both, and the story concludes with his signature to the pledge of
+total abstinence. The author recommends it to his readers, and breaks
+out into praises of the Washingtonian crusade, foretelling its imminent
+and complete victory over the "armies of drink".
+
+The pages are diversified by Indian and other narratives impertinent to
+the plot, and by invectives against the scornful attitude of the pious
+and respectable toward those who are struggling in the nets of vice.
+The whole book is loosely graphic and frankly didactic, its author
+declaring his wish to be improving, though he will keep the amusement
+of his readers in view. He opines that in this temperance story he has
+found a novel and a noble use for fiction, and if his first venture be
+successful, be assured it will be followed by a second.
+
+It is difficult to treat _Franklin Evans_ seriously. That Whitman
+was at the time a sincere advocate of the more extreme doctrines of
+temperance reform can hardly be doubted. But in after years--the whole
+incident having become a matter of amusement to its author, not wholly
+unmingled with irritation when, as sometimes, it was thrust upon him
+anew by reformers as ardent as he had once been--he would laugh and
+say with a droll deliberation that the story was written against time
+one hot autumn in a Broadway beer-cellar, his dull thoughts encouraged
+by bubbling libations. One suspects a humorous malice in the anecdote,
+belonging rather to his later than his earlier years. It may be noted,
+however, that while Whitman commended the pledge, he also commended
+a positive policy of "counter attraction" to all the young men who
+scanned his pages, to wit, an early marriage and a home, though he
+himself remained a bachelor.
+
+_Franklin Evans_ was honest enough. Young Whitman was serving
+the adorable Lady Temperance with fervour, if not with absolute
+consistency. He knew her cause to be a good one; but he found that, in
+this form, it was not quite his own, and he was too natural not to be
+inconsistent. He had not yet come to his own cause, nor for that matter
+to himself. And thus his essay became a _tour de force_; as he did not
+repeat it, we may suppose he was as little satisfied as those who now
+waste an hour upon this "thrilling romance".
+
+He was now in the full stream of journalistic activity. He wrote for
+the _New York Sun_, and appears for a few months to have acted as
+editor in succession of the _Aurora_ and the _Tattler_.[70] In 1843 he
+filled the same post on the _Statesman_, and the year after upon the
+_Democrat_; while contributing also to the _Columbian Magazine_, the
+_American Review_, and Poe's _Broadway Journal_.[71]
+
+Probably none of these contributions are worthy of recollection.
+Anomalous as it may sound, from twenty-three to thirty-five Whitman was
+better fitted for an editor than for an essayist. He was clever without
+being brilliant; he had capacity but no special and definite line of
+his own. His strength lay in his judgment; and upon this both friends
+and family learnt to rely.
+
+Several of the papers for which he wrote were party organs; it may have
+been that his political services in 1840 won him an introduction to the
+editors of the _Democratic Review_, and helped him on his further way.
+In any case, it is certain that he frequented the party's headquarters
+in the city. Tammany Hall was named after an Indian brave,[72]
+presumably to indicate the wholly indigenous character of its
+interests. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, it seems to have
+become the seat of a society of old Knickerbockers, gathered partly
+for mutual protection against certain groups of foreign immigrants
+who had shown a hostile disposition, and partly in opposition to the
+aristocratic Cincinnati Society presided over by Washington. During
+Jefferson's Presidency it became a political centre, and was identified
+with the Democratic party from the time of its re-organisation under
+Jackson in New York State.
+
+The Democrats failed to elect Van Buren, and were in opposition from
+1840 to 1844. During the electoral struggle, a Baltimore journal had
+spoken slightingly of the humble character of Harrison, the Whig
+candidate:[73] better fitted, it pronounced, for a Western log-cabin
+and a small pension than for the White House. Harrison, like Andrew
+Jackson, was an old soldier: he had beaten the Indians long ago in a
+fight at Tippecanoe; and that, together with the simplicity of this
+Cincinnatus--the imaginary log-cabin, the coon-skins and hard cider,
+which made him the impersonation of the frontiersman to whom America
+owed so much, being all artfully exaggerated by party managers--caught
+the fancy of the whole country, which rang for months together with the
+refrain of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too". Harrison died immediately after
+his inauguration and Vice-president Tyler took his place.
+
+In Tammany's back parlour, Walt made the acquaintance of many notables,
+and not least, of an old Colonel Fellowes,[74] who loved to discuss Tom
+Paine over a social glass, and to scatter to the four winds the legends
+of inebriety which had gathered about his later years of poverty and
+neglect. But that Whitman was a violent partisan even at this time,
+seems to be disproved by the fact that in 1843 or 1844 he contributed
+political verses to Horace Greeley's _Tribune_, a paper which had
+grown out of the Whig election sheet.[75] And though, like his father,
+he adhered now and always to the general political tradition of the
+Democrats, was a free trader, jealous of the central power, and voted
+with his party till it split in 1848, he was as good an Abolitionist
+as Greeley himself. Indeed, both the _Tribune_ poems are inspired by
+the theme of slavery, and as if in witness to the reality of their
+inspiration, he breaks for the first time into the irregular metres he
+was to make his own.[76]
+
+A religious ardour breathes from these singular Scriptural utterances.
+The first, "Blood-money," is a homily on the text, "Guilty of the body
+and the blood of Christ". In the slave, whom he describes as "hunted
+from the arrogant equality of the rest," he sees the new incarnation of
+that "divine youth" whose body Iscariot sold and is still a-selling. It
+is an admirable piece of pathos, fresh, direct and unmannered, and by
+far the most individual and striking thing Whitman had done. And it was
+the only one which could be regarded as prophetic of the work that was
+to follow. Especially is this felt in such lines as
+
+    The cycles, with their long shadows, have stalked silently forward,
+    Since those ancient days; many a pouch enwrapping meanwhile
+    Its fee, like that paid for the son of Mary.
+
+The piece was signed "Paumanok," as also was "A Dough-face Song," which
+appeared in the _Evening Post_.
+
+The second of the _Tribune_ poems, "Wounded in the House of
+Friends,"[77] is inferior to the first in poetic merit, though adopting
+a somewhat similar medium. It is a rather violent denunciation of those
+intimates of freedom whose allegiance to her can be bought off--"a
+dollar dearer to them than Christ's blessing"--elderly "dough-faces"
+whose hearts are in their purses. It was upon Northern traitors to
+the cause rather than upon the people of the South, that Whitman
+poured out his indignation: and this position he always maintained.
+The _Tribune_ itself was at the time an ardent supporter of Clay's
+candidature for the Presidency; but Clay subsequently trimmed upon this
+very question, and this action, by alienating the anti-slavery party in
+New York, resulted in his defeat at the polls.
+
+Whitman's political poems suggest already that loosening of ties
+which separated him a few years later from the main body of his
+party; but in 1844, following the lead of advanced Democrats like
+W. C. Bryant, he worked actively for Polk, the party candidate, who
+became President.[78] We cannot too often remind ourselves that the
+later Republicanism of the 'sixties was supported by men who had been
+Free-soil Democrats as well as by certain of their Whig opponents.
+Meanwhile, it was to the Radical wing of his party that young Whitman
+belonged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though engaged in the political struggle, he was by no means absorbed
+in it. His profession encouraged his natural interest in the affairs of
+his country, but not in the political affairs alone. He shared in the
+social functions of the city and its district. He frequented lectures
+and races, churches and auction rooms, weddings and clam-bakes.[79] He
+spent Saturday afternoons on the bare and then unfrequented sand ridge
+of Coney Island, bathing, reading and declaiming aloud, uninterrupted
+by a single one of the hundreds of thousands who now fill the island
+with their more artificial holiday making and their noisier laughter.
+In those days one did not require a costume to bathe on Coney Island
+beach.
+
+Nearer than Coney Island, Brooklyn Ferry was always one of his
+favourite haunts.[80] Walt had always loved the boat as well as the
+river; as a child he had seen the horses in the round-house give place
+to the engine with its high "smoke-stack"; the captain and the hands
+were old friends, and he never tired of watching the passengers. Who
+does not feel the delight of such a ferry, the swing of the boat, the
+windy gleam in the sky, the lights by day or night upon the water, the
+sense of weariless and unceasing movement as of life itself? New York,
+on its island, is richer than most cities in these river crossings,
+which take you at once out of the closeness and cares of the streets
+into the free broad roadways of wind and water, roadways which you
+can scarcely traverse without some enlargement and liberation of the
+city-pent soul in your breast.
+
+And in the city itself he had a thousand interests;[81] he went
+wherever people met together for any purpose; he had a critic's
+free pass to the theatres and was often at the opera and circus,
+he frequented the public libraries too, and the collections of
+antiquities; but most of all he loved to read in the open book of
+Broadway. Up and down that amazing torrent of humanity he would ride,
+breasting its flood, upon the box-seat of one of the stages, beside
+the driver. From time to time he would make himself useful by giving
+change to the fares within, when he was not already too fully occupied
+declaiming the great passages from his favourite poets into the ears of
+his friend.
+
+The fulness of human life surging through the artery of that great
+city exhilarated him like the west wind or the sound and presence of
+the sea. The sheer contact with the crowd excited him. And though he
+came to know New York in all its dark and sordid corners--and even
+an American city before the war was not without its shame--he won an
+inspiration from its multitudinous humanity distinct from any that the
+country-side could afford. Every year he grew more conscious of his
+membership in the living whole of human life; and the consciousness
+which brought despair to Carlyle, brought faith and glory to Whitman.
+He did not blink the ugly and sinister aspects of things, as many an
+optimist has done; he saw clearly the brothel, the prison, and the
+mortuary; his writing at this time, as we have seen, deals largely
+with the tragedies of life; but humanity fascinated him--not an
+abstract or ideal humanity, but the concrete actual humanity of New
+York. For its own sake he loved it, body and soul, as a man should. It
+was not philanthropy, it was the wholesome, native love of a man for
+his own flesh and blood, for the incarnation of the Other in the same
+substance as the Self.
+
+Very little passed in the city without his knowledge. He was in the
+crowd that welcomed Dickens in 1842;[82] and was doubtless among the
+thousands who celebrated the introduction of the first water from the
+Croton supply into New York, and hailed the pioneer locomotive arriving
+over the new track from Buffalo. Among the public figures of the day,
+he became familiar with the faces of great politicians like Webster and
+Clay; among writers, he saw Fitz-Green Halleck and Fenimore Cooper,[83]
+and made the acquaintance of Poe who was struggling against poverty in
+New York, and who became at this time--1845--suddenly famous through
+the publication of "The Raven";[84] and won the more lasting friendship
+of Bryant, who was at that time the preeminent American poet, and held
+besides the editorship of the _Evening Post_, to which Walt had been a
+contributor.[85]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In February, 1846, Whitman was appointed editor of the _Brooklyn Daily
+Eagle_,[86] a democratic journal of a single sheet. The office was
+close to the Ferry, and he seems at this time to have lived with his
+family on Myrtle Avenue, near Fort Greene, rather more than a mile
+away. His editorials boasted no literary distinction, and were even
+at times of doubtful grammar; but they were direct and vigorous, and
+discussed all the topics of the hour.[87] When a New York Episcopal
+Church was consecrated with much ceremony and display, he would
+denounce the self-complacent attitude of the Churches; every instance
+of lynching or of capital punishment would call forth his protest;
+he was faithful in his support of the rights of domestic animals; he
+approved of dancing within reasonable hours, and he advocated art in
+the homes of the people. Largely owing to his persistent advocacy the
+old battle-ground of Fort Greene was secured to Brooklyn as a park.
+
+In dealing with the immediately critical question of relations with
+Mexico, while he anticipated extension of territory without dismay,
+he uttered his warning against the temper which prompts a nation to
+aggressive acts. "We fear", he said,[88] "our unmatched strength may
+make us insolent. We fear that we shall be too willing (holding the
+game in our own hands) to revenge our injuries by war--the greatest
+curse that can befall a people, and the bitterest obstacle to the
+progress of all those high and true reforms that make the glory of this
+age above the darkness of the ages past and gone."
+
+The admission of Texas into the Union, in 1845, was soon followed
+by a war with Mexico, which eventually completed the filibustering
+work of Houston by the annexation of New Mexico and California. This
+territorial expansion was pushed forward, as we noted before, by Polk
+and the Democrats in the interests of the South;[89] but the fact that
+it was Wilmot, a Free-soil Democrat, who introduced the celebrated
+proviso to an appropriation of money for the war, proposing to exclude
+slavery from all territory which might be acquired from Mexico, reminds
+us of the division within the party which resulted in a split two years
+later.
+
+The country at this time was in a condition of feverish irritation; and
+the war spirit was only too easily aroused. In 1847, it threatened to
+burst into flame over a territorial dispute with Great Britain. America
+claimed the latitude of 54.40 as the northern boundary of Oregon, and
+for awhile, under the jingo President, the country rang with the insane
+alliterative cry of "fifty-four forty or fight".[90] A spirited foreign
+policy is the universal panacea of the charlatan; it is his receipt
+for every internal disorder, and it was continually being prescribed to
+America during the next fifteen years. This was indeed the charlatan's
+hour, when the official policy of the dominant Democratic party
+oscillated between jingoism and what was afterwards known throughout
+America as "squatter sovereignty". It was the repudiation of the Wilmot
+proviso, and the adoption of the new doctrine which Douglas afterwards
+made his own, that drove Whitman into revolt.
+
+He was comfortably seated in his editorial chair, where he might have
+remained for years had his Radical convictions permitted. Though
+the owners of the _Eagle_ were orthodox party men, the editor's
+anti-slavery attitude was not concealed,[91] and indeed could not be.
+Their criticism of his editorials caused him immediately to throw up
+his post. He would not compromise on the question, and he would not
+brook interference. It was January, 1848, when he left the _Eagle_,[92]
+and a few weeks later he was making his way south to New Orleans.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whitman had joined the "Barnburners" or Van Buren men of New York
+State, who now became Free-soil Democrats, making the Wilmot proviso
+their platform,[93] in opposition to the "Hunkers," who denounced
+it. As to the Whigs, they burked the whole matter, and contrived in
+their nominating convention to silence the question by shouting. The
+Democratic party found its real platform in the nostrum of "squatter
+sovereignty," the specious doctrine that in each new State the citizens
+should themselves decide upon their attitude towards slavery, deciding
+for or against it when drawing up a Constitution. To this, Lewis Cass,
+its candidate for the Presidency, subscribed. But the "Barnburners" put
+forward Van Buren, a former President, and a Democrat of the school of
+Jefferson and Jackson, who was also supported by the "anti-slavery"
+party. His policy was to confine slavery within its actual limits: "no
+more Slave states, no more slave territory". As a consequence of the
+Democratic split in the Empire State, the thirty-six electoral votes of
+New York were given to the Whig candidate, General Taylor, the Mexican
+conqueror, and he became the next President.
+
+A whole-hearted Free-soil Democrat, Whitman's position as editor of an
+orthodox party journal had naturally become untenable.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] MSS. Harned.
+
+[56] _Comp. Prose_, 187.
+
+[57] _Whit. Fellowship_, '94 (Traubel).
+
+[58] MSS. Harned.
+
+[59] _Comp. Prose_, 7-9.
+
+[60] _Whit. Fellowship_, '94 (C. A. Roe); Johnston, 114.
+
+[61] _Whit. Fellowship_ (Roe); _In re_, 34.
+
+[62] _Comp. Prose_, 10, 11, 521.
+
+[63] _Ib._, 10, 11, 188; Thomson, 476; Burroughs (_a_), 28.
+
+[64] _Whit. Fellowship_, '94 (Traubel).
+
+[65] MSS. Harned.
+
+[66] _Ibid._
+
+[67] _Comp. Prose_, 336.
+
+[68] _New World_, Nov. 20, Dec. 18, 1841.
+
+[69] _Comp. Prose_, 340-370; _Democratic Review_, etc.
+
+[70] MSS. Harned; _Comp. Prose_, 188.
+
+[71] _Comp. Prose_, 12, 196.
+
+[72] _New York Mirror_ (1833), 87. _Cf._ Larned.
+
+[73] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 389.
+
+[74] _Comp. Prose_, 90.
+
+[75] _Mem. Hist._, iv., 157.
+
+[76] _Comp. Prose_, 372.
+
+[77] _Ib._, 273.
+
+[78] Bucke, 23.
+
+[79] _Ib._, 21.
+
+[80] _Comp. Prose_, 11.
+
+[81] _Comp. Prose_, 11-14, 426, 519.
+
+[82] _Comp. Prose_, 11.
+
+[83] _Ib._, 11, 12.
+
+[84] _Alibone's Dict._
+
+[85] _Comp. Prose_, 196.
+
+[86] MSS. Harned.
+
+[87] _Atlantic Monthly_, xcii., 679.
+
+[88] _Atlantic Monthly_, xcii., 686.
+
+[89] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 397, 398.
+
+[90] _Ib._, 399.
+
+[91] _Atlantic Monthly_, xcii., 683, 684.
+
+[92] MSS. Harned.
+
+[93] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 399; _Comp. Prose_, 188.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ROMANCE (1848)
+
+
+Whitman was nearly twenty-nine, and had not, so far as I can
+discover, wandered beyond the limits of his own State,[94] nor had he
+experienced, to our knowledge, any serious affair of the heart. The
+only trace of strong personal emotion in his writing hitherto is that
+which we found in the _Tribune_ poems, dictated by the passion of human
+solidarity. "Blood Money" is probably the only thing which he had yet
+produced from the deeper regions of consciousness; it is the only piece
+of real self-revelation which he had yet confided to the world. Now we
+come suddenly upon a time of wandering, over which he himself has drawn
+a veil--a veil which covers, we cannot for a moment doubt, one of the
+most important incidents of his life. But it is a veil which we are
+unable to raise.[95]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking in the lobby of the old Broadway Theatre, between the acts, one
+February night,[96] Whitman was introduced to a Southern gentleman.
+A quarter of an hour later he had engaged to go South, to assist in
+starting the _Crescent_, a daily paper in New Orleans. On the eleventh
+of the month he set out.[97] The South was as unknown to him as it
+still remains to the majority of Northerners; and the South must have
+been as strange and fascinating to the son of Mannahatta as are the
+shores of the Mediterranean to a Londoner. An air of romance seems to
+breathe from his every reference to this period, and it may well be
+that the passionate attraction which afterwards drew his memory to the
+"magnet-south" had some personal incarnation.
+
+Bidding a hasty good-bye to his family and friends, he left New York
+and made his way[98] through populous Pennsylvania, and over the
+Alleghanies to Wheeling on the Ohio river, where he found a small
+steamer, and in it descended leisurely, with many stops by the way,
+through the recently settled lands of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and
+Illinois, into the Mississippi, the Father of Waters, thenceforward
+pursuing his voyage for more than a thousand miles along that greatest
+of American highways, to the borders of the Mexican Gulf.
+
+For the first time his eyes saw how vast was his country: he realised
+the South, and he understood the significance of the political
+struggle for the control of the new West. He was almost afraid as he
+journeyed, not so much at the immensity of the prospect, as because
+he felt himself upon the verge of the Unknown and its mysteries: and
+his feelings found utterance in some verses written on the voyage and
+subsequently published--surely, with a smile at the critics--in his
+_Collected Prose_. As they illustrate his mood at the time, and afford
+the best example of his skill as a maker of conventional verses, I may
+quote from them here.
+
+After describing the fantastic forms which line the margins of the
+forest-bordered river, he proceeds:--
+
+    Tide of youth, thus thickly planted,
+      While in the eddies onward you swim,
+    Thus on the shore stands a phantom army,
+      Lining for ever the channel's rim.
+
+    Steady, helmsman! you guide the immortal;
+      Many a wreck is beneath you piled,
+    Many a brave yet unwary sailor
+      Over these waters has been beguiled.
+
+    Nor is it the storm or the scowling midnight,
+      Gold, or sickness, or fire's dismay--
+    Nor is it the reef or treacherous quicksand
+      Will peril you most on your twisted way.
+
+    But when there comes a voluptuous languor,
+      Soft the sunshine, silent the air,
+    Bewitching your craft with safety and sweetness,
+      Then, young pilot of life, beware.[99]
+
+The lines are not of the best, but they are suggestive. They seem
+to express the lurking fear of one hardily bred in the North, when
+first he feels upon his face the breath of the seductive South. His
+strenuous self-sufficiency is imperilled. A strange world of sensations
+surrounds him, awakening in himself a world of emotions as strange. It
+is suggested to him that he is not quite the man that he supposed, that
+there is another side to his character, and he resents the suggestion.
+For who will willingly begin over again the task of self-discovery?
+The conservative organising active Ego fears the awakening of the
+adventurous, receptive Ego. I think Whitman was startled as he realised
+how little as yet he understood himself, or was willing to accept his
+whole soul if it should rise up and face him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: NEW ORLEANS ABOUT THE TIME OF WHITMAN'S VISIT, FROM A
+PRINT]
+
+The New Orleans of '48 must have been the most romantic and perhaps
+the most prosperous city in the Union. It was the centre of Western
+commerce, as well as of Mexican filibustering: its great hotels, the
+St. Charles and the St. Louis, were the rendezvous of planters and
+merchants, politicians and adventurers, and of the proudest aristocracy
+in the States.[100] It was a gay city, with its Creole women and
+Spanish men, its dancing and its play, its masks and dominoes, its
+duels and carnivals; gay as only an old city can be gay, with the
+contrast between age and youth.
+
+About the Catholic cathedral was a mass of irregular red-tiled roofs
+and a net-work of shady alleys, on to which opened great galleries and
+courtyards full of vines. Scent of roses and the caressing sound of
+Creole singing stole upon the languorous breaths of the warm humid air,
+breaths which lazily stirred the golden-rod that overgrew the dormer
+windows, the old venetian blinds, the geraniums and the clothes
+hanging in the sun. Along the alleys went the priests in their black
+skirts. Through the doorways one saw red floors sanded and clean, and
+quaint carved furniture, heirlooms of generations; or caught a glimpse
+of some old garden with its fountains and lilies, its violets and
+jonquils, myrtle and jessamine. Everywhere flowers and singing birds,
+and the soft quaint Creole phrases falling with the charm that only
+Southern lips confer.
+
+Such was the old French quarter. Along the river-side was another; the
+lawless world of Mississippi flat-boatmen, a vagrant population drawn
+from many States, who with the soldiers discharged after the Mexican
+war frequented the low saloons and gaming-houses; passionate men,
+capable of any crime or adventure.
+
+Again, there were the Bohemians of the city, the artists, journalists
+and actors of a centre of fashion. Opera had found its first American
+home at New Orleans, and was presented at the famous Orleans Theatre
+four times a week. Whitman, the opera-goer, must often have been
+there. Perhaps he met among the Bohemians a juvenile member of their
+group, Dolores Adios Fuertes, a young dancer, to be known hereafter
+in London and in Paris as Adah Isaacs Menken, actress, and authoress
+of a pathetic volume of irregular metres, who now lies buried at Mont
+Parnasse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the three months of his stay, Whitman saw New Orleans
+thoroughly.[101] Often on Sunday mornings he would go to the cathedral;
+he idled much in the old French quarters, and sauntered and loafed
+along the levees, making acquaintances and friends among the boatmen
+and stevedores. He frequented the huge bar-rooms of the two hotels,
+where most of the business of the city seems at that time to have been
+transacted; but temperate and simple himself, he preferred to their
+liqueurs and dainties his morning coffee and biscuit at the stall of a
+stout mulatto woman, who stood with her shining copper kettle in the
+French market. There all the races of the world seemed to be gathered
+to idle or to bargain. He went also to the theatres, where he talked
+with the soldiers back from the Mexican war; among the rest, with
+General Taylor, soon to be President, a jovial, genial, laughter-loving
+old man, one of the plainest who ever went to the White House, where he
+died soon after his inauguration in 1849.
+
+Whitman appears to have been thoroughly enjoying himself, when suddenly
+about the end of May, he made up his mind to return to the North.
+His brother Jeff, a lad of fifteen, who had accompanied him and was
+working in the printing office, was homesick and out of health; the
+climate with its malarial tendencies did not suit him. Walt was always
+devoted to this young brother, who had been his companion on many a
+Long Island holiday, tramping or sailing,[102] and becoming alarmed at
+his condition, hurried him away. There were other reasons which, he
+says, made him wish to leave the city, but as he does not specify[103]
+them himself, we can only follow the indications in guessing at their
+nature. We know they were not connected with his work: it is probable
+that they were private and personal.[104]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When asked in later years why he had never married, he would say
+either that it was impossible to give a satisfactory explanation,[105]
+although such an explanation might perhaps exist, or he would declare
+that, with an instinct for self-preservation, he had always avoided
+or escaped from entanglements which threatened his freedom.[106]
+These replies he made with an obvious reticence and reservation. He
+who professed to make so clean a breast of his own shortcomings, and
+who in his last years required that records of himself should err in
+being somewhat over personal, deliberately concealed certain important
+incidents in his life. There can, I think, be only one interpretation
+of this singular state of affairs: that these incidents concerned
+others equally with himself, and that those others were unwilling to
+have them published. If they had been his, and his alone, he would have
+communicated them, but they were not.
+
+Whatever Whitman's duty in this matter, it behoves his biographer to
+present as full a picture as possible of his life, and to let no fact
+go by without notice; while the knowledge that Whitman himself could
+not disclose the whole truth, should only make us the more careful in
+our reading of the scanty facts which are known.
+
+It seems that about this time Walt formed an intimate relationship with
+some woman of higher social rank than his own--a lady of the South
+where social rank is of the first consideration--that she became the
+mother of his child, perhaps, in after years, of his children; and that
+he was prevented by some obstacle, presumably of family prejudice, from
+marriage or the acknowledgment of his paternity.
+
+The main facts can now hardly be disputed. Whitman put some of them
+on record in a letter to Addington Symonds during the last year
+of his life, designing to leave a fuller statement in the care of
+his executors. But this, through access of weakness, was never
+accomplished. Remarks which he let fall from time to time in private
+conversation seem to admit of no other interpretation than that I have
+put upon them.
+
+In one of his poems[107] he vividly describes how once in a populous
+city he chanced to meet with a woman who cast her love upon him,
+and how they remained together till at last he tore himself away,
+to remember nothing of that city save her and her love. In spite of
+Whitman's express desire that the poem should be regarded merely
+in its universal application--a desire which in itself seems to
+betoken a consciousness of self-betrayal--we cannot but recognise its
+autobiographical suggestion. And in the stress laid upon the part of
+the woman, we may see a cause for Whitman's reticence. If it was
+she who had pressed the relationship, it behoved him the more, for
+her sake, to keep silence, and to leave the determination of the
+relationship to her.
+
+But perhaps the most important evidence upon this obscure passage of
+his story is to be found in the psychological development which we can,
+as I believe, trace in his character. It was but a short time after his
+Southern visit,[108] perhaps in the same year, that he began to sketch
+out some of the poems which afterwards took the form familiar to us in
+_Leaves of Grass_. Now these differ from his earlier writings in many
+ways, but fundamentally in their subjectivity. In them he sets out to
+put himself on record in a way he heretofore had not attempted, and
+this enterprise must, I take it, have had its cause in some quickening
+of emotional self-consciousness. That process may well have culminated
+a few years later in what has been described as "cosmic consciousness";
+but before that culmination, Whitman's experience must have contained
+elements which do not seem to have been present in the Whitman of
+_Franklin Evans_, or of the verses written upon the Mississippi. These
+elements, I believe, he acquired or began to acquire in the South.
+
+Hitherto we have seen him as a young man of vigorous independence,
+eagerly observant of life, and delighting in his contact with it.
+Henceforward he enters into it in a new sense; some barrier has been
+broken down; he begins to identify himself with it. Strong before in
+his self-control, he is stronger still now that he has won the power
+of self-abandonment. Unconsciously he had always been holding himself
+back; at last he has let himself go. And to let oneself go is to
+discover oneself. Some men can never face that discovery; they are not
+ready for emancipation. Whitman was.
+
+But who emancipated him? May we not suppose it was a passionate and
+noble woman who opened the gates for him and showed him himself in the
+divine mirror of her love? Had Whitman been an egoist such a vision
+would have enslaved and not liberated his soul.
+
+But if this woman loved him to the uttermost, why did he leave her?
+Why did he allow the foulest of reproaches to blacken that whitest
+of all reputations, a Southern lady's virtue? Nowhere in the world
+could such a reproach have seemed more vile, more cruel. The only
+answer we can make is that it was, in some almost inexplicable way,
+her choice. And that somehow, perhaps by a fictitious marriage, this
+reproach was doubtless avoided; the woman's family being readier to
+invent some subterfuge than to take a Northern journalist and artisan
+into their sacred circle. There is a poem which remained till recently
+in manuscript--a poem[109] of bitter sarcasm and marked power of
+expression--in which Whitman holds an aristocrat up to scorn. He never
+printed it himself, and this fact adds to the possibility that it may
+gain some of its force from personal suffering.
+
+Whether Whitman met his lady again we do not know. There is no record
+of a second visit to the South, though there is no evidence to disprove
+such a visit; rather indeed, to the contrary, for Whitman speaks in one
+of his letters[110] of "times South" as periods in which his life lay
+open to criticism; and refers, elsewhere,[111] to his having lived a
+good deal in the Southern States. As he was in no position to reply to
+criticism upon this matter, he was careful not to arouse it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whatever lay behind his departure, Whitman left New Orleans on the
+25th of May, 1848,[112] ascending the Mississippi in a river steamer
+between the monotonous flat banks. Jeff picked up at once.[113] They
+spent a few hours in St. Louis where the westward flowing streams of
+northern and of southern pioneers met and mingled.[114] Changing boats,
+and passing the mouth of the great yellow Missouri, they made their
+way up the Illinois river for some two hundred miles, arriving after
+forty-eight hours at La Salle, whence a canal boat carried them to
+Chicago. Through the rich agricultural lands of Illinois they passed at
+a speed not exceeding three miles an hour.
+
+They spent a day in the still very young metropolis of the North-west,
+travelling thence by way of the Great Lakes to Buffalo. The voyage
+occupied five glorious summer days. Whitman went on shore at every
+stopping place intensely interested in everything. He was so delighted
+with the State of Wisconsin, which was about this time admitted to the
+Union, that he dreamed of settling in one of its new clean townships;
+and he carried away with him definite impressions of the towns of
+Milwaukee, Mackinaw, Detroit, Windsor, Cleveland, and Buffalo.
+
+A week from La Salle he passed under the Falls of Niagara and saw the
+whirlpool; but coming at the end of so much wonder, the stupendous
+spectacle does not seem to have greatly impressed him. Twenty-four
+hours of continuous travel through the thickly settled country
+districts of New York State brought him to the old Dutch capital
+of Albany, whence descending the beautiful Hudson with its wooded
+high-walled mountain banks, he reached New York on the evening of 15th
+June.
+
+He had been away from home four months, had travelled as many thousand
+miles, and had made acquaintance with seventeen of the States of the
+Union. In New Orleans he had learnt the meaning of the South, from St.
+Louis he had looked into the new West, while in Illinois, Indiana,
+Wisconsin, Michigan, and the coasts of Ontario, he had seen the rich
+corn-lands of the North-west under their first tillage. And he had felt
+the meaning of the Mississippi, that great river whose tributaries,
+from the Alleghanies to the Rockies, drain and fertilise half the
+arable land of America.
+
+Besides the discovery in himself of a new world, a new hemisphere,
+Whitman came home filled with the sense of his American citizenship.
+A patriot from his childhood, from henceforward "these States," as
+he loved to call them, became the object of his passionate devotion.
+Not in their individuality alone--though this he recognised more than
+ever, regarding each in some degree as a nation--but above all in their
+Union. Thus he came back to Brooklyn to take up his old vocation and
+his old acquaintances with a sense of enlargement: latent powers had
+been awakened within him and a new ideal which may once have been a
+childish dream, began to dominate his manhood, hitherto lacking in a
+clear purpose.
+
+In the old days,[115] when his mother read the Bible to him and taught
+him something of its meaning, it had seemed to the child that the
+highest of all the achievements of manhood must be to make such another
+book as that. It had been written thousands of years ago by inspired
+men, to be completed some day by others as truly inspired as they. For
+he believed in the Quaker doctrine of the continuity of revelation,
+which is not strange to a child.
+
+Such fancies in a child's mind are apt to grow into a purpose: to
+dream, is to dream of something one will presently do. If the dream
+is wholly beyond the range of possible accomplishment, a cloud of
+disillusionment descending on the face of youth will blot it out; but
+if it is not, it may become an ideal which will shape the whole of
+manhood as sternly as any fate.
+
+To be an American prophet-poet, to make the American people a book
+which should be like the Bible in spiritual appeal and moral fervour,
+but a book of the New World and of the new spirit--such seems to have
+been the first and the last of Whitman's day-dreams. It must have come
+to him as a vague longing when he was still very young, and he was
+never so old as to lose it. Now on his return from this long journey,
+his mind full of America and full of profound and mystical thoughts
+concerning love and the soul and the soul's relation to the world, the
+dream began to struggle in him for utterance. It was seven years before
+it found itself a body of words, but henceforward it took possession of
+his life.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[94] Descriptions of Virginia in _Franklin Evans_ being probably
+derived from hearsay.
+
+[95] Camden, xxxv.
+
+[96] _Comp. Prose_, 14, 188, 522.
+
+[97] MSS. Harned.
+
+[98] Burroughs, 82.
+
+[99] _Comp. Prose_, 374; see also Rejected Passages in Camden.
+
+[100] _Historical Sketch Book and Guide to N. O._, 1885.
+
+[101] _Comp. Prose_, 251, 439-443; Bucke, 24.
+
+[102] _Comp. Prose_, 514.
+
+[103] _Ib._, 441.
+
+[104] See Appendix B.
+
+[105] _In re_, 323.
+
+[106] Bucke, 60.
+
+[107] _L. of G._, 94.
+
+[108] _In re_, 116; _L. of G._, 434; Bucke, 135; _cf. infra_, 89, 103.
+
+[109] Camden, iii., 261, 262.
+
+[110] Letter to A. J. Symonds, see _infra_, Appendix B.
+
+[111] _Comp. Prose_, 522.
+
+[112] Camden, xxxiv.
+
+[113] _Comp. Prose_, 441-43.
+
+[114] _Cf._ Winston Churchill, _The Crisis_.
+
+[115] _Cf._ _L. of G._, 434.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ILLUMINATION
+
+
+Whitman returned to Brooklyn about the time that Free-soil Democrats
+and Liberty men were uniting at Buffalo on the ticket and platform
+which I have already described. He established a small book-store and
+printing office on Myrtle Avenue,[116] and commenced the publication of
+the _Freeman_, a weekly first, but afterwards a daily paper.
+
+The venture continued for about a year but eventually proved
+unsuccessful. Its failure may have been due to the comparatively small
+circle of readers which the Free-soil party in Brooklyn could provide,
+or it may have resulted from the same lack of regularity which killed
+the _Long Islander_. It is not improbable that Whitman wearied of
+the continuous mechanical production demanded by the ownership and
+management of a daily paper. He was not methodical; and his mind was
+struggling with ideas which made him restless in harness, ideas so
+large and fundamental that much of the merely ephemeral detail of
+journalism must have become irritating and irksome. When the _Freeman_
+collapsed it was a bondage broken, and its owner and editor became a
+freeman himself.
+
+His father was some sixty years of age and failing in health, and for
+lack of anything more suited to his state of mind, Walt joined him,
+taking up his business and becoming a master carpenter, building small
+frame-houses in Brooklyn and selling them upon completion as his father
+had been doing these thirty years.
+
+Brooklyn was growing fast, and the Whitmans prospered. Walt lived at
+home and spent little; he was soon on the way to become rich. What was
+more important, he was now the master of his own time; and carpentering
+left his mind free to work entirely in its own way. He was no longer
+being "pushed for copy". When the mood was urgent he could idle; that
+is to say, he could give himself up to his thoughts. He could dream,
+but the saw in his hand and the crisp timber kept him close to reality.
+He was out of doors, too, and among things rather than thoughts, so
+that his ideas were but rarely bookish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet though he was the opposite of bookish he was not ill-read. He
+always carried a volume or part of a magazine in his knapsack with his
+mid-day dinner;[117] and every week for years he had visited Coney
+Island beach to bathe there and to read. He watched the English and
+American reviews, bought second-hand copies whenever they contained
+matter of interest to him, tore out his prize and devoured it with his
+sandwich. He loved especially to read a book in its native elements:
+the _Inferno_[118] in an ancient wood, Homer in a hollow of the rocks
+with the Atlantic surf on either hand, while he saw all the stage-plays
+of Shakespeare upon the boards.
+
+He had always remained faithful to Scott, and especially to the
+Border ballads of his collection, with their innumerable and repaying
+notes. He studied the Bible systematically and deliberately, weighing
+it well and measuring it by the standards of outdoor America in the
+nineteenth century. In the same way and spirit he had read and re-read
+Shakespeare's plays before seeing them, until he could recite extended
+passages; and he had come to very definite conclusions about their
+feudal and aristocratic atmosphere and influence.
+
+He read Æschylus and Sophocles in translations, and felt himself
+nearer to the Greeks than to Shakespeare or the Middle Ages. It is
+interesting to note that he barely mentions Euripides, most modern of
+the Hellenes, the poet of women, and was evidently little acquainted
+with Plato. Surely if he had read _The Republic_ or _The Symposium_
+there could be no uncertainty upon the matter.
+
+But about another poet, as opposed to Plato as any in the category,
+there is no shade of doubt. Whitman, like Goethe and Napoleon, was
+a lover of that shadowy being whom Macpherson exploited with such
+success--Ossian the Celt.[119] Ossian is dead, and for good reasons--we
+can do much better than read Ossian to-day; but with all his mouthings
+and in spite of the pother of his smoke, he is not without a flavour
+of those Irish epics which are among the perfect things of pure
+imagination. And when one thinks of the eighteenth century with
+its town wit, one cannot wonder at the welcome Macpherson's Ossian
+won. Great billowy sea-mists engulf its reader; and through them he
+perceives phantom-forms, which, though they are but the shadows of men,
+are pointed out to him for gods. But at least the sea is there, and the
+wind and an outdoor world. Whitman was not blind to the indefinite and
+misty in Ossian.[120] He himself clung to the concrete, and though he
+could rant he preferred upon the whole to use familiar phrases. But he
+loved Ossian for better, for worse. And we may add as a corollary he
+disliked Milton.[121]
+
+In the case of the foreign classics I have mentioned, and of others
+like Don Quixote, Rousseau, and the stories of the Nibelungen,[122] he
+fell back upon translations, and in works of classical verse, often
+upon prose. He declaimed the _Iliad_ in Pope's heroics, but he studied
+it according to Buckley.[123]
+
+As a journalist and writer for the magazines, he had become more or
+less acquainted with contemporary literature, but, with few exceptions
+only, it seems to have affected him negatively. He knew something of
+Wordsworth, Byron and Keats;[124] the first he said was too much of a
+recluse and too little of a lover of his kind; Byron was a pessimist,
+and in the last of the three he seemed only to find one of the
+over-sensitive products of civilisation and gentility. Tennyson--whose
+"Ulysses" (1842) was a special favourite--interested him from the
+beginning, though Whitman always resented what he called his "feudal"
+atmosphere.[125] It is doubtful whether he had yet read anything of
+Carlyle's, though he would be acquainted with the ideas of _Heroes and
+Hero-Worship_.
+
+Among Americans, he was apparently most familiar with Bryant and with
+Fenimore Cooper. When he first studied Emerson is uncertain; he seems
+to have known him as a lecturer, and could not have been ignorant of
+the general tendencies of his teaching.[126] Longfellow's "Evangeline,"
+Lowell's "Biglow Papers" and Whittier's "Voices of Freedom" were the
+talk of the time. He had met Poe; and his tragic death at Baltimore
+in 1849 may have set him to re-read the brilliant but disappointing
+verses, and profounder criticism, of that ill-starred genius.[127]
+
+But it was from the pages of the Bible, of Homer and of Shakespeare,
+of Ossian and of Scott that he derived most. Ballads he loved when
+they came from the folk; but Blake and Shelley, the purely lyrical
+writers of the new era, do not seem to have touched him; perhaps they
+were hardly virile enough, for when he came to know and appreciate
+Burns, it was as a lyrist who was at once the poet of the people and
+a full-blooded man. From all of which it may be deduced that it was
+the elemental and the virile, rather than the subtle qualities of
+imagination which appealed to him; he responded to breadth and strength
+of movement and of passion, rather than to any kind of formal or
+static beauty. For him, poetry was a passionate movement, the rhythm
+of progress, the march of humanity, the procession of Freedom. It
+was more; it was an abandonment to world-emotions. Where he felt this
+abandonment to inspiration, he recognised poetry, and only there. In
+American literature he did not feel it at all.
+
+When he read poetry, the sea was his favourite companion. The rhythm
+of the waves satisfied the rhythmical needs of his mind. Everything
+that belonged to the sea exercised a spell over him. The first vision
+that made him desire the gift of words was that of a full-rigged
+ship;[128] and the love of ships and shipping remained a passion with
+him to the end; so that when he sought to describe his own very soul
+it was as a ship he figured it. For the embrace of the sea itself, for
+the swimmer's joy,[129] he had the lover's passion of a Swinburne or a
+Meredith.
+
+His reading was not, of course, confined to pure literature, but we
+have no list of the books which he read in other departments. We know
+that he was deeply interested in the problems of philosophy and the
+discoveries of science.
+
+Though never what is called a serious student of their works, he had
+a good understanding of the attitude both of the metaphysicians and
+of the physicists of his time; and he had no quarrel with either. In
+his simple and direct way he came indeed very near to them both; for
+he loved and reverenced concrete fact as he reverenced the concept
+of the cosmos. Individual facts were significant to him because they
+were all details of a Whole, but he loved facts too for their own
+sake. And to the Whole, the cosmos, his soul responded as ardently as
+to the detailed parts. The deeper his knowledge of detail--the closer
+his grasp upon facts--the more intense must be his consciousness of
+the Whole. This consciousness of the Whole illuminated him more fully
+about this date, in a way I will soon recount; it must for some time
+previously have been exercising an influence upon his thought.
+
+Regarding poetry as the rhythmical utterance of emotions which are
+produced in the soul by its relation to the world, he doubtless
+regarded science as the means by which that world becomes concrete,
+diverse and real to the soul, as it becomes one and comprehensible to
+it through philosophy. Science and philosophy seemed alike essential,
+not hostile, to poetry. Poetry is the utterance of an inspired emotion;
+but an emotion inspired by what? By the discovery that the Other and
+the Self are so akin that joy and passion arise from their contact.
+
+In order to conceive of science or philosophy as hostile to poetry,
+we must think of them as building up some barrier between us and the
+world. But in this respect modern science does not threaten poetry, for
+it recognises the homogeneity of a material self with a material world;
+neither does idealism threaten the source of this emotion, regarding
+the self and the world as both essentially ideal.
+
+The aim of modern thought has been, not to isolate the soul, but rather
+to give it back to the world of relations. It seems to me that, in so
+far as Religion has attempted to separate between the Self and things,
+between God and Man, between the soul and the flesh, Religion has cut
+at the roots of poetry; but the Religion which attempted this is not, I
+believe, the religion of the modern world.
+
+Whitman then accepted modern science and philosophy with equanimity,
+in so far as he understood them, and in their own spheres. Apparent
+antagonisms between them did not trouble him. They were for him
+different functions of the one soul. He was too sensible of his own
+identity and unity in himself to share in the perplexity of those who
+lose this sense through the exclusive exercise of one or other of their
+functions. His joint exercise of these proved them to be harmonious. He
+was unconscious of any quarrel in himself between the scientific and
+the poetic, the religious and the philosophic faculties.
+
+Definitions in such large matters must generally seem absurd and almost
+useless, yet here they may be suggestive. If Whitman had formulated
+his thought he might, perhaps, have said: "Science is the Self probing
+into the details of the Not-self; Philosophy is the Self describing the
+Not-self as a Whole; Religion is the attitude of the Self toward the
+Not-self; and Poetry springs from the passionate realisation of the
+homogeneity of the Self with the Not-self".
+
+In such rough and confessedly crude definitions we may suggest, at any
+rate, a theory for his attitude toward the thought of his day. That
+thought, it seems unnecessary to add, was impregnated by the positive
+spirit of science. Names like those of Leibnitz, Lamarck, Goethe, Hegel
+and Comte remind us that the idea of evolution was becoming more and
+more suggestive in every field--soon to be enforced anew, and more
+definitely, by Darwin, Wallace and Spencer. The idea of an indwelling
+and unfolding principle or energy is the special characteristic of
+nineteenth century thought; and it has been accompanied by a new
+reverence for all that participates in the process of becoming. Every
+form of life has its secret, and is worthy of study, for that secret
+is a part of the World's Secret, the Eternal Purpose which affects
+every soul. We are each a part of that progressive purpose which we
+call the universe. But we are each absolutely and utterly distinct and
+individual. Every one has his own secret, his own purpose; in the old
+phrase, it is to his own master that each one standeth or falleth.
+
+Ideas such as these, the affirmations of a new age, were driving the
+remnants of the old faiths and the dogmas of the school of Paley into
+the limbo of the incredible; but they were also casting out the futile
+atheisms and scepticisms of the dead century. The era of Mazzini,
+Browning, Ruskin, Emerson, was an era of affirmations, not an era of
+doubt. And Whitman caught the spirit of his age: eagerly he accepted
+and assimilated it.
+
+His knowledge of modern thought came to him chiefly through the more
+popular channels of periodical literature, and through conversations
+with thoughtful men. Probably the largest and most important part
+of his reading, then and always, was the daily press. A journalist
+himself, he had besides an insatiable craving for living facts, and
+especially for American facts. He wanted to know everything about his
+country. America was his passion: he understood America. Sometimes he
+wondered if he was alone in that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The papers were, indeed, crowded with news of enterprise and adventure.
+In California, the new territory which Frémont and Stockton had taken
+from Mexico, gold was discovered in 1848, and in eighteen months a
+torrent of 50,000 argonauts had poured across the isthmus and over the
+plains, leaving their trail of dead through the awful grey solitude
+of the waterless desert. In the summer of '49 there were five hundred
+vessels lying in San Francisco harbour,[130] where a few years earlier
+a single visitor had been comparatively rare. And at the same hour,
+on the eastern coast, every port was a-clamour with men frantically
+demanding a passage, and the refrain of the pilgrims' song was
+everywhere heard,
+
+    Oh, California, that's the land for me.
+
+There is no indication in Whitman's writings that he was ever swept off
+his feet by this fierce tide of adventure. Anyone who has felt such
+a current setting in among the fluid populations of the West is not
+likely to underestimate its power. Even in the more staid and sober
+East the excitement must have been intense: and it is, at the first
+thought, surprising that Walt, who was still full of youth and strength
+and ambition, should have remained at home. On second thought, however,
+it is clear that gold-seeking was about the last enterprise to entice
+a man who was shortly to relinquish house-building because he was
+accumulating money.
+
+The attraction of the new lands may have been strong when the _Freeman_
+released him, but he had had wandering enough for the present, and the
+attraction of New York itself was at least as strong. Unlike Joaquin
+Miller, who was among the first in each of the new mining camps which
+sprang up along the Pacific slopes during the next fifty years, Whitman
+remained within the circle of New York Bay. He was content to see the
+vessels being built for their long and hazardous voyage, strong to take
+all the buffeting of two oceans--those beautiful Yankee clipper ships
+which have never been rivalled for grace combined with speed. He was
+content to see all the possibilities of that bold frontier life in the
+friendly faces of young men leaning over the bench or driving their
+jolly teams.
+
+He was not one of those who need to go afield in order that their
+sluggish blood may be quickened into daring, or their dull mood be
+thrilled with admiring wonder. Nothing was commonplace to his eyes,
+and he found adventures enough to occupy him in any street. Thus
+while others were framing new governments for new communities, he
+stayed at home and framed new houses for new families of workmen; and
+perhaps after all, in his transcendental fashion, he found his own
+work the more romantic. He had a deeply-rooted prejudice against the
+exceptional; he planned for himself the life of an average American of
+the middle nineteenth century, no longer geographically a frontiersman,
+though more than ever a pioneer in other fields. He would have taken
+his pan and washed for gold in the Sacramento had he wanted; but the
+Brooklyn streets and ferry, Broadway and the faces of New York held
+him. He had not exhausted them yet.
+
+He had, moreover, a strongly conservative instinct, an inclination to
+"stay put," evident in his story from this time forth. He was not a
+nomad, forever striking his tent and moving on; he wanted a settled
+home, and attached himself more than most men to the familiar. He took
+root, like a tree. The secure immobility of his base allowed him to
+stretch his branches far in every direction.
+
+His mind, too, we may be sure, was occupied with its own problems. At
+first, perhaps, as an inner struggle with insurgent and rebel thoughts
+and desires, but now as an effort of the conscious self to include
+and harmonise new elements, and so to lie open to all experience with
+equanimity, refusing none. Such a process of integration in a mind like
+Whitman's requires years of slow growth and brooding consciousness, if
+it is to be fully and finally achieved. And as the integration of his
+character became more and more complete, he won another point of view
+upon all things, and, as it were, saw all things new. It is little
+wonder that we have but scanty record of the years from 1850 to 1855.
+
+In his home-life in Brooklyn he was happy and beloved and able to
+follow his own path without being questioned, or, for that matter,
+understood. He was probably not quite the easiest of men to live
+with.[131] He had his own notions, with which others were not allowed
+to interfere; he never took advice, and was not too considerate of
+domestic arrangements.
+
+As to money, which was never too plentiful in the household, he
+professed and felt a royal indifference, in which, one may suspect, the
+others did not share. The father was somewhat penurious on occasion and
+capable of sharp practice; he had worked hard and incessantly, and had
+known poverty; the youngest son, moreover, would always be dependent
+upon others, and Jesse, the oldest, seems to have displayed little
+ability. One can understand that the father and his second son--who,
+with the largest share of capacity, must have seemed to the old man
+the most given over to profitless whims and to idle pleasures--had not
+always found it easy to live together, and that in the past the mother,
+with her good sense and understanding of them both, had often had to
+mediate between them. In the later years, however, Walt understood his
+father thoroughly and himself better, so that their relationship became
+as happy as it was really affectionate.
+
+His knowledge of the world, his coolness in a crisis, his deliberate
+balancing of the facts, and yet more deliberate and confident
+pronouncing of judgment, made him an oracle to be consulted by his
+family and the neighbours on every occasion of difficulty. The
+sisters and younger brothers were all fond of him; he was more than
+good-natured and kind, and never presumed upon his older years to limit
+their freedom of action or thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The man's kindliness and benignity are admirably suggested in the
+portraits taken in his thirty-sixth year, the earliest that we have.
+One in particular--that chosen for the frontispiece of this book--is
+almost articulate with candour and goodwill. In many respects it is the
+most interesting of the hundred or more portraits extant. Whitman was
+an excellent sitter, especially to the camera. His photographs give
+you a glance of recognition, and rarely wear the abstracted look, the
+stolidity, which is noticeable in several easel pictures.
+
+The daguerrotype of 1854 is the most speaking of the whole series. It
+is an absolutely frank face, by no means the mask which, according to
+the sitter himself, one of the later portraits shows. It is frank,
+and it is kindly, but how much more! The longer one gazes at it the
+more complex its suggestions become. The eyes are not only kind, they
+are the eyes of a mystic, a seer; they are a thought wistful, but
+they are very clear. Like William Blake's, they are eyes that are
+good for the two visions; they see and they are seen through. If, as
+I suppose is probable, something of the expression is due to the fact
+that the photograph was taken on a brilliant summer's day, we can only
+congratulate ourselves that the elements co-operated with the sitter's
+soul.
+
+In striking contrast with the eyes is the good-natured but loose mouth,
+a faun-like expression upon its thick lips, which dismisses at once
+any fancy of the ascetic saint. The nose, too, is thick, strong and
+straight, with large nostrils. Even in the photograph you can feel
+that rich and open texture of the skin which radiates the joy of
+living from every pore.
+
+It is the face, above all, of a man, and the face of a man you would
+choose for a comrade; there would be no fear of his failing or
+misunderstanding you. But, withal, it is the face of a spirit wholly
+untamed, a wood-creature if you will, perhaps the face of Adam himself,
+looking out upon Eden with divine eyes of immortality.
+
+Remember, as you meet his gaze, that he knows the life of cities, and
+that the Fall lies behind him, not before. Perhaps that is why some who
+have looked at it describe it as the "Christ portrait"--for Jesus was
+the second Adam--but this is not the ascetic Christ of the Churches,
+the smile about the lips is too full for that. No, it is the face of a
+man responsive to all the appeals of the senses, a man who drives the
+full team of those wild horses of passion which tear in pieces less
+harmonious souls.
+
+This is a man who saw life whole, and had joy of it. He knew the life
+of the body on every side, save that of sickness, and of the mind
+on every side, save that of fear. His large, friendly, attractive
+personality was always feeding him with the materials of experience,
+and there was nothing in it all which he did not relish. The responses
+of his nature to each object and incident were joyous; for the
+responses of a harmonious nature are musical, whatever be the touch
+that rouses them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A shrewd estimate of Whitman's character had been made five years
+before by a New York phrenologist, and its general accuracy seems
+to have vanquished the incredulity of its subject.[132] Mr. Fowler
+described him--I will translate the jargon of his pseudo-science
+into plain English--as capable of deep friendship and sympathy, with
+tendencies to stubbornness and self-esteem, and a strong feeling for
+the sublime. He thought that Whitman's danger lay in the direction of
+indolence and sensuality, "and a certain reckless swing of animal
+will". At the same time he recognised in him the quality of caution
+largely developed.
+
+As this estimate was subsequently quoted by Whitman with approval, and
+referred to as an authority, it evidently tallied with his reading
+of himself, and while it is by no means remarkable or particularly
+significant, it bears out other testimony. That "reckless swing of
+animal will" always distinguished him from the colourless peripatetic
+brains and cold-blooded collectors of copy so numerous in the hosts of
+journalism. Walt came of a race of slow but passionate men, and when he
+was deeply moved he could be terrible. At such times his wrath blazed
+up and overwhelmed him in its sudden access, but it was as short-lived
+as it was swift.
+
+It is related[133] that once in a Brooklyn church he failed to remove
+his soft broad-brimmed hat, and entered the building with his head
+thus covered, looking for all the world like some Quaker of the olden
+time. The offending article was roughly knocked off by the verger. Walt
+picked it up, twisted it into a sort of scourge, seized the astonished
+official by the collar--he always detested officials--trounced him with
+it, clapped it on his head again, and so, abruptly and coolly, left
+the church. He was a tall, muscular fellow, stood six feet two, and
+was broad in proportion, and could deal effectually with an offensive
+person when he felt that action was called for. Such actions naturally
+added to his popularity among the "boys"--the stage-drivers, firemen
+and others--with whom he was always a favourite. But, as a rule, he
+had no occasion to use his strength in this manner. He never gave,
+and rarely recognised, provocation. There are times, however, when
+persuasion has to give place to more summary demonstrations of purpose.
+
+Of his strength, but especially of his health, he was not a little
+proud. As a lad, the praise that delighted him most was that of his
+well-developed body as he bathed.[134] He did not care to be thought
+handsome; he knew that wholesomeness and health were really more
+attractive, and he was content with his own perfect soundness. He was
+never ailing, even when, in his 'teens, he outgrew for a time his
+natural vigour. In middle life it was his boast that he could not
+remember what it was to be sick. Vanity is so natural in the young
+that when properly based it is probably a virtue, and there can be no
+question that Walt's was well-founded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is something more, however, in the portrait I have been
+describing than the perfection of physical health. It is health raised
+to its highest possibility, which radiates outward from the innermost
+seat of life, potent with the magnetism of personality, through every
+pore and particle of flesh. His health, hitherto unbroken, had been
+deepened into that sense of spiritual well-being which, in its fulness,
+only accompanies the realisation of harmony or wholeness.[135] He had
+undergone some fusing process which ended in unity and illumination.
+
+It is difficult to say anything at all adequate about such an
+experience, because it appears to belong to the highest of the stages
+of consciousness which the race has yet attained; and because there are
+many men and women of the finest intellectual training and the widest
+culture to whom it remains foreign.
+
+The petals of consciousness unfold as it were from within, and every
+stage of unfolding, being symmetrical, appears to be perfect. A further
+evolution is almost inconceivable, but the flower still unfolds. The
+healthy and vigorous personality of the man whose story we are trying
+to read, continued its development a stage further than the general,
+and at an age of from thirty to thirty-five established an exceptional
+relation with the universe.
+
+That exceptional relation is best described as mystical, though the
+word has unhappy and unwholesome associations, which cannot attach to
+the character revealed in the portrait. Whitman was almost aggressively
+cheerful and rudely healthy. But he was not the less a mystic. One
+of the most essentially religious of men, his religion was based upon
+profound personal experience.
+
+The character of mystical experience seems to vary as widely as does
+that of individual mystics, but it has certain common features. It is
+essentially an irruption of some profounder self into the field of
+consciousness; an irruption which is accompanied by a mysterious but
+most authoritative sense of the fulness, power and permanence of this
+new life. Consequent upon this life-enhancement, come joy and ecstasy.
+
+The whole story of the development of consciousness is, as I have
+said, a process of unfoldings; but there is one critical moment of
+that process which occurs sometimes after the attainment of maturity,
+of such infinite significance to the individual that it seems like a
+revolution rather than a mere development in consciousness. It is often
+described as conversion. Whitman's experience was fully as significant
+and wonder-compelling as any; but momentous as it was, its nature
+compelled him to regard it as a further and crowning step in a long
+succession of stairs--a culmination, not a change of direction. With it
+he came to the top of the slope and looked over, on to the summit, and
+beheld the outstretched world. It was no turning round and going the
+other way; it was the rewarding achievement of a long and patient climb.
+
+But the simile of the mountain-side hardly suffices, for this was
+a bursting of constraint--a breaking, as well as a surmounting of
+barriers; as though the accumulating waters in some dark and hidden
+reservoir should so increase in volume that they burst at last through
+their confining walls of rubble and of rock, forcing their way upwards
+in a rush of ecstasy to the universal life and the outer sunshine. This
+outlet of the pent-up floods of emotional experience into another and
+a vaster sphere of consciousness--this outpouring of the soul from its
+confinement in the darkness to the freedom of the light--results from
+the slow accumulation of the stores of life, but it has at last its
+supreme hour, its divine instant of liberation.
+
+In this it has its parallel with the passion of Love. For the inner
+mysteries of religion and of sex are hardly to be separated. They are
+different phases of the one supreme passion of immanent, expanding
+and uniting life; mysterious breakings of barriers, and burstings
+forth; expressions of a power which seems to augment continually with
+the store of the soul's experience in this world of sense; experience
+received and hidden beneath the ground of our consciousness. To feel
+the passion of Love is to discover something of that mystery breaking,
+in its orgasm, through the narrow completeness and separate finality
+of that complacent commonplace, which in our ignorance we build so
+confidently over it, and creating a new life of communion. To feel the
+passion of religion is to discover more.
+
+The relation of the two passions was so evident to Whitman that we
+may believe it was suggested to his mind by his own experience. In
+some lives it would appear that the one passion takes the place of the
+other, so that the ascetics imagine them to be mutually exclusive;
+but this was certainly not Whitman's case. Whitman's mysticism was
+well-rooted in the life of the senses, and hence its indubitable
+reality. We have seen that he had had experience of sex-love, and
+we have found reasons to aver that it was of a noble and honourable
+order; we have seen this experience followed by an acute crisis and its
+determination, or at least its suspension, and change of character.
+
+But in the meantime, the sex-experience had revealed to Whitman the
+dominance in his nature of those profound emotional depths of which
+he had always been dimly conscious since the hours on Long Island
+beach. The whole crisis had made him realise more fully than ever the
+solemnity and mysterious purpose of life. It had not satisfied him: it
+had roused in him many perplexities, and had entailed what was probably
+the first great sacrifice of his life. In a word, this obscure and
+mysterious page in his story prepared him who read it for a further
+emotional revelation, such as I have been describing.
+
+This actually came to him one memorable midsummer morning[136] as he
+lay in the fields breathing the lucid air. For suddenly the meaning of
+his life and of his world shone clear within him, and arising, spread
+an ineffable peace, joy and knowledge all about him. The long process
+of integration was at last completed. He was at one with himself, and
+at peace. It was the new birth of his soul, and properly speaking, the
+commencement of his manhood.
+
+Co-incident with self-realisation came the realisation of the
+universe. He saw and felt that it was all of the same divine stuff as
+the new-born soul within him; that love ran through it purposefully
+from end to end; that thought could not fathom the suggestions which
+the least of things was capable of making to its brother the soul;
+that the very leaves of the grass were inspired with divine spirit
+as truly as the leaves of any Bible. It was as though something far
+larger than that which he had hitherto regarded as himself had now
+become self-conscious in him. He was an enthusiast in the literal
+sense of that mystic word, possessed by a god, filled with the divine
+consciousness. The Spirit is One, and he was in the Spirit. It
+identified him with the things and objects that hitherto had appeared
+external to him, and infinitely increased his sense of their mysterious
+beauty. George Fox's description of his own mystical experience is
+true, upon the whole, of Whitman's. He writes: "Now was I come up in
+spirit through the flaming sword into the Paradise of God. All things
+were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before,
+beyond what words can utter."[137] When one considers the Quaker
+reputation for veracity and caution, one can hardly doubt that these
+wonderful words describe a condition of consciousness similar to that
+of Whitman on the June morning of which we speak.
+
+Fox continues that the nature of things lay so open to him that he was
+at a stand "whether he should practise physic for the good of mankind".
+It was by the subtle sympathy of the Spirit that the first Quaker
+supposed himself to be familiar with the medicinal virtues of herbs,
+and the same sympathy made Whitman feel that he understood the purpose
+of their myriad lives. The wonder of the universal life was revealed to
+them both. They partook of the consciousness which pervades all matter.
+
+To both men illumination brought a double gift of vision, vision into
+the nature of the universal purpose--of the spiritual or deeper side
+of life--and insight into the condition and needs of individuals. But
+in Fox and Whitman this insight, which seems to predominate rather in
+observant than in creative types of genius such as theirs, was less
+prominent than the other vision. They were more largely occupied with
+the universal than with the individual; and while their words carry
+the extraordinarily intimate message of an appeal to the profoundest
+element in each soul, their very universality may have rendered
+them often indifferent to the secondary consciousness or individual
+self of their hearers. And it is observable that neither of them
+evinced anything of that dramatic gift which seems to require the
+predominance of this insight into the secondary self-consciousness. The
+impersonality with which as preacher or poet they made their public
+appeal, must have made them at times somewhat inaccessible in their
+private lives.
+
+Consciousness, it would seem, is of a double nature, being, as it were,
+both personal and impersonal--if we may use these terms of something
+that seems after all to be so wholly personal. And hence it appears
+contradictory to itself, and we are forever trying to harmonise it
+by the sacrifice of one portion to the other. But in reality it is
+one consciousness with two functions: the first for fellowship and
+communion, the second for definition and for concrete achievement.
+
+Whitman developed these two functions harmoniously; he never sacrificed
+his individual self-consciousness to the cosmic. He was just as
+positively Walt Whitman the man, as he was Walt Whitman the organ of
+inspiration. I think we may say that in the midst of that mysterious
+wonder, that extension of himself which took place at the touch of
+God, Whitman's own identity, so far from being lost, was deepened and
+intensified, so that he knew instinctively and beyond a doubt that it
+was in some sense of the word absolute and imperishable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Earlier in this chapter we viewed philosophy as the attempt of the
+Self to apprehend the Not-self as a Whole; Whitman's revelation was,
+it seems to me, the discovery in himself of the sense which does
+so apprehend the universe; not as a hypothetical Whole, but as an
+incarnate purpose, a life with which he was able to hold some kind of
+communion. It was a realisation, not a theory. Whatever this communion
+may have been, it related him to the universe on its spiritual side by
+a bond of actual experience. It related him to the ants and the weeds,
+and it related him more closely still to all men and women the world
+over. The warmth of family affection was extended to all things, as it
+had been in the experience of the Nazarene, and of the little poor man
+of Assisi.
+
+But while his sense of relationship to individuals was thus quickened,
+the quickening power lay in the realisation of God's life, and of his
+own share in it. His realisation of God had come to him through an
+ardent love of individual and concrete things; but now it was that
+realisation which so wonderfully deepened and impassioned his relation
+to individuals. What we mean when we use the word God in public, is
+necessarily somewhat ambiguous and obscure; but when Whitman used it,
+as he did but rarely and always with deliberation, he seems to have
+meant the immanent, conscious Spirit of the Whole.
+
+Theory came second to experience with him, and he was no adept at
+definition: the interest he grew to feel in the Hegelian philosophy
+and in metaphysics resulted from his longing, not to convince himself,
+but to explain himself intelligibly to his fellows, and, in so far as
+it was possible, make plainer to them the meaning of the world and of
+themselves.
+
+It seems desirable to define his position a little further, though we
+find ourselves at once in a dilemma; for at this point it is evident
+that he was both--or neither--a Christian nor a Pagan. He is difficult
+to place, as indeed we must often feel our own selves to be, for whom
+the idea of a suffering God is no more completely satisfying than
+that of Unconscious Impersonal Cosmic Force. Again, while worship was
+a purely personal matter for him, yet the need of fellowship was so
+profound that he strove to create something that may not improperly be
+described as a Church, a world-wide fellowship of comrades, through
+whose devotion the salvation of the world should be accomplished.
+
+In a profound sense, though emphatically not that of the creeds,
+Whitman was Christian, because he believed that the supreme Revelation
+of God is to be sought, not in the external world, but in the soul of
+man; because he held, though not in the orthodox form, the doctrine
+of Incarnation; because he saw in Love, the Divine Law and the Divine
+Liberty; and because it was his passionate desire to give his life to
+the world. In all these things he was Christian, though we can hardly
+call him "a Christian," for in respect of all of these he might also be
+claimed by other world-religions.
+
+As to the Churches, he was not only outside them, but he frankly
+disliked them all, with the exception of the Society of Friends;
+and even this he probably looked upon principally as a memory of
+his childhood, a tradition which conventionality and the action of
+schismatics had gone far to render inoperative in his Nineteenth
+Century America. We may say that he was Unitarian in his view of Jesus;
+but we must add that he regarded humanity as being fully as Divine as
+the orthodox consider Jesus to be; while his full-blooded religion was
+very far from the Unitarianism with which he was acquainted;[138] and
+his faith in humanity exalted the passions to a place from which this
+least emotional of religious bodies is usually the first to exclude
+them. In fact, he took neither an intellectual nor an ascetic view of
+religion. He had the supreme sanity of holiness in its best and most
+wholesome sense; but whenever it seemed to be applied to him in later
+years he properly disclaimed the cognomen of saint, less from humility,
+though he also was humble, than because he knew it to be inapplicable.
+In conventional humility and the other negative virtues, renunciation,
+remorse and self-denial, he saw more evil than good. His message was
+one rather of self-assertion, than of self-surrender. One regretfully
+recognises that, for many critics, this alone will be sufficient to
+place him outside the pale.
+
+Another test would be applied by some, and though it would exclude
+many besides Whitman, we may refer to it in passing. He was apparently
+without the sense of mystical relationship, save that of sympathy, with
+Jesus as a present Saviour-God.[139] But none the less he had communion
+with the Deity whose self-revealing nature is not merely Energy but
+Purpose. And his God was a God not only of perfect and ineffable
+purpose, but of all-permeating Love.[140]
+
+Whether his relation to God can be described as prayer, it is perhaps
+unprofitable to ask. It is better worth while to question whether
+he was conscious of feeding upon "the bread of life," for this
+consciousness is a test of communion. Undoubtedly he was; and the
+nourishment which fed his being came to him as it were through all
+media. The sacrament of wafer and cup is the symbol of that Immanent
+Real Presence which is also recognised in the grace before meat.
+Whitman partook of the sacrament continually, converting all sensation
+into spiritual substance.
+
+The final test of religions, however, is to be found in their fruits,
+and the boast of Christianity is its "passion for souls". Now Whitman
+is among the great examples of this passion, and his book is one long
+"personal appeal" addressed, sometimes almost painfully, "to You".
+
+But, it may be asked, did he aim at "saving souls for Christ"? If I
+understand this very mystical and obscure question, and its ordinary
+use, I must answer, No,--but I am not sure of its meaning. Whitman's
+own salvation urged him to save men and women by the Love of God for
+the glory of manhood and of womanhood and for the service of humanity.
+
+Far as this may be from an affirmative reply to the question, the
+seer who has glimpses of ultimate things will yet recognise Whitman
+as an evangelical. For he brought good tidings in his very face. He
+preached Yourself, as God purposed you, and will help and have you to
+be. Whether this is Paganism or Christianity let us leave the others
+to decide; sure for ourselves, at least, that it is no cold code of
+ethical precepts and impersonal injunctions, but the utterance of a
+personality become radiant, impassioned and procreative by the potency
+of the divine spirit within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In stating thus the nature of Whitman's vision, I do not wish to place
+it too far out of the field of our common experience. His ordinary
+consciousness had been touched by it in earlier hours; and some gleam
+or glimmer of it enters every life as an element of romance. But for
+most of us, only as a light on the waters that passes and is gone, not
+as in Whitman's case, and in the case of many another mystic whether
+Pagan or Christian--for mysticism is far older and more original
+than the creeds--as the inward shining and immortal light which
+henceforward becomes for them synonymous with health and wholeness.
+For most men, the fairy light of childhood becomes a half-forgotten,
+wholly foolish memory; Romance also we outgrow, or cling only to its
+dead corpse as to a pretty sentiment. Thus the wonder of our childhood
+and our youth, so essentially real in itself, fades into the light of
+common day; it becomes for our unbelief a light that never was on sea
+or land.
+
+But in Whitman's story we find it living on, to become transformed in
+manhood into the soul of all reality. His wonder at the world grew
+more. And this wonder, always bringing with it, to the man as to the
+child, a sense of exhilaration and expansion, was at the heart of his
+religion, as it is doubtless at the heart of all. No one will ever
+understand Whitman or his influence upon those who come in contact
+with him, who does not grasp this fact of his unflagging and delighted
+wonder at life. It kept him young to the end. The high-arched brows
+over his eyes are its witness.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[116] Bucke, 25.
+
+[117] J. T. Trowbridge, _My Own Story_. _Cf._ list of articles, etc.,
+in Camden, vol. x.
+
+[118] Later than this, spring, 1859; _cf._ Camden, ix., 92.
+
+[119] Camden, ix., 188; _Comp. Prose_, 184, 185.
+
+[120] Camden, ix., 95.
+
+[121] _Ib._, 98.
+
+[122] _Ib._, 80, 81.
+
+[123] _L. of G._, 441.
+
+[124] Camden, ix., 98, 120.
+
+[125] _Ib._, 123-128; _Comp. Prose_, 487.
+
+[126] Camden, ix., 160; _cf._ Trowbridge.
+
+[127] _L. of G._, 441.
+
+[128] Kennedy, 43.
+
+[129] _Fortnightly Review_, vi., 538.
+
+[130] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 400, 401; C. H. Shinn, _Mining Camps_ (1885),
+132, 133.
+
+[131] _In re_, 33-40.
+
+[132] _In re_, 25 n.
+
+[133] Johnston, 102.
+
+[134] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._
+
+[135] _Comp. Prose_, 502.
+
+[136] _In re_, 342; Camden, iii., 276, 277, 287; Bucke's _Cosmic
+Consciousness_, 33-35; _L. of G._, 32, 33. _Cf._:--
+
+    ... "Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge
+      that pass all the argument of the Earth.
+    And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
+    And I know that the Spirit of God is the brother of my own,
+    And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
+      my sisters and lovers,
+    And that a kelson of the creation is love,
+    And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
+    And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
+    And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein
+      and poke weed."--L. of G., ed. '92.
+
+
+[137] _Fox's Journal_ (ed. 1901), p. 28.
+
+[138] _Comp. Prose_, 322; Camden, v., 280, 281.
+
+[139] _Cf._ however, _infra_, 167.
+
+[140] _Cf. In re_, 368; Camden, ix., 166 (on Hegel).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CARPENTER
+
+
+In the fifties a change came over America, a change preluding the great
+struggle which ensued. The population grew rapidly with its former
+mathematical regularity; but the settlement and development of the
+country went forward even more rapidly. During the decade, the area of
+improved land increased by one-half, and the value of farm property
+was doubled. The west bank of the Mississippi being already settled,
+the future of the lands still further west between the Missouri and
+the Rockies, became of paramount interest to the nation. It was this
+problem of the West which strained until it broke that policy of
+compromise which for a generation had bound American politics.
+
+The year 1850 itself is memorable for Clay's opportunist resolutions
+in Congress, which were intended to settle nothing; and for the fierce
+debates upon them and upon the Fugitive Slave Bill, in which Webster
+and Seward, Calhoun and Jefferson Davis participated.[141] Clay and
+Webster died soon after, and their party being utterly routed at the
+polls in 1852, finally went to pieces. The vote of the liberty party
+had declined, and compromise still held up its foolish head. But the
+victorious Democrats brought all hope of its continuance to an end by
+reviving the principle of "squatter sovereignty," and proceeding to
+apply it in the newly settled lands. It was their policy to snatch
+the question of slavery out of the hands of Congress; for which, as
+the organ of the Federal power, they nursed an increasing enmity.
+The bloody scenes which drew all eyes to Kansas made it plain that
+compromise was done; the South had thrown it over, and was now
+half-consciously driving the country into war.
+
+When the leaders of 1850 died there was no one to take their places,
+though the crisis called for men of counsel and of spirit. President
+Pierce, of New Hampshire, the tool of the party machine, merely
+represented the political weakness of the nation. It was not till
+after the next elections that their new leaders were discovered by the
+American people. Judge Douglas, the champion of "squatter sovereignty,"
+rose indeed into prominence in 1854, but his greater antagonist still
+remained comparatively unknown in the country, though famous in his
+State and among his neighbours for keen logic and humorous common-sense.
+
+There was no leadership. Compromise was yielding not to principle
+but to the spirit of the mob. Immigration and the increase of the
+towns favoured organised political corruption; and the tyranny of
+interests and privileges was beginning to make itself felt on every
+hand. When parties are separated by motives of personal gain rather
+than by principle, party-feeling finds expression not in devotion and
+enthusiasm, but in violence. It was not only in such newly settled
+lands as Kansas, nor alone in such chaotic aggregations of humanity as
+were being piled together in New York, that constitutional methods were
+abandoned and private violence was condoned. The spirit of anarchy was
+abroad, and members of Congress went armed to the Capitol itself.
+
+The violence was a natural reaction from the compromise, and like the
+compromise was a birth of the materialistic spirit. America's idealism,
+so triumphant at the close of the eighteenth century, had fallen upon
+too confident a slumber, and heavily must the Republic pay for that
+sleep. A young nation of idealists is doubtless more subject than
+any other to these outbreaks of materialism and its offspring. It is
+optimistic, and when it sleeps it leaves no dogs on guard. The nation
+becomes engrossed in material tasks, and is presently surprised by the
+enemy. But being so surprised, and fighting thus at disadvantage, it
+accomplishes more than the wary old pessimists whose energy is absorbed
+in prudence.
+
+American idealism was asleep, but its slumbers were by no means
+sound. The voices of Garrison, Emerson and others mingled troublously
+with its dreams. And the pursuit and capture of fugitive slaves like
+Anthony Burns, in Boston itself; and the extraordinary sale, both in
+America and Europe, of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_,[142] did much to quicken
+that Abolitionist sentiment which in the end won the day. For the
+present, however, and until the third year of the war, abolition
+remained outside the region of practical politics. The question
+which was dividing the nation was whether slavery should become a
+national institution--whether it should take its place, as the South
+intended, as one of the essential postulates in the theory of American
+liberty--or should be restrained within its old limits as a State
+institution, an evil which the Federal Government would never recognise
+as necessary to the welfare of America, but which it was too proud and
+too generous to compel its constituent States to abolish. The situation
+was one of unstable equilibrium, and the illogical position could not
+much longer be maintained. It was the logic of ideas that first drove
+the South into secession, and afterwards the nation into abolition.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immigration was now beginning to create a difficult problem in the
+metropolis,[143] and was in part accountable for the corruption which
+from this time forward disfigured its politics. By 1855 New York
+counted more than six hundred thousand inhabitants; a number which in
+itself must inevitably have created many a delicate situation in a new
+country, but which was rendered tenfold more difficult to manage by its
+rapid growth and heterogeneous character. It had doubled in fifteen
+years, and a continuously increasing stream of immigration had poured
+through it.
+
+The first great wave had brought nearly two millions of Europeans,
+principally Germans and Irish, across the Atlantic during the later
+forties. The failure of the Irish potato crop in 1846, the crisis of
+1848, when Europe was swept by revolution and afterwards by reaction,
+sent hundreds of thousands of homeless men across the sea. Many of the
+Germans afterwards took their share in another struggle for freedom
+in their new home; but on the other hand, the more helpless of the
+immigrants, and a large proportion of the Irish, swelled the population
+of New York; and proved themselves quicker to learn the advantages of
+party subserviency than the ethics of citizenship. Many of them had
+been trained in the school of tyranny at home. Thus the city government
+became almost hopelessly corrupt, falling into the hands of the genteel
+and unprincipled Mayor Fernando Wood,[144] and Isaiah Rynders, captain
+of his bodyguard of blackguards. Men of this stamp began to control
+not only the government of New York city, but the national party which
+had its headquarters at Tammany Hall. Whitman was intimate with the
+condition of things there,[145] and knew the men who manipulated the
+machine, and pulled the strings at the nominating conventions. He has
+described those of this period in the most scathing words, and has made
+it clear that they were among the worst of a bad class. They did not
+favour slavery so much as inaction; they longed only for a continuance
+of their own good fortune, desiring to fatten peacefully at the troughs
+of corruption. To men like these, ideals seem to constitute a public
+danger. And the war which broke over America in 1861 was due as much to
+the northern menials of Mammon as to the real followers of Calhoun. It
+was not only against the South that America fought--or rather it was
+not against the South itself at all--but against the hosts of those
+who used her freedom for the accomplishment of an end antagonistic to
+hers.
+
+Evidences of the demoralising influence always present in the life
+of a great city were thus painfully patent in New York, especially
+in the lowest strata, becoming hourly more debased and numerous. The
+plutocracy also began to imitate the showy splendours of Paris under
+the second Empire.[146] But it would be wrong to assume that corruption
+and display characterised the metropolis of the fifties. For in spite
+of the foreign influx, and the venality of a considerable class both of
+native and of foreign birth, and in spite too of the snobs, in spite
+that is to say of the appearance of two dangerous elements, the very
+poor and the very rich, there was still predominant in New York a frank
+and hearty democratic feeling. The mass of the people still embodied
+much of the true American genius; they were marked by the friendly,
+independent and unconventional carriage which is still upon the whole
+typical of the West.
+
+New York was full of large democratic types of manhood. Notable, even
+among these, was Walt Whitman. Even here, he was unlike other men: the
+fulness of his spirits, his robust individuality, the generosity of his
+whole nature, was so exceptional as to make itself felt. His figure
+began to grow familiar to all kinds of New Yorkers during these years.
+He was frequently to be seen on Broadway,[147] in his favourite coign
+of vantage, on the stage-top by the driver's side, a great, red-faced
+fellow, in a soft beaver, with clothes of his own choosing, an open
+collar like that of Byron or Jean Paul, and a grey beard. The dress
+suited him, he was plainly at home in it, and in those days it was
+not specially remarkable or odd; it was the man himself who compelled
+attention.
+
+On many a holiday through 1853 he might also have been seen at the
+International Exhibition or World's Fair,[148] which was held in the
+Crystal Palace on Sixth Avenue and Fortieth Street, and offered a
+remarkable object lesson to the people of New York on the development
+of American resources and the value of that national unity which
+railroads and machinery were yearly making more actual. Here America
+was seen in all her own natural promise, and also in her relation to
+the Transatlantic world.
+
+It was one of those sights which Whitman dearly loved. The Exhibition
+taught him far more than books about the country in which he lived;
+for his mind was like a child's in its responsiveness to concrete
+illustrations--a quality which may explain the long strings of nouns
+which figure so oddly on many a page which he afterwards wrote. He
+loved a medley of things, each one significant and delightful in
+itself. A catalogue was for him a sort of elemental poem; and being
+elemental, he sought to introduce the catalogue into literature. We who
+live in another and more ordered world, rarely respond to this kind of
+emotional stimulus, which was doubtless very powerful for Whitman, and
+cannot but laugh at his attempts to move us by a chatter of names. It
+may be we are wrong, and that another age will smile at us in our turn,
+though at present we remain incredulous.
+
+Here, too, he studied such examples as he found of statuary and
+painting, arts of which he must hitherto have been largely ignorant. It
+is only very old or very wealthy cities that become treasuries of the
+plastic arts, and at this time New York was not yet sufficiently rich,
+or perhaps sufficiently travelled, to have accumulated this kind of
+wealth. Whitman was not blind to painting, like Carlyle, for in later
+years he so appreciated the genius of J. F. Millet that he used to say,
+"the man that knows his Millet needs no creed".[149]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a varied experience as teacher, printer, journalist and editor,
+Whitman had settled into the life of an American artisan. He had
+inherited much of the Dutch realism, the love of things and of the
+making of things, from his mother's side; while on his father's, the
+associations with mallet and chisel had been strong from his childhood;
+and thus his trade helped him to gather together the fragments of his
+identity and weld them into one. As he was never in any sense its
+slave, it also provided him with the means for that constant leisurely
+study of life which was now his real occupation. When a house was
+off his hands and the money for it assured, he would take a holiday,
+extending sometimes over weeks together, in the remote parts of Long
+Island.[150] The open spaces helped his mood, and the quietness
+furthered the slow processes of self-realisation.
+
+While at Brooklyn, he was every day on the ferry, and almost every
+evening he was in New York. He read during his dinner hour, and thought
+and meditated while he worked. The physical exercise quieted his brain.
+Taken earlier, it might have deadened it; but he was now a mature man
+full of thoughts, and well furnished with experience. What he needed
+was to assimilate all this material and make it his own. And while
+he built houses, the co-ordinating principle of his personality was
+building up for him a harmonious self-consciousness, which gradually
+filled out the large and wholesome body of the man. This gestating
+process required precisely the deliberation and open-air accompaniments
+which were afforded by his present life--a life so different from the
+confinement and incessant strain and stress which check all processes
+of conscious development in most men and women before they reach
+maturity. His nature was emotional, and music played a considerable
+part in its development. Always an assiduous opera-goer, Whitman took
+full advantage of the musical opportunities which New York offered him
+at this time. In 1850, Barnum had brought Jenny Lind to the Castle
+Gardens--now the Aquarium--a fashionable resort on the Battery, and
+Maretzek of the Astor Opera House, had replied with Parodi, and Bettini
+the great tenor.[151]
+
+Best of all, in 1853, Marietta Alboni visited the city, and Whitman
+heard her every night of her engagement.[152] This great singer, whose
+voice was then in the plenitude of its power, had been some twelve
+years before the public and was already beginning to attain those
+physical proportions suggested in the cruel but witty saying that
+she resembled an elephant which had swallowed a nightingale. She was
+low-browed and of a somewhat heavy face, though Whitman thought her
+handsome; but it was by her voice, not her face, that she triumphed.
+Critics found her talent exceptionally impersonal and even cold, though
+they confessed that never voice was more enchanting.[153] This coldness
+is rather difficult to understand, for Whitman, who was a judge in such
+matters, felt it to be full of passion, and a passion which swept him
+away in the Titanic whirlwind of its power.[154] He had found Jenny
+Lind somewhat immature and her voice unrewarding, but Alboni awakened
+and illumined his very soul, and became, as it were, the incarnation of
+music.
+
+The same summer[155] Walt took his father, whose health was failing, on
+a visit to Huntington, to see the old home for a last time. Two years
+later, Walter Whitman died and was buried in Brooklyn.
+
+The family seems to have been living in Ryerton Street,[156] in a house
+which was the last building on that side of the town. Beside Walt,
+there were three unmarried brothers at home, George and Jeff as well as
+Edward; and Hannah, Walt's favourite sister. We hear little of Jesse,
+the oldest brother, who appears to have been a labourer, of Andrew, or
+of the remaining sister Mary. Probably they were all married by this
+time and living away.
+
+The three at home were the ablest of the brothers, and doubtless
+they shared the financial responsibility between them. The Portland
+Avenue house, into which they presently moved, bears witness to their
+comfortable circumstances. Walt contributed his share with his
+brothers; beyond that he seemed indifferent about money; he hardly ever
+spoke of it, and perhaps by way of contrast with the others, evidently
+regarded the subject as of minor importance. Indeed, just as his own
+work had really grown profitable and he was on the way to become rich,
+he gave up carpentering for good. This was early in 1855.
+
+Of late he had been more and more absorbed and pre-occupied; his days
+off had been more frequent and numerous, and whatever his immediate
+occupation he was continually stopping to write. He seemed to grow
+daily more indifferent to opinion, daily more markedly himself.
+
+The fragments which he wrote in out-of-the-way places or at work he
+would read aloud or recite when by himself, to the waves or to the
+trees; trying them over at the opera, on the ferry, or on Broadway,
+where in the midst of the city one can be so unobserved and so unheard
+in the heart of its hubbub. He must assure himself that they were
+without a hint of unreality or of books.
+
+For he was now deliberately at work upon his great task, his child's
+fancy. He was come up into his manhood. He had, it seemed to him,
+thoroughly perceived and absorbed the spirit of America and of his
+time. His message had come to him, and he was writing his prophetic
+book, his _Song of Walt Whitman_.
+
+At last, the manuscript was done, and in the early summer he went to
+work in a little printing shop on Cranberry Street, and set up much,
+perhaps the whole, of the type jealously with his own hands.[157] About
+the beginning of July, and a few days only before his father's death,
+it was completed. In the _New York Tribune_ for the sixth of the month,
+it was advertised as being on sale at Fowler & Wells's Phrenological
+Depôt and Bookstore on Broadway, and at Swayne's in Fulton Street,
+Brooklyn. The price was at first two dollars, which seems a little
+exorbitant for so slender and unpretending a volume, in shape and
+thickness a mere single copy of one of the smaller periodicals, bound
+in sea-green cloth, with the odd name, _Leaves of Grass_, in fanciful
+gilt lettering across its face. It was presently reduced to a dollar.
+
+The other members of the household took the new venture very quietly.
+They had never been consulted in the matter--it had been Walt's affair,
+and only his; and the father's death must speedily have obliterated the
+little mark it made upon their minds.[158] "Hiawatha" was published
+about the same time, and a copy found its way into the house. The
+mother, turning the pages of both, considered that if Longfellow's
+were acknowledged as poetry, Walt's queer lines might pass muster too.
+Brother George fingered the book a little, and concluded it was not
+worth reading--that it was not in his line anyhow.
+
+Doubtless they were relieved when the writing and printing were done,
+thinking that now surely Walt would return to the ways of mortals. For
+he had certainly fallen into the most irregular habits. He lay late
+abed, and came down still later to breakfast; wrote for a few hours,
+and when the table was being laid for dinner, took down his big hat
+and sauntered out, to return presently after the meal was over and the
+dishes cold.[159] He was not intentionally inconsiderate, but he was
+wholly engrossed in his work, and so pre-occupied that he must often
+have been tiresome enough.
+
+After dinner he disappeared altogether, spending the afternoon and
+evening in his own leisurely way; setting type, perhaps, on his book at
+Andrew Rome's little office, and then going off to the opera or to some
+friend's; and, as he came back, staying far into the night in talk with
+the young fellows on the ferry, or on one of the East River steamers.
+Sometimes Hannah or Jeff might accompany him, but as a rule he went
+alone.
+
+If his family anticipated any change in his ways when the book was
+out, they were doomed to disappointment. The new task was but begun;
+the methods approved themselves to his mind and were pursued. He had
+weighed everything over again that summer, as soon as the book was out,
+going away to the eastern shore of Long Island for months of thought
+and solitude.[160]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As one turns the ninety broad pages of the volume, with their large
+type, their long flowing lines, their odd punctuation and occasional
+slips in orthography, every detail telling of the individuality behind
+it, one feels a little of what it must have meant to its maker. Five
+times, they say,[161] he wrote and re-wrote, made and un-made it, and
+looking back it seemed as though for seven years it had been struggling
+with him for utterance.
+
+He had written tales and verses with the others, but this book he knew
+was different from them all. It was not so much his writing as himself.
+It was a man, and, withal, a new sort of man. For better or worse it
+was Walt Whitman, a figure familiar enough to the common people of
+Brooklyn and New York, familiar and beloved--he was not unconscious of
+his exceptional power of attraction[162]--but a Walt Whitman whom, as
+yet, they understood very little, who had, indeed, but recently come to
+an understanding of himself, and who was now approaching to speak with
+them. Here is the frank declaration of himself, which he proffers to
+all. Now, at last, we shall understand one another, he seems to say.
+
+It was the old, old need for expression, the ultimate and deepest
+necessity of man, which urged him to his task and made its publication
+possible. Self-revelation is, of course, continuous and inevitable
+upon its unconscious side. It is only when it becomes a deliberate act
+that it astonishes the beholder to outcries of admiration or indignant
+horror.
+
+Now the passion that overwhelms the poet is near akin to the lover's,
+for he is a lover whose heart is transfigured by the presence of
+Beauty, the Beloved, immanent in his world. And only by a naked avowal
+can such passion be satisfied.
+
+There are those, of course, who regard every self-revelation as an
+immodesty, and who will and do avert their eyes from all passion,
+crying shame. But some at least of the others, who are well aware of
+the weakness of words, and know how few can use them perfectly, will
+reverently approach such a confession as Whitman's; not, indeed, as if
+it were that of a young girl, but as that of a man, naïve, yet virile,
+and of heroic sanity. And if they feel any shame they will frankly
+acknowledge it to be their own.
+
+There is a kind of egoism which all self-revelation pre-supposes--the
+consciousness of possessing something supremely worthy of giving. This
+glorious pride is not incompatible with the profoundest humility, for
+it is divine, like the "I am" of Jehovah, the egoism of God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If self-expression is the outcome of passion, its new incarnation has
+some of the wonder which attends a birth. The most virile of poets
+must here become as a woman; and the mystery which, for any mother,
+enwraps her first-born, clings for his Muse about her slender child
+by the great god of song. And when, as in the instance of this book
+of Whitman's, the children of the Muse betray in every feature the
+abandonment of the remote passion in which they were conceived, one
+cannot oneself handle them without emotion.
+
+Walt regarded the book with undisguised pride and satisfaction.
+Mother-like, he eyed it as the future saviour of men. He saw it
+prophetic and large with destiny for America. He was confident that the
+public would be quick to recognise that quality in it for which they
+had been so long half-consciously waiting. The people would read it
+with a new delight, for surely it must be dynamic with the joy in which
+it was written.
+
+He often said in later years that _Leaves of Grass_ was an attempt to
+put a happy man into literature.[163] Others may discuss the optimism
+and the egoism of his pages, for of both qualities there is plenty in
+them, but, after all, they are but secondary there. As to the qualities
+themselves, we may hold contrary and even disparaging opinions of their
+value, they will certainly at times repel us. But primarily these pages
+portray the happy man, and a strong and happy personality has the
+divine gift of attraction. Byron may dominate the whole of Europe for a
+generation by the dark Satanic splendour of his pride; Carlyle may hold
+us still by his fierce, lean passion for sincerity; but Whitman draws
+us by the outshining of his joy.
+
+Happiness is not less infectious than melancholy or zeal; and if it
+is genuine it is at least equally beyond price. As far as it goes, it
+seems to indicate that a man may be perfectly adjusted to this world
+of circumstances, which to us appears so often contrary. A happy and
+intelligent man of thirty-six, who has looked at life open-eyed, and
+is neither handsome, rich nor famous is worthy of attention. There is
+something half-divine about him; and we cannot but hope he may prove to
+be prophetic of the race.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some such thought must have been in Emerson's mind, when a few days
+after the perusal of _Leaves of Grass_, he wrote his acknowledgment
+to its unknown author.[164] The letter has been often quoted, but it
+is so significant that I must quote it again. For no other literary
+acknowledgment ever accorded to Whitman possesses anything like equal
+interest or importance.
+
+Emerson was certainly the most notable force among American writers
+at that time; and one might add, the only figure of anything like the
+first magnitude. In Great Britain, the century had already produced the
+literature which we associate with the names of Wordsworth, Coleridge,
+Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats and Carlyle, not to mention the earlier
+work of Tennyson, Browning and others. Emerson was the only American
+who could venture to claim rank with these, and then hardly equal
+literary rank. But in some respects his influence was greater, for
+his was certainly the clearest and fullest expression of the American
+spirit in letters. His words are therefore of importance to us:--
+
+
+
+                              "CONCORD, MASS'TTS, _21st July, 1855_.
+
+  "DEAR SIR,--I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of
+  _Leaves of Grass_. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and
+  wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading
+  it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always
+  making of what seems the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much
+  handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our
+  Western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free and brave
+  thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said
+  incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment
+  that so delights us and which large perception only can inspire.
+
+  "I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have
+  had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a
+  little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense
+  of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of
+  fortifying and encouraging.
+
+  "I did not know until I last night saw the book advertised in a
+  newspaper that I could trust the name as real and available for a
+  post office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like
+  striking my tasks and visiting New York to pay you my respects.
+
+                                        R. W. EMERSON.
+
+  "Mr. WALTER WHITMAN."
+
+[Illustration: R. W. EMERSON]
+
+The epigrammatic style of the sentences, together with a strong
+flavour of sentiment, may set the reader in his turn rubbing his
+eyes, and wondering whether Emerson were consciously inditing a mere
+complimentary letter. But a second perusal renders such an idea
+untenable. The epigram and the sentiment were parts of the Emersonian
+mannerism. The letter was not penned in hot haste, after a first
+glance at the pages; a delay had taken place between reading and
+writing. Moreover, when about this time a visitor called at Concord,
+he was sent on his way to Brooklyn as upon a pilgrimage, with the
+significant words, "Americans abroad may now come home: unto us a man
+is born".[165] Another epigram, uttered perhaps with a gentle smile,
+but without a flavour of irony.
+
+Emerson was then a man of fifty-two. The first and second series of
+his lecture-essays had been published more than ten years, and the
+first volume of his poems in 1847; he was already famous in England as
+well as in America. But though he was in certain quarters the cynosure
+of admiration, in others he was the butt of ridicule. This same year
+the London _Athenæum_ praised Irving because, as it said, his fancies
+were ideal, and not like Emerson's merely typographical--because they
+did not consist, like the latter's, in the use of verbs for nouns, in
+erratic punctuation, tumid epithets, which were startling rather than
+apposite, or in foreign forms and idioms.[166]
+
+This though milder, is not unlike what many of the critics were soon
+to be saying with better reason of Whitman; and it is interesting
+to recall that in 1839, when he was Whitman's age, Emerson was
+struggling to escape from the limits of metre into a rhythm that should
+suggest the wildest freedom; that should be "firm as the tread of a
+horse,"[167] vindicate itself like the stroke of a bell, and knock
+at prose and dulness like a cannon ball; a rhythm which should be in
+itself a renewing of creation, because it was the form of a living
+spirit. In later years, Emerson seems to have harked back again to
+the more regular forms, believing them to correspond to essential
+pulse-beats, or organic rhythm. But his journal contains several
+little prose poems of the date of 1855 or 1856, notably the sketch of
+the "Two Rivers," outlined partly in loose irregular metres.
+
+This search of the Concord prophet after a new free rhythmical form,
+must have predisposed him to interest in such a book as _Leaves of
+Grass_, where the laws of metre are in force no longer. But beyond
+this, the older man felt a close kinship with the younger. Whitman
+had declared himself unequivocally for the faith in life which was
+Emerson's gospel; and he smacked of the soil and air of America in
+a way that Emerson could not but love. Here at last was an actual
+incarnation of the ideas he had so long been hurling at the heads of
+the American people.
+
+A beautiful and characteristic modesty is evident in the tone of the
+letter. Emerson might well have acknowledged the younger man as a pupil
+rather than as a benefactor; it was the same quality as had appeared in
+his reply to Frederika Bremer, when, five years earlier, she had been
+praising his own verses: "The Poet of America," he answered gravely,
+"is not yet come. When he comes he will sing quite differently."
+
+The idea of an American poet was "in the air". Intellectual America was
+in revolt; she would remain no longer a mere province of Britain; her
+writers should shape themselves no more upon merely English models.
+Lowell in his "Biglow Papers" and Longfellow in "Hiawatha" were among
+many who sought to exploit the literary soil of the New World. Whatever
+their success in this, they can hardly be said to have inaugurated a
+new literature. No American Muse had yet appeared upon the Heights of
+Helicon to spread a new hush over the world, and by her singing raise
+the place of song perilously near to the stars. But though she had not
+appeared she was eagerly expected; and Emerson's letter is like nothing
+so much as the heralding cry that he had at last caught a glimpse of
+her across Whitman's pages. It was but a glimpse, and he was yet in
+doubt; he must come to Brooklyn himself, must meet this fellow face to
+face, and see.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[141] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 417, 418.
+
+[142] _Comb. Mod. Hist._, 440.
+
+[143] _Ib._, 701.
+
+[144] Roosevelt, 195.
+
+[145] _Comp. Prose_, 217.
+
+[146] Roosevelt, 199.
+
+[147] Burroughs (_a_), 24, 25.
+
+[148] Bucke, 25.
+
+[149] MSS. Traubel.
+
+[150] Bucke, 24.
+
+[151] _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iv., 178.
+
+[152] _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iv., 179; _cf._ _Saturday Rev._, 30th June,
+1894.
+
+[153] G. Bousquet, _Nouvelle Biog. Générale_.
+
+[154] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[155] Bucke, 157.
+
+[156] M. D. Conway, _Autobiography_, vol. i.
+
+[157] Bucke, 24; Johnston, 42, 43.
+
+[158] _In re_, 35, 36.
+
+[159] _In re_, 36.
+
+[160] Bucke, 26.
+
+[161] _Ib._, 137.
+
+[162] _L. of G._, 322.
+
+[163] _L. of G._, 443.
+
+[164] Kennedy, 74, 75 n.; Dr. Platt's _Walt Whitman_, 27, 28, etc.
+
+[165] Burroughs (_a_), 50.
+
+[166] 17th Feb., 1855, qu. in _Alibone_.
+
+[167] _Emerson in Concord_, 227-233.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WHITMAN'S MANIFESTO
+
+
+It is time that we ourselves took a view of the book, for we must see
+what Whitman had actually done during these last months, and gather
+what further indications we may as to his general notions of himself
+and of the world.
+
+The volume consists of a long preface or manifesto[168] of the New
+Poetry, and of twelve poems by way of example. The preface commences
+with a description of America, the greatest of poems, the largest and
+most stirring of all the doings of men. "Here is action untied from
+strings, necessarily blind to particulars and details, magnificently
+moving in masses!" Here is a nation, hospitable, spacious, prolific; a
+nation whose common people is a larger race than hitherto, demanding a
+larger poetry.
+
+He describes the American poet, who is coming to awaken men from their
+nightmare of shame to his own faith and joy. That poet is the lover of
+the universe, who beholds with sure and mystic sight the perfection
+that underlies all imperfection, for he sees the Whole of things. Past
+and future are present to him; and with them is the eternal soul. "The
+greatest poet does not moralise or make applications of morals--he
+knows the soul." His readers become loving, generous, democratic,
+proud, sociable, healthy, by beholding in his poems the beauty of these
+qualities.
+
+"Seer as he is, the poet," continues Whitman, "is no dreamer. He sees
+and creates actual forms.... To speak in literature with the perfect
+rectitude and insouciance of animals, and the unimpeachableness of
+the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the
+flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him who has achieved it,
+you have looked on one of the masters of the artists of all nations and
+times. You shall not contemplate the flight of the grey gull over the
+bay, or the mettlesome action of the blood horse, or the tall leaning
+of sunflowers on their stalk, or the appearance of the sun journeying
+through heaven, or the appearance of the moon afterward, with any more
+satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The great poet has less a
+marked style, and is more the channel of thoughts and things without
+increase or diminution, and is the free channel of himself. He swears
+to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any
+elegance or effect, or originality, to hang in the way between me and
+the rest like curtains.... I will have purposes as health or heat or
+snow has, and be as regardless of observation.... You shall stand by my
+side and look in the mirror with me."[169]
+
+His words never pose before the reader for ornament, they are living
+things. And for this very reason, he follows no models; his thought
+is living and original; it must find a new form for its perfect
+expression, as a new seed would find new growth and leafage.
+
+The poet appeals to every reader as to an equal, because in every
+reader he appeals to the Supreme Soul. Many may not hear him, but he
+appeals to all, and not to a coterie.
+
+Whitman then proceeds to the praise of science. Knowledge, bringing
+back the mind from the supernatural to the actual, brings faith with
+it; and the soul is the divinest thing that science discovers in the
+universe. He turns to philosophy, and bids her deal candidly with
+whatsoever is real, recognise the eternal tendency of all things
+toward happiness, and cease to describe God as contending against some
+other principle.
+
+The poet deals with truth and with the actual. All else is but a sham
+and impotent. For everywhere and always, the soul which is the one
+permanent reality, loves truth and responds to it.
+
+The poet is by nature prudent, as one who knows the real purpose of
+the soul and of the universe, and would act in accordance with that
+knowledge. He accepts the impulses of the soul as the only final
+arguments; and only the deeds which it dictates appear to him to be
+profitable. Living in his age, and becoming its embodiment, he is
+therewithal a citizen of eternity. The future shall be his proof: will
+his song remain at her heart? Will it awaken, century after century,
+the divine unrest, and as it were, create new souls forever?
+
+As for the priests and their work, they are done. The American poets
+shall fill their place, and the whole world shall answer to their
+message. Their words shall be in the English tongue--the language of
+"all who aspire"--but they shall be the very words of the people of
+America; they shall be native to the soil, and redolent of the air of
+the Republic. Such poets shall be America's own, and in them she will
+welcome her most illustrious visitors. They are her equals; for the
+soul of a man is as supreme as the soul of a nation. And America shall
+absorb them as affectionately as they have absorbed her.
+
+Such is the gist of Whitman's manifesto. Nature the Soul and Freedom;
+Simplicity and Originality of Expression--these, its dominant notes,
+recall at once Rousseau, Wordsworth and Shelley, with many another;
+while certain passages remind the reader that _The Germ_ was but
+recently published across the sea, the manifesto of another movement
+associated with the names of the Rossetti family and with the
+Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. But whatever the reminiscences it awakens,
+Whitman's preface is his own. The thoughts were not all originally his.
+But they had shaped themselves newly in his brain and under his pen,
+and every line bears the stamp of originality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Without staying to discuss the preface let us proceed to a rapid survey
+of the remaining pages. They are written, it would seem, for measured
+declamation, in a sort of free chant, which is neither prose nor verse,
+but whose lines coincide in length with natural pauses in the thought.
+Whitman himself spoke very deliberately, in a half drawl; he had a
+melodious baritone voice of considerable range and power, and one can
+well imagine how he would recite, when alone or with some intimate
+friend, the first lines, beginning:--
+
+    I celebrate myself,
+    And what I assume you shall assume,
+    For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
+    I loafe and invite my soul,
+    I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.[170]
+
+The lines are quite simple and direct; they are intended to place
+the reader at once in relation with the actual idler who recites
+them in the summer fields. He is an out-of-doors fellow, who lives
+whole-heartedly in the present, rejoicing in the world and observing
+it. He and his soul--he distinguishes decisively between the temporal
+and the eternal elements in himself whose equal balance, neither
+abdicating its place nor contesting that of the other, makes the
+harmony of his life--he and his soul commune together, and discover
+that the world means Love, and that the very grass is full of
+suggestions of immortality.
+
+Everything indeed has its word for Walt Whitman; he understands what
+the streets are unconsciously saying; the animals of the country-side,
+the working men, the youths and the women, each and all are teaching
+him something of himself. All life appeals to him; he recognises
+himself in each of its myriad forms. And his thoughts are the
+half-conscious thoughts which lie in the minds of all. It is not only
+the happy and prosperous whom he represents, but the defeated also,
+and the outcast.
+
+All things have their mystical meanings; but especially are manhood and
+womanhood divine. There is nothing more divine than they. As for him,
+he is proud, satisfied, august. He has no sympathy with whimperings,
+or conformity to the ideas of others. Is not he himself the fellow and
+equal of the supreme Beings, of the Night, the Earth, and the Sea?
+
+He has faith in the issue of time; he fully accepts all reality as a
+part of the whole purpose. He at least will be fearless and frank, and
+conceal nothing; all desires shall be expressed by him.
+
+And to him all the bodily functions are wonderful. His whole life
+is a wonder and delight, beyond the power of words to utter. Sounds
+especially he enjoys; alluding to the passionate emotions aroused
+in him by the opera, and adding an obscure, erotic dithyramb on the
+ecstasy of touch, the proof of reality, for we understand everything
+through touch.
+
+Everything is seen by him to be full of meaning, because he himself
+is a microcosm and summary of the universe "stuccoed with quadrupeds
+and birds all over". He feels so vividly his personal kinship with the
+animals which are never pre-occupied about religion or property, that
+he thinks he must have passed through their present experience "huge
+times ago," to include it now in his own.[171] Forthwith, he strings
+together in a rapid succession of dazzling miniatures, some of the
+contents of his personal memory; pictures out of his experience or his
+imagination, that remain vivid and significant to him. His sympathy
+makes them actually real to him; the figures in them are each a part of
+himself. "I am the man," he cries, "I suffered, I was there."[172]
+
+But he has his own distinct personality. He is the friendly and flowing
+savage, full of magnetism, health and power--
+
+    Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,
+    They desire he should like them, and touch them, and speak to them,
+      and stay with them.
+
+    Behaviour lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncombed
+      head, and laughter, and naïveté,
+    Slow-stepping feet, and the common features, and the common modes
+      and emanations....
+
+He sees the divine that is in men, and how all the gods are latent in
+the race, and with them ever more besides. Even in the midst of their
+absurd littleness, which he fully recognises, he calls men to the
+reality of themselves, away from the religions of the priests to their
+own souls. He understands doubt very well, but he has faith, faith in
+an ultimate happiness for each and all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He endeavours to express his sense of eternity, and of the friendliness
+of the world to him:--
+
+    Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,
+    Afar down I see the huge first Nothing--the vapour from the
+      Nostrils of Death--I know I was even there,
+    I waited unseen and always, and slept while God carried me through
+      the lethargic mist,
+    And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.
+
+    Long I was hugged close--long and long.
+
+    Immense have been the preparations for me,
+    Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.
+
+    Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,
+    For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
+    They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
+
+    Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me,
+    My embryo has never been torpid--nothing could overlay it.
+
+    For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
+    The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
+    Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
+    Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths, and deposited it
+      with care.
+
+    All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me,
+    Now I stand on this spot with my Soul.[173]
+
+Thus it seems to him that he has existed potentially from the beginning;
+that all the ages in succession have cared for him, and that now the
+whole world is full of his kin and lovers. He beholds the universe
+as gloriously infinite in its assured purpose: God has appointed a
+meeting-place where He waits for every soul. The way of the soul is
+eternal progress, and each one must follow that road. My pupils, he
+exclaims, shall become masters and excel me! They shall be wholesome,
+hearty, natural fellows, attracted to me because I neither write for
+money nor indoors.[174]
+
+My religion is the worship of the soul. I am calm and composed, and
+satisfied about God, whom I do not in the least understand. Death
+and decay seem wholesome to him; they are the way of life by which
+he himself came to the present hour, wherein he realises the mystic
+reality, the life eternal, and the ineffable idea of happiness as the
+central purpose of the Universe:--
+
+    Do you see, O my brothers and sisters?
+    It is not chaos or death--it is form, union, plan--it is eternal
+      life, it is happiness.[175]
+
+With an enigmatical farewell, he resumes his place in the life of the
+world, awaiting such of his readers as belong to him:--
+
+    You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
+    But I shall be good health to you, nevertheless,
+    And filter and fibre your blood.
+
+    Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
+    Missing me one place, search another,
+    I stop somewhere waiting for you.[176]
+
+The other poems are pendants to the first, offering further
+exemplifications of the precepts of the preface. He appeals, for
+example,[177] to his fellow workmen and workwomen, that they realise
+their own greatness and immortality, their own individual destiny; for
+nothing can ever be so worthy of their reverence as their own soul.
+
+He bids them employ and enjoy this hour to the full,[178] for death
+comes, and it will not be the same as life. Yet death also will be good
+to the soul--all the signs assure the soul that it will be satisfied;
+and there is nothing which does not share in the soul-life.
+
+In dreams[179] he recognises some free utterances of the soul, and in
+sleep, the great equaliser of men. As he watches them asleep all become
+beautiful to him with the beauty of the soul, which men also call
+Heaven. Diseased or vile they may be, but their souls forever urge them
+along the appointed way towards the goal. He seems to see all souls
+meeting together in sleep, mysteriously to circle the earth, hand in
+hand. He entrusts himself to sleep with the same security as to Death
+and Birth.
+
+At the sight and touch of the human body,[180] he kindles with the
+delight of a Renaissance painter, a Botticelli or a Michael Angelo. The
+very soul loves the flesh, and the contact of flesh with flesh rejoices
+it. He writes of the magic force of attraction embodied in a woman; nor
+of attraction only, but of emancipation. He extols the strength and
+joy which is embodied in a man. The body of every man and woman, says
+he, should be as sacred to you as your own, for the body is almost the
+soul, and to desecrate the bodies of the dead is a little thing beside
+the shame that we put upon the bodies of the living.
+
+    If life and the soul are sacred, the human body is sacred,
+    And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of manhood untainted,
+    And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred body,
+    Is beautiful as the most beautiful face.[181]
+
+He fills a page[182] with quick Hogarthian sketches of the lower types
+of faces, and then, turning about, acclaims the souls behind them as
+his equals. They too will duly come to themselves, following towards
+the light, after the Lord.
+
+He loves thus to enlarge upon the poet's office as the Answerer[183]
+or sympathiser with all men, and how he should be welcome and familiar
+to each. In the poet's company, the soul of each one quickens. And yet
+the poet is no greater than the least; his verses are not nobler than
+the kindly deed of any poor old woman.
+
+He writes of 1848, the year of Revolutions,[184] somewhat in the style
+of "Blood Money," and probably this page is one of the earliest of
+the fragments, and may date back to the year which it celebrates. In
+spite of the successes of tyranny, and the failures of the young men of
+Europe, he sees that Liberty herself is never foiled.
+
+By way of sharp contrast[185] he directs a mocking and colloquial page
+of satire against the 'cute Bostonians of 1854. Whitman's dislike of
+Boston is never for a moment concealed; Jonathan the Yankee he detests.
+And now he brings home to him the profits of his bargaining; he has
+dethroned King George only to set up in his place this Republican
+President, Pierce of New Hampshire, who in these loud-echoing streets
+employs the strength of America upon the capture of a fugitive slave.
+
+Sometimes he is autobiographical.[186] "There was a child went
+forth,"--he recites--a country boy who, at West Hills and in Brooklyn,
+absorbed all the sights and sounds of his world into himself; till
+the early lilacs, the morning-glories, and the orchard blossom, the
+quarrelsome and the friendly boys and the bare-footed negro-children
+all became a part of him. His parents, too, in the daily life of the
+home as well as by heredity, entered into his make-up; the mother,
+wholesome, quiet and gentle, the father, virile and hot-tempered, with
+a streak of craft and astuteness running through him. And as they
+became a part of me, he says, so now they shall become a part of you
+that read this page.
+
+Or at his naïvest, we see him standing open-mouthed and amazed, like
+a very child, before the sheer naked facts of his own story from the
+date of his birth to the present hour;[187] and endeavouring to evoke
+a similar naïve attitude in the reader, not indeed towards the date of
+Whitman's birth, but towards that of his own.
+
+Upon a kindred note we turn the last page also[188]--for it is a
+proclamation of reverence, reverence for all the old myths; reverence
+for the high ideals; reverence too for Youth and for Age, for Speech
+and Silence, for true Wealth and true Poverty, always with stress upon
+the last member of each pair; for America, too, and for the Earth with
+its ineffable future; for Truth, for Justice, for Goodness--ay, and,
+he adds with conscious paradox, for Wickedness as well; above all for
+Life, but not less for Death. Great is Life, he concludes:--
+
+    Great is Life, real and mystical wherever and whoever:
+    Great is Death:--sure as Life holds all parts together, Death holds
+      all parts together:
+    Sure as the stars return again after they merge in the light, Death
+      is great as Life.
+
+How are we to sum up these pages, and figure out what it is they come
+to? No summary is likely to do justice to a book of poetry, which
+demonstrates itself by wholly other methods than argument, and it would
+be foolish for me to attempt it. But there is one point with which I
+must make shift to deal.
+
+Beginning with a forecast of the New Poetry, as of something which
+should be in its essence indigenous to America, the natural expression
+of a new spirit and race and of its attitude towards the Self and the
+Universe, Whitman has boldly given examples to show what it was he
+meant. What are we to say of these? Do they give us a new art-form? or,
+if you will, a new kind of poetry? Do they bring us material for some
+new law of rhythm or metre?
+
+These are deep questions, and dangerous to answer. For myself, I
+can but give an affirmative to them, accepting the smiles of the
+incredulous. And I must do so without a discussion which would here be
+tedious, even if I were able to make it profitable.
+
+There is a simple test of the whole matter which one may oneself
+apply: Does Whitman's method of writing arouse, in those who can read
+it with enjoyment, an emotion distinct in character from that aroused
+by the methods of all other poets? Does _Leaves of Grass_ awake some
+quality of the Soul which answers neither to the words of Tennyson nor
+Browning, Emerson nor Carlyle? The proof by emotional reaction requires
+some skill in self-observation and more impartiality; but, on the
+whole, I think those who have tried it fairly seem to take my part, and
+to answer emphatically in the affirmative.
+
+What then is this emotion which Whitman alone, or in special measure,
+evokes? It is a further hard but fair question, for it involves
+Whitman's personality, and this book is an attempt to answer it.
+Briefly, it is the complex but harmonious emotion which possesses a
+sane full-blooded man of fully awakened soul, when he realises the
+presence of the Eternal and Universal incarnate in some "spear of
+summer grass". One may call it the religious emotion; but it is not
+the emotion of any other religious poetry, saving perhaps some of the
+Hebrew prophets: and every prophet has his own cry. It is the emotion
+of a religion which is as large as the largest conceptions which man
+has yet formed of life; for Whitman, apart from any limitations in his
+thought, appears to have lived more fully and with fuller conscious
+purpose than did other men.
+
+In order to make oneself understood at all one speaks in hyperbole, and
+doubtless I exaggerate. Whitman was, of course, no God among men, nor
+was he greater than other poets; in a sense he was even less than the
+least of them, so subjective was his genius; but since he consciously
+evokes a new emotion, he has his place among true artists, for Art
+is the power of evoking the emotion in others which one intends. And
+since the new emotion seems to be altogether ennobling when it is fully
+realised, being at once enlarging and integrating to the soul, we ought
+the more gladly to hail and acknowledge him.
+
+I say a new emotion, not meaning, of course, that he is alone in
+calling up the soul, for no great poetry can leave the soul unstirred;
+but that no poetry of modern times stirs the soul in the same manner as
+does that of this full-natured man. So far, I think, we may acknowledge
+Whitman's success as a poet, and I am not concerned to urge it further.
+There are many who do not respond to his writings in the way I have
+indicated, and they naturally refuse him the title. There are others
+who do, and who accord it to him; and I confess I am of the latter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The only American poet who approaches him in sentiment is Emerson.
+Poems like "Each and All," with its motive of the cosmic unity, "The
+perfect Whole," or "Brahma," with its reconciling all-inclusiveness,
+are very near in thought to Whitman; so again is "Merlin" with its
+
+                  Great is the art,
+    Great be the manners of the bard;
+    He shall not his brain encumber
+    With the coil of rhyme and number,--
+
+or "Woodnotes"--"God hid the whole world in thy heart"--or the
+exclamation "When worlds of lovers hem thee in" of the "Threnody"; or
+his "Test," when he hangs his verses in the wind. The inspiration of
+the two men made them akin; but it was far from identical. There are
+sides of _Leaves of Grass_ which are absent from Emerson's writings,
+just as there are phases of Emerson's thought which are never really
+touched by Whitman. But above all, while the works of both are
+exhilarating to the soul, the emotional reactions from them are quite
+distinct.
+
+Considering Emerson's influence at the time upon all that was most
+virile in American thought, we might feel certain that some part at
+least of his teaching had illuminated Whitman's mind, and there is
+sufficient evidence in his own writings to prove it.[189] He said
+indeed, that it was Emerson who led him to a spiritual understanding
+of America, and who finally brought his simmering ideas to the
+boil.[190] But he also vehemently asserted the independence of _Leaves
+of Grass_ from any direct Emersonian or other literary influence; and
+in this the internal evidence of his book supports him. It is really
+impossible to confuse the flavours of Whitman and of Emerson.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One more comparison, and I will pursue the story. There is much which
+Whitman obviously shares with Shelley. Their kinship of inspiration is
+too significant for a passing note, and might well be followed over
+many pages. The writer of _Leaves of Grass_, and the youthful author of
+_Queen Mab_, had drunk at the same fountain of love and wonder.[191]
+
+Shelley's _Defence of Poetry_ should be read alongside of the Preface
+of 1855. In it also you will find it stated that the poet lives in the
+consciousness of the whole; that he is not to be bound by metrical
+custom, the distinction between poets and prose-writers being but
+a vulgar error; it is sufficient if his periods are harmonious and
+rhythmical. Poetry is therein discovered as the great instrument of
+morality, for it exercises and therefore strengthens the imagination,
+which is the organ of love--that going-out of a man from himself to
+others, in which morality finds the final expression.
+
+Here, as in Whitman's pages, the permanence of poetry is asserted; its
+significance is not to be exhausted by the generation in which it found
+expression. Poetry is the motive power of action and creates utilities.
+It is the root and blossom of science and philosophy. Poetry is the
+interpenetration of a diviner nature with our own; it turns all things
+to loveliness, and strips off that film of use and wont which holds
+our eyes from the vision of wonder. The great poets are men of supreme
+virtue and consummate prudence. They are the world's law-givers.
+
+It must be enough for us to have noted the parallel, which might easily
+be pressed too far. There are regions of thought and expression in
+which their opposition would, of course, appear even more striking;
+we need not pursue the subject, remembering that much of what they
+share derives from the influence which we associate with the works of
+Rousseau.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whatever our opinion of Whitman's astonishing "piece of wit and
+wisdom," we cannot be surprised that in some quarters it was received
+with contemptuous silence, and in others with prompt and frank abuse.
+The _Boston Intelligencer_,[192] for instance, credited it to some
+escaped lunatic; the _Criterion_[193] to a man possessed of the soul
+of a sentimental donkey that had died of disappointed love; while the
+_London Critic_,[194] comparing him to Caliban, declared he should be
+whipped by the public executioner.
+
+It is, perhaps, more astonishing that some of the leading journals and
+reviews of America--the _North American Review_, _Putnam's Monthly_,
+and the _New York Tribune_[195]--for example, noticed the book at some
+length and with friendly forbearance, if not with actual acclamation.
+The first of these gave the book, in its January issue (1856), three
+pages of discriminating welcome from the pen of Edward E. Hale, a
+religious minister of liberal mind and warm heart, whose own inner
+experience was not without resemblance to Whitman's in its harmonious
+development and absence of spiritual conflict.[196]
+
+Whitman was probably prepared for the abuse; it was the indifference of
+the public which astonished him. At first, it would seem, there was no
+sale whatever for the book;[197] and Emerson was the only one of its
+readers who found it specially significant.
+
+Having spent the summer months in solitude in the country,[198]
+Whitman decided upon a somewhat questionable method of advertisement:
+he contributed unsigned notices of his book to the _Brooklyn
+Times_,[199] with which he appears to have been connected,[200] and
+to a phrenological sheet issued by Fowler and Wells, his agents on
+Broadway. He fortified himself[201] for his task by observing that
+Leigh Hunt had written for the Press upon his own work, and even
+claimed the high example of Dante.
+
+These articles, whose anonymity seems to infringe on the impartiality
+of the Press, and to be in some sense a breach of journalistic honour,
+are not a little astonishing. That in the phrenological journal
+may, perhaps, be dismissed as a mere publishers' circular or puff,
+contributed, as such things frequently are, by the writer. As to the
+other, Whitman was for a while the editor of the _Brooklyn Times_, and
+may have written on himself while serving in this capacity, or perhaps
+at the request of the actual editor, doubtless his personal friend. Or,
+again, if we would excuse, or rather explain, his action, we may regard
+the reviews as his own attempt to look impersonally at his work.
+
+Whatever we may think of the moral aspect of the notices, or
+however we may account for them, they have considerable interest as
+further expositions of his purpose, re-inforcing the Preface after
+an interval of meditation. As such, and as a corrective of popular
+misapprehensions, he doubtless intended them. In these pages he lays
+special emphasis on the American character of his work. He notes his
+studied avoidance of all foreign similes and classical allusions. He
+compares himself with Tennyson and other poets, only to declare that
+he is alone in understanding the new poetry, which will not aim at
+external completeness and finish, but at infinite suggestion; which
+will be an infallible and unforgettable hint--a living seed, not merely
+of thought, but of that emotional force which is of the Soul and alone
+can mould personality.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[168] This is given in full in O. L. Trigg's _Selections_; parts only,
+in _Comp. Prose_, 256.
+
+[169] _Comp. Prose_, 261.
+
+[170] _L. of G._, 29.
+
+[171] _L. of G._, 54.
+
+[172] _Ib._, 59.
+
+[173] _L. of G._, 55.
+
+[174] _L. of G._, 75.
+
+[175] _Ib._, 78.
+
+[176] _Ib._, 79.
+
+[177] _Ib._, 169.
+
+[178] _L. of G._, 333.
+
+[179] _Ib._, 325.
+
+[180] _Ib._, 81.
+
+[181] _Ib._ (1855).
+
+[182] _Ib._, 353.
+
+[183] _L. of G._, 134.
+
+[184] _Ib._, 211.
+
+[185] _Ib._, 209.
+
+[186] _Ib._, 282.
+
+[187] _L. of G._, 304.
+
+[188] _Ib._ (ed. 1855).
+
+[189] Camden, ix., 160; notes to mag. art. of May, 1847.
+
+[190] Letter in Appendix to _L. of G._ (1856) and Trowbridge, _op. cit._
+
+[191] It is interesting to recall that _Prometheus Unbound_ was written
+in the year of Whitman's birth.
+
+[192] Bucke, 198.
+
+[193] _Ib._, 197.
+
+[194] _Ib._, 196; _In re_, 60.
+
+[195] _N. A. R._, January, 1856; _Trib._, 23rd July, 1855.
+
+[196] W. James, _Var. of Relig. Experience_, 82-83.
+
+[197] Bucke, 138; Burroughs, etc.
+
+[198] Bucke, 26.
+
+[199] _In re_, 13, 32; Bucke, 195.
+
+[200] _Atlantic Monthly_, xcii., 679.
+
+[201] Camden, ix., 119.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MYSTIC
+
+
+In September, 1855, Mr. Moncure Conway, having heard of Whitman during
+a visit to Concord, called upon him in Brooklyn, with an introduction
+from Emerson. Walt was then living with his family in one of a row of
+small artisans' houses, in Ryerton Street,[202] out of Myrtle Avenue.
+At the moment, however, he was correcting proofs in the little office
+where his book had been printed, and wore a workman's striped blue
+shirt, open at the throat. A few days later, he called upon Mr. Conway,
+his sister and another lady, at the Metropolitan Hotel, where his
+manners and conversation were enjoyed and approved. He was then garbed
+in "the baize coat and chequered shirt" in which he appears in the
+_Leaves of Grass_ portrait.
+
+Mr. Conway in his story has somewhat confused the details of these
+visits with those of another paid by him upon a Sunday morning some two
+years later, when the Whitmans seem to have moved to a more commodious
+house on North Portland Avenue. The matter is not important, and we may
+follow the main lines of the picturesque account which he contributed
+in October, 1866, to the _Fortnightly Review_.[203]
+
+According to this narrative, Whitman was discovered basking in the
+hot sunshine on some waste land outside Brooklyn. He was wearing the
+rough workman's clothes of his choice, was as brown as the soil and
+as grey as the grass bents. His visitor was at once impressed by the
+exceptional largeness and reality of the man, and by a subtle delicacy
+of feeling for which _Leaves of Grass_ does not appear to have prepared
+him. Whitman was slow, serene, gracious; in spite of the grey in his
+hair and beard, and the deep furrows across his brow, his full red face
+and quiet blue-grey eyes were almost those of a child.
+
+Returning to the house, the visitor noticed a quality about him which
+belonged by rights to the line-engraving of Bacchus which hung in the
+bare room he occupied. Like a Greek hero-god, he made one ask oneself
+whether he was merely human. And after crossing the bay with him, and
+bathing and sauntering along the beach of Staten Island, the visitor
+seems to have left in a condition of almost painful excitement, unable
+to give his thought to anything but Whitman.
+
+A few days later, according to this account, Conway found him setting
+type for the next edition of his book. Although he was still writing
+occasionally for the press, _Leaves of Grass_ continued to provide his
+principal occupation. They crossed the ferry together and rambled about
+New York. Nearly every artisan they met greeted Walt affectionately as
+an old friend, and not one of them knew him as a poet.
+
+Together they went to the Tombs prison, Whitman always having
+acquaintances among the outcasts of society, and often visiting
+them in detention, both here and at Sing-Sing. Here, Conway had an
+opportunity of estimating the power over others which was wielded by
+this personality, whose latent force had so much moved himself. The
+prisoners confided in him, and on behalf of one he interviewed the
+governor of the prison. The victim had been detained for trial on
+some petty charge in an unhealthy cell. Whitman repeated the man's
+story, and characterised it, with a sort of religious emphasis and
+deliberation, as a "damned shame". It was manifestly upon the tip of
+the official tongue to rebuke Walt for impertinence; but though he was
+dressed as an artisan, his quiet determined gaze was too much for
+the autocrat, who gave way before it and ordered the prisoner to be
+transferred to better quarters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Other distinguished visitors called on him from time to time. Of
+Emerson's own visits we know next to nothing, but they were frequent
+and very welcome, sometimes ending with a dinner at Astor House. We
+have a glimpse of Lord Houghton, sharing a dish of roast apples with
+his friendly host.[204] Ward Beecher, the famous Brooklyn preacher,
+was among the callers; and it was on their way from his church that,
+on Sunday, 9th November, 1856, Mrs. Whitman, in her son's absence,
+received Bronson Alcott and Thoreau.
+
+Both men belonged to the circle of Emerson's Concord intimates, and
+both have left a record of the successful renewal of their visit
+upon the following day.[205] The lovable, mystical, oracular Alcott,
+the delight of his friends, seems to have been greatly attracted by
+Whitman, whom he knew already, and of whom he has spoken in terms of
+the highest praise. The mother, he found on that first visit, stately
+and sensible, full of faith in her son "Walter"; full, too, in his
+absence, of his praises, as being from his childhood up both good and
+wise, the faithful and beloved counsellor of brothers and sisters.
+
+They spent two delightful hours with Walt next day, a Philadelphia lady
+accompanying them and sharing their intercourse with "the very god
+Pan," as Alcott styles him. The conversation was to have been renewed
+on the morrow, but Walt failed to put in an appearance. He was apt to
+be vague about such appointments, and one could never be sure that
+he felt himself bound by them. Like a Quaker of the old school, he
+followed the direction of the hour, and his promises were tentative and
+well guarded.
+
+Thoreau, too, the naturalist philosopher of Walden, wrote down his
+impressions of the interview. He was puzzled by Whitman, finding him
+in many ways a strange and surprising being, outside the range of
+his experience. Rough, large and masculine but sweet--essentially a
+gentleman, he says; but the title is paradoxical and inappropriate, and
+he qualifies it immediately by adding that he was coarse not fine. As
+to the last point, after vigorously debating it, Whitman and he appear
+to have retained contrary convictions. But Whitman himself would have
+been the first to disclaim refinement, a quality which he associated
+with sterility. If Thoreau had said he was elemental, we would not now
+dissent.
+
+They were not likely to understand one another. The two men present a
+remarkable contrast, though on certain sides they have much in common.
+Thoreau was about two years the older; his principal book of essays,
+called _Walden_ after the site of his hermitage, had been published
+when he was about Whitman's age. Physically he was most unlike the
+genial red-faced giant opposite to him. Slight and rather short, with
+long arms and sloping shoulders; mouth, eyes and nose seemed to tell of
+solitary concentrated thought. There was something in his face of the
+frontiersman, that woodland look one sees also in Lincoln's portraits;
+something, too, of the shyness wood creatures have.
+
+He disliked and avoided the generality of men. In this he would compare
+himself with Emerson, who found society a refuge from the shabbiness of
+life's commonplace, while Thoreau's own resource was always solitude.
+He was continually being surprised by the vulgarity of himself and of
+his fellows, continually flushing with shame, personal or vicarious;
+and he sought and found a refuge in the pure and lonely spirit that
+haunted Walden Pool.[206]
+
+Whitman, on the other hand, though he loved solitude, seems, even in
+solitude, to have craved for movement. In this he was very far from
+the orientalism of Thoreau and its strenuous seeking after peace. He
+loved progress. His genius belonged not to the forest pool, whose
+reflections were unrippled by a breeze--the mirror of the abstract
+mind--but to the surging passion of the ocean beach.
+
+Similarly, in his attitude towards men, he was far removed from both
+Thoreau and Emerson. Emerson confessed he could not quite understand
+what Whitman so enjoyed in the society of the common people; and many
+a Democrat, if he were only as honest, would make the same confession.
+It was not that Emerson was in any sense of the word a snob; but the
+emotional side of his nature responded but feebly to certain of the
+elemental notes whose vibration is felt perhaps more frequently among
+the common people than elsewhere. Emerson's fellowship was largely upon
+intellectual fields: Whitman's almost wholly upon the more emotional.
+
+Thoreau found society in disembodied thought, and emotional fellowship
+in the woods. But to Whitman the sheer contact with people, and
+especially the unsophisticated natural folk of the class into which
+he was born and among whom he was bred, was not only a pleasure but a
+tonic which he could barely exist without. In solitude, he became after
+a time, heavy, inert, lethargic. His mind itself seemed to grow stale.
+He was a mere pool of water left upon the beach, which loses virtue in
+its stagnant isolation.
+
+Whitman seems to have been exceptionally conscious of the stream of
+electric life which is the great attractive power of a city, and which
+in itself tends to draw all young men and women into its current.
+It buoyed him up and carried him, giving him a sense of exaltation
+only to be compared with that which other poets have derived from the
+mountains, or the wind out of the West. His large body and intuitive
+mind craved for the magnetic stimulus and suggestion of people moving
+about him; he did not look to them to save him from the commonplace,
+nor did he shrink from them as bringing him new burdens of a common
+shame.
+
+Coarse, actual, living humanity was his supreme interest and passion.
+And the delicacy and refinement of the scholar was dreadful to him,
+because it separated him instantly from the vulgar and common folk.
+He was one of the roughs, he used to say; and so he was, but with a
+difference. It was this that puzzled his Concord friends who were quick
+to feel but slow to understand it. Their perplexity did not, however,
+turn into mistrust; for their appreciation of all that they understood
+was full and generous.
+
+Thoreau hardly knew whether he was more repelled or attracted by this
+"great fellow" who seemed to be the personification of Democracy.[207]
+Like Tennyson at a later date, he was unable to define him, but stood
+convinced that he was "a great big something".[208] A little more
+than human, Thoreau added; meaning a little larger than normal human
+development.
+
+In any case, the man was an enigma. He wrote of those relations between
+men and women for which the poets choose the subtlest and most delicate
+words in their treasury, in syllables which seemed to Thoreau like
+those of animals which had not attained to speech. Yet even so, he
+spoke more truth, beast-like as his voice sounded, than the others. And
+Thoreau frankly reminded himself, if Whitman made him blush the fault
+might not be Whitman's after all.
+
+They did not talk very much or very deeply, as there were four to share
+the conversation. Thoreau, too, was in a rather cynical mood, and spoke
+slightingly of Brooklyn and America and her politics, which in itself
+was enough to chill the stream of intercourse. But they found a common
+interest in the Oriental writers with whom Whitman was but vaguely
+acquainted, the scholar advising upon translations. Thoreau and Emerson
+had both noted the resemblance between _Leaves of Grass_ and some of
+the sacred writings of India; and the latter once humorously described
+the _Leaves_ as a mixture of the _Bhagavad-Gitá_[209] and the _New York
+Herald_.[210] Thoreau died in 1862, and this was probably their only
+meeting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thoreau carried off with him a copy of the new edition of Whitman's
+poems, fresh from the press, and some of the remarks I have alluded to
+refer especially to its contents, and to several of the new poems which
+we must now briefly consider, for it is obviously impossible to give
+any worthy account of Whitman without attempting at least to outline
+the successive expressions of his own views about himself, as they are
+set forth in his book.
+
+None of the twenty new _Leaves_ appears so important as the "Song of
+Myself," but among them are some of the finest and most suggestive
+pages he ever wrote, notably the "Poem of Salutation," and the "Poem of
+the Road".[211] The book is now shorn of its prose preface, which would
+be a serious loss if large portions of it were not to be found broken
+into lines, and otherwise slightly altered, upon the later pages. It
+had been used as a quarry for poems, and some of the blocks underwent
+but little trimming.
+
+In the "Salutation," he identifies himself elaborately and in much
+detail, with all peoples of the globe, finding equals and lovers in
+every land. The universal survey is faithfully made; the poem is like
+a rapid passage through a gallery of pictures, and regarded as a
+whole, suggests the outlines of the world-wide field which its author
+desires the reader to view. Whitman asserts his comprehensive sympathy;
+like America he includes all men. He is one with them in their common
+humanity, and sympathises with them individually in the main purposes
+and desires of their lives.
+
+The poem opens in the form of question and answer. Looking into
+Whitman's face, the questioner sees as it were a whole world lying
+latent within his gaze and becoming actual as he looks. Taking the
+poet's hand, he begs him to explain: Walt accedes with readiness, and
+immediately forgets the questioner.
+
+The subject of the poem--man as the microcosm not only of the universe
+but of the Race--is not perhaps novel; but its meaning is none the
+less difficult to expound. For it bears directly upon the cosmic
+consciousness, in which, as I have said, many of us are wanting. There
+are some, however, who are at times aware of moods in which they
+realise the symbolic character of all objects; they see them, that is
+to say, as forms through which vivid emotions are conveyed to the soul.
+At such moments, the whole world becomes for them a complex of these
+symbols, whose authenticity they can no more doubt than the meaning
+of daily speech, and whose ultimate significance is of an infinite
+content, which forever unfolds before them.
+
+Such moods were evidently frequent with Whitman, and perhaps became
+the norm of his consciousness. In them his eyes read the world, as
+though it were the writing of that infinite and supreme Soul which
+was himself, and yet not himself; that Soul of All, with which his
+consciousness was become mystically one. He felt the actual thrill and
+meaning of the World's Words; words which he more fully describes or
+rather tries to suggest, in another poem, afterwards known as the "Song
+of the Rolling Earth".[212] In order to explain Whitman's meaning one
+would need to make a study of the roots of this kind of symbolism, a
+task which is here impracticable. We must be content instead with a
+glance at the poem itself.
+
+    "Earth, round, rolling, compact--suns, moons, animals--all these
+      are words to be said,"[213]
+
+he asserts; vast words, not indeed of dots and strokes, nor of
+sounds, but of real things which exist and are uttered. I myself, and
+not my name, he says suggestively, is the real word which the Soul
+understands. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, not my words
+but Me, The Word. The words of great poets are different from those
+of mere singers and minor poets, because they suggest these ultimate
+words, these presences and symbols. A symbol, be it remembered, always
+using the word in the sense indicated, is no arbitrary sign, it is
+a form or appearance, which seen _through_ the eye--to use Blake's
+happy formula--presents to the imagination an unimpeachable, distinct
+emotional concept.
+
+To Whitman, everything became thus symbolic. He saw the Earth
+itself--the whole world about him--as a symbol, infallibly presenting
+to him a distinguishable idea or meaning; not indeed a thought,
+for the word fails to express something which must clearly be
+supra-intellectual--the perception of a conscious state of emotion.
+
+Of what then was the Earth a symbol to Whitman's sight? He says,
+frankly enough,[214] that he cannot convey the idea in print; but that
+as far as he can suggest it, it is one of progress, or amelioration;
+it is generous, calm, subtle; it includes the idea of expression, or
+the bearing of fruit; it is the acceptance of all things, and it is the
+general purpose which underlies them all.
+
+I fear that those who seek for simple explanations in plain words will
+scarcely be satisfied with this. Perhaps Whitman is only reasserting
+in his own manner the familiar adage that God is the prince of poets,
+and that the universe is His Chapbook which He offers to all. If so, he
+either gives a new meaning to the words, or he has rediscovered their
+old vital sense and redeemed them from the stigma of rhetoric. I do
+not know whether after all the simple-sounding words are not the more
+elusive.
+
+The Words of the Earth-Mother spoken to her children are, he would have
+us believe, ultimate and infallible; all things may be tried by them.
+That is what he means when he says he has read his poems over in the
+open air. He has proved them thus to see if their suggestion is that
+of the Earth. She sits, as it were, with her back turned toward her
+children,[215] but in her hand she holds a mirror, the clear mirror of
+appearances which are true, and in that mirror we may see ourselves and
+her.
+
+    With her ample back toward every beholder,
+    With the fascinations of youth, and equal fascinations of age,
+    Sits she whom I too love like the rest--sits undisturb'd,
+    Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while
+      her eyes glance back from it,
+    Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none,
+    Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.
+
+How much we can see, depends upon our own character. To the perfect
+man, the Face of the Mother is perfect: to the man ashamed, disfigured,
+broken, it appears to be such as he. Only the pure behold the Truth.
+There is no merely intellectual test of truth, for truth is known only
+by the Soul. As one looks into the mirror, and reads the thought behind
+appearances, not with the intellect but with the sight of the awakened
+soul, one grows to understand what Progress means, one sees a little
+further into the secrets of Love; one learns that the divine Love
+neither invites nor refuses.
+
+The Sayers of Words are those who with pure insight--or as Coleridge
+would say, Imagination--behold things as they are apprehended by the
+cosmic consciousness; and thus beholding them as they truly are, find
+words which hint to the soul of that Reality which speaks through all
+appearance. After the sayers come the singers, the Poets who, building
+words together, create new worlds.
+
+In another poem, the Open Road[216] becomes the symbol of Freedom,
+Acceptance, Sanity, Comradeship, Immortality and Eternal Battles.
+
+    Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
+    Healthy, free, the world before me,
+    The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
+
+    Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I am good-fortune,
+    Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
+    Strong and content, I travel the open road.
+
+                                        (1860.)
+
+Among the best known and most popular of the _Leaves of Grass_, it
+is also among those which are most filled with recondite and mystic
+meanings. Over these we must not linger, save to note the indication
+of the mystic sense by phrases like "the float of the sight of things"
+and "the efflux of the Soul". The poem as a whole is marked by musical
+cadences, and is vivid from end to end with courage and the open air.
+
+After the "Song of Myself," Thoreau preferred the "Sun-down Poem,"
+which describes the crossing of Brooklyn Ferry.[217] It is filled with
+the thought that, even after half a century and in our own day, when
+others than he will be crossing, still he will be with them there
+unseen. The thoughts that come to him show him the Soul wrapt around
+in unconsciousness, and the things which, by contact with the clean
+senses, are presently realised as meanings by the Soul. The poem is a
+fine example of Whitman's delight in movement, in masses of people, and
+in the surroundings of his city.
+
+In the "Clef-poem,"[218] intended to strike the key-note, not only for
+his poems, but as it were for the universe itself with its innumerable
+meanings, he tells how, standing on the beach at night alone, he
+realised that all things--soul and body, past and future, here and
+there--are interlocked and spanned by a vast homogeneity of essence.
+The knowledge sweeps away all possibilities of anxiety about the future
+after death; experience can never fail to feed the soul. It contents
+him also with the present: no experience can ever be more wonderful to
+him than this of to-night, when he lies upon the breast of the Mother
+of his being. The future can be nothing but an eternal unfolding of
+this that he beholds already present in his body and Soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While dwelling upon the symbolical mysticism which cannot be ignored
+in Whitman's whole habit of thought, I may add a further word upon
+its character.[219] Mysticism appears under several forms. The Indian
+guru, winning the eternal consciousness by long practices in the
+gymnasium of the mind; the lover discovering it through the fiery
+gateways, and tear-washed windows of passion; the poet seeking it in
+the eyes of the Beauty that was before the beginning of the world; the
+Quaker awaiting its coming in silence and simplicity; the Catholic
+preparing for it by prayer and fasting, by ritual and ceremony; the
+lover of nature discovering it among her solitudes; the lover of man
+entering into it only by faith, in the strenuous service of his kind:
+all these bear witness to the many ways of experience along which the
+deep waters flow.
+
+Belonging to no school, Whitman had relations with several of the
+mystical groups; he had least, I suppose, with that which seeks the
+occult by traditional crystal-gazing and the media of hypnotic trances
+or the dreams produced by anæsthetic drugs. He was a mystic because
+wonders beset him all about on the open road of his soul. In him
+mysticism was never associated with pathological symptoms; it was, as
+he himself suggests, the flower and proof of his sanity, soundness and
+health.
+
+He had not learnt his lore from books. Plato and Plotinus, Buddha and
+Boehme, were alike but half-familiar to him; he never studied them
+closely as a disciple should. His thought may have been quickened
+by old Elias Hicks, and strengthened occasionally by contact with
+the Friends. It often recalls the more leonine, less catholic spirit
+of George Fox; and the vision of the Soul, standing like an unseen
+companion by the side of every man, woman, and child, ready to appear
+at the first clear call of deep to human deep, was ever present to
+them both, and in itself explains much that must otherwise remain
+incomprehensible in their attitude. But the world of Whitman was that
+of the nineteenth century, not of the seventeenth: Carlyle, Goethe
+and Lincoln, had taken the places of Calvin, Milton and Cromwell. In
+many aspects the mysticism of _Leaves of Grass_ is nearer to that of
+_The Republic_ and _The Symposium_, than to that of Fox's _Epistles_
+and _Journal_; nearer, that is, to the Greek synthesis, than to the
+evangelical ardour of the Puritan. Temperance he loved, but he hated
+the narrowness of negations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To return to the book: the thought of the sanity of the Earth is
+brought to bear upon the problem of evil in a poem[220] which describes
+how, in spite of the mass of corruption returned to it by disease and
+death, the earth neutralises all by the chemistry of its laws and life.
+With calm and patient acceptance of evil, nature refuses nothing, but
+ever provides man anew with innocent and divine materials. And such, it
+would seem, is the inherent character of the Universe, and therefore of
+the Soul.
+
+A poem,[221] whose opening cadences were suggested by the drip, drip,
+drip, of the rain from the eaves, presents the Broad-axe as the true
+emblem of America, Whitman's substitute for the Eagle whose wings are
+always spread.
+
+    Broad-axe, shapely, naked, wan!
+    Head from the mother's bowels drawn!
+    Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one and lip only one!
+    Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed
+      sown!
+    Resting the grass amid and upon,
+    To be leaned, and to lean on.
+
+Here we enter the picturesque, muscular world of wood-cutters and
+carpenters so familiar to the author, and we are reminded of the older
+and more sinister uses and products of the axe. Seen by Whitman, the
+Broad-axe itself is a poem that tells of strenuous America, with her
+free heroic life and the comradeship of her Western cities, great
+with the greatness of their common folk. It tells him of the woman of
+America, self-possessed and strong; and of large, natural, naïve types
+of manhood. It even prophecies to him of Walt Whitman, and sings the
+"Song of Myself," the message of the noble fierce undying Self. As a
+Cuvier can reconstruct an undiscovered creature from a single fossil
+bone, so might the poet seer have foretold America by this symbol of an
+axe.
+
+The idea of America is further expounded in several other poems,
+especially in the longest of the additions, which was afterwards
+expanded into "By Blue Ontario's Shore".[222] Much of its essential
+thought, however, and some of its actual phrasing belongs to the
+old Preface, and has therefore been already noted. It dwells on the
+potential equality of every citizen in the sight of America herself, an
+equality based upon the divine Soul which is in each; and also, upon
+Liberty, which is the ultimate and essential element of all individual
+life.
+
+The thought of America calls up in Whitman's mind the picture of that
+poet, that "Soul of Love and tongue of fire," who will utter the idea
+which is America, and which alone can integrate her diverse peoples
+into one. And here Whitman flings off his cloak which concealed him in
+the Preface, and openly announces that it is he himself who incarnates
+the spirit of the land.
+
+    Fall behind me, States!
+    A man, before all--myself, typical, before all.
+
+    Give me the pay I have served for!
+    Give me to speak beautiful words! take all the rest;
+    I have loved the earth, sun, animals--I have despised riches,
+    I have given alms to every one that asked, stood up for the stupid
+      and crazy, devoted my income and labour to others,
+    I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and
+      indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known
+      or unknown,
+    I have gone freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the
+      young, and with the mothers of families,
+    I have read these leaves to myself in the open air--I have tried
+      them by trees, stars, rivers,
+    I have dismissed whatever insulted my own Soul or defiled my body,
+    I have claimed nothing to myself which I have not carefully claimed
+      for others on the same terms,
+    I have studied my land, its idioms and men,
+    I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of
+      myself,
+    I reject none, I permit all,
+    Whom I have staid with once I have found longing for me ever
+      afterward.[223]
+
+The poet is that equable sane man, in whose vision alone all things
+find and are seen in their proper place, for he sees each _sub specie
+æternitatis_--in its eternal aspect.
+
+But while thus boldly declaring himself as the man that should come,
+he has of course no desire to stand alone, and attempts to outline
+the equipment necessary for future American poets. They must not only
+identify themselves in every possible way with America, they must
+be themselves creative and virile. Those who criticise, explain and
+adjudge, can only create a literary soil; they cannot produce the
+flower and fruit of poetry.
+
+Returning to his favourite adage that a man is as great as a nation,
+he asserts that the true poet is America; frankly reading himself as
+a whole, he will see the meanings of America. Is then America also a
+symbol? Assuredly. She is the Republic; she is the Kingdom of God;
+she is Blake's Jerusalem; but behold, she is already founded and
+four-square upon the solid earth.
+
+That he was open-eyed to the materialistic spirit rampant throughout
+the continent while he was writing, is clearly shown in the bitter
+mockery of "Respondez,"[224] a poem afterwards suppressed. It is a
+challenge to thought; an ironic assertion of things that are false and
+futile, and which yet parade as realities. Though suggestive it is
+obscure, and its subsequent omission was wise.
+
+Thoughts of the destiny of America,[225] and of the evil and
+imperfection which he saw about him, hindering, as it seemed, the
+realisation of that destiny, and of the destiny of individual souls,
+must often have moved him to passionate longing. He was not one of
+those who confuse good with evil; he always recognised the difference
+between right and wrong as among the eternal distinctions which could
+never cease to hold true. He hated sin as he hated disease, and
+recognised both as threatening and actual.
+
+If he rarely denounces, it is because he has seen that the way of the
+soul is along the path of love and not of fear or of hate; and because
+he recognises the office of sin in the story of the soul. He is not
+anxious about vice or virtue, but only about life and love. Love, at
+its fullest, is something different from virtue; it contains elements
+which virtue can never possess, and which most ethical codes consign to
+the category of vice. Such love alone is the expression of the soul;
+and every student of love discovers sooner or later that the soul has
+its own intimate standard for judging what is wrong and what is right,
+and when that which was wrong has now become right for it to do.
+
+Love, then, is Whitman's code. And when he seeks to call the youth
+of America away from selfishness and sin, he issues no new table of
+Thou-Shalt-Nots, but fills their ears with the words of their destiny,
+and of the meaning of America. For he knows that to sin is to choose
+a narrow and despicable delight, and that one must needs choose the
+nobler, larger joy when it becomes present and real. Hence he recalls
+all the aspirations that went to the birth of America, and describes
+the parts that women and men must fill if they are to be realised. He
+reminds his young readers of all the divine possibilities of manhood
+and of womanhood, and of how those possibilities are for them; and
+warns them that the body must necessarily affect the soul, for it is
+the medium through which the soul comes into consciousness.
+
+    Anticipate your own life--retract with merciless power,
+    Shirk nothing--retract in time--Do you see those errors, diseases,
+      weaknesses, lies, thefts?
+    Do you see that lost character?--Do you see decay, consumption,
+      rum-drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or inflammation?
+    Do you see death, and the approach of death?
+
+    Think of the Soul;
+    I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul
+      somehow to live in other spheres,
+    I do not know how, but I know it is so.[226]
+
+Finally, in the new poems, Whitman makes more plain his attitude
+toward the woman question, as it is called. An American National
+Women's Rights Association had been founded in 1850, and although
+its agitation for the suffrage proved unsuccessful, the more general
+movement which it represented, especially the higher education of
+women, was gaining ground throughout America. The movement may be said
+to have been born in New York State, where Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
+and Miss Susan B. Anthony were its most active leaders; but it owed
+much to Boston also, and notably to Margaret Fuller (Ossoli), whose
+tragic death had been an irreparable loss to the cause.[227]
+
+Whitman was in cordial sympathy with everything that could forward the
+independence of women. But he disliked some outstanding characteristics
+of the movement. It was in part a violent reaction against the
+unwholesome sentimentalism of the past; a reaction which took the form
+of sexless intellectualism with a strong bent towards argumentation,
+perhaps the most abhorrent of all qualities to Whitman.
+
+This movement for women's rights seemed to him too academic and too
+superficial; college education and the suffrage did not appeal to
+him. But he was not the less an enthusiast for the cause itself, as
+he understood it. His views are simple and clear. A soul is a soul,
+whether it be man's or woman's; and as such, it is of necessity free,
+and the equal of others. A woman is every way as good as a man. This
+truth must be made effective in all departments of life.
+
+Then, taking up the thought which underlies the teaching of Plato, a
+woman is a citizen; and an American woman must be as independent, as
+dauntless, as greatly daring as a man. Such as the woman essentially
+is, such will be the man, her son, and her mate. But--and it is here
+he differs from the leaders of the movement--sex is basic not only in
+society but in personal life; and the woman unsexed is but half a woman.
+
+Two poems in the new edition, the nucleus of the subsequent _Children
+of Adam_, are devoted to these ideas. In the first,[228] he describes
+the women of his ideal:--
+
+    They are not one jot less than I am,
+    They are tanned in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
+    Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
+    They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,
+      retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
+    They are ultimate in their own right--they are calm, clear,
+      well-possessed of themselves.
+
+In the second,[229] he declares that life is only life after love--he
+means the passionate fulness of love--and indicates that womanhood
+is to be glorified not through a sexless revolt, but through the
+redemption of paternity. When the begetting of children is recognised
+to be as holy and as noble as the bearing of them, then the rights of
+women will be on the way to recognition.
+
+If motherhood is the glory of the race, then a movement towards
+perpetual virginity brings no solution of our problem. The only
+solution lies in the independence of women, and in the evolution of a
+higher masculine ideal of the sex relation. The whole thing must be
+naturally and honestly faced. Until we so face it, we cannot understand
+a world in which it is so implicated, that sex is, as it were, a
+summing up of all things.
+
+This last thought grew upon him, becoming more prominent in the next
+edition. In the present one it recurs in the open letter to Emerson
+printed in its appendix,[230] and gave a peculiar colour to the volume
+in the public eye. So much was this the case, that a prosecution seemed
+at one time imminent, many persons regarding the book as obscene. Among
+timid and conventional people, it seems to be established as a canon of
+criticism that it is always immoral to discuss immorality. They go but
+little farther who denounce the purity which is not defiled by pitch;
+or tear out by the roots all flowers that grow upon dung-heaps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such then, added to the old, formed the contents of the new edition of
+1856. The appendix included Emerson's letter, which Whitman had been
+urged to publish, by Mr. C. A. Dana, editor of the _New York Sun_, and
+a personal friend of Emerson.[231] He succeeded in convincing Whitman,
+who appears at first to have doubted the propriety of such an action.
+There is no evidence that Emerson resented the use thus made of his
+glowing testimony, although he would probably have modified his words
+had he written in acknowledgment of the enlarged volume. A sentence
+from the letter appeared also upon the back of the book: "I greet you
+at the commencement of a great career.--R. W. Emerson." This, together
+with the storm of indignation aroused by the absolutely frank language
+of the poems dealing with sex, gave the book notoriety and a rapid sale.
+
+It is the least pleasing of the editions of _Leaves of Grass_,
+insignificant in appearance, and yet aggressive, by reason of that
+Emersonian testimonial. The open letter at the end, of which I have
+already spoken, is far from agreeable to read. It is careless,
+egotistical, naïve to a degree, and crowded with exaggerations.
+Addressing Emerson as master, it proceeds to denounce the churches as
+one vast lie, and the actual president as a rascal and a thief. It is
+so egregiously self-conscious that it makes the reader question for a
+moment whether all the egoism and naïveté of the preceding pages may
+not have been worn as a pose; but a moment's further consideration
+gives the question a final negative. Few men are without their hours of
+weakness; and that Whitman was not among those few, the letter is proof
+if such were needed.
+
+The letter is not void of interest, since it records the rapid sale
+of the previous edition of a thousand copies, and anticipates that in
+a few more years the annual issue will be counted by thousands. This
+sanguine forecast explains the permanent and otherwise unreasonable
+disappointment of Whitman at the reception of his book.
+
+It still made its appearance devoid of the usual adornment of a
+publisher's name upon the title-page. Messrs. Fowler & Wells were
+again the principal agents, others being arranged with in the chief
+American cities, in London also, and Paris and Brussels. Plates were
+cast from the type, and a large sale was prepared for. But the New
+York agents soon withdrew, unwilling to face the storm of public
+opinion,[232] and perhaps the dangers of prosecution, and the book fell
+out of print when only a thousand copies had been issued.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two ventures of 1855 and 1856 had brought Whitman little money,
+a mere handful of serious readers, and some notoriety. Though he did
+not give in, he began to look about him for some supplementary means
+of delivering his soul of its burden. His youthful success on the
+political platform, his love of crowds and of personal contact, his
+extraordinary popularity among the younger people, and his own keen
+sense of the power of oratory, turned his thoughts to lecturing.[233]
+He would follow the road which Emerson and Thoreau had taken. He would
+evangelise America with his gospel. Henceforward, as his mother said,
+he wrote barrels of lectures,[234] and at the same time he studied his
+new art more or less systematically. After his death a package of notes
+on Oratory, and the rough draft of a prospectus were found among his
+papers; the latter was headed, "15 cents. Walt Whitman's Lectures." It
+belongs to the year 1858.
+
+By this time he had planned to write, print, distribute and recite
+throughout the United States and Canada a number of lectures--partly
+philosophical, partly socio-political, partly religious--with the
+object of creating what he conceived to be a new, and for the first
+time truly American attitude of mind. The lectures were ultimately to
+form a second volume of explanation and argument which would sustain
+the _Leaves_. He had now omitted any preface to the poems, the creative
+work standing alone. But having printed the second edition and thus
+relieved his mind of its most pressing burden, he recognised that the
+work of explanation and of criticism remained.
+
+Moreover, he conceived that his lectures would quicken public interest
+in his book; while, by showing himself, he hoped to dispel some of the
+misapprehensions which concealed his real meaning from the popular
+mind. He alludes whimsically in this memorandum to the offensive
+practice of self-advertisement, of which he was not unconscious,
+remarking that "it cannot be helped," for it is the only way by which
+he can gain the ear of America, and bid her "Know thyself".
+
+Finally, he proposed to earn his living in this manner. He would have
+preferred to give his services without fee, in the Quaker fashion;
+but for the time being at least, he must make a charge of ten dollars
+(two guineas) a lecture, and expenses, or an admission fee of one dime
+(about sixpence) a head.
+
+The idea of lecturing was probably as old as the idea of the _Leaves
+of Grass_; he seems to have been considering it ever since he returned
+from the South. But now he formulated his ideas, which were of course
+those underlying the _Leaves_, and thought much and cogently on the
+style and manner of public speaking. His conclusions betray an ideal
+for oratory as individual and as mystical as that for the poet's art.
+
+Whitman, the lecturer, is conceived as a prophet possessed by the
+tempestuous passion of inspiration. The orator is to combine the
+gifts of the great actor with the inspiration of the Pythoness and
+the spontaneity of the Quaker prophet. His gestures should be large,
+but reserved; the delivery deliberate, thought-awakening, elliptical,
+prophetic, wholly unlike that of the glib platform speakers of his day
+and our own. At first, erect and motionless, the speaker would impress
+his mere personality upon the assembly; then his eyes would kindle,
+like the eyes in that strange marble Balzac of Rodin's, and from the
+eyes outward the whole body would take fire and speak.
+
+He conceived of oratory not as the delivery of some well-prepared
+address, but as the focussing of all the powers of thought and
+experience in an hour of inspiration and supreme mastery. He saw how
+much it entailed--what breadth of knowledge, what depth of thought,
+what perfect flexibility of voice and gesture trained to clear
+suggestion, what absolute purity of body, what perfect self-control.
+For, he would say to himself, the great orator is an artist as supreme
+as Alboni herself; his voice is to be as potent as hers, and his life
+must show an equal devotion to its purpose.
+
+In this conception of the orator we have then a most interesting
+parallel with that of the poet. And just as Whitman the poet stands
+part way between the writer of prose and the singer in verse, including
+in himself some of the qualities of each, and adding an inspiration
+wholly his own, so Whitman the orator appears in this vision standing
+between the actor-singer and the lecturer or preacher, improvising
+great words.
+
+The political aspect of his enterprise is suggested by a brief
+memorandum, dated in April, 1857,[235] wherein he notes that the
+"Champion of America" must keep himself clear of all official
+entanglements, devoting himself solely to the maintenance of a living
+interest in public questions throughout the length and breadth of the
+land. Standing aside from the parties with their clamorous cries, he
+must hold the public ear by nobler tones.
+
+In another place[236] he writes that as Washington had freed the
+body politic of America from its dependence upon the English crown,
+so Whitman will free the American people from their dependence upon
+European ideals. The mere publication of such frank, but private
+assertions of Whitman's own faith in himself, will doubtless arouse a
+ready incredulity in the reader's mind. It might, perhaps, seem kinder
+to his memory to suppress them altogether; but upon second thought it
+will, I think, appear possible that he was a better judge than others
+of his own ability. His personality was one of extraordinary power,
+and his outlook of a breadth which was almost unique. And, as I have
+said, he felt himself to be an incarnation of the American spirit.
+
+At the time, America was without leadership. Lincoln was still unseen;
+and Whitman was fully as capable of filling the highest office in
+the United States as several who have held it; while nothing in the
+circumstances or traditions of the White House made it absurd for
+any able citizen, of whatever rank, to entertain the thought of its
+tenancy. This would be especially true of a popular New Yorker, who
+made perhaps the best of all candidates for a Presidential campaign.
+The Republican party had but just been formed, and for the first time
+had fought an election. Thunderclouds of war were in the air, urged on
+by the ominous forces of slavery, and America was without a champion.
+
+ I think the idea of political leadership crossed Whitman's mind at
+ this time, and that he put it definitely aside. The hour cried out for
+ the man, and the cry was not to go unanswered; but with all his power
+ and all his goodwill and fervour, Whitman became slowly convinced that
+ it was not to be he. He had seen too much of party manoeuvres, and
+ had too vigorous a love of personal liberty, to contend for office.
+ But he did covet the power of a prophet to stir the heart of America,
+ and appeal to her people everywhere in her name. He never gave up the
+ idea of lecturing or lost his interest in oratory; but the lectures he
+ planned, the course on Democracy and the rest, remained undelivered.
+ It is as though he had prepared himself and stood awaiting a call
+ which never came.
+
+Instead, he turned once more to add new poems to his collection.
+A hint in explanation is to be found in a poem written about this
+time,[237] in which he tells how, having first sought knowledge, he
+then determined to live for America and become her orator; he was
+afterwards possessed by the desire for a heroic life of action, but was
+given the commission of song. Finally, another change came over his
+spirit; the claims of his own life seized him; he could not escape from
+the passion of comradeship which overwhelmed him and wholly absorbed
+his thought.[238] We shall consider this phase in the next chapter, but
+before doing so, it will be well to recall the political events of the
+hour and the circumstances surrounding the advent of a new power and
+personality into American life.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[202] M. D. Conway, _Autobiography_.
+
+[203] _Fort. Rev._, vi., 538; Kennedy, 51.
+
+[204] _In re_, 36.
+
+[205] See _Familiar Letters of H. D. Thoreau_, 339-349.
+
+[206] F. B. Sanborn's _Thoreau_, 307; _cf._ H. S. Salt's _Thoreau_, 293.
+
+[207] _Fam. Letters_, 347.
+
+[208] Camden, lxxii.; _cf._ _Life of A. Tennyson_, ii., 424.
+
+[209] A new translation of the great Indian classic had just appeared.
+
+[210] Kennedy, 78.
+
+[211] _L. of G._, 112, 120.
+
+[212] _L. of G._, 176.
+
+[213] _L. of G._ (1860), 329; _cf._ _An American Primer_, by W. W.
+(1904).
+
+[214] _L. of G._, 179.
+
+[215] _L. of G._, 177.
+
+[216] _Ib._, 120.
+
+[217] _L. of G._, 129.
+
+[218] _Ib._, 207; ('60), 229-31.
+
+[219] See also p. 166.
+
+[220] _L. of G._, 285.
+
+[221] _Ib._, 148.
+
+[222] _L. of G._, 264.
+
+[223] _Ib._ (1860), 121.
+
+[224] _L. of G._ (1860), 166.
+
+[225] _Ib._, 171-74; _cf._ _L. of G._, 213.
+
+[226] _L. of G._ (1860), 172.
+
+[227] See esp. the _Life of Susan B. Anthony_.
+
+[228] _L. of G._, 88.
+
+[229] _L. of G._, 90.
+
+[230] _Ib._ (1856).
+
+[231] Bucke, 139.
+
+[232] Burroughs, 19.
+
+[233] Camden, vii.; viii., 244-260; ix., 200; x., 32.
+
+[234] _In re_, 35.
+
+[235] Camden, ix., 7, 8.
+
+[236] _Ib._, viii., 245.
+
+[237] _L. of G._ (1860), 354.
+
+[238] As the poem is not given in the complete _L. of G._ I reprint it
+here:--
+
+    Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me--O if I could
+      but obtain knowledge!
+    Then my lands engrossed me--Lands of the prairies, Ohio's land, the
+      southern savannas, engrossed me--For them I would live--I would
+      be their orator;
+    Then I met the examples of old and new heroes--I heard of warriors,
+      sailors, and all dauntless persons--And it seemed to me that I
+      too had it in me to be as dauntless as any--and would be so;
+    And then, to enclose all, it came to me to strike up the songs
+      of the New World--And then I believed my life must be spent in
+      singing;
+    But now take notice, land of the prairies, land of the south
+      savannas, Ohio's land,
+    Take notice, you Kanuck woods--and you Lake Huron--and all that
+      with you roll toward Niagara--and you Niagara also,
+    And you, Californian mountains--That you each and all find somebody
+      else to be your singer of songs,
+    For I can be your singer of songs no longer--One who loves me is
+      jealous of me, and withdraws me from all but love,
+    With the rest I dispense--I sever from what I thought would suffice
+      me, for it does not--it is now empty and tasteless to me,
+    I heed knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example
+      of heroes, no more,
+    I am indifferent to my own songs--I will go with him I love,
+    It is to be enough for us that we are together--We never separate
+      again.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"YEAR OF METEORS"
+
+
+Abraham Lincoln, the man for whom the hour cried out, was not quite
+unknown to fame.[239] Ten years older than Whitman, and like Whitman
+owning to a strain of Quaker blood in his veins, he belonged by origin
+to the South and by adoption to the West. After six years' service in
+the Illinois Legislature, and a term in the Lower House at Washington,
+he settled down at the age of forty to his profession as a country
+lawyer.
+
+In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri compromise in favour of "squatter
+sovereignty" recalled him to political life, and he became the champion
+of Free-soil principles in his State, against the chief sponsor of
+the opposing doctrine, the "little giant of Illinois," Judge Stephen
+Douglas. His reply to Douglas in October of that year was read and
+applauded by his party throughout America.
+
+Hitherto he had been a Whig, and during Clay's lifetime, his devoted
+follower, but the repeal of the compromise was followed in 1856 by
+the formation of a new party, and Lincoln and Whitman both became
+"black republicans". "Barnburners," Abolitionists and "Anti-Nebraska"
+men--those that is to say who opposed the application of the doctrine
+of "squatter sovereignty" to Nebraska and Kansas--had united to form
+a new Free-soil party. They nominated J. C. Frémont, the gallant
+Californian "Path-finder" for the Presidency; but, owing to the
+presence of a third candidate put forward by the Know-nothing
+Whigs--whose only policy seems to have been a "patriotic" hatred of all
+Catholics and foreigners--the Democratic nominee was elected for the
+last time in a generation. After his four years were out, a succession
+of Republican Presidents occupied the White House for twenty-four years.
+
+James Buchanan, who defeated Frémont--becoming like Lincoln, his
+successor, a minority President--seems to have been an honourable and
+well-intentioned Pennsylvanian, but he was a man whose character was
+quite insufficient for his new office. As an injudicious, short-sighted
+diplomatist, he had already, when minister at St. James's in the days
+of President Pierce, commended his intrigues for the annexation of Cuba.
+
+Earlier in 1856 Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme Court, had
+delivered his notorious decision in the Dred Scott case; laying it down
+that Congress could not forbid a citizen to carry his property into the
+public domain--that is to say, it could not prohibit slavery in the
+territories--and that, in the political sense of the word, a negro was
+not a "man," but only property. This decision and the bloody scenes
+enacted in Kansas, where settlers from the North and South were met to
+struggle for the constitution which should make the new State either
+slave or free, greatly exasperated public opinion, and called forth,
+among others, the protests of Abraham Lincoln.
+
+In 1858, while Whitman was studying oratory, Lincoln was stumping
+Illinois, in those ever-memorable debates which laid bare all the
+plots and purposes of the Southern politicians. When the votes in that
+contest were counted, Lincoln held an actual majority; but Douglas was
+returned as Senator by a majority of the electoral votes. Though thus
+defeated, Lincoln was no longer hidden in a Western obscurity. He was a
+man with a future; and America had half-unconsciously recognised him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards the close of 1859, the fire which had been kindled in Kansas
+flashed out suddenly in Virginia. America was startled by the news of
+John Brown's raid, and the capture of the arsenal at Harper's Ferry.
+
+Brown was among the most remarkable personalities of the time; and
+while some saw in him a religious fanatic of the Roundhead type, who
+compelled his enemies to pray at the muzzle of his musket, and who
+for the Abolition cause would shatter the Union; others counted him
+a martyr for the cause of freedom. Emerson had been one of his most
+earnest backers when first he went to Kansas; and now his deed fired
+the enthusiasm of New England. Thoreau wrote: "No man in America has
+ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human
+nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any Government";
+and when he was hung, it was Thoreau who vehemently declared that
+John Brown seemed to him to be the only man in America who had not
+died.[240] His high spirit quickened the conscience of the North, and
+two years later its sons marched into Virginia singing the song of his
+apotheosis.
+
+Whitman was present at the trial of certain of Brown's abettors in
+the State House at Boston;[241] one of a group prepared to effect
+their rescue in the event of a miscarriage of justice. Lincoln, on
+the other hand, was of those who, in spite of their intense hatred
+of slavery, wholly disapproved the Raid. For him, John Brown was a
+maddened enthusiast, a mere assassin like Orsini.[242] His attempt to
+raise the slaves of Virginia in revolt against the whites was abhorrent
+to the Republican statesman whose knowledge of the South showed him
+the horrors of a negro rising. Regarding slavery as the irreconcilable
+and only dangerous foe of the Republic, Lincoln held that the Federal
+Government must restrain it within its actual bounds; and that the
+sentiment in favour of gradual emancipation advocated by Jefferson, the
+father of the Democratic party, should be encouraged in the States of
+the South. But it was the States themselves that held and must hold the
+fatal right of choice; it was for them, not for America, to liberate
+their slaves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While the figure of Lincoln was thus becoming more and more visible to
+the nation, Whitman was fulfilling his own destiny in New York. He was
+born to be a leader of men; but a poet, a path-finder, a pioneer, not a
+politician or president. Whatever his noble ambition might urge, or his
+quick imagination prompt, he kept his feet to the path of his proper
+destiny.
+
+He had a prodigiously wide circle of friends, gathered from every
+walk of life: journalists and literary men of all kinds; actors and
+actresses; doctors and an occasional minister of religion; political
+and public characters; the stage-drivers and the hands on the
+river-boats; farmers from the country; pilots and captains of the port;
+labourers, mechanics and artisans of every trade; loungers too, and
+many a member of that class which society has failed to assimilate
+and which it hunts from prison to asylum and poor-house; and he had
+acquaintances among another class of outcasts whose numbers were
+already an open menace to the life of the Western metropolis, the girls
+who sell themselves upon the streets.[243]
+
+Many anecdotes are told of him during these years: how for instance
+he would steer the ferry-boats, till once he brought his vessel into
+imminent peril, and never thereafter would consent to handle the wheel;
+or how, during the illness of a comrade, he held his post, driving his
+stage in the winter weather while he lay in the wards of the hospital;
+or again, how he took Emerson to a favourite rendezvous of firemen and
+teamsters, his good friends, and to the astonishment of the kindly
+sage, proved himself manifestly one of them.
+
+A doctor at the old New York Hospital,[244] a dark stone building
+surmounted by a cupola, and looking out over a grassy square through
+iron gates upon Pearl Street, often met him in the wards, where he
+came to visit one or other of his driver friends, and enjoyed the
+restful influence of his presence there or in the little house-doctor's
+room. In those days, when Broadway was crammed with vehicles and with
+stages of all colours, much as is the Strand to-day, the proverbial
+American daring and recklessness gave ample opportunity for accidents.
+As to the drivers, they were generally country-bred farmers' sons, fine
+fellows, wide-awake and thoroughly conversant with all that passed in
+the city from the earliest grey of dawn till midnight: and Whitman
+found some of his closest comrades in their ranks.
+
+Sometimes a member of the hospital staff would go over with him to
+Pfaff's German restaurant or Rathskeller on Broadway; a large dingy
+basement to which one descended from the street. Here, half under the
+pavement, were the tables, bar and oyster stall, whereat the Bohemians
+of New York were wont to gather, and in a yellow fog of tobacco-smoke
+denounce all things Bostonian. John Swinton, a friend of Alcott and of
+Whitman, belonged to the group,[245] and among those who drank Herr
+Pfaff's lager-beer, and demolished his schwartz brod, Swiss cheese, and
+Frankfurter wurst, were many of the brilliant little band which at this
+time was making the _New York Saturday Press_ a challenge to everything
+academic and respectable.
+
+It was here that a young Bostonian, paying his first visit to the city
+in 1860,[246] found Whitman installed at the head of a long table,
+already a hero in that revolutionary young world. The _Press_ was his
+champion, and his voice was not to be silenced. Mr. Howells, for it was
+he, had been amused and amazed at the ferociously profane Bohemianism
+of the worthy editor, who had lived in Paris, and now worshipped it in
+the person of Victor Hugo as much as he detested Longfellow and Boston.
+
+Mr. Howells was astonished and deeply impressed by the extraordinary
+charm, gentleness and benignity of the man whom the _Press_ was
+extolling as arch-anarch and rebel. Whitman's eyes and voice made a
+frank and irresistible proffer of friendship, and he gave you his hand
+as though it were yours to keep. An atmosphere of unmistakable purity
+emanated from him in the midst of that thickness of smoke, that reek of
+beer and oysters and German cooking. He was clean as the sea is clean.
+He passed along the ordinary levels of life as one who lives among the
+mountains, and finds his home on Helicon or Olympus.
+
+Ada Clare[247] (Mrs. Julia Macelhinney), by all accounts a charming
+and brilliant woman, was queen of this rebel circle, and especially a
+friend of Whitman's. News of her tragic death from hydrophobia, caused
+by the bite of her pet dog, came as a terrible shock to all who had
+known her. He had other women friends, notably Mrs. "Abby" Price, of
+Brooklyn, and her two daughters.[248] The mother was an incurable lover
+of her kind, whose hospitality to the outcast survived all the frauds
+practised upon it.
+
+The haunted faces of the needy were becoming only too familiar both in
+New York and Brooklyn. The winter of 1857-58 had been a black one:[249]
+banks had broken, and work had come to a standstill; and there had been
+in consequence the direst need among the ever-increasing class of men
+who were wholly dependent upon their weekly earnings. The rise of this
+class in a new country marks the advent of the social problem in its
+more acute form: and from this date on there was a rapid development of
+the usual palliative agencies, missions, rescue-homes and what-not. The
+permanent problem of poverty had made its appearance in America.
+
+It need hardly be added that at the same time there were many evidences
+of the growing wealth of another class of the citizens, those
+whose profits were derived from land-values and the employment of
+wage-labour. The brown-stone characteristic of the modern city was now
+replacing the wood and brick which had hitherto lined Broadway,[250]
+as private houses gave way to shops and offices, hotels and theatres.
+Residences were built farther and farther up-town; and the Quarantine
+Station on Staten Island, which stood in the way of a similar expansion
+in that desirable quarter, was burnt out by aspiring citizens. And
+meanwhile the pressure of life in the East-side rookeries was growing
+more and more tyrannous.
+
+The foundering of a slave-ship off Montauk Point was one of the more
+striking reminders of the menace of vested interests to all that
+the fathers of the Republic had held dear.[251] For even the slave
+trade was now being revived, and the hands of Northern merchants
+were anything but clean from the gold of conspiracy. Sympathy for
+the "institution" and its corollaries was strong in New York, and
+was not unrepresented at Pfaff's. It must have been about the close
+of 1861,[252] or a little later, that one of the Bohemians proposed
+a toast to the success of the Southern arms. Whitman retorted with
+indignant and passionate words: an altercation ensued across the table,
+with some show of ill-mannered violence by the Southern enthusiast; and
+Whitman left his old haunt, never to return till the great storm of the
+war had become a far-away echo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT FORTY]
+
+There are two portraits which belong to the Pfaffian days. In either
+he might be the stage-driver of Broadway, and his dress presents a
+striking contrast with the stiff gentility of the orthodox costume,
+the silk hat and broadcloth, of the correct citizen. He is a great
+nonchalant fellow, with rough clothes fit for manual toil; a coat
+whose collar, by the way, has a rebellious upward turn; a waistcoat,
+all unbuttoned save at a point about half-way down, exposing the
+loose-collared shirt surrounded by a big knotted tie. The trousers
+are of the same striped stuff as the vest; one hand is thrust into a
+pocket, the other holds his broad brim.
+
+In the photograph, which alone is of full length, the face is strong
+and kindly, as Mr. Howells saw it; but in the painting, which dates
+from 1859,[253] and is valuable as showing the florid colouring of
+the man at this time--the growth of hair and beard, though touched
+with grey, very vigorous and still dark, the eyebrows almost black,
+the face handsome, red and full as of an old-time sea-captain--the
+aspect is heavy and even a little sinister. Probably this is a clumsy
+rendering of that lethargic and brooding condition which the occupation
+of sitting for a portrait would be likely to induce; and in this it is
+curiously unlike that of the photograph.
+
+The pose in the latter is unstudied and a little awkward; one cannot
+help feeling that the man ought to loaf a little less. The head is
+magnificent, but the knees are loose. There was something in Whitman's
+character which this full-length portrait indicates better than any
+other; something indefinite and complacent, which matched with his
+deliberate and swaggery gait. It is a quality which exasperates the
+formalists, and all the people who feel positively indecent in anything
+but a starched shirt.
+
+Whitman wore the garb and fell naturally into the attitudes of the
+manual worker. When he was not at work he was relaxed, and stood at
+ease in a way that no one could mistake. And when he went out to enjoy
+himself he never donned a tail-coat and patent shoes. Something in this
+very capacity for relaxation and looseness at the knees made him more
+companionable to the average man, as it made him more exasperating to
+the superior person. The gentility of the clerical mannikin of the
+office was utterly abominable to him; so much one can read in the
+portrait, and in the fact that he persisted in calling himself Walt,
+the name which was familiar to the men on the ferry and the road.[254]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early in 1860 Whitman made arrangements with a firm of young and
+enterprising Boston publishers for the issue of a third edition of
+his book. It had now been out of print for nearly three years, and
+new material had all that time been accumulating, amounting to about
+two-thirds of what had already been published.
+
+He went over to Boston and installed himself in a little room at the
+printing office, where he spent his days carefully correcting and
+revising the proofs. A friend who found him there speaks of his very
+quiet manners.[255] He rarely laughed, and never loudly. He seemed to
+be provokingly indifferent to the impression he was creating, and made
+no effort to talk brilliantly. He was indeed quite bare of the small
+change of conversation, and gave no impression of self-consciousness.
+At the time of this interview he was accompanied by a sickly listless
+lad whom he had found at the boarding-house where he stayed. Whitman
+had compassion on him and carried him along, in order that he might
+communicate something of his own superabundant vitality to him.
+
+During his stay in Boston, Walt frequently attended the services then
+conducted at the Seamen's Bethel by Father Taylor.[256] As a rule, he
+avoided churches of every sort, feeling acutely the ineffectiveness of
+what is grimly called "Divine Service," feeling also that worship was
+for the soul in its solitude.[257] Not that he was ignorant of that
+social passion which finds its altar in communion of spirit, or was
+blind to the deepest mysteries of fellowship. To these, as we shall
+see, he was particularly sensitive. But the formalities of a church
+must have seemed foolish and irksome to one for whom all fellowship was
+a kind of worship, and all desire was a prayer. In the preaching of
+Father Taylor there was nothing formal or ineffective. In it Walt felt
+anew the passionate sense of reality which had thrilled him as a child
+in the preaching of old Elias Hicks.
+
+Father Taylor was now nearly seventy;[258] a southerner by birth, he
+had been a sailor, and became upon conversion a "shouting Methodist".
+The earnestness of his first devotion remained with him to the last;
+and his prayers were especially marked by the power which flowed from
+him continually. Behind the high pulpit in the quaint heavily-timbered,
+wood-scented chapel was painted a ship in distress, in vivid
+illustration of his words which were ever returning to the sea. All his
+ways were eloquent, unconventional, picturesque and homely like his
+face, so that he won the hearts of all conditions of men, and became
+one of the idols of Boston.
+
+The old man's power of fascination seemed almost terrible to his
+hearers; one young sailor opined that he must be the actual Holy Ghost.
+Walt himself was always moved to tears by the marvellous intimacy of
+his passionate pleading in prayer.[259] He spoke straight to the Soul,
+and not at all, as do common preachers, to the intelligence or the
+superficial emotions; and the Soul of his hearers answered, with the
+awful promptitude of an unknown living presence within. His passion of
+love was at once tender and remorseless; Whitman compares him with a
+surgeon operating upon a beloved patient.
+
+In this man, before whom all the elocution of the platform was mere
+trickery, Walt recognised the one "essentially perfect orator" whom
+he had ever heard, the only one who fulfilled the demands of his own
+ideal. And be it remembered, Theodore Parker was in his power in those
+days, while Father Taylor was an evangelical of the old school. It is,
+after all, not mysticism but orthodoxy which is exclusive; and though
+he was wholly a heretic, Whitman was able fully to love and appreciate
+those who were farthest removed from his own point of view.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon this visit Emerson and Whitman saw much of one another. They were
+both men in middle life--Emerson had passed his fiftieth year--and each
+entertained for the other a feeling of warm and affectionate regard.
+Whitman felt toward the older man almost as to an elder brother,[260]
+and the sweet and wise and kindly spirit of Emerson frequently sought
+out the younger in brotherly solicitude for his welfare.
+
+Their intimacy had sprung from Emerson's letter, and it was always
+Emerson who pressed it. Something in the mental atmosphere in which the
+Concord philosopher moved was very repellant to Whitman: he positively
+disliked "a literary circle," and blamed it for all the real or
+imagined shortcomings of his friend. He himself would not go to Concord
+from his horror of any sort of lionizing.
+
+So when Emerson wanted to talk, they would walk together on the
+Common;[261] as on one memorable, bright, keen February day, when
+under the bare branches of the American elms, they paced to and fro
+discoursing earnestly.
+
+Emerson's name had been somewhat too conspicuously displayed on the
+back of the second edition, of which he had been caused to appear
+almost as a sponsor; and some of the lines thus introduced had put his
+Puritan friends completely out of countenance, while giving his many
+enemies an admirable opportunity to blaspheme. The frank celebration of
+acts to which modern society only alludes by indirection, revealed to
+the observant eye of orthodoxy that cloven hoof of immorality which it
+always suspects concealed about the person of the philosophic heretic.
+And we can well imagine the consternation of the blameless householder
+of Boston as, in the bosom of his astonished family, he read aloud the
+pages commended to him by the words of the master.
+
+It was thus upon Emerson, who did not quite approve the offending
+poems, that much of the storm of indignation wreaked itself; and
+whatever Emerson himself might think of the situation, his family was
+indignant. One can almost hear them arguing that a man has heresies
+enough of his own to close the ears of men to his message, without
+gratuitous implication in heresies which are not his; if he value his
+charge, let him keep clear of other men's eccentricities; he really has
+no right to allow himself to be represented as the sponsor for such
+sentiments as Whitman printed in the _Body Electric_.[262]
+
+But whatever his friends might counsel, Emerson spoke from his own
+heart and wisdom that February day. He was pleading not for himself,
+but for the truth as he saw it, and for his offending friend. It was
+not because the book was being published as it were in his own diocese,
+his own beloved Boston; but because the new edition would be the first
+to be issued by a responsible house, and destined, probably, to enjoy a
+wide and permanent circulation, remaining for years the final utterance
+of Whitman upon these matters, that Emerson was so urgent and so
+eloquent.
+
+His position was a strong one; his arguments, and the spirit which
+prompted them, were, as Whitman admitted, overwhelming, and his
+companion was in a sense convinced. It is much to be regretted that
+neither of the friends kept any detailed record of this discussion, but
+I think we can guess what the older man's position would be.
+
+Your message of the soul, we can imagine Emerson saying, is of the
+utmost importance to America: it is what America needs, and it is what
+you, and you alone, can make her hear. But you can only make her hear
+it, if you state it in the most convincing and simple way.
+
+Now these poems of yours upon sex complicate and confuse the real
+message, not because they are necessarily wrong in themselves--I
+do not say they are--but because they do and must give rise to
+misunderstanding, and in consequence, obscure or even cancel the rest.
+They give the book an evil notoriety, and will create for it a _succès
+de scandale_. It will be bought and read by the prurient, to whom its
+worth will be wholly sealed.
+
+And not only do you destroy the value of the book by printing such
+poems as these, you render it actually dangerous. Personally you and
+I are agreed--he would say--with Boehme where he writes that "the new
+spirit cometh to Divine vision in himself, and heareth God's word, and
+hath Divine understanding and inclination ... and ... _the earthly
+flesh_ ... _hurteth him not at all_".[263] We know the flesh to be
+beautiful and sacred; we turn with loathing from the blasphemies of
+Saint Bernard and of Luther, who saw in it nothing but a maggot-sack, a
+sack of dung. On these things we are at one; but how are we most wisely
+and surely to direct others on the road to self-realisation?
+
+To feed the monster of a crude passion is surely not the way to bring
+the individual toward the Divine vision. To be frank about these
+matters is necessary; but in order to be honest is it necessary to
+fling abroad this wildfire, against which we are all contending, lest
+it destroy the labours of ages? Must we nourish this giant, whose
+unruly strength is for ever threatening to tear in pieces the unity of
+the self?
+
+By these poems you are deliberately consigning your book to the class
+which every wise parent must label "dangerous to young people," and
+which the very spirits you most desire to kindle for America will be
+compelled, by the law of their being, to handle at their peril, and to
+turn from with distress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arguments not unlike these were doubtless used by Emerson, for we
+know that he discussed this problem; and Whitman listened attentively
+to them, explaining himself at times, but generally weighing them in
+silence. Perhaps they were not new to him, but they were rendered
+the more powerful and well-nigh irresistible by the persuasive and
+beautiful spirit, the whole magnetic personality of his friend.
+
+Walt was deeply moved, and when, after a couple of hours, Emerson
+concluded the statement of his case with the challenge, "What have you
+to say to such things?" could but reply, "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". "Very well," responded Emerson cheerfully,
+"then let us go to dinner."[264]
+
+They had been pacing up and down the Long Walk by Beacon Street, from
+which one looks across the broad, park-like stretch of the Common--that
+Common whose grey, bright-eyed squirrels are so confiding, and whose
+air is so good from the sea. To-day the oldest of the elms, that kept
+record of the past as wisely as any archives, have yielded to the winds
+and to the tooth of time. The growth of these trees is very different
+from that of our English species, and their long, curving branches
+rib the vault of sky overhead. The two men went over the historic
+hill--where now the gilded dome of the State House glows richly against
+the sky--descending through picturesquely narrow streets, full of
+memories and echoes of old days, to their destination at the American
+House.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[239] _Cf._ useful ed. of his speeches recently added to "Unit Library".
+
+[240] Thoreau's _A Plea for Captain J. B._, and _The Last Days of J. B._
+
+[241] Kennedy, 49.
+
+[242] Address at Cooper Inst., 27th February, 1860.
+
+[243] Among the MSS. Traubel is a first draft for a novel (?) dealing
+with a woman of this class.
+
+[244] Dr. D. B. St. J. Roosa in _N.Y. Mail and Express_.
+
+[245] Donaldson, 208.
+
+[246] W. D. Howells, _Lity. Friends and Acq._, 74.
+
+[247] Kennedy, 70.
+
+[248] Bucke, 26, 38.
+
+[249] _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iii., 458-60.
+
+[250] _Cf._ _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iii., 464, etc.
+
+[251] _Ib._, iii., 468.
+
+[252] Kennedy, 69.
+
+[253] In possession of Mr. J. H. Johnston, of New York. Reproduced as
+frontispiece to _Comp. Prose_.
+
+[254] Kennedy, 44; Bucke, 33; Burroughs, 20, 21.
+
+[255] Mr. Trowbridge.
+
+[256] _Comp. Prose_, 385-87.
+
+[257] _Ib._, 226, 227.
+
+[258] _Father Taylor, the Sailor Preacher_, by G. Haven and T. Russell,
+1877.
+
+[259] _Comp. Prose_, 386.
+
+[260] Kennedy, 76, 77; _cf._ _Comp. Prose_, 315-17; Burroughs (_a_),
+67, etc.
+
+[261] Burroughs, 144.
+
+[262] _L. of G._, 81.
+
+[263] _Two Theosophical Letters_, ii., 11.
+
+[264] Bucke, 144, 145; _Comp. Prose_, 184.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE TESTAMENT OF A COMRADE
+
+
+What the theory was from which even Emerson's eloquence could not
+persuade Whitman, we may understand better if we take up the new
+volume, turning the pages which were now being added to it, till toward
+the end we come upon the matter of debate.
+
+Though handsomer and pleasanter to handle than its predecessor, this
+Boston edition still wears a countryman's dress; a heavily stamped
+orange cover which threatens the symmetry of any library shelf.
+Evidently, Whitman did not intend it to lie there in peace. It was to
+be different from the rest, and bad company for them.
+
+It opens on a reproduction of the 1859 painting, which faces an
+odd-looking lithographed and beflourished title-page. The old Preface
+has gone for good, and now its place is taken by a _Proto-Leaf_ or
+Summary, by way of introduction.[265]
+
+The first edition had been a manifesto of the American idea
+in literature and ethics, and a declaration of the gospel of
+Self-realisation. The second expanded the mystical meanings involved
+in this; "think of the soul" running through all, and breaking out
+continually as a refrain, and it made clearer the message to women
+already more than hinted in the first. Now in the third edition,
+emphasis falls upon the personal note, which becomes strangely
+haunting. The book is not only for the first time a complete and living
+whole; it is a presence, a lover, a comrade, and its close is like a
+death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Solitary, singing in the West, says the introductory Leaf,[266] the
+poet is striking up for a New World; and lo, he beholds all the peoples
+of all time as his interminable audience. For through him, Nature
+herself speaks without restraint; and through him, the Soul, the
+ultimate Reality.
+
+He sings for America; for there at last the Soul is acknowledged; and
+his song will bind her together. The Body, Sex, Comradeship, these he
+sings: but above all, Faith, for he is proclaiming a new religion which
+includes all others and is worthy of America.[267] Of whatever he may
+seem to write, he is always writing of Religion; for indeed she is
+supreme. Love, Democracy, Religion--these three--and the greatest of
+these is Religion.
+
+The world is unseen as much as seen. The air is full of invisible
+presences as real as the seen. And his songs also are for those as yet
+unseen, his children by Democracy, the woman of his love. For them he
+will reveal the soul, glorious in the body.
+
+Ah, what a glory is this our life, and this our country! Death itself
+will not carry him away from it. In these fields, men and women in the
+years to come will ever be discovering him, and he will render them
+worthy of America as none other can. For he has "arrived," he is no
+longer mortal.
+
+If you would behold America, seek her in these pages. And if you would
+triumph and make her triumphant, you must become his comrade. The final
+note is one of passionate love-longing for comradeship.[268]
+
+Such is the summary of the book; but it cannot be so briefly dismissed
+by us, for it is full of suggestions of the inner workings of
+Whitman's mind at this period, for us, in some respects, the most
+characteristic and important of all. For after it there comes the war,
+the watershed of his life; there he employed and in a sense expended
+all the resources of his manhood, to issue from it upon the slopes of
+ill-health which lead down into the valley of the shadow. But here he
+is in his prime, and on the heights.
+
+Here also, his individuality shows most definitely, even in its
+secondary qualities. The association with men of a somewhat less
+Bohemian type than were many of his literary friends in New York, and
+the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the national capital, together
+with the close intimacy with death which the war-hospitals afforded,
+somewhat quieted the tone of later editions. Here there is more of the
+naïve colloquialism and mannerism, the slang and the ejaculations of
+"the arrogant Mannhattanese" which he loves to proclaim himself.[269]
+It is the edition which is most dear to many an enthusiast, and most
+exasperating to many a critic.
+
+After the first-written and longest of all the poems, "The Song of
+Myself," here called "Walt Whitman," there follow two large bundles,
+tied together and labelled respectively "Chants Democratic" and "Leaves
+of Grass". The bulk of these consists of material already familiar.
+
+But number four of the Chants,[270] celebrating the organic unity of
+America, is new, and may be quoted as a curious example of Whitman's
+style. Here are seven pages of soliloquy practically innocent of a
+period, flowing along together in a hardly vertebrate sentence, which
+enumerates the different elements included in the Union. Strange
+as it certainly looks, this creation must have been so constructed
+of set purpose, for Whitman could not be ignorant of the oddity of
+its appearance, when viewed by the ever-alert humour of the already
+hostile American critic. Can there possibly be any connection between
+this style of composition and the larger consciousness of which he
+had experience? The question may appear absurd, but I ask it in all
+seriousness, and would propose an affirmative answer.
+
+Whitman regarded his whole book as a unit, not as a collection. Like
+the composer who elaborates a single theme into a long-sustained
+symphony, or the psychological novelist who requires three volumes
+for the portrayal of a personality, he held his meaning suspended in
+order that it might be more fully grasped; and this is true also of his
+individual poems. The thought he had to convey was not epigrammatic,
+but a complex of suggestions which merge into one as they are read
+together. I would even venture to suggest that some of these exercises
+in sustained meaning were also designed to train the faculty of
+apprehending the Many-in-One, the Unity, which, as he believed, lies
+behind all variety. In considering this suggestion one may contrast the
+emotional results produced by epigrams and long sentences. May not the
+former be the natural rhythm for wit and the latter for imagination?
+
+The contrast between the essayist on "Man" and the singer of
+"Myself" is obvious;[271] but the optimism of the eighteenth century
+epigrammatist seems to be echoed in Whitman's pages.[272] On the verge
+of war, and in the midst of all the corruption of American politics,
+he has the audacity to declare and reiterate, "Whatever is, is best".
+Are we to dismiss it as the shallow utterance of a callous-hearted,
+healthy-bodied, complacent American, deliberately blind to the world's
+tragedy? A thousand times, no. The pages before and after such
+declarations are filled with knowledge of suffering and death, of the
+bereavement of love, of the shame that follows sin, and of the desire
+for a better day. But here and elsewhere, he sees the perfect plan
+of the ages being fulfilled. From his Pisgah-height, he beholds the
+stretch of time; and looking out over creation as did the Divine Eye,
+he, Walt Whitman, beholds that it is all good.
+
+Emerson has written of "the Perfect Whole"; but in the pages before us
+Whitman specifies the parts, seeing them all illumined by the mystic
+light of the soul. This lays him open to attack; it is even dangerous
+from the point of view of morality. Whitman acknowledges as much, but
+he still has faith in his vision; he is still obedient to the inner
+impulse which for him at least, is indubitably divine. There must
+always be a point at which the moralist would fain part company from
+the mystic: one is occupied in the fields of eternity, while the other
+is pre-occupied upon the battlefield of time. There is room for both
+in a world where time and eternity alike are real, but the toil of the
+seer must not be made subservient to that of the warrior.
+
+Some of the lines of Whitman's "Hymn to the Setting Sun" recall the
+canticle which Brother Francis used to sing among the olives:
+
+    Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
+    Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
+    Natural life of me, faithfully praising things,
+    Corroborating for ever the triumph of things--[273]
+
+and it is all pregnant with the wonder of being. In this it is like his
+earlier work, but it has added deeper notes to its melody, and has won
+therewith a finer rhythm. A mellow glory of the setting sun irradiates
+it. All space, the poet reminds us, is filled with soul-life, and the
+strong chords of that life awake the rhythms of his praise for the joy
+of the Universal Being.
+
+He greets death with equanimity, and it is this bell-note of welcome to
+death which gives the full bass to the first Boston edition. America,
+these poems and their writer, and all the struggling creatures of life,
+are to find their meaning in death, in transition; they are to slough
+off what is no longer theirs and pass forward into life. Are they then
+to lose individual identity? No, the soul is identity, and they are of
+the soul; but that in them which is not the soul will find its meaning
+in death. There is a spiritual body, which the soul has gathered
+about itself through the agency of the senses, and that body the soul
+retains; but the body of the senses dissolves and finds new uses and
+new meanings, through death.
+
+We may illustrate this thought from the life of the whole tree, which
+is enriched by the life of every leaf. When the sap withdraws from the
+leaf, and the leaf shrivels and dies, and the frost and wind carry
+its corpse away and mix it with the mire, the soul of the leaf still
+lives in the tree. But the mere outer body, which did but temporarily
+belong to the life of the leaf, finds new value by its destruction and
+death. Who has not felt the liberating joy of the autumn gales? Who has
+not rejoiced among the trees, feeling with them the sense of rest and
+quiescence in which the force of life accumulates anew for expression
+and growth? But for the fallen leaves also we may rejoice, since their
+atoms have won something by contact with the life of the tree which now
+they can communicate to the humble mire.
+
+In another of these poems,[274] Whitman compares himself with the
+historian. The latter studies the surface of humanity, while in the
+former the inner self of the race finds expression. Such is the
+difference between an historian and a prophet. In another,[275]
+carrying forward a kindred thought, he declares that he has discovered
+the story of the past, not in books but in the actual present. To the
+seer, as to God, the past is not gone by, but is clearly legible in
+the pages of our current life, if only we would learn to read them.
+It is hidden from our normal consciousness; but in certain phases
+of consciousness to which, it would appear, Whitman attained, it is
+revealed.
+
+To this deeper consciousness Whitman looked for the fulfilling of
+his own work and the integration of all knowledge in the future. As
+men shall enter into it, he believed, their work will show the clear
+evidence of an underlying unity;[276] it will cease to be fragmentary,
+and our libraries, instead of being mere museums filled with specimens,
+will become organic like a tree. Then the sense of the cosmos will
+superintend all things that man makes, as it superintends all the
+works of nature. A unity already exists, but an unconscious unity, like
+that of chaos.[277] His own work is, of course, only a part; a prelude
+to the universal hymn which later poets will raise together. But it is
+a prelude, and this distinguishes it from other contemporary verse.
+
+America, the land of the Many-in-One, he had discovered as the field
+for the new poetry.[278] For the divine unity is a living complex
+of variety. Every heart has its own song, and yet the heart of all
+song is one. Henceforward, he will go up and down America like the
+sun, awakening the new seasons of the soul. Some of his songs are
+especially for New York, others for the West, the Centre or the South.
+But everywhere and to all alike, they cry the messages of Reality,
+Equality, Immortality. Neither do they cry only, but they actually
+create. For song, he says, is no mere sound upon the wind, born but
+to die; these songs of his are the most real of realities; they will
+outlast centuries, supporting the Democracy of the world.[279]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The section which is specifically entitled _Leaves of Grass_ opens upon
+a note of that humility in which Whitman is supposed to have failed.
+Throwing wholly aside his egoism and pride, he identifies himself with
+tiny and ephemeral things--the scum and weed which the sea flings upon
+Paumanok's coast.
+
+"As I Ebbed with the Ocean of Life"[280] is a most significant poem,
+which it is impossible to summarise briefly. It appears to have been
+suggested by the experiences of an autumn evening on the Long Island
+beach, perhaps upon the then lonely sands of Coney Island; an evening
+in which the divine pride of conscious power and manhood, from which as
+a rule he wrote in the exaltation of inspiration, ebbed away, and left
+him struggling with the power of what he calls the electric or eternal
+self, striving as it were against it to retain his own individual
+consciousness.
+
+Although it is not easy to explain what he means, the passage admirably
+suggests the complex inner experience of his life at this period. It
+was filled with battles and adventures of the spirit, and it kept his
+mind always supplied with ample material for thought. It is no wonder
+that the endeavour to explain himself, and to keep some kind of record
+of these explorations and discoveries in the Unknown occupied much of
+his time, and that these years are somewhat barren of outward incident.
+The inner experiences of so sane and stalwart a man are of the utmost
+psychological interest, and we cannot lay too much stress upon their
+importance in Whitman's story, proving as they do the delicate nervous
+organisation of the man.
+
+As the struggle proceeds, Walt seems to be seized by a strange new
+feeling. He is fascinated by the tiny wind-rows left by the tide upon
+the sand, and the sense of a likeness between himself and them arises
+in him, taking the form not so much of a thought as of a consciousness
+of kinship. The ocean scum and débris reminds him how near to him is
+the infinite ocean of life and death, and how he himself is but a
+little washed-up drift, soon to be swallowed in the approaching waters.
+Doubt overwhelms him; he seems to know nothing of all that he thought
+he knew; his Soul and Nature make mock at him. He admits that he is but
+as this tiny nothing.
+
+This mood is a real one in Whitman. It is wrong to think of him as a
+man who was always complacent and cock-sure; all heroic faith must have
+its moments of doubt, its crisis of despair, its cry of abandonment
+upon the cross.
+
+But they are moments only. If he is but this sea-drift, yet he claims
+the shore as his father: "I take what is underfoot: what is yours,
+is mine, my father". So he takes hold upon the Eternal Reality and
+communes with it, praying that his lips may be touched and utter the
+great mysteries; for otherwise, these will overwhelm his being.[281]
+Pride, the full tide of life, will soon flow again in our veins; but
+after all, what are we but a strange complex of sea-drift and changing
+moods strewed here at your feet? It is not pessimism but humility which
+asks that question, the humility which is part of a divine pride.
+
+That pride refuses to blink anything; let us face it all, even to the
+utmost, he keeps saying. He feels that the soul can and must face
+all.[282] He has not to make a theory or to justify himself, to uphold
+institutions, or inculcate moralities; he has to open the doors of
+life in faith. He has to let light in at all the windows. And if it
+illumines ugliness as well as beauty, sin and shame as well as virtue
+and pride--still it is his part to let in the ever-glorious light. The
+more the light shines in, the more the Soul is satisfied. In himself he
+recognises sin and baseness and gives it expression, bringing it to the
+light.
+
+    (O admirers! praise not me! compliment not me! you make me wince,
+    I see what you do not--I know what you do not;)
+    Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch'd and choked,
+    Beneath this face that appears so impassive, hell's tides
+      continually run,
+    Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
+    I walk with delinquents with passionate love,
+    I feel I am of them--I belong to those convicts and prostitutes
+      myself,
+    And henceforth I will not deny them--for how can I deny myself?[283]
+
+But it is a mistake to think of the mystic, and especially of Whitman,
+as the mere onlooker at life, and the moralist as the practical person.
+There is ultimately of course no distinction between mystic and
+moralist, the mystic is the moralist become seer. And he is, perhaps,
+even more strenuous in his life than is the moralist; but life has now
+assumed for him a different aspect. He is no longer pre-occupied by the
+hunger and thirst after righteousness--for he feeds satisfied upon the
+divine bread. He is not worried about sin, because he is conscious of
+the antiseptic power of the Soul-life which heals the sores of sin, and
+sloughs off the body of corruption. What is evil passes away when life
+is earnestly pursued. He sees that everything which exists at all,
+however evil it may be, exists by reason of some virtue or excellence
+which it possesses, and which fits it to its environment. The wise soul
+uses the excellence of things, and so things hurt it not at all. The
+things that are not for it are evil to it; but in the sight of God they
+are not evil, for all things have their value to Him.
+
+Live your life, then, in faith, not in fear; such is the word of the
+mystic. Condemn nothing; but learn what is proper for your own need;
+and by sympathy, learn to read the hearts about you, and help them
+also to live according to the wisdom of the soul. Feed the soul, think
+of the soul, exercise the soul--and the things, the instincts, the
+thoughts that are evil to you now, will presently cease to trouble you.
+For in Whitman's universe the devil is dead.
+
+It is this point of view, reached in his illumination, which enabled
+him to look out upon all the shame and evil of the world, and yet to
+rejoice. I doubt if he had as yet justified this attitude to himself
+by any process of reasoning; and it would be presumptuous in me to
+attempt the task; he simply accepted it as the only possible, or rather
+the ultimate and highest attitude of the enlightened soul. When one
+discovers the soul, that is the attitude in which she stands. The joy
+of the soul fills the universe. Nothing any longer seems unworthy of
+song. Not for its own sake, perhaps, but for that which it reveals to
+the soul. And in the exaltation of this soul-sight he sings.
+
+Towards the end of this section, there is a little group of poems which
+deal with the voice.[284] Whitman recognised that the human voice is
+capable of expressing more than mere thoughts. For the whole man speaks
+in the voice; and as the soul becomes conscious, the voice gains in
+actual timbre, and wins besides a mystical authority over the heart of
+the hearer. Each word spoken by the awakened soul is freighted with
+fuller meaning than it carried before, and every word so spoken has
+a beauty which the soul gives it. He illustrates a kindred thought by
+dwelling upon the different meanings which his own name assumes in
+different mouths.[285] It would seem as though he realised that power
+of the name which is familiar to some uncivilised peoples and has been
+largely forgotten by us.
+
+The section closes with a poignant little verse[286] which declares
+with all the passion of conviction, that this paper is not paper, nor
+these words mere words; but that this is the Man Walt Whitman, who
+hails you here and cries farewell. The book is a sacrament; it is
+the wafer and wine of a Real Presence; it is a symbol pregnant with
+personality; it is no book, it is a man.
+
+    Lift me close to your face till I whisper,
+    What you are holding is in reality no book, nor part of a book,
+    It is a man, flushed and full-blooded--it is I--_So long!_
+    We must separate--Here! take from my lips this kiss,
+    Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
+    _So long_--and I hope we shall meet again.
+
+The _Salut au Monde_ carries this _Ave atque Vale_ to each and all.
+
+I have already spoken of "A Word out of The Sea"[287] in which Whitman
+relates an incident of his childhood on the Long Island coast. This
+is among the most melodious of his chants; and though Death and Love
+are the themes of all great poets it would be difficult to quote any
+passage more suggestive of the pathetic mystery of bereavement, than
+the song which he puts to the notes of the widowed mocking-bird. The
+bird's song has purposes unknown to its singer, meanings which are
+caught by the boy's heart, and awaken there a strange passion and wild
+chaos, that Death, whose voice is as the accompaniment of the sea to
+the cry of the bird, can alone soothe and order. It is impossible to
+read this poem and think of its author as ignorant of personal love and
+personal loss. The notes of despair and triumph blend together here and
+elsewhere in this edition.
+
+We turn now to the _Enfans d'Adam_, poems of sex, whose name is
+suggested by Whitman's outlook on life as on a garden of Eden, and by
+his conception of himself as it were a reincarnate Adam, begetter of a
+new race of happier men.[288]
+
+These are the poems which formed the storm-centre of Emerson's
+discussion. They celebrate the love of the body for its correlative
+body, the bridegroom's for the bride's; and they celebrate the concern
+of the soul in reproduction. The proof and law of all life is that it
+go forth from itself in fertilising power, that it beget or conceive;
+and without this, life and love would be bereft of glory. And more: for
+Whitman broke wholly with that mysticism which once saw in the organs
+of sex a deformity consequent upon man's fall; he beheld them rather as
+the vessels of a divine communion.
+
+From this mystical view of Whitman's, Emerson would conceivably have
+found no reason for dissent, but the new mysticism was full-blooded
+and masculine. It sprang out of experience, and was in no respect
+a substitute for it. When he wrote of the body, Walt used the word
+mystically it is true, but he meant the body nevertheless, using the
+word to the full of its meaning. He was very far from the abstract
+philosophic idealism which we usually and often unfairly associate with
+the transcendentalism of Concord. Thoreau, for example, the Oriental
+dreamer, had been thrilled through by the bloody and even brutal
+fanaticism of John Brown.
+
+Yet Whitman's virility was different from theirs. His celebration of
+passion was as honest and frank as Omar's praise of the vine. To him,
+the begetting of children seemed in itself more satisfying to the soul
+than any words could express. It needed no apologist; but rose out of
+the region of cold ethics in the divine glow of its ecstatic reality.
+
+Such an attitude, it seems to me, is only possible to a man who has
+known true love, and has lived a chaste and temperate life. And these
+poems, far from representing Whitman as a man of dissolute habits,
+indubitably afford the clearest proof, if it were needed, of his
+temperance and self-control; but that is, happily, a matter which
+is beyond dispute. He was not a man to seek unlawful pleasures, or
+to approach life's mysteries irreverently, neither was he a man to
+treat womanhood, even when it had covered itself with shame, with
+anything but the utmost gentleness and chivalry. It was in the cause
+of womanhood, if we can say that it was in any cause, that he wrote
+his poems of sex, seeking, for woman's sake, to wipe away the shame
+that still clings about paternity.[289] The physical rites of love
+were beautiful to his sight; and he sought to tear away the obscene
+draperies and skulking thoughts by which they have been hidden.
+
+With this in view, he added an inventory of all the items of the flesh
+to his poem of "The Body Electric,"[290] intended as are all his lists
+to make the subsequent generalisation more actual. These, he said, are
+the parts of the soul. For matter and mind are twin aspects of the one
+reality, which is the soul. All knowledge comes to the soul through the
+senses, and if we put shame upon any function of the body we cripple
+something in the soul.
+
+In a singular phrase,[291] he declares that he will be the robust
+husband of the true women of America, the women who await him;
+meaning, I suppose, that through the medium of his book, he will
+quicken in those who are fearless and receptive, the conception of the
+new Humanity. He is Adam, destined to be the father of a new race,
+by the women who are able to receive him. Sexual imagery is rightly
+used in this connection, not only because it is according to mystical
+precedent, but because sex is the profoundest of the passions, as much
+spiritual as physical, and all reproductive energy is sexual. Whitman
+believed that until this was recognised, religion and art must remain
+comparatively sterile.
+
+The question which these poems raise is far too large and too delicate
+for full discussion in this place. And its discussion is rendered more
+difficult because, present as it is in most of our minds, it is in many
+still unripe for words. The soul knows its own needs and its own hours,
+and pages like these of Whitman's are not for every reader. Whitman
+knew it, and many a time in this volume he asks whether it were not
+better for you to put the book aside. As for himself, the time had come
+when these things must be uttered.
+
+The soul must take experience in its own time; but Whitman was
+convinced that without initiation into the mysteries of love, much
+of life must remain an enigma to the individual. It was, it would
+appear, after initiation that he himself had realised his identity
+with all things. We speak sometimes of the bestial side of our nature,
+forgetting that when love illuminates it, it is this side in particular
+which redeems all that before seemed gross among the creatures.
+
+True to his determination to include all, even the outcast, in his
+synthesis, Whitman, in another poem,[292] companions publicly with
+sinners and with harlots. He shares their nature also; they, too, have
+their place. But if he says they are just as good as the best, it is
+only when seen by the eyes of a Divine Love. He, as much as any man,
+realises the handicap of sin; in the end the soul must conquer; but
+think how sin--the sin of the Pharisee and of the callous heart as much
+as that of the prostitute--disfigures the temple of the soul, and mars
+the spiritual with the outward body.
+
+Temperate himself, Whitman's sympathy for those who sin in the flesh
+was very real. And indeed for all sins of passion he felt, perhaps,
+a special understanding. The story runs that while he was still in
+Boston,[293] he met a lad he had known in New York, who was now, after
+a drunken brawl, in which he believed he had killed a companion,
+escaping from the American police to Canada. The young fellow told
+Walt his story, and was sent upon his way with that comrade's kiss of
+affection which meant so much more than good advice or charity.
+
+Before closing this section, Whitman returns[294] to the Adamic idea,
+as though to make his meaning unmistakable. In him, Adam has nearly
+circled the world, and now looks out across the Pacific to his first
+birth-place in the East; and still his work is unaccomplished. Still
+must he go on seeking for his bride, the Future. The passion of
+creation is upon him, he is strained with yearning for that towards
+which his soul gravitates.
+
+As we finish these poems, we remember how at this time their author
+impressed those who approached him with two equal qualities, his force
+and his purity: for great passion is a clear wine in a chaste vessel.
+He had a right to say as his last word on this subject, "be not afraid
+of my body"; for, indeed, it was his soul, enamoured of all things,
+wholesome and pure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After these poems, comes the "Song of the Road," and other familiar
+pieces, and then another group wholly new. These appear to have been
+written in the autumn of 1859,[295] and are called _Calamus_; a name
+either for a reed or for the sweet-flag,[296] which occurs in the
+Bible and in the pages of Greek and Latin writers, but is here used of
+a common American pond-reed, a sort of tall sedge or great spear of
+grass, a yard or so in height, emitting a pungent watery smell, whose
+root is used for chewing. In these poems he asserts the soul's need
+of society, for life and growth. The gospel of self-realisation thus
+becomes a social gospel, and the thought gives a political significance
+to these, the most esoteric of all Whitman's poems.
+
+He seems more than usually sensitive about them, and dreads to have
+them misunderstood. Proud and jealous, he would drive all but a few
+away from his confidences. They are only intended, he says,[297] for
+his comrades; for it is only they who will understand them.
+
+But in the more obvious sense the poems are for all. It is to
+comradeship and not to institutions that Whitman looks for a political
+redemption. He will bind America indissolubly together into the
+fellowship of his friends.[298] Their friendship shall be called after
+him,[299] and in his name they shall solve all the problems of Freedom,
+and bring America to victory. Lovers are the strength of Liberty,
+comrades perpetuate Equality; America will be established above
+disaster by the love of her poet's lovers.
+
+Then he turns to himself and his own friends, or rather, perhaps, to
+his own conscious need for friends. It is curious when one thinks
+of it, that we have no record of any close friendship, save that of
+Emerson, dating from these days. And he who knew and loved so many men
+and women, seems to have carried forward with him no equal friendship
+from the years of his youth. In this respect, he was solitary as a
+pioneer. He longed for Great Companions, but he did not meet them at
+this time upon the open road of daily intercourse.
+
+Yet was he not alone. Some say he wrote of comradeship because he never
+found such a comrade as him of whom he wrote;[300] but in one at least
+of these poems he declares that his life, or at the least his singing,
+depends upon such comradeship. And the absence of any record merely
+reminds us that Whitman was chary of committing such personal matters
+to the keeping of a note-book. What record has he left of those women
+and their children, whose relation to himself must have bulked so
+largely in the world of his soul? The poems seem to indicate at least
+one very intimate friendship, more passionately given than returned.
+
+Sometimes, as on the beach of Paumanok, doubt oversets him. Perhaps
+after all,[301] appearances do not mean what he sees in them. Perhaps
+the reality, the purpose, lies still undiscovered in them. Perhaps the
+identity of the human self after death is but a beautiful fable. There
+is a perfect answer--shall we say an evasion?--of these questionings
+and of all doubts, which fellowship provides.
+
+    To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my
+      lovers, my dear friends;
+    When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding
+      me by the hand,
+    When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and
+      reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
+    Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I
+      require nothing further,
+    I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity
+      beyond the grave,
+    But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
+    He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
+
+Then he praises Love; all other joys and enterprises of the heroic soul
+become but little things when weighed against the life of fellowship,
+the joy of the presence of the beloved.[302] Is this another of those
+places where the moralist begs to take his leave of the mystic? Let us
+beseech him to stay, for it is out of the strenuous passions of the
+soul that all good and lasting works for humanity have sprung. It was
+the face of Beatrice--and for the Italian, it could only have been her
+face--which drew Dante down through the circles of horror and up the
+steep slopes of Purgatory to Paradise. It was the beauty of the lady
+Poverty, that enabled her lover to kiss the sores of the lepers in the
+lazar house below Assisi. What would the Apostles have done in the name
+of their Lord had they not, like Mary the mystic, chosen the better
+part of communion with Him instead of fidgetting forever, with Martha,
+upon the errands of duty?
+
+He writes of Love's tragedy, and refusal; of the measured love returned
+for the infinite love accorded.[303] But oftener he dwells upon its
+joy. The air becomes alive with music he had never heard before.[304]
+The passion in his heart responds to a passion of which hitherto he
+had not dreamed, hidden in the heart of the world, awaiting its hour
+to break forth. And as these poems have come slowly up from out of
+the inner purpose of things, to find utterance upon Whitman's pages,
+so slowly will their meaning arise in the hearts of those that read
+them.[305] It is not to be guessed in a moment. For they are freighted
+with the mystery which unfolds in the patience of the soul.
+
+Although he warns his reader from time to time to beware of him, for
+he is not at all the man he seems, a note of yearning for confidence
+cannot be suppressed. He confesses that his very life-blood speaks in
+these pages,[306] and that his soul is heavy with infinite passion
+for the love of its Comrades that shall be. Sometimes, as he passes a
+stranger in the streets, he knows in himself that once they were each
+other's; some deep chord of life thrilling, as though with memory,
+to promise that they will yet come together again.[307] Ah, how many
+and many an one of these his mystic kin must the lands of the earth
+contain! It is not America only, but the whole human race that he will
+bind at last into his fellowship, laughing at institutions and at laws,
+persuading all men by the power of the Soul which is in all.[308] One
+institution there is which he confesses[309] that he would inaugurate.
+Let men who love one another kiss when they meet, and walk hand in
+hand. It is no mere sentiment; he sees that love must have its witness.
+In warm manly love is the mightiest power in the universe, a power that
+laughs at oppressors and at death.[310]
+
+    I dreamed in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
+      whole of the rest of the earth,
+    I dreamed that was the new City of Friends,
+    Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love--it led
+      the rest,
+    It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
+    And in all their looks and words.
+
+_Calamus_, like the bundle labelled _Leaves of Grass_, closes on the
+note of personal presence.[311]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I trust it has already been sufficiently suggested that Whitman's
+mysticism is not to be confused with much that hitherto has passed
+under that name. Mysticism it is, for it is the expression of mystical
+experience; but it is clearly not the mysticism which is completed in
+a circle of devotion, religious exercises, meditation and ecstasy. It
+is the mysticism which recreates the world in a new image. Professor
+Royce, in his most interesting lectures on "The World and the
+Individual," has described it, or something very similar to it, under
+the title of Idealism; and his careful and suggestive elaboration of
+his theme is the best indirect commentary upon what I have called
+the mysticism of Whitman with which I am acquainted. It includes an
+admirable exposition of the meaning of the Soul or Self.
+
+Your whole world, he declares, is your whole Self--Whitman would
+perhaps have said, it is the mirror which reveals yourself. The
+Infinite Universe, whereof yours is but a part, is the Self of God. We
+live, but are not lost in Him, for we are as it were His members. There
+are two aspects of the human self: the temporal, in which it appears
+as a mere momentary consciousness, and the eternal, which reveals it
+as an indestructible purpose, the essence of reality. For reality, the
+professor argues, is the visible expression of purpose or meaning.
+
+To proceed to the social aspect of this teaching: the individual, when
+he becomes conscious of his world--his Self--becomes conscious, too,
+that his world is only one aspect of the Universe, that there are a
+myriad others, and that the Universal Life consists of a Fellowship
+of such Selves as his. Thus, God is the Many-in-One; in Him the Many
+are one Self and complete. And the Many do not only seek completion
+in the Divine Unity; they also seek fellowship with one another.
+The Divine life, which is the basis of Human life, is thus a life
+of Fellowship--as the Apostle says, it is Love. It is not merely a
+trinity, it is a City of Friends; or rather of Lovers, as Edward
+Carpenter suggested in his recent essays.[312]
+
+Now I am convinced that this thought underlies _Calamus_; not,
+indeed, as a metaphysical theory, but as one of those overwhelming
+realisations of the ultimate significance of things which I have
+described inadequately as Whitman's symbolism. Seeking to plumb the
+depths of passion, he found God. Sex became for him, in its essence,
+the potency of that Life wherein we are One. And comradeship, a passion
+as intense as that of sex, he beheld as the same relation between
+spiritual or ætherial bodies.[313] He was aware that the noblest of
+passions is the most liable to base misunderstandings. But in it alone
+the soul finds full freedom. Sex passion finds its proper expression in
+physical rites, it is the passion of the life in Time; on the contrary,
+the passion of comrades is of eternity and only finds expression in
+Death.[314] This appears to have been Whitman's conviction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet another bundle follows _Calamus_; a packet of more or less personal
+letters or messages called _Messenger Leaves_. In subsequent editions
+they were sorted out into other sections. They are not all new; but
+among those that now appear for the first time are the daring and noble
+lines to Jesus.
+
+    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, (there are others
+      also;)
+    I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute
+      those who are with you, before and since--and those to come also,
+    That we all labour 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, ...
+    Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races,
+      ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.[315]
+
+Scattered through the generations--so we may read his thought--are
+those who have come into the cosmic consciousness or larger life, who
+have passed beyond the reach of time and of mere argument, and who
+therefore understand one another as others cannot understand them. The
+love and communion which exists between such Great Companions, is a
+pledge and earnest of the Society of the Future, when all men shall be
+one, even as these are one.
+
+The thought may shock those to whom it comes suddenly, if they see in
+Whitman the "mere man" of their own narrow conception of humanity.
+But in judging him we must remember that he openly claims for himself
+and for other men all the Divine attributes which Christians are in
+the habit of ascribing to their Lord. Whitman believed that Jesus
+identified himself with Humanity; and that all who enter, as he
+entered, into the cosmic life share in the fellowship of God, even as
+did he.
+
+More fully than many Christians, Whitman recognised Jesus as literally
+his elder brother; he joined with him in the words "Our Father,"
+feeling them to be true. And as one reads the gospel narratives one
+ventures to believe that the Master who called the disciples his
+friends, would himself have been eager to welcome the assertion of such
+a relationship.
+
+Another letter[316] is to one about to die; it is filled not with
+melancholy but with congratulation. The body that dies is but an
+excrement, the Self is eternal and goes on into ever fuller sunlight.
+
+Another,[317] which has aroused perhaps more misunderstanding than
+anything which Whitman wrote, is addressed to a prostitute. It hardly
+seems to call for explanation; for it is like the simple offering of
+the hand of friendship to an outcast; the assertion that for her, too,
+Whitman's living eternal comradeship is real and close, accompanied by
+the injunction that she be worthy of such friendship.
+
+He writes to rich givers[318] in the Franciscan spirit; for he that is
+willing to give all, is able to accept.
+
+To a pupil[319] he suggests that personality is the tool of all good
+work and usefulness. To be magnetic is to be great. Come then and first
+become yourself.
+
+But it is impossible even to refer in passing to all the separate
+poems, each one with its living suggestion. Some of the briefest are
+not the least pregnant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The book closes with poems of departure. A dread falls upon him;[320]
+perhaps after all he may not linger, to go to and fro through the lands
+he loves, awakening comrades; presently his voice also will cease. But
+here and now at least his soul has appeared and been realised; and that
+in itself should be enough.
+
+Then he says his farewell. His words have been for his own era; and in
+every age, the race must find anew its own poets for its own words. But
+till America shall have absorbed his message, he must stand, and his
+influence, his spirit, must endure.[321] After all, he does but seek,
+with passionate longing, one worthier than himself, who yet shall take
+his place. For him, he has prepared.
+
+Now is he come to die. Without comprehending or questioning, he has
+obeyed his mystical commission; he has sown the Divine seed with which
+he was entrusted; he has given the message with which he was burdened,
+to women and to young men; now he passes on into the state for which
+all experience and service has been preparing him. He ceases to sing.
+His work is accomplished. Now disembodied and free, he can respond to
+all that love him, and enter upon the intenser Reality of the Unknown.
+
+    Dear friend, whoever you are, here, take this kiss,
+    I give it especially to you--Do not forget me,
+    I feel like one who has done his work--I progress on,
+    The unknown sphere, more real than I dreamed, more direct, darts
+      awakening rays about me--_So long!_
+    Remember my words--I love you--I depart from materials,
+    I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.[322]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[265] _L. of G._, 18.
+
+[266] _L. of G._, 19.
+
+[267] _Ib._, 23.
+
+[268] _Ib._, 29; (1860), 22.
+
+[269] In this edition the old-fashioned, colloquial "you was" is
+retained.
+
+[270] _L. of G._, 138.
+
+[271] See _infra_, 289.
+
+[272] _L. of G._, 191.
+
+[273] _L. of G._, 374.
+
+[274] _L. of G._, 11; (1860), 181.
+
+[275] _Ib._, 300.
+
+[276] _Ib._, 299.
+
+[277] _L. of G._, 18.
+
+[278] _Ib._ (1860), 190.
+
+[279] _Ib._ (1860), 193.
+
+[280] _Ib._, 202.
+
+[281] _L. of G._ (1860), 198.
+
+[282] _L. of G._ (1860), 236.
+
+[283] _L. of G._, 298; (1860), 231.
+
+[284] _L. of G._, 297.
+
+[285] _L. of G._, 303.
+
+[286] _Ib._ (1860), 242.
+
+[287] _L. of G._, 196; see _supra_, 12.
+
+[288] _L. of G._, 79.
+
+[289] _Cf._ Mrs. Gilchrist in _In re_, 50.
+
+[290] _L. of G._, 87, 88.
+
+[291] _Ib._, 88.
+
+[292] _L. of G._, 94; (1860), 311.
+
+[293] Bucke, 102, 103.
+
+[294] _L. of G._, 95.
+
+[295] _Ib._ (1860), 378. Several of the poems are fuller in this
+edition, some being omitted in the complete _L. of G._
+
+[296] Rossetti, _Selections_, 390 n.; Kennedy, 134.
+
+[297] _L. of G._, 97, 98, 100, 103.
+
+[298] _Ib._, 99.
+
+[299] _Ib._ (1860), 349.
+
+[300] Donaldson, 7.
+
+[301] _L. of G._, 101.
+
+[302] _Ib._ (1860), 354.
+
+[303] _Ib._ (1860), 355; _L. of G._, 110.
+
+[304] _L. of G._, 343.
+
+[305] _Ib._, 103, 104.
+
+[306] _Ib._, 104, etc.
+
+[307] _Ib._, 106.
+
+[308] _Ib._, 107.
+
+[309] _Ib._ (1860), 350.
+
+[310] _L. of G._, 109.
+
+[311] _L. of G._, 112.
+
+[312] _The Art of Creation._
+
+[313] _L. of G._, 96.
+
+[314] _Ib._, 96.
+
+[315] _L. of G._, 298; _cf._ _An American Primer_, 18, 19.
+
+[316] _Ib._, 344.
+
+[317] _Ib._, 299.
+
+[318] _L. of G._, 216.
+
+[319] _Ib._, 302.
+
+[320] _Ib._, 370; (1860), 449.
+
+[321] _Ib._, 380.
+
+[322] _L. of G._, 382.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+AMERICA AT WAR
+
+
+The new edition of _Leaves of Grass_ pleased the critics as little
+as its predecessors, but had a wider circulation. Some four or five
+thousand copies had been sold before the house of Thayer and Eldridge
+went down in the financial crash which followed on the outbreak of the
+war.[323] Emerson came in again for some share of the critical assault,
+though his name was in no way connected with the new issue. Of Whitman
+himself a London journalist declared[324] that he was the most silly,
+the most blasphemous, and the most disgusting writer that he had ever
+perused.
+
+But if it found fresh enemies, the new edition found also new friends;
+and notably in England, whither a few adventurous copies of the earlier
+versions had already penetrated. Both Emerson and Thoreau had sent
+them to their English friends--among whom was Carlyle--but apparently
+with scant acknowledgment. Ruskin's correspondent, Mr. Thomas Dixon
+of Sunderland, had purchased a few examples of the first edition at
+Dutch auction; and some of these he forwarded to Mr. William Bell
+Scott, who again handed on one of them to Mr. W. M. Rossetti; an act
+which, as the story will show, proved to be of great importance to Walt
+Whitman.[325] It was the book of 1860, however, which first aroused
+the younger generation of Englishmen, among whom was the late Mr.
+Addington Symonds. "Within the space of a few years," says he, "we were
+all reading and discussing Walt."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The book appeared under the shadow of impending war. With the
+Presidential election of 1860, America came to the edge of the abyss;
+and the return of Abraham Lincoln was promptly followed by the
+organisation of secession. Whitman was still in Boston when, early in
+the spring, Lincoln first made his appearance in New York, W. C. Bryant
+introducing him to a great meeting at the Cooper Institute.
+
+The famous speech which he then delivered lived long in its hearers'
+memory; but even the personal impression which he made, remarkable as
+it was, hardly prepared New York to learn in the following May that it
+was Abraham Lincoln, and not W. H. Seward, the nominal leader of the
+Republican party, who had received the Presidential nomination at the
+great Chicago Convention.
+
+Had the Democratic party been able to hold together, Lincoln could
+not have carried the election; but it was now split, and further
+weakened by the appearance of a Constitutional Union Party.[326] The
+most dangerous of the opposing candidates seemed to be Lincoln's
+old antagonist and subsequent loyal supporter, Judge Douglas, who
+represented his well-worn policy of local option, or "squatter
+sovereignty". Breckinridge of Kentucky openly advocated the extension
+of slave territory; while Bell, the Unionist, kept his own counsel.
+
+Early in the summer of that great struggle, Whitman returned to New
+York. In June[327] he was among the immense crowd of interested
+spectators who filled Broadway from side to side, on the arrival of
+the first Japanese embassy to America; and he was of the thousands
+who welcomed the succession of distinguished visitors who came, that
+ominous summer, to the capital of the West. There was the _Great
+Eastern_, that leviathan of the modern world, whose advent was so long
+and so eagerly anticipated; there was Garibaldi, fresh from the fields
+whereon Italy had become a kingdom--not indeed the sister republic of
+Mazzini's ardent dream, who should have given the new law of Liberty to
+Europe, but at least something more than a memory and a geographical
+term.
+
+Another, in whom Whitman felt an even warmer interest, was "Baron
+Renfrew," otherwise the Prince of Wales. The fair royal stripling
+of those days attracted the stalwart Democrat, who like old George
+Fox, could recognise a man under a crown as readily as a man in rags.
+Whitman's eyes were keen to read personality; perhaps we should
+rather say that the sense by which personality is distinguished was
+highly developed in him. And he to whom the attributes of rank were
+non-existent, fell in love with this young man[328] whose warm heart
+was to make him perhaps the best beloved of monarchs, as he afterwards
+fell in love with many a private soldier carried in wounded from
+the field. Albert Edward was one of those strangers in whom Whitman
+recognised a born comrade; and this fact at once raises his democratic
+sentiment out of the region of class feeling.
+
+He was a witness, too, of the advent of other visitors even more
+brilliant, and burdened even more to the popular fancy, and perhaps to
+his own, with significance. He saw the extraordinary display of the
+heavens--the huge meteor, luminous almost as the moon, which fell in
+Long Island Sound, and the unannounced comet flaring in the north.
+
+The autumn was loud with the electoral struggle. The presence of three
+opposing candidates was not enough to assure Lincoln's success. The
+general expectation seems to have leaned towards an electoral tie, none
+of the candidates polling a majority of the votes; and this would have
+resulted, as on the similar occasion of 1824, in the choice between
+them being left to the House of Representatives. Upon the result of
+such choice the slave party was willing to stake its hopes of success;
+anticipating that even though he were the popular candidate, Congress
+would not select Lincoln, but would put him aside, as it had passed by
+Jackson in its previous opportunity.
+
+But to the consternation of the South, the "black Republican"
+rail-splitter polled a clear majority over all three antagonists
+combined. A majority, that is to say, of electoral votes, for the
+American President is not chosen directly by the people, but by the
+people's delegates.[329] Each State elects its quota of Presidential
+electors, chosen not in proportion to the strength of parties in the
+State, but all of them representing the dominant party.[330] Thus it
+may happen that a candidate, like Judge Douglas, who polls a large
+minority of the total popular vote, will receive a mere handful of
+electoral suffrages, having failed to carry more than one or two
+States. Lincoln was chosen by 180 votes to 123; and though Douglas's
+popular poll was two-thirds of Lincoln's, and nearly as large as that
+of the two other candidates combined, his electoral support was only
+one-tenth of the voices against Lincoln. The Republican vote in the
+country fell short of the combined opposition poll by a million out
+of a total of less than five million votes. From the popular point of
+view, Lincoln was, therefore, in the difficult position of a minority
+President.
+
+The result of the November elections was scarcely made public before a
+committee of Southern Congressmen issued a manifesto,[331] proclaiming
+the immediate need for a separate Confederacy of slave-holding States,
+if the institution upon which their prosperity depended was to be
+saved from the machinations of Northern politicians. They audaciously
+identified both Lincoln and the Republican party with the policy of
+Abolition; whereas the choice of Lincoln instead of Seward, the
+Abolitionist, might in itself have been accepted as sufficient evidence
+that the North, while determined to preserve the Union, was resolute
+against interference with the internal policy of the South.
+
+The Manifesto was followed, on the 20th of December, by the secession
+of South Carolina, ever since Calhoun's day the leader of revolt
+against Federal power. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and
+Louisiana promptly joined her.
+
+Although Lincoln's election was assured in November, the executive
+power remained till the beginning of March in the feeble hands of
+Buchanan, who was the creature of advisers themselves divided in
+counsel, to the signal advantage of that section which supported
+the revolt. When, at last, the outgoing President made up his mind
+to dismiss his secessionist secretary of war, the Cotton-State
+Caucus called a Convention at Montgomery, the picturesque and sleepy
+old capital of Alabama; and this finally formulated a permanent
+constitution for the Confederacy precisely a week after the
+inauguration of the new President.[332]
+
+In the meantime Lincoln could only stand a spectator of the wholly
+ineffective measures which were being taken to frustrate the active
+aggression of the slave power. But towards the end of February he set
+out for Washington. Passing on his way through Indiana and Ohio, he was
+received by an enormous crowd in New York; and here Whitman first saw
+him, not from his favourite seat upon a stage-coach, for the streets
+were too densely packed for traffic, but as one of the thirty or forty
+thousand silent pedestrian onlookers collected in the city's heart,
+where now the post-office stands.
+
+Whitman well knew what the ominous silence, which greeted that
+loosely-made gaunt figure, concealed;[333] and how different was the
+mood of New York that day from the holiday-making good-humour with
+which it was wont to greet the arrival of other illustrious guests.
+Under the speechlessness lurked a black moody wrath ready to break
+forth.
+
+It was a pleasant afternoon, just twelve months after that other
+February day when Whitman and Emerson had paced up and down the slope
+of Boston Common in earnest colloquy. Lincoln went silently into the
+Astor House without any demonstration either of welcome or of open
+hostility; thereafter proceeding to his inauguration. He was compelled
+to pass secretly through Baltimore, where violence was only too ready
+to manifest itself on the slightest encouragement. The fact that the
+President-elect, in order to reach the capital, had thus to travel
+through a State which was only with difficulty retained for the Union
+cause, shows how close that cause was to disaster. And though, as
+Lincoln stated in his inaugural address, the bulk of the American
+people opposed secession, and the party which favoured it was but a
+comparatively small minority; yet it could only be either an ignorant
+optimism, or on the contrary a firmly founded and earnest faith in
+the devotion of the great mass of the citizens to the ideals of their
+fathers, which could face such a situation without dismay.
+
+The weight of numbers, however, favoured the North. A review of the
+census returns show that at their first compilation in 1790 the
+population of the Southern and the Northern divisions of the country
+was almost absolutely equal; but that from the beginning of the century
+the increase in the latter was the more rapid; so that in 1860 the free
+population of the North was more than double that of the South.
+
+But in spite of this great numerical preponderance, the North itself
+was not united on the question at issue, as is clearly shown by the
+returns of the Presidential election, when Douglas polled a million
+Free-state votes. For though Douglas opposed secession, he did not
+oppose the extension of slavery. It is shown clearly, too, in the
+attitude of New York; of which more, later.
+
+And beyond this the Southerner was in some respects better fitted,
+as well by his virtues as by his faults, for a military life. The
+qualities of leadership and of obedience are cultivated under an
+aristocratic ideal, as they are not under a democratic. And the South,
+which had practically controlled the executive under Buchanan, and
+especially the department of war, was better prepared to take the field
+than was the North. On the other hand, the strength of the Union lay
+in its cause, and in the latent idealism of the American people, which
+woke into activity at the first menace to the Stars and Stripes.
+
+Whether the war really settled anything, whether it might possibly have
+been avoided, whether secession left to itself would not literally have
+cut its own throat, these are interesting philosophic speculations into
+which we need not enter. For already the spectre of war had long been
+abroad, stalking through the unharvested fields of Kansas and Nebraska,
+and gesticulating with horrid signs and mocking whispers in every
+corner of America. When the slave party had first raised its fatal
+cry of "our institution in danger," it had raised the cry of war. And
+when at last men like Lincoln retorted with the declaration that the
+Union was irrefragable--that secession could only be justified after
+some criminal use of the Federal power to override the rights of the
+minority--the battle was manifestly joined.
+
+It is but fair to add that although the party of Lincoln had now truly
+become the party of the Union, the first line of cleavage between North
+and South was marked out by a schismatic spirit in the North itself,
+by its support of its own sectional interests, when enforcing a policy
+of protection upon the whole country.[334] There can be little doubt
+that the mistrust felt in the South, while largely due to anterior
+causes, was born under this evil star. So true does it seem that when a
+nation's policy is being shaped according to merely material interests,
+the seeds are being sown of future revolution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fatal movement of American destiny towards its crisis must have
+dominated much of Whitman's thought at this time. Secession was in the
+very air he breathed; for at its first proclamation an echoing voice
+was heard in New York itself.
+
+Here Mayor Wood, after a short period of deserved seclusion, had
+returned to power. Unsatisfied with his patronage he dreamed of wider
+fields. Was it not the splendid vision of a Presidency which encouraged
+this fatuous person to declare for a second secession, the creation
+of a new island republic of New York? "Tri-Insula" was to have been
+its title,[335] and its territories would have comprised Mannahatta,
+Staten, and Long Islands. The proposal was enthusiastically received by
+the absurd creatures of Tammany, who then sat upon the City Council.
+But their complacent folly was of brief duration. It was dispersed by
+the first rebel gun-shot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whitman had been at the opera on Fourteenth Street,[336] and was
+strolling homeward down Broadway about midnight, on the 13th of April,
+when he was met by the newspaper boys crying the last extras with
+more than ordinary vehemence. Buying a copy and stopping to read it
+under the lamps of the Metropolitan Hotel, he was startled by the news
+that war had actually broken out. The day before, Confederate troops
+had fired upon the flag at Charleston Harbour and Fort Sumter. South
+Carolina had flung her challenge down.
+
+The President immediately called for troops, and the response of the
+North was instantaneous. New York herself did not hesitate, but voted
+at once a million dollars and sent forward her quota of men.[337] Mayor
+Wood was among the many thousands of Democrats who became patriots that
+day--in so far as one can suddenly become patriotic.
+
+Whitman was not among the volunteers, but his brother George, who was
+ten years his junior, was one of the first to offer.[338] He had been
+following the family trade as a Brooklyn carpenter, and henceforward
+proved himself a brave and able soldier. He was neither braver nor
+abler than Walt, but the latter stayed at home, and there are those who
+have blamed him for it.
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT FORTY-FOUR]
+
+Putting on one side, as they have done, his subsequent service to
+the army, such blame springs from a misunderstanding of the man's
+nature. There are some men wholly above the reproach of cowardice or
+indifference, whom it is impossible for us to conceive as shouldering
+a gun. And for those who knew him most intimately, Whitman was such
+a man. Many men who loved peace heard the call to arms and obeyed.
+Abraham Lincoln[339] himself--to whom America was entrusting the
+conduct of the war--had but now proclaimed its futility, while his
+whole nature revolted from its cruel folly. And had his destiny bidden
+him to join the colours one cannot doubt that Walt Whitman would have
+done so.[340] But that inner voice, which he obeyed, rather forbade
+than encouraged him.
+
+And even in years of war there is service one can do for one's country
+out of the ranks. No war can wholly absorb the energies of a civilised
+people, for the daily life of the nation must be continued. There
+are, besides, tasks that have a prior claim upon the loyalty of the
+individual, even to the defence of the flag. And Whitman had such a
+task, for he bore, as it were, within his soul the infant of an ideal
+America, like a young mother whose life is the consecrated guardian of
+her unborn babe. His book was now, in a sense, complete; but none could
+feel more strongly than he that even his book was only an inadequate
+expression of his purpose; while life lasted his days were to be
+devoted to the creation of an immortal comradeship, and a spiritual
+atmosphere in which the seeds concealed in his writings might germinate.
+
+It must also be noted that, though in his open letter to Emerson[341]
+he had written of war almost as a soldier whose blood kindles at the
+sound of the trumpets, and though the spirit of his book is one which
+"blows battles into men," yet the last edition had been marked by a
+curious and significant approximation to Quakerism. It was in 1860,
+when war was so near at hand, that he substituted the Friendly numeral
+equivalents for the usual names of the months and days of the week;
+not, assuredly, because he objected to the recognition of heathen
+deities, like the early Friends, but in order to avow some relationship
+between himself and Quakerism. The increase of mystical consciousness
+may have made him more aware at this time of his real identity with
+this society of mystics to which he never nominally belonged.
+
+We have had repeated occasion to note the Quaker traits in Whitman's
+character, and here, at the opening of the war, it is well to emphasise
+them anew.[342] His love of silence, his spiritual caution, his
+veracity and simplicity of speech, his soul-sight, and the practical
+balance of his mysticism--that temperance of character upon which
+his inspirational faculties were founded--and, finally, the equal
+democratic goodwill he showed to all men; these qualities speak the
+original Quaker type. And the world may well extend to Whitman the
+respect it acknowledges for the Quaker's refusal to bear arms.
+
+It was, indeed, because he loved America so well that he did not fight
+with the common weapons. We have seen that he associated himself
+intimately with the American genius, a genius which necessarily
+includes the qualities of the South at least equally with those of the
+North; he himself[343] inclining to lay the emphasis upon the Southern
+attributes, as though their wealth in the emotional and passionate
+elements were more essential than any other. America robbed of the
+South would, indeed, have been America divided against herself. Hence
+he shared to the full in the desire and struggle for unity against the
+sordid party which instigated secession. But he knew that a victory of
+arms was not necessarily a victory of principles, and it was for the
+principle that he strove.
+
+May we not assert the possibility of a highly developed and powerful
+personality exerting itself upon the side of Justice and Liberty in
+moments of national crisis, in some manner more potent than that of
+merely physical service? Would not Whitman have been wasting his forces
+if he had surrendered himself to the spirit of the hour, and gone
+forth with the volunteers to stop or to forward a bullet or a bayonet?
+These are questions we well may ponder, and without attempting to give
+reasons for so doing, we may answer in the affirmative.
+
+Certain it is that two or three days after he first read the news of
+South Carolina's challenge, and the day following the President's
+appeal, he recorded this singular vow in one of his notebooks as though
+it were the seal upon a struggle of his spirit: "April 16th, 1861. I
+have this day, this hour, resolved to inaugurate for myself a pure,
+perfect, sweet, clean-blooded, robust body, by ignoring all drinks but
+water and pure milk, and all fat meats, late suppers--a great body, a
+purged, cleansed, spiritualised, invigorated body."[344]
+
+Read with its context of the events which were occupying his mind,
+may we not surmise that this was a new girding of the loins for some
+service of the great cause, more strenuous than ever, though perhaps
+yet undefined; that this vow of abstinence for the establishment of a
+spiritualised body, made thus at the opening of the war, and at the
+time of George's enrolment, when Lincoln's call for volunteers was
+ringing in the heart of every loyal citizen[345]--that this vow was
+that of an athlete going into training for a supreme effort; and an
+athlete whose labours are upon that unseen field, whereon it may be the
+battles of the visible world are really won. It was thus that Whitman
+obeyed the calls of duty both within him and without.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lincoln's first tasks were to create an army and to confine the area of
+insurrection. He proclaimed the blockade of the Southern ports; called
+out more regulars and volunteers, and succeeded in preventing West
+Virginia and Missouri from joining the Confederacy. Had he been able to
+retain for the service of the Union a certain brilliant young officer,
+the war might have opened and closed upon a very different story; but
+Robert Lee had already joined the Southern army, though not without an
+inward conflict.
+
+No leader of equal genius appeared upon the other side until Grant came
+out of the West. The weakness of Northern generalship was only too
+clearly evidenced in the defeat at Bull Run, midway between the two
+capitals, which were now little more than a hundred miles apart, the
+Confederate Government having removed to Richmond. As a result of the
+defeat Washington itself lay in imminent peril; and if General Johnston
+had followed up his advantage, it would have fallen into his hands. But
+he missed his hour, and the consternation of the North was followed by
+a mood of stubborn resolution.
+
+Slowly but surely Lincoln built up his military organisation. In the
+whirlpool of currents he remained steadfast to his single policy
+of maintaining the Union. He succeeded in evading the occasions of
+war which threatened abroad; he conciliated all in the South which
+was at that time amenable to conciliation; and, eager as he was for
+emancipation, he refused to be driven before the storm of Abolitionist
+sentiment which had risen in the North.
+
+During 1862, while Grant and Farragut were gradually clearing the
+Mississippi, the great natural thoroughfare of America, Lee was more
+than holding his own among the hills and rivers of Virginia. The
+opposing army of the Potomac remained ineffective under the brilliant
+but dilatory McClellan, and his more active successors, Burnside and
+Hooker. Lee assumed the aggressive, and invaded Maryland; but was
+turned back from a projected raid into Pennsylvania by the drawn battle
+of Antietam; in which, as in many of the previous engagements of this
+army, George Whitman fought.
+
+Antietam was immediately followed by the preliminary proclamation of
+emancipation, to take effect in all States which should still continue
+in rebellion at the commencement of the new year. Lincoln's mind had
+long been exercised upon the best means of compassing the liberation of
+the slaves; and until the close of the war, he himself looked for the
+ultimate solution of the problem to the method of compensation adopted
+by Great Britain in the West Indies. This was successfully applied to
+the district of Columbia, but the offer of it received no response
+either from the other States to which it was magnanimously made, or
+from Lincoln's own Cabinet. The present proclamation was intended as a
+blow at the industrial resources of the rebellion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In mid-December General Burnside lost nearly 13,000 men at
+Fredericksburg, Virginia, and reading the long lists of wounded,
+the Whitmans came upon George's name among the more serious
+casualties.[346] Great was the distress in the home on Portland Avenue,
+and Walt set off at once to seek him at the front. His pocket was
+picked in a crush at Philadelphia Station, and he arrived penniless
+in Washington.[347] There, searching the hospitals for three days and
+nights, he could get no news of his brother's whereabouts, but managed
+somehow to make his way to the army's headquarters at Falmouth. It had
+been a long, melancholy journey; but arrived at the camp, he found his
+brother already well again, his wound having healed rapidly.
+
+This sudden journey had momentous consequences for Whitman. His stay
+in New York was, perhaps naturally, drawing to a close. There are
+indications in the last poems that he was contemplating a westward
+journey, and possibly a settlement beyond the Rockies.[348] Although he
+paid it frequent visits, he never lived again in Brooklyn.
+
+At Falmouth he found among the wounded a number of young fellows
+whom he had known in New York.[349] He took a natural interest in
+their welfare, and even though he felt he could do little for them,
+lingered till a party going up to Washington offered him an opportunity
+for usefulness in their escort. Arriving at the capital, he found
+innumerable similar occasions in the many hospitals which had been
+established in and about the city. These he began to visit daily,
+supporting himself by writing letters to the New York and Brooklyn
+press--to the _New York Times_ in particular--and by copying work in
+the paymaster's office.[350] It was not till two years later that he
+obtained regular employment in the Civil Service; but during the whole
+of that time he was paying almost daily visits to the wards, in his
+honorary and voluntary capacity, as friend of the wounded.
+
+The number of these was periodically swollen by great battles. On the
+4th of May, 1863, General Hooker lost the day at Chancellorsville, and
+was replaced by Meade. Early in July, Lee made a second alarming dash
+into the North, but was turned back by General Meade from the bloody
+field of Gettysburg, where the total losses reached the appalling
+figure of 60,000.
+
+By this time, more than two years after the fall of Fort Sumter, the
+first easy boasting of a short campaign and an overwhelming triumph,
+indulged by both sides, had long died; and the solemn sense of the
+great tragedy being enacted before its eyes possessed the nation. This
+sentiment could not have been more nobly expressed than in the words
+used by the President, when, speaking at the dedication of a portion of
+the Gettysburg battlefield as a national cemetery,[351] he said: "We
+here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that
+this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom: and that
+government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish
+from the earth".
+
+Meade's victory, and the news following fast upon it of Grant's capture
+of Vicksburg, with the consequent reopening of the Mississippi,
+reassured the wavering faith of many patriots. But the situation
+was still full of peril. In this same month--July, 1863--there were
+serious riots in New York,[352] instigated by the "Copperheads," as the
+Northern sympathisers with the Confederacy were dubbed, in opposition
+to the first draft for the army under the general conscription law of
+March. In these, more than a thousand persons were killed or wounded.
+
+The riots were the more difficult to quell because all available
+troops and volunteers had been sent to the front; and these of course
+included a great proportion of the stabler citizens. At the same time
+the disaffected elements remained in their full strength. The political
+character of the disturbance was plain enough; for the rioters set upon
+any negroes they met, slinging them to the lamp-posts, and would have
+burned down the hospital, full of wounded Union soldiers, had they not
+been prevented.
+
+It is some satisfaction to know that we cannot couple the name of
+Fernando Wood with these outrages. There was something genuine in
+his patriotism. He was now in Congress, and had recently been vainly
+attempting, in his usual futile fashion, to negotiate a peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Both the draft and the riots caused the Whitman family no little
+anxiety. George, who had entered the army as a private and was
+promoted stage by stage till he became a lieutenant-colonel, was of
+course already at the front;[353] and Jeff, who had married four years
+earlier, was keeping the home together for the old mother and helpless
+youngest son, as well as for his own wife and their young children.
+Anything that happened to him would involve the happiness of the whole
+family. They feared especially that he might be drawn for service; and
+Walt wrote from Washington that in that event, he would do all in his
+power to raise the necessary money to provide a substitute.[354]
+
+Walt himself never closed his ears against the call to serve in the
+ranks, if it should come to him. Had he himself been drawn, he might
+have regarded the circumstance as the intimation of duty; but he
+was not. Instead he took the risks of small-pox in the infectious
+wards, as well as that which is incurred by the frequent dressing of
+gangrened wounds; and he bore the spiritual burden of all the pathetic
+war-wreckage which drifted into Washington month after weary month.
+
+The tension of those days was terrible to him. Devoted to the "Mother
+of All," the American nation, he loved her sons both North and South
+with an equal affection, their suffering and destruction wringing
+his heart. For, mystic as he was, he had all the strong passions
+of humanity, and felt to the full the agonies of the flesh. On the
+one side also, his own brother was in the hottest of the fighting
+throughout these years; while on the other, it is just possible that
+some young son of his own, known or unknown to him, may have served
+among the boys in the opposite ranks before the war was over. His
+Abolitionist friends would sigh, and say the struggle must go on till
+every slave should be free; but he who valued freedom not less than
+they, and understood perhaps better what it really means, dissented
+from them.
+
+The first sight of a battlefield made him cry out for peace; and if
+in the following months he felt the exhilaration which breathed from
+the simple heroism displayed by the soldiers, he still saw that war
+is not all heroic, but in time must darken the fairest cause. The
+terrible burden of its inconceivable extravagance began to weigh upon
+him like a nightmare. Each new season, with its prospective train of
+ambulances, its legion of tragedies, bewildered him with its horror;
+till he angrily denied that the whole population of negroes could be
+worth so terrific a purchase.[355] It may have been the exaggerated
+retort to an extremist argument; but indeed it was not for the negroes
+that the war was being fought; it was not for the powerful but highly
+coloured manifesto of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, but for the "Declaration
+of Independence," and for the Constitution of America. And this both
+Whitman and Lincoln realised: they knew the negro of the South as
+the New Englander never knew him, and were firm in demanding for him
+the rights of a human being; but they knew also that mere abolition
+would not give him these, nor could it render him capable of the right
+exercise of American citizenship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though Lee had been thrown back from Gettysburg, his army had never
+recognised a defeat; and the chief danger to the cause of American
+unity lay in the conviction of the South that its general and his men
+were really invincible. For two more years they kept the field, with
+a heroic determination that appears at the same time little short of
+criminal when we consider the conditions involved upon all the parties
+to resistance. And when we add to these the story of the Southern
+military prisons, even the chivalrous fame of Lee becomes stained with
+an ineffaceable shame. Better a thousand times to have acknowledged
+defeat than to have been guilty of enforcing such things. But the pride
+of the South had become rigid, and would only admit defeat after it
+was broken. Its political leaders had staked everything upon victory;
+and it would seem that they preferred to sacrifice a whole generation
+of their supporters and victims rather than bear the penalty of their
+failure.
+
+When Grant, or rather the reckless courage of his American
+volunteers,[356] had crushed General Bragg at Chattanooga, and his
+friend Sherman had completed the work of clearing Tennessee, Lee's army
+remained the sole hope of the desperately impoverished South. But still
+in itself and in its leader it was absolutely confident.
+
+A similar confidence inspired the hearts of the Union soldiers, when
+in March, 1864, the downright laconic general from the West was given
+supreme command, and went into Virginia to crush his antagonist by mere
+force of numbers and determination.
+
+In Grant at last both Lincoln and the army had found the man they
+were waiting for. But still a year went by before the task was
+accomplished--a year whose memory is the most terrible of the war--upon
+whose page are inscribed such names as, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania,
+Bloody Angle, North Anna, Cold Harbour, recalling those awful fields
+whereon more than a hundred thousand soldiers fell. While Grant was
+stubbornly pushing Lee back upon Richmond, and finally holding him
+there, Sherman was cutting him off from further support by that
+extraordinary march south-eastwards from Chattanooga through Atlanta
+to the sea. He captured Savannah just before Christmas; and afterwards
+turning north, and wading through all the morasses and crossing all
+the innumerable streams and rivers of the Carolinas, he completed his
+errand a few days before his chief entered the Southern capital.
+
+Several futile attempts had been made to bring about a reconciliation
+between North and South before the bitter end;[357] but Lincoln, eager
+as he was for peace, stood out irrevocably for the acknowledgment
+of the Union, and now added to it the emancipation of the slaves.
+It was clear that nothing short of Lee's capitulation could satisfy
+the country or end the war. On the 3rd April, Richmond surrendered
+to Grant; and on the day after, the President, who was then with the
+army, entered the city which the evacuating forces had fired. Five more
+days and Lee gave himself up: by the end of the month the surrender of
+the Confederate troops had been effected, while Jefferson Davis was
+captured in Georgia on the 10th of May. A fortnight later the combined
+hosts of Grant and Sherman passed before the President in a last grand
+review along Pennsylvania Avenue and before the White House, to be
+thereafter disbanded.
+
+But the President was no longer Abraham Lincoln. Re-elected in the
+preceding autumn, in spite of Republican intrigues and the dangerous
+opposition of General McClellan, who was put forward by the Democrats,
+Lincoln had been assassinated during a performance at Ford's Theatre,
+on the evening of the 14th of April, the fourth anniversary of the fall
+of Fort Sumter.
+
+The loss to his country was irreparable. More than any other of its
+Presidents, either before or since, Abraham Lincoln embodied the real
+genius of the American nation, and in the hour of their agony he was
+the father of his people. Slowly they had learnt his strength and his
+wisdom; but they had hardly begun to understand the greatness of a
+heart which was able to love the South with a mother's tenderness even
+while it was in arms against him.
+
+The Vice-President, who stepped into his place, was a Union Democrat;
+he also loved the South, but less wisely than well. His rash haste
+in the reconstruction of the governments of the defeated States
+threw the nation into the hands of the group of narrowly partisan
+Republicans which continued to rule America with unscrupulous ability
+and ill-concealed self-interest[358] for sixteen years, threatening by
+its attitude towards the Southern people to alienate their sympathies
+forever from the Union.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[323] Burroughs, 20, 21.
+
+[324] _Literary Gazette_, 7th July, 1860; _qu._ Bucke, 202.
+
+[325] W. M. Rossetti, _Selections from W. W._, introd., and E. Rhys,
+_Selections from W. W._, introd.; W. B. Scott, _Autobiog._, ii., 32,
+33, 268, 269.
+
+[326] There is no fact more important to be remembered for a right
+understanding of the events that follow than this, that the Slave party
+only controlled a portion, perhaps a minority, of the Democrats.
+
+[327] _L. of G._, 190; _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iii., 472.
+
+[328] _L. of G._, 1876.
+
+[329] Bryce, _op. cit._, i., 46, 47.
+
+[330] But see _ib._, i., 44.
+
+[331] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 445.
+
+[332] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 449.
+
+[333] _Comp. Prose_, 302.
+
+[334] See _supra_, p. 24.
+
+[335] Roosevelt, 202-04.
+
+[336] _Comp. Prose_, 15, 16.
+
+[337] Roosevelt, 203; _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iii., 485.
+
+[338] _W.'s Memoranda during the War_, 59.
+
+[339] Inaugural, 1861.
+
+[340] Bucke, 104.
+
+[341] _L. of G._ (1856), Appendix.
+
+[342] _Cf. In re_, 213.
+
+[343] _Cf._ _Comp. Prose_, 255, etc.
+
+[344] MSS. Harned.
+
+[345] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 451.
+
+[346] _Comp. Prose_, 15.
+
+[347] _Wound-Dresser_, 23, 47, 48.
+
+[348] _L. of G._ (1860), 371.
+
+[349] _Comp. Prose_, 21; _Wound-Dresser_, 24.
+
+[350] Burroughs, 29; _Wound-Dresser_, 10, etc.
+
+[351] 19th Nov., 1863.
+
+[352] Roosevelt, 203-206.
+
+[353] _Wound-Dresser_, 94.
+
+[354] _Wound-Dresser_, 95.
+
+[355] _Cf._ Kennedy.
+
+[356] Owen Wister's _Grant_ (Beacon Biogs.), 95, 96.
+
+[357] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 579.
+
+[358] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 638.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PROOF OF COMRADESHIP
+
+
+Whitman's residence in Washington and the nature of his occupation in
+the hospitals, through the years of the war, have rendered an outline
+of their history almost necessary. Of his manner of life during this
+period we have many notes and records, both in his own letters and
+memoranda and in the biographical accounts afterwards printed by his
+friends.
+
+During the first five or six months after his arrival he took his
+meals and spent much of his spare time with Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor, who
+had recently settled in the city.[359] He boarded in the same house
+as they, about six blocks from the Treasury building, where O'Connor
+worked, and a mile from the Armory Square Hospital, where lay many of
+his own wounded friends.
+
+William Douglas O'Connor was a strikingly handsome man of thirty
+years, full of spirit and eloquence.[360] He had previously been a
+Boston journalist, had married in that city a charming wife, and was
+the father of two children. He had lost his post there through his
+outspoken support of John Brown and the attack on Harper's Ferry.
+While out of employment he had written his novel, _Harrington_, an
+eloquent story of the Abolitionist cause, which was published by Thayer
+& Eldridge. In 1861 he had obtained a comfortable clerkship in the
+Lighthouse Bureau under the new Lincoln administration.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM DOUGLAS O'CONNOR]
+
+Whitman had already made his acquaintance in Boston, and their
+friendship now became most cordial and intimate. Generous and romantic
+in his view of life, O'Connor's whole personality was very attractive
+to Whitman from the day of their first encounter. He had the warm
+Irish temperament which Walt loved; he was a natural actor, and Walt
+was always at home with actors.[361] Moreover, he was an eager and
+intelligent admirer of _Leaves of Grass_; and his keen insight, wide
+reading and remarkable powers of elocution sometimes revealed to
+their author meanings and suggestions in his own familiar words of
+which he himself had been unconscious. O'Connor's personal attachment
+to and reverence for the older man is evident upon every page of
+_The Carpenter_, a tale which he afterwards contributed to _Putnam's
+Magazine_;[362] while in the impassioned eulogium of _The Good Gray
+Poet_ he has expressed his admiration for the _Leaves_.
+
+Upon politics however the two friends never agreed, and, unfortunately,
+O'Connor was always eager for political argument. He was a friend
+of Wendell Phillips, that anti-slavery orator who once described
+Lincoln as "the slave-hound of Illinois," because the latter approved
+the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law while it remained on the
+statute-book: and to O'Connor, compulsory emancipation always came
+before the preservation of the Union. This of course was not Whitman's
+view, and it was upon the negro question that their friendship finally
+suffered shipwreck.[363]
+
+O'Connor's rooms soon became the centre of an interesting group of
+literary friends. Mr. Eldridge, the publisher,[364] came to Washington
+after the wreck of his Boston business, and a little later Mr. John
+Burroughs,[365] a student of Wordsworth, Emerson and the _Leaves_,
+being attracted to the capital, whither all eyes were turning, gave up
+teaching in New England, and obtained a Government clerkship. Mr. E.
+C. Steadman,[366] a poet and journalist in those days, and a clerk in
+the Attorney-General's department, was of the O'Connor group; and Mr.
+Hubley Ashton[367] also, then a rising young lawyer, who afterwards
+intervened successfully on Whitman's behalf at a critical moment.
+
+The last-named of these gentlemen tells me that he first saw Whitman
+late one evening at the rooms of their mutual friend. It was indeed
+past midnight when Walt appeared asking for supper. He was wearing army
+boots, his sleeves were rolled up, and his coat was slung across his
+arm. He had just come in with a train-load of wounded from the front,
+and had been disposing of his charges in the Washington hospitals. Very
+picturesque he looked, as he stood there, stalwart, unconventional,
+majestic, an heroic American figure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That figure rapidly became as familiar in Washington as it had been in
+New York.[368] No one could miss or mistake this great jolly-looking
+man, with his deliberate but swinging gait, his red face with its grey
+beard over the open collar, and crowned by the big slouch hat; and
+every one wondered who and what he might be. Some Western general, or
+sea-captain, or perhaps a Catholic Father, they would guess;[369] for
+he seemed a leader of men, and there was a freshness about his presence
+that surely must have come either from the prairies, the great deep,
+or the very heart of humanity. He had the bearing, too, of a man of
+action; he looked as though he could handle the ribbons, or swing an
+axe with the best, as indeed he could.
+
+Whitman was more puzzled than any of the onlookers about his
+occupation, or rather his business. Occupation he never lacked while
+the hospitals were full; but for years he was very poor, and once,
+at least, seriously in debt.[370] The need for money, to supply the
+little extras which might save the life of many a poor fellow in the
+wards, was constant; and now, probably for the first time, he found it
+difficult to earn his own livelihood. He had failed in his application
+for a Government clerkship. Living in Washington was in itself costly,
+and the paragraphs and letters which he contributed to the local and
+metropolitan press, with his two or three hours a day of copying in the
+paymaster's office--a pleasant top-room overlooking the city and the
+river--brought him but a meagre income.
+
+Moreover the need for money began to press in a new direction; for
+first, the family breadwinner at Brooklyn was threatened, and then,
+though he was not drawn for the army, his salary was cut in two.[371]
+Whereupon brother Andrew, always one suspects rather a poor tool,
+fell ill; and died after a lingering malady,[372] leaving a widow and
+several little children in poverty.
+
+Walt himself lived in the strictest simplicity. For awhile, as we
+have seen, he boarded with the O'Connors; then he took a little room
+on a top-floor;[373] breakfasted on tea and bread, toasted before an
+oil-stove, and had for his one solid meal a shilling dinner at a cheap
+restaurant. To all appearance he was in magnificent health. At the
+beginning of the first summer he is so large and well, as he playfully
+tells his mother, that he looks "like a great wild buffalo, with much
+hair".[374] Simplicity of life was never a hardship to him. There was
+something wild and elemental in his nature that chose a den rather than
+a parlour or a club-room for its shelter.
+
+The money difficulty renewed his thoughts of lecturing, and after the
+first summer in Washington his home--letters often refer to it.[375]
+But the plan now appears less as an apostolate than as a means of
+raising funds for his hospital service. The change may, of course, be
+due in part to the fact that he was writing of his plans to his old
+mother, who would be most likely to appreciate this motive; but it
+was chiefly the result of his present complete absorption in those
+immediate tasks of comradeship for which he seemed to be born.
+
+He was, however, well advised not to actually attempt the enterprise.
+Even a famous orator could hardly have found a hearing during the
+crisis of the war, when the newspaper with its casualty lists was
+almost the sole centre of interest. And even had he been sure of
+success, his hospital service would not have let him go.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During this first summer Whitman hurt his hand, and had to avoid some
+of the worst cases in order to escape blood-poisoning;[376] but in
+September he wrote home: "I am first-rate in health, so much better
+than a month or two ago: my hand has entirely healed. I go to hospital
+every day or night. I believe no men ever loved each other as I and
+some of these poor wounded sick and dying men love each other."[377]
+Such words are a fitting commentary upon the pages of Calamus. Here,
+among the perishing, the genius of this great comrade of young men
+found its proper work of redemption.
+
+Great, indeed, was his opportunity. The federal city was full of troops
+and of wounded soldiers. The whole of the district a few blocks north
+of Pennsylvania Avenue, and of that lying east of the Capitol, were
+alike occupied by parade grounds, camps and hospitals. The latter even
+invaded the Capitol itself; and for a time the present Hall of Statuary
+was used as a ward.[378] Midway between the Capitol and the present
+Washington Monument, and close to the Baltimore and Potomac railway
+station, is the site of the Armory Square Hospital; four blocks to the
+north again is the Patent Office, for a long time filled with beds.
+And hard by, in Judiciary Square, where the hideous Pension Office now
+stands, was another great camp of the "boys in white". Whitman was a
+frequent visitor at all of these.
+
+There were fourteen large hospitals in the city by the summer of
+1863; and the total number in and about it rose to fifty. They
+spread away over the surrounding fields and hill-sides, as far as the
+Fairfax Seminary[379] on the ridge above the quaint Washingtonian
+town of Alexandria. This was almost in the enemy's country. And even
+the melancholy strains of the Dead March were welcomed with covert
+rejoicings by its citizens when the funeral of some Union soldier
+passed their doors.[380] All through the war Washington itself was full
+of disaffected persons; and for a while, looking out from the height of
+the Capitol, one could see the Confederate flag flying on the Virginian
+hills opposite.
+
+The greater part of the hospital nursing was done, of course, by
+orderlies; and a more or less severe and mechanical officialism
+prevailed in most of the wards. But this frigid atmosphere was warmed
+by the presence of a number of women; emissaries of Relief Associations
+supported by individual States, or of the Sanitary and Christian
+Commissions. It is difficult to overestimate the good that was done by
+Dorothea Dix and her helpers, among whom were not a few Quakeresses;
+and by all the devoted Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of Charity whose
+goodwill never failed.
+
+But even then the field for service was so vast that much remained
+undone. Many of the doctors and surgeons were able and kindly, some
+of them were absolutely devoted to their painful labours; and many of
+the nurses were more than patient and faithful; but the lads who were
+carried in wounded and sick from the cold and ghastly fields, wanted
+the strong support of manly understanding and prodigal affection in
+fuller measure than mere humanity seemed able to give.[381] Human as he
+was, Walt came to hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, like a Saviour.
+In after years they remembered "a man with the face of an angel" who
+had devoted himself to their individual needs.[382]
+
+The mere presence of a perfectly sane and radiant personality raised
+the tone of a whole ward.[383] The dead-weight of cloudy depression
+brooding upon it would melt in the ineffable sunshine that streamed
+from him. And then he always seemed to know exactly what was wanted,
+and he was never in a hurry. When anything was to be done or altered,
+he spoke with the authority of the man who alone, among overpressed and
+busy people, has the leisure for personal investigation; and therefore
+in most cases he had his way.
+
+Absolutely unsparing of himself, he knew too well wherein his
+strength lay to be careless of his health. If his food was sometimes
+insufficient, he would yet take his one square meal,[384] after
+refreshing himself with a bath, before starting upon his rounds. And
+when they were over, he cleared his brain under the stars before
+he turned in to sleep. Thus he kept his power at the full, and his
+presence was like that of the open air. He would often come into the
+wards carrying wild flowers newly picked, and strewing them over the
+beds, like a herald of the summer. Well did he know that they were
+messengers of life to the sick, words to them from the Earth-mother of
+men.
+
+Whatever he might be in the literary world of Washington or New York,
+here Whitman was nothing but Walt the comrade of soldiers. And for
+himself, he said in later years, that the supreme loves of his life had
+been for his mother and for the wounded.[385] It is a saying worthy of
+remembrance, for it indicates the man.
+
+Of the efficiency of his service there can be no question.[386] He
+worked his own miracles. He knew it positively himself, and besides,
+both the lads and the doctors assured him, time and again, that he was
+saving lives by refusing to give them over to despair. "I can testify,"
+he writes to _The Brooklyn Eagle_, his old paper, "that friendship has
+literally cured a fever, and the medicine of daily affection a bad
+wound."[387] In his own words, he distributed himself,[388] as well as
+the contents of his pockets and haversack, in infinitesimal quantities,
+certain that but little of his giving would be wasted. And yet he
+never gave indiscriminately;[389] he knew always what he was doing, and
+did it with deliberation.
+
+The feeling that the lads wanted him had detained him at the first;
+the superabundance of his life, and the fulness of his health and
+spirits, carrying with them a conviction of duty when he entered these
+vestibules of death.[390] Here was something that he, and he only,
+could adequately accomplish; here was a cry he was bound by the law of
+his being to answer; and the cry of the hospitals continued to hold
+him till the war was done. As he left of a night, after going his last
+round and kissing many a young, pale, bearded face, in fulfilment of
+his own written injunctions, he would hear the boys calling, "Walt,
+Walt, Walt! come again, come again!" And it would have required a
+harder heart than his to refuse them, even had the answer within been
+less loud and insistent.
+
+They kept him busy, too. He provided them with pens, stamps, envelopes
+and paper, and wrote their letters for them;[391] letters to mothers,
+wives and sweethearts; and the last news of all, when the sad
+procession had carried son, husband or lover to his soldier's grave,
+and had fired over him the last salute. He would enter, armed with
+newspapers and magazines which he distributed; and often he would
+read to the men, or recite some suitable verses, never, I think, his
+own.[392] He played games with them, too; and though he was one of the
+few men in Washington who never smoked,[393] he was the only one of all
+the visitors who brought them tobacco; and the ward-surgeons, though at
+first they protested, could not refuse him; it really seemed as though
+Walt knew best. On the glorious Fourth, he would provide a feast of
+ice-cream for some ward;[394] and on other hot days--and there were too
+many in the capital--would distribute the contents of crates full of
+oranges,[395] or lemons and sugar for the making of lemonade.
+
+It was for such gifts as these, and many others of a similar kind,
+that he needed money; and through the influence of Emerson, James
+Redpath and other friends in New York and Boston, he was able to
+distribute perhaps £1,200 among the soldiers in these infinitesimal
+quantities.[396] Thus he became the almoner of many in the North.
+
+Much of the service, however, was entirely his own--if one can ever
+call love one's own, which all things seem to offer to the soul that
+has learnt to receive from all. In cases of heart sickness, and the
+despondency and despair that come to the lonely man lying helpless
+among callous or unimaginative and therefore indifferent persons,
+Walt's quick divination of the real trouble made him the best of
+nurses; and he took care to remember all the cases that came under his
+notice, innumerable as they must have seemed.
+
+He kept a strict record of his patients and their individual needs
+in little blood and tear-stained notebooks, many of which are still
+extant.[397] This is an additional proof of that concrete definiteness
+of observation which distinguishes his habit of mind from the love of
+merely nebulous generalisation of which he is sometimes accused. One is
+bound to respect the intuitions of a mind which has so large a grasp of
+detail.
+
+Beginning characteristically with the Brooklyn lads whom he found
+scattered about the several hospitals, and who claimed his attention by
+the natural right of old acquaintanceship, his work grew like a rolling
+snowball, as he made his way from bed to bed; for he was always quick
+to feel the needs of a stranger. Before long he realised that there
+was not one among the thousand tents and wards in which he might not
+profitably have expended his whole vital energy. As it was, however,
+he tramped from hospital to hospital, faithfully going his rounds as
+far afield as the Fairfax Seminary. And in those days the Washington
+streets were heavy walking in the wet weather; for Pennsylvania Avenue
+was the only one that was yet paved,[398] and then boasted nothing but
+the cobble-stones, which still serve in the quaint streets across the
+Potomac.
+
+He walked a great deal. The open air relieved the tension of the wards,
+which at times was almost unbearable. Though his presence and affection
+saved many a lad's life, there must have been many more that died; and
+the tragedy of these deaths, and the terrible suffering that often
+preceded them, bit into his soul.
+
+Fascinated though he was by his employment, and delighting in it while
+he was strong and well,[399] the strength of his great heart was often
+as helpless as a little child's; and his whole nature staggered under
+the blows, which he felt even in his physical frame. He was literally
+an "amateur"; he could never take a detached or "professional" attitude
+towards his patients, for he knew that what they needed from him was
+love; their suffering became his suffering, and something died in him
+when they died.
+
+The following passage, written when the war itself was drawing to a
+close, indicates the character of much of his work, and the spirit in
+which it was done:--
+
+ "The large ward I am in is used for secession soldiers exclusively.
+ One man, about forty years of age, emaciated with diarrhoea, I was
+ attracted to, as he lay with his eyes turned up, looking like death.
+ His weakness was so extreme that it took a minute or so every time
+ for him to talk with anything like consecutive meaning; yet he
+ was evidently a man of good intelligence and education. As I said
+ anything, he would lie a moment perfectly still, then, with closed
+ eyes, answer in a low, very slow voice, quite correct and sensible,
+ but in a way and tone that wrung my heart. He had a mother, wife and
+ child, living (or probably living) in his home in Mississippi. It
+ was long, long since he had seen them. Had he caused a letter to be
+ sent them since he got here in Washington? No answer. I repeated the
+ question very slowly and soothingly. He could not tell whether he had
+ or not--things of late seemed to him like a dream. After waiting a
+ moment, I said: 'Well, I am going to walk down the ward a moment, and
+ when I come back you can tell me. If you have not written, I will sit
+ down and write.' A few minutes after I returned; he said he remembered
+ now that some one had written for him two or three days before. The
+ presence of this man impressed me profoundly. The flesh was all sunken
+ on face and arms; the eyes low in their sockets and glassy, and with
+ purple rings around them. Two or three great tears silently flowed out
+ from the eyes, and rolled down his temples (he was doubtless unused
+ to be spoken to as I was speaking to him). Sickness, imprisonment,
+ exhaustion, etc., had conquered the body, yet the mind held mastery
+ still, and called even wandering remembrance back."[400]
+
+At times the tragedy unnerved him, so that even his native optimism
+was clouded. "I believe there is not much but trouble in this world,"
+we find him writing to his mother, and the page hardly reads like one
+of his; "if one hasn't any for himself, he has it made up by having
+it brought close to him through others, and that is sometimes worse
+than to have it touch oneself."[401] He had already learnt the primer
+of sorrow; now he was studying the lore in which he was to become so
+deeply read.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even that first summer the malarial climate and excessive heat of
+Washington, with the close watching in the wards, and the continual
+draught upon his vital forces, affected him perceptibly. In his letters
+home he mentions heavy colds, with deafness and trouble in his head
+caused by the awful heat,[402] as giving him some anxiety. He seems
+to have had a slight sun-stroke in earlier years, which made him more
+susceptible to this kind of weakness; and on hot days he went armed
+with a big umbrella and a fan.[403] But through all this time he seemed
+to his friends the very incarnation of his "robust soul".
+
+[Illustration: JOHN BURROUGHS AT SIXTY-THREE]
+
+Though he shuddered sometimes as he recalled the sights of the wards,
+the life outside was a pleasant one.[404] He loved to take long
+midnight rambles about the city and over the surrounding hills, with
+his friends. In spring, he delighted in the bird-song, the colour and
+fragrance of the flowers which lined the banks of Rock Creek,[405] a
+stream which, entering the broad Potomac a mile above the Treasury
+building, separated Washington from the narrow ivy-clad streets of
+suburban Georgetown.
+
+And the stir and life of the capital always interested him. He loved
+to watch the marching of the troops; and the martial music and flying
+colours always delighted him as though he were a boy. He frequently
+met the President,[406] blanched and worn with anxiety and sorrow,
+riding in from his breezier lodging at the Soldiers' Home on the north
+side of the city, to his official residence. They would exchange the
+salutations of street acquaintances, each man admiring the patent
+manliness of the other.
+
+In Washington, as in New York, Whitman was speedily making himself
+at home with everybody; eating melons in the street with a
+countryman,[407] or chatting at the Capitol with a member of Congress;
+for men or women, black or white, he always had his own friendly word.
+He had besides, as we have seen, his inner circle at O'Connor's.
+
+He was often at the Capitol, that noble, but somewhat uninteresting
+building which overlooks the city; and if he deplored the low level of
+the Congressional debates, he found some compensation among the trees
+without; for fine trees were already a feature of Washington,[408]
+which now appears, as one looks down upon it, like a city builded in
+a wood. About sundown, too, he liked to stand where he could see the
+level light blazing like a star upon the bronze figure of Liberty,
+newly mounted above the dome.
+
+It was in the summer of 1864, when Whitman was forty-five years of age,
+that he had his first serious illness. He had never been really out of
+health before. The preceding autumn he had paid a short visit to his
+home, and in February had gone down to the front at Culpepper, thinking
+that his services might be needed nearer to the actual scene of battle.
+But he found that he could do better work in Washington. The cases
+there seemed to grow more desperate as the long strain of the war made
+itself felt upon the men in the ranks.
+
+It was immediately after this that Grant was given the supreme command;
+and at the close of March, Whitman, who foresaw the real meaning of the
+task of crushing Lee, wrote of it thus: "O mother, to think that we are
+to have here soon what I have seen so many times; the awful loads and
+trains and boat-loads of poor, bloody and pale, and wounded young men
+again.... I see all the little signs--getting ready in the hospitals,
+etc. It is dreadful when one thinks about it. I sometimes think over
+the sights I have myself seen: the arrival of the wounded after a
+battle; and the scenes on the field too; and I can hardly believe my
+own recollections. What an awful thing war is! Mother, it seems not
+men, but a lot of devils and butchers, butchering one another."[409]
+
+A week later, describing the frightful sufferings of the soldiers, and
+the callous selfishness of their attendants, he says: "I get almost
+frightened at the world".[410] Again, two days after: "I have been in
+the midst of suffering and death for two months, worse than ever. The
+only comfort is that I have been the cause of some beams of sunshine
+upon their suffering and gloomy souls and bodies too."[411] And he
+adds: "Oh, it is terrible, and getting worse, worse, worse".[412]
+
+Rumours spread in the city of the probable character of Grant's
+campaign; and as he realised more and more fully what would be its
+inevitable cost, a sort of terror took hold of him. Yet he believed in
+Grant, as well as in Lincoln.[413] And hating war as he did, he could
+not see any other course possible now than to complete its work. He was
+solemnly ready to take his part in those ranks of men converted, as it
+were, into "devils and butchers," if need be, if he could feel assured
+that he was more use to America upon the field than in the wards among
+the sick and dying.
+
+Meanwhile, he shared the old mother's anxiety about George, who was
+always in the thick of the fighting. News, both true and false, was
+arriving; and his letters are always seeking to support the old woman's
+faith, and to give her the plain truth with all the hope that might be.
+
+He was kept very closely occupied now in the hospitals; and especially
+at Armory Square, where some 200 desperate cases were collected;[414]
+men who had lain on the field, or otherwise unattended, until their
+wounds and amputations had mortified. He had always made a rule of
+going where he was most needed. But now he began to suffer severely
+from what he describes as fulness in the head, to have fits of
+faintness, and to be troubled with sore throat.
+
+To add to the horrors of those days, a number of the wounded lads
+went crazy; and at last the strain became so manifestly too much for
+his failing vitality, that his friends and the doctors bade him go
+North for a time. But he hung on still; hoping, like Grant, for the
+war to end with the summer, and writing to his mother that he cannot
+bear to leave and be absent if George should be hit and brought into
+Washington.[415] However, with midsummer upon him and its deadly heat,
+he became really ill, and had to relinquish his post. For nearly six
+months he remained restlessly at home.
+
+Whitman never fully recovered. We may perhaps be surprised at this, and
+wonder that he should have broken down, even under the circumstances.
+Was he not in such relations with the Universal Life that he should
+daily have been able to replenish the storehouse of his physical and
+emotional forces?
+
+He was no spendthrift, and husbanded them as well as he might, knowing
+their value; and doubtless he asked himself this very question many a
+time. Doubtless, too, he was confident, at least during the earlier
+months, that after the strain was over his resilient nature would
+regain its normal tone. But on the other hand, he had volunteered for
+a service to whose claims he was ready to respond to the uttermost
+farthing.[416] Where others gave their lives, who was he to hold back
+anything of his?
+
+The soul, one may say, never gives more than it can afford; for the
+soul is divinely prudent, and knows the worthlessness of such a gift.
+And giving with that prudence, it never seeks repayment; what it gives,
+it gives. But the body, even at its best, is not as the soul. And when
+the soul gives the vital and emotional forces of its body to invigorate
+other bodies, it may give more of these, and more continuously, than
+the body can replace. And so it was with Whitman. He gave, and I think
+he gave deliberately, for he was an extraordinarily deliberate man,
+that for which he cared far more than life; he gave his health to the
+friends, the strangers, whom he loved; and thus his "spiritualised
+body"[417] found its use.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[359] _Wound-Dresser_, 53.
+
+[360] _Comp. Prose_, 511, 512; Howells, _op. cit._
+
+[361] _Comp. Prose_, 518, 519; MSS. Traubel.
+
+[362] See _infra_, 227.
+
+[363] See _infra_, 236.
+
+[364] _Wound-Dresser_, 128; Bucke, 39, 40.
+
+[365] Bucke, 12.
+
+[366] _Wound-Dresser_, 133.
+
+[367] Calamus, 23, 24, etc.
+
+[368] Bucke, 99.
+
+[369] _Ib._, 37.
+
+[370] _Wound-Dresser_, 52.
+
+[371] _Wound-Dresser_, 133.
+
+[372] _Ib._, 64, etc.
+
+[373] Trowbridge, _op. cit._
+
+[374] _Wound-Dresser_, 66.
+
+[375] _Ib._, 84.
+
+[376] _Wound-Dresser_, 98.
+
+[377] _Ib._, iii.
+
+[378] S. D. Wyeth's _The Federal City_, 1868.
+
+[379] _Comp. Prose_, 40, 41.
+
+[380] J. S. Wheelock's _The Boys in White_, 1870.
+
+[381] _Wound-Dresser_, 7.
+
+[382] Bucke, 37.
+
+[383] _Wound-Dresser_, 28.
+
+[384] _Comp. Prose_, 32.
+
+[385] _In re_, 391.
+
+[386] _Wound-Dresser_, 8, 89, 113; Bucke, 36.
+
+[387] _Wound-Dresser_, 14.
+
+[388] _Ib._, 12.
+
+[389] _Wound-Dresser_, 32, 33.
+
+[390] Camden, ix., 200.
+
+[391] _Wound-Dresser_, 13.
+
+[392] _Ib._, 42.
+
+[393] _Ib._, 13; Calamus, 24.
+
+[394] _Wound-Dresser_, 39.
+
+[395] _Ib._, 30, 31.
+
+[396] Donaldson, 153; _Comp. Prose_, 51.
+
+[397] _Mem. During the War_, 3.
+
+[398] _Recollections of Washn. in War Time_, A. G. Riddle, 1895. _See
+Transcriber's Note._
+
+[399] _Wound-Dresser_, 74, 84.
+
+[400] _Comp. Prose_, 453, 454.
+
+[401] _Ib._, 104.
+
+[402] _Wound-Dresser_, 62, etc.
+
+[403] _Wound-Dresser_, 79.
+
+[404] _Ib._, 123; _Comp. Prose_, 70.
+
+[405] Dr. T. Proctor in _Journal of Hygiene_, Feb., 1898.
+
+[406] _Comp. Prose_, 38.
+
+[407] Calamus, 31.
+
+[408] _Wound-Dresser_, 112.
+
+[409] _Wound-Dresser_, 156, 157.
+
+[410] _Ib._, 159.
+
+[411] _Ib._, 160.
+
+[412] _Ib._, 161.
+
+[413] _Wound-Dresser_, 139, etc.
+
+[414] _Ib._, 37, etc.
+
+[415] _Ib._, 198.
+
+[416] Bucke, 38, 39.
+
+[417] _Supra_, 181.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A WASHINGTON CLERK
+
+
+While Whitman was at home, during the latter part of 1864, he doubtless
+put the finishing touches to _Drum-taps_, which was printed at New
+York early in the following summer. Several of the poems in this
+collection had been written in that city during the two years which
+had elapsed since the last publication of _Leaves of Grass_, before he
+set out for Washington. The manuscript had remained at home, tied up
+in its square, spotted, stone-colour covers,[418] but was sent on to
+him, to be discussed in the Washington circle. Early in 1864 a friend
+seems to have taken it the round of the Boston publishers, but without
+success.[419]
+
+If we are to understand Whitman's attitude towards the war, we must
+glance at the little brown volume of seventy-two pages, _Walt Whitman's
+Drum-taps_. Among the poems which preceded his visit to the capital
+were probably the song of "Pioneers,"[420] with its cry of the West,
+and the poem of the "Broadway Pageant,"[421] of 1860, celebrating the
+Japanese Embassy, and forming a complementary tribute to the maternal
+East. To these one may add the lines to "Old Ireland"[422] and the
+noble "Years of the Modern".[423]
+
+In this last he proclaims the growing consciousness of solidarity among
+the peoples of the world. Artificial boundaries seem to be breaking
+down in Europe, and the people are making their own landmarks--witness
+the rise of a new Italy. Everywhere men among the people are awaking to
+ask pregnant questions, and to link all lands together with steam and
+electricity.
+
+    Are all nations communing? Is there going to be but one heart to
+      the globe?
+    Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow
+      dim,
+    The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine
+      war,
+    No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and
+      nights;
+    Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
+      pierce it, is full of phantoms,
+    Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
+    This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of
+      dreams, O years!
+    Your dreams, O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not
+      whether I sleep or wake);
+    The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow
+      behind me,
+    The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon
+      me.[424]
+
+The war poems follow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whitman's attitude towards war is not obvious, but it is, I believe,
+logical and consistent. On one side it approximated to the Quaker
+position, but only on one side. Or rather, perhaps, the Quaker position
+approximates to one side of Whitman's. He was devoted to a social
+order, or republic, which could not be realised by deeds of arms. He
+had no hatred for any of his fellows, and recognised in his political
+enemy a man divine as himself--one cannot say that he had any personal
+enemies, though there were men who would like to have been accounted
+such.
+
+The fat years of peace had, however, awakened doubts in him of the
+average American's capacity for great passions.[425] These seemed to be
+rare among them, and Whitman had been driven to seek them in nature and
+her storms. It was with exultation, then, that he felt the response of
+New York and of the whole of America to the call of the trumpet.[426]
+
+Men of peace are accustomed to lament the contagion of the war-fever,
+and with a large measure of justice. But so long as civilisation tends
+to render the common lives of men cheap or calculating, there will
+remain a divine necessity for those hours of fierce enthusiasm which,
+like a forest fire or religious revival, sweep irresistibly over a
+nation. Whitman shared the rhythmic answer of the blood, and of the
+soul which is involved therewith, to the imperious throbbing of the
+drums.[427] He knew that it represented in some, perhaps barbaric, way
+the throbbing of the nation's heart, and that the cry "To Arms!" called
+forth much that was best in men.
+
+The call to arms is one thing; the actual fighting, which converts
+men, to use his own phrase, into "devils and butchers," is another.
+The call to arms awakes something in a man more heroic than the life
+he ordinarily lives; he seems to hear in it the voice of the Nation
+calling him by name, and when he answers he feels the joy of the
+Nation in his heart. He becomes consciously one with a great host in
+the hour of peril. He hears the voice of a Cause in the bugles and the
+drums. He shares in a new emotion, which is his glory because it is
+not his alone. He finds a fuller liberty than he has ever known in the
+discipline of the ranks; he accepts the petty tyrannies to which he is
+subjected, feeling that behind the officers is the will of the Nation
+to which he has yielded his own.
+
+This, for better and worse, we may call the mysticism of war, and it
+appealed forcibly to Whitman. For him, war was illuminated by the idea
+of solidarity; an idea which was constantly present to him from this
+time forward. He no longer saw the great personalities only, nor only
+their divine comradeship in the life of God; all that remained as
+vivid as of old; but now he was being constantly reminded of the way
+in which individuals share consciously in the life of the nation; and
+this suggested to him how, presently, they will come to be conscious of
+their part in the life of the Race.
+
+He recognised how essential was the sense of citizenship to fuller
+soul-life. The barriers in which our individual lives are isolated must
+be broken, if liberty is to be brought to the soul. If we are to live
+fully, we must feel the tides of being sweep through our emotional
+natures. Hence his welcome to war, which, in spite of all the fiendish
+spirits which follow in its wake, does thrill a chord of national
+consciousness in the individual heart.
+
+We may well ask whether there is no errand worthier of this sense of
+solidarity than that of slaughter. Surely the affirmation of such an
+errand underlies the whole thought of _Drum-taps_, with its call to a
+"divine war".[428]
+
+The hour has come when the Social Passion is about to rouse the peoples
+to a nobler crusade against oppression than any yet; when the nations
+shall be purged by revolutions wholesomer than those of 1789 or 1861.
+Whitman's whole life, throbbing in every page he wrote, proclaims it.
+
+He regarded the Civil War as a sort of fever in the body politic,
+caused by anterior conditions of congestion. War had become necessary
+for the life of that body, and only after a war could health re-assert
+itself. To compromise continually, as we boast in England that we do,
+may sustain a sort of social peace, but it is almost certain to drive
+the disease deeper into the very heart of our national life, and there
+to sap the sheer ability for any kind of noble enthusiasm. You may
+purchase a sort of peace with the price of a life more sacred than even
+that of individual citizens. Whitman demanded national health, without
+which he could see no real peace.
+
+He did not suppose, indeed, that war could of itself effect a cure.
+Health could only return in so far as the aroused conscience of
+the nation--which had lived in its soldiers and in the wives and
+families who had shared in their devotion--was carried forward into
+the civil life. Peace itself must be rendered sentient of that heroic
+national purpose which had for a moment flashed across the fields of
+battle.[429] Peace, indeed, is only priceless when it has become more
+truly and wisely heroical than war; when it has become affirmative
+where war is cruelly negative; when it creates where war destroys,
+quickening the heart of each citizen to fulfil a sacred duty.
+
+Whitman well knew that in order to have such a peace we must set
+before the peoples a mission, a sublime national task. What party is
+there to-day, either in England or America, which dares to hold up for
+achievement any programme of heroism?
+
+Read in this light, and only so, I believe, will _Drum-taps_ yield up
+its essential meaning. It is a Song of the Broad-axe, not a scream of
+the war-eagle.[430]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In alluding to _Drum-taps_, I have somewhat anticipated the natural
+course of the story, to which we must now return. Even at home on
+furlough, Whitman could not wholly relinquish the occupation which he
+had assumed, and became a frequent visitor at the hospitals of Brooklyn
+and New York.
+
+Early in December, 1864, he was back again at his post, suffering from
+the added anxiety for his brother's welfare; for George was a prisoner
+in the hands of the Confederates, enduring the almost inconceivable
+horrors of a winter imprisonment at Dannville. At the beginning of
+February Walt made an application to General Grant, through a friend
+in the office of the _New York Times_,[431] for the release of his
+brother, together with another officer of the 51st New York Volunteers;
+alleging, as an urgent reason, the deep distress of his aged mother
+whose health was breaking. The application appears to have been
+successful, and George, who had been captured early in the preceding
+summer, and upon whom fever, starvation, exposure and cold had wreaked
+their worst for many months, returned alive to Brooklyn, his excellent
+constitution triumphant over all hardships.
+
+In the same month Whitman obtained a clerkship in the Indian Bureau of
+the Department of the Interior, and thoroughly enjoyed the contact into
+which he was thus brought with the aboriginal Americans. They on their
+side appear to have distinguished him as a real man among the host of
+colourless officials, and to have responded to his advances.[432]
+
+This was the early spring of Lincoln's death; and Walt was at the
+President's last levee.[433] He looked in also at the Inauguration Ball
+held in the Patent Office--strangely converted from its recent uses
+as a hospital. There he remarked the worn and weary expression of the
+beloved brown face; for still the great tragedy dragged on.
+
+Five or six weeks later, a young Irish-Virginian, one of Walt's
+Washington friends,[434] was up in the second gallery of the crowded
+theatre upon the tragic night of the assassination, and saw the whole
+action passing before his bewildered eyes. Whitman was at home again in
+Brooklyn: seeing George, we may presume, and making final arrangements
+for his _Drum-taps_; on his return he seems to have heard the whole
+graphic story from his friend.
+
+It is doubtful whether Whitman and the dead President had ever spoken
+to one another, beyond the ordinary greeting of street acquaintances.
+They had met perhaps a score of times, and it is recorded that
+once, when Walt passed the President's window, Lincoln had remarked
+significantly--"Well, _he_ looks like a man".[435] It seems possible
+that at first Whitman may have felt something of the public uncertainty
+about the character of the new President.[436]
+
+How deep-rooted in the average American mind was the distrust or
+dislike of his policy is seen in the fact that, only six months before
+the death that was mourned by the whole nation, the opposition to his
+re-election was represented by a formidable popular vote. The South
+was in revolt, and therefore of course disfranchised; but even so,
+McClellan polled as large a total as had the President at the previous
+election; though Lincoln himself increased his former vote by a little
+more than one-fifth. So strong ran popular feeling against the whole
+policy of interference with the seceding States even in the fourth year
+of the war.
+
+But Lincoln's death revealed his true worth to America. And the sense
+of the almost sacramental nature of that death, as sealing for ever the
+million others of the war, and finally consecrating the re-established
+union of North and South, grew upon Whitman, who long before had
+realised that Lincoln was the father of his country and the captain of
+her course.
+
+A sense of some impending tragedy seems to have accompanied Whitman
+upon his walks at the time of the assassination. It was early spring
+and the lilac was in blossom; a strange association, deeper than mere
+fancy,[437] seemed to the poet to establish itself between the scent of
+the lilac, the solitary night-song of the hermit-thrush, the fulness of
+the evening star at this time, and the passing of "the sweetest, wisest
+soul of all my days and lands". It was out of this deeply realised
+association that he built up the mystical symphony which he afterwards
+called "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn," a poem in many respects
+similar to his other great chant of death, "Out of the Cradle".
+
+Mystical and symbolic, it is charged with a vast national emotion; and
+this gives a certain vagueness to its solemnity, better befitting its
+theme than a more concrete treatment. The poet was not writing of "him
+I love," but rather attempting to express the feeling of lonely loss
+which thousands experienced on that dark April day. Hence his poem is
+the hymn of a nation's bereavement rather than the elegy of a great man
+dead. Whitman, in his attitude toward Lincoln, had come to regard him
+as an incarnation of America. He thought of him as he thought of the
+Flag; and his personal reverence for the man took almost the form of
+devotion to an ideal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The President's death had been already noted in _Drum-taps_, but
+when he conceived the longer poem, Whitman seems to have recalled
+the edition,[438] in order to add this and certain other verses as a
+sequel, thus delaying its publication till about the end of the year.
+
+Another of the new poems calls for a word in passing. "Chanting the
+Square Deific"[439] is an attempt to express his theory of ultimate
+reality, that is to say, of the soul. Four elements go to the making
+of this, and these he calls respectively, Jehovah, Christ, Satan and
+Santa Spirita--adopting, as he sometimes would, a formula of his own
+inventing, that was of no known language. In other words, he conceived
+of the soul's reality,[440] as characterised by four essential
+qualities; first, its obedience to the remorseless general laws of
+being; second, its capacity for attraction to and absorption into
+others--its love-quality; third, its lawless defiance of everything but
+its own will; fourth, its sense of identity with the whole.
+
+Condemnation, compassion, defiance, harmony, these he says are final
+and essential qualities of the Divine; only as they are united can
+our idea of God or of the Soul, which is the Son of God, be complete.
+In the traditional Satan of revolt and pride, he saw an element
+without which the harmony was immaterial and unreal. Evil and perilous
+in itself, in its relation to the rest it is the solid ballast of
+the soaring soul. In this, he suggests much of the attitude which
+Nietzsche was afterwards to make his own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the composition of some of these poems a crisis occurred in his
+new official career. The war was over, but the hospitals still were
+full, and Walt was busy there as usual in his leisure hours; and at his
+desk in the Indian Bureau, whenever his duties were not pressing, he
+was at work upon his manuscripts,[441] when some hostile fellow-clerk
+seems to have called the attention of the newly appointed chief of the
+department to the character of these private documents.
+
+Whitman had been a favourite with the chief clerk in the bureau, and
+had been given a good deal of latitude; perhaps the hostile person
+had observed this with a jealous eye. The manuscript proved to be not
+the innocuous _Drum-taps_, but an annotated copy of _Leaves of Grass_
+preparing for a new edition. A reading of the volume decided the chief
+upon a prompt dismissal of its author, and this is not surprising when
+we remember that Mr. Harlan had been appointed through the pressure of
+the powerful Methodist interest which he commanded. The Methodist eye
+in him must have regarded many of these pages with suspicion and not a
+few with disgust.
+
+The dismissal itself was perfectly colourless; it ran:--
+
+
+
+                    "DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
+                              "WASHINGTON, D.C., _June 30th, 1865_.
+
+  "The services of Walter Whitman, of New York, as a clerk in the
+  Indian Office, will be dispensed with from and after this date.
+
+                              "JAS. HARLAN,
+                                    "_Secretary of the Interior_."[442]
+
+It is obvious that the chief had no right to open his clerk's desk
+and examine what he knew to be private papers; but having done
+so, and being presumably of an unimaginative, narrowly pious and
+over-conscientious character, we cannot wonder at his action. From
+Whitman's point of view the matter was serious; he could ill-afford a
+peremptory dismissal from the public service. And to his friends the
+dismissal appeared not so much unjust as enormous.
+
+O'Connor, hearing the news, went straight to Hubley Ashton, in the
+fiery heat of that generous and righteous wrath which scintillates and
+flashes with perfervid splendour through the pages of his _Good Grey
+Poet_.[443] Mr. Ashton was not so fierce, but he was indignant. He
+was a member of the Administration, and used his power to Whitman's
+advantage. Finding all remonstrance with Mr. Harlan to be vain, he yet
+induced him to make some sort of exchange by which Whitman was not
+actually dismissed from the service, but only transferred to his own
+department--the Attorney-General's.
+
+Painful at the time, the affair did Whitman little injury. When
+Harlan's action became known it was far from popular in Washington,
+where every one knew Walt, and where next to nobody had read his
+_Leaves_. A section at least of the local press supported the claims of
+a fellow-pressman;[444] while in the Civil Service he was a favourite
+with the clerks. In literary circles, also, O'Connor's slashing attack
+upon the Secretary for the Interior turned the tables in Walt's favour.
+
+In later years assaults of the same character were not infrequent,
+both upon _Leaves of Grass_ and its author; but, however annoying,
+they always resulted in arousing curiosity, and thus in extending the
+circle of readers. Probably the fear of this consequence prevented
+their further multiplication, for average American opinion was then
+undisguisedly hostile, as, of course, it still remains.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the whole, Whitman seems to have been happy in his new office. He
+never tired of the view from his window[445] in the second storey of
+the Treasury Building, overlooking miles of river reaches with white
+sails upon them, and the range of wooded Virginian hills. He liked his
+companions, and he relished the green tea which came in every afternoon
+from a girl in an adjacent office;[446] not, indeed, intended for him,
+but resigned to him by its recipient, who was scornful of the cup.
+
+He went on great walks, especially by night, and enjoyed his jaunts on
+the cars. One Thanksgiving Day we find him picnicing by the falls of
+the Potomac, and on another occasion he is visiting Washington's old
+mansion at Mount Vernon.[447] Every Sunday till the close of 1866 he
+was in the hospitals, and frequently called at one or other during the
+week. He was a regular visitor at the homes of several friends, and his
+acquaintance with Mr. Peter Doyle, which seems to have begun during the
+last winter of the war, had ripened into a close comradeship.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs had always to keep Sunday breakfast waiting for
+him; there was a regularity in his lateness.[448] After a chat with
+them, and a glance through the Sunday papers, he would stroll over to
+the office for his letters on his way to some hospital, and during the
+course of the afternoon he dropped in at the O'Connors' for tea. In
+the winter he spent much of his leisure by the fire in the comfortable
+Library of the Treasury Building reading novels, philosophy and what he
+would.
+
+He boarded at a pleasant house on M Street, near Twelfth.[449] It
+stood back from the road, with a long sweep of sward in front of
+it, and an arbour under a great cherry tree, which became in spring
+a hill of snowy blossom. As the evenings grew warmer, Whitman and
+his fellow-boarders would draw their chairs out on to the grass and
+sit under the trees talking or silently watching the passers-by, or
+listening to occasional strolling players.
+
+To his companions and to casual visitors he seemed as strong as ever.
+He ate well, avoiding excess, and, still adhering to his resolution,
+partaking but sparingly of meat. He went to bed and rose early. Always
+affable and courteous, he contrived to take his part in the general
+conversation without saying much.
+
+Such a life was easy, and passably comfortable; he was earning a fair
+salary, and making new friends constantly. But he was without a home;
+and Washington, after all, as the seat of officialism, shows the seamy
+side of democracy. The cynic declares that its population consists
+exclusively of negroes, mean whites and officials; thus presenting a
+melancholy contrast to the metropolis of the fifties with its large
+class of vigorous-minded, independent artisans, the backbone of a city
+democracy as the yeoman-farmers are of a nation.
+
+The routine also of the work he was doing must often have been irksome
+to him.[450] It is one of the enigmas of Whitman's life that he should
+have been content to continue in Washington six years at least after
+the hospitals had ceased to claim him; sitting before a Government desk
+as third clerk and earning his regular pay of rather more than three
+hundred pounds a year.[451] How great the change from his old Bohemian
+days! The question obtrudes, was Walt becoming "respectable"?
+
+Whether he were or no, at least he had become noticeably better clad
+and less aggressive, a gentler seeming man than of old.[452] And yet
+there was always something illusive about this apparent change. He
+could still turn the face of a rock to impertinent intruders;[453] he
+could still blaze out in sudden anger upon a rare occasion.
+
+But he was near fifty now, and for several years the strong sympathies
+of his nature had been fully and continually exercised in the wards.
+His individuality was as marked as ever; but with the war he had
+experienced a deeper sense of his membership in the life of the Race.
+The word "_en-masse_," now so often on his lips, expresses this
+constant consciousness. It was not new to him, but its dominance was
+new.
+
+Again, while he had seen before that, in general, every soul is divine,
+it was the days and nights which he spent in the wards which made
+him understand how divine it actually is. The meaning of love grows
+richer in its exercise, and this was doubtless true in the case of Walt
+Whitman.
+
+The experience of recent years had cleansed his self-assertion of
+qualities which were merely fortuitous. Never intentionally eccentric,
+he had previously perhaps exaggerated the traits which were peculiar
+to a stage in the development of his own personality. But the crucible
+heat of the wards rid him of that, while integrating his nature more
+perfectly. Living more intensely than ever, he was living more than
+ever in the lives of others; and this inevitably made him more catholic.
+
+Other circumstances aided in the same direction. His manner of daily
+life had altered. He lived no longer among his own folk at home, but
+instead among professional men and clerks, at a middle-class Washington
+boarding-house. He worked now with a pen, not a hammer; and his book,
+written for the young American artisan, was being read and appreciated,
+not at all by him, but instead by students in Old and New England. He
+lost nothing of himself by becoming one of this other class in which
+for the time he lived with his book. A smaller man might have been
+seriously affected by such a change in environment; but while it could
+not be without effect upon Whitman, it never made him less true to his
+essential self.
+
+In considering this period, I think we may say that the Whitman of the
+later sixties was still the large masculine man who wrote the first
+_Leaves of Grass_; but having in 1860 completed the first plan of the
+book, his task of self-assertion now became as it were a secondary
+matter. The suffering and sympathy of the war had developed the saviour
+in him; so that some of his portraits, taken at the time, have almost
+the air of a "gentle shepherd". His message became increasingly one
+of helpful love, newly adjusted to the individuals among whom he was
+thrown.
+
+And with the rise of a group of able young champions and admirers, it
+became more necessary that he should guard his message and himself from
+anything that could encourage that habit of personal imitation which
+would have created a group of little Whitmanites, whose very ability
+must have limited the original inspiration which had bound them to him.
+
+Thus it was in a sense true that, after the publication of the
+volume of 1860, the first Whitman was, as he prophesied he would be,
+"disembodied, triumphant, dead".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So much on the matter of Whitman's increased respectability: as to his
+prolonged stay in Washington, something further must be said.
+
+It is evident that he was no longer the Titan of old days. In the
+spring of 1867 he writes home that he is well, but "getting old";[454]
+and every year he seemed to feel the extremes of the Washington climate
+more and more. This is further evidence of decreasing vitality.
+
+Had he returned to New York, it must probably have been to write for
+the press; and however physically robust he might suppose himself to
+be, something at least of the old force of initiative had left him.
+There was no longer any immediate need for his presence at home; for
+when Jeff went West to St. Louis, as engineer to the city waterworks,
+his brother George was there to take his place as the mother's main
+support.
+
+Walt was, moreover, earning a sufficient income in an easy fashion.
+The work itself was light; he was trusted, and little supervised. His
+chief seems to have recognised that he had spent himself unsparingly
+for America in the hospitals, without immediate reward; and now, in
+consequence, allowed him to arrange his duties as suited him best. He
+spent but little of his income upon himself; though the penurious
+simplicity and discomfort of the early days was no longer desirable.
+He always sent something to his mother, and seems to have divided the
+remainder between any of his hospital boys who still lingered; the
+beggars whom he never refused; his friends, and the Savings Bank.
+
+But one suspects that Whitman really stayed on in Washington for the
+same reason that he had previously remained in New York. He took
+root wherever he stood; and it required the tug of duty to remove
+him. Wherever he was, his life was full of incident and material for
+thought. Outward occupation or adventure counted for comparatively
+little in his experience. His present circumstances favoured the steady
+progress of his own writing and the prosecution of his friendships.
+
+Not that he ever forgot his friends in the metropolis, or grew
+indifferent to the claims of his family. He contrived to spend at least
+a month every summer in his old haunts, living at home and making
+daily expeditions on the bay, bathing from the Coney Island beach, and
+sauntering along Broadway.[455] He often had business at the printers',
+for he was now again his own publisher.
+
+The _Leaves_ had been out of print since the failure of his Boston
+friends, and in 1867 he was working on a new edition, completing the
+very copy which had roused the wrath of Mr. Harlan. He seems to have
+spent a few days with his friend Mrs. Price;[456] and coming down
+late to tea one evening, after working on his manuscripts, one of the
+daughters has recorded the extraordinary brightness and elation of his
+mien. "An almost irrepressible joyousness," she says, "shone from his
+face and seemed to pervade his whole body. It was the more noticeable
+as his ordinary mood was one of quiet yet cheerful serenity. I knew he
+had been working at a new edition of his book, and I hoped if he had an
+opportunity he would say something to let us into the secret of his
+mysterious joy. Unfortunately, most of those at the table were occupied
+with some subject of conversation; at every pause I waited eagerly for
+him to speak; but no, some one else would begin again, until I grew
+almost wild with impatience and vexation. He appeared to listen, and
+would even laugh at some of the remarks that were made, yet he did
+not utter a single word during the meal; and his face still wore that
+singular brightness and delight, as though he had partaken of some
+divine elixir."
+
+But it was not always in joy that he wrote. Other friends have told how
+they have noted him turning aside from the street into some door or
+alleyway to take out a slip of paper and write, with the tears running
+fast across his face.[457] Whether in tears or in ecstasy, it is
+certain that he composed his poems under the stress of actual feeling;
+and of emotions which shook his whole being and thrilled its heavy,
+slow-vibrating chords to music.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[418] _Wound-Dresser_, 61.
+
+[419] Trowbridge, _op. cit._
+
+[420] _L. of G._, 183.
+
+[421] _Ib._, 193.
+
+[422] _Ib._, 284.
+
+[423] _Ib._, 370.
+
+[424] _L. of G._, 371.
+
+[425] _Ib._, 228.
+
+[426] _Ib._, 220.
+
+[427] _L. of G._, 222.
+
+[428] _Cf._
+
+    "I, too ... also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,
+    Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and
+      retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,
+    (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last), the
+      field the world,
+    For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,
+    Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,
+    I above all promote brave soldiers."--_L. of G._, 9, 10.
+
+
+[429] _L. of G._, 276, 278.
+
+[430] Camden, iii., 160, 161.
+
+[431] Facsimile in Williamson's _Catalogue_.
+
+[432] _In re_, 383; _Comp. Prose_, 411-13.
+
+[433] _Comp. Prose_, 59.
+
+[434] Calamus, 25.
+
+[435] Bucke, 42.
+
+[436] _Wound-Dresser_, 139.
+
+[437] _L. of G._, 255; _Comp. Prose_, 305.
+
+[438] _L. of G._, 263; _cf._ (1865); _cf._ Calamus, 35 n.
+
+[439] _L. of G._, 339.
+
+[440] _Cf._ W. N. Guthrie's _W. W. as Religious and Moral Teacher_
+(1897), 80 n.; Symonds, 26.
+
+[441] Bucke, 40-42, 73.
+
+[442] MSS. Traubel; for a further attack see Burroughs (2), 123.
+
+[443] Included in Bucke.
+
+[444] Potter, _op. cit._; Bucke, 19.
+
+[445] Camden, viii., 188-91, etc.
+
+[446] _Ib._
+
+[447] _Ib._
+
+[448] Johnston, 130-40; _cf._ Camden, viii., 220.
+
+[449] Potter.
+
+[450] Camden, viii., 175.
+
+[451] _Ib._, 184.
+
+[452] Potter; _Rossetti Papers_, 492.
+
+[453] Calamus, 22.
+
+[454] Camden, viii.
+
+[455] See Calamus.
+
+[456] Bucke, 32; Miss Price gives date as 1866; the new ed. appeared
+late in 1867.
+
+[457] Bucke, 171.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+FRIENDS AND FAME
+
+
+In October, 1867, the new volume appeared; it was intended to replace
+the former final edition of 1860, and in itself was now regarded as
+final. Whitman wrote home to his mother that at last he had finished
+his re-arrangings and corrections, for good.[458] But he was mistaken;
+for because the book was a whole, every page which he added to it in
+succeeding years entailed a new revision of the rest. Each new note
+affects the old sequence, which thus requires to be ordered anew.
+
+The book might be handsomer, he says; but he notes that he has omitted
+some excessive phrases, and even dropped a passage or two which had not
+stood the test of time; and now he feels that the volume proves itself
+to any fair-minded person. Beyond these alterations, the book contains
+little that is new.
+
+That public interest in Whitman was increasing is shown by the
+appearance this year of the first of those brief biographical studies
+which have since become so numerous. It was from the pen of his
+intimate friend, Mr. John Burroughs, than whom none knew him better
+during the Washington days; and having besides the full advantage of
+Whitman's supervision, remains a principal authority to this day.[459]
+
+Equally important was the preparation in England this autumn of a
+volume of selections by Mr. W. M. Rossetti.[460] The editor of the
+_Germ_, that most interesting expression of a new and pregnant spirit
+in art whose brief but brilliant course had ended a few years before
+the first appearance of the _Leaves_, was the right man to introduce
+Walt Whitman to the English reader. Both he and his brother, the poet,
+had for several years been admirers of Whitman's work; and before the
+publication of the new edition he had written an able notice of the
+book in _The Chronicle_, a short-lived organ of advanced Catholic
+views.[461]
+
+This was widely copied by the American press. It preserves a judicial
+tone, which while fully appreciating the literary value of the new
+work, is far from indiscriminate praise. Mr. Rossetti frankly protested
+against what he regarded as the gross treatment of gross things, not
+so much on ethical as on æsthetic grounds; against jarring words and
+faulty constructions. He noted the obscurity and fragmentary character
+of many passages, commented on the agglomerative or cataloguial habit,
+and upon the author's justifiable, but at first sight exasperating,
+self-assertion.
+
+Much of this was, at least from its writer's literary point of view,
+just and valuable criticism. Mr. Rossetti was less fortunate when he
+asserted that if only he were brought down by sickness many things
+would appear very different to Whitman; for while the remark contains
+an incontestable element of axiomatic truth, its particular application
+was based upon a misapprehension of the poet's character. He conceived
+that Whitman's faith depended upon physical well-being--just as Walt
+once declared that Goethe's religion was founded simply upon good
+digestion and appetite--thus missing the spiritual basis of his
+personality.
+
+But if Rossetti's literary criticisms are searching and upon the whole
+just, his praises are not less notable. _Leaves of Grass_ he describes
+as by far the largest poetical performance of our period; and while
+acclaiming him the founder of American poetry, he foresees that its
+author's voice will one day be potential and magisterial wherever the
+English language is spoken.
+
+The criticism was followed by the compilation of a volume of selections
+containing nearly one half of the current _Leaves of Grass_, and a
+large part of the original Preface of 1855. The enterprise brought the
+compiler into cordial personal relations with the poet.[462] There had
+at first been a slight misunderstanding as to the scope of the English
+version, and an expurgated but otherwise complete edition had been
+suggested. Whitman could not be a party to such a volume, and would
+naturally have preferred his own complete book to any selections. But
+in Mr. Rossetti he recognised an understanding friend. While frankly
+expressing his own views, he was most cordial and generous in the
+declaration of his faith in his correspondent's wisdom, and of his
+desire to leave him unshackled.
+
+The selections contained none of the poems which had aroused the
+indignation of Mr. Harlan and his friends, and would probably have
+more than satisfied the very different criticisms of Emerson. Their
+publication established the foundation of Whitman's English fame, which
+now rapidly outstripped his American. Already known to the few--to such
+men for instance as Tennyson, Dante G. Rossetti, Swinburne, W. Bell
+Scott, J. A. Symonds and Thomas Dixon--_Leaves of Grass_ was from this
+time eagerly sought after by a considerable number of the younger and
+more vigorous thinkers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although they never met, Whitman's friendship with Symonds is so
+important that I cannot pass it by without some reference to the
+younger man's character.[463] He had been, as is well known, an
+exceptionally brilliant Oxford scholar; who had shown so little trace
+of the disqualifying elements of genius that his painfully accurate
+poetic form carried off the Newdigate prize. After his studies at
+Balliol, he entered early manhood with impaired sight, an irritable
+brain and incipient consumption. His temper was naturally strenuous,
+but this quality was accompanied by introspective morbidity.
+
+In the autumn of 1865, at the age of five and twenty,[464] the
+late Mr. Frederick Myers introduced him to _Leaves of Grass_; his
+reading of one of the Calamus poems--"Long I thought that knowledge
+alone would suffice me"[465]--from the edition of 1860, sending, as
+Symonds says, electric thrills through the very marrow of his bones.
+Whitman of course rode rough-shod over all the scholar's academic and
+aristocratic prejudices, and required slow assimilation. This process
+continued during the next four years; but he says that the book became
+eventually a more powerful formative influence in his life than Plato's
+works,[466] or indeed any other volume, save the Bible.
+
+Married already, and already largely an invalid, life was full of
+difficulties for so keen and eager a mind; and the _Leaves_ became
+his anchor, especially the poems of Calamus.[467] It was in 1869 and
+1870[468] that he realised their full value.
+
+Already his mind had responded to the idea of the cosmos and of cosmic
+enthusiasm,[469] suggested to it in the Hymn of Cleanthes, in certain
+pages of Marcus Aurelius, Giordano Bruno, Goethe, and the Evolutionists
+of his own time. To these ideas Whitman brought conviction and
+reality. It was through his study of the _Leaves_ that Symonds came
+to understand for himself the infinite value and possibility of human
+comradeship, and became a glad participant in the Universal Life.
+
+For twenty years the two men corresponded as close friends; and there
+were few in whose admiration for his work Whitman found such keen
+satisfaction. But Addington Symonds was always a conscientious as well
+as an affectionate and reverent friend; and while at a later date he
+publicly protested against Mr. Swinburne's assault,[470] and in his
+posthumous study of Whitman, proved himself second to none in his
+admiration of him whom he called Master, yet he himself made some of
+the frankest and most trenchant criticisms of his friend's work. He
+thus preserved his independence, and, unlike that of the mere disciple,
+his praise of Whitman is rendered really valuable by this quality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ANNE GILCHRIST]
+
+In the summer of 1869, Mr. Madox Brown lent a copy of the _Selections_
+to his friend Mrs. Alexander Gilchrist, the widow of Blake's
+biographer. She responded to the book's appeal, and immediately
+borrowed Mr. Rossetti's copy of the complete volume.[471] While wholly
+approving the omission from his _Selections_ of such poems as the
+"Children of Adam," and herself making some partial reservation with
+regard to these as perhaps infringing in certain passages the natural
+law of concealment and modesty, she expressed to Mr. Rossetti, in
+fervid and impassioned phrases, the joy that came to her in this new
+gospel, worthy at last as she thought of America. Her friend obtained
+her permission to allow her letters to him to be published; and they
+appeared in the Boston _Radical_ for May, 1870.
+
+Her words of womanly understanding stirred Whitman too deeply for much
+outward expression.[472] He hardly regarded them as a declaration
+of individual friendship, showing himself at the time even a little
+indifferent[473] to the personality of their writer. They were, he
+knew, a testimony not so much to him as to his _Leaves of Grass_, which
+were a half-impersonal utterance, and as such he received them with
+gratitude.[474] Nothing, not even O'Connor's brilliant vindication, had
+so justified the poems to their maker.
+
+Whitman has been roundly abused by Mr. Swinburne[475] and others,
+because, as they say, he lacks the romantic attitude toward woman.
+Mr. Meredith has shown in his own inimitable way the fiends that mask
+themselves too often under this romantic mien; and one is not always
+sure whether Whitman's honesty is not in itself a little distasteful to
+some of his critics.
+
+It is true that he has addressed woman as the mother or the equal mate
+of man, rather than as the maid unwed, as though his thought of sex
+transcended the limits usually assigned to it. I am persuaded that the
+explanation of this is to be found in the fact that Whitman's mystic
+consciousness had broken many of the barriers which have constricted
+the passion of sex too narrowly during past centuries. He heard all the
+deeps of life calling to one another and responding with passionate
+avowals of life's unity. The soul of the lover--as all the poets have
+been telling us since Dante's day--discovers its true self in the
+beloved person: but the soul of Whitman discovered itself as surely
+and as passionately in the Beloved World. The expression is so novel
+that it sounds well-nigh absurd to ears that do not "hear". But for
+those who can hear, Whitman's voice is all surcharged with the lover's
+passion; not less intense but larger in its sanity than the voices of
+other poets.
+
+Again we may justly urge that, in general, it was Woman as Madonna,
+rather than as Venus, whom he contemplated. Or shall we say he saw the
+Madonna in Venus, as Botticelli did? His love, when he wrote, was that
+of a man of middle life, in whom the yearning tenderness of fatherhood
+mingled with the other currents of passion. His vision beheld the
+Divine Child, without whom love itself is incomplete. For fatherhood
+and motherhood are seen by the insight of the poet to be implicit in
+the passion of sex, and it was impossible for Whitman, the seer, to
+think of one apart from the other.
+
+As a wife and a mother, Anne Gilchrist recognised the beauty and
+purity of Whitman's conception of love; and his book was to her like
+the presence of a great and wise comrade.[476] She was the first woman
+who had publicly recognised his purpose in these poems, and it was an
+act of no small heroism.[477] Whitman might well be moved by it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT ABOUT FIFTY]
+
+The _Selections_ had appeared in 1868, a year which also saw the
+publication[478] of O'Connor's tale, _The Carpenter_, in whose pages
+commences that legendary element in Whitman's story, which follows the
+advent of the more striking personalities. Here Whitman is confused
+with Christ, somewhat as was Francis by his followers, more than six
+centuries before.
+
+That such a thing should have been possible in the Whitman circle
+requires a few words of explanation. I have already described the poem
+in which he himself claims comradeship with "the Crucified".[479] The
+further assertion of such a claim inevitably fell to O'Connor, whose
+work was always marked by an element of vehemence and even of excess.
+Brilliant, generous, eloquent, he was oftener a fervid partisan than a
+safe critic.
+
+Having already coupled Whitman's name with the greatest in
+literature[480]--an act of audacity, even if we accept the
+conjunction--it was but natural that, finding the man himself nobler
+even than his works, he should compare him with the greatest masters
+of human life. He was not satisfied even with the praises he had piled
+upon his hero in his indignant rejoinder to the Hon. James Harlan.
+
+O'Connor's tale is of no great value; but it reminds us that there was
+in Walt something which bewildered those who knew him best: something
+Jove-like says one;[481] something that, judged by ordinary standards,
+was superhuman, alike in its calm breadth of view and its capacity for
+love. They observed that what others might do under the constraint of
+exceptional influences, of intellectual conviction, moral ideal or
+religious enthusiasm, he did naturally. He did not rise to an occasion,
+but always embraced opportunity as though from a higher level. He
+was not shocked or alienated by things which shocked other men; and
+personal slights and injuries hardly touched him, dropping from him
+at once. He was the best of comrades, and yet he was a man of deep
+reserve. And he was so many-sided that his friends were hardly aware
+that he concealed something of himself from them. Always when you
+met him again you found him bigger than you had remembered him; and
+the better you knew him, the less certain you would be of accurately
+forecasting his actions or understanding his thoughts.
+
+If, however, we call him superhuman, it must be by an unusual manner
+of speech; for he was, as we know, the most human of men, seeming to
+be personally familiar and at home with every fragment of humanity.
+He comprehended the springs of action in individuals, as the soul
+comprehends the purpose of each limb and article of the body. He had
+the understanding which comes through a subtle sympathy with the whole
+of things.
+
+Explain or ignore it as we will, there is in every man that which is
+Divine; but usually this side of his nature is, as it were, turned away
+from view. Our personality has deeps which even our own consciousness
+has not plumbed, though at times it catches a glimpse of them. And we
+know that there are men whose consciousness is as much deeper than ours
+as ours is deeper than that of a babe. Whitman was one of these; and
+the fact that he was such a one must always render the writing of his
+biography a tentative task. It seems as though O'Connor, feeling this,
+had thrown his own attempt at portraiture into the form of a sort of
+parable. For his friends, while they saw possibilities in him which
+they also recognised in themselves, saw also others which bewildered
+them by their suggestions of the old hero-stories; and it cannot
+therefore be wondered, if sometimes they found in his life a similitude
+to that of the Nazarene.
+
+The world is ever telling over the old legends, and wondering in spite
+of itself if, after all, they might be true. In our nobler moments
+we find ourselves rebelling against the traditional limitations of
+our manhood; something within our own hearts assures us that humanity
+is destined to attain a nobler stature. Every new revelation of the
+possibilities of life, every new incarnation of humanity in some great
+soul, brings to our lips the name of Jesus. For in it the aspirations
+of the world's childhood have been made our own.
+
+We can never believe that the story of the Christ closed with the
+earthly career of Jesus. We know that He will come again; that humanity
+will renew its promise; that the old stock will break once more into
+prophetic blossom. And waiting and watching, at the advent of every
+great one, our hearts cry out the ineffable name of our hope, at whose
+very hearing the soul of faith is refreshed. Every great soul assures
+us that the old, old stories are more than true; they are prophetic
+for our very selves; speaking to us of a Divine destiny and purpose to
+which we, too, may--nay, must--eventually arise. To Whitman's closest
+friends such was his gospel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was not every one who could read him so significantly. Merely
+intellectual people, trying him by their own standards, often found
+him stupid. A young doctor, for instance, who had known him in New
+York, and was now a fellow-boarder with him upon M Street, records his
+own impression formed at this time, that Walt was physically lazy and
+intellectually hazy;[482] that his conversation was disappointingly
+enigmatic and obscure, and his words were misty, shadowy, elusive
+adumbrations. His vocabulary, says this gentleman, even when he was
+deeply affected by natural scenes, was almost grotesquely inadequate;
+they were "tip-top," he would declare; and you could only gather from
+his manner and the tone of his voice that he meant more than a shabby
+commonplace.
+
+The doctor, who was doubtless an encyclopædia of accurate knowledge,
+found his companion sadly ignorant of the common names of the trees
+and birds they noticed on their rambles. A few years later, however,
+Whitman displayed so considerable a knowledge in these directions that
+one may at least suppose he profited considerably from his companion's
+information.[483] And even if he did not know their names, he came near
+to knowing their actual personality; which is probably more than even
+the worthy doctor attempted.
+
+It is very certain that Whitman was no dreamer of vague dreams. His
+face at this time was equally expressive of alertness and of calm.
+His small eyes, grey-blue under their heavy-drooping passionate lids,
+were of an extraordinarily penetrating vision. They were the eyes of
+a spirit which looked out through them ceaselessly as from behind a
+shelter. Circled by a definite line, they had the perceptive draining
+quality of a child's when it is first awake to all the world's
+storehouse of strange things.[484] Never a merely passive onlooker, he
+was always a dynamic force, challenging and evoking the manhood of his
+friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This is notably the case in his relations with Peter Doyle, of whom
+I have already spoken as one of Walt's closest companions during the
+greater part of the Washington period. Doyle was a young Catholic,
+born in Ireland but raised in the Virginian Alexandria.[485] His
+father, a blacksmith and machinist, eventually went to work in a
+Richmond foundry; and when the war broke out, Pete, who was a mere
+lad, entered the Confederate army. Soon after, he was wounded and
+made a prisoner, and being carried to Washington, he obtained during
+his convalescence[486] the post of conductor on one of the tram-cars
+running upon Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a course of some four miles,
+from Georgetown, by the White House and Treasury and near to Armory
+Square, up the hill by the Capitol and down again to near the Navy Yard
+on the Anacostia River. And in such a course he was bound sooner or
+later to make the acquaintance of Whitman.
+
+[Illustration: DOYLE AT TWENTY-TWO AND WHITMAN AT FIFTY]
+
+Their meeting occurred one wild stormy night, perhaps in the winter
+of 1864-65,[487] when Pete was about eighteen. Walt had been out
+to see John Burroughs, and was returning wrapt around in his great
+blanket-rug, the only passenger in the car. Pete was cold and lonely:
+something about the big red-faced man within promised fellowship and
+warmth. So he entered the car and put his hand impulsively on Walt's
+knee. Walt was pleased; they seemed to understand one another at once;
+and instead of descending at his destination, the older man rode an
+extra four miles that night for friendship's sake.[488]
+
+Pete was a fair well-built lad, with a warm Irish heart; and in Walt,
+who was old enough to have been his father, the fraternal and paternal
+qualities alike were very strong. Separated from his own children,
+and his own younger brothers whom he had dearly loved, his heart's
+tenderness expended itself upon other lads, and upon none more than
+upon Pete. There are few ties stronger than those which bind together
+the man or woman of middle life whose sympathies are still natural and
+warm, and the adolescent lad or maiden upon life's threshold.
+
+Whitman did not appear merely as a good fellow to his young comrade:
+his affection ran too deep for that. This is well illustrated by an
+incident in their relationship.[489] In a passing fit of despondency
+Pete declared that life was no longer worth living, and that he had
+more than half a mind to end it. Walt answered him sharply; he was
+very angry and not a little shocked. This occurred upon the evening
+of his departure for Brooklyn for one of his visits home, and the two
+separated somewhat coldly.
+
+Walt arrived really ill, suffering from a sort of partial and temporary
+paralysis, which seems to have attacked him at times during the latter
+part of his residence in Washington. As soon as he was sufficiently
+recovered, he wrote his friend a letter full of loving reproaches, of
+affectionate calls to duty, and promises of assistance. The unmanly
+folly of Pete's words had, he says, repelled him; but afterwards the
+sense of his indestructible love for the lad had returned again in
+fuller measure than ever, and he became certain that it was not the
+real Pete, "my darling boy, my young and loving brother," who had
+spoken those wicked words. He adjures him, by his love for his widowed
+mother and for Walt his comrade, to be a man.
+
+Many of the letters to Pete, during the vacations in Brooklyn from
+1868 to 1872, are marked by a sort of paternal anxiety for the young
+man's welfare. Pete was impulsive and emotional; he was not one to
+whom study or thrift was naturally easy. Walt aided him all he could
+in both directions. He was always encouraging his "boys" to read
+good books, combining still, as in earlier years, the rôles of teacher
+and comrade; but he never checked in any degree his friend's boyish,
+generous and pleasure-loving nature. And his love was returned with the
+whole-hearted loyal devotion of the true Celt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PETER G. DOYLE AT FIFTY-SEVEN]
+
+This friendship with Doyle was only one among many,[490] and the fact
+that Pete was a Catholic and had been a Confederate soldier, shows how
+far such relations transcended any mere similarity of opinion. Indeed,
+there is nothing more notable in the circle of Whitman's friends than
+their extraordinary dissimilarity one from another.
+
+Day after day, Pete would come to the Treasury building after his work
+was done, and wait sleepily there till Walt was free; when they would
+start off upon a stroll, which often extended itself for many miles
+into the country. Walt frequently had other companions upon these
+rambles. Sometimes it would be John Burroughs, and sometimes quite a
+party of men, laughing, singing and talking gaily together as they went.
+
+Whitman was the heart of good-fellowship; he was the oldest of them
+in years, but in years only. One wonders sometimes whether he himself
+realised that all these men were so much his juniors. There was no
+comrade, either man or woman, who had grown up beside him, learning
+with him the lessons of life. His mother was the great link with his
+own boyhood, and the letters which he wrote to her from Washington[491]
+show how strong was his attachment to her, and how great his capacity
+for home-love.
+
+It is, then, not a little tragic that he had no home to call his own.
+In a sense he was a solitary man; in the midst of his all-embracing
+love and his self-revealing poems, Walt Whitman lived his life apart
+and kept many secrets. In spirit he was as solitary as Thoreau, nay,
+even more than he, for, though his fellowship was with the life
+Universal, his consciousness of it seemed unique.
+
+His self-reliant, masculine nature was attractive to women, with whom
+he had, as one of his friends phrased it, "a good way". With them and
+with children he was natural and happy.
+
+Vague and anonymous figures of women move from time to time across
+his story. In 1863 it is with "a lady" that he first remarks the
+President's sadness.[492] In 1868 he has great talks and jolly times
+with the girls he meets on a trip in New England,[493] and he writes
+of his "particular women friends in New York". In 1869 he declares
+laughingly, he is quite a lady's man again as in the old days.[494]
+
+Women trusted him instinctively, and he repayed their trust by a
+remarkable silence as to his relations with them. He understood the
+hearts of women, for there was in him much of the maternal. This
+quality often finds quaint expression in his letters to Pete, who is
+"dear baby"[495] sometimes, and who found more than one kiss sent him
+upon the paper.
+
+As he became famous, Whitman had his queue of visitors. Now it is a
+spiritualistic woman, who breaks off her interview in order to converse
+with the spirit of Abraham Lincoln; and now a Mrs. McKnight,[496] who
+would paint his portrait. Later, when he fell ill, "Mary Cole" came and
+ministered to him.[497] Mrs. O'Connor, with Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs.
+Ashton, belonged to the circle of his friends. With women, as with men,
+he had his own frank way of expressing affection, and many a time he
+greeted them with a kiss, knowing it would not be misinterpreted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From 1868 to 1870 he was engaged upon a brief political treatise,
+apparently suggested to him by Carlyle's vehement assault upon
+Democracy and all its ways, in _Shooting Niagara_.[498]
+
+Life in Washington during and after the war had made the short-comings
+of Democracy very evident to Whitman. The failure of President Johnson
+and his attempted impeachment, had been followed by drastic measures
+for enforcing Republican ideas in the South by all the abominable
+methods known to corruption and carpet-bag politicians. The year 1868
+saw the election of Grant to the Presidency, and under him corruption
+extended in every direction. Grant's real work was finished at
+Appomattox,[499] and his eight years of official life added nothing to
+his fame. But Whitman, sharing the national regard for a simple-minded,
+downright soldier, heartily approved his nomination, and urged his
+brothers to support him.
+
+For the carpet-bag reconstruction of the South he had, of course, no
+sympathy. He longed for a union of hearts, and looked ardently forward
+to the day when the South, whom he loved so passionately, would realise
+again her inalienable part in the Union. Without her America was
+incomplete. And in the "magnet South"[500] was much that was personally
+dearest to Whitman's heart.
+
+The more extreme Abolitionist sentiment had combined with the exigency
+of party to create a position in the Southern States which was
+intolerable to all right feeling. The suffrage had been taken away
+from the rebellious whites and given instead to the negroes. It was as
+though the management of the household affairs should be entrusted to
+wholly irresponsible children. One need hardly add that it was not the
+negro who ruled, but the political agent who bought his vote and made
+a tool of him. Such a policy only exasperated the antagonism between
+North and South.
+
+And Whitman, though he hated slavery, saw that the negro was not ready
+to exercise the full rights of citizenship. When the negro vote in
+the capital became dominant in political elections, and the black
+population paraded the city in their thousands, armed and insolent,
+they seemed to him "like so many wild brutes let loose".[501]
+
+It was upon this question of negro-citizenship that he quarrelled
+with O'Connor. They had been arguing the subject, as O'Connor would
+insist on doing, and Walt, for the nonce, had the better of the bout.
+Thoughtlessly, and in the heat of the moment, he pressed his advantage
+too far; O'Connor lost his temper--perhaps Walt did the same--but when
+a moment later the older man returned to his usual good humour and held
+out his hand warmly to his friend, O'Connor's wrath was still hot; he
+was offended and refused the reconciliation. In spite of their friends
+the sad estrangement continued for years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The political treatise appeared at last under the title of _Democratic
+Vistas_.[502] It is the outcome of Whitman's experiences and
+meditations upon the purpose of social and national life, especially
+during the last decade in Washington. In many respects it is an
+enlargement of portions of the first Preface.
+
+In these fragmentary political memoranda Whitman is seen as the
+antagonist of what is often supposed to be the American character.
+The book is a scathing attack upon American complacency, which is
+even more detestable to Whitman than it was to Carlyle. He recognises
+the vulgarity and corruption that everywhere abound; the superficial
+smartness and alert commercial cunning which have taken the place of
+virtues in the current code of transatlantic morals. Flippant, infidel,
+unwholesome, mean-mannered; so he characterises New York, his beloved
+city. As fiercely as Carlyle he detests all the shams and hypocrises
+of democratic government, and he is as keen to discover the perils of
+universal suffrage.
+
+But withal he holds fast to faith, and offers a constructive ideal.
+The jottings are threaded together by the reiterated declaration
+that national life will never become illustrious without a national
+literature. It is precisely here, says he, that America is fatally
+deficient. Except upon the field of politics, what single thing of
+moral value has she originated? And what possible value has all her
+material development unless it be accompanied by a corresponding
+development of soul?
+
+There is something like an inconsistency of attitude in this book;
+for here, on the one hand, we have Whitman assuming the rôle of the
+moralist, denouncing, menacing, upbraiding, and generally allowing
+himself to employ the moralist's exaggerated, because partial, manner
+of speech. On the other hand, we find, interspersed among these
+passages of condemnation, others which assert his unwavering faith in
+the issue, his constant sense of the heroic character of the people.
+
+Whitman never professed consistency, but his inconsistency is generally
+explicable enough. In this case he is of course denouncing the America
+of his day, only because he is regarding her from the popular point of
+view as something perfect and complete. He has faith in America when
+he views her as a promise of what she shall be; but even then only
+because he sees far into her essential character. The shallow, popular
+optimism is, he knows, wholly false; for if America is to triumph, as
+he believes she will, it can only be by the profound moral forces which
+are silently at work beneath the trivial shows of her prosperity.
+
+The last enemy of the Republic was not slain when the slave party of
+secession, with its feudal spirit, was overcome. The victory of the
+North has for the present secured American unity, and with it the
+broad types both of Northern and of Southern character essential to
+the creation of a generous and profound national spirit. But America
+has set forth upon the most tremendous task ever conceived by man; a
+task indeed beyond the scope of any man's thought. Urged on by the
+inner destiny-forces of the race, she is attempting to realise the
+race-ideal of a true democracy. To accomplish her errand she must be
+nerved and vitalised by the highest and deepest of ideals; for hers is
+a world-battle with all the relentless foes of progress.
+
+Whitman, seeing clearly the dark aspect of the future, the wars
+and revolutions yet in store, and having counted the cost of them,
+though he had faith that America would eventually achieve her purpose,
+yet might well be foremost in scourging her light moods of optimism
+with bitter words. And though he had not despaired of America--and
+even if he had, would have been the last man to suggest despair to
+others--though, also, he knew and loved the real soul of the nation; he
+was not so blind to possibilities of disaster, possibilities which he
+had faced more than once in recent years, as to suppose that she was of
+necessity chosen to be the elder sister of the Republics of the coming
+centuries.[503]
+
+On the contrary, while he had no doubt of the growth and progress
+of humanity, he knew that a branch of the race might wither away
+prematurely; and he saw in the current culture and social beliefs of
+the city populations a wholly false and mischievous conception of
+American destiny. If the people of America were to perceive nothing but
+a field for money-making wherever the Stars and Stripes might float,
+then their patriotism would be worthless, and the Republic must fall.
+
+He loved America too passionately to be cynically indifferent as to
+her fate. In spite of unworthy qualities, she yet might realise the
+world's hope. But seeking ardently for a way, there was only one that
+Whitman could see; it was the way of religion. The old priestcraft was
+effete, but religion had not died with it.[504] In a new fellowship of
+prophet-poets, who should awaken the Soul of the Nation in the hearts
+of their hearers, as did the prophet-poets of Israel, in these and in
+these alone he had assurance--for already he seemed to behold them afar
+off--assurance of the future of his land.[505]
+
+Whitman agreed with Carlyle as to the infinite value to the race
+of great men. He continually asserts their necessity to Democracy;
+not, indeed, as masters and captains so much as interpreters and as
+prophets. The truly great man includes more of the meaning of Democracy
+than the little man, and is therefore the better fitted to explain the
+purpose of the whole. Moreover, according to Whitman, it is for the
+creation of great personalities that Democracy exists; for he differs
+widely from the Platonic mysticism with its Ideal State as the goal of
+personal achievement.
+
+He includes in his philosophy of society what is best both in the
+individualistic and the socialistic theories. He sees progress
+depending upon the interplay of two forces, which he calls the two
+sexes of Democracy[506]--Solidarity and Personality. It is for great
+souls to declare in the name of Personality the fundamental truth
+of Democracy, that every man is destined to become a god. They must
+realise for themselves, and assert for the world, that a man well-born,
+well-bred and well-trained, may and must become a law unto himself.
+
+According to Whitman, the one purpose of all government in a
+democracy is to encourage by all possible means the development of
+Soul-consciousness in every man and woman without any exception.[507]
+For, speaking generally, one may affirm that every fragment of humanity
+is ultimately capable of the heroism which is the force at humanity's
+heart; but each fragment can only realise its possibilities as a part
+of the whole, and as sharing in the life of Solidarity.
+
+To accomplish this destiny, and not for reasons of merit, Democracy
+encourages and requires of every one a participation in the duties and
+privileges of citizenship. And similarly, it requires that every one
+should be an owner of property in order that each may have his own
+material cell in the body politic.[508]
+
+All persons are not yet prepared for citizenship; but such as are
+minors must be wisely and strenuously prepared, for Democracy suffers
+until all become true citizens.
+
+The idle and the very poor are always a menace to Democracy.[509]
+
+Even a greater menace, if that be possible, is to be found in the low
+standard of womanhood which still prevails in America. Woman, if only
+she would leave her silliness and her millinery,[510] and enter the
+life of reality and enterprise, would, by the majesty of maternity,
+be more than the equal of man. I think, though approving of women's
+suffrage, he doubted whether it could effect the change he desired to
+see.
+
+It cannot be doubted that, like Plato, he saw in the triviality of
+the women of the upper classes especially, one of the gravest dangers
+which beset the Republic. For the aim of Democracy is great free
+personalities, and these can only be produced from a noble maternity.
+Unless motherhood and fatherhood in all their aspects become a living
+science,[511] and the practice of personal health is recognised as the
+finest of the arts, any achievement of the purpose of Democracy must be
+slow indeed.
+
+Of other and very secondary kinds of culture, desirable enough in their
+place, America, he continues, has no lack. In some respects she is more
+European than Europe. But to personality, and the moral force which is
+personality, she is alarmingly indifferent. We have fussed about the
+world, cries this stern speaker of truth to his age and nation; we have
+gathered together its art and its sciences, but we have not grown great
+in our own souls. Our mean manners result precisely from that.
+
+Thus he returns to reiterate the cry that can always be heard whenever
+we open any book of his, the cry of the quintessential importance of
+religion in every field of human life.[512] For religion is the life of
+the soul; that is to say, it is the heart of life.
+
+Whitman's religion, however, is not that which is taught by churches
+and churchmen. It is a religion extricated from the churches. In a
+notable passage[513] he declares: "Bibles may convey, and priests
+expound, but it is exclusively for the noiseless operation of one's
+isolated self to enter the pure ether of veneration, reach the Divine
+levels, and commune with the unutterable". In short, religion is moral
+or spiritual force: it is that which forms and maintains existence:
+without it, the continued life of nation or individual is inconceivable.
+
+For a nation, too, has its soul-identity; and must become conscious of
+that if it is to live, much more if it is to lead. The awakening of
+America to this consciousness of its spiritual purpose Whitman awaits,
+as the prophets of Israel awaited the Messiah.[514] And we may add that
+with its realisation of nationhood, there comes to a people the sense
+of its membership in the solidarity of the race.
+
+Now this soul-consciousness, he proceeds, comes to a nation through its
+literature. In its songs and in its great epics, a people tells and
+reads the secrets of its life; it sees there, as in a glass, the Divine
+purpose which tabernacles in its own heart.
+
+A literature which can do this for America will not be made by merely
+correct and clever college men, or by fanciful adepts in the arts
+of verse. Those who make it must breathe the open air of Nature;
+they must, in the largest sense, be men of science. But in Whitman's
+language nature and science include more than the material and the
+seen. They are the world of reality and its knowledge; and the soul
+is the essence of reality: wherefore its experience is the sum of
+knowledge.
+
+Thus made, literature will for the first time be worthy to quicken and
+immortalise the life of America.[515] It will feed the infant life of
+the real nation. Reading it, Americans will become aware at last of
+their world-destiny; and they will face the whole of life and death
+with a new faith and joy. America will become not merely a new world,
+but the mother of new worlds:[516] and lowering as the skies must often
+be, and tragic though the day's end, she will behold the stars beyond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such, in crudest outline, is the gist of Whitman's tractate; which,
+with the fifth edition of the _Leaves_, appeared early in 1871.
+_Leaves of Grass_ now included _Drum-taps_; but the poems of President
+Lincoln's death, with other matter suggested by the close of the war,
+were separately published in a little volume of 120 pages, which, while
+containing poems upon the lines suggested in _Democratic Vistas_, and
+reverting again to old themes, was more especially marked by those in
+which the idea of death as a voyage upon an unknown sea is dominant.
+
+[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF MS. BY WHITMAN, BELONGING PROBABLY TO 1875]
+
+The little book was called _Passage to India_, after the opening poem;
+and it has a completeness of its own, closing with a "Now Finalé
+to the Shore". In its preface, he alludes to a plan which he had
+entertained--his active imagination entertained so many plans which
+he never realised![517]--the scheme of a new volume to companion and
+complement the _Leaves_, suggestive of death and the disembodied soul,
+as the _Leaves_ were of the life in the body. He found, however, that
+the body was not so soon to be put aside; to the end, its hold upon him
+was extraordinarily tenacious. Doubting his ability for the task, he
+became content to offer a fragment and hint of what he had intended.
+
+_Passage to India_ is among his finest efforts.[518] Some of its
+single lines ring like clear bells, while the movement of the whole is
+varied, solemn and majestic. He shows his reader how the enterprise
+and invention of the world is binding all lands together to complete
+the "rondure" of the earth. The opening of the Suez Canal and of the
+Pacific Railroad are fulfilling the dream of the Genoese, who sought a
+passage to India in the circumnavigation of the world.
+
+But, says Whitman, with that characteristic mystical touch which is
+never absent in his poems, it is only the poet who conceives of the
+world as really one and round. For none but he understands that the
+universe is essentially one, Soul and Matter, Nature and Man. To
+the mystic sense, India becomes symbolic of all the first elemental
+intuitions of the human race. Thither now again the poet leads his
+nation, back to its first visions and back to God.
+
+Returning almost to the phrases of his first great poem,[519] Whitman
+declares his sureness of God, and his resolve not to dally with the
+Divine mystery. For him, God is the heart of all life, but especially
+the heart of all life that is true, good and loving: He is the
+reservoir of the spiritual, and He is the soul's perfect and immortal
+comrade. Thus Whitman's idea of God embraces the "personal" element,
+so-called, which has been predicated by Christian experience and dogma.
+
+When the soul has accomplished its "Passage to India"--has realised the
+unity of all[520]--then, says he, it will melt into the arms of its
+Elder Brother, the Divine Love. He does not mean that it will lose its
+slowly gained consciousness of selfhood; but that, to employ a formula
+of the Christian faith, it will enter the Godhead as a distinct Person.
+For the Godhead of Whitman's theology is the ultimate unity of ultimate
+personalities--Many-in-one, the God of Love, the Heart of Communion or
+Fellowship.
+
+It is with a splendid cry of adventurous delight and heroic ardour
+that Whitman sets out upon his perilous voyage, seeking the meaning of
+everything and of the whole, all hazards and dangers before him, upon
+all the seas of the Unknown: but not foolhardily--"Are they not all the
+seas of God?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In passing, we may note that in these Washington poems the feeling for
+formal perfection is often clearly manifested. Many of the shorter
+lyrics repeat the opening line at their close. And careful reading, or
+better, recitation, will show that some at least of the longer poems
+are constructed with a broad, architectonic plan.
+
+It is indeed a great mistake to suppose that Whitman was careless of
+form. Paradoxical though it sound, it was nothing but his overwhelming
+sense of the necessity for a living incarnation of his motive-emotions
+which led him to abandon the accepted media of written expression.
+He probably laboured as closely, deliberately and long upon his
+loose-rhythmed verses as a more precious stylist upon his. Whether
+successful or no, he was most conscientious and self-exacting in
+his obedience to the creative impulse, and in his selection of such
+cadences and words as seemed to his ear the best to render its precise
+import.
+
+Probably the quiet life at Washington, and the intercourse there with
+studious and thoughtful men and women, helped his artistic sense. With
+a few exceptions, however, the Washington poems are somewhat less
+inevitable and procreative in their quality than those of an earlier
+period. They are not less interesting, but they are less elemental.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The older he gets," wrote a correspondent of the _New York Evening
+Mail_, "the more cheerful and gay-hearted he grows."[521] Though he was
+now beginning to wear glasses, his jolly voice as he sang blithely over
+his bath, and his thrush-like whistle,[522] his hearty appetite and
+love of exercise, bore witness to vigour and good spirits.
+
+The circle of his friends grew daily wider, and a measure of
+international fame began to come to him. Both in Germany and in France
+his book was being read, criticised and admired.[523] Rossetti's
+selections had given him an English public, which was eager now for new
+editions of his complete poems; he had cordial letters from Tennyson
+and Addington Symonds; Swinburne addressed him in one of his "Songs
+before Sunrise," and there were many others.[524]
+
+From time to time he would receive an invitation from some academic or
+other body to recite a poem at a public function. Thus, in the autumn
+of 1871, he gave his "Song of the Exposition" at the opening of the
+annual exhibition of the American Institute;[525] it is a half-humorous
+poem, which follows some of the political themes suggested in
+_Democratic Vistas_. Again, at midsummer, 1872, he recited "As a Strong
+Bird on Pinions Free"[526] on the invitation of the United Literary
+Societies of Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire; making at this time a
+further tour as far as Lake Champlain, to visit his sister Hannah, who
+was married unhappily and far from all her people.[527]
+
+Later the same autumn, old Mrs. Whitman left Brooklyn to live with her
+son, the colonel, in Camden; a quiet unattractive artisan suburb of
+Philadelphia. The old lady, now nearly eighty, partially crippled by
+rheumatism, and a widow for some eighteen years, did not long survive
+this transplanting. But sorrows came thick upon the Whitmans at this
+time. And first of all, it was Walt himself who broke down and was
+house-tied.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[458] Camden, viii., 218.
+
+[459] _Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person_, 1867.
+
+[460] _Poems of W. W._, 1868.
+
+[461] See also Preface to _Poems of W. W._, and _Rossetti Papers_, 240.
+
+[462] _Rossetti Papers_, 270, 287, etc.
+
+[463] Symonds, 4; _J. A. Symonds, a Biography_, by H. R. F. Brown.
+
+[464] Symonds, 158.
+
+[465] _Supra_, 133 n.
+
+[466] _J. A. Symonds_, ii., 70; _Camden's Compliment_, 73.
+
+[467] _J. A. Symonds_, ii., 15.
+
+[468] _Ib._, ii., 82.
+
+[469] _Ib._, ii., 130, 131.
+
+[470] Symonds in _Fortnightly Rev._, xlii., 459; A. C. S. in _ib._, 170.
+
+[471] _Anne Gilchrist, Her Life and Writings_, by H. H. G., 1887; and
+_In re_, 41, 42.
+
+[472] _Rossetti Papers_, 459, 460.
+
+[473] Bucke, 31.
+
+[474] _In re_, 72.
+
+[475] _Fort. Rev._, _loc. cit._
+
+[476] _In re_, 42.
+
+[477] See _infra_, 264.
+
+[478] In _Putnam's Magazine_, Jan., 1868.
+
+[479] See _supra_, 167.
+
+[480] In the _Good Gray Poet_.
+
+[481] Burroughs, 85.
+
+[482] Potter, _op. cit._
+
+[483] See _infra_, 262.
+
+[484] O'Connor, qu. in Bucke, 62.
+
+[485] Calamus, 21.
+
+[486] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[487] Calamus, 23, gives 1866; but _Comp. Prose_, 70, throws date back:
+see also _supra_, 210.
+
+[488] Although it has been previously quoted, the following passage
+from Mr. Burroughs' _Birds and Poets_ gives so graphic a description of
+Whitman at this time, that I cannot forbear to quote it:--
+
+"I give here a glimpse of him in Washington, on a Pennsylvania Avenue
+and Navy Yard horse-car, toward the close of the war, one summer
+day at sundown. The car is crowded and suffocatingly hot, with many
+passengers on the rear platform, and among them a bearded, florid-faced
+man, elderly but agile, resting against the dash, by the side of the
+young conductor, and evidently his intimate friend. The man wears a
+broad-brim white hat. Among the jam inside near the door, a young
+Englishwoman, of the working class, with two children, has had trouble
+all the way with the youngest, a strong, fat, fretful, bright babe
+of fourteen or fifteen months, who bids fair to worry the mother
+completely out, besides becoming a howling nuisance to everybody. As
+the car tugs around Capitol Hill, the young one is more demoniac than
+ever, and the flushed and perspiring mother is just ready to burst into
+tears with weariness and vexation. The car stops at the top of the hill
+to let off most of the rear platform passengers, and the white-hatted
+man reaches inside, and gently but firmly disengaging the babe from
+its stifling place in the mother's arms, takes it in his own, and out
+in the air. The astonished and excited child, partly in fear, partly
+in satisfaction at the change, stops its screaming, and as the man
+adjusts it more securely to his breast, plants its chubby hands against
+him, and pushing off as far as it can, gives a good look squarely in
+his face; then, as if satisfied, snuggles down with its head on his
+neck, and in less than a minute, is sound and peacefully asleep without
+another whimper, utterly fagged out."
+
+[489] Calamus, 53-55.
+
+[490] Calamus, 18.
+
+[491] Camden, viii., 169-243.
+
+[492] _Wound-Dresser_, 90.
+
+[493] Calamus, 48.
+
+[494] _Ib._, 62.
+
+[495] Calamus.
+
+[496] Camden, viii., 235.
+
+[497] _In re_, 74.
+
+[498] _Comp. Prose_, 208, 209 n.
+
+[499] Wister's _Grant_, 130.
+
+[500] _L. of G._, 359.
+
+[501] Camden, viii., 226 (May, 1868).
+
+[502] _Comp. Prose_, 197-251
+
+[503] _Comp. Prose_, 246, 247.
+
+[504] _Ib._, 200.
+
+[505] In a most characteristic passage, which may be quoted as a
+specimen of the style of this book, he writes of "the need of powerful
+native philosophers and orators and bards ... as rallying-points to
+come in times of danger.... For history is long, long, long. Shift
+and turn the combinations of the statement as we may, the problem of
+the future of America is in certain respects as dark as it is vast.
+Pride, competition, segregation, vicious wilfulness, and license beyond
+example, brood already upon us.... Flaunt it as we choose, athwart and
+over the roads of our progress, loom huge uncertainty, and dreadful,
+threatening gloom. It is useless to deny it. Democracy grows rankly
+up the thickest, noxious, deadliest plants and fruits of all--brings
+worse and worse invaders--needs newer, larger, stronger, keener
+compensations and compellers. Our lands embracing so much (embracing
+indeed the whole, rejecting none), hold in their breast that flame also
+[which is] capable of consuming themselves, consuming us all.... We
+sail a dangerous sea of seething currents, cross and under-currents,
+vortices--all so dark, untried--and whither shall we turn? It seems as
+though the Almighty had spread before this nation charts of imperial
+destinies, dazzling as the sun, yet with many a deep intestine
+difficulty and human aggregate of cankerous imperfection--saying,
+lo! the roads, the only plans of development, long and varied with
+all terrible balks and ebullitions.... Behold the cost, and already
+specimens of the cost. Thought you, greatness was to ripen for you
+like a pear? If you would have greatness, know that you must conquer
+it through ages, centuries--must pay for it with a proportionate
+price. Yet I have dreamed, merged in that hidden-tangled problem of
+our fate, whose long unravelling stretches mysteriously through time
+... a little or a larger band--a band of brave and true, unprecedented
+yet--armed and equipped at every point--the members separated, it may
+be, by different dates and States ... but always one, compact in soul,
+conscience-serving, God-inculcating, inspired achievers, not only in
+literature the greatest art, but in all art--a new, undying order,
+dynasty, from age to age transmitted--a band, a class, at least as
+fit to cope with current years, our dangers, needs, as those who, for
+their times, so long, so well, in armour or in cowl, upheld and made
+illustrious that far back, feudal, priestly world."--_Comp. Prose_,
+246-48; _cf._ also 202.
+
+[506] _Comp. Prose_, 221; 207 n.
+
+[507] _Comp. Prose_, 212.
+
+[508] _Ib._, 215.
+
+[509] _Ib._, 211.
+
+[510] _Ib._, 206.
+
+[511] _Comp. Prose_, 225.
+
+[512] _Ib._, 226.
+
+[513] _Ib._, 227.
+
+[514] _Ib._, 240, 241.
+
+[515] _Comp. Prose_, 244.
+
+[516] _Ib._, 250.
+
+[517] _Comp. Prose_, 273 n.
+
+[518] _L. of G._, 315.
+
+[519] _Ib._, 321, 76.
+
+[520] _L. of G._, 322.
+
+[521] Bucke, 44.
+
+[522] Burroughs, 126.
+
+[523] Bucke, 202, 203, 207-9.
+
+[524] _In re_, 72.
+
+[525] _L. of G._, 157; _cf._ "Two Rivulets," Song of Expos.
+
+[526] _L. of G._, 346.
+
+[527] Calamus, 98.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ILLNESS
+
+
+At the opening of 1873 Whitman had been just ten years in Washington,
+and was in the fifty-fourth of his age. Recent letters to his friends
+had told of more frequent spells of partially disabling sickness and
+lassitude.[528] On the evening of Thursday, January 23rd, he sat late
+over the fire in the Library of the Treasury Building, reading Lord
+Lytton's _What will he do with it?_[529] As he left, the guard at the
+door remarked him looking ill.
+
+His room was close by, just across the street; and he went to bed as
+usual. Between three and four in the morning, he awoke to find that
+he could move neither arm nor leg on the left side. Presently he fell
+asleep again; and later, as he could not rise, lay on quietly, till
+some friends coming in raised the alarm and fetched a doctor. After
+some six or seven years of preliminary symptoms,[530] Walt had now had
+a slight stroke of paralysis.
+
+His first thought was of his mother, to whom he wrote as soon as he was
+able, reassuring her; for the newspapers had exaggerated his condition.
+Once before, he reminds her with grim humour, they had killed him off;
+but he is on the road to recovery; in a few days he will be back at his
+desk on the other side of the street.
+
+Pete Doyle, Charles Eldridge and John Burroughs came in to nurse and
+companion him: Mrs. Ashton would have carried him to her house; Mrs.
+O'Connor, who did not share in the estrangement of her husband, was
+often at his bedside. And at the bed-foot, his mother's picture was
+always before him.
+
+He had scarcely begun to move about a little in his room before a
+letter from St. Louis told of the death of Martha, Jefferson Whitman's
+wife, to whom the whole family was much attached, and Walt especially.
+The blow fell heavily on him.
+
+On the last day of March,[531] he crossed the street again to his work;
+and by the end of April he was having regular electrical treatment, and
+working for a couple of hours daily, with an occasional lapse. His leg
+was very clumsy, and he complained of frequent sensations of distress
+and weakness in his head, but he seemed to be progressing as well as
+was possible.
+
+Early in May, however, the old mother in Camden fell ill. Walt was very
+anxious about her;[532] at her age she could hardly recover from a
+serious illness, and his letters to her are pathetically full of loving
+solicitude. She grew rapidly worse, and although he was still but
+feeble, he could not remain away from her. On the 20th he hurried home,
+and on the 23rd, while he was with her, she died.[533]
+
+The shock to Walt was terrible; and when, dreading the heat, he
+attempted to reach the coast, he had a serious relapse at the outset,
+and was brought back to Colonel Whitman's, to the melancholy little
+house. And here he too, so it would seem, was to end his life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Only a year before, in the preface to the reprint of his Dartmouth
+College poem,[534] he had declared that now--the Four Years' War being
+over, and he himself having rounded out the poem of the "Democratic
+Man or Woman"--he was prepared for a new enterprise. He would now set
+to work upon fulfilling the programme of his _Democratic Vistas_; and
+put the States of America hand-in-hand "in one unbroken circle in a
+chant". He would sing the song for which America waited, the song of
+the Republic that is yet to be.
+
+Again, a year earlier, he had told in his _Passage to India_ how he was
+ready to set forth upon the Unknown Sea.
+
+And now, with his labours unaccomplished, his heart stricken and heavy
+with bereavement, joylessly he seemed to hear the weighing of the
+anchor and to feel his ship already setting forth. Where now was the
+old exaltation of spirit; where the eager longing for Divine adventure
+with which hitherto he had always contemplated death?
+
+Now sorrow claimed him, and for a season he lost hold of joy and faith.
+He was as one abandoned by the Giver of Life, and isolated from Love.
+Thus deserted, he became utterly exhausted of vitality. It is as though
+for a time his soul had parted from his bodily life, and yet the life
+in the body must go on. If death had come now he would not have refused
+it; but his hour was not yet. Neither living nor dying, through the
+sad, dark days of long protracted illness and solitude, of physical
+debility and mental bewilderment--as it were, through year-long
+dream-gropings--he waited.
+
+The light of his life seemed suddenly to have gone out.[535] Near as
+he had dwelt to death, in the tragedy of the war-hospitals and in the
+habit of his thought, he was wholly unprepared for the death of his
+mother.
+
+He was a man upon whose large harmonious and resonant nature every
+tragic experience struck out its fullest note. Philosophy and religion
+were his, if they were any man's; but he was not one of those who
+escape experience in the byways of abstraction. He took each blow full
+in his breast.
+
+His mother was dead; that was the physical wrench which crippled
+him body and soul. He could not accustom himself to her death and
+departure.[536] He could not understand it, nor why he was so stricken
+by it. It seemed as though in her life his mother had given to her son
+something that was essential to that soul-consciousness in which he had
+lived, and that her death had broken his own life asunder, so that it
+was no longer harmonious and triumphant.
+
+His mother was dead, and he was alone in Camden. Not perhaps actually
+alone, for his new sister, George's wife, was always kindly; and so,
+indeed, was George himself. But spiritually he was alone. He had lost
+something, it seems, of the spiritual companionship which had made the
+world a home to him wherever he went. And now the human comrades who
+had come so close were far away. Washington and New York were equally
+out of reach; and he had lost O'Connor. Letters, indeed, he had; but
+they did not make up to him for the daily magnetic contact with the men
+and women whom he loved. Touch and presence meant more to him than to
+others, and these he had lost.
+
+He was, then, very much alone; bereft at once, so it would seem, of the
+material and the spiritual consciousness of fellowship; standing wholly
+by himself, in the attitude of that live-oak he had once wondered at
+in Louisiana, because it uttered joyous leaves of dark green though it
+stood solitary.[537] He was like a tree blasted by lightning; yet he
+too continued to put forth his leaves one and one, letters of cheery
+brief words to his old comrades, and especially to Pete.[538] He was
+an old campaigner worsted at last, standing silently at bay; only
+determined, come what might, that he would not grumble or complain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His circumstances were not all gloomy. Through the summer of 1873,
+Whitman remained with his brother, at number 322, Stevens Street, in
+the pleasant room his mother had occupied upon the first floor. Around
+him were the old familiar objects dear to him from childhood.
+
+He was not wholly house-tied: two lines of street-cars ran near
+by,[539] and by means of one or other he contrived to reach the ferry,
+which he loved to cross and cross again, revelling in the swing of the
+tawny Delaware, and all the comings and goings of the river and ocean
+craft. Hale old captains still remember him well as he was in those
+days. Sometimes also he would extend his jaunt, taking the Market
+Street cars on the Philadelphia side of the river, and going as far as
+the reading-room of the Mercantile Library upon Tenth Street.[540]
+
+But often he was too weak to go abroad for days together. His brain
+refused to undertake the task of leadership or co-ordination, and there
+was no friend to assist him. With his lame leg and his giddiness, he
+had at the best of times hard work to move about; but as he wrote to
+Pete, "I put a bold face on, and _my best foot foremost_".[541]
+
+During bad days he sat solitary at home, trying to maintain a good
+heart, his whole vitality too depressed to do more. "If I only felt
+just a little better," he would say, "I should get acquainted with
+many of the [railroad] men,"[542] a class who affected this particular
+locality. But feeble as he was, it was long before he made any friends
+to replace the lost circle at Washington. Now and again some kindly
+soul, hearing that he was ill, would call upon him:[543] or Jeff would
+look in on his way to New York, or Eldridge or Burroughs, coming and
+going between Washington and New England.
+
+Walt could not readily adjust himself to his new circumstances. His was
+not an elastic, pliable temper; but on the contrary, very stubborn,
+and apt to become set in ways; the qualities of adhesion and inertia
+increasing in prominence as his strong will and initiative ebbed. He
+kept telling himself between the blurs that disabled his brain, that
+he might be in a much more deplorable fix; that his folks were good to
+him; that his post was kept open for his return, and that his friends
+were only waiting to welcome him back to Washington.
+
+But he could not pass by or elude the ever-present consciousness
+and problem of his mother's death. At the end of August he wrote to
+Pete: "I have the feeling of getting more strength and easier in the
+head--something like what I was before mother's death. (I cannot be
+reconciled to that yet: it is the great cloud of my life--nothing that
+ever happened before has had such an effect on me.)"[544] When we
+remember his separation from the woman and the children of his love,
+and all the experiences of the war, we may a little understand the
+meaning of these soberly written words, and the strength of the tie
+which bound together mother and son. Who knows or can estimate the full
+meaning of that relationship which begins before birth, and which all
+the changes and separations of life and death only deepen?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is difficult to look calmly at this period of Whitman's life. One
+resents, perhaps childishly, the fate which overtook this sane and
+noble soul. Surely he, of all men, had been faithful to the inner
+vision, and generous to all. He had fulfilled the Divine precept; he
+had loved the Lord his God with all the might of soul and body, and
+his neighbour as himself. From childhood up he had been clean and
+affectionate, independent and loyal, whole-heartedly obedient to the
+law as it was written in his heart, undaunted by any fear or convention.
+
+He had prized health, and held it sacred, as the essential basis of
+freedom and sanity of spirit. And he had hazarded it without reserve
+and without fear, in the infectious and malarial wards of the hospitals.
+
+He had opened his heart to learn the full chords and meanings of all
+the emotions that came to him; and when he had become a scholar in
+these, he became an interpreter of the soul unto itself, both in the
+printed page and in the relations of his life. In _Leaves of Grass_
+he gave, to whosoever would accept the gift, his own attitude towards
+life, and the results of his study of living. In the wards he gave
+himself in whatever ways he could contrive to the needy.
+
+And he gave all. Twenty years at least of his own health he sacrificed,
+and gave freely, out of the overflow of his love, to the wounded
+in their cots. As I have before suggested,[545] he gave more than,
+physically speaking, he could afford. But he gave with joy, knowing
+that he was born to give, and that in giving himself irretrievably,
+he was fulfilling the highest law of his being, and fully and finally
+realising himself. It was the crowning proof not only of "Calamus," but
+of his gospel of self-realisation.
+
+Deliberate though his service was, not even Whitman himself could fully
+estimate the cost of his charity. But he accepted the consequences of
+all his acts as proper and due, being, indeed, implicit in the acts
+themselves. And now, when his very joy in life was called in to meet
+the mortgage he had given; when he was, as it were, stripped naked and
+left in the dark; he accepted his condition without declaiming against
+the Divine justice, or calling insanely upon God.
+
+Year after year, he was patient, expecting the light to break again,
+the daylight beyond death. He had never professed to understand the
+ways of God, but he had always trusted Him. And when faith itself
+seemed for awhile to forsake him, his blind soul did but sit silently
+awaiting its return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was out of such a mood, lighted at times by moments of vision,
+that during 1874 and 1875 he wrote some of the noblest of his verses,
+notably the "Prayer of Columbus," the "Song of the Universal," and the
+"Song of the Redwood Tree".
+
+There are those who have suggested that Whitman's illness was brought
+on by a life of dissipation; one supposes that such persons find in
+these poems the death-bed repentance of a maudlin old _roué_. But to
+the unprejudiced reader such a view must appear worse than absurd.
+Whitman never claimed to have lived a blameless life, but he did claim
+to have lived a sane and loving one; the evidence of all his writings,
+and of these poems especially, supports that claim.
+
+Simple and direct, the "Prayer of Columbus" breathes the religious
+spirit in which it was conceived. Lonely, poor and paralysed, battered
+and old, upon the margin of the great ocean of Death, he pours out
+his heart and tells the secret of his life; for, as Whitman himself
+confessed, it is he who speaks under a thin historical disguise.[546]
+
+    I am too full of woe!
+    Haply I may not live another day;
+    I cannot rest, O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,
+    Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,
+    Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee, commune with Thee,
+    Report myself once more to Thee.
+
+    Thou knowest my years entire, my life,
+    My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely;
+    Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth,
+    Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations,
+    Thou knowest how before I commenced I devoted all to come to Thee,
+    Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows and strictly
+      kept them,
+    Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee....
+
+    All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee,
+    My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,
+    Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;
+    Intentions, purports, aspirations mine, leaving results to Thee.
+
+    O I am sure they really came from Thee,
+    The urge, the ardour, the unconquerable will,
+    The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,
+    A message from the Heavens whispering to me even in sleep,
+    These sped me on....
+
+What the end and result of all, he cannot tell--that is God's business;
+but he has felt the promise of freedom, religious joy and peace. The
+way itself has always been plain to him, lit by an ineffable, steady
+illumination, "lighting the very light". And now, lost in the unknown
+seas, he will again set forth, relinquishing the helm of choice; and
+though the vessel break asunder and his mind itself should fail, yet
+will his soul cling fast to the one sure thing; for though the waves of
+the unknown buffet his soul, "Thee, Thee, at least I know".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the "Song of the Universal"--apparently delivered by proxy at the
+Commencement Exercises of Tuft's College, Massachusetts, midsummer,
+1874[547]--Whitman reiterates his conviction that the Divine is at the
+heart of all and every life. The soul will at last emerge from evil and
+disease to justify its own history, to bring health out of disease, and
+joy out of sorrow and sin. Blessed are they who perceive and pursue
+this truth! It is to forward this wondrous discovery of the soul that
+America has, in the ripeness of time, arrived.
+
+    The measured faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,
+    Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,
+    Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
+    All eligible to all.
+
+    All, all for immortality,
+    Love like the light silently wrapping all,
+    Nature's amelioration blessing all,
+    The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
+    Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
+
+    Give me, O God, to sing that thought,
+    Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
+    In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,
+    Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
+    Health, peace, salvation universal.
+
+Without this faith the world and life are but a dream.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The "Song of the Californian Redwood"[548] still harps upon American
+destiny and upon the mystery of death. The giant of the dense forest,
+falling before the axes of the pioneers, declares the conscious soul
+that lives in all natural things. He complains not at death, but
+rejoices that his huge, calm joy will hereafter be incarnate in more
+kingly beings--the men that are yet to dwell in this new land of the
+West--and, above all, in the Godlike genius of America. The "Song of
+the Redwood Tree" is the voice of a great past, prophetic of a greater,
+all-continuing, all-embracing future, and, therefore, undismayed at its
+own passing.
+
+Such were the weapons with which Whitman fought against despair; such
+the heroic heart which, amid confusion, restlessness and perplexity,
+still held its own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: COL. WHITMAN'S CORNER HOUSE, No. 431, STEVENS STREET,
+CAMDEN, 1904]
+
+At the end of September, 1873, the Whitmans had moved into a fine new
+brick house[549] which George, who was now a prosperous inspector of
+pipes, had built upon a corner lot on Stevens Street. It faced south
+and west, and Walt chose a sunny room on the second floor, as we should
+say, or, according to the American and more accurate enumeration, on
+the third. Here he remained for ten years.
+
+The house still stands, well-built and comfortable; and though the
+neighbourhood is shabby and the district does not improve with time,
+the trees that stand before it give it a pleasant air upon a summer's
+day. Walt was to have had a commodious room upon the floor below,
+specially designed for his comfort and convenience, but he preferred
+the other as sunnier and more quiet.
+
+The family now consisted of three only, for Edward, the imbecile
+brother, was boarding somewhere near by in the country. Jeff was in St.
+Louis, the two sisters were married, Andrew had died. About Jesse we
+have no information; he may still have been living in Long Island or
+New York.
+
+More than once Whitman wrote very seriously to Pete, gently preparing
+him for the worst;[550] but though confinement, loneliness and debility
+of brain and body made the days and nights dreary, there continued to
+be gleams of comfort. John Burroughs had begun to build his delightful
+home upon the Hudson, and called at Camden on his way north, after
+winding up his affairs in the capital. Among occasional callers was
+Mr. W. J. Linton, who afterwards drew the portrait for the Centennial
+edition of the _Leaves_. And Walt made the acquaintance of a jovial
+Colonel Johnston, at whose house he would often drink a cup of tea on
+Sunday afternoons.[551]
+
+Then, too, the young men at the ferry, and the drivers and conductors
+on the cars, came to know and like him, helping him as he hobbled to
+and fro.[552] He was often refreshed by the sunsets on the river,
+and by the winter crossings through the floating ice;[553] while the
+sound and sight of the railroad cars crossing West Street, less than a
+quarter of a mile away, reminded him constantly of Pete Doyle, now a
+baggage-master on the "Baltimore and Potomac".
+
+He had a companion, too, in his little dog,[554] which came and went
+with him, and all these pleasant, homely little matters go to make
+his letters as cheerful as may be. If only he could be in his own
+quarters, and among his friends, he would be comparatively happy. It
+is the home-feeling and affection that he craves all the time; even
+a wood-fire would help towards that, but alas, brother George has
+installed an improved heater!
+
+About midsummer, 1874, a new Solicitor-General discharged Whitman from
+his post at Washington.[555] Hitherto Walt had employed a substitute to
+carry on his work. But he had now been ill some eighteen months, and
+the prospect of his return was becoming so remote that he could not
+feel he had been treated unjustly.
+
+From this time forward his financial position became precarious.
+The amount of his savings grew less and less, and his earnings were
+not large. Besides beginning to edit his hospital memoranda for
+publication, he wrote for the papers and magazines whenever his head
+allowed him to do so; and in England, as well as at home, there was
+still some demand for his book. But even the scanty sales-money did not
+always reach him, being retained by more than one agent who regarded
+the author's life as practically at an end.[556]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[528] Camden, viii., 238-40; Calamus, 86.
+
+[529] Bucke, 46; _In re_, 73.
+
+[530] Camden, ix., 200.
+
+[531] _In re_, 79.
+
+[532] _In re_, 89.
+
+[533] Calamus, 99; Bucke, 46.
+
+[534] _Comp. Prose_, 272.
+
+[535] _Comp. Prose_, 274 n.
+
+[536] Calamus, 104, 109.
+
+[537] _L. of G._, 105.
+
+[538] See Calamus.
+
+[539] See Calamus, 106.
+
+[540] _Ib._, 111.
+
+[541] _Ib._, 106.
+
+[542] _Ib._
+
+[543] _E.g._, the late Mr. Wm. Ingram.
+
+[544] Calamus, 109.
+
+[545] see _supra_, 204.
+
+[546] Calamus, 145; _L. of G._, 323.
+
+[547] _L. of G._, 181.
+
+[548] _Ib._, 165.
+
+[549] Number 431; Calamus, 118.
+
+[550] Calamus, 119, etc.
+
+[551] Calamus, 126, 127.
+
+[552] _Ib._, 133.
+
+[553] _Ib._, 143.
+
+[554] _Ib._, 137.
+
+[555] _Ib._, 155.
+
+[556] Bucke, 46.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CONVALESCENCE
+
+
+All through 1875 the weakness continued; but in November he was well
+enough to pay a visit to Washington, accompanied by John Burroughs;
+and, the public re-burial of Poe taking place about that time in
+Baltimore, Doyle appears to have convoyed him thither.[557] There,
+sitting silently on the platform at the public function, he seems once
+again to have been cordially greeted by Emerson, but O'Connor, who was
+also present, made no sign.[558]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not till the following summer that Whitman's old spirits began
+to return. Since his mother died he had passed three years in the
+valley of the shadow, and he was still lonely, sick and poor when his
+English friends came to his rescue.
+
+He and his writings had been pulverised between the heavy millstones
+of Mr. Peter Bayne's adjectives in the _Contemporary Review_ for the
+month of December. In England, as well as in America, he had literary
+enemies in high places. But on the 13th of March the _Daily News_[559]
+published a long and characteristically fervid letter, full of generous
+feeling, from Mr. Robert Buchanan, who dilated upon the old poet's
+isolation, neglect and poverty. It aroused wide comment, and some
+indignation on both sides of the Atlantic, among Whitman's friends as
+well as among his enemies.
+
+That he was never deserted by his faithful American friends a series
+of articles upon his condition, published in the Springfield (Mass.)
+_Republican_, bears witness.[560] But Buchanan's letter evoked new and
+widespread sympathy, which was the means of saving Whitman from his
+melancholy plight. A fortnight later the _Athenæum_ printed his short
+sonnet-like poem, "The Man-o'-War Bird".
+
+In the meantime, Mr. Rossetti, always faithful to his friend, had
+learned of his condition, and had written asking how best his English
+admirers might offer him assistance. Walt wrote in reply, stating that
+his savings were exhausted, that he had been cheated by his New York
+agents, and that in consequence he was now, for the new Centennial
+edition, which had just appeared, his own sole publisher.[561] If any
+of his English friends desired to help him, they could best do so by
+the purchase of the book. He wrote with affectionate gratitude, and
+quiet dignity. He was poor, but he was not in want.
+
+There came, through Mr. Rossetti, an immediate, generous and most
+cordial response, and in the list of English and Irish subscribers
+appear many illustrious names. The invalid revived; "both the
+cash and the emotional cheer," he wrote at a later time, "were
+deep medicine".[562] He could now afford to overlook the bitter
+and contemptuous attacks which were being made upon him by an old
+acquaintance in the editorials of the _New York Tribune_.[563] And,
+which was at least equally important, he could contrive to take a
+country holiday.
+
+[Illustration: TIMBER CREEK: THE POOL, 1904]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About the end of April, or early in May, he drove out through the
+gently undulating dairy lands and the fields of young corn to the New
+Jersey hamlet of Whitehorse, some ten miles down the turnpike which
+leads to Atlantic City and Cape May.[564] A little beyond the village,
+and close to the Reading Railroad, there still stands an old farmhouse,
+then tenanted by Mr. George Stafford, and to-day the centre of a group
+of pleasant villas known as Laurel Springs.
+
+It was here that Whitman lodged, establishing cordial relations with
+the whole Stafford family, relations which added greatly to the
+happiness of his remaining years. He became especially attached to Mrs.
+Stafford, who intuitively read his moods,[565] and to her son Harry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A short stroll down the green lane, which is now being rapidly
+civilised out of that delightful category, brings one to a wide woody
+hollow, where amid the trees a long creek or stream winds down to a
+large mill-pool with boats and lily leaves floating upon it. Save for
+the boats and the people from the villas, the place has been but little
+changed by the quarter of a century which has elapsed since Whitman
+first visited it.[566] The walnut and the oak under which he used to
+sit among the meadow-grass are older trees, of course, and the former
+is now circled with a wooden seat; but the kecks and crickets, the
+shady nooks by the pool, the jewel-weed and the great-winged tawny
+butterflies are there as of old. And with them much of the old, sweet,
+communicative quiet.
+
+At the creek-head, among the willows, is a swampy tangle of mint
+and calamus, reeds and cresses, white boneset and orange fragile
+jewel-weed, and above, from its mouth in the steep bank, gushes the
+"crystal spring" whose soft, clinking murmur soothed the old man many a
+summer's day.
+
+Here, early and late, he would sit or saunter through the glinting
+glimmering lights, and here Mother-Nature took him, an orphan, to her
+breast. The baby and boyhood days in the lanes and fields at West
+Hills, and among the woods and orchards came back to him and blessed
+him with significant memories. To outward seeming an old man, and
+near sixty as years go, in heart he was still and always a child. And
+for the last three years a broken-hearted, motherless child. He had
+been starving to death for lack of the daily ministry of Love.
+
+[Illustration: TIMBER CREEK: "CRYSTAL SPRING" AND THE OLD MARL-PIT,
+1904]
+
+At Timber Creek, by the pool and in the lanes, the touch of that
+all-embracing Love which pervades the universe was upon him. Without
+any effort on his part the caressing air and sunshine re-established
+the ancient relationship of love, in which of old he had been united
+to Nature. He would sit silent for hours, wrapt in a sort of trance,
+realising the mystery of the Whole, through which, as through a body,
+the currents of life flow and pulse. Woe to any one, however dear, who
+broke suddenly in upon his solitude![567]
+
+His heart went out to the tall poplars and the upright cedars with
+their tasselled fruit, and he felt virtue flow from them to him in
+return. He believed the old dryad stories, and became himself truly
+nympholeptic, and aware of presences in the woods. In August, 1877,
+he writes: "I have been almost two years, off and on, without drugs
+and medicines, and daily in the open air. Last summer I found a
+particularly secluded little dell off one side by my creek, originally
+a large dug-out marl-pit, now abandoned, filled with bushes, trees,
+grass, a group of willows, a straggling bank and a spring of delicious
+water running right through the middle of it, with two or three little
+cascades. Here I retreated every hot day, and follow it up this summer.
+Here I realise the meaning of that old fellow who said he was seldom
+less alone than when alone. Never before did I come so close to Nature,
+never before did she come so close to me. By old habit I pencilled down
+from time to time almost automatically, moods, sights, hours, tints and
+outlines on the spot."[568]
+
+Unlike the ordinary naturalist he regarded the birds and trees, the
+dragon-flies and grey squirrels, the oak-trees and the breeze that sang
+among their leaves, as spirits; strange, but kindred with his own,
+members together with his of a transcendental life; and he communed
+with them. Something, he felt sure, they interchanged; something passed
+between them.
+
+Their mystical fellowship had its ritual, as have all religions. The
+place was sacred, and he did off, not only his shoes, but all his
+raiment, giving back himself to naked Mother-Nature, naked as he was
+born of her. In the solitude, among the bare-limbed gracious trees
+and the clear-flowing water, he enjoyed many a sun-bath, and on hot
+summer days, in his bird-haunted nook, many a bathing in the spring;
+many a wrestle, too, with strong young hickory sapling or beech bough,
+conscious, as they wrestled together, of new life flowing into his
+veins.[569]
+
+Whatever ignorance of names his Washington acquaintance may have
+discovered,[570] his diary at this time is full of nature-lore. It
+enumerates some forty kinds of birds, and he was evidently familiar
+with nearly as many sorts of trees and shrubs; while differentiating
+accurately enough between the sundry trilling insects, locusts,
+grasshoppers, crickets and katydids which populate the district,
+vibrant by day and night. Doubtless he had learnt much from the
+companionship of John Burroughs, but he was himself an accurate
+observer.
+
+The story of his visits to Timber Creek and its vicinity from 1876
+to 1882 is told in _Specimen Days_, with much else beside--a book to
+carry with one on any holiday, or to make a holiday in the midst of
+city work. It is, for the rest, an admirable illustration of the saying
+of the philosopher-emperor, that virtue is a living and enthusiastic
+sympathy with Nature.[571]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three years of gradual convalescence were divided not only between the
+Stafford's farm and the house on Stevens Street, but also with the
+homes of other friends whose love now began to enrich his life.[572]
+Of three of the most notable among his new comrades we must speak
+in passing. In the autumn of 1876 Anne Gilchrist took a house in
+Philadelphia, while in the following summer Dr. Bucke and Mr. Edward
+Carpenter came to Camden on pilgrimage.
+
+Whitman often said in his later years that his best friends had
+been women, and that of his women friends Mrs. Gilchrist was the
+nearest. She was an Essex girl of good family, nine years younger than
+Whitman.[573] At school she had loved Emerson, Rousseau, Comte and
+Ruskin, and a little later she added to them the writings of Carlyle,
+Guyot and Herbert Spencer. Music and science, with the philosophical
+suggestions which spring from the discoveries of science, were her
+chief interests.
+
+At twenty-three she married Alexander Gilchrist, an art-critic and
+interpreter. It was a wholly happy marriage; Anne became the mother of
+four children, and, beside being deeply interested in her husband's
+work, contrived to contribute scientific articles to the magazines.
+
+While compiling his well-known _Life of Blake_, Mr. Gilchrist fell a
+victim to scarlet fever. His widow, with her four young children and
+the uncompleted book, removed to a cottage in the country, and there,
+with the encouragement and help of the Rossetti brothers, she finished
+her husband's task. Her life was now, as she said, "up hill all the
+way," but the book helped her. And her close study of Blake, added
+to her scientific interests and her love of music, formed the finest
+possible introduction to her subsequent reading of Whitman.
+
+Her task was concluded in 1863; it had tided her over the first
+two years of her bereavement; but her letters of sympathy to Dante
+Rossetti, heart-broken at the loss of his young wife, discover her
+gnawing sorrow yet undulled by time. Like Whitman, she had the capacity
+for great suffering. And like Whitman, too, she was helped in her
+sorrow by the companionship of Nature. And, again, she was a good
+comrade.
+
+Unlike her grandmother, who was one of Romney's beauties, Anne
+Gilchrist was not a handsome woman; but her personality was both vivid
+and profound, and increasingly attractive as the years passed. She was
+so serious and eager in temperament that, even in London, she lived in
+comparative retirement.
+
+The letters which she exchanged with the Rossettis during a long period
+are evidence both of her common-sense and her capacity for passionate
+sympathy. They are often as frank as they are noble; revealing a nature
+too profound to be continually considerate of criticism. This gives to
+some of her utterances a half naïve and wholly charming quality, which
+cannot have been absent from her personality, and must have endeared
+her to the comrades whom she honoured with her confidence.
+
+This high seriousness of hers made her the readier to appreciate a poet
+who, almost alone among Americans, has bared his man's heart to his
+readers, careless of the cheap ridicule of those smart-witted cynics
+whom modern education and modern morality have multiplied till they are
+almost as numerous as the sands of the sea. She was a little more than
+forty when she first read _Leaves of Grass_ and wrote those letters to
+W. M. Rossetti in which she attested her appreciation of their purpose
+and power.[574]
+
+It was no light thing for a woman to publish such a declaration of
+faith; and in her own phrase,[575] she felt herself a second Lady
+Godiva, going in the daylight down the public way, naked, not in body
+but in soul, for the good cause. She was convinced that her ride was
+necessary; for men would remain blind to the glory of Whitman's message
+until a woman dared the shame and held its glory up to them. And what
+she did, she did less for men than for their wives and mothers, upon
+whom the shadow of their shame-in-themselves had fallen.
+
+Mr. Rossetti has described[576] her as a woman of good port, in fullest
+possession of herself, never fidgetty, and never taken unawares;
+warm-hearted and courageous, with full, dark, liquid eyes, which were
+at the same time alive with humour and vivacity, quick to detect every
+kind of humbug, but wholly free from cynicism. Her face was not only
+expressive of her character, but "full charged with some message" which
+her lips seemed ever about to utter. Her considerable intellectual
+force was in happy harmony with her domestic qualities, and filled her
+home-life with interest.
+
+Such was the woman who, in November, 1876, at the age of forty-eight,
+brought her family to Philadelphia, in order that one of the daughters
+might study medicine at Girard College; and in whose home, near the
+college grounds, Whitman henceforward, for two or three years,[577]
+spent a considerable part of his time. The relationship of these two
+noble souls seems to have been comparable with that which united
+Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna, and they were at a similar time of
+life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This, the Centennial year, was filled with thoughts and celebrations
+of American independence; among which we may recall the Exposition
+in Philadelphia--where throughout the summer, Whitman had been a
+frequent visitor--and the Centennial edition of his works. He had also
+celebrated the occasion by sitting for his bust to a young sculptor, in
+an improvised studio on Chestnut Street. The weather was too hot for a
+coat; and in his white shirt sleeves he would, at the artist's request,
+read his poems aloud with naïve delight, which rose to a climax when
+the sound of applause from a group of young fellows on the stairs
+without, crowned his efforts. "So you like it, do you?" he cried to
+them; "well, I rather enjoyed that myself."[578]
+
+The old sad and solitary inertia was broken. Ill though he often was,
+the lonely little upper room held him no longer; nor was he any more
+shut up within the sense of bereavement. Jeff had come over from St.
+Louis, and his two daughters spent the autumn with their aunt and
+uncles in Stevens Street. All through the winter Walt was moving back
+and forward between George's house, the Staffords farm, and Mrs.
+Gilchrist's. He was cheerfully busy with the orders for his pair of
+handsome books, which were selling briskly at a guinea a volume.
+
+_Leaves of Grass_ had been reprinted from the plates of the fifth
+edition. Its companion, _Two Rivulets_, was a "mélange" compounded of
+additional poems, including "Passage to India," and the prose writings
+of which we have already spoken, printed at various times during the
+last five years. "Specimen Days" was not among them, and did not appear
+till 1882. The title _Two Rivulets_ suggests the double thread of
+its theme, the destiny of the nation and of the individual, American
+politics and that mystery of immortal life which we call death. They
+were not far asunder in Whitman's thought.[579]
+
+At the end of February, Mr. Burroughs met Walt at Mrs. Gilchrist's,
+and thence they set out together for New York. Here, Whitman stayed
+with his new and dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Johnston;[580] and
+presented himself in his own becoming garb at the grand full-dress
+receptions which were held in his honour; the applause which greeted
+him, and the atmosphere of real affection by which he was surrounded,
+compensating him for the always distasteful attentions of a lionising
+public, eager for any sensation.
+
+He renewed also, and with perhaps more unmitigated satisfaction, his
+acquaintance with the men on the East River ferries, and the Broadway
+stages; and, finally, he ascended the Hudson to stay awhile with John
+Burroughs. This pleasant holiday jaunt was not without its tragic
+element; his friend, Mrs. Johnston, dying suddenly on his last evening
+in New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in May that Mr. Edward Carpenter visited him in Camden. After a
+brilliant Cambridge career, he was now a pioneer University Extension
+lecturer in natural sciences. But besides, or rather beyond this, a
+poet, in whom the sense of fellowship and unity was already becoming
+dominant.
+
+[Illustration: EDWARD CARPENTER AT FORTY-THREE]
+
+In a note to his just-published preface, Whitman had spoken of the
+"terrible, irrepressible yearning"[581] for sympathy which underlay his
+work, and by which he claimed the personal affection of such readers
+as he could truly call his own. This also was the aim which underlay
+Mr. Carpenter's first book of verses, _Narcissus and Other Poems_,
+published in 1873.[582]
+
+Their author was already familiar with _Leaves of Grass_, which he had
+first read at about the age of twenty-five, and which he had since
+been absorbing, much as he absorbed the sonatas of Beethoven. They fed
+within him the life of something which was still but dimly conscious;
+something dumb, blind and irrational, but of titanic power to disturb
+the even tenor of an academic life. One remarks that both Mrs.
+Gilchrist and he shared to the full the modern feeling for science and
+its philosophy, and for music.
+
+When he visited Whitman, Edward Carpenter was thirty-three; it was
+not till four years after this that he gave himself up to the writing
+of his own "Leaves," coming into his spiritual kingdom a little later
+in life than did Walt. In many respects his nature, and consequently
+his work which is the outcome and true expression of his personality,
+was in striking contrast with that of his great old friend. Lithe
+and slender in figure, he was subtle also and fine in the whole
+temper of his mind; sharing with Addington Symonds that tendency to
+over-fineness, that touch of morbid subtilty which demands for its
+balance a very sweet and strenuous soul, such indeed, as is revealed in
+the pages of _Towards Democracy_.
+
+He found Whitman's mind clear and unclouded after the suffering of the
+last four years, his perception keen as ever.[583] Courteous, and
+possessed of great personal charm, he was yet elemental and "Adamic"
+in character. He impressed his visitor with a threefold personality:
+first, the magnetic, effluent, radiant spirit of the man going out to
+greet and embrace all; then, the spacious breadth of his soul, and the
+remoteness of those further portions in which his consciousness seemed
+often to be dwelling; and afterwards, the terrible majesty, as of
+judgment unveiled in him, a Jove-like presence full of thunder.
+
+This last element in his nature was naked, ominous, immovable as
+a granite rock. When once you perceived it, there was, as Miss
+Gilchrist has remarked,[584] no shelter from the terrible blaze of
+his personality. But this rocky masculine Ego was wedded in him with
+a gentle almost motherly affection, which found expression in certain
+caressing tones of his widely modulated voice. While, to complete alike
+the masculine and feminine, was the child--the attitude of reverent
+wonder toward the world.
+
+By turns then, a wistful child, a charming loving woman, an untamed
+terrible truth-compelling man, Whitman seems to have both bewitched and
+baffled his young English visitor.
+
+Mr. Carpenter saw him at Stevens Street and Timber Creek, and again
+under Mrs. Gilchrist's hospitable roof. They sat out together in the
+pleasant Philadelphia fashion through the warm June evenings upon the
+porch steps; and Walt would talk in his deliberate way of Japan and
+China, or of the Eastern literatures. He liked to join hands while he
+talked, communicating more, perhaps, of himself, and understanding
+his companion better, by touch than by words. His mere presence was
+sufficient to redeem the commonplace.
+
+His visitor had also an opportunity of noting the efficiency of
+Whitman's defences against the globe-trotting interview-hunting type of
+American woman. His silence became aggressive, and her words rebounded
+from it; he had disappeared into his rock-faced solitude where nothing
+could reach him. And a very few moments of this treatment sufficed,
+even for the brazen-armoured amazon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During Mr. Carpenter's visit, Mrs. George Whitman, whom Dr. Bucke has
+described as an attractive, sweet woman, was out of health, and her
+brother-in-law made a daily excursion down town and across the ferry to
+see her, and to transact his own affairs. In the heat of the following
+July she first opened the door to Dr. Bucke.[585]
+
+He, too, had long been a student of _Leaves of Grass_, a student at
+first against his own judgment, and with little result beyond an
+annoying bewilderment to his sense of fitness, and of exasperation
+to his intelligence. But from the first, he felt a singular interior
+compulsion to read the book, which he could not at all understand. Its
+lack of all definite statement was the head and front of its offending
+to a keen scientific mind. But now after many years, he had come to
+recognise the extraordinary power of suggestion which was embodied in
+every page.
+
+Dr. R. Maurice Bucke's personality was strongly marked and striking; he
+had as much determination as had Whitman himself, and his whole face is
+full of resolute purpose.
+
+Born in Norfolk, in 1837, but immediately transplanted to Canada, he
+was thoroughly educated by his father, who was a man of considerable
+scholarship and a minister in the Church of England.
+
+In 1857, he crowned an adventurous youth passed in the mining regions
+of the Western States, by a daring winter expedition over the Sierras,
+in which he was so badly frozen that he afterwards lost both feet, but
+his tall and vigorous figure showed hardly a trace of this misfortune.
+
+Returning to Canada, he studied medicine; and eventually, in 1877,
+became the head of a large insane asylum at London, Ontario. Here he
+introduced several notable reforms in the treatment of the patients,
+which were widely imitated throughout America.
+
+He was a keen student of mental pathology, and for some time before
+his death was reckoned among the leading alienists of the continent.
+Certain interesting and suggestive studies of the relation which
+appears to exist between the so-called sympathetic nervous system and
+the moral and emotional nature, but especially his _magnum opus_,
+_Cosmic Consciousness_, published the year before his death (1901),
+reveal the direction of his dominant interest. From 1877, he was one
+of Whitman's closest friends, and became subsequently his principal
+biographer.[586]
+
+In the printed recollections of his first interview with Whitman,[587]
+Dr. Bucke recalls the exaltation of his mind produced by it; describing
+it as a "sort of spiritual intoxication," which remained with him for
+months, transfiguring his new friend into more than mortal stature. It
+is another instance of the almost incredible power of the invalid's
+personality.
+
+[Illustration: RICHARD MAURICE BUCKE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whitman's own jottings and records of the period testify to his
+increasing physical vigour. He goes, for instance, to the Walnut
+Street Theatre, to a performance of Joaquin Miller's _The Danites_,
+accompanied by his friend the author.[588] In the summer of 1878, and
+in the succeeding year, he is again a guest both of John Burroughs
+and of J. H. Johnston.[589] On the second occasion, he had delivered
+his lecture on the "Death of Lincoln" in the Steck Hall, New York;
+promising himself anew, that if health permitted, he would even now set
+forth on the lecture tour which he had so long contemplated.[590] But
+though, in the autumn, he made, with several friends, an extended tour
+of some sixteen weeks beyond the Mississippi, he did not accomplish
+this cherished scheme.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At night on the 10th of September, Whitman and his party left
+Philadelphia, westward bound. Walt delighted in the magic speed and
+comfort of the Pullman;[591] in which, lying awake among the sleepers,
+he was whirled all through the first night up the broad pastoral
+valley of the Susquehanna, curving with its thousand reedy aits about
+thick-wooded steeps; and on, over ridge and ridge of the Alleghanies,
+till morning found them at smoking Pittsburg.
+
+Crossing the Ohio, almost at the point whence he had descended it
+thirty years before on that fateful southern journey, the good engine,
+the Baldwin, hurried them all that day through rich and populous Ohio
+and Indiana. Whitman was not disinclined to acknowledge a personality
+in the fierce and beautiful locomotive which he had already celebrated
+in a poem full of fire and of the modern spirit.[592]
+
+They were due next morning at St. Louis, but about nightfall their
+headlong flight through the broad lands was arrested. The Baldwin ran
+foul of some obstacle, and suffered serious damage and consequent
+delay. Spending the third night in the city, they continued through a
+beautiful autumn day, across the rolling prairies of Missouri, feasting
+their eyes upon the wide farmlands full of the promise of bread for
+millions of men.
+
+Nor material bread only. There is something in the vast aerial spaces
+of these prairie states, their great skies and lonely stretches, which
+exalts and feeds the soul; something oceanic, Whitman thought, "and
+beautiful as dreams".[593] Central in the continent, this country had
+always seemed to him to correspond with certain central qualities in
+his ideal America, and to supply the background for the two men whose
+figures stood out supremely above the struggle for the union, Lincoln
+and Grant--men of unplumbed and inarticulate depths of character, and
+of native freedom of spirit and elemental originality of thought.
+
+Whitman stayed for a while with friends upon the road, at Lawrence and
+Topeka. Many of the boys he had tended in the wards were now hale men
+out West, and they were always eager for sight of him; so that there
+were few places in America where he would not have found a hearty
+welcome.
+
+He proceeded along the yellow Kansas River, through the Golden Belt,
+and over the Colorado table-lands, bare and vast as some immense
+Salisbury Plain, to Denver. In that young city he spent several days,
+dreaming his great dreams of a Western town that should be full of
+friends and strong for and against the whole world, breathing her fine
+air, sparkling as champagne and clear as cold spring water; falling in
+love with her people and her horses, and the little mountain streams
+which ran along the channel ways of her broad streets.
+
+Thence, he made short trips into the Rockies; where the railroad winds
+among fantastic yellow buttes with steep sloping screes, and towering
+battlements; and the trains swing eagerly round a thousand curves to
+follow the bronze and amber path-finder, brawling in its sinuous ravine
+between the pinnacled, red, cloud-topped crags which it has carved and
+sundered.
+
+Every break in the walls disclosed Olympian companies of august peaks
+against the high blue. Gradually the way would climb to the summit,
+its straightness widening, here and there, into sedgy mountain meadows
+closed about by keen-cut granite heights, the perfect record of
+laborious ages; and as the day advanced, the broad and restful light
+broadened and grew more serene as it shone afar on chains of snowy
+peaks.
+
+Here in this tremendous mountain fellowship, with its shapes at once
+fantastic and sublime, its solemn joy and wild imagination, its
+infinite complex of form and colour suggesting vast emotions to the
+soul, Walt breathed his proper air and recognised the landscape of his
+deepest life. "I have found the law of my own poems," he kept saying
+to himself with increasing conviction, hour after hour.[594] Like the
+lonely mountain eagle which he watched wheeling leisurely among the
+peaks, he was at home in this sternly beautiful, untamed, unmeasured
+land.
+
+Towards the end of September, he turned East again from the mining town
+of Pueblo; leaving the Far West unseen[595]--Utah with its Canaanitish
+glories of intense lake and naked, ruddy, wrinkled mountains; the great
+grey desert of Nevada; and the forest-clad Sierras looking out across
+their Californian garden towards the Pacific. Stopping here and there
+with his former friends, he found his way to Jefferson Whitman's home
+in St. Louis, and there remained over the year's end.
+
+This cosmopolitan Western city,[596] planted in the centre of that
+vast valley which the Mississippi drains and waters, and at the heart
+of the American continent, was intensely interesting to Whitman. He
+had an almost superstitious love for "the Father of Waters"; and many
+a moonlit autumn night he haunted its banks, its wharves and bridges,
+fascinated by the sound of the moving water as the river flowed through
+the luminous silence under the eternal stars.
+
+Physically, St. Louis did not suit him: he was ill there for weeks
+together; but even so, he was happy in his own simple, human way.
+He went twice a week to the kindergartens, and there, for an hour
+together, he entertained the younger pupils with his funny children's
+tales.[597] After the first moments of strangeness, and alarm at his
+size and the whiteness of his hair, nearly all the children quickly
+came to love old "Kris Kringle" or "Father Christmas" as they would
+call him;[598] and for his part, he was as happy among little children
+as a young mother.
+
+Early in January, 1880, he returned home. All his delight in the West,
+gathered on his first journey up the Mississippi thirty years before,
+and since accumulating from many sources, notably from the young
+Western soldiers he had nursed, had been confirmed by this visit.
+
+In only one thing was he disappointed. The men had seemed, to his
+searching gaze, fit sons of that new land of possibility; but in the
+women he had failed to find the qualifications he was seeking.[599]
+Physically and mentally, he saw them still in bondage to old-world
+traditions; instead of originating nobler and more generous manners,
+they were imitating the foolish gentility of the East. Whitman was very
+exacting in his ideal of womanhood; and perhaps it was mainly upon the
+ladies of the shops and streets that his strictures were passed; for
+there are others in that Western world, who are not far from her whom
+he has described in the "Song of the Broad-axe"--the best-beloved,
+possessed of herself, who is strong in her beauty as are the laws of
+nature.[600]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After six months at home among his books and his friends--to whom
+at this time he added, at least by correspondence, Colonel Robert
+Ingersoll, afterwards a member of the inner circle--Whitman set out
+upon another journey, in length almost equal to that of the preceding
+autumn. Early in June,[601] he crossed the bridge over Niagara on his
+way to London, Ontario; and now at his second sight, the significance
+of that majestic scene, which thirty years before he would seem to have
+missed, was discovered to him.
+
+Staying with Dr. Bucke, he made frequent visits to the great asylum,
+with its thousand patients, under the wise doctor's care. Walt's own
+family life, with the tragedy of his youngest brother's incapacity,
+had made the melancholy brotherhood of those whom he has beautifully
+described as the "sacred idiots"[602] especially interesting to him.
+He attended the religious services held in the asylum; joining with
+those wrecked minds in a common worship, and seeing the storms of their
+lives strangely quieted, as though a Divine love, brooding over all,
+had hushed them.[603] With many of the patients he became personally
+acquainted, and years afterwards recalled them by name, inquiring
+affectionately after their welfare.
+
+Whitman was in better health than usual, and in excellent spirits. He
+loved the doctor, was happy and at home in his household, and on the
+best of terms with its younger members. Among the latter, his presence
+never checked the natural flow of high spirits, as does the presence of
+most grown-up persons: he was always one of themselves.
+
+This, indeed, was a characteristic of Whitman in whatever company he
+was found, from a kindergarten to a company of "publicans and sinners".
+The spirit of comradeship identified him with the others, and he was
+so profoundly himself that such identification took nothing away from
+his own identity. Among the young people of Dr. Bucke's household his
+fun and humour had free and natural expression; as when, for example,
+one moonlit evening, he undertook the burial of an empty wine-bottle,
+addressing a magniloquent oration over its last resting-place to the
+goddess Semele.
+
+He loved to linger at the table, telling stories after tea; and to
+recite or read aloud, when the family sat together in the dusk on the
+verandah; and sometimes, too, he would take his turn in singing some
+well-known song. For reading aloud, he would often choose some poem of
+Tennyson's--"Ulysses" seems to have been his favourite.
+
+At this time also, in a secluded nook in the grounds, he read leisurely
+over to himself, with the satisfaction which Tennyson's work nearly
+always gave him, the newly published _De Profundis_.[604] His diary
+of these pleasant, refreshing weeks contains many notes of the
+thick-starred heavens and the merry birds, and the multitudinous
+swallows, which would recall to his well-stored mind the story of
+Athene and Ulysses' return.[605]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His vital force seemed to be almost unimpaired. The noble calm of his
+presence, indeed, made him appear even older than he was; his fine
+hair was snowy white, and the high-domed crown which rose through it
+and grew higher and nobler with every year, gave him all claims to
+reverence.[606]
+
+But, though at first sight he seemed to be nearer eighty than sixty
+years old, and though he was lame from paralysis, a second glance
+showed him erect and without a line of care or of senility upon his
+face. His complexion was rosy as a winter pippin, and his cheeks were
+full and smooth, for his heart was always young.
+
+His host wished to show him Canada; in which country he was the
+more deeply interested through his settled conviction that it would
+presently become a part of the United States. The St. Lawrence and the
+Lakes, he always said, cannot remain a frontier-line; they are and
+should be recognised as a magnificent inland water-way, comparable with
+the Mississippi.
+
+Towards the end of July[607] he set out upon this great road with his
+friend. Taking boat at Toronto, they descended by easy stages, stopping
+a night or two at Kingston, Montreal and Quebec, Whitman thoroughly
+enjoying all the new scenes and making friends everywhere on the
+way. He sat on the fore-deck in the August sunshine, wrapped in his
+grey overcoat, wondering at the grim pagan wildness of the lower St.
+Lawrence, nightly watching the Northern Lights, and appearing on deck
+before sunrise.
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT SIXTY-ONE, JULY, 1880]
+
+As they turned up the deep dark Saguenay and reached the mountain
+pillars of Eternity and Trinity, the mystery of northern river and
+height, with all they hold of stillness and of storm, communed
+with him. He saw infinite power wedded with an ageless peace; and
+all, however awful in its sublimity, yet far from inhospitable
+to an heroic race of men; nay, by its very awfulness, inviting and
+proclaiming the men who shall dare to dwell therein.
+
+With the people of Canada, as a whole, he was well pleased. He liked
+their benevolent care for the weak and infirm in body and mind; and
+thought them in every respect worthy of the destiny which he believed
+that he foresaw--the destiny of citizenship in the Republic.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[557] _Comp. Prose_, 150.
+
+[558] The incidents may not all belong to this visit.
+
+[559] Bucke, 213.
+
+[560] _W. W. Autobiographia_, 205 n.
+
+[561] _Comp. Prose_, 311, 312; Donaldson, 29-31.
+
+[562] _Comp. Prose_, 519.
+
+[563] Bucke, 215, 216, etc.
+
+[564] _Cf._ _Comp. Prose_, 75.
+
+[565] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[566] _Comp. Prose_, 75.
+
+[567] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[568] _Comp. Prose_, 96-98.
+
+[569] _Comp. Prose_, 91, 92, 98.
+
+[570] _Ib._, 84, 94, 116; _cf. supra_, 230.
+
+[571] _Ib._, 193.
+
+[572] MSS. Diary; Calamus, 170.
+
+[573] _Anne Gilchrist_, by H. H. G.
+
+[574] See _supra_, 225-7.
+
+[575] Gilchrist, 190.
+
+[576] _Ib._, Preface.
+
+[577] MSS. Diary.
+
+[578] _In re_, 370.
+
+[579] _Comp. Prose_, 270.
+
+[580] Bucke, 216, 217.
+
+[581] _Comp. Prose_, 277 n.
+
+[582] Tom Swan's _Edward Carpenter_, 1902, and article by E. C. in
+_Labour Prophet_, May, 1894.
+
+[583] Carpenter (_a_).
+
+[584] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._; _cf._ Carpenter (_b_).
+
+[585] Calamus, 10 n.
+
+[586] MS. of Dr. E. P. Bucke, and _W. W.'s Diary in Canada_, v.
+
+[587] Bucke, 50; _Whit. Fellowship, Memories of W. W._, by R. M. B.
+
+[588] MSS. Diary.
+
+[589] _Comp. Prose_, 106, 122.
+
+[590] _Ib._, 506.
+
+[591] _Comp. Prose_, 132, 149.
+
+[592] _L. of G._, 358.
+
+[593] _Comp. Prose_, 134.
+
+[594] _Comp. Prose_, 136.
+
+[595] _Ib._, 140.
+
+[596] Calamus, 170-72.
+
+[597] Bucke, 63.
+
+[598] MSS. Berenson (_a_).
+
+[599] _Comp. Prose_, 146.
+
+[600] _L. of G._, 157.
+
+[601] _Comp. Prose_, 153-58, and _Whit. Fellowship Memo. of W. W._
+(Bucke); Bucke, 48.
+
+[602] _L. of G._, 325.
+
+[603] _Comp. Prose_, 154.
+
+[604] _Diary in Canada_, 10, 11.
+
+[605] _Comp. Prose_, 132.
+
+[606] Bucke, 49.
+
+[607] _Diary in Canada_, 41.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE SECOND BOSTON EDITION
+
+
+After a winter in Camden, Philadelphia and the country, among friends
+old and new, Whitman paid his second visit to Boston. The house-tied
+stationary years of 1873 to 1876 had been succeeded by a period of
+considerable activity, both mental and physical.
+
+On the 14th of April, he gave his lecture on the "Death of Abraham
+Lincoln," at the Hawthorn Rooms.[608] It was the third year of its
+delivery; on the two previous occasions it had been read in New York
+and Philadelphia; and he purposed thus annually to commemorate an event
+which appeared to him as perhaps the most significant of his time, an
+event which the American people could ill afford to forget.
+
+In Whitman's view, as we have noted, the assassination of the great
+President had sealed the million deaths of the war, and cemented, as
+could nothing else, the Union for whose sake they had been given. He
+believed that future ages would see in it the most dramatic moment
+of the victorious struggle of the nation against slavery. Rarely
+hereafter, in spite of increasing feebleness, did he miss the occasion
+as the season came round; though it was often with difficulty that even
+a small audience could be gathered for the anniversary.
+
+Among the friends and notables whom he met in Boston was Longfellow,
+who had already called on him in Camden; and Whitman was warm in
+eulogies of the old poet's courteous manner and personality.[609]
+Something of the burden of his first prophetic message had lifted from
+Walt's shoulders, and with it some of his wrath against the popular
+poets of America. He had consequently become better able to express his
+sense of the real value of work like theirs when its secondary place
+was recognised.
+
+There were others in Boston whom he also now discovered for the first
+time; notably the women of middle and later life, among whom he
+rejoiced to find some of those large, vigorous personalities whose
+absence he had lamented in the West.
+
+In earlier days he had been alienated by the academic and Puritan
+qualities which still gave its principal colour, especially when seen
+from New York, to intellectual Boston. But both Boston and Whitman
+had changed--alike with the war and with the advance of time; the
+provincialism of the former had given place to broader views, and the
+nobler identification of New England with the whole interests of the
+nation; while the latter was now able more generously to estimate
+even New England's shortcomings, and to recognise among its people
+that ardour and yearning for the ideal which had always been theirs,
+but warmed now and humanised, as he thought, by a new joyousness and
+breadth of tolerance.[610] He felt a sunshine in the streets, which
+radiated from the men and women who traversed them. This effusive
+ardour of public spirit set him thinking of Athens in her golden days;
+and for the first time he, who had so much of the Greek in his nature,
+felt himself at home in Boston.
+
+The visit was also memorable to him because it introduced him to the
+works of Millet, and, one may add, to the emotional significance of
+painting as an art.[611] As I have before noted, New York only became
+a centre of art collections in comparatively recent years; and it was
+probably not till Whitman had sat for two hours before some of the
+Breton artist's finest studies in the house of a Bostonian, that he
+recognised Painting as the true sister of music and of poetry.
+
+It was fitting that this revelation should have come to the poet of
+Democracy from such canvasses as that of the first "Sower" and the
+"Watering the Cow". Surcharged as they are with a primitive emotion
+new to modern art, the works of Millet reveal the inner nature of that
+great Republican peasant people whom Whitman always loved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Much of the early summer, after his return, was spent at Glendale,
+whither the family from Whitehorse had now removed, Mr. Stafford having
+taken the store on the cross-roads, some three or four miles from his
+old home. Directly opposite to it there stands a Methodist chapel, and
+often on a Sunday morning the young people would laugh as they heard
+Walt, in the room above, angrily banging down his window sash at the
+first clanging of the bell. But behind the chapel is a dense wood, and
+here he spent many a long, happy day.
+
+The heat of July was, as usual, very trying to him; and at the end of
+the month he accompanied Dr. Bucke on a visit to his old breezy haunts
+in Long Island. The farm at West Hills had passed out of the family;
+Iredwell Whitman, the last of Walt's uncles to hold it, seems to have
+sold out about 1835. In the little burying ground there is a stone
+erected to his daughter Mahala, who died eight years later.[612]
+
+While in Boston he seems to have received propositions from the firm
+of Osgood and Company for the publication of a definitive edition of
+the _Leaves_, and about the beginning of September, after completing
+his manuscript at the home of his friends, Mr. and (the second) Mrs.
+Johnston, at Mott Haven, New York,[613] he settled down in the New
+England capital to read proofs and to enjoy himself.
+
+He stayed at the Bullfinch, close to Bowdoin Square, and frequented the
+water-side.[614] Often he would take the cars which run through South
+Boston to City Point, whose pebbly, crescent beach is lapped forever by
+the Atlantic ripple. And to this place the lover of Whitman may well
+follow, for it holds memories of him.
+
+On a summer's evening, after dark, thousands of young Bostonians gather
+under the lamps, laughing and talking and listening to the band; but,
+beyond the zone of lights and mirth and music, one finds oneself at
+once in a mystical solitude. A long bridge or pier stretches out into
+the bay, terminating in Castle Island and grim Fort Independence;
+and wandering out along it, surrounded in every direction by distant
+lights, the illuminated dome of the State House rising afar in the
+west, and lights moving to and fro mysteriously upon the water, you
+feel the night wind blowing cool across the black gulf of sea as it
+carries to you distant sounds of merry-making. Very far away they
+seem, thus encircled in mysterious spaces which are peopled by sea
+voices and the stars. The light surf makes upon the shore its constant
+and delicious murmur--"death, death, death, death, death"[615]--and
+the lights and the noises of life, with all its passing show, are
+mysteriously related in that murmur to the sane, star-lighted silence
+of eternity.
+
+Whitman walked daily on the Common, watching the friendly grey
+squirrels, and becoming acquainted with each one in turn of the
+American elms under which he sat.[616] Timber Creek had deepened his
+knowledge of the life of trees and little creatures since last he
+walked here with Emerson.
+
+Emerson, too, he saw once again. Mr. Sanborn, the friend at whose trial
+he had been present on that former visit,[617] took him out through
+the suburbs and the wooded country to Concord. It was Indian-summer
+weather, and the meadows, that late Saturday afternoon, were busy and
+odorous with haymaking; all things spoke of peace. Emerson came over
+for the evening to Mr. Sanborn's house, and the two old friends sat
+silent in the midst of the talk.
+
+Bronson Alcott, who had brought Thoreau to Brooklyn and had once
+compared Whitman with Plato,[618] was of the company of illustrious and
+charming neighbours. The others talked, but Emerson leaned back in his
+chair under the light, a good colour in his old face, and the familiar
+keenness; and near by sat Walt, satisfied to watch him without words.
+
+On Sunday the Sanborns and he went over to dinner. His place was by
+Mrs. Emerson, who entertained him with talk of Thoreau, but though
+he listened with interest, most of his attention belonged to his
+beloved host. More than ever, if that were possible, did Whitman
+lovingly recognise the character of his friend. He had not always
+been just to Emerson,[619] nor had Emerson always maintained his
+first generosity;[620] each had said of the other words one cannot
+but regret, but deeper than such words of partial criticism was the
+comrade-love which united them.
+
+In a letter, written immediately after this visit to his friend Alma
+Calder, who had recently become the second Mrs. J. H. Johnston, Whitman
+wrote: "I think Emerson more significant and _glorified_ in his present
+condition than in any of his former days".[621]
+
+The whole family was present, and sitting quietly among them Whitman
+could understand the natural limitations which his household entailed
+upon the philosopher, and acknowledging these, felt the personal bond
+stronger than ever. The relation of the two men had been singular as
+well as noble, for it was the elder who had sought the younger out and
+affectionately acknowledged him, and through the years that followed
+the advances had been made by him.
+
+Whitman's attachment to Emerson had been one of love and reverence for
+his person, much more than of intellectual affinity. "I think," he
+wrote a few years later to his Boston friend, Mr. W. S. Kennedy, "I
+think I know B. W. E[merson] better than anybody else knows him--and
+love him in proportion."[622] The evidence does not indicate a similar
+understanding on Emerson's part, though the love between them was not
+unequal. To Emerson, as to Tennyson, Whitman remained "a great big
+something" of undetermined character.
+
+Whitman met many friends, new and old, upon this visit, but of the
+old, Thoreau had long been dead; and the strong, homely sailor's
+face of Father Taylor drew Boston no longer to the Seamen's Bethel.
+Whitman himself attracted much attention as he sauntered along among
+the fashionable shoppers on Washington Street; tall, erect and noble,
+one could not pass him without notice. I have heard a lady tell how,
+being familiar with his portraits, she recognised him at once. Seeing
+him mount a car she followed, taking a seat where for several miles
+she could, without rudeness, study and enjoy that splendid ruddy face,
+through which, lamp-like, there shone and glowed an inner light of
+spiritual ecstasy.
+
+And for Whitman himself, those were happy days.[623] The paralysis and
+the other ailments, more or less serious and painful, by which it had
+been enforced, troubled him less than usual. In his little room at
+Messrs. Rand & Avery's printing house, or out-of-doors in the woods
+with a fallen tree for his table,[624] he was revising the proofs of
+his _Leaves_ with a deliberation and particularity worthy of their
+final form.
+
+For now this singular book, slowly built up through the continual
+inspiration, thought and labour of a quarter of a century, had come to
+its completion, and the final plates were to be cast. Or better, we may
+say that for the first time it was to be really published, all other
+efforts in that direction having been but tentative, and more or less
+unsuccessful. Hitherto, despised and rejected of publishers, it had
+issued with an innocent air from strange places, unvouched by any name
+which was recognised by the bookselling world. The edition of 1860 is
+the only exception; and almost immediately after its publication, the
+enterprising house which guaranteed it sank into ruins.[625]
+
+Now at last, the plan of the book had been, as far as health and
+strength permitted, brought to completion[626]--a plan amended since
+the previous Boston visit, and qualified to admit those poems which had
+since been written, and at first designed for a supplementary book. The
+cargo was filled, and the good ship ready to sail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a visit to the Globe Theatre to see Rossi in "Romeo and
+Juliet,"[627] and a supper with his co-operators, the printers and
+proof-readers, whose aid he was always eager to acknowledge, Whitman
+set out again for New York, returning home about the beginning of
+November. Late in the same month, the book, his vessel as he loved
+to think of it, set out upon its voyage; but in spite of favourable
+presages and a happy commencement, it was soon shrouded about in fog,
+which only yielded to a storm.
+
+Some 2,000 copies were sold during the winter, but early in the
+New Year (1882)[628] the trouble, which seemed to have passed
+over when the Postmaster-General decided that the book was not so
+obscene as to be "unmailable," began to threaten anew. The Boston
+District Attorney,[629] urged by certain agents of the Society
+for the Suppression of Vice--as though, forsooth, vice could be
+"suppressed"!--objected to the publication, and demanded the withdrawal
+of certain passages.
+
+Whitman was hardly surprised. He had discussed these passages, or a
+certain number of them, with his own judgment; and it is possible
+that Mrs. Gilchrist's view of them had also appealed to him. In his
+own judgment they were right, but he seems to have been willing to
+omit five brief items, amounting in all to nearly a page, from the
+incriminated "Children of Adam" section, if it would save the edition
+from further molestation.[630] These he suggested might be cut out
+of the plates, and replaced by other cancelling lines which he would
+substitute. This was early in March.
+
+But the Attorney was not to be so easily satisfied. He demanded the
+omission of lines in all parts of the volume, amounting to a total of
+eight or ten pages.[631] This, Whitman emphatically refused; and as
+neither party would give way, Messrs. Osgood, without testing the case
+further, threw up their publication on the 9th of April. Their action
+was scathingly contrasted with that of Woodfall, the publisher of the
+letters of Junius, and of Mr. Murray, Lord Byron's publisher, by W. D.
+O'Connor, in a letter to the _New York Tribune_. His indignant sense
+of literary justice had brought him once more to the side of his old
+friend, and although the former cordial relations seem hardly to have
+been re-established, the phantasmal but rigid barrier between them was
+crumbling away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Whitman was sorely disappointed by the issue of the affair, goes
+without saying, for he had counted much upon this edition. But District
+Attorneys and Societies for the Suppression of Vice were not likely to
+daunt him.
+
+Binding a number of copies in green cloth, he issued them himself; for
+Messrs. Osgood had made over to him the printed sheets and plates. At
+midsummer, he transferred the latter to a Philadelphia firm--afterwards
+Mr. David McKay--who immediately brought out an edition which sold in a
+single day.[632] Persecution had, as usual, assisted the cause, and for
+some months the sale continued brisk, bringing Whitman at the year's
+end royalties to the amount of nearly £300.[633]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Osgood disaster was not the only menace to Whitman's slender income
+during these years. The plates of the original Boston edition of
+1860 were still extant, having been bought at auction by a somewhat
+unscrupulous person, who, in spite of Whitman's protest, succeeded in
+putting a number of copies upon the market.
+
+This affair was already worrying Whitman when he lay ill at St. Louis,
+and it was not till just before the publication of Messrs. Osgood's
+edition that some sort of settlement with this Mr. Worthington was
+effected. The author seems to have accepted a nominal sum by way of
+royalty,[634] and was dissuaded from seeking the legal redress for
+which at first he had hoped. The surreptitious sale of this spurious
+edition was, however, continued till his death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GLENDALE STORE, 1904: WHITMAN OCCUPIED ONE OF THE ROOMS
+LOOKING OUT OVER THE VERANDAH]
+
+Much of the winter of 1881 to 1882 had been spent at Glendale; and
+during the following autumn he was busy with the proofs of _Specimen
+Days and Collect_, a volume of about the same size as the _Leaves_, and
+similar in appearance, which embraced the bulk of his prose writings
+up to that time, including a selection from the early tales and
+sketches. The plan of separation adopted in the Centennial edition, in
+which the supplementary volume consisted of both prose and verse, was
+now abandoned, and the whole of Whitman's verse--with the exception
+of rejected passages which are numerous--was re-arranged and fitted
+together into the enlarged scheme of the _Leaves_.
+
+This new arrangement is not without interest. First comes the prefatory
+section intended to prepare the reader, and to indicate the character
+of the book--it belongs largely, in order of time, to the later,
+more explanatory period. There follows the original poem, now known
+as "The Song of Myself," with its assertion of the Divine and final
+Me--the inherent purpose and personality of the All--and its gospel
+of Self-Realisation. After this we have the poems of Sex--life's
+reproductive energy--by which self-assertion is carried out towards
+society; and then of comradeship and the social passion. These
+complete the first section of the book, and, as it were, bring the
+individual to his or her majority. Henceforward he is a man and citizen.
+
+There ensues a group of a dozen powerful poems--"The Open Road," "The
+Broad-axe" and others--in which the life of ideal American manhood
+is celebrated, and the conception of America and her needs becomes
+more and more complete. In "Birds of Passage," the loins are girded
+for noble perils, and here the middle of the volume is reached. There
+follows, "Sea-Drift" and "By the Road-side"; the former, a group of
+poems contemplative, in middle life, of the mysteries of bereavement
+and of death; the latter, full of questions, doubts and warnings,
+leading up to the "Drum-taps," poems of war, of national consciousness
+and of political destiny.
+
+"Autumn Rivulets" are discursive and peaceful after the storm; they
+introduce a group, including "The Passage to India," in which the unity
+of the world is emphasised, a unity which is declared simultaneously by
+Whitman with the utterance of his thoughts of death. In "Whispers of
+Heavenly Death," he gives expression to many moods, to insurgent doubts
+and to triumphant faith. They are followed by an Indian-summer of
+miscellaneous poems, "From Noon to Starry Night," and the volume closes
+with the "Songs of Parting," and the identical words which in 1860 he
+had set at the end.
+
+There is little new in the book beyond the arrangement, and careful and
+final revision and readjustment of all the items to the unity of the
+whole. The main lines of the edition of 1860 are still followed; but
+since that version, most of the political poems have been added, and
+many of those which sing of battle and of death, with a considerable
+mass of the explanatory and philosophical material natural to later
+life.
+
+All this has necessarily qualified the earlier work, and has made the
+task of revision and adjustment necessary. For Whitman had a profound
+sense of congruity and character, and his alterations were dictated
+by his original purpose of creating a book which his own soul might
+forever joyfully acknowledge and attest, and even perhaps in future
+ages continue.[635] The book was his body, projected, out of his
+deepest realisation of himself, into type and paper, and it changed
+somewhat in all its parts as it grew to completion and became more
+perfect.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[608] _Comp. Prose_, 171-74, 433; Kennedy, 3 n.; Bucke, 223-26.
+
+[609] _Comp. Prose_, 173.
+
+[610] _Ib._, 172.
+
+[611] _Ib._, 174.
+
+[612] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[613] _Comp. Prose_, 176-80.
+
+[614] Kennedy, 3 n.
+
+[615] _L. of G._, 201.
+
+[616] _Comp. Prose_, 183.
+
+[617] _Ib._, 181; _supra_, 136.
+
+[618] Bucke, 100.
+
+[619] Williamson's _Catalogue_, facsimile mem. of 187; _Comp. Prose_,
+315-17.
+
+[620] Kennedy, 74-79.
+
+[621] MSS. Johnston.
+
+[622] Kennedy, 77.
+
+[623] _Comp. Prose_, 180-85; Bucke, 147; MSS. Traubel.
+
+[624] Camden, x., 113.
+
+[625] See _supra_, 171.
+
+[626] Bucke, 147.
+
+[627] MSS. Diary.
+
+[628] MSS. Carpenter.
+
+[629] Bucke, 58, 148-53; Kennedy, 118, 119; Camden, viii., 288.
+
+[630] MSS. Johnston.
+
+[631] Bucke, 151.
+
+[632] _Ib._, 153.
+
+[633] MSS. Diary; _cf._ Donaldson.
+
+[634] MSS. Diary.
+
+[635] _L. of G._, fly-leaf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+AMONG THE PROPHETS
+
+
+With the completion of the main body of his work, and before we pass to
+the details of his last years in Camden, a brief digression into wider
+fields may perhaps be permissible. For Whitman's thought, though it is
+very consciously his, is interestingly related to that of the preceding
+century and of his own, and no study of him would be at all complete
+which left this fact out of consideration. Readers who prefer to follow
+the path of events will find it again in the next chapter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While it is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that between
+the Essayist on Man and the Singer of Myself, they were at least agreed
+as to the proper subject for human study.
+
+Physically they were most dissimilar--Pope, a little, deformed,
+ivory-faced wit, all nerves and eyes; Whitman, a huge,
+high-complexioned, phlegmatic peasant-artisan. Between their thought
+lay the century of Rousseau, Goethe and Hegel, of Washington,
+Robespierre and Napoleon. And their mental contrast was as marked as
+their physical. It is clearly indicated in the formal character of
+their work: Pope's, a mosaic of brilliant couplets; Whitman's, a choral
+or symphonic movement.[636]
+
+Wholly lacking in the intellectual dazzle of the Augustan wits,
+Whitman's strength lay rather in those naturalistically romantic
+regions of the imaginative world which in the eighteenth century were
+being rediscovered by certain provincial singers, the forerunners of
+the Lake-poets. In the verses of Scottish poets from Ramsay to Burns;
+in Macpherson's "Ossian," and, finally, in the work of two men who were
+Londoners but "with a difference"--the soul-revealing cries of Cowper
+and the lyric abandonment of Blake--there was restored to English
+poetry that emotional quality which had been banned and ousted by the
+self-conscious club-men of the eighteenth century.[637]
+
+Just as the passion of high conviction returns to English politics with
+Burke, and to English religion with Wesley, so it finds expression once
+again in the rhythmical impulse of _Lyrical Ballads_ and the _Songs of
+Innocence_. There is here a new feeling for beauty, a new sense of the
+emotional significance of Nature.
+
+With the return of that enthusiasm based upon conviction, which the
+sceptical Deism of Pope abhorred, there came a more elastic use of
+metre. For the movement of poetry should vary as the pulse varies under
+emotion. Passion now took the place of logic in the guidance of the
+rhythm of thought. And as the spirit of the poet lay open to the stars,
+his ear caught new and ever subtler rhythms, and became aware that
+every impelling motive for song has its own perfect and inalienable
+movement. His attention passed from current standards and patterns to
+those windy stellar melodies unheard by the town-bred Augustan ear. All
+this, with much more, is revealed in the work of the new poets, from
+Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley to Tennyson.
+
+When Whitman came, his spirit was aware of this newly apprehended canon
+of poetic form. At first, he tried the medium of rhymed verses; but his
+were without inspiration. When self-expression became imperative he
+abandoned them.
+
+For the poet, nothing can be more important than the emotional
+atmosphere which his verses create, for he is conveying rather moods
+than fancies, inspirations of the soul rather than thoughts of the
+intelligence. Eventually, it is the poet's own personality or attitude
+of mind that most affects the world; and it seemed to Whitman that this
+must communicate itself through the medium of his thoughts by their
+rhythm or pulse of speech and phrasing. The manner of speaking means
+more almost than the matter spoken, because it is by the manner, and
+not by the thought, that the speaker's attitude toward life is most
+intimately conveyed.
+
+It need hardly be said that there are rhythms which suggest and evoke
+gladness and exaltation; others which call forth melancholy; others
+which predispose to lascivious passions, and so forth: the thought is
+older than Plato. Whitman wished to convey to his readers all that I
+have attempted to describe in the foregoing pages; his own attitude
+towards life, that of a fearless, proud, abysmal, sympathetic,
+wholesome man. And he found no medium among those in current use which
+seemed to him effective for his purpose.
+
+He had to go back to the prophets of Israel, and the rhythm into which
+their message was put anew by the seventeenth century translators, to
+find a model. It was from them, and from a study of the movements of
+prose, but especially of speech, that he came to his own singular, and
+not inappropriate style. At the last definition, the appeal of _Leaves
+of Grass_ is intended to be that of an intimate kind of speech. It
+would be interesting, in this connection, to compare Whitman's manner
+with that of the other writers of his period who have most distressed
+the purists--Browning, Carlyle, Emerson and Meredith--but that field is
+too large for us to enter now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Addington Symonds once said[638] that Whitman had influenced him even
+more deeply than Plato; and the juxtaposition of the two names is as
+singular as it is suggestive. For while the "arrogant Mannhattanese"
+is far indeed from the founder of the Academy, there is something
+essentially Platonic in Whitman's attitude toward poetry. For Whitman
+was a moralist in the highest sense. With Plato, he dreamed always of
+the Republic, and that dream was the moving passion of his life.
+
+He would--at least in his earlier years--have said with Plato, in his
+_Laws_, "The legislator and the poet are rivals, and the latter can
+only be tolerated if his words are in harmony with the laws of the
+State". But over the last phrase he would have laughed, adding, In my
+Republic the citizens think lightly of the laws!
+
+Like Plato, he accused all the poets whom he loved best of an essential
+hostility to the Republic. Their whole attitude implied an aristocratic
+spirit, which discovered itself in their rhythms, and struck at the
+life of America. He would only admit such poets as are in harmony with
+the spirit of the Republic, and interpret the genius of America.
+
+It was for America, then, that he made his chants; chanting them, as he
+hoped, in such fashion that they might forever nerve new soldiers for
+the battle which he saw her destined to maintain through all the ages
+against the ancient tyrannies of the past.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If one were to seek among modern writers for those whose genius is
+related to Whitman's, one would, I suppose, name first Rousseau,
+with his moody self-consciousness, his great social enthusiasm,
+his religious fervour, and his passionate perception of beauty in
+Nature.[639] And then, after Goethe, to whom I have several times
+referred in passing, one would add Byron, that audacious egoist, who,
+threatening the Almighty like some Miltonic Lucifer, fascinated the
+gaze of Europe.[640]
+
+But Whitman had almost nothing either of the morbid sentiment or
+dramatic skill of the French reformer, nor had he Byron's theatrical
+and somewhat futile rhetoric of rebellion. He was indeed very much at
+peace with the cosmos; his confessions are frank, but impersonal; his
+egoism may be Satanic in its pride, but then for him, Satan, though he
+remains in opposition, is really an essential factor in the government
+of the worlds. Temperamentally he was nearer to George Sand;[641] and,
+on at least one side of his nature, to Victor Hugo.[642]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is rather as a prophet than as a literary figure that we must
+compare him with his great contemporaries. On this side, he was
+obviously related to Millet, to Beethoven and to Wagner--but it seems
+simpler roughly to set him over against several men of his own craft
+who hold a European reputation--to Carlyle, Mazzini, Emerson, Morris,
+Browning, Tolstoi and Nietzsche.
+
+With Whitman, Carlyle[643] recognised the underlying moral purpose of
+the universe, and the organic unity or solidarity of mankind; but being
+himself a Calvinistic Jacobin of irritable nerves, these convictions
+filled him, not with a joyful wonder and faith, but with contempt and
+despair. He never saw humanity as the body of a Divine and Godlike
+soul; and though he was continually calling men to duty and repentance,
+he did so from inward necessity rather than with any anticipation of
+success. For he felt himself to be a Voice crying in the wilderness.
+Whitman worshipped the hero as truly as did Carlyle; but then he saw
+the heroic in the heart of our common humanity, where Carlyle missed
+it; hence his appeal was one of confidence, not despair.
+
+For Mazzini, the word "duty" was not a scourge but a magician's
+wand, because he believed.[644] The Italian was not, like Carlyle,
+an iconoclast, but a messenger of good tidings; and if he carried a
+sword, it was in the name of the Prince of Peace. Like Whitman, he was
+conscious of the world-life pulsing through him; in himself he found
+the peremptory spirit of the Republic demanding from him both blood and
+brain. Like Whitman also, he looked to a comradeship of young men for
+the regeneration of his nation; and to a poet to come for the great
+words which alone can unite men and nations, creating the world anew
+in the image of Humanity. For them both, religion was the ultimate
+word--a religion free from the shackles of dogma, free in the spirit of
+the Whole--and it was a word which the world could only receive from
+the poets that are to be. But while thus similar in their aspirations,
+they were very different in temper and circumstances. For Mazzini was
+a fiery, nervous martyr to his cause, a Dantesque exile from the land
+of his love. And yet his appeal, at least in his writings, is not so
+intimate as is that of the less vehement apostle of liberty.
+
+With Emerson,[645] whose relationship to Whitman I have already
+discussed, there is the great contrast of temperament. For in him,
+passion seems to have played but little part. He is one of the noblest
+of those constitutional Protestants and individualists who are
+incapable of feeling the fuller tides of the catholic passion of social
+sympathy. His earnest and profound spirit seems to dwell forever in the
+sunny cloisters of a thoughtful solitude, far distant from life's rough
+and tumble.
+
+Browning's belief that the immanent Divinity finds expression through
+passion, and is lost in all suppression of life;[646] and his faith
+in the universal plan, which includes the worst with the best, relate
+his thought to Whitman's. For them both, each individual life contains
+a part of the divine secret. It is the concrete personality of things
+which they seek to express, though in very different ways.
+
+Browning astonished Carlyle by his confident cheerfulness. And his
+optimism was founded upon knowledge, or at least did not depend upon
+ignorance. Though he believed in the triumph of the divine element in
+every soul--the element of love--he recognised the reality of evil, and
+saw life as a battle.
+
+But not as a battle between the body and the soul, or between vice
+and virtue: the conflict, for Browning as for Whitman, is ultimately
+between love as the inmost spirit of life, and all other virtues and
+vices whatsoever. Love alone "leaves completion in the soul," and
+solves the enigmas of doubt.
+
+Browning's conception of a Democracy, in which all men should "be equal
+in full-blown powers," and God should cease to make great men, because
+the average man would have become great, was set forth in some of the
+earliest work of a genius as precocious in its development as that of
+his master Shelley.
+
+But it would be easy to exaggerate the relationship which I have
+indicated. For Browning was a cosmopolitan and delightful gentleman,
+who in his later years cultivated music and studied yellow parchments
+and the freaks of human nature, in a Venetian palace; while Whitman was
+sauntering through old age in the suburb of an American city, appearing
+by comparison uneducated, uncouth and provincial. Appearance is,
+however, deceptive, for the earth Walt smacks of is the autochthonous
+red soil of the creation of all things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tolstoi, aristocrat as he is by birth and education, is yet a peasant
+in his physical and spiritual character; a Russian peasant, with the
+moujik's almost Oriental stubbornness of resignation and passivity.
+Like Whitman, he is one of the people, and in some respects he is an
+incarnation of Russia, as Whitman was of America. But while there are
+many obvious relations between the two men, their contrast is the more
+striking. Tolstoi has the Oriental tendency towards pessimism and
+asceticism. He sees the body and spirit in irreconcilable conflict.
+And similarly he opposes forever pleasure and duty; so that his is a
+message of the endless sacrifice of self.
+
+An abyss of terror surrounds him, from which he can only escape by a
+life of resolute and loving self-devotion.[647] His gospel is one of
+escape, and is in many respects nearer in spirit to Carlyle's than to
+Whitman's. Tolstoi's detestation of the State is, doubtless, largely
+traceable to the military despotism under which he has lived.
+
+There is a certain element of pessimism also, in the attitude of
+William Morris, as of Ruskin his master. But though he flings back
+the Golden Age into the thirteenth century, his gospel is really one
+of actual joy. When the citizen finds pleasure in his daily work,
+the State will prosper; such is his promise for the future, and his
+condemnation of the present. Carlyle urged men to work, in order to
+kill doubt, and silence the terrible questions; but Morris finds that
+the questions are really answered by work, if only it is done in the
+spirit of the artist, and in fellowship with others.[648]
+
+Like Whitman, Morris was one who seemed to his friends almost terribly
+self-sufficing; he could stand alone, they thought. But strong as he
+seemed in his solitude, he was the poet of fellowship, of a fellowship
+which is man's fulfilment and immortal life. Though Whitman's view
+of that life was more philosophical, and his personality had a more
+mystical depth, the two men had much in common, especially in the
+aggressive and elemental masculinity of their character, and their
+superb joy and pride in themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would be interesting to compare Whitman's general position with that
+of Nietzsche; that most perplexing figure of young Germany in revolt
+from Hegel and all the past, from the restraint, system and conventions
+which threaten the liberty of the individual spirit. But Nietzsche is
+difficult to summarise; and time has not yet given us the perspective
+in which alone the general forms of his thought will become evident.
+
+It is clear, however, that he expresses that spirit of rebellion which
+was so marked a feature of the first _Leaves of Grass_; a rebellion
+against all bondage, even though it call itself virtue and morality.
+And this, be it remembered, was always a part of the real Whitman; it
+was the side of the _Square Deific_ which he has aptly named "Satan".
+
+Between Nietzsche's "overman," jealous of every tittle of his identity,
+and always a law unto himself, refusing to bow his neck to the virtues
+and vices of the "weaker brother"; and Whitman's self-asserting Ego,
+there is the same striking resemblance. One can never omit the dogma of
+the sacredness of self-assertion, with the criticism of Christianity
+which it involves, from any statement of Whitman's position. He
+evidently detested that plausible levelling argument, so potent for
+mischief to the race-life which it professes to guard--that one must
+be always considering the effects of example upon the foolish and
+perverse, and endeavouring to live down to their folly and perversity,
+instead of up to the level of true comradeship. Be yourself, say
+Whitman and Nietzsche, and do not waste your life trying to be what you
+fancy for the sake of other people you ought to be.
+
+Whitman's doctrine of equality is again really not unlike Nietzsche's
+doctrine of inequality; for it only asserts the equality of individuals
+because of the overman latent in each one; and is different enough from
+the undistinguishing equalitarianism of popular philosophy.
+
+But Whitman had the balancing qualities which Nietzsche lacked. As he
+said once to Mr. Pearsall Smith: "I am physically ballasted so strong
+with weightiest animality and appetites, or I should go off in a
+balloon". In his case, self-assertion was not associated with mania;
+for it never snapped those ties of comradeship and love which keep men
+human, but became instead a bond for fuller and nobler relations with
+men and women.
+
+The comparison with Nietzsche suggests the limits of Whitman's
+Hegelianism. For though he once declared that he "rated Hegel as
+Humanity's chiefest teacher and the choicest loved physician of my
+mind and soul"; and again, that his teaching was the undercurrent
+which fructified his views of life,[649] yet it may well be doubted
+whether he ever really mastered the full Hegelian theory, or realised
+the futility of many of those generalisations in which German idealism
+has been so prolific. It was because Hegel saw life, both the Me and
+the Not Me, as a single Whole, and found a place for evil in his
+world-purpose, that Whitman hailed him as the one truly "American"
+thinker of the age. But in the individualism of Nietzsche is the
+partial corrective of Hegel's position; and as I have suggested,
+Whitman would have accepted it as such.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps the foregoing very rough and ready comparisons may have
+thrown some light on the outstanding features of Whitman's personal
+message and influence. But there remains another, which I have already
+suggested, and to which for a moment we must return.
+
+Whitman was essentially a prophet-mystic, and while he derived nothing
+from most of the men with whom his thought is related, the indirect
+influence upon him of George Fox the Quaker is certain.[650]
+
+Fox's distinguishing quality was his intense personal reality; there
+are few more vivid figures on any page of history. This seems to be
+due to the fulness of life which he realised, and could focus in his
+actual consciousness. From this he did not derive "advanced views" but
+vital power. And vital power is equally, and perhaps in fuller measure,
+characteristic of Whitman, manifesting itself by various signs in his
+daily life, and in the phrases of his book.
+
+In Whitman, as in Fox, this was an attractive power of extraordinary
+force. Around Fox it created a Society of Friends; and one cannot doubt
+that sooner or later a world-wide Fellowship of Comrades will result
+from the life-work of Whitman.
+
+Fox's "Friends"--though the meaning of the title may originally have
+been "Friends of the Truth"--were real friends; united in a new ideal
+of communion. They shared the highest experience in common; meeting for
+the purpose of entering together into "the power of the life".
+
+And Whitman also realised that life at its highest is only revealed to
+comrades. His view of religion was even less formal than that of the
+early Quakers; but he, too, preferred to sit in silence with those he
+loved, realising that Divine power and purpose which was one in them.
+
+Quakerism has not unfairly been spoken of as a spiritual aristocracy;
+there seems to be something essentially exclusive about it. On the
+other hand, it is essentially democratic and would exclude none; but
+the methods necessary to its conception of truth do not appeal to the
+many.
+
+Similarly, the Fellowship of Whitman's Comrades must be an aristocracy
+of overmen--if the words can be divested of all sinister association
+and read in their most literal sense.
+
+Whitman recognised that his inner teachings could only be accepted by
+the few, and for them he set them forth. But for the many also, he had
+a message. And though the actual comrades of Whitman must be able to
+rise to his breadth of view and depth of purpose, that purpose embraces
+the whole world.
+
+For the possibility of Comradeship is implicit in every soul; and
+there is none--no, not the most foolish or perverted or conventionally
+good--who is ultimately incapable of entering into it. The fellowship
+must be as essentially attractive as was the personality of Whitman
+himself; and if few should be chosen to be its members, yet all would
+be called.
+
+Once realised as the one end of all individual and social life, such a
+Comradeship would transform our institutions and theories whether of
+ethics, politics, education or religion. In a word, it would change
+life into a fine art. For it could be no Utopian theory, but the most
+practicable of gospels. The seed has been already sown, and we may now
+await with confidence the growth of a tree through whose branches all
+the stars of faith will yet shine, and in whose embracing roots all the
+rocks of science will be held together.[651]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[636] W. M. Rossetti in _Anne Gilchrist_.
+
+[637] _Cf._ Saintsbury's _Nineteenth Century Lit._, and Stephen's
+_English Thought in Eighteenth Century_, ch. xii.
+
+[638] _Camden's Compliment_, 73.
+
+[639] _Cf._ W. H. Hudson's _Rousseau_, 245, 246.
+
+[640] _Comp. Prose_, 287; Guthrie, _op. cit._, 100, 101.
+
+[641] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._
+
+[642] Kennedy, 106, 178.
+
+[643] _Cf._ Triggs' _Browning and Whitman_.
+
+[644] Mazzini's _Duties of Man_, etc.; _cf._ Bolton King's _Mazzini_.
+
+[645] See _supra_, 113-6, etc.
+
+[646] Triggs, _op. cit._; Prof. Jones's _Browning_.
+
+[647] Note added to _My Confession_ in 1882.
+
+[648] _A Dream of John Ball_, and _Life of William Morris_, by J. W.
+Mackail.
+
+[649] _In re_, 244; _Comp. Prose_, 168, 169, 245; Camden, ix., 172.
+
+[650] See _supra_, ch. i., ii.
+
+[651] Horace Traubel, of Camden, New Jersey, editor of _The
+Conservator_, is the secretary of the Walt Whitman Fellowship
+(International), which meets annually in New York and issues papers. A
+file of these may now be consulted in the British Museum Library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HE BECOMES A HOUSEHOLDER
+
+
+Emerson and Longfellow died within six months of Whitman's Boston
+visit; the former being buried in that graveyard at Sleepy Hollow
+where Walt had so recently stood by the green mounds that mark the
+resting-places of Hawthorne and of Thoreau.[652] Carlyle had died a
+year earlier; Carlyle who so deeply impressed his impetuous pathetic
+personality upon all that he handled, and who was one of the principal
+literary influences upon Whitman during his later years, as Emerson
+had doubtless been an inspiration in the earlier. And while Walt had
+been working on the Osgood proof-sheets, James Garfield, the friend who
+used to hail him as he passed on Pennsylvania Avenue riding with Pete
+Doyle, shouting out some tag from the _Leaves_, and who had now become
+President of the United States, died amid the mourning of the nation.
+
+Whitman's daily life had been poorer these last two or three years,
+since Mrs. Gilchrist's return to England, but new friends were
+continually added to his circle. Among these was Mr. W. S. Kennedy, who
+was working for awhile on one of the Philadelphia papers, and has since
+published a notable collection of reminiscences and memoranda of his
+relations with the Camden poet.
+
+The Christmas of 1882[653] brought him a delightful gift in the
+friendship of a Quaker family. Mr. Pearsall Smith was a wealthy
+Philadelphia glass merchant, who with his wife had, till recently, been
+a member of the Society of Friends. He had had a remarkable career as
+an evangelist, both in his own country and in Europe; his eloquence
+and magnetic personality having been instrumental in changing the
+course of many lives. His wife also was an active worker in the fields
+of religion and philanthropy; and their home in Germantown--one of
+the suburbs of Philadelphia most remote in every sense from plebeian
+Camden--became a meeting-place for men and women interested and engaged
+in the work of reform. By this time, however, Mr. Pearsall Smith
+himself, finding in human nature more forces than were accounted for in
+the evangelical philosophy, had withdrawn from active participation in
+its labours.
+
+The elder of his daughters, Miss Mary Whitall Smith, a thoughtful and
+enthusiastic college girl, came back from New England, where she was
+studying, fired by a determination to meet Walt Whitman. Her parents
+discovered with dismay that she had read the _Leaves_, at first with
+the consternation proper to her Quaker training, but later with ardour.
+Respectable Philadelphians, and especially members of the Society of
+Friends, were disposed to regard the poet as an outrageous, dangerous
+person, who lived in a low place, among disreputable and vulgar
+associates. His works were classed by them with the wares of obscene
+book-vendors, as absolutely impossible.
+
+The parents' consternation at their daughter's resolve may well be
+imagined. But being wise parents, they were prepared to learn; and Mr.
+Smith eventually drove her over in a stylish carriage behind a pair of
+excellent horses.
+
+[Illustration: MARY WHITALL SMITH (MRS. BERENSON) IN 1884]
+
+They found Whitman at home. He descended slowly, leaning on his stick,
+to the little stuffy parlour where they were waiting; and with a
+kindly, affectionate amusement received the girl's homage. Her father
+immediately and impulsively asked the old man to drive back and spend
+the night with them. This was the spontaneous kind of hospitality
+which most delighted Walt, and after a moment's hesitation, in which
+he weighed the matter, he decided in favour of his new friends and
+their excellent equipage. His sister-in-law quickly produced the boots
+and other necessaries, and they set forth. Whitman loved to drive and
+to be driven, and as he sat on the back seat by his adoring young
+friend, he heartily enjoyed the whole situation. It was indeed enough
+to warm an old man's heart.
+
+After listening to her avowals, he recommended Miss Smith to study
+Emerson and Thoreau, but was evidently well pleased with her praise.
+Genuine devotion he always accepted.
+
+He stayed a couple of days on this occasion; delighting in long drives
+along the Wissahickon Creek, and showing himself very much at home
+among the young people of the household.
+
+From this time on, and until the family left for England in 1886,
+he was their frequent visitor; and in later years--while reverently
+remembering Mrs. Gilchrist, who died in 1885--he came to speak of Mary
+Whitall Smith as his "staunchest living woman friend". His letters to
+her father also are evidences of a close intimacy between the two men.
+Thus it seems permissible to speak here at greater length than usual
+of their relations, which serve besides to illustrate others not less
+affectionate.
+
+Often during the college vacations, when the house was filled with
+merry young folk, Whitman would sit in the hall to catch the sounds
+of their laughter, enhanced by a little distance; or from his corner,
+leaning upon his stick, he would look on for hours together while they
+danced. Spirits ran high on these occasions, and all the higher for his
+smiling presence. He enjoyed everything, and not least the wholesome
+incipient love-making which he was quick to notice, and encourage.
+
+Often he was full of fun; and still, as in the old days, he sang gaily
+as he splashed about in his bath, a delighted group of young people
+listening on the landing without to the strains of "Old Jim Crow," some
+Methodist hymn, or negro melody. At night, before retiring, he would
+take a walk under the stars, sometimes alone, sometimes with his girl
+friend, who could appreciate the companionableness of silence.
+
+He was always perfectly frank, as well as perfectly courteous; if he
+preferred solitude he said so; and if, when at table, his hostess
+proposed to read aloud some long family letter, and asked him in an
+aside whether he would like to hear it, he would smile and answer, No.
+
+He came to see them usually in his familiar grey suit; but in winter he
+wore one of heavier make, which was, however, provided with an overcoat
+only; indoors, he then put on the knitted cardigan jacket seen in some
+of his portraits. On one occasion, when some local literary people
+were invited to meet him, he appeared unaccustomedly conscious of his
+clothes. Uncomfortable at the absence of a coat, he tried the overcoat
+for awhile; but becoming very hot before the dinner was done, he beat
+a retreat into the hall; and there divesting himself of the burden,
+returned in his ordinary comfortable dress. Such incidents admirably
+illustrate his simple and homely ways.[654]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Henceforward, though records are multiplied, the movement of Whitman's
+life is less and less affected by outer events, and becomes yearly more
+private and elusive.
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT SIXTY-TWO]
+
+There is little to record of 1883, save that shortly after his
+sixty-fourth birthday there appeared the biographical study of Whitman
+by his Canadian friend. Like the earlier and smaller sketch by John
+Burroughs, Dr. Bucke's volume was revised and authenticated by the
+poet, and is an invaluable record. Though fragmentary and far from
+exhaustive, it is written by one of the very few who can be said to
+have caught the real significance of the life and personality of the
+author of _Leaves of Grass_. That he fully understood Whitman, neither
+he nor his poet friend ever suggested; but then one must add that
+Whitman always laughingly asserted he did not by any means understand
+himself.[655]
+
+As a result of the sales of the Philadelphia edition and the royalties
+which they brought him, the old man was now enabled to carry a
+long-cherished plan into execution.
+
+On March the 26th, 1884,[656] he left his brother's house, and
+removed to a little two-story cottage on Mickle Street, near by.
+Here he installed himself, at first with an elderly workman and his
+wife, and afterwards under the more efficient _régime_ of Mrs. Mary
+Davis, a buxom New Jersey widow of comfortable presence, who brought
+into the house that homely atmosphere which Whitman had so long been
+seeking.[657]
+
+Downstairs, in the little front parlour, he carried on what remained
+to him of his own publishing--the old autograph editions which he had
+not entrusted to Mr. McKay; and over it, upstairs, was his bedroom,
+which he liked to compare with a big ship's cabin. In the backyard were
+lilacs, which he loved; and a shady tree stood in the side-walk in
+front.
+
+He found his little "shack," as he called it, pleasant and restful,
+and his own. He was not much worried by the rasping church choir and
+the bells, which jangled cruelly loud for such sensitive hearing
+every Sunday; nor by the neighbourhood of a guano factory, which was
+noticeable enough to the most ordinary nose.[658] Here his friends from
+far and near were frequent visitors, Dr. Bucke, John Burroughs and
+Peter Doyle among them; and in June came Edward Carpenter from England
+on his second visit.[659]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carpenter had now issued his slender green _Towards Democracy_, that
+strange, prophetic, intimate book, so unlike all others, even the
+_Leaves_ which it most resembles. It was seven years since the two men
+had met, and the older had grown thinner and more weary-looking. He had
+not been worsted in the long struggle with time and illness, but they
+had left their mark upon his body.
+
+The visitor renewed his first impressions of that complex
+personality; felt again the wistful affection mingled with the
+contradictiousobstinacy; recognised the same watchful caution and
+keen perception, "a certain artfulness," and the old "wild hawk look"
+of his untameable spirit; but, beneath all, the wonderful unfathomed
+tenderness.
+
+Whitman manifestly had his moods, "lumpishly immovable" at times, at
+times deliberately inaccessible. He took a certain wilful pleasure
+in denial, for the quality of "cussedness" was strong in him. And
+his friends admired his magnificent "No," issuing from him naked and
+unashamed, just as mere acquaintances dreaded it.
+
+But in other moods he was all generosity, and you knew in him a man who
+had given himself body, mind and spirit to Love, never contented to
+give less than all.
+
+Among the topics of their conversations was the Labour Movement, in
+which Carpenter was actively interested. Whitman professed his belief
+in co-operation, at the same time reiterating his deeply-rooted
+distrust of elected persons, of officials and committees. He had lived
+in Washington; and besides, his feeling for personal initiative, his
+wholesome and passionate love of individuality, and its expression
+in every field, set him always and everywhere against mere delegates
+and agents. Above all things, he abhorred regimentation, officialism
+and interference. "I believe, like Carlyle, in _men_," he said with
+emphasis. He hoped for more generous, and, as he would say, more
+prudent, captains of industry; but he looked for America's realisation
+to an ever-increasing class of independent yeomanry, who should
+constitute the solid and permanent bulk of the Republic.
+
+Regarding America from the universal point of view, as the
+standard-bearer of Liberty among the nations, he thought of Free-trade
+as a moral rather than a merely economic question. Free-trade and
+a welcome to all foreigners were for Whitman integral parts of the
+American ideal. "The future of the world," he would say, "is one of
+open communication and solidarity of all races"; and he added, with
+a dogmatism characteristic of his people, "if that problem [of free
+interchange] cannot be solved in America, it cannot be solved anywhere".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In considering Whitman's attitude towards the Social Problem, and
+especially the Labour Problem, whose development in America he had been
+watching since the close of the war, one must consider the conditions
+of his time and country.[660] The Industrial Revolution, which is still
+in progress--and which in its progress is changing the face of the
+globe, disintegrating the old society down to its very basis in family
+life--has revealed itself to us in the last generation, much more
+clearly than to Whitman, who grew up seventy years ago in a new land.
+
+We can see now that, though it may prelude a reconstruction of human
+society and relations in all their different phases, it is itself
+destructive rather than constructive. We recognise that it does not
+bring equality of opportunity to all, as its earlier observers had
+predicted;[661] but that, on the contrary, it destroys much of the
+meaning of opportunity; the control of capital which is the motive
+power of modern industrial life, falling more and more into the hands
+of a small group of legatees, on whose pleasure the rest of the
+community tends to become dependent for its livelihood.
+
+And we see the results of this new economic condition in the character
+of the populations of those vast cities into which the Industrial
+Revolution is still gathering the peoples of Europe and America.
+Among these, the spirit of individual enterprise and initiative
+is continually choked by the narrow range of their opportunity.
+Their lives become the melancholy exponents of that theory of the
+specialisation of industry against which the humanitarians of the age
+have all inveighed.
+
+Serious as it was becoming in the New World, the Labour Question had
+not yet, in Whitman's time, assumed an aspect so menacing as in the
+Old. Even to-day the proportion of Americans engaged in agriculture is
+four times as large as that which rules in Great Britain; and except
+in the North Atlantic States, the rural population does not seem to be
+actually losing ground;[662] though its increase is much less rapid
+than that of the urban districts, into which more than a third of
+the population is now gathered, as against a fifth at the close of
+the war, or an eighth in the middle of the century. At the time of
+Whitman's death nearly three-quarters of the total number of American
+farmers were the owners of their farms; and it was in these working
+proprietors, with the similar body of half-independent artisans who
+were owners of their houses, that he placed his social faith. These
+were, as we have seen, the men whom he regarded as citizens in the
+fullest sense.[663]
+
+In this view he was doubtless influenced by Mill, whose _Principles of
+Political Economy_ he seems to have studied soon after its appearance
+in 1848. Roughly speaking, Mill had supplemented the teaching of
+Adam Smith, that individual liberty is the one sure foundation for
+the wealth of nations, by describing the proper sphere of social
+intervention in industrial matters. His picture of the future
+industry--the association of the labourers themselves on terms of
+equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on
+their operations, and working under managers selected and removable by
+themselves--has been quoted as the socialist ideal.[664]
+
+And Mill was deeply influenced by the early Socialists.[665] Their
+activity in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century
+was so remarkable that it must have come under the notice of Whitman.
+Robert Owen, intoxicated with what was perhaps a rather shallow
+conception of the great truth of human perfectibility, had spent his
+life and wealth in unsuccessful but most suggestive social experiments.
+No less optimistic were his French contemporaries, St. Simon and
+Fourier.
+
+In striking contrast with them and their doctrinaire systems, Proudhon,
+the peasant, who presents not a few points of agreement with Whitman,
+looked forward to voluntarism as the final form of society, and
+detested alike the theoretic elaboration and the sexual lubricity of
+his amiable but, on the whole, unpractical compatriots.
+
+The failure of the risings of 1848, and the succeeding period of
+reaction, checked the socialist movement,[666] and social reform was
+left for awhile to middle-class Liberalism, with its philanthropic
+ignorance of the real needs of the workers; until, in the last
+generation, the demands of labour, the pressure of poverty and the
+aspirations of social enthusiasts, have together furnished the motive
+power for a further struggle for the collectivist ideal of "intelligent
+happiness and pleasurable energy" for all.[667]
+
+This recent movement was at first most unequally yoked with an
+unbeliever in the brilliant, fatalistic theory of Karl Marx. Marx was
+a year older than Whitman; his acute Hebrew intellect was trained
+under the Hegelian system of thought, but he was apparently destitute
+of the finer historic sense, as well as of Hegel's idealism.[668] The
+humanitarian character of the social movement is now once more sweeping
+it far beyond his formulas; but in Whitman's time the Marxian theory
+dominated Socialism.
+
+In Long Island and New York, during the period of Whitman's youth,
+the social condition was, on the whole, free from serious disorders,
+save those incident upon growth and rapid development. The spirit of
+Elizabethan enterprise, the practical achievement of brave and ardently
+conceived ideas, ruled in that democratic society wherein his habit
+of mind was shaped, and of which it was in large degree a natural
+product. Whitman's youth and early manhood were little touched by
+evidences of any social disease so deep-seated as to encourage ideas
+of revolution. It is true that the vested interests of the slave
+party made themselves felt in New York; but neither to him nor to the
+"Free-soil" party did the anti-slavery movement suggest that other
+change which the political title they adopted brings so vividly before
+the mind to-day. "Free-soil" had for him no definitely Socialistic
+significance.
+
+And it was only, as we have seen, after the war that the accentuation
+of the labour problem brought it into prominence in the American
+cities. Whenever, thereafter, Whitman, leaving the comparative quiet
+of his own surroundings, revisited the metropolis, or wandered to some
+great western centre of industry, he realised dimly the progressive
+approach of the crisis.
+
+The increase in the accumulation of wealth was far outrunning even the
+rapid increase in population; but a large proportion of this wealth
+was being concentrated in a few hands which threatened to control the
+national policy. Manufacture was facilitated by the immense influx
+of immigrants who swelled the dependent city populations, and these
+immigrants coming more and more from the south-east of Europe, that
+is to say, from the most backward, ignorant and turbulent nations,
+promised by their presence to create a social problem in the North and
+Middle West not less acute if less extensive than that of the negro in
+the South.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Democracy looks with suspicion on the very poor,[669] quoth Whitman,
+meaning that the poverty of the poor incapacitates them for
+citizenship. That, I think, is one of the great and final arguments
+against the policy of _laissez faire_ under existing circumstances.
+
+Things would go very well if left to themselves, says the philosophic
+theorist, and so even Whitman is often inclined to declare.[670] But
+just as the organised party of slavery, in the fifty years before
+the war, refused to leave things to right themselves, so the party
+of property to-day interferes, more or less unconsciously, with the
+principle which it so loudly proclaims. It is because of the existence
+of innumerable sacrosanct parchments, customs and traditions, and all
+the subtly clinging fingers of mortmain, that _laissez faire_ remains
+an empty phrase. If we could burn the parchments and loose the fingers,
+men might go free. But still for the sake of the nation's health the
+poor would need to be assisted to rise out of the helpless condition
+into which society has allowed them to be thrust and held.
+
+We have noted Whitman's hearty approval of Canada's benevolent
+institutions for the incapable; he fully recognised the duty of society
+toward such as these.[671] And however hesitating his declarations
+on a subject which he was willing to leave to younger men, the main
+principle of his social economy, the right of each individual to be
+well born, carries us far from the policy of any party dominant to-day
+in our political life.
+
+He recognised this right as far more fundamental than any secondary
+privilege which has been accorded to property for social convenience.
+And it is because this right continues to be denied to millions of
+future citizens, to the most serious peril of the whole Republic,
+and apparently for no better reason than that its recognition must
+impede the present rate of increase in material development, that the
+Socialist party has arisen in America. It is safe to say that it is the
+only party which deliberately aims at social amelioration and the equal
+opportunity of all citizens; and in this respect it seeks to realise
+Whitman's ideal. In so far, however, as it clings to European theories,
+and identifies itself solely with a section of the nation, proclaiming
+a class-war in the interests, not of America or of Humanity, but of
+Labour--large, and inclusive as the term may be--it seems directly to
+antagonise that ideal.
+
+Whitman would certainly be belied by the label of "Socialist"; but
+"Individualist" would as little describe him. He was, and must always
+remain, outside of parties, and to some extent in actual antagonism
+to them; for while recognising its purpose and necessity, he was
+essentially jealous of government and control. He wanted to see the
+Americans managing their own affairs as little as possible by deputy,
+and, as far as possible, in their own persons. That, I take it, is the
+only form of collectivism or social life which is ultimately desirable;
+and all political reform will aim at its practical realisation.
+It depends most of all upon the simultaneous deepening of social
+consciousness and sympathy and increase of the means and spirit of
+individual independence. Only by these simultaneous developments can we
+hope to see established that Society of Comrades which was the America
+of Whitman's vision.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the practical side of the Labour Question the old man occasionally
+expressed his emphatic dislike of certain sides of Trade Unionism,
+and probably misunderstood, as he clearly mistrusted the movement.
+"When the Labour agitation," he would say, "is other than a kicking of
+somebody else out to let myself in, I shall warm up to it, maybe."[672]
+And of the workman he added: "He should make his cause the cause of the
+manliness of all men; that assured, every effort he may make is all
+right".
+
+But he was a poor man himself, judged by modern standards, and he
+had a profoundly human and practical sympathy with the lives of the
+poor. He knew exactly where their shoe pinched. And thus, whatever his
+dislike of Unionism, he was an admirable administrator of charity.
+His delight in giving made him the willing almoner of at least one
+wealthy Philadelphia magnate,[673] and during severe winters he was
+enabled to supply his friends, the drivers of the street cars, with
+warm overcoats. In his diary, alongside of the addresses of those who
+purchased his books, are long lists of these driver friends, dimly
+reminiscent of the hospital lists which he used to keep in Washington.
+
+Walt was always an incurable giver of gifts, and these, one may be
+sure, never weakened the manly independence of their recipients. His
+admiration for generous men of wealth, like George Peabody, has found
+a place in _Leaves of Grass_.[674] For he saw that to love is both to
+give and to receive, and in that holy commerce both actions alike are
+blessed.
+
+His interest in social work is shown in a hitherto unpublished letter
+written about this time to Mary Whitall Smith, who had married and gone
+to England, and who sent him accounts of the work being done among the
+poor of the East End through the agency of Toynbee Hall. Of this he
+writes at noon on the 20th of July, 1885: "The account of the Toynbee
+Hall doings and chat [is] deeply interesting to me. I think much of
+all genuine efforts of the human emotions, the soul and bodily and
+intellectual powers, to exploit themselves for humanity's good: the
+_efforts_ in themselves I mean (sometimes I am not sure but _they_ are
+the main matter)--without stopping to calculate whether the investment
+is tip-top in a business or statistical point of view.
+
+"These libations, ecstatic life-pourings as it were of precious wine
+or _rose-water_ on vast desert-sands or great polluted river--taking
+chances for returns _or no returns_--what were they (or are they) but
+the theory and practice of the beautiful God Christ? or of all Divine
+personality?"[675]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[652] _Comp. Prose_, 183, 186.
+
+[653] MSS. Diary; MSS. Berenson (_a_).
+
+[654] MSS. Berenson (_a_).
+
+[655] _Cf. In re_, 315.
+
+[656] Kennedy, 11; MSS. Diary.
+
+[657] _In re_, 45, 141, 382; and Johnston.
+
+[658] Donaldson, 69.
+
+[659] Carpenter (_a_), (_b_).
+
+[660] _Comp. Prose_, 247, 325; _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 707.
+
+[661] W. Cunningham, _Western Civilisation_ (ii.), 258-60.
+
+[662] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 712; _En. Brit. Suppt._
+
+[663] _Comp. Prose_, 215.
+
+[664] Kirkup, _Hist. of Socialism_, 286.
+
+[665] Marshall, _Principles of Economics_, 64.
+
+[666] Kirkup.
+
+[667] Morris and Bax, _Socialism_, 321.
+
+[668] Kirkup, 162.
+
+[669] See _supra_, 240.
+
+[670] _In re_, 379, 380; Carpenter (_b_), etc.
+
+[671] See _supra_, 277.
+
+[672] _In re_, 379.
+
+[673] MSS. Diary and Donaldson.
+
+[674] _L. of G._, 294; fuller in 1876 ed.
+
+[675] MSS. Berenson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+AT MICKLE STREET
+
+
+The presidential election of the autumn of 1884 brought the long
+Republican _régime_ to an end. During the twenty-four years of its
+continuance the old party cries had become almost meaningless, and
+the parties themselves ineffective, while political life had grown
+increasingly corrupt from top to bottom.[676] The only practical demand
+of the hour was for a good government, and this required a change of
+party. Whitman, with a number of independent Republicans known as
+"Mugwumps," supported the Democrat, Mr. Grover Cleveland. With his
+return to the White House the South may be said to have returned to the
+Union, after a generation of bitter estrangement.
+
+In the following summer Whitman had a slight sun-stroke, which rendered
+walking much more difficult.[677] For several months he was a good deal
+confined to his little house, but his friends promptly came to the
+rescue with a horse and light American waggon.[678]
+
+He was overcome with gratitude for the gift--driving, as we have seen,
+was one of his delights--and he promptly began to make full use of his
+new toy. He soon disposed of the quiet steed, thoughtfully provided,
+and substituted one of quicker paces, which he drove furiously along
+the country roads at any pace up to eighteen miles an hour.[679] Rapid
+movement brought him exhilaration, and he displayed admirable nerve
+upon emergency.
+
+[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF PORTION OF LETTER FROM WHITMAN TO THE LATE
+MR. R. PEARSALL SMITH, MAR. 4, 1884]
+
+Though he was getting old, his capacity for enjoyment was as great
+as ever. He enjoyed everything, especially now that at sixty-five he
+was, for the first time in his life, a householder; he enjoyed his
+quarters, his friends, his food, and in a grim way his very suffering.
+"Astonishing what one can stand when put to one's trumps,"[680]
+he wrote on a black day. While he could rattle along the roads in
+his waggon, he was naturally happy enough, and he encouraged all
+opportunities for pleasure. He enjoyed his food, and he now relaxed
+some of the stricter rules of temperance which hitherto he had followed.
+
+During periods of his life, as a young man and through the years at
+Washington, he was practically a total abstainer, and till he was sixty
+he only drank an occasional toddy, punch, or glass of beer. After that
+he followed the doctor's advice and his own taste, enjoying the native
+American wines, and at a later period, champagne.
+
+Stories of heavy drinking were circulated by the gossips, and were
+tracked at last to the habits of a local artist, who imitated Whitman
+in his garb, and somewhat resembled him.[681] Walt's head was
+remarkably steady, and it need hardly be said that he was always most
+jealous of anything which could dispute with him his self-control.
+
+In 1885 and several subsequent years[682] a popular caterer on the
+river-side, a mile or two below Camden, opened the summer season, about
+the end of April, with a dinner to some of his patrons, and Whitman was
+one of those who did fullest justice to his planked shad and champagne.
+For the latter he would smilingly admit an "incidental weakness".[683]
+
+His temperance had given him a keen relish for fine flavours, and he
+enjoyed all the pleasures of the senses without disguise, and with a
+frank, childlike response to them. This responsiveness, more almost
+than any other thing, kept his physical nature supple and young.
+His consciousness was never imprisoned in his brain, among stale
+memories and thoughts whose freshness had faded; it was still clean and
+sensitive to its surroundings, and found expression in the noticeably
+fresh, rich texture of his skin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was well that he should practise these simple pleasures, for
+apart from his own ailments, which increased with time, he was still
+troubled with financial difficulties. The purchase of the house had
+not been exactly prudent, as it added considerably to his expenses,
+and the success of the Philadelphia edition was not long continued.
+The royalty receipts soon dwindled to a very little stream, and his
+other earnings--though he was well paid for such contributions as the
+magazines accepted, and was retained on the regular staff of the _New
+York Herald_--were not large.[684]
+
+Word went round among his friends, both in America and in England, that
+the old man was hard up again, and a second time there was a hearty
+response. A fund, promoted by the _Pall Mall Gazette_ at the end of
+1886, brought him a New Year's present of £80,[685] and individual
+friends on both sides of the sea frequently sent thank-offerings to him.
+
+Some Boston admirers attempted at this time to secure for him
+a Government pension of £60 a year,[686] in recognition of his
+hospital work. But Whitman disliked the plan, and though it was
+favourably reported upon by the Pensions Committee of the House of
+Representatives, he wrote gratefully but peremptorily refusing to
+become an applicant for such a reward, saying quite simply, "I do not
+deserve it".[687] His services in the Attorney-General's Department
+seem to have been adequately paid, and one is glad the matter was not
+pressed. The hospital ministry could not have been remunerated by an
+"invalid pension"; it was given as a free gift, and now it will always
+remain so.
+
+[Illustration: MICKLE STREET, CAMDEN IN 1890: THE LITTLE HOUSE ON
+THE RIGHT IS WHITMAN'S]
+
+From time to time special efforts were made by his friends to remove
+any immediate pressure of financial anxiety. Whitman, who was on the
+one hand generous to a fault, and on the other not without a pride
+which consented with humiliation to receive some of the gifts bestowed,
+manifested a boyish delight in money of his own earning, and it did his
+friends good to see his merriment over the dollars taken--six hundred
+of them[688]--at his Lincoln lecture of 1886 in the Chestnut Street
+Opera House. By way of profit-sharing he insisted on presenting each of
+the theatre attendants with two dollars.
+
+The repetition of the lecture in New York the following spring, at the
+Madison Square Theatre, before a brilliant company of distinguished
+people, including Mr. James Russell Lowell, "Mark Twain," Mr. Stedman,
+and Whitman's staunch admirer, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, brought him a
+similar sum;[689] while Colonel Ingersoll's lecture for his benefit in
+1890 was yet more productive, and the birthday dinners also contributed
+something to his funds. But the mention of these financial matters must
+not be construed into a pre-occupation with the subject in the old
+man's later years; it troubled his friends far more than it troubled
+him.
+
+After the gift of the horse and waggon, Mr. W. S. Kennedy and others
+planned to provide Whitman with a cottage at Timber Creek.[690] The
+idea delighted him; he craved for the pure air and the living solitude
+of the woods. But his health became too uncertain for the realisation
+of the scheme, and the remainder of his days was spent in Camden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little house in quiet, grassy Mickle Street,[691] standing modestly
+between its taller neighbours, with the brass plate, "W. Whitman," on
+the door, and the mounting-stone opposite, was becoming a place of
+frequent pilgrimage, and it has often been lovingly described.
+
+During the earlier years, Walt's favourite seat was at the left-hand
+lower window, and there the children would call out to him, and
+he would answer brightly as they went by to school. The walls and
+mantel-shelf were covered with portraits, and as to the books and
+papers, so long as he used the room, it was beyond the wit of any woman
+to keep them within bounds. But it was afterwards, when he was more
+confined to his bedroom, that they fairly broke loose.
+
+He seems to have enjoyed this native disorder, for in the big, square,
+three-windowed upper room they occupied not only the shelves and chairs
+and table but the floor itself. "His boots," says a friend--who, when
+Mrs. Davis was out, used to effect an entrance at the window to save
+her host descending the stairs--"his boots would be standing on piles
+of manuscript on a chair, a half-empty glass of lemonade or whiskey
+toddy on another, his ink-bottle on still another, his hat on the
+floor, and the whole room filled with an indescribable confusion of
+scraps of paper scrawled over with his big writing, with newspapers,
+letters and books. He was not at all eager to have order restored, and
+used to grumble in a good-natured way when I insisted upon clearing
+things up a bit for him."[692]
+
+He liked to think and speak of the room as his den or cabin; it was
+his own place, and bustling with his own affairs.[693] Here were his
+old-time companionable books: the complete Scott of his youth, and a
+volume of poets which he used in the hospitals; his friend Mr. E. C.
+Stedman's _Library of American Literature_; studies of Spanish and
+German poets, and Felton's _Greece_; translations of Homer, Dante,
+Omar Khayyam, Hafiz, Saadi; Mr. Rolleston's _Epictetus_--a constant
+friend--Marcus Aurelius and Virgil; with Ossian, Emerson, Tennyson and
+Carlyle, and some novels, especially a translation of George Sand's
+_Consuelo_; and last, and best read of all, Shakespeare and the Bible.
+The book of Job was one of his prime favourites in the beloved volume
+which was always by him in later years.
+
+Perilously mingled with the papers was wood for his stove, over whose
+crackling warmth he would sit in the cold weather, ensconced in his
+great rattan-seated, broad-armed rocker, with the wolf-skin over it;
+his keen scent relishing the odour of oak-wood and of the printer's ink
+on the wet proofs which surrounded him.
+
+Visitors usually waited in the room below for his slow and heavy step
+upon the stairs. There the canary sang its best, as though to be
+caged in Whitman's house was not confinement after all; and a bunch
+of fragrant flowers stood on the window-sill. A kitten romped about
+the premises, which were inhabited besides by a parrot, a robin, and a
+spotted "plum-pudding" dog; not to mention Mrs. Davis, and eventually
+her two stepsons. One of these, Warren Fritzinger, who had been a
+sailor and three times round the world, afterwards became Walt's nurse,
+while his brother Harry called his first child Walt Whitman, to the old
+man's delight.
+
+Among the visitors was a young Japanese journalist, who
+afterwards published an amusing but ill-advised record of their
+conversations,[694] a document which seems to the English mind somewhat
+more injudicious than other Whitmanite publications, which certainly
+do not err on the side of reticence. After his first visit, Mr.
+Hartmann maintains that Walt shouted after him, "come again," and this
+injunction from time to time he fulfilled, naïvely recording his own
+desperate attempts to cope with the long silences which threatened
+to overwhelm his forlorn sallies into all conceivable regions of
+conversation.
+
+The older man would sit absent-mindedly, replying with an ejaculation
+or abruptly clipped phrase, or impossible sentence; but chiefly with
+his monosyllabic "Oy! oy?" which served, with a slight inflection, for
+almost any purpose of response. They say that Whitman grew garrulous,
+or at least less laconic, in his old age;[695] but Mr. Hartmann hardly
+found him so.
+
+One day, when Mrs. Davis was absent, they lunched together on "canned
+lobster" and Californian claret in the kitchen. The sun shone on the
+grass in the little back garden, on the pear-tree half-smothered in its
+creeper, and the high boarded fence; and on the hens, poking in and out
+through the open door, and recalling the old farm life at West Hills.
+Whitman talked of the West, and of Denver, his queen-city of the West.
+
+Over another similar meal, he declared his love for the _Heart of
+Midlothian_, and his distaste for the gloomy poets from Byron to
+Poe. They discussed music among their many topics. Mr. Hartmann
+declared himself a Wagnerian, but Whitman confessed his ignorance of
+the "music of the future"; Mendelssohn, of course, he knew; and in
+later life he had discovered Beethoven as a new meaning in music, and
+had been carried out of himself, as he says, seeing, absorbing many
+wonders.[696] But he was brought up on the Italians; it was from Verdi
+and his predecessors, interpreted by Alboni, Bettini and others, that
+he had learnt the primal meanings of music, and they always retained
+his affection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About the middle of May,[697] 1887, a sculptor, who had already studied
+Whitman in the Centennial year, came on from Washington to Mickle
+Street. Mrs. Davis sided some of the litter in the parlour; and the old
+man sat for him there as amiably as ten years before in the improvised
+studio on Chestnut Street.
+
+They talked much of the President, on a portrait of whom Mr. Morse
+had been working. Whitman had a high opinion of Mr. Cleveland, and
+displayed a lively interest in all the personal details his friend
+could supply.
+
+During the sittings Herbert Gilchrist arrived from England, where his
+mother had died of a painful disease some eighteen months earlier; and
+he set up his easel also. Callers came from far and near; while dozens
+of children entered with a word or message from the street, and older
+folk looked in at the window.
+
+Whitman was not very well even for him, and he missed his solitude. But
+he was a delightful and courteous host. The three men often lunched
+together, while several English visitors--taking Whitman on their tour
+even though they missed Niagara[698]--sat down to a bite of beef, a
+piece of apple-pie, and a cup of tea poured out by the reverend host in
+the hot little kitchen.
+
+Good Mrs. Davis watched her old charge and friend with some anxiety,
+as this constant stream of visitors flowed in and out; but she herself
+rose more than equal to every emergency. She had for lieutenant a
+coloured char-woman, born the same day as Whitman, who felt herself
+for that reason responsible in no ordinary degree for the general
+appearance of the premises. The sculptor and she often found themselves
+in conflict. As for his clay, she disdained it along with the whole
+genus of "dirt". She succeeded in white-washing the delightful
+moss-covered fence, and would, he felt sure, have liked to treat both
+him and his work in the same summary fashion. They debated theological
+problems together, to Whitman's amusement, and he would have it that
+Aunt Mary came out of these encounters better than the artist.
+
+"How does your Satan get work to do," the latter would ask, "if God
+doeth all?"
+
+"Never you fear for _him_," she retorted. "He's allers a-prowlin'
+around lookin' fer a chance when God's back is turned. There ain't a
+lazy hair on _his_ head. I wish," she added significantly, "I could say
+as much for some others."[699]
+
+Beside Aunt Mary other characters appear upon the pages of his friends'
+journals; notably a garrulous, broad-brimmed Georgian farmer, who had
+served in the Confederate army. He was the father of a large family,
+which he had brought up on the _Leaves_. As for himself, he had the
+book by heart, and was never so happy as when reciting his favourite
+passages at Sunday School treat or Church meeting. He knew Emerson's
+writings with almost equal intimacy, but complained that these set his
+soul nagging after him, while Whitman's were soothing to it. With Walt
+he declared that he loafed and invited his soul; with Waldo, his soul
+became importunate and invited him.[700]
+
+Meanwhile, he admitted, his farm ran more to weeds than it should.
+Doubtless, during his pilgrimage the weeds prospered exceedingly; for
+he stayed long, and sad to say, in the end he went away a "leetle
+disappointed". "I have to sit and admire him at a distance," he
+complained, "about as I did at home before I came." Walt liked him,
+and was amused by his talk, but his advice, his criticism and his
+interpretations to boot, were overmuch for a weary man.
+
+There came one day a "labour agitator," who required an introduction
+or testimonial of some sort from Whitman; and he also went away
+disappointed. In answer to all his loud-flowing, self-satisfied
+declarations, Whitman merely ejaculated his occasional colourless
+monosyllable; and when at last the discomfited man took his leave,
+the poet's absent-minded "Thanks!" was more ludicrously and baldly
+opportune than intentional.[701]
+
+Humorous as they appeared at the time, there was another side to
+interviews of this character; for it began to be noised about that
+Whitman was quite spoilt by his rich friends, and had lost his interest
+in and sympathy with the American working-man. This was due, of course,
+to a complete misunderstanding. The old fellow who lived in his "little
+shack" on Mickle Street, and dined in Germantown in his cardigan
+jacket, might have a world-reputation, but he was not forgetful of the
+people from among whom he sprang and to whom he always belonged.
+
+At the same time it is true, as we saw, that he did not himself profess
+to understand or to approve the party organisation of labour. He was
+rather inclined to sit in his corner and have faith, and to listen
+to what the younger men had to say. In any case, he saw no remedy for
+present troubles in the exploitation of class feeling; he could see no
+help in urging the battle between two forms of selfishness.
+
+Generosity and manhood were his constant watchwords, whether for labour
+or for the nation. No circumstances, he would say, sitting in his room
+broken by the suffering of years, can deprive a hero of his manhood.
+But he would add his conviction that the Republic must be in peril as
+long as any of her sons were being forced to the wall, and his wish
+that each "should have all that is just and best for him".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sculptor and his sitter had many a long evening chat together, the
+shadows of the passers-by cast by the street light and moving across
+the blind. The old man's mellow and musical, but somewhat uncertain,
+voice filled at these times with a confidential charm.
+
+One night he wrote out a tentative statement of his general views,
+declaring for Free-trade, and for the acknowledgment of the full
+human and political equality of women with men. He regarded the world
+as being too much governed, but he was not against institutions in
+the present stage of evolution, for he said that he looked on the
+family and upon marriage as the basis of all permanent social order.
+He seems to have disliked and even condemned the practices of the
+American Fourierist "Free-lovers,"[702] though Love's real freedom is
+always cardinal in his teachings. Anything like a laxity in fulfilling
+obligations, but especially the ultimate obligations of the soul, was
+abhorrent to him.
+
+He was not a critic of institutions; and he accepted the work of the
+churches and of rationalism as alike valuable to humanity. He added to
+his statement various personal details; saying, half-interrogatively,
+that he thought if he was to be reported at all, it was right that
+he should be reported truthfully. This feeling was undoubtedly very
+strong with him from the day when he wrote anonymous appreciations of
+the _Leaves_ in the New York press.[703]
+
+Talk turned sometimes to the Washington days, to Lincoln's yearning
+passion for the South, to the affectionate admiration felt by the
+Union veterans for the men and boys who fought under Lee, and to the
+terrible rigidity of the Southern pride. Such talk would often end in
+reminiscences of the hospitals; and Whitman told his friend that he
+would like him to cut a bas-relief showing Walt seated by a soldier's
+cot in the wards. It had been his most characteristic pose, if one may
+use the word; and such a study would have shown him at his own work,
+the work in which he was most at home, surrounded by the boys who were
+his flesh and blood.[704]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[676] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 651.
+
+[677] Kennedy, 17.
+
+[678] Donaldson, Kennedy, and MSS. Diary.
+
+[679] MSS. Diary.
+
+[680] Kennedy, 64.
+
+[681] Donaldson, 61.
+
+[682] Kennedy, 15, 53; MSS. Diary.
+
+[683] _In re_, 129.
+
+[684] Donaldson, MSS. Diary.
+
+[685] Kennedy, 24.
+
+[686] Donaldson, 170; Kennedy, 23, 24.
+
+[687] MSS. Kennedy.
+
+[688] Donaldson, 109; Kennedy, 6.
+
+[689] Kennedy, 29.
+
+[690] _Ib._, 54.
+
+[691] Johnson, 18; Kennedy; Donaldson; _Comp. Prose_, 520.
+
+[692] MSS. Berenson (_a_).
+
+[693] _In re_, 137, etc.
+
+[694] _Conversations with W. W._, by "Sadakichi," 1895.
+
+[695] Johnston, 92, 93.
+
+[696] _Comp. Prose_, 151; _cf._ Camden, xxxiii.
+
+[697] _In re_, 367.
+
+[698] _In re_, 374.
+
+[699] _Ib._, 375, 376.
+
+[700] _In re_, 376, 377.
+
+[701] _Ib._, 379.
+
+[702] MSS. Johnston.
+
+[703] See _supra_, 109.
+
+[704] _In re_, 390.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"GOOD-BYE, MY FANCY"
+
+
+During the first years of his sojourn among them, some of the young
+men of Camden had founded a Walt Whitman Club;[705] and year by year a
+group of intimate friends was springing up about his own door.
+
+Chief of these was Mr. Horace Traubel, whose life became so
+inextricably interwoven with Whitman's last years that he has
+rightly been called the old poet's spiritual son. He was one of the
+first of Walt's Camden acquaintances. How or when they met, neither
+could remember; looking back to the summer evenings when the lame,
+white-haired man and the fair lad sat together on the steps of the
+Stevens Street house, it seemed as though they had always been
+friends.[706]
+
+Another of the group was Mr. T. B. Harned,[707] Traubel's
+brother-in-law, an able lawyer and lover of books, whose house became
+a second home for Whitman after the removal from Philadelphia of his
+friends the Pearsall Smiths. These two gentlemen, with Dr. Bucke,
+eventually became Whitman's executors; better than anything else, this
+shows the confidence which their old friend reposed in them.
+
+On his sixty-ninth birthday--Friday, 31st May, 1888--his Camden friends
+and others met him at dinner at Mr. Harned's.[708] Two days later he
+was there again, and Dr. Bucke, arriving unexpectedly, was of the
+party.
+
+Walt had come in his carriage, and afterwards drove the doctor to the
+ferry. Thence he made his way to a point where, urging his horse into
+the river, he had nothing but water and sky before him, all filled
+with the sunset glory. He sat for an hour absorbing it in a sort of
+ecstasy.[709]
+
+Returning home, he felt that he had been chilled, and recognised
+intimations of a paralytic attack--the seventh--[710] as he went to
+bed. He quietly resisted this alone. In the morning he had two more
+slight strokes, and for the first time temporarily lost the power of
+speech.
+
+This was Monday, and all through the week he lay close to death. Dr.
+Bucke had returned, his friends entertaining no hopes of his recovery.
+But the end was not yet.
+
+Even in the midst of the uncertainty he was determined to complete the
+work he had in hand. Every day he contrived to get downstairs, and
+every evening he turned over the proof-sheets of a new volume, which
+Horace Traubel brought with him from the printer's on his way back
+from the city. From this time on, Traubel was his daily visitor, his
+faithful and assiduous aid.[711]
+
+Slowly the old man began again to improve, but he never regained the
+lost ground. His friends found him paler than of old, with new lines
+on his face, and a heavier expression of weariness.[712] The horse and
+carriage were no longer of service, and had to be sold; in the autumn
+a nurse and wheel-chair took their place. The increased confinement
+troubled him most of all, so that he became jealous of the tramp with
+his outdoor life.
+
+[Illustration: FAC-SIMILES OF POST-CARDS FROM WHITMAN TO MRS. BERENSON,
+1887-8]
+
+Altogether, as he wrote to his friends, though holding the fort--"sort
+o'"--he was "a pretty complete physical wreck".[713] O'Connor, too,
+was now paralysed and near his end; the two old friends, similarly
+stricken, were once again exchanging greetings, though separated now by
+a whole continent. In O'Connor's case, however, the brain itself was
+also giving way. Walt followed all the illness of him who had been in
+some respects his best comrade with pathetic interest, until, returning
+from California to Washington, the broken flesh gave freedom at last to
+the man's fiery spirit.[714]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whitman grew somewhat more querulous in these later days, with the
+increase of pain and discomfort;[715] for from this time on one may
+almost say that he was slowly dying. Not that he complained or was
+inconsiderate, but little things caused him greater irritation, though
+only for a moment.
+
+Nothing is more notable in Whitman's nature than the short duration of
+his fits of quick-flaming wrath.[716] They flashed out from him in a
+sudden word, and passed, leaving no trace of bitterness or resentment
+behind.
+
+An example of this is afforded by his behaviour toward the unexpected
+and vehement assault upon him by a former admirer, Mr. Swinburne.
+Having once acclaimed Whitman as the _cor cordium_ of the singers of
+freedom,[717] he now consigned him to the category of the Tuppers;
+opining that, with a better education, he might perhaps have attained
+to a rank above Elliott the Corn-Law rhymer, but below the laureate
+Southey. According to Mr. Swinburne's revised estimate, Whitman was in
+short no true poet; and as for his ideal of beauty, it was not only
+vulgar but immoral. The attack roused Whitman to snap out, "Isn't
+he the damnedest simulacrum?" but that was all.[718] The affair was
+dismissed, and he only regretted that, for his own sake, Swinburne had
+not risen higher.
+
+The rather contemptuous reference to Whitman's deficient education
+recalls the first criticism passed upon the _Leaves_. Their author was
+gravely commended to the study of Addison,[719] and to tell the truth,
+this has been about the last word of a large number of academic persons
+from that day to this. Their advice, when acted upon, nearly ruined
+Robert Burns; it had little effect upon Whitman, though it was not
+neglected.
+
+But Mr. Swinburne's attack reminds one also of something more important
+even than "Addison"; the antithesis and opposition which exists between
+two great orders of poets, of which his friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti
+and Whitman himself may be taken as the types. The _Blessed Damozel_
+is in another world from any page of the _Leaves_; and there is almost
+nothing which the two poets seem to share. Mr. Swinburne did good
+service, in so far as he pointed the contrast; but he confused it by
+declaiming against the prophet, and extolling the sonneteer.
+
+The field may not so be limited; the exile of Byron, Emerson and
+Carlyle from the brotherhood of poets, though proclaimed by Mr.
+Swinburne, can hardly be enforced. For as Whitman has suggested,[720]
+there are, inevitably, two kinds of great poetry: one corresponding, as
+it were, to the song of the Nightingale, and another to the flight of
+the Eagle. He himself has nothing of the infinitely allusive grace of
+the former, the sonnet-twining interpreters of the romantic past, the
+painters of subtle dream-beauties and fair women whose faces are the
+faces of unearthly flowers wrought purely of the passions of dead men.
+
+But they again have nothing of his appeal to the heroic and kingly
+spirit that confronts the equally romantic future, grappling with
+world-tragedies and creating the new beauty of passions hitherto
+unborn. Doubtless the greatest poets unite these two orders,
+reconciling them in their own persons; but such are the very greatest
+of all time. I do not think that Whitman himself would have admitted a
+claim on his behalf to be counted among them.[721]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sheets he had been correcting with Traubel's aid, in the crisis of
+his illness, were those of _November Boughs_, a volume composed, like
+_Two Rivulets_, of prose and verse. It appeared in November, 1888.
+Among its prose papers are sympathetic studies of Burns and of Elias
+Hicks, with an appreciation of George Fox.[722] There are also many
+reminiscences, notably of the Old Bowery Theatre, and of New Orleans;
+and most interesting of all, a biographical study of the origins and
+purpose of the _Leaves_ themselves.
+
+This _Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads_[723] has far more of modesty
+in it than his earlier writings, which were necessarily occupied with
+self-assertion. In his old age he shows himself a little alarmed at
+his more youthful readiness to take up the challenge which he had seen
+Democracy and Science throwing down to Poetry. He recognises with
+clearer vision than many of his friends, his own weakness in poetic
+technique, and the experimental nature of his work in poetry. But he
+does not pretend to doubt its importance; for, as he avers, it is the
+projection of a new and American attitude of mind. He is not without
+confidence also, that his book will prove a comfort to others, since it
+has been the main comfort of his own solitary life--and he believes it
+will be found a stimulus to the American nation of his love.
+
+The poems of the new collection are all brief and many of them are
+descriptive. For the rest, they are mainly the assertions of a jocund
+heart defying the ice-cold, frost-bound winter of old-age, and
+waiting for the sure-following spring. Meanwhile, he enjoys the inner
+mysteries, and the enforced quiet of these later days, these starry
+nights; living, as he quaintly says, in "the early candlelight of
+old-age".[724] To him they sometimes seem to be the best, the halcyon
+days of all.
+
+    Not from successful love alone,
+    Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or
+      war;
+    But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
+    As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
+    As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier,
+      balmier air,
+    As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs
+      really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
+    Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
+    The brooding and blissful halcyon days![725]
+
+He often reviews his past, so seemingly purposeless and incoherent,
+and yet so profoundly urged from its source within toward the unseen
+goal. Still before him, he sees endless vistas of the eternal purpose.
+The secret souls of things speak to him; the restless sea betrays the
+unsatisfied passion of the Earth's great heart;[726] the rain bears
+love back with it to the mountains whence it came.[727] Everything
+instructs him, for he remains eager to learn--criticism and rejection
+at least as much as acceptance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sometimes the long process of dying--the painfully prolonged separating
+of a Body and Soul which were more intimately wedded than are
+others--leaves its mark upon the page; as in a brief note where he
+states simply that his solemn experiences at this period are unlikely
+to occur in any other human life.[728] He felt himself solitary even
+in his pain. But this was a solitude hallowed and supported by the
+Everlasting Arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though often sleepless and suffering, he kept, upon the whole, a cheery
+business about him, working to the end. But silence now predominated
+in his days, and his craving for it increased. In the evening, Traubel
+would come in and sit beside him, watching his face profiled against
+the evening light. He had grown to feel the old man's mood, and had
+learnt to say nothing. After an hour or two he had his reward; Walt
+would bid him good-bye with a smile, saying, "What a good talk we've
+had". For neither of them wanted words.
+
+Through the winter and spring of 1888 to 1889 he remained house-tied,
+anchored in his big chair by the fire; "every month letting the pegs
+lower," he wrote to his friends.[729] But in June he got out and about
+in his wheel-chair, and in August crossed the ferry to be photographed,
+immensely delighted at the evidences of gaiety and prosperity which
+met him everywhere. America, he would say, is laying great material
+foundations; the sky-climbing towers will arise in good time.
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT SEVENTY]
+
+The birthday dinner, which he did not altogether approve,[730] became
+this year a public function, and was held in the largest of the Camden
+halls.[731] He was seventy, and the day was but doubtfully propitious.
+However, he would not disappoint his friends, and arrived when the meal
+was over.
+
+He looked weary, as well he might, but the human contact and the
+atmosphere of love and fellowship warmed and refreshed him. The
+messages of congratulation came from far and from many, from William
+Morris among the rest. Walt wore a black coat, which was almost
+unprecedented, and hid himself behind a great bowl of flowers, enjoying
+their colour and scent, sipping at his champagne, and tapping applause
+with the bottle whenever he approved a sentiment. One remembers how
+he used to detest and escape from all lionising, and to-night, after
+the praises and the enthusiasm were concluded, he said laughingly to
+his nurse that it was very well, but there was too much "gush and
+taffy".[732]
+
+That spring he had been too ill to celebrate the Lincoln anniversary,
+but in the following, after a struggle with influenza, he delivered it
+for the last--the thirteenth--time.
+
+Hoarse and half-blind, he crossed the river,[733] assisted everywhere
+by willing hands, and with great difficulty climbed the long stairs to
+the room on South Broad Street, where Horace Traubel's Contemporary
+Club held its meetings. Refusing introduction, he took his seat on the
+platform, put on his glasses, and got immediately to business, reading
+with a melodious voice and easy manner.
+
+He was over in the city again for his next birthday celebration, and
+after the dinner, Colonel Ingersoll made a long, impassioned tribute to
+his friend.[734] The comradeship between them was strong and satisfying
+to both; Whitman was always in better spirits after a call from the
+colonel. "He is full of faults and mistakes," he said once to an
+English friend, "but he is an example in literature of natural growth
+as a tree"; adding, "he gives out always from himself."[735]
+
+Their attitude toward questions of religion was often antagonistic, and
+on this occasion, after the speech, Whitman made a sort of rejoinder.
+While gratefully acknowledging his friend's appreciation of _Leaves of
+Grass_, he pointed out that Ingersoll had stopped short of the main
+matter, for the book was crammed with allusions to immortality, and was
+bound together by the idea of purpose, resident in the heart of all
+and realising itself in the material universe. He turned to Ingersoll,
+demanding, "Unless there is a definite object for it all, what, in
+God's name, is it all for?" And Ingersoll, shaking his head, replied,
+"I can't tell. And if there is a purpose, and if there is a God, what
+is it all for? I can't tell. It looks like nonsense to me, either way."
+
+From this intellectual agnosticism no argument could dislodge a mind
+like Ingersoll's, for noble as it was, it was limited by its own logic,
+and to logic alone, working with the material of merely intellectual
+knowledge, the universe must inevitably remain a riddle. Whitman,
+recognising a more perfect faculty of reason, and cognisant of a field
+of transcendent knowledge which Ingersoll had never known, was able to
+realise a purpose in this, which to Ingersoll seemed only nonsense.
+
+For the divinely creative imagination, when it is awakened, discovers
+in all things the meanings of creative thought. And personality, when
+in its supreme hours it transcends the limitations of human knowledge,
+and enters the consciousness of the Whole, discovers the meaning of
+immortality, and the indestructibility of the soul. Such flights are
+naturally impossible to the pedestrian faculties of the mind.
+
+Ingersoll spoke again in Philadelphia, in the same vein and on the
+same subject, in October.[736] He had a large audience of perhaps two
+thousand persons in the Horticultural Hall, and Whitman was present on
+the platform.
+
+Taking up his subject somewhat in the manner of O'Connor in the _Good
+Gray Poet_, the orator denounced the hypocrisy and parochialism of
+American opinion, and proclaimed the Divine right of the liberator,
+genius. He justified "Children of Adam," and gave in his adherence to
+the theory of free rhythm which is exemplified in the _Leaves_.
+
+Alluding to the subject of their discussion after the recent dinner at
+Reisser's, he declared it impossible for him to make any assertion of
+immortality; but admitted that Hope, replying to the question of Love
+over the grave, might proclaim that "before all life is death, and
+after death is life".
+
+After the fine, but, in cold type at least, the over-florid peroration
+descriptive of the atmosphere of Whitman's work, the applause was dying
+away, and the people rising to go, when the old poet signalled for them
+to be detained, and saying that he was there himself to offer the final
+testimony to and explanation of his writings, if they would look at him
+and understand, he gave thanks to them and to the orator, and bade them
+all farewell.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, FROM A PRINT]
+
+The whole scene presents a curiously suggestive picture. And Whitman's
+situation was a most singular one. His friends had arranged a benefit
+lecture on the _Leaves_ by the most eloquent eulogist in America. It is
+true the book is not identical with Whitman, but it would be difficult
+to separate the _Leaves_ from the man. And here was the man, apparently
+of his own free will, receiving the eulogy and applause in person and
+the gate-money by deputy.
+
+The pious Philadelphians had expressed their disapproval of the
+lecturer,[737] his iconoclastic fervour and agnosticism, by refusing
+him the use of the most commodious hall, and their opposition had
+encouraged Walt to stand at his friend's side. But apart from this, his
+presence illustrates some of the characteristics of his nature, his
+child-like and sometimes terrible love of directness in the relations
+of life, and his frank eagerness for appreciation.
+
+We have seen already that he could learn from criticism, and there is
+a story of Dr. Bucke's which is too good to omit, though it entails a
+slight digression. It was against the awkwardness, not the severity, of
+his literary surgeons that he would protest with a quiet humour. After
+one of their operations, more painful than usual, in his slow, slightly
+nasal drawl, he related how a Quaker was once set on by a robber in
+a wood. The fellow knocked his passive victim to the ground, rifled
+him thoroughly, and "pulling out a long knife proceeded to cut his
+throat. The knife was dull, the patience of the poor Quaker almost
+exhausted. 'Friend,' said he to the robber, 'I do not object to thee
+cutting my throat, but thee haggles.'"[738]
+
+But while accepting blame with serenity, he yet preferred praise;
+understanding praise above all, though even ignorant praise was hardly
+unwelcome. Praise not directly of himself, be it understood--that often
+made him uncomfortable;[739] but of the book, his _alter ego_, his
+child. For the book was, besides, a Cause, and that the noblest; and
+even vain applauding of it sounded, in the old man's ears, like the
+tramp of the hosts of progress; in whose ranks there must needs follow,
+let us admit, a number of enthusiastic fools.
+
+Of such, certainly, Ingersoll was not one. He saw in the book much of
+what Whitman had put there; and especially he understood how it had
+been written under the stress of an emotion which finds its symbol in
+that banner of the blue and stars, which he so happily described as
+"the flag of Nature".[740]
+
+Other men have given themselves out to be a Christ, or a John the
+Baptist, or an Elijah; Whitman, without their fanaticism, but with a
+profound knowledge of himself, recognised in a peasant-born son of
+Mannahatta, an average American artisan, the incarnation of America
+herself. "He is Democracy," quoth Thoreau;[741] and when he sat with
+a pleased indifference under the eloquent stream of Ingersoll's
+panegyric, he was only testifying anew to his whole-hearted, glad
+willingness to give himself, body and mind, for the interpretation
+of America to her children. But none the less, it was a singular
+situation; and, doubtless, Whitman, who was not by any means obtuse,
+felt it to be such.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His last birthday dinner was held in the lower room at Mickle Street
+after a winter of illness--"the main abutments and dykes shattered and
+threatening to give out"[742]--broken by an occasional saunter in his
+wheelchair with the welcome sight of some four-masted schooner on the
+river, and by the visits of his friends.
+
+He was still himself, however. An English admirer had recently been
+astounded to find the irrepressible attractive power of the old
+man.[743] He was brought downstairs, weak, after a bad day, to meet
+some thirty of his friends.
+
+Walt himself started the proceedings with a toast to the memory of
+Bryant, Emerson and Longfellow, and to Tennyson and Whittier, living
+yet;[744] for the fact that Whittier strongly disapproved of the
+_Leaves_ in no way separated him from Whitman's affectionate esteem.
+Rejoicing over his big family gathering, he wistfully remembered the
+absent. Doyle had not been to the house for many months.[745] Perhaps
+he was a little jealous of new friends, and resented even being thought
+of as a stranger by Mrs. Davis. O'Connor was dead, and so was Mrs.
+Gilchrist, and there were many others not less dear. Some who were far
+away sent their greetings, Tennyson and Symonds among the rest; and
+there were the usual warm congratulatory speeches.
+
+The host was sometimes absent-minded, and sometimes, according to the
+record, oddly garrulous. But the talk about the table was often of
+the deepest interest. Dr. Bucke was present, and Whitman and he had a
+friendly bout over _Leaves of Grass_. The poet would not accept the
+doctor's interpretation, or indeed, any other's, saying that the book
+must have its own way with its readers. It was simply the revelation of
+the man himself, "the personal critter," as he would phrase it.
+
+Dr. Bucke made some interesting reference to the elements of evil
+passion which he detected in his old friend's make-up; "the elements of
+a Cenci or an Attila". And Whitman quite simply admitted that he was
+not sure that he understood himself.
+
+A touch of humour was never long absent where Whitman was found. Some
+audacious devotee asked him why he had never married; and Walt rambled
+off into an explanation, which, after alluding to the "Nibelungen--or
+somebody--'s cat with an immensely long, long, long tail to it,"
+and again to the obscurities that confront the biographer of Burns,
+concluded that the matter in question was probably by no means
+discreditable, though inexplicable enough, except in the light of his
+whole life.
+
+The questioner remained standing--he was very enthusiastic--and had
+more to follow. But as he began to recite "Captain! my Captain!" a
+stray dog which had entered at the open door provided a melancholy
+and irresistible accompaniment, convulsing those present in their own
+despite until the tears ran down their cheeks.[746]
+
+Finally, Whitman made an interesting political statement. He condemned
+as false the protectionist idea of "America for the Americans"; and
+asserted as the basic political principle, the interdependence of all
+peoples, and their openness to one another for purposes of exchange.
+The common people of all races are embarked together like fellows on a
+ship, he said; what wrecks one, wrecks all. The ultimate truth about
+the human race is its solidarity of interest. Then he was tired, and
+calling for his stick and his nurse, he blessed them all and went
+slowly upstairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the last of his birthday dinners. He was seventy-two, very old
+in body, and very weary. But he was still bright and affectionate
+toward the friends who continued to come great distances to greet him.
+A group at Bolton sent two representatives in the years 1890 and 1891,
+whose records of their visits are suffused with wonder at the old
+poet's courtesy and loving consideration and comradely demonstrations
+of personal feeling.[747] He was a little anxious lest his English
+friends should misapprehend his character: "Don't let them think of me
+as a saint or a finished anything," was the burden of his messages to
+them, always accompanied by his love.
+
+He spoke warmly of the English, comparing them favourably at times with
+their cousins across the sea, and saying that they represented the
+deeper and more lasting qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race; they were
+like the artillery of its army.[748] The welcome from English readers
+had astonished and delighted him. In 1887 he contemplated a visit to
+Great Britain;[749] and he sometimes seems even to have toyed with
+the idea of an English home. One can be more Democratic there than in
+America, he had once declared.[750]
+
+Of his own later years, he said to Mr. J. W. Wallace, who called
+frequently during the late autumn of 1891, "I used to feel ... that I
+was to irradiate or emanate buoyancy and health. But it came to me in
+time, that I was not to attempt to live to the reputation I had, or to
+my own idea of what my programme should be; but to give out and express
+what I really was; and, if I felt like the devil, to say so; and I have
+become more and more confirmed in this."[751] Whitman has so often been
+accused of a self-conscious pose, that this partial acknowledgment that
+such a pose had existed is full of interest; an interest accentuated by
+the statement that he deliberately abandoned it in his later years.
+
+Talking was at this time often an effort; the heavy feeling in his
+head, which had become more and more frequent since his first illness,
+increased till he compared his brain to "sad dough," or "an apple
+dumpling". At times, when he was really prostrated, his head was "like
+ten devils".[752]
+
+The portrait prefixed to his last little book, is that of some
+patriarch, bent under a world-weight of experience. The volume,
+_Good-bye, my Fancy_, appeared in the winter--sixty pages of
+fragmentary notes and rhythms of pathetic interest. He called them
+his "last chirps".[753] It opens on a rather deprecatory note, but is
+touched here and there with wistful humour.
+
+[Illustration: WHITMAN AT SEVENTY-TWO]
+
+The preface,[754] written two summers before, describes him as moved
+by the sunshine to the playfulness of a kid, a kitten or a frolicsome
+wave. He finds a grim satisfaction even in his present state, counting
+it as a part of his offering to the cause of the Union and America, for
+he has no doubt of its origin in the strain of the war-years. Of the
+war, and of his part in it, he now sees all his _Leaves_ as reminiscent.
+
+The prose memoranda are principally memorial of old friends, and
+familiar books and places, and are full of those generous appreciations
+which were a delightful feature of his later life. Among others, are
+tributes to Queen Victoria, to his friend Tennyson, and to the great
+American poets.[755]
+
+He returns again to his gospel of health,[756] as the message most
+needed in the world to-day; a message which would contrast with the cry
+of Carlyle or of Heine, or of almost any of the dwellers in that Europe
+which he sees afar off, as a sort of vast hospital or asylum ward. It
+has been his own single purpose to arouse the soul, the essential giver
+of Divine health, in his readers. His aim has always been religious;
+he foresees the coming of a new religion which shall embrace both
+the feminine beauty of Christianity and the masculine splendour of
+Paganism.[757]
+
+The poems are still in the vein of _November Boughs_. They are the
+utterance of certain belated elements in his life-experience, without
+which his book would be incomplete. Some review his past; others
+anticipate his future.
+
+The most important is the poem "To the Sunset Breeze,"[758] which is
+perhaps the highest expression of his mystical attitude toward nature.
+The breeze brings to this lonely, sick man, incapable of movement,
+the infinite message of God and of the world; it comes to him as a
+loving and holy companion, the distillation and essence of all material
+things, the most godly of spirits:--
+
+    Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,
+    (Distances balk'd--occult medicines penetrating me from head to
+      foot),
+    I feel the sky, the prairies vast--I feel the mighty northern lakes,
+    I feel the ocean and the forest--somehow I feel the globe itself
+      swift-swimming in space;
+    Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone--haply from endless store,
+      God-sent,
+    (For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense),
+    Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told,
+      and cannot tell,
+    Art thou not universal concrete's distillation? Law's, all
+      Astronomy's last refinement?
+    Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?
+
+One cannot doubt the feeling behind these passionate lines, or question
+the soul-contact which the old poet felt with the things we are
+complacently and ignorantly contented to regard as mere automata, moved
+by mechanical force. For Whitman, Nature was a soul; a soul, though
+strange and often seeming-hostile, yet beloved and really loving; a
+soul, whose infinite life is, without exception, seeking and groping
+after its divine source. He deliberately enumerates a catalogue of
+things evil to make the significance of his meaning clear.
+
+The title of the book is related, on the last page, to a curious
+thought which occupied his mind at this period. While the imagination
+which has prompted all his poems has not been exactly himself, it has
+become so intimately related to him that he cannot now conceive of
+himself existing after death unaccompanied by it; hence his _Good-bye,
+my Fancy_ is but a new welcome, a _vale atque ave_.[759]
+
+There are two more poems, not included in this volume, which seem to
+close his work. One, the last thing that he composed, was a final
+greeting to Columbus, who had become in his mind a type of the poet of
+the future.[760]
+
+The other, the last that I can note of these "concluding chirps,"[761]
+as he would call them, is a beautiful correction of the popular
+picture of death's valley. Before Whitman--and he of all men had a
+right to speak upon the subject, because he knew Death, as it were,
+personally--there spread out a very different landscape:--
+
+    Of the broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rippling
+      tides, and trees and flowers and grass,
+    And the low hum of living breeze--and in the midst God's beautiful
+      eternal right hand,
+    Thee, holiest minister of Heaven--thee, envoy, usherer, guide at
+      last of all,
+    Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot call'd life,
+    Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death.
+
+As his book-making thus drew to a finish, he occupied himself with
+his own tomb. This was being erected through the autumn of 1891 among
+the young beeches and hickories of a new cemetery, a few miles out of
+Camden. It was built of grey granite into the bank, and framed after a
+well-known design of Blake's.[762]
+
+At once plain but impressive, it is strikingly different from the
+poor little cottage in which he died. And the fact illustrates again
+Whitman's simple acceptance of realities. He knew that his grave must
+be a place of pilgrimage; and having brought the bones of his father
+and mother to lie beside his own, he gave all possible dignity, for the
+sake of the book and the cause, to this his last resting-place.
+
+While he was thus spending a considerable sum upon his tomb, the
+extra expenses entailed by his prolonged illness were being met,
+unknown to him, by the generosity of his Camden friends. After his
+death, his executors were surprised to find that there was in the bank
+a considerable reserve,[763] amounting to several hundred pounds,
+available for distribution between his sisters and his brother Edward,
+according to the terms of his will.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In mid-December, 1891, Whitman's right lung became congested, and when
+Dr. Bucke arrived on the 22nd the death-rattle had already been heard,
+and his immediate passing was anticipated.[764]
+
+At Christmas, John Burroughs came over, and found such an unconquered
+look upon the sufferer's face that the thought of death's nearness
+seemed impossible.[765] From St. Louis came Jessie Whitman, her father,
+Jefferson, having died a year earlier; and the colonel brother, who
+seems now to have removed from Camden, spent at least one anxious night
+in the little house. Mr. Johnston also came over from New York for
+a last sight of his old friend. But even with those nearest to him,
+interviews became more and more difficult. He longed for the solitude
+and silence which their love found it hardest to give.
+
+The wintry days at the junction of the years went by in suffering and
+patience. Walt was affectionately grateful for the intimate services of
+his nurse and of Horace Traubel; writing of the latter as "unspeakably
+faithful".[766] Though he was generally calm he was longing for
+death. He had dreadful hiccoughs, and grew colder and more emaciated.
+The suffering had become terrible, and the anticipation of its long
+continuance brought fear for the first time to his strong heart.
+
+[Illustration: HORACE TRAUBEL AT FORTY-FIVE]
+
+In mid-January, however, he rallied. The Fritzinger baby was born and
+called after him, and Walt had it brought in to be fondled upon his
+breast.[767] Colonel Ingersoll called, and his magnetic spontaneous
+presence and words of profound affection comforted and sustained his
+friend. Then, to his great satisfaction, the tenth edition of his
+works appeared,[768] and special copies were forwarded to his friends.
+He contrived to write brief notes to Dr. Bucke and to his favourite
+sister, telling them of the publication and of his condition.
+
+On the 6th and 7th of February he wrote a last pathetic letter, which
+was lithographed and sent out to many correspondents. The "little spark
+of soul" which, according to his own quaint version of a favourite
+saying of Epictetus, had during all these months been "dragging a
+great lummux of corpse-body clumsily to and fro around," was still
+glimmering. His friends were ever faithful, he says, and for his bodily
+state, "it is not so bad as you might suppose, only my sufferings
+much of the time are fearful". And he added, as a last dictum, the
+substance of his latest public thoughts--for he read the newspapers
+constantly to the last--"more and more it comes to the fore, that the
+only theory worthy our modern times, for great literature, politics and
+sociology, must combine all the best people of all lands, the women not
+forgetting".[769]
+
+His friend over-sea, Addington Symonds, was ill and depressed,[770]
+and George Stafford passed away at Glendale. He became yet more
+silent; looked over his letters and the journals; took and relished
+his brandy-punch and slept. Almost daily his pain increased, and the
+choking mucus. He was often in terrible exhaustion, and the long nights
+were almost unbearable. "Dear Walt," said his faithful friend, as he
+bent down and kissed him, "you do not realise what you have been to
+us"; and Walt rejoined feebly, "nor you, what you have been to me".[771]
+
+All through March the restlessness and agony increased. There seemed to
+be no parcel of his emaciated body which was not the lurking place of
+pain. The stubborn determination of his nature suffered the last throes
+of human agony before it would surrender. Thus he learnt the lesson of
+death as few have ever learnt it.
+
+Those who watched could do little but love him, and for that his
+dim eyes repaid them a thousandfold to the end. Without, the days
+were dismally bleak; snow lay heavily upon the earth, but in the big
+three-windowed room winter seemed still more fierce and dread.
+
+On the night of the 24th he was moved on to a water bed, which eased
+him. He tried to laugh when, as he turned him upon it and the water
+splashed around, Warry, the sailor-nurse, said it sounded like the
+waves upon a ship's flanks. The thought was full of suggestions and
+chimed with his own; but the mucus choked him into silence.
+
+Next day he was terribly weak, but restful, and that night he slept and
+seemed easier. On the following afternoon they saw that at last he was
+surrendering. He smiled and felt no longer any pain.[772] Warry moved
+him for the last time about six o'clock, and Walt acknowledged the
+change with gratitude. Half an hour later, holding Traubel's hand in
+his, he lapsed silently into the Unknown.
+
+It was growing dark, and the rain fell softly bearing its burden of
+love to the earth, and dripping from the eaves upon the side-walk. The
+noble ship had slipt its cable and gone forth upon "the never-returning
+tide".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whitman died on a Saturday night. On the Wednesday following, from
+eleven to two, the Mickle Street house was invaded by thousands of
+people of every age and class, who had come to take a last look at the
+familiar face. "It was the face of an aged, loving child," said one of
+them.[773]
+
+Among the rest came an old Washington comrade,[774] who was
+unrecognised by the policeman keeping order at the little door. No,
+said he, it is late, and the house is full already. With a bitter and
+broken heart, he was turning away bewildered from the place, when one
+of the others saw him and, heartily calling his name, led him in.
+
+How many, many thoughts surged through his brain, as he looked on
+that dear face, and poignantly remembered again the old days! How
+he reproached himself for the long lapses that had crept of late,
+half-observed, into their intimacy! Why had he not been here these
+months past, nursing and caring for one who had been dearer to him than
+his father? Why had he left him in his last agonies to hired helpers,
+however kind, and to new friends. Surely, he thought, the old are
+dearer--if they be true.
+
+He went out with the crowd to Harleigh, saw the strange ceremony, and
+heard, without understanding them, the fine words spoken. And then,
+refusing to be comforted, he escaped, walking home alone along the
+dusty roads--alone forever now--the tears coursing down his cheeks.
+
+But come! he would no longer waste the hours in vain reproaches. Walt,
+after all, understood. He had always understood, and felt the depth of
+love that sometimes seeks so false an expression in jealousy. Come now,
+he will live henceforward by the thought and in the unclouded love of
+his old Walt, once his and his now forever.
+
+Of course, he had not understood Walt, not as these scholars, these
+writers and poets understood him. But he had been "awful near to him,
+nights and days". And those letters of his! Sometimes he thought that
+in the passion of his young plain manhood, he had come nearer, yes,
+nearer than any other, to that great loving soul. And for my part, I am
+not sure that he was mistaken.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, in the new cemetery, out along Haddon Avenue beyond the
+Dominican Convent where dwell the Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary, they
+had buried the remains of Walt Whitman's body. The hillside above the
+pool had been covered with folk; and up on the beech-spray over the
+tomb, the first blue-bird had sung its plaintive-sweet promise of the
+breaking spring.[775]
+
+In the palm-decked white pavilion, with its open sides, the words of
+the old poet's Chant of Death had mingled with those of the Christ and
+of the Buddha, and with the half-choked sentences of living lovers and
+friends. "I felt as if I had been at the entombment of Christ," writes
+one; and another murmured, "We are at the summit".
+
+But the last words had been spoken by Ingersoll--"I loved him living,
+and I love him still".[776]
+
+[Illustration: THE TOMB AT HARLEIGH CEMETERY, 1904]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"To tell you the truth," writes one who knew him intimately, "I have
+never had the feeling that Walt Whitman was dead. I think of him as
+still there, capable of writing to me at any time, and my thoughts
+often turn to him for his friendly sympathy."[777]
+
+It is incredible that any being who has consciously entered upon that
+life of love which approves itself to the soul as God's own life, can
+be fundamentally affected by death. What our life is we know not, nor
+may we speak with any confidence of the nature of the change which we
+call death; but love we know, and in it, as Ingersoll rightly guessed,
+is the key to the riddle of mortality.
+
+
+THE END
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[705] Bucke, 53 n.
+
+[706] _In re_, 111.
+
+[707] _Ib._, 387.
+
+[708] _Ib._, 119; Kennedy, 31.
+
+[709] _In re_, 120; Kennedy, 32.
+
+[710] Undated news-cutting.
+
+[711] _In re_, 119; Kennedy, 58.
+
+[712] Kennedy, 32.
+
+[713] MSS. Carpenter.
+
+[714] Kennedy, 63; _Comp. Prose_, 511 n.
+
+[715] Johnston, 88.
+
+[716] _Cf._ Calamus, 29.
+
+[717] _Songs before Sunrise_, and _Blake, a Critical Essay_; _cf._
+_Fortnightly_, xlii., 170.
+
+[718] Kennedy, 29; Burroughs (_a_), 54.
+
+[719] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[720] _L. of G._, 425.
+
+[721] I cannot omit some reference to the brilliant and interesting
+criticism of Whitman by Mr. George Santayana, especially that contained
+in his _Poetry and Religion_, pp. 175-87, etc., though it is somewhat
+outside my proper field.
+
+Mr. Santayana, if I understand him aright, regards all mysticism
+as a form of spiritual loafing; he heartily discounts the more
+primal emotions as being "low" in the scale of evolution, and sets
+a correspondingly high premium upon all that is subtle and complex.
+Though he seeks to be just to his victim, his lack of sympathy is
+clearly evidenced in the cleverly rhetorical but quite unworthy passage
+(p. 180) wherein Whitman is described as having "wallowed in the stream
+of his own sensibility, as later, at Camden, in the shallows of his
+favourite brook". Such phrases may be funny, but I trust the preceding
+pages have shown that they are not true to the facts of Whitman's life.
+To reply to Mr. Santayana is obviously beyond my scope; and, even
+if I could undertake the task, it would entail upon the reader many
+laborious pages devoted to the study of æsthetic values. For I suspect,
+that, whichever of us may be right, our difference goes back to the
+beginning.
+
+[722] _Comp. Prose_, 426, 439, 457, 474.
+
+[723] _L. of G._, 488.
+
+[724] _L. of G._, 433.
+
+[725] _Ib._, 388.
+
+[726] _Ib._, 392.
+
+[727] _Ib._, 399.
+
+[728] _Ib._, 403 n.
+
+[729] Kennedy, 62; MSS. Berenson, etc.
+
+[730] MSS. Carpenter.
+
+[731] _Camden's Compliment._
+
+[732] Donaldson, 101.
+
+[733] _Comp. Prose_, 508; Kennedy, 35.
+
+[734] _In re_, 349-51; _Comp. Prose_, 509.
+
+[735] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[736] "Liberty in Literature," by R. G. I., 1891; Kennedy, 66; _In re_,
+252.
+
+[737] Kennedy, 38, 66.
+
+[738] _Whit. Fellowship_ (Bucke), _Memories of W. W._
+
+[739] _Cf._ Symonds, 3.
+
+[740] "Liberty in Literature."
+
+[741] Bucke, 188.
+
+[742] Kennedy, 67.
+
+[743] Johnston, 27.
+
+[744] _In re_, 297, 327.
+
+[745] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[746] Donaldson, 91.
+
+[747] Johnston and MSS. Wallace.
+
+[748] MSS. Wallace; Johnston, 85; _In re_, 425.
+
+[749] News-cutting, 1887.
+
+[750] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._
+
+[751] MSS. Wallace.
+
+[752] _Ib._
+
+[753] MSS. Carpenter.
+
+[754] _L. of G._, 408.
+
+[755] _Comp. Prose_, 488; _cf._ _L. of G._, 402 (to Emp. William I.).
+
+[756] _Comp. Prose_, 493, 502.
+
+[757] _Ib._, 524, 525.
+
+[758] _L. of G._, 414.
+
+[759] _L. of G._, 422.
+
+[760] _Ib._, 429.
+
+[761] _Ib._, 428.
+
+[762] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._
+
+[763] Donaldson, 28; Kennedy, 48.
+
+[764] _In re_, 413.
+
+[765] Burroughs (_a_), 53.
+
+[766] Kennedy, 56.
+
+[767] _In re_, 417.
+
+[768] _Ib._, 422.
+
+[769] _In re_, 422 n.
+
+[770] He died soon after Whitman.
+
+[771] _In re_, 429.
+
+[772] _In re_, 433, 434.
+
+[773] M. D. Conway; Burroughs (_a_), 55.
+
+[774] See _supra_, 230.
+
+[775] Dr. Bucke in _Whit. Fellowship_.
+
+[776] _In re_, 437.
+
+[777] MSS. Berenson.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+NOTE ON THE WILLIAMSES[778]
+
+
+Whitman himself has described his grandmother, Naomi Williams, as
+belonging to the Quaker Society, but upon inquiry it does not appear
+that she was ever a member. She was one of seven sisters; her father,
+Captain John Williams, and his only son, died at sea. He had been
+part-owner of his vessel, a schooner in the East Indian trade, plying
+between New York and Florida, and in 1767 he was married at Cold
+Spring, where his father, Thomas Williams, also a seaman, was living at
+the same time.
+
+The name of Thomas Williams occurs elsewhere in the old records of this
+district. In 1759 one of this name, who had a son John, was at Cove
+Neck, having removed there from Cold Spring. This Thomas one inclines
+to identify with the sea-going grandfather of Naomi, and he was the son
+of John Williams and Tamosin Carpenter, of Musketa Cove, whose name
+occurs in a document of 1727. I understand that this John and his son
+Thomas were Quakers.
+
+Another Captain Thomas Williams, described as "of Oyster Bay," was in
+1758 first captain of the Queen's County recruits. Twenty-one years
+later, a John Williams and a Daniel van Velsor were serving as privates
+in a Long Island troop of horse, but they do not concern us.
+
+In the absence of any definite information, and in view of the
+frequency of the name of Williams throughout this district--owing
+to the fact that Robert and Richard Williams (Welshmen) settled
+hereabouts in the middle of the seventeenth century--one can only
+surmise the cause which severed the family of Naomi Williams from the
+Society. It is possible that her father married out, thus forfeiting
+his membership, according to the old laws of the Society concerning
+marriage with a non-member. Or the War of Independence may have
+claimed his active participation and thus snapped the bond. Or,
+again, circumstances connected with his profession, or difficulties
+in attending the meetings for worship, may have caused his name to be
+dropped from the lists of membership. There would seem to be no doubt,
+however, that his daughter's sympathies remained with the Friends.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[778] Material supplied by Benj. D. Hicks; _cf._ Onderdonck's _Queen's
+County_; Thompson's History, 486 n., etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B
+
+WHITMAN IN NEW ORLEANS
+
+
+Edward Carpenter wrote in the _Reformer_, February, 1902, p. 89: "In a
+letter to J. Addington Symonds (19th August, 1890),[779] he [Whitman]
+mentioned that he had six children. 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, etc.,
+have been jolly bodily, and doubtless open to criticism. Tho' unmarried
+I have had six children--two are dead--one living, Southern grandchild,
+fine boy, writes to me occasionally--circumstances (connected with
+their fortune and benefit) have separated me from intimate relations.'"
+
+In a letter to Carpenter, further attested in conversation with myself,
+Horace Traubel says: "Walt frequently in his later years made allusions
+to the fact of his fatherhood. That is, to me. One night, just previous
+to his death, I went with Harned to Walt's room, at Walt's request, to
+get a sort of deposition in the matter, its detail, etc., etc.... But
+he was taken sick in our presence and was unable to proceed. There the
+thing rested ... he ... could never resume the subject. He wished to
+have the recital 'put away in Harned's safe,' as he said, 'in order
+that some one should authoritatively have all the facts at command
+if by some misfortune a public discussion of the incident were ever
+provoked'.... He did not wish the matter broached. He felt that it
+would indisputably do a great injury to some one, God knows who (I do
+not). During Walt's last sickness his grandson came to the house. I
+was not there at the time. When W. mentioned the occurrence to me I
+expressed my regret that I had missed him. 'I wish I might see him.'
+'God forbid!' [said Whitman]...."
+
+I was informed in Camden that there were _two_ Southern (?) ladies,
+one of whom had died. There was an impression among my informants
+that Whitman was explicitly pledged, by the family of one if not both
+of these ladies, never to hint at his relationship to the children.
+He told Traubel that this enforced separation was the tragedy of his
+life. There is a love-letter extant, signed with a pseudonym, dated
+from New York in 1862, evidently written by a cultivated woman. If the
+grandchild who called at Mickle Street in 1891 was from the South--the
+correspondent of Symond's letter, as one may suspect--it is difficult
+to put the birth of his father or mother much later, I think, than
+1850. It is noticeable that Whitman destroyed the references among
+his papers to the New Orleans visit, beyond those already printed in
+his prose works. In a book of memoranda referring to his early years,
+now in the possession of Mr. Harned, I have noted the tearing out of
+several leaves after the entry of his starting for New Orleans. The
+specification of "one living Southern grandchild," and of four children
+still living in 1890, suggests the probability that the second lady was
+not living in the South.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[779] Of which I have seen the original draft.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  Abandonment, capacity for self-, 52.
+
+  Abolition sentiment, Lincoln and, 182.
+    See Slavery.
+
+  Abolitionism, 81;
+    and the South, 235.
+
+  Abolitionist, W. an, 39.
+
+  Abolitionists, 134;
+    in Democratic party, 27.
+
+  Actors, W. at home with, 191.
+
+  Adam, W. as, 160-2.
+
+  Adams, President John, 23, 24.
+
+  Addison, W. advised to study, 328.
+
+  Æschylus, W. reads, 57.
+
+  Affirmations of modern thought, 62.
+
+  Agnosticism and reason, 333.
+
+  Agricultural interest in America, 308.
+
+  Alboni, Marietta, her influence on W., 86, 131, 320.
+
+  Alcott, A. Bronson, his relations with W., 112, 138, 282.
+
+  Alexandria, Va., 195, 199.
+
+  Ambition, W. a youth of, 33.
+
+  America, romance of, xix-xxiii;
+    Elizabethan character of, xxi;
+    its development, xxvi;
+    changes in, 79.
+
+  America, and W., 87, 149, 180;
+    W. an incarnation of, xxviii, 132, 335;
+    an average American, 64;
+    his passion for, 63;
+    describes, 95;
+    his symbol for, 122;
+    symbolic character of, 124;
+    call to citizenship, 125;
+    need for comradeship in, 163;
+    Emerson's view of W.'s message to, 145-6;
+    W.'s criticism of, 124, 236-42;
+    W. the poet of, 249, 292 (see American poet);
+    her need for the war, 206-8;
+    A. and the soul, 255;
+    and death, 266;
+    and free-interchange, 306-7;
+    and labour-problem, 307-13;
+    W.'s ideal for, 312;
+    "material foundations," 331;
+    A. and solidarity, 337.
+
+  American art, xxiv.
+
+  American Bible, W. wishes to write an, 55.
+
+  American character, the, xxi;
+    its idealism, xxi, xxiii, 80-1, 177;
+    its power of assimilation, xxiv.
+
+  American character of _L. of G._, 109.
+
+  American cynicism, 264.
+
+  American literature, W. and, 60.
+
+  American opinion hostile to _L. of G._, 214, 333.
+
+  American poet, the, Emerson's dictum, 94;
+    general expectancy of an, 94;
+    W.'s prophecy of an, 95-6;
+    W. as the, 133 _n._
+
+  American poets, W. and the, 104, 279;
+    need for, 97.
+
+  _American Review_, W. writes for, 37.
+
+  Anger of W., sudden, 216, 236, 327.
+
+  Animals, W.'s feeling of kinship with, 99.
+
+  "Answerer, Song of the," 103.
+
+  Anthony, Susan B., 126.
+
+  Antietam, battle of, 182-3.
+
+  Anti-Nebraska men, 134.
+
+  Anti-slavery party, 45.
+
+  Appearance, W.'s, 276, 283, 289, 326.
+    See Portraits.
+
+  "Appearances, Of the terrible doubt of," 164.
+
+  _Arabian Nights_, W. reads, 19.
+
+  Aristocrat, poem on an, 53.
+
+  Armory Square Hospital, W. at the, 190, 194, 203.
+
+  Arrangement of _L. of G._, 286-7.
+
+  Art, its meaning first shown to W., 22;
+    popular, 43;
+    in N.Y., 84.
+
+  "As a strong bird on pinions free". See "Thou Mother," etc.
+
+  "As I ebb'd with the ocean of life," 154-6.
+
+  "As I ponder'd in silence," 208.
+
+  "As the time draws nigh," 169.
+
+  Asceticism, 71.
+
+  Ashton, J. Hubley, describes a visit of W.'s, 192;
+    and Harlan incident, 214.
+
+  Ashton, Mrs., 234, 248.
+
+  _Athenæum, The_, and W., 259.
+
+  Attila, 336.
+
+  Attorney-General's Office, W. in the, 214.
+
+  Aurelius, Marcus, 224, 262, 318.
+
+  _Aurora, The_, W. edits, 37.
+
+  Average American, W.'s life to be that of an, 64.
+
+
+  Babylon, L. I., W. at, 28, 33;
+    described, 28-9.
+
+  Bacchus, W.'s engraving of, 111.
+
+  "Backward Glance o'er travel'd roads, A," 329-30.
+
+  Baldwin, the engine, 271.
+
+  "Barnburners," Van Buren men, become Free-soil Democrats, 44, 134.
+
+  Barnum, P. T., 85.
+
+  Bathing, W.'s love of, 40.
+
+  Bayne, Peter, 258.
+
+  "Beat! Beat! Drums!" 207.
+
+  Beauty, W. indifferent to formal and static, 59.
+
+  Beecher, Ward, 112.
+
+  Beethoven, 267, 293, 320.
+
+  Beggars, W. and, 219.
+
+  Bell, Governor, 172.
+
+  Berenson, Mrs., her friendship with W., 302-4, 313, 318, 346.
+
+  Bernard, St., 146.
+
+  Bettini, 85, 320.
+
+  _Bhagavad-Gitá_, _L. of G._ compared with, 115.
+
+  Bible, W.'s wish to write an American, 55;
+    W. studies the, 57, 224, 318.
+
+  Biographies of W. See J. Burroughs, Dr. Bucke, and Preface.
+
+  Birthday dinners, 317, 325, 331-2;
+    last, 335-7.
+
+  Blake, 124, 225, 263, 290, 341;
+    his mystic sight, 66, 118;
+    W. and, 59.
+
+  "Blood-money," 39, 46, 103.
+
+  Body, W. and the, 99, 102, 159-62;
+    "a spiritual body," 152-3;
+    "enamoured" body, 162;
+    and soul, 125.
+
+  "Body Electric, I sing the," 102, 145, 160.
+
+  Boehme, 121, 146.
+
+  Bohemians of New York, W. and the, 138.
+
+  Bolton group of Whitmanites, 337.
+
+  Books, W.'s method of reading, 57;
+    his favourite books, 58-9, 318.
+
+  Booth, the elder, effect of his acting on W., 22.
+
+  Boston, 81, 138;
+    W.'s dislike of, 103, 279;
+    W. at, 136, 142-7;
+    second visit, 278-83.
+
+  "Boston Ballad, A," 103.
+
+  Boston Common, 144, 147, 281.
+
+  _Boston Intelligencer_, criticism of W., 108.
+
+  Botticelli, 102, 226.
+
+  Bowery Theatre, the (now the Thalia), 22, 329.
+
+  Bowne, John, a L. I. Quaker, 4.
+
+  Bragg, General, 187.
+
+  Breckinridge, J. C., 172.
+
+  Bremer, Frederika, and Emerson, 94.
+
+  "Broad-axe, Song of the," 122, 274.
+
+  Broadway, W. and, 41, 83, 87, 138, 219, 266.
+
+  _Broadway Journal_, W. writes for, 37.
+
+  "Broadway Pageant, A," 205.
+
+  Brooklyn, 1-3, 10-11;
+    W. in, 56-7, 86, 110, 203-4, 210, 219, 232;
+    leaves, 183;
+    secures Fort Greene to town, 43.
+
+  Brooklyn, battle of, 5.
+
+  _Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, W. edits, 42-4;
+    a correspondent of, 196.
+
+  Brooklyn Ferry, 11, 40, 85.
+
+  "Brooklyn Ferry, Crossing," 120.
+
+  _Brooklyn Times_, W. and the, 109.
+
+  Brown, John, different views of, and influence on America, 136, 159;
+    O'Connor and, 190.
+
+  Brown, Madox, 225.
+
+  Browning, R., 62, 92, 291;
+    and W., 293-5.
+
+  Bruno, Giordano, 224.
+
+  Brush, Major, 5;
+    his niece, 5-6.
+
+  Bryant, W. C., 40, 59, 172, 336;
+    friendship for W., 42.
+
+  Buchanan, President, 135, 175.
+
+  Buchanan, Robert, his letter on W., 258-9.
+
+  Bucke, Dr. R. M., 263, 305, 325-6, 334, 336, 341, 342;
+    visits W., 269;
+    account of, 269-70;
+    his _Cosmic Consciousness_, 270;
+    visited by W., 274-7;
+    goes with W. to L. I., 280;
+    his life of W., 304.
+
+  Buddha, the, 121, 345.
+
+  Bull Run, battle of, 182.
+
+  Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, 102, 265.
+
+  Burke, E., 290.
+
+  Burns, Anthony, 81, 103.
+
+  Burns, R., 289, 328, 337;
+    W. and, 59;
+    W. on, 329.
+
+  Burnside, General, 182, 183.
+
+  Burr, Aaron, W. and, xxv.
+
+  Burroughs, J., in Washington, 191, 215;
+    notes on W., 221, 304;
+    walks with W., 233, 262;
+    nurses W., 247-8; visits W., 251, 256, 258, 305, 342;
+    W. visits, 231, 266, 270.
+
+  Burroughs, Mrs., 234.
+
+  "By Blue Ontario's Shore," 123, 209.
+
+  Byron, 91, 320, 328; W. and, 59, 292-3.
+
+
+  Calamus, meaning of the word, 162.
+
+  _Calamus_ (poems), 162-7, 253;
+    most esoteric of W.'s poems, 162;
+    political significance, 163;
+    personal revelation in, 165;
+    underlying philosophy of, 166-7;
+    vindicated, 194;
+    J. A. Symonds and, 224.
+
+  Calhoun, J. C., 24, 79, 175.
+
+  California, 43, 63-4.
+
+  Californian redwood tree, 255.
+
+  Calvin, 121.
+
+  Camden described, 246;
+    W. in, xxvii, 248, 278, 315;
+    loneliness there, 250;
+    at 322, Stevens St., his life there, 250-1;
+    removes to 431, Stevens St., 256;
+    friends there, 257, 325;
+    literary work, 257.
+    See Mickle St.
+
+  Canada, 311;
+    W. plans to lecture in, 129;
+    goes to, 274-7;
+    interest in, 276-7.
+
+  Canary, W.'s, 319.
+
+  Capital punishment, W. opposes, 33, 42.
+
+  Capitol, W. often at the, 201-2.
+
+  "Captain! my Captain!" 337.
+
+  Carlyle, Thos., 35, 84, 91, 92, 121, 263, 291, 294, 296, 306, 318,
+      328, 339;
+    death of, 301;
+    and _L. of G._, 171;
+    his _Shooting Niagara_, 234, 236;
+    W. and, 41, 59, 293.
+
+  Carnegie, Andrew, 317.
+
+  _Carpenter, The_, by O'Connor, 191, 227-9.
+
+  Carpenter, Edward, 263;
+    visits W., 266-9;
+    account of, 266-7;
+    his _Towards Democracy_, 267;
+    his account of W., 267-9;
+    second visit to W., 305-7;
+    his _Art of Creation_, qu., 167;
+    on W.'s children, 349-50.
+
+  Carpenter, Tamosin, 347.
+
+  Carpentering, W. takes up, 57;
+    helpful to him, 85;
+    gives up, 87.
+
+  Carpenters, 122.
+
+  Cass, Lewis, 44.
+
+  Catalogues in _L. of G._, 84, 160, 222.
+
+  Caution, highly developed in W., 68, 163.
+
+  Cenci, 336.
+
+  Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 265.
+
+  Champagne, W.'s taste for, 315.
+
+  "Champion of America," 131-2.
+
+  Chancellorsville, battle of, 184.
+
+  "Chanting the Square Deific," 212.
+    See Satan.
+
+  "Chants Democratic," 150.
+
+  Charity, W. and, 312-3.
+
+  Chattanooga, battle of, 187.
+
+  Chestnut St. Opera House, Philadelphia, 317.
+
+  Chicago, W. visits, 54.
+
+  Child, in W.'s nature, the, 78, 344;
+    dreams of a, 55.
+
+  _Children of Adam_, 126, 144-7, 159-62, 284-6;
+    difficulty of discussing, 160-1;
+    Mrs. Gilchrist and, 225, 264.
+
+  Children, W.'s, 51, 186, 230-1, 252, 349-50;
+    W. and, 234, 273, 318, 320.
+
+  China, W. talks of, 265.
+
+  Chinese proverb, xxiii.
+
+  Christ, 313, 345.
+    See Jesus.
+
+  "Christ-portrait" of W., 67.
+
+  Christianity, W. and, 75-7, 168, 297, 339.
+
+  _Chronicle, The_, W. M. Rossetti writes on W. in, 222.
+
+  Church, W. in a Brooklyn, 68.
+
+  Churches, W. and the, 42, 75-6, 142, 241, 280, 323.
+
+  Cincinnati Society, 38.
+
+  Citizenship and the soul, 208;
+    for all, 240.
+
+  City-life, attraction for W., 114;
+    modern, xxviii.
+
+  City-populations, 307.
+
+  Clare, Ada, 139.
+
+  Class-feeling, W.'s dislike of, 323.
+
+  Classical allusions avoided in _L. of G._, 109.
+
+  Clay, Henry, 23, 40, 42, 79, 134.
+
+  Cleanthes, Hymn of, 224.
+
+  Clements, Mr., W. apprenticed to, 19-20.
+
+  Cleveland, President, 314, 320.
+
+  Clothes, W.'s, 83, 110, 140, 304, 331.
+
+  Cole, Mary, 234.
+
+  Coleridge, S. T., 91, 119, 290.
+
+  Colonna, Vittoria, 265.
+
+  _Columbian Magazine_, W. writes for, 37.
+
+  Columbus, xx-xxi, 243.
+    See _Prayer of C._
+
+  "Columbus, A thought of," 340.
+
+  Common people, W.'s love of the, 114.
+
+  Companions, the Great, 168.
+
+  _Complete Prose_, qu., 47-8.
+    See Footnotes.
+
+  "Compost, This," 122.
+
+  Comrade, W. as a, 67;
+    God the perfect, 244.
+
+  Comrades, a society of, 312.
+
+  Comradeship, _Calamus_ poems of, 162;
+    political significance of, 163;
+    W. institutes a rite of, 165;
+    philosophy of, 167;
+    W. creates a, 179;
+    _L. of G._ brings to Symonds, 224;
+    universal possibility of, 299-300;
+    W.'s, 133, 149, 168, 196, 228, 232-3, 253, 275, 297.
+
+  Comte, A., 62, 263.
+
+  Concord, W. at, 281-2.
+
+  Concrete, W.'s love for the, 60;
+    quality, W.'s, 198.
+
+  Coney Island Beach, W. goes to, 40, 57, 154.
+
+  Confederacy of Southern States adopts a constitution, 175.
+
+  Consciousness, the unfolding of, 69;
+    the double nature of, 73-4;
+    superhuman elements in, 228; W.'s, 316.
+    See also "Cosmic consciousness".
+
+  _Conservator_ (Philadelphia), _The_, 300 _n._
+
+  Conservative quality of W., 64.
+
+  Constitution of U.S., xxiii, xxv, 23.
+
+  Contemporary Club, the, 332.
+
+  _Contemporary Review_ and W., 258.
+
+  Conversion, W.'s experience compared with, 70, 72.
+
+  Conway, Moncure, 93, 110-2, 344.
+
+  Coolness, W.'s, 66.
+
+  Cooper, Fenimore, 42, 59;
+    W.'s love for the novels of, 19.
+
+  "Copperheads," 185.
+
+  "Cosmic consciousness," W.'s, 52, 117, 119, 168, 224, 333;
+    W.'s experience of, 72-3;
+    influence on style, 150-1, 153-4;
+    Dr. Bucke on, 270.
+
+  Cotton in the South, 24, 25.
+
+  Cowper, W., 290.
+
+  _Crescent, The_, New Orleans, 46.
+
+  _Criterion, The_, criticism of W., 108.
+
+  _Critic, The_, criticism of W., 108.
+
+  Criticisms of Whitman, 171, 222, 224-5, 327-8, 329 _n._, 334-5;
+    by W. 109, 329.
+
+  Cromwell, O., 121.
+
+  Croton Water-works, N.Y., 42.
+
+  "Crucified, To him that was," 167-8, 227.
+
+  Culpepper, Va., W. visits, 202.
+
+  Cuba annexation desired, 135.
+
+  Cuvier, 122.
+
+
+  _Daily News_ and W., 258.
+
+  Dana, C. A., 127.
+
+  Dancing, W. approves, 43.
+
+  Dannville, 209.
+
+  Dante, 57, 109, 164, 226, 318.
+
+  Dartmouth College, N.H., W. visits, 245.
+
+  Darwin, C., 62.
+
+  Davis, Jefferson, 79, 188.
+
+  Davis, Mary, 305, 318-21, 336.
+
+  Death, W. and the idea of, 9, 12, 101, 102, 158, 168-9, 242-3, 249,
+      266, 281, 287, 340-1;
+    immortality and, 152-3, 155;
+    welcome to, 152;
+    W. learns lesson of, 249, 343;
+    in shadow of, 253-4;
+    W.'s, 344;
+    reported, 247.
+
+  "Death's Valley," 340-1.
+
+  Declamation, _L. of G._ written for, 98.
+
+  Declaration of Independence, xxiii, 23.
+
+  Deliberate way of W. in hospitals, 196;
+    character of W., 204.
+
+  Democracy in New York, 83.
+
+  Democracy, W. as, 335.
+
+  Democracy, dangers of. See _Dem. Vistas_.
+
+  _Democrat_, W. edits, 37.
+
+  Democratic party, 13, 23, 40, 79, 82, 136, 172.
+
+  _Democratic Review_, W. writes for, 33.
+
+  _Democratic Vistas_, W. at work on, 234;
+    America's need for national literature, 236;
+    reasons for his criticism, 237;
+    vast task of America, _ib._;
+    fears for her, 238, 238-9 _n._;
+    her need for religion, 238,
+    and for great men, 239;
+    too much "culture," 241;
+    need of personality, of religion and of literature, 242, 245, 248.
+
+  Denver, 272, 320.
+
+  Depression, W.'s, during illness, 249.
+
+  "Devil, If I felt like the," 338.
+    See Satan.
+
+  Dickens in America, 35, 42.
+
+  Dix, Dorothea, 195.
+
+  Dixon, Thomas, and _L. of G._, 171, 223.
+
+  Dog, W.'s, 257.
+
+  Don Quixote, W. reads, 58.
+
+  Doubt, W. and, 100, 155, 164.
+
+  "Dough-faces," 27, 39.
+
+  "Dough-face Song, A," 39.
+
+  Douglas, S. A., 44, 80, 134, 135, 172, 174, 176.
+
+  Dramatic gift, W. has not the, 73.
+
+  Dreams, W. on, 102.
+
+  Doyle, Peter G., 210, 215, 258, 301, 305, 336, 344-5;
+    account of, 230;
+    and W., 231-4;
+    nurses W., 247-8;
+    letters to, 250, etc.;
+    baggage-master, 257.
+
+  Dred Scott decision, 135.
+
+  Dress. See Clothes.
+
+  Driving, W.'s love of, 303, 314.
+
+  _Drum-taps_, published, 205;
+    recalled, 212.
+    See _L. of G._
+
+  Dutch, on Long Island, 3;
+    realism, W.'s, 85.
+
+  Dying, W.'s long, 330.
+
+
+  Early tales, W.'s, 33-5, 286;
+    early verses, W.'s, 39, 47-8, 290.
+
+  Earth, W.'s conception of the, 117-9, 330;
+    and evil, 122.
+
+  Editor, W. as an, 37.
+
+  Education, W.'s, 28.
+
+  Edward VII. See Prince of Wales.
+
+  Egoism, a divine, 90;
+    of _L. of G._, 91.
+
+  Egoist, W. not an, 53.
+
+  Eldridge, C. (see also Thayer and Eldridge), 191, 247-8, 251.
+
+  Election, methods of presidential, 174.
+
+  Elizabeth, Queen, xx-xxi.
+
+  Elliott, E., W. and, 327.
+
+  Emancipation, Proclamation of, 183.
+
+  Emerson, R. W., xxiii, 59, 62, 81, 108, 110, 129, 136, 151, 176, 258,
+      263, 291, 293, 303, 318, 328, 336;
+    position in American letters, 91-3;
+    and free rhythm, 92-3;
+    Emerson and Whitman, 59, 91-4, 106-7, 112, 114-5, 137, 143-7, 148,
+      159, 163, 171, 322;
+    his letter to W., 92-3, 127-8;
+    W.'s letter to E., 127, 179;
+    discussion between, 145-7, 159, 223;
+    helps W. to get funds for hospitals, 198;
+    W. revisits, 281-2;
+    their friendship, 146, 163, 282-3;
+    contrast of his and W.'s temperaments, 294;
+    death of, 301.
+
+  Emotional, atmosphere of poetry, 290-1;
+    character of W.'s mysticism, 70-1.
+
+  _Enfans d'Adam._ See _Children of Adam_.
+
+  English, demand for _L. of G._, 257;
+    fame of W., 223, 245;
+    friends help W., 258-9, see Friends;
+    habit of compromise, 208;
+    language, W. and the, 97;
+    readers of _L. of G._, 171;
+    Reviews, W. reads, 57;
+    W.'s appreciation of the, 338.
+
+  England and America compared, xxii;
+    dispute between, 43;
+    W.'s idea of a home in, 338.
+
+  Enjoyment, W.'s power of, 314-5.
+
+  _En-masse_, frequent use by W. of, 216-7.
+
+  "Ensemble," W.'s use of, 255.
+
+  Epictetus, 318, 342-3.
+
+  Equality, doctrine of, accepted in the South, 25;
+    W.'s doctrine of, 102, 297.
+
+  Erie Canal opened, 11.
+
+  Euripides, 58.
+
+  "Europe, the 72nd and 73rd year of these States," 103.
+
+  Europe, its lack of sanity, 339.
+
+  Evangelical, W. an, 77.
+
+  _Evening Mail_ (_New York_), 245.
+
+  Evil, W. and the problem of, 122, 124, 157, 212, 294-5, 340;
+    evil in W.'s nature, 336.
+
+  Evolution, W.'s doctrine of, 99, 100.
+
+  Evolutionists, the, 224.
+
+  Exhibition, International, 1853, 83-4.
+
+  "Exposition, Song of the," 245, 248.
+
+  Expression, need for, 89-90.
+
+  Expurgation, W. agrees to, 285.
+
+
+  "Faces," 102.
+
+  "Facing West from California's shores," 162.
+
+  Facts, W.'s love for, 60, 63.
+
+  Fairfax Seminary Hospital, 194, 198.
+
+  Faith, W.'s, 99, 100, 155, 244, 254-5.
+
+  Falmouth, Va., 183-4.
+
+  Farragut, Admiral, 182.
+
+  Federal sentiment aided by steam-transit, 27.
+
+  Federalists, 23.
+
+  Fellowes, Col., 38.
+
+  Fellowship, as an answer to doubt, 164;
+    Morris's gospel of, 296;
+    philosophy of, 166-7.
+
+  Fellowship, W.'s, its character, 114, 299-300;
+    with nature, 261-2;
+    W.'s ideal of, 142.
+
+  Fellowship, the Walt Whitman, 300 _n._
+
+  "Felons on trial in courts, You," 156.
+
+  Ferries, W. and, 250-1, 266.
+    See Brooklyn Ferry.
+
+  Ferry-boat, W. steers a N.Y., 137.
+
+  Fire-Island Beach, L. I., 29.
+
+  "First, O songs, for a prelude," 206.
+
+  "For you, O Democracy," 163.
+
+  Forrest, Edwin, 21.
+
+  _Fortnightly Review_, M. Conway's article on W. in, 110.
+
+  Fourier, 309.
+
+  Fourierists, W. and the, 323.
+
+  Fowler, Mr., 67.
+
+  Fowler & Wells, 87, 109, 129.
+
+  Fox, George, 121, 173;
+    his mystical experience, 72-3;
+    in L. I., 4;
+    and W., 298-300;
+    W.'s essay on, 329.
+
+  France, _L. of G._ in, 245;
+    W. and the people of, 280.
+
+  Francis of Assisi, 74, 152, 164, 169, 227.
+
+  _Franklin Evans_, 46 _n._, 52;
+    described, 35-7.
+
+  Fredericksburg, battle of, 183.
+
+  _Freeman, The_, W. founds, 56, 63.
+
+  Frémont, J. C., 63, 134.
+
+  Free-soil Democrats, 40, 44-5, 56, 134;
+    W. and the, 40, 310.
+
+  Free-trade, 177;
+    W. and, 306-7, 323, 337.
+    See also Tariffs.
+
+  Friends, W.'s older men, 28;
+    and women, 31;
+    in N.Y., 137-9;
+    in Washington, 190-2;
+    circle of, 245;
+    in Camden, 256-7, 325, 341, 342;
+    English, assist W., 258-9, 316-7;
+    dissimilarity among, 233;
+    his need of, 165, 250-1;
+    a city of, 165.
+
+  Friends, Society of. See Quakers.
+
+  Friends, Fox's, 298-9.
+
+  Fritzinger, Harry, 319.
+
+  Fritzinger, Warren, 319, 342, 343, 344.
+
+  Fritzinger, W. W., 342.
+
+  Fugitive Slave Bill, 79.
+
+  "Full of life now," 166.
+
+  Fuller (Ossoli), Margaret, 126.
+
+  Funeral, W.'s, 344-6.
+
+  Future, poet justified by, 97.
+
+  Future, W.'s attitude towards the, 206.
+
+
+  Games, W.'s love of, 30, 32.
+
+  Garfield, President, 301.
+
+  Garibaldi visits America, 173.
+
+  Garrison, W. L., 81.
+
+  Gentleman, Thoreau thinks W. a, 113.
+
+  Georgian farmer, a, 321-2.
+
+  German immigrants, 82.
+
+  Germany, _L. of G._ in, 245.
+
+  _Germ, The_, 97, 221-2.
+
+  Gettysburg, battle of, 184, 187;
+    Lincoln's speech at, 184.
+
+  Gilchrist, Anne (Mrs. Alexander), 265, 267, 268, 301, 336;
+    reads _L. of G._, 225;
+    views of _C. of Adam_, 225-7, 284;
+    letters published, 225;
+    goes to Philadelphia, 263;
+    account of, 263-6;
+    W. visits, 266;
+    death of, 303, 320.
+
+  Gilchrist, Grace, quoted, 268, etc.
+
+  Gilchrist, Herbert H., 320.
+
+  Girls, attitude toward, 30.
+
+  Glendale, W. at, 280, 286.
+
+  Godiva, Lady, 264.
+
+  God, W.'s idea of, 75, 76, 101, 243-4, 253-4.
+
+  God latent in humanity, 100.
+
+  Goethe, 58, 62, 121, 222, 224, 289, 292.
+
+  _Good-bye, my Fancy_, described, 338-40;
+    title explained, 340.
+
+  _Good Gray Poet, The_, by O'Connor, 191, 214, 227, 333.
+
+  Government, purpose of all, 240.
+
+  Grant, Gen., 182;
+    takes Vicksburg, 185;
+    at Chattanooga, 187;
+    faith of North in Grant, 188;
+    ends war, _ib._;
+    President, 235;
+    and the West, 272;
+    W.'s belief in, 203;
+    W. appeals to, 209.
+
+  "Great are the Myths," 104.
+
+  Great Eastern Steamship, 173.
+
+  Great men, W. values, 239.
+
+  Greek, W. a, 279.
+
+  Greeley, Horace, 39.
+
+  Guyot, 263.
+
+
+  Hafiz, 318.
+
+  "Halcyon Days," 330.
+
+  Hale, E. E., 108.
+
+  Halleck, Fitz-Green, 42.
+
+  Hamilton, Alex., xxv, 23.
+
+  "Hand-Mirror, A," 124.
+
+  Happiness, the purpose of things, 101;
+    of old age, 330.
+
+  Harlan, James, 219, 223, 227;
+    dismisses W., 213-4.
+
+  Harleigh Cemetery, 345.
+
+  Harned, T. B., relations with W., 325, 349.
+
+  Harper's Ferry, 136.
+
+  _Harrington_, by W. D. O'Connor, 190.
+
+  Harrison, President, 38.
+
+  Hartmann, S., 319-20.
+
+  Hawthorne, N., 34, 301.
+
+  Health, a fine art, 241;
+    spiritual basis of, 204, 339;
+    open-air and, 340.
+
+  Health, W. proud of his, 68-9;
+    W. to irradiate, 101, 338;
+    W.'s, 28;
+    and mystical experience, 69;
+    W.'s in Washington, 193;
+    hurts his hand, 194;
+    careful of his, 196;
+    effect of heat upon, 200;
+    first illness, 202-4;
+    h. seems to be good again, 216;
+    feels extremes of climate, 218;
+    Rossetti thinks health affects W.'s philosophy, 222;
+    partial paralysis, 232;
+    illness, 246;
+    details recounted, 247;
+    relapse, 248;
+    depression accompanies illness, 249;
+    consideration of causes, 252-3;
+    illness, poems in, 253-4;
+    convalescence, 258;
+    help derived from Nature, 260-2;
+    h. improved, 270;
+    ill in St. Louis, 273;
+    in Canada, 275-6;
+    better in Boston, 283;
+    has a sunstroke, 314;
+    increasing uncertainty, 317;
+    paralysis, 326.
+
+  Hegel, 62, 289, 309;
+    limit of W.'s agreement with, 296-8.
+
+  Heine, 339.
+
+  Heretic, W. a, 143.
+
+  Hero-worship, W.'s, 293.
+
+  Heyde, Hannah (Whitman), 12, 86, 88, 342;
+    W. visits, 246.
+
+  Hicks, Elias, 4, 5, 6, 121, 142;
+    account of, 14-5;
+    preaches at Brooklyn, 15-7;
+    his death, 17;
+    effect on W., 16-9;
+    W.'s essay on, 329.
+
+  "Historian, To a," 153.
+
+  Hodgson, Robert, an English Quaker, 4.
+
+  Home-life, W.'s happy, 65-6.
+
+  Homer, 57, 318.
+
+  Hooker, General, 182, 184.
+
+  Hospitals, W. at the old New York H., 137-8;
+    W. commences to visit Washington, 184;
+    service in them, 186;
+    W. at the Armory Square H., 190;
+    W. at the Washington, 192, 198, 318, 324;
+    he needs money for work there, 192;
+    there daily, 194;
+    extent of hospitals, _ib._;
+    nursing in, 195;
+    need for affection in, _ib._;
+    W.'s efficient service in, 196-8;
+    effect on W., 199-200;
+    conditions grow worse, 202-3;
+    visits hospitals at Brooklyn and N.Y., 209;
+    Sundays at Washington hospitals, 215;
+    influence on W., 217;
+    causes illness, 252-3, 339;
+    pension proposed for service in, 316.
+
+  Houghton, Lord, 112.
+
+  House-building, 85.
+
+  Householder, W. a, 315.
+    See Mickle St.
+
+  Houston, the filibuster, 43.
+
+  Howells, W., and W., 138-9.
+
+  Hugo, Victor, 138, 293.
+
+  Humanity, W.'s love for, well founded, 41-2.
+
+  Humility, W. and, 76, 154.
+
+  Humour, W.'s, 303, 336-9.
+
+  "Hunkers," 44.
+
+  Hunt, Leigh, 109.
+
+  Huntington, L. I., described, 2-3;
+    W. at, 31;
+    W. visits, 86.
+    See West Hills.
+
+  "Hush'd be the Camps to-day," 212.
+
+  "Husky-haughty lips, With," 330.
+
+
+  Idealism. See Mysticism.
+
+  Idealism of America. See "American character".
+
+  Identity, W.'s sense of, 74.
+
+  Idiots, W. and, 274.
+
+  "I dream'd in a dream," 165.
+
+  _Iliad_, Pope's translation, 58.
+
+  Illness, W.'s, see Health;
+    originates in hospital-work, 339;
+    features of last, 338, 341-4.
+
+  Illumination, W.'s mystical, 69-78.
+
+  Immanence, idea of, central in modern thought, 62.
+
+  Immigration and N.Y., 81-2.
+
+  Immigration and the labour problem, 310.
+
+  Immortality, 152-3, 255, 332-3.
+    See Death.
+
+  Impersonal quality in W., 73, 293.
+
+  Inconsistency, W.'s, 237.
+
+  India used symbolically, 243-4.
+    See "Passage to I."
+
+  Indian Bureau, W. a clerk in, 210;
+    Indians on L. I., 1-2;
+    W.'s relations with Indians, 210.
+
+  Industrial revolution, the, 307.
+
+  Ingersoll, R. G., and W., 274;
+    lectures on Whitman, 317;
+    tribute to W., 332;
+    W.'s view of I., _ib._;
+    his agnosticism, 333;
+    lecture on W., 333-5;
+    visits W., 342;
+    at the funeral, 346.
+
+  "Inner Light," doctrine of, 16, 17.
+
+  Institutions, W. and, 165, 323.
+
+  "Ireland, Old," 205.
+
+  Irish immigration, 82.
+
+  Irving, Washington, 93.
+
+  Israel, prophets of, 238, 241, 291.
+
+  Italy and America, xx;
+    rise of a new, 205-6.
+
+  "I was looking a long while," 153.
+
+
+  Jackson, President, 13, 23, 27, 38, 174.
+
+  Jamaica Academy, L. I., W. at, 33.
+
+  Japan, W. talks of, 268.
+
+  Japanese Embassy, first, 172, 205.
+
+  Jayne's Hill, 2.
+
+  Jefferson, President, 13, 23, 25, 26, 38, 136.
+
+  Jesus, 74;
+    W.'s relation to, 76, 227-9;
+    W.'s poem to, 167-8;
+    and Humanity, 229.
+    See Christ.
+
+  Jingoism in America, 43-4.
+
+  Job, 318.
+
+  Johnson, President, 189, 235.
+
+  Johnston, Col., 257.
+
+  Johnston, Gen., 182.
+
+  Johnston, Mrs. Alma C., 280, 282.
+
+  Johnston, J., 336.
+
+  Johnston, J. H., 342;
+    W. visits, 266, 270, 280.
+
+  Journalist, W. as a, 33-45.
+
+  Journeys, W.'s, extent of, xxvii.
+    See South, West, Canada.
+
+  Joy, the note of _L. of G._, 90-1.
+
+  Judiciary Square Hospital, 194.
+
+
+  Kansas, 80, 134-5.
+
+  Keats, J., 59, 91.
+
+  Kennedy, W. S., 317;
+    W.'s letter to, 282;
+    his reminiscences, 301.
+
+  "Knowledge alone, Long I thought that," 132-3.
+
+  "Know-nothing" party, 134-5.
+
+  Kossabones, W.'s ancestors, 31.
+
+
+  Labour agitator's disappointment with W., a, 322.
+
+  Labour problem, W. and the, 306-13, 322-3;
+    in America, 308;
+    in Europe, 308-9;
+    in Long Island and N.Y., 309;
+    in America after the war, 310;
+    problem of immigration, _ib._;
+    _laissez-faire_, 310-1;
+    the socialists, 311;
+    W. and Trade-Unionism, 312;
+    W. and Toynbee Hall, 313.
+
+  Lafayette, Gen., revisits America, 11.
+
+  _Laissez-faire_, 310-1.
+
+  Laurel Springs, 260.
+
+  Lamarck, 62.
+
+  Laws, W. and the, 292.
+
+  "Laws for Creations," 153.
+
+  Laziness, W.'s, 30-1.
+
+  _Leaves of Grass_, title explained, 72;
+    character of various sections, 286-7;
+    unity as a whole, 287-8;
+    style of, 84, 92, 98, 104-7, 150-1, 244, 273, 289-91, 328;
+    genesis and evolution, 329;
+    W. and, 330, 335;
+    O'Connor and, 191;
+    Ingersoll and, 332-5;
+    Bucke and, 336;
+    the war and, 339;
+    conception, 55;
+    gestation, 85-7.
+    First edition, 87-8;
+      attitude of family to, 88;
+      own view, an expression of himself, 89-90;
+      the keynote, joy, 90-1;
+      Emerson's appreciation, 91-2;
+      book described, 95-104;
+      religious emotion in, 105-6;
+      compared with Emerson's writings, 106-7;
+      reception of, in America and England, 108-9;
+      writes notices of, 109;
+      its American character emphasised, _ib._;
+      occupies W.'s time, 111;
+      Emerson's dictum on, 115;
+      spirit of revolt in this edition, 296-7;
+      see also 148, 217.
+    Second edition (1856), 116-129, 148;
+      open letter to Emerson in appendix, 127-8;
+      rapid sale, 128-9.
+    Third edition, xxvi-xxvii, 132-3, 141-2, 218, 284-6;
+      described, 148-170;
+      personal note dominant in, 148-9;
+      importance of this edition, 149-50;
+      unity of volume, its optimism and mysticism, 151-2;
+      welcome to death characteristic of, 152-3;
+      his work a beginning, 154;
+      _Children of Adam_, 159-62;
+      _Calamus_ group, 162-7;
+      poem to Jesus, 167-8;
+      poems of death, 169-70;
+      its circulation, 171;
+      in England, 172;
+      and the war, 180.
+    _Drum-taps_, 205-9;
+    "When lilacs last," 211;
+    is read by students, 217;
+    written under strong emotion, 220.
+    Fourth edition (1867), 219, 221;
+      W.'s views of, _ib._;
+      Rossetti's selections, 221-2;
+      the book in England, 223;
+      Mrs. Gilchrist and, 225-7, 264.
+    Fifth edition (1871), 242;
+      _Passage to India_, 243;
+      style of, 244;
+      read in Europe, 245;
+      poems of illness and death, 253-5.
+    Centennial edition (1876), 259, 265, 286;
+      sells well, 266;
+      preface to, 267;
+      and the Rocky Mountains, 273.
+    Second Boston edition, 283-4, 286-8, 301;
+      attacked by District Attorney, 284-5;
+      sales, 305;
+      diminution of, 316;
+      re-published by McKay, 285;
+      Worthington and, 286.
+    _Sands at Seventy_, 329-30;
+    latest poems, 338-41.
+    Tenth edition, 342.
+
+  _Leaves of Grass_, a section of third edition, 150.
+
+  Lectures, W.'s, 129, 193, 270;
+    to supplement _L. of G._, 129-30;
+    a course on Democracy undelivered, 132.
+    See Lincoln lecture, and Oratory.
+
+  Lee, General, 182, 184, 187, 188, 324.
+
+  Leibnitz, 62.
+
+  Liberty, immortal, 103.
+
+  Liberty party, 79.
+
+  Libraries, 153.
+
+  Life and Death, 104.
+
+  Lilacs, 305.
+
+  "Lilacs last in the Door-yard bloom'd, When," 211-2.
+
+  Lincoln, President, xxiii, 5, 80, 121, 132;
+    described, 134;
+    protests against Dred Scott decision, 135;
+    senatorial contest with Douglas, _ib._;
+    attitude toward slavery, 136-7, 181-2;
+    in N.Y., 172;
+    election of (1860), 172, 174;
+    interregnum before inauguration, 175;
+    passes through N.Y., 175-6;
+    his inaugural address, 176;
+    and the war, 177, 179;
+    call for troops, 178;
+    his first tasks, 181-2;
+    proclamation of emancipation, 183;
+    speech at Gettysburg, 184;
+    and abolition, 181-2, 187;
+    enters Richmond, 188;
+    re-election and assassination, 189, 210, 264-5;
+    nature of his relation to America, 189;
+    is denounced by W. Phillips, 191;
+    American suspicion of his policy, 211;
+    effect of his death, 211-2;
+    and the South, 189, 324;
+    and the West, 271;
+    W. and, 234, 278;
+    W. often meets, 201;
+    W.'s faith in, 203;
+    at last levee, 210;
+    L.'s dictum on W., _ib._;
+    W. and L.'s death, 278.
+
+  "Lincoln's burial hymn, President." See Lilacs last.
+
+  Lincoln lecture, W.'s, 270, 278, 317, 332.
+
+  Lind, Jenny, 85, 86.
+
+  Linton, W. J., 257.
+
+  Lionising, W. and, 332.
+
+  Literary circle, W.'s dislike of, 144.
+
+  Literature necessary for national life, 236-242.
+
+  "Live-oak growing, I saw in Louisiana a," 163, 250.
+
+  Loafing of W., 141.
+
+  Locomotive first enters N.Y., 42.
+
+  "Locomotive in Winter, To a," 271.
+
+  London, Ont., W. at, 270.
+
+  Longfellow, H. W., 59, 88, 94, 138, 301, 336;
+    and W., 278-9.
+
+  "Long I thought that Knowledge alone," 132-3;
+    Symonds and, 224.
+
+  Long Island described, 1-3, 28-9;
+    W. and, 31, 85, 89, 280.
+
+  _Long Island Patriot_, W. and the, 20.
+
+  _Long Island Star_, W. and the, 20.
+
+  _Long Islander, The_, 56;
+    W. founds the, 31-2.
+
+  Love, the divine, 119;
+    "the kelson" of the Universe, 72, 98;
+    the one essential, 125;
+    the passion of, 127;
+    W. recognises power of, 35;
+    W.'s religion one of, 77;
+    love of Nature, W.'s, 260-1.
+
+  Lowell, J. R., 59, 94, 317.
+
+  Luther, 146.
+
+  Lynching, W. denounces, 42.
+
+  Lyrical ballads, 290.
+
+  Lytton, Lord, 35, 247.
+
+
+  Madison Sq. Theatre, N.Y., W. at, 317.
+
+  "Magnet South," 235.
+
+  Man, _L. of G._, not a book but a, 158.
+
+  "Man-o'-War Bird, The," 259.
+
+  Mannahatta, early name for N.Y., 20.
+    See N.Y.
+
+  Manual work, its value to W., 85.
+
+  Maretzek, 85.
+
+  Marriage, W. and, 50-3, 323, 336-7.
+
+  "Mary, Aunt," 321.
+
+  Mary and Martha, 164.
+
+  Marx, Karl, 309.
+
+  Mazzini, 62, 173;
+    and W., 293-4.
+
+  McClellan, Gen., 182, 189, 211.
+
+  McKay, David, 285, 305.
+
+  McKnight, Mrs., 234.
+
+  Meade, Gen., 184-5.
+
+  Mendelssohn, 320.
+
+  Menken, Adah Isaacs, 49.
+
+  Meredith, G., 60, 225, 291.
+
+  _Messenger Leaves_ (section of _L. of G._), 167-9.
+
+  Meteors in 1860, 173.
+
+  Methodist vote, Mr. Harlan and the, 213.
+
+  Mexican War, W.'s attitude towards, 43.
+
+  Mickle Street, house in, described, 305, 317-9, 320.
+
+  Mill, J. S., W. and, 308.
+
+  Miller, "Joaquin," 64, 270.
+
+  Millet, J. F., W. and, 84, 279-80, 293.
+
+  Milton, 58, 121.
+
+  Millwell. See West Hills.
+
+  Mississippi, W. descends the, 47;
+    ascends, 53;
+    W. and the, 54, 270-1, 273.
+
+  Missouri Compromise, 26, 134;
+    River, 54;
+    State, 271.
+
+  Modesty, W.'s, 329.
+
+  Money, W.'s indifference to, 65, 87;
+    need for, 193, 198;
+    income, 218-9;
+    difficulties, 257-9, 316-7;
+    see also 285, 341.
+
+  Montauk Point, 1.
+
+  Montgomery, Ala., 175.
+
+  Moralist _versus_ mystic, 152;
+    W. as a, 237, 292.
+
+  Morris, W., 293, 331;
+    W. compared with, 296.
+
+  Morse, Sidney, makes a bust of W., 265, 320;
+    discussions with "Aunt Mary," 321;
+    with W., 322-3.
+
+  Mount Vernon, W. visits, 215.
+
+  "Mugwumps," 314.
+
+  Murray and Byron, Mr., 285.
+
+  "Music always round me, That," 164-5.
+
+  Music, Mrs. Gilchrist and Carpenter's attitude towards, 267;
+    W. and, 85-6, 320.
+
+  Myers, F. W., 224.
+
+  Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, W. at, 56.
+
+  Mysticism and materialism, xxiii;
+    various forms of, 70, 121;
+    Whitman's, 69-78, 117-121, 149, 152-67, 254, 298-300;
+    and nature, 261-2, 339-40;
+    and oratory, 130-1;
+    and Quakerism, 180;
+    and sex, 226;
+    and war, 180-1, 207-8;
+    philosophy of, 166-7.
+
+  Myths, reverence for, 104.
+    See Great are the M.
+
+
+  Name, the power of the, 158.
+
+  Napoleon, 289.
+
+  "Native Moments," 161.
+
+  Natural history, W.'s ignorance of, 230, 260-2.
+
+  Nature and soul-life, 340;
+    W.'s love of, 260-2.
+
+  Negroes, W. doubts if they are worth cost of war, 186-7;
+    W. and negro citizenship, 187;
+    O'Connor and W. disagree about, 191;
+    W. and negro problem, 235-6.
+
+  New Amsterdam. See New York.
+
+  New England, W. visits, in 1868, 234.
+
+  New Orleans of '48 described, 48-50;
+    W. goes to, 44, 46-53, 349-50;
+    reminiscences of, 329.
+
+  _New World, The_ (N.Y.), W. and, 33-7.
+
+  New York described, 11, 20-22, 80-86, 139-40;
+    art collections of, 279;
+    sympathy with South, 24, 178;
+    attitude towards Lincoln, 175-6;
+    during war, 185, 206;
+    W. and, xxvi-viii, 41-2, 64, 111, 245, 266, 270, 280;
+    W. criticises, 236;
+    he leaves, 183.
+
+  _New York Evening Post_, W. writes for, 42.
+
+  _New York Herald, The_, 115, 316.
+
+  _New York Saturday Press_, W. and the, 138-9.
+
+  _New York Sun_, W. writes for, 37, 127.
+
+  _New York Times_, 184, 209.
+
+  _New York Tribune_, the, 39, 40, 87, 108, 259, 285;
+    W.'s poems in, 46.
+
+  Newspapers, W. and, 62-3.
+
+  Niagara, W. at, 54, 274.
+
+  Nibelungenlied, 58, 337.
+
+  Nietzsche and Whitman, 213, 293, 296-8.
+
+  Nonconformity, W.'s, 99.
+
+  North, its interests antagonistic to the South, 24-5;
+    becomes identified with Federalism, 26;
+    not united, 176;
+    idealism of, 177;
+    and protection, _ib._
+
+  _North American Review_, 108.
+
+  _November Boughs_, 329-30, 339.
+
+  "Now Finalé to the Shore," 243.
+
+  Nurse, W.'s, 326.
+
+
+  "Occupations, Song for," 101.
+
+  O'Connor, W. D., W. visits and boards with, 190, 201, 215, 225;
+    described, 190-1;
+    and Harlan, 214;
+    his _The Carpenter_, 227-9;
+    W.'s quarrel with, 236, 248, 250, 258;
+    and Messrs. Osgood, 285;
+    dies, 326-7, 336.
+    See also _Good Gray Poet_.
+
+  O'Connor, Mrs., 234, 248.
+    See also W. D. O'C.
+
+  Officials, W.'s dislike of, 306.
+
+  Old-age, W.'s view of, 330.
+
+  "Old Jim Crow," W. fond of, 303.
+
+  Omar Khayyam, 159, 318.
+
+  "On the Beach at Night alone," 120.
+
+  "Once I passed through a populous City," 51.
+
+  Open-air, cure, W. tries, 260;
+    W.'s love for, 199;
+    W. writes in the, 101.
+    See Nature.
+
+  "Open Road, Song of the," 116, 119-20.
+
+  Opera, W. at, 88, 178.
+
+  Optimism, W.'s, 41-2, 91, 151, 200;
+    false popular, 237-8.
+
+  Oratory, W.'s love for, 33;
+    his conception of, 129-31, 135, 143.
+    See also Lectures.
+
+  Oregon, dispute over boundary of, 43.
+
+  Oriental writers, W.'s interest in, 115.
+
+  Orsini, 136.
+
+  Osgood & Co., 280, 285, 301.
+
+  Ossian, 58, 289, 318.
+
+  "Our old Feuillage," 150.
+
+  "Out of the Cradle," 12, 158, 211, 281.
+
+  "Outlines for a Tomb," 313.
+
+  "Overmen," doctrine of, 297, 299.
+
+  Owen, Robert, 308-9.
+
+
+  Paine, Thomas, xxv, 5, 16, 25, 38.
+
+  Painting, W.'s appreciation of, 84, 279-80.
+
+  Paley, 62.
+
+  _Pall Mall Gazette_ fund, 316.
+
+  Pan, W. compared with, 112.
+
+  Paralysis, W. begins to suffer from, 232.
+    See Health.
+
+  Parker, T., 143.
+
+  Parodi, 85.
+
+  Parties, W. outside political, 312.
+
+  _Passage to India_ (booklet), 242-244;
+    poem, 243-4, 249, 266, 287.
+
+  Passion, W. and, 161-2, 206.
+
+  Passionate element in W., 13, 68.
+
+  Past, the, still present, 153, 256.
+
+  Patent Office, Washington, used as hospital, 194;
+    ball, 210.
+
+  Paternity, redemption of, 127, 241.
+
+  Patriotism, W.'s, aroused, 54-5.
+
+  Paumànackers, 3.
+
+  "Paumanok," nom-de-plume of W., 39.
+
+  Peabody, George, 313.
+
+  Peace, efforts towards, 185, 188;
+    need for heroic idea of, 206-9.
+
+  Penn, William, 5.
+
+  Pension, proposed, 316.
+
+  Personal note in _L. of G._, 158.
+
+  Personality, Carpenter's account of W.'s, 268, 306;
+    the source of power, 169;
+    W.'s doctrine of, 239-40;
+    W. retains sense of own, 74;
+    W.'s, influence of, 30.
+
+  Pessimism, Tolstoi's, 295-6;
+    Morris and Ruskin's, 296.
+
+  Pfaff's Restaurant, N.Y., 138-40.
+
+  Philadelphia, W. in, 251, 331-5.
+    See Camden.
+
+  Phillips, Wendell, on Lincoln, 191.
+
+  Philosophy, W.'s interest in, 60-62.
+
+  Phrenological estimate of W.'s character, 67-8.
+
+  Pierce, President, 80, 103, 135.
+
+  "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" 205.
+
+  Pittsburg, W. at, 271.
+
+  Plato, 58, 121, 126, 239, 240, 282;
+    and W., 224, 291-2.
+
+  Plotinus, 121.
+
+  Poe, E. A., 37, 59, 258, 320;
+    W. meets, 42.
+
+  Poet, W. describes his ideal, 95-7, 103, 117-8, 123-4;
+    need of the poet for expression, 89-90;
+    alone realises unity of all, 243;
+    W. as a, 328-9.
+
+  Poets, two orders of, 328-9.
+
+  "Poets to Come," 154.
+
+  Poetry, W.'s view of, 59-61, 109;
+    W. reads by the sea, 60;
+    changes in modern English, 289-290.
+
+  Polk, President, 40, 43.
+
+  Poor, a menace to Democracy, the very, 240, 310-1.
+
+  Pope, A., W. compared with, 151, 289.
+
+  Population of America, xxv, 176, 308.
+
+  Portraits of W. in 36th year, 66-7;
+    _L. of G._ portrait, 110;
+    "gentle shepherd," 218;
+    others, 140-1, 148, 230, 257, 331, 338.
+    See list of illustrations.
+
+  Pose, W.'s, 338.
+
+  Potter, Dr. J., on W., 229-30.
+
+  Prairies, W. and the, 271.
+
+  Praise, W.'s love of, 303, 335.
+
+  Prayer, W. and, 76.
+
+  "Prayer of Columbus," 253;
+    described, 254-5.
+
+  Pre-existence, W.'s doctrine of, 101.
+
+  _Preface_ of 1855 used for poems, 116;
+    omitted, 129;
+    in selections, 223.
+
+  _Preface_ to 1871 ed., 243.
+
+  _Preface_ to 2nd Annex, 339.
+
+  Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 97.
+
+  Price, Mrs. Abby, 139, 219-20.
+
+  Price, Miss, qu., 219-20.
+
+  Pride, W.'s, 156, 317.
+
+  Printer, W. as a, 19-20, 56.
+
+  Prisons of the South, 187;
+    W. visits prisons, 111-2.
+
+  Property, W. and private, 240;
+    rights of, 311.
+
+  Prosecution of W. proposed in 1856, 127;
+    in 1882, 284-5.
+
+  "Prostitute, To a Common," 168.
+
+  Proudhon, 309.
+
+  Publisher, W. as his own, 219, 258, 259, 285, 305.
+
+  Punishment, method of, 30.
+
+  "Pupil, To a," 169.
+
+  Puritanism, W. free from, 19.
+
+  _Putnam's Monthly_, 108.
+
+
+  Quaker traits in W., 112;
+    W.'s story of a, 334-5.
+
+  Quakeresses in hospitals, 195.
+
+  Quakers, 121;
+    on L. I., 4-5;
+    a crisis among American, 14, 15;
+    attitude to war, W. and the, 206;
+    doctrine of Inner Light, 16, 17;
+    doctrine of revelation, 55;
+    essential character of their faith, 18;
+    W.'s relation to, 75-6, 180, 206, 298-9, 301-2;
+    Williams family and the, 347-8.
+
+  Quebec, W. at, 276.
+
+
+  _Radical, The_ (Boston), publishes Mrs. Gilchrist's letters, 225.
+
+  "Rain, The voice of the," 330.
+
+  Ramsay, A., 290.
+
+  Rand and Avery, 283.
+
+  Realisation, W.'s power of, 99.
+
+  Reality, evil necessary to, 212.
+
+  Recitations, W.'s in hospitals, 197.
+
+  Redpath, James, 198.
+
+  "Redwood Tree, Song of the," 253;
+    described, 255-6.
+
+  Refinement, W. disclaims, 113.
+
+  _Reformer, The_, 349.
+
+  Rejected passages, 286.
+
+  Religion, W.'s, 18-19, 70-8, 149, 241-4, 254, 299;
+    and poetry, 61;
+    new, 339;
+    importance of, for America, 238, 241.
+    See Mysticism.
+
+  Religious emotion in _L. of G._, 105-6.
+
+  Renaissance in America, xxiv.
+
+  "Renfrew, Baron," 173.
+
+  Republic, W.'s idea of, 292.
+    See America.
+
+  Republican becomes Democratic party, 13;
+    new party formed, 132, 134;
+    and the South, 189, 235;
+    and corruption, 314.
+
+  Respectable, W. seems to be growing, 216, 218.
+
+  "Respondez," 124.
+
+  "Return of the Heroes, The," 209.
+
+  Reviews himself, W., 109, 323-4.
+
+  Revolt, W.'s, against bondage, 296-7.
+
+  Rhythm, changes in rhythm of poetry, 290-1;
+    various emotional values of, 291;
+    W.'s feeling for sea, 60;
+    free, Emerson studies, 93;
+    W.'s view of, 96-8.
+
+  Rich, W. in danger of becoming, 57.
+
+  "Rich Givers, To," 169.
+
+  Richmond, the Confederate capital, 182;
+    surrenders, 188.
+
+  "Rise, O Days, from your fathomless Deeps," 206.
+
+  Robespierre, 289.
+
+  Rock Creek, W. at, 201.
+
+  Rocky Mountains, W. in the, 272-3.
+
+  Rodin, A., 130.
+
+  Rolleston, T. W., his _Epictetus_, 318.
+
+  "Rolling Earth, Song of the," 117-9.
+
+  Romance of America, the, xix-xxiii.
+
+  Rome, Andrew, printer, 88.
+
+  Romney, 264.
+
+  Roosa, D. B. St. J., qu., 137-8.
+
+  "Roots and leaves themselves alone," 165.
+
+  Rossetti, W. M., 97, 171, 259, 263-4;
+    his selections from _L. of G._, 221-3, 227, 245;
+    criticism of _L. of G._, 222;
+    relations with W., 223, 259;
+    and Mrs. Gilchrist's letters, 225.
+
+  Rossetti, D. G., 222, 223, 263-4, 328.
+
+  Rossi, 284.
+
+  "Roughs," W. "one of the," 114.
+
+  "Rounded Catalogue, The," 340.
+
+  Rousseau, J. J., 23, 58, 97, 108, 263, 289, 292.
+
+  Royce, Josiah, his _World and the Individual_, 166.
+
+  Rumford, Count (Colonel Thompson), 2.
+
+  Ruskin, J., 62, 171, 263, 296.
+
+  Rynders, Isaiah, 82.
+
+
+  Saadi, 318.
+
+  Saint, W. no, 76, 337.
+
+  St. Lawrence River, W.'s view of the, 276.
+
+  St. Louis, W. visits, 53, 271, 273, 286.
+
+  St. Simon, 309.
+
+  Saguenay, W. on the, 276.
+
+  "Salut au Monde," 116, 158.
+
+  Sanborn, F. B., W. visits, 281-2.
+
+  San Francisco, 63.
+
+  Sand, George, 293, 318.
+
+  Sanity, W.'s, 297.
+
+  Santayana, George, his criticism of W., 329 _n._
+
+  Satan, 212, 298, 297, 321.
+
+  "Scented herbage of my breast," 167.
+
+  Science, W. and, 60-2, 96, 242;
+    Mrs. Gilchrist and Carpenter's attitude toward, 267.
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, 57, 91, 318, 320;
+    W. reads, 19.
+
+  Scott, W. Bell, 171, 223.
+
+  Sea, W. and the, 9, 31, 58, 60, 154-5.
+
+  Secession, South Carolina proposes, 24;
+    proclaims, 175;
+    not desired by America, 176;
+    soldiers, W. nurses, 199;
+    talk in New England, 27.
+
+  Self, the, 74, 166;
+    and the Other, 61;
+    the electric, 154.
+
+  Self-assertion, W.'s doctrine of, 76, 297.
+
+  Self-consciousness of W., 128.
+
+  Self-realisation, gospel of, 148, 253.
+
+  Self-revelation of W., 264.
+
+  Semele, 275.
+
+  Seward, W. H., 79, 172, 175.
+
+  Sex, W. and, 144-7, 159-62, 167;
+    W.'s expanded conception of, 226;
+    Thoreau puzzled by W.'s view, 115;
+    W.'s experience of, 71;
+    and religion, 70-1;
+    basic in life, 126-7.
+
+  Shakespeare, xxi, 57, 318.
+
+  Shelley, P. B., W. indifferent to, 59;
+    compared with, 107-8;
+    also 91, 97, 290, 295.
+
+  Sherman, Gen., 187;
+    his march to the sea, 188.
+
+  Ships, W.'s love of, 60, 335-6, 343-4;
+    Yankee clipper, 64.
+
+  Sin, W.'s attitude toward, 18, 124-5, 151, 156, 161, 255.
+
+  Skin, rich texture of W.'s, 316.
+
+  Slavery, 79-81, 135-7;
+    divides North from South, 25;
+    W. and, 103;
+    and Democratic party, 82, see Abolitionism, etc.;
+    S. party and election of 1860, 173-4;
+    and the war, 177;
+    in N.Y., 310-1.
+
+  Slave-trade, 140.
+
+  Sleep, W. on, 102.
+
+  "Sleepers, The," 102, 274.
+
+  Sleepy Hollow, 301.
+
+  Smith, Adam, 308.
+
+  Smith, Mary Whitall. See Mrs. Berenson.
+
+  Smith, R. Pearsall, 297;
+    relations with W., 301-4;
+    leaves Philadelphia, 325.
+
+  Smoking, 32.
+    See Tobacco.
+
+  Social functions, W.'s interest in, 40.
+
+  Social problem in N.Y., 139-40.
+
+  Socialism, W. and, 239, 312.
+
+  Socialist, ideal, the, 308-9, 312;
+    party in America, 311;
+    Socialists, early, 308.
+
+  Solidarity, of the nation, felt in war-time, 207;
+    of the peoples, 205-6;
+    W.'s feeling for, 239-40, 242-3, 306-7, 337, 343.
+
+  Solitude, W.'s, 233, 331, 342;
+    compared with Thoreau and Emerson's, 113-4.
+
+  "So Long," 169.
+
+  "Sometimes with one I love," 164.
+
+  "Song of Myself," 122, 243, 286;
+    analysed, 98-101;
+    qu., 72 _n._;
+    called "Walt Whitman," 150.
+
+  Sophocles, 57.
+
+  Soul, the flesh and the, in modern religion, 61;
+    and Science, 96, 242;
+    in Nature, 102, 340;
+    W.'s view of the, 98, 120, 149.
+
+  South, its interests antagonistic to those of the North and West,
+      24-5;
+    similarity of interest with N.Y., 25;
+    policy, 26, 43;
+    and the war, 82-3, 176-7, 187, 235;
+    slavery and the, 25, 80-1;
+    pride of the, 187, 324;
+    Lincoln and, 189;
+    and the Union, 180, 314;
+    W. and the, 46-55, 180, 235, 237, 349-50.
+
+  South Carolina, and Federal tariff, 24, 27.
+
+  Southey, R., 327.
+
+  "Sovereign States," doctrine of, 26.
+
+  _Specimen Days_, 262, 266.
+
+  _Specimen Days and Collect_, 286.
+
+  Spectacles, W. begins to wear, 245.
+
+  Speech, W.'s manner of, 98;
+    W.'s style and, 291.
+
+  Spencer, Herbert, 62, 263.
+
+  Spirits, W. and, 149.
+
+  Spiritualistic woman and W., 234.
+
+  "Spontaneous Me," 127.
+
+  Spooner, Alden J., 20, 22, 30-1.
+
+  _Springfield (Mass.) Republican_, 259.
+
+  Square Deific. See "Chanting the S. D."
+
+  "Squatter Sovereignty," 44, 79, 80, 134.
+
+  Stafford family, 260;
+    George, 260-2, 266, 280, 343.
+
+  Stage-driver, W. as a, 137;
+    stage-drivers of N.Y., 138.
+    See Broadway.
+
+  Stanton, Mrs. E. C., 126.
+
+  Stars and Stripes, the, xx, 335.
+
+  "Starting from Paumanok," 148.
+
+  Staten Island, N.Y., 140.
+
+  _Statesman, The_, W. edits, 37.
+
+  Stay-at-home, W. a, 64.
+
+  Steam-transit and Federal sentiment, 27.
+
+  Stedman, E. C., 191, 317-8.
+
+  Stockton, Commodore, 63.
+
+  "Stranger, To a," 165.
+
+  Strength, W.'s great physical, 68.
+
+  Stubborn quality in W., 251.
+
+  Style of _L. of G._, 84, 92, 104-5, 150-1, 244, 289-91.
+    See under _L. of G._
+
+  Subjective character of W.'s genius, 105.
+
+  Suggestiveness of _L. of G._, 269.
+
+  Sumter, Fort, 178.
+
+  "Sunset Breeze, To the," 339, 340.
+
+  "Sunset, Song at," 152.
+
+  Sunstroke, an early, 200-1;
+    another, 314.
+
+  Superhuman quality in W., 228;
+    noted by M. Conway, 111;
+    by Thoreau, 115.
+
+  Swayne, bookseller, 87.
+
+  Swinburne, A. C., 60, 223-5, 245, 327-9.
+
+  Swinton, John, 138.
+
+  Symbolism, W.'s, 117-8, 120;
+    example of the broad-axe, 122.
+    See Mysticism.
+
+  Symonds, J. A., W.'s letter to, 51, 349-50;
+    and _L. of G._, 172, 224-5;
+    account of, 223-4, 245, 267, 291, 336, 343.
+
+  Sympathy, W.'s yearning for, 267.
+
+
+  Tammany Hall, 38, 82, 178.
+
+  Taney, R. B., 135.
+
+  Tariffs, 24.
+    See Free-trade.
+
+  _Tattler_, W. edits, 37.
+
+  Taylor, Father, as described by W., 142-3;
+    death, 283.
+
+  Taylor, President, 45, 50.
+
+  Teacher, W. as a, 28-33, 233;
+    method of punishment, 30.
+
+  Teetotalism, W.'s support of, 33, 35-7.
+    See Temperance.
+
+  Temperance, W.'s, 122, 159-60, 315.
+
+  Tennyson, A., Lord, 35, 92, 109, 223, 245, 283, 290, 318, 336;
+    W. enjoys, 59;
+    W. reads aloud, 275;
+    regards W. as "a great big something," 115;
+    and W., 339.
+
+  Texas admitted to Union, 43.
+
+  Thayer & Eldridge, publishers, 141-2, 171, 190.
+
+  Theatres of N.Y., W. goes to, 85-6, 19, 41, 270, 284.
+
+  Theory, W. no adept in, 75.
+
+  "There was a child went forth," 103.
+
+  "These I singing in spring," 163.
+
+  "Think of the soul," 125.
+
+  Thoreau, H. D., 129, 171, 282-3, 301, 303, 335;
+    visits W., 112-6;
+    and J. Brown, 136,159;
+    W. solitary as, 233.
+
+  "Thou Mother with thy equal brood," 245.
+
+  Timber Creek, W. visits, 259-61, 268, 281;
+    descriptions of, 260-1;
+    W. to have a cottage at, 317.
+
+  Tippecanoe, fight at, 38.
+
+  Tobacco, W. distributes in hospitals, 197.
+
+  Tolstoi, L., 293;
+    W. compared with, 295-6.
+
+  Tomb, W.'s, 341.
+
+  "To one shortly to die," 168.
+
+  "To soar in Freedom," 328.
+
+  "To think of Time," 102.
+
+  _Towards Democracy_, E. Carpenter's, 267, 305.
+
+  Toynbee Hall, W. and, 313.
+
+  Trade-Unionism, W. and, 312.
+
+  Tragedy, W.'s predilection for, in earlier writings, 34-5.
+
+  Tramp, W. envies the, 326.
+
+  Traubel, Horace, relations with W., 325, 326, 329, 331, 332, 342,
+      343, 344;
+    quoted, 349-50;
+    sec. of W. Fellowship, 300 _n._
+
+  Treasury Building, W. at, 190, 215, 233, 247.
+
+  _Tribune, New York._ See _N. Y. T._
+
+  "Trickle Drops," 165.
+
+  Tri-Insula, a republic, 178.
+
+  Trowbridge, J. T., 142.
+
+  Tuft's College, Mass., 255.
+
+  Tupper, M. F., W. compared with, 327.
+
+  "Twain, Mark," 317.
+
+  "Two Rivulets" described, 266.
+
+  Tyler, President, 38.
+
+
+  Ulysses' return, 276.
+
+  _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 81, 187.
+
+  Unitarianism, W.'s relation to, 76.
+
+  Union, W. and the idea of the American, 55.
+
+  Unity, W.'s doctrine of the universal, 120;
+    of _L. of G._, 221.
+
+  "Universal, Song of the," 253;
+    described, 255.
+
+  Untidiness, W.'s, 318.
+
+
+  Van Buren, 44;
+    W. supports, 33, 38.
+
+  Van Velsor, Major C., 4, 10;
+    family, 347.
+
+  -- Louisa. See L. Whitman.
+
+  -- Naomi. See Williams.
+
+  Verdi, 320.
+
+  Verse, W. writes, 47.
+
+  Vice, Society for the Suppression of, 284, 285.
+
+  Victoria, Queen, W. and, 339.
+
+  Vicksburg taken by Grant, 185.
+
+  Virgil, 318.
+
+  Virginia, xx, 26, 188.
+
+  "Vocalism," 157.
+
+  Voice, W.'s, described, 98;
+    W. and the, 154, 157.
+
+  Vow, Whitman's (1861), 181, 204, 216.
+
+
+  Wagner, R., 293, 320.
+
+  Wales, Prince of, and W., 173.
+
+  Walks at Washington, W.'s, 215, 233.
+
+  Wallace, A. R., 62.
+
+  Wallace, J. W., visits W., 338.
+
+  "Walt," W. calls himself, 141.
+
+  Walt Whitman Club, 325;
+    fellowship, 300 _n._
+
+  War, W.'s attitude towards, 43, 202-3, 205-9;
+    and "a divine war," 206;
+    his mysticism of, 207-8;
+    must be followed by nobler peace, 208-9.
+
+  War of 1812, 10.
+
+  War of 1861-65, 182-203;
+    causes of, 82, 208;
+    inevitableness, 177;
+    not for abolition, 187;
+    W. and the, xxvi, 178-209;
+    ready to share in, 202.
+
+  Washington, President, xxv, 5, 10, 38, 289;
+    W. compares himself with, 131.
+
+  Washington, condition of, during war, 194-8, 216.
+
+  Washington, W. in, xxvii, 184-248, 301, 306;
+    its influence on W., 150, 245;
+    W. visits hospitals, see H.;
+    W.'s manner of life in, 190, 193, 215;
+    W. fond of, 201-2;
+    why he remains, 218-9;
+    walks at, 233;
+    W. and negro problem in, 235;
+    hopes to return, 252;
+    discharged from post, 257;
+    visit to, 258.
+
+  Wealth of America becoming concentrated, 310.
+
+  Webster, Daniel, 42, 79.
+
+  Wesley, J., 290.
+
+  West, the, its interests, 24;
+    its settlement threatens the South, 26;
+    problem of, 79;
+    W. and the, xxvii;
+    first sees, 54;
+    contemplates settlement in, 183;
+    journey, 271-4.
+
+  West Hills, the Whitman homestead, 5, 103, 260, 320;
+    described, 7-9;
+    holidays at, 12;
+    W. visits, 280.
+
+  "What am I after all," 158.
+
+  Whigs, the American, 23, 24, 44.
+
+  Whitehorse, the hamlet of, W. stays at, 259-60.
+    See Timber Creek.
+
+  Whitman, Abijah, 5.
+
+  -- Andrew, 13, 86, 193, 256.
+
+  -- Edward, 86, 256, 341.
+
+  -- George, 13, 86, 182, 185, 246, 248, 250, 256, 257, 266, 342;
+    view of _L. of G._, 88;
+    volunteers, 178-9;
+    wounded, 183;
+    anxiety about, 203;
+    a prisoner, 209-10;
+    in Brooklyn, 218;
+    in Camden, 246;
+    W. leaves his house, 305.
+
+  Whitman, Hannah. See Heyde.
+
+  -- Iredwell, 280.
+
+  -- Jefferson, 13, 50, 53, 86, 88, 185, 193, 251, 256, 273;
+    goes to St. Louis, 218;
+    W. visits there, 265-5;
+    death of, 342.
+
+  -- Jesse (W.'s grandfather), xxv, 5, 6, 8.
+
+  -- Jesse (W.'s brother), 11, 65, 86, 256.
+
+  -- Jessie, 342.
+
+  -- Joseph, 5.
+
+  -- Lieutenant, 5.
+
+  -- Louisa (van Velsor), 4, 65, 103, 112;
+    described, 6-7;
+    and W., 12-3;
+    illness, 19-20;
+    and _L. of G._, 88;
+    letters of W. to, 202, 233, 247, etc.;
+    age and failing health, 210;
+    a link with W.'s youth, 233;
+    goes to Camden, 246;
+    death, 248;
+    effect on W., 249, 250, 252, 258;
+    her tomb, 341.
+
+  -- Louisa (Mrs. George W.), 250, 269.
+
+  -- Mahala, 280.
+
+  -- Martha, 248.
+
+  -- Mary, 11, 86.
+
+  -- Walt, Dutch element in, 3;
+    born, 6;
+    at West Hills, 7-9;
+    at Brooklyn, 10-3;
+    hears Hicks, 15-8;
+    amusements and education, 19;
+    as a lad, 19-20;
+    sees Booth, 22;
+    and politics, 22, 33;
+    at seventeen, 28;
+    as a teacher, 28-33;
+    games, 30;
+    his idleness, 20, 30-1;
+    and _Long Islander_, 31-2;
+    wholesomeness, 32;
+    a journalist, 33-7;
+    _Franklin Evans_, 35;
+    an editor, 37;
+    political views, 39, 40, 44;
+    love of society, 40;
+    and of New York, 20, 41-2;
+    the _Eagle_, 42-4;
+    public work, 43;
+    goes to New Orleans, 46, 49-53;
+    returns _via_ St. Louis, 54;
+    his idea of America, 55;
+    becomes a carpenter, 56;
+    his reading, 57-61;
+    attitude to American writers, 59-60;
+    and to science, etc., 60-2;
+    passion for America, 63;
+    inner development, 65, 69-78;
+    W. at 35, 66-8, 83;
+    in N.Y., 82-6;
+    hears Alboni, 86;
+    indifference to money, 87;
+    begins _L. of G._, 87;
+    publishes it, 88;
+    daily habits, 65, 88;
+    holidays, 86, 89;
+    power of joy, 91;
+    compared with Emerson, 94;
+    view of the poet, 95-7;
+    describes his childhood, 103-4;
+    religious quality of W., 105-6;
+    relation to Emerson, Rousseau, Shelley, 106-8;
+    reviews _L. of G._, 109;
+    visit from Conway, 110-2;
+    appearance in '55, 111;
+    visit from Alcott and Thoreau, 112-5;
+    love of city-life, 114;
+    publishes second edition _L. of G._, 116;
+    symbolism of W., 117-22;
+    W. as the American poet, 123;
+    W. and evil, 124-5;
+    and women, 126-7;
+    in danger of prosecution, 127;
+    publishes Emerson's letter, 127-8;
+    his letter to E., 128;
+    idea of lecturing, 129-31;
+    and of political life, 131-2;
+    need for comrades, 132-3;
+    becomes a Republican, 134;
+    W. and J. Brown, 136;
+    W.'s N.Y. friends, 137;
+    in N.Y., 138-40;
+    appearance in 1860, 140;
+    rarely laughs, 142;
+    at Boston, 142-3;
+    with Emerson, 143-7;
+    his optimism, 151;
+    humility, 154;
+    mystic experience, 155;
+    pride, 156;
+    evil qualities, 156;
+    attitude toward sex, 159-62;
+    his temperance, 160;
+    as Adam, 162;
+    on comradeship, 163;
+    W. and Jesus, 167-8;
+    and death, 169;
+    W. in N.Y., 172;
+    and P. of Wales, 173;
+    sees Lincoln, 175-6;
+    W. and the outbreak of war, 178-81;
+    goes to front, 183-4;
+    home-troubles, 185-6, 193;
+    life in Washington, 190, 193, 201;
+    friends there, 190-2;
+    appearance, 192;
+    occupation, 192-3;
+    health, 193;
+    thinks of lecturing, 193-4;
+    in hospitals, 194-200;
+    meets Lincoln, 201;
+    first illness, 202, 203-4;
+    willing to share in war, 203;
+    in Brooklyn, 203-5, 209;
+    prepares _Drum-taps_, 205;
+    attitude to war, 205-9;
+    seeks release of George W., 209-10;
+    clerk in Indian Bureau, 210
+    W. and Lincoln's death, 211-2;
+    Harlan incident, 213-4;
+    as a clerk, 216;
+    gentler, 217;
+    decreasing vitality, 218;
+    visits Mrs. Price, 219-20;
+    relations with W. M. Rossetti, 223;
+    with Symonds, 223-5;
+    Mrs. Gilchrist's letters, 225;
+    W. and sex, 226;
+    legendary element in story of W., 227;
+    outcome of his personality, 228-9;
+    W. and P. Doyle, 231-3;
+    W.'s solitude, 233;
+    W. and women, 234;
+    supports Grant, 235;
+    quarrel with O'Connor, 236;
+    his _Democratic Vistas_, 236-42;
+    publishes fifth edition of _L. of G._, 242;
+    W. a careful writer, 244;
+    public recitation of poems, 245;
+    illness, 247-57;
+    goes to Camden, 248;
+    effect of mother's death, 249;
+    loneliness in Camden, 250;
+    poems at this juncture, 253-5;
+    his residence, 256;
+    discharged from post, 257;
+    poverty and help from England, 258-9;
+    visits Timber Creek, 260-2;
+    Mrs. Gilchrist comes to Phila., 263-5;
+    W. sits for bust, 265;
+    Carpenter's visit and account of W., 267-9;
+    Dr. Bucke's do., 270;
+    W.'s journey West, 271-4;
+    and to Canada, 274-7;
+    goes to Boston, 278-82;
+    sees Emerson, 282;
+    _L. of G._ troubles, 284-6;
+    W. and other prophetic writers, 289-300;
+    puts himself into his rhythm, 291;
+    universality of W., 295;
+    and vital power, 298;
+    his friendship with Pearsall Smith, 301-4;
+    W. takes the Mickle St. house, 305;
+    second visit of Carpenter, 305-7;
+    W. and labour problems, 306-13;
+    was he a Socialist? 311-2;
+    W. a "mugwump," 314;
+    his household, 317-9;
+    visitors, 319-24;
+    his politico-social views, 323-4;
+    serious illness, 326;
+    more querulous, 327;
+    Swinburne's attack, 327;
+    increased need for silence, 331;
+    birthday dinners, 331-2;
+    Ingersoll's lecture, 333-5;
+    W. and _L. of G._, 335-6;
+    his views of health, 338-40;
+    his tomb, 341;
+    last illness, 341-4;
+    last letter, 342;
+    death, 344;
+    funeral, 344-6;
+    note on visit to New Orleans, etc., 349-50.
+
+  Whitman, his characteristics, described by phrenologist, 67-8.
+    See also 303-4, 334, and under Anger, Coolness, Elemental quality,
+      Evil in, Humility, Humour, Mysticism, Pride, Sanity, Wonder, etc.
+
+  -- Walter (father of W.), 56, 103;
+    described, 6, 13-4;
+    moves to Brooklyn, 10;
+    relations with W., 12, 65;
+    death, 86, 88;
+    tomb, 341.
+
+  -- Zechariah, 5.
+
+  Whitman, burying ground, West Hills, 9;
+    family, and Hicks, 14;
+    and _L. of G._, 88;
+    homestead at West Hills, 2.
+    See W. H.
+
+  Whitmanites, 218.
+
+  Whitman's America, Introd.;
+    W. owes much to A., xxv;
+    its development, xxvi;
+    extent of W.'s journeys, xxvii;
+    W. a metropolitan American, and a type of America, xxvii-viii.
+
+  "Whitman's hollow," 5.
+
+  Whittier, J. G., 59, 336.
+
+  "Whoever you are holding me now in hand," 163.
+
+  Whole, the idea of the, W.'s love for, 60-1.
+
+  "Who learns my lesson complete?" 104.
+
+  Wholesomeness, W.'s, 32.
+
+  Wickedness, W.'s attitude to, 104.
+
+  Williams, family of, 31, 347-8.
+
+  -- Naomi, 4, 347-8.
+
+  -- Roger, 4.
+
+  Wilmot proviso, the, 43, 44.
+
+  Wisconsin, State of, W. in, 54.
+
+  Wisdom found in fellowship, 164.
+
+  "Woman waits for Me, A," 126.
+
+  Woman, W. and, 102, 125-7, 148, 225-6, 240, 274.
+
+  Women, W.'s relations with, 51-3, 71, 139, 160, 234, 263, 303, 323,
+      349-50.
+
+  Women of America, 122;
+    of Boston, 279.
+
+  Women's suffrage, 240;
+    W. and, 125-6.
+
+  Wonder, W.'s capacity for, 78.
+
+  Wood, Fernando, 82, 178, 185.
+
+  Wood, Silas, 7.
+
+  Woodfall and Junius, 285.
+
+  "Word out of the Sea, A." See "Out of the Cradle".
+
+  Words, W.'s idea of, 96, 117-9;
+    W. invents, 212.
+
+  Wordsworth, W., 91, 97, 290;
+    W. and, 59.
+
+  Work, W.'s power of, 32.
+
+  Working-man, American, W. and the, 312, 322.
+
+  Worship, W. feels this is for solitude, 142.
+
+  Worthington, Mr., 285-6.
+
+
+  Yankee, W. dislikes the, 103.
+
+  "Years of the Modern," 205-6.
+
+  Yeomen as citizens, 306, 308.
+
+  Young people, W. and, 275, 303.
+
+  Youth, America the land of, xx-xxii.
+
+
+THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS
+
+PUBLISHED BY METHUEN
+
+AND COMPANY: LONDON
+
+36 ESSEX STREET
+
+W.C.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                    PAGE
+
+  GENERAL LITERATURE,               2-19
+
+  ANCIENT CITIES,                     19
+
+  ANTIQUARY'S BOOKS,                  19
+
+  BEGINNER'S BOOKS,                   19
+
+  BUSINESS BOOKS,                     20
+
+  BYZANTINE TEXTS,                    20
+
+  CHURCHMAN'S BIBLE,                  20
+
+  CHURCHMAN'S LIBRARY,                21
+
+  CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS,             21
+
+  COMMERCIAL SERIES,                  21
+
+  CONNOISSEUR'S LIBRARY,              22
+
+  LIBRARY OF DEVOTION,                22
+
+  METHUEN'S HALF-CROWN LIBRARY,       23
+
+  ILLUSTRATED POCKET LIBRARY OF PLAIN AND COLOURED BOOKS,
+                                      23
+
+  JUNIOR EXAMINATION SERIES,          24
+
+  METHUEN'S JUNIOR SCHOOL BOOKS,      24
+
+  LEADERS OF RELIGION,                25
+
+  LITTLE BLUE BOOKS,                  25
+
+  LITTLE BOOKS ON ART,                25
+
+  LITTLE GALLERIES,                   26
+
+  LITTLE GUIDES,                      26
+
+  LITTLE LIBRARY,                     26
+
+  METHUEN'S MINIATURE LIBRARY,        28
+
+  OXFORD BIOGRAPHIES,                 28
+
+  SCHOOL EXAMINATION SERIES,          28
+
+  SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY,         29
+
+  METHUEN'S STANDARD LIBRARY,         29
+
+  TEXTBOOKS OF TECHNOLOGY,            30
+
+  HANDBOOKS OF THEOLOGY,              30
+
+  WESTMINSTER COMMENTARIES,           31
+
+  FICTION,                         32-40
+
+  METHUEN'S STRAND LIBRARY,           37
+
+  BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS,           38
+
+  NOVELS OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS,          38
+
+  METHUEN'S SIXPENNY BOOKS,           39
+
+
+OCTOBER 1905
+
+A CATALOGUE OF
+
+MESSRS. METHUEN'S
+
+PUBLICATIONS
+
+Colonial Editions are published of all Messrs. METHUEN'S Novels issued
+at a price above _2s. 6d._, and similar editions are published of
+some works of General Literature. These are marked in the Catalogue.
+Colonial editions are only for circulation in the British Colonies and
+India.
+
+An asterisk denotes that a book is in the Press.
+
+
+PART I.--GENERAL LITERATURE
+
+  THE MOTOR YEAR BOOK FOR 1905. With many Illustrations and Diagrams.
+    _Crown 8vo. 5s. net._
+
+  HEALTH, WEALTH AND WISDOM. _Crown 8vo, 1s. net._
+
+  FELISSA; OR, THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF A KITTEN OF SENTIMENT. With 12
+    Coloured Plates. _Post 16mo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Abbot (Jacob).= See Little Blue Books.
+
+  *=Abbott (J. H. M.)=, Author of 'Tommy Cornstalk.' THE OLD COUNTRY:
+    IMPRESSIONS OF AN AUSTRALIAN IN ENGLAND. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Acatos (M. J.).= See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Adams (Frank).= JACK SPRATT. With 24 Coloured Pictures. _Super Royal
+    16mo. 2s._
+
+  =Adeney (W. F.)=, M.A. See Bennett and Adeney.
+
+  =Æschylus.= See Classical Translations.
+
+  =Æsop.= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Ainsworth (W. Harrison).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  *=Aldis (Janet).= MADAME GEOFFRIN, HER SALON, AND HER TIMES. With
+    many Portraits and Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Alderson (J. P.).= MR. ASQUITH. With Portraits and Illustrations.
+    _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Alexander (William)=, D.D., Archbishop of Armagh. THOUGHTS AND
+    COUNSELS OF MANY YEARS. Selected by J. H. BURN, B.D. _Demy 16mo.
+    2s. 6d._
+
+  =Alken (Henry).= THE NATIONAL SPORTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. With
+    descriptions in English and French. With 51 Coloured Plates. _Royal
+    Folio. Five Guineas net._
+
+    See also Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Allen (Jessie).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Allen (J. Romilly)=, F. S. A. See Antiquary's Books.
+
+  =Almack (E.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Amherst (Lady).= A SKETCH OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST
+    TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY. With many Illustrations, some of which
+    are in Colour. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Anderson (F. M.).= THE STORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE FOR CHILDREN.
+    With many Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+  *=Anderson (J. G.)=, B.A., Examiner to London University, the College
+    of Preceptors, and the Welsh Intermediate Board. NOUVELLE GRAMMAIRE
+    FRANÇAISE. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+  *EXERCISES ON NOUVELLE GRAMMAIRE FRANÇAISE. _Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  =Andrewes (Bishop).= PRECES PRIVATAE. Edited, with Notes, by F. E.
+    BRIGHTMAN, M.A., of Pusey House, Oxford. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Anglo-Australian.= AFTER-GLOW MEMORIES. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Aristophanes.= THE FROGS. Translated into English by E. W.
+    HUNTINGFORD, M.A., Professor of Classics in Trinity College,
+    Toronto. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Aristotle.= THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. Edited, with an Introduction and
+    Notes, by JOHN BURNET, M.A., Professor of Greek at St. Andrews.
+    _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Ashton (R.).= See Little Blue Books.
+
+  *=Askham (Richard).= THE LIFE OF WALT WHITMAN. With Portraits and
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Atkins (H. G.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Atkinson (C. M.).= JEREMY BENTHAM. _Demy 8vo. 5s. net._
+
+  =Atkinson (T. D.).= A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. With
+    over 200 Illustrations by the Author and others. _Second Edition.
+    Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  *A GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. _Fcap. 8vo. 3s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Auden (T.)=, M.A., F.S.A. See Ancient Cities.
+
+  =Aurelius (Marcus).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Austen (Jane).= See Little Library and Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Aves (Ernest).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =Bacon (Francis).= See Little Library and Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Baden-Powell (R. S. S.)=, Major-General. THE DOWNFALL OF PREMPEH. A
+    Diary of Life in Ashanti, 1895. With 21 Illustrations and a Map.
+    _Third Edition. Large Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  THE MATABELE CAMPAIGN, 1896. With nearly 100 Illustrations. _Fourth
+    and Cheaper Edition. Large Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Bailey (J. C.)=, M.A. See Cowper.
+
+  =Baker (W. G.)=, M.A. See Junior Examination Series.
+
+  =Baker (Julian L.)=, F.I.C., F.C.S. See Books on Business.
+
+  =Balfour (Graham).= THE LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _Second
+    Edition. Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. 25s. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Bally (S. E.).= See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Banks (Elizabeth L.).= THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A 'NEWSPAPER GIRL.' With
+    a Portrait of the Author and her Dog. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Barham (R. H.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Baring (The Hon. Maurice).= WITH THE RUSSIANS IN MANCHURIA. _Second
+    Edition. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Baring-Gould (S.).= THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. With over 450
+    Illustrations in the Text, and 12 Photogravure Plates. _Gilt top.
+    Large quarto. 36s._
+
+  THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS. With numerous Illustrations from Busts,
+    Gems, Cameos, etc. _Fifth Edition. Royal 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES. With numerous Illustrations and Initial
+    Letters by ARTHUR J. GASKIN. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. Buckram.
+    6s._
+
+  A BOOK OF BRITTANY. With numerous Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. With numerous Illustrations by F. D.
+    BEDFORD. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW: A Biography. A new and Revised Edition. With
+    a Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  DARTMOOR: A Descriptive and Historical Sketch. With Plans and
+    numerous Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE BOOK OF THE WEST. With numerous Illustrations. _Two volumes._
+    Vol. I. Devon. _Second Edition._ Vol. II. Cornwall. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. each._
+
+  A BOOK OF NORTH WALES. With numerous Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES. With many Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *THE RIVIERA. With many Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  A BOOK OF GHOSTS. With 8 Illustrations by D. Murray Smith. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  OLD COUNTRY LIFE. With 67 Illustrations. _Fifth Edition. Large Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG: English Folk Songs with their Traditional
+    Melodies. Collected and arranged by S. BARING-GOULD and H. F.
+    SHEPPARD. _Demy 4to. 6s._
+
+  SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional Ballads and Songs of the West of
+    England, with their Melodies. Collected by S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.,
+    and H. F. SHEPPARD, M.A. In 4 Parts. _Parts I., II., III., 2s. 6d.
+    each. Part IV., 4s. In One Volume, Paper Sides, Cloth Back, 10s.
+    net; Roan, 15s._
+
+    See also The Little Guides and Methuen's Half-Crown Library.
+
+  =Barker (Aldred. F.).= See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Barnes (W. E.)=, D.D. See Churchman's Bible.
+
+  =Barnett (Mrs. P. A.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Baron (R. R. N.)=, M.A. FRENCH PROSE COMPOSITION. _Second Edition.
+    Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Key, 3s. net._ See also Junior School Books.
+
+  =Barron (H. M.)=, M.A., Wadham College, Oxford. TEXTS FOR SERMONS.
+    With a Preface by Canon SCOTT HOLLAND. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Bastable (C. F.)=, M.A. See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Batson (Mrs. Stephen).= A BOOK OF THE COUNTRY AND THE GARDEN.
+    Illustrated by F. CARRUTHERS GOULD and A. C. GOULD. _Demy 8vo. 10s.
+    6d._
+
+  A CONCISE HANDBOOK OF GARDEN FLOWERS. _Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Batten (Loring W.)=, Ph.D., S.T.D., Some time Professor in the
+    Philadelphia Divinity School. THE HEBREW PROPHET. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Beaman (A. Hulme).= PONS ASINORUM; OR, A GUIDE TO BRIDGE. _Second
+    Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s._
+
+  =Beard (W. S.).= See Junior Examination Series and the Beginner's
+    Books.
+
+  =Beckford (Peter).= THOUGHTS ON HUNTING. Edited by J. OTHO PAGET, and
+    Illustrated by G. H. JALLAND. _Second and Cheaper Edition. Demy
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Beckford (William).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Beeching (H. C.)=, M.A., Canon of Westminster. See Library of
+    Devotion.
+
+  *=Begbie (Harold).= MASTER WORKERS. With Illustrations. _Demy 8vo.
+    7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Behmen (Jacob).= DIALOGUES ON THE SUPERSENSUAL LIFE. Edited by
+    BERNARD HOLLAND. _Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Belloc (Hilaire).= PARIS. With Maps and Illustrations. _Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  =Bellot (H. H. L.)=, M.A. THE INNER AND MIDDLE TEMPLE. With numerous
+    Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s. net._
+
+    See also =L. A. A. Jones.=
+
+  =Bennett (W. H.)=, M.A. A PRIMER OF THE BIBLE. _Second Edition. Cr.
+    8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Bennett (W. H.) and Adeney (W. F.).= A BIBLICAL INTRODUCTION.
+    _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Benson (Archbishop).= GOD'S BOARD: Communion Addresses. _Fcap. 8vo.
+    3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Benson (A. C.)=, M.A. See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Benson (R. M.).= THE WAY OF HOLINESS: a Devotional Commentary on the
+    119th Psalm. _Crown 8vo. 5s._
+
+  =Bernard (E. R.)=, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. THE ENGLISH SUNDAY.
+    _Fcap. 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  =Bertouch (Baroness de).= THE LIFE OF FATHER IGNATIUS, O.S.B., THE
+    MONK OF LLANTHONY. With Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Betham-Edwards (M.).= HOME LIFE IN FRANCE. With many Illustrations.
+    _Second Edition. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Bethune-Baker (J. F.)=, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
+    See Handbooks of Theology.
+
+  =Bidez (M.).= See Byzantine Texts.
+
+  =Biggs (C. R. D.)=, D.D. See Churchman's Bible.
+
+  =Bindley (T. Herbert)=, B.D. THE OECUMENICAL DOCUMENTS OF THE FAITH.
+    With Introductions and Notes. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Binyon (Laurence).= THE DEATH OF ADAM, AND OTHER POEMS. _Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d. net._
+
+  *WILLIAM BLAKE. In 2 volumes. _Quarto. £1, 1s. each._ Vol. I.
+
+  =Birnstingl (Ethel).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Blair (Robert).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Blake (William).= See Illustrated Pocket Library and Little Library.
+
+  =Blaxland (B.).=, M.A. See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Bloom (T. Harvey)=, M.A. SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN. With Illustrations.
+    _Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.; leather, 4s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Blouet (Henri).= See The Beginner's Books.
+
+  =Boardman (T. H.)=, M.A. See Text Books of Technology.
+
+  =Bodley (J. E. C.).= Author of 'France.' THE CORONATION OF EDWARD
+    VII. _Demy 8vo. 21s. net._ By Command of the King.
+
+  =Body (George)=, D.D. THE SOUL'S PILGRIMAGE: Devotional Readings from
+    his published and unpublished writings. Selected and arranged by J.
+    H. BURN, B.D. F.R.S.E. _Pott 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Bona (Cardinal).= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Boon (F. C.).= See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Borrow (George).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Bos (J. Ritzema).= AGRICULTURAL ZOOLOGY. Translated by J. R.
+    AINSWORTH DAVIS, M.A. With an Introduction by ELEANOR A. ORMEROD,
+    F.E.S. With 155 Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Botting (C. G.)=, B.A. EASY GREEK EXERCISES. _Crown 8vo. 2s._ See
+    also Junior Examination Series.
+
+  =Boulton (E. S.)=, M.A. GEOMETRY ON MODERN LINES. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+  *=Boulton (William B.).= THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH: His Life, Times, Work,
+    Sitters, and Friends. With 40 Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+    net._
+
+  SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. With 49 Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Bowden (E. M.).= THE IMITATION OF BUDDHA: Being Quotations from
+    Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. _Fifth Edition. Crown
+    16mo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Boyle (W.).= CHRISTMAS AT THE ZOO. With Verses by W. BOYLE and 24
+    Coloured Pictures by H. B. NEILSON. _Super Royal 16mo. 2s._
+
+  =Brabant (F. G.)=, M.A. See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Brodrick (Mary) and Morton (Anderson).= A CONCISE HANDBOOK OF
+    EGYPTIAN ARCHÆOLOGY. With many Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Brooke (A. S.)=, M.A. SLINGSBY AND SLINGSBY CASTLE. With many
+    Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Brooks (E. W.).= See Byzantine Tests.
+
+  =Brown (P. H.)=, Fraser Professor of Ancient (Scottish) History at
+    the University of Edinburgh. SCOTLAND IN THE TIME OF QUEEN MARY.
+    _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Browne (Sir Thomas).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Brownell (C. L.).= THE HEART OF JAPAN. Illustrated. _Third Edition.
+    Crown 8vo. 6s.; also Demy 8vo. 6d._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Browning (Robert).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Buckland (Francis T.).= CURIOSITIES OF NATURAL HISTORY. With
+    Illustrations by HARRY B. NEILSON. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Buckton (A. M.).= THE BURDEN OF ENGELA: a Ballad-Epic. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  EAGER HEART: A Mystery Play. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 1s. net._
+
+  =Budge (E. A. Wallis).= THE GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS. With over 100
+    Coloured Plates and many Illustrations. _Two Volumes. Royal 8vo.
+    £3, 3s. net._
+
+  =Bull (Paul)=, Army Chaplain. GOD AND OUR SOLDIERS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Bulley (Miss).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Bunyan (John).= THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. Edited, with an
+    Introduction, by C. H. FIRTH, M.A. With 39 Illustrations by R.
+    ANNING BELL. _Cr. 8vo. 6s._ See also Library of Devotion and
+    Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Burch (G. J.)=, M.A., F.R.S. A MANUAL OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. With
+    numerous Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 3s._
+
+  =Burgess (Gelett).= GOOPS AND HOW TO BE THEM. With numerous
+    Illustrations. _Small 4to. 6s._
+
+  =Burke (Edmund).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Burn (A. E.)=, D.D., Prebendary of Lichfield. See Handbooks of
+    Theology.
+
+  =Burn (J. H.)=, B.D. See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Burnand (Sir F. C.).= RECORDS AND REMINISCENCES, PERSONAL AND
+    GENERAL. With a Portrait by H. V. HERKOMER. _Crown 8vo. Fourth and
+    Cheaper Edition. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Burns (Robert)=, THE POEMS OF. Edited by ANDREW LANG and W. A.
+    CRAIGIE. With Portrait. _Third Edition. Demy 8vo, gilt top. 6s._
+
+  =Burnside (W. F.)=, M.A. OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY FOR USE IN SCHOOLS.
+    _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Burton (Alfred).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  *=Bussell (F. W.)=, D.D., Fellow and Vice-President of Brasenose
+    College, Oxford. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS: The
+    Bampton Lectures for 1905. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Butler (Joseph).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Caldecott (Alfred)=, D.D. See Handbooks of Theology.
+
+  =Calderwood (D. S.)=, Headmaster of the Normal School, Edinburgh.
+    TEST CARDS IN EUCLID AND ALGEBRA. In three packets of 40, with
+    Answers. _1s._ each. Or in three Books, price _2d._, _2d._, and
+    _3d._
+
+  =Cambridge (Ada) [Mrs. Cross].= THIRTY YEARS IN AUSTRALIA. _Demy 8vo.
+    7s. 6d._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Canning (George).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Capey (E. F. H.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Careless (John).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Carlyle (Thomas).= THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Edited by C. R. L.
+    FLETCHER, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. _Three Volumes. Crown
+    8vo. 18s._
+
+  THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF OLIVER CROMWELL. With an Introduction by
+    C. H. FIRTH, M.A., and Notes and Appendices by Mrs. S. C. LOMAS.
+    _Three Volumes. Demy 8vo. 18s. net._
+
+  =Carlyle (R. M. and A. J.)=, M.A. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  *=Carpenter (Margaret).= THE CHILD IN ART. With numerous
+    Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Chamberlin (Wilbur B.).= ORDERED TO CHINA. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Channer (C. C.) and Roberts (M. E.).= LACE-MAKING IN THE MIDLANDS,
+    PAST AND PRESENT. With 16 full-page Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 2s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Chatterton (Thomas).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Chesterfield (Lord)=, THE LETTERS OF, TO HIS SON. Edited, with
+    an Introduction by C. STRACHEY, and Notes by A. CALTHROP. _Two
+    Volumes. Cr. 8vo. 12s._
+
+  *=Chesterton (G. K.).= DICKENS. With Portraits and Illustrations.
+    _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Christian (F. W.).= THE CAROLINE ISLANDS. With many Illustrations
+    and Maps. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Cicero.= See Classical Translations.
+
+  =Clarke. (F. A.)=, M.A. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Cleather (A. L.) and Crump (B.).= RICHARD WAGNERS MUSIC DRAMAS:
+    Interpretations, embodying Wagner's own explanations. _In Four
+    Volumes. Fcap 8vo. 2s. 6d. each._
+
+    VOL. I.--THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG.
+
+    VOL. II.--PARSIFAL, LOHENGRIN, AND THE HOLY GRAIL.
+
+    VOL. III.--TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.
+
+  =Clinch (G.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Clough (W. T.)=, See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Coast (W. G.)=, B.A. EXAMINATION PAPERS IN VERGIL. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+  =Cobb (T.).= See Little Blue Books.
+
+  *=Cobb (W. F.)=, M.A. THE BOOK OF PSALMS: with a Commentary. _Demy
+    8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Coleridge (S. T.)=, SELECTIONS FROM. Edited by ARTHUR SYMONS. _Fcap.
+    8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Collins (W. E.)=, M.A. See Churchman's Library.
+
+  =Colonna.= HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI UBI HUMANA OMNIA NON NISI
+    SOMNIUM ESSE DOCET ATQUE OBITER PLURIMA SCITU SANE QUAM DIGNA
+    COMMEMORAT. An edition limited to 350 copies on handmade paper.
+    _Folio. Three Guineas net._
+
+  =Combe (William).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Cook (A. M.)=, M.A. See E. C. Marchant.
+
+  =Cooke-Taylor (R. W.).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Corelli (Marie).= THE PASSING OF THE GREAT QUEEN: A Tribute to the
+    Noble Life of Victoria Regina. _Small 4to. 1s._
+
+  A CHRISTMAS GREETING. _Sm. 4to. 1s._
+
+  =Corkran (Alice).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Cotes (Rosemary).= DANTE'S GARDEN. With a Frontispiece. _Second
+    Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.; leather, 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  BIBLE FLOWERS. With a Frontispiece and Plan. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Cowley (Abraham).= See Little Library.
+
+  *=Cowper (William)=, THE POEMS OF. Edited with an Introduction and
+    Notes by J. C. BAILEY, M.A. With Illustrations, including two
+    unpublished designs by WILLIAM BLAKE. _Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. 10s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Cox (J. Charles)=, LL.D., F.S.A. See Little Guides, The Antiquary's
+    Books, and Ancient Cities.
+
+  =Cox (Harold)=, B.A. See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Crabbe (George).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Craigie (W. A.).= A PRIMER OF BURNS. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Craik (Mrs.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Crashaw (Richard).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Crawford (F. G.).= See Mary C. Danson.
+
+  =Crouch (W.).= BRYAN KING. With a Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Cruikshank (G.).= THE LOVING BALLAD OF LORD BATEMAN. With 11 Plates.
+    _Crown 16mo. 1s. 6d. net._
+
+    From the edition published by C. Tilt, 1811.
+
+  =Crump (B.).= See A. L. Cleather.
+
+  =Cunliffe (F. H. E.)=, Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford. THE
+    HISTORY OF THE BOER WAR. With many Illustrations, Plans, and
+    Portraits. _In 2 vols. Quarto. 15s. each._
+
+  =Cutts (E. L.)=, D.D. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Daniell (G. W.)=, M.A. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Danson (Mary C.)= and =Crawford (F. G.).= FATHERS IN THE FAITH.
+    _Small 8vo 1s. 6d._
+
+  =Dante.= LA COMMEDIA DI DANTE. The Italian Text edited by PAGET
+    TOYNBEE, M.A., D.Litt. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE PURGATORIO OF DANTE. Translated into Spenserian Prose by C.
+    GORDON WRIGHT. With the Italian text. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+    See also Paget Toynbee and Little Library.
+
+  =Darley (George).= See Little Library.
+
+  *=D'Arcy (R. F.)=, M.A. A NEW TRIGONOMETRY FOR BEGINNERS. _Crown 8vo.
+    2s. 6d._
+
+  =Davenport (Cyril).= See Connoisseur's Library and Little Books on
+    Art.
+
+  *=Davis (H. W. C.)=, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College,
+    Author of 'Charlemagne.' ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS AND ANGEVINS:
+    1066-1272. With Maps and Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Dawson (A. J.).= MOROCCO. Being a bundle of jottings, notes,
+    impressions, tales, and tributes. With many Illustrations. _Demy
+    8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Deane (A. C.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Delbos (Leon).= THE METRIC SYSTEM. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
+
+  =Demosthenes.= THE OLYNTHIACS AND PHILIPPICS. Translated upon a new
+    principle by OTHO HOLLAND. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Demosthenes.= AGAINST CONON AND CALLICLES. Edited with Notes and
+    Vocabulary, by F. DARWIN SWIFT, M.A. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s._
+
+  =Dickens (Charles).= See Little Library and Illustrated Pocket
+    Library.
+
+  =Dickinson (Emily).= POEMS. First Series. _Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Dickinson (G. L.)=, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. THE
+    GREEK VIEW OF LIFE. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Dickson (H. N.)=, F.R.S.E., F.R. Met. Soc. METEOROLOGY. Illustrated.
+    _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Dilke (Lady).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Dillon (Edward).= See Connoisseur's Library.
+
+  =Ditchfield (P. H.)=, M.A., F.S.A.
+
+  THE STORY OF OUR ENGLISH TOWNS. With an Introduction by AUGUSTUS
+    JESSOPP, D.D. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  OLD ENGLISH CUSTOMS: Extant at the Present Time. _Crown 8vo. 6s._ See
+    also Methuen's Half-crown Library.
+
+  =Dixon (W. M.)=, M.A. A PRIMER OF TENNYSON. _Second Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  ENGLISH POETRY FROM BLAKE TO BROWNING. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    2s. 6d._
+
+  =Dole (N. H.).= FAMOUS COMPOSERS. With Portraits. _Two Volumes. Demy
+    8vo. 12s. net._
+
+  =Doney (May).= SONGS OF THE REAL. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+    A volume of poems.
+
+  =Douglas (James).= THE MAN IN THE PULPIT. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Dowden (J.)=, D.D., Lord Bishop of Edinburgh. See Churchman's
+    Library.
+
+  =Drage (G.).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =Driver (S. R.)=, D.D., D.C.L., Canon of Christ Church, Regius
+    Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford. SERMONS ON
+    SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT. _Crown 8vo. 6s._ See
+    also Westminster Commentaries.
+
+  =Dryhurst (A. R.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Duguid (Charles).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =Duncan (S. J.)= (Mrs. COTES), Author of 'A Voyage of Consolation.'
+    ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LATCH. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Dunn (J. T.)=, D.Sc., =and Mundella (V. A.)=. GENERAL ELEMENTARY
+    SCIENCE. With 114 Illustrations. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Dunstan (A. E.)=, B.Sc. See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Durham (The Earl of).= A REPORT ON CANADA. With an Introductory
+    Note. _Demy 8vo. 4s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Dutt (W. A.).= A POPULAR GUIDE TO NORFOLK. _Medium 8vo. 6d. net._
+
+  THE NORFOLK BROADS. With coloured and other Illustrations by FRANK
+    SOUTHGATE. _Large Demy 8vo. 6s._ See also The Little Guides.
+
+  =Earle (John)=, Bishop of Salisbury. MICROCOSMOGRAPHIE, OR A PIECE OF
+    THE WORLD DISCOVERED; IN ESSAYES AND CHARACTERS. _Post 16mo. 2s.
+    net._
+
+  =Edmonds, (Major J. E.)=, R.E.; D.A.Q.M.G. See W. Birkbeck Wood.
+
+  =Edwards (Clement).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Edwards (W. Douglas)=. See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Egan (Pierce).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  *=Egerton (H. E.)=, M.A. A HISTORY OF BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY. New
+    and Cheaper Issue. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Ellaby (C. G.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Ellerton (F. G.).= See S. J. Stone.
+
+  =Ellwood (Thomas)=, THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF. Edited by C. G.
+    CRUMP, M.A. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Engel (E.).= A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE: From its Beginning to
+    Tennyson. Translated from the German. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Erasmus.= A Book called in Latin ENCHIRIDION MILITIS CHRISTIANI,
+    and in English the Manual of the Christian Knight, replenished
+    with most wholesome precepts, made by the famous clerk Erasmus of
+    Roterdame, to the which is added a new and marvellous profitable
+    preface.
+
+    From the edition printed by Wynken de Worde for John Byddell, 1533.
+    _Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Fairbrother (W. H.)=, M.A. THE PHILOSOPHY OF T. H. GREEN. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Farrer (Reginald).= THE GARDEN OF ASIA. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Ferrier (Susan).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Fidler (T. Claxton)=, M.Inst. C.E. See Books on Business.
+
+  =Fielding (Henry).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Finn (S. W.)=, M.A. See Junior Examination Series.
+
+  =Firth (C. H.)=, M.A. CROMWELL'S ARMY: A History of the English
+    Soldier during the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, and the
+    Protectorate. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Fisher (G. W.)=, M.A. ANNALS OF SHREWSBURY SCHOOL. With numerous
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
+
+  =FitzGerald (Edward).= THE RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM. Printed from the
+    Fifth and last Edition. With a Commentary by Mrs. STEPHEN BATSON,
+    and a Biography of Omar by E. D. ROSS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._ See also
+    Miniature Library.
+
+  =Flecker (W. H.)=, M.A., D.C.L., Headmaster of the Dean Close School,
+    Cheltenham. THE STUDENT'S PRAYER BOOK. Part I. MORNING AND EVENING
+    PRAYER AND LITANY. With an Introduction and Notes. _Crown 8vo. 2s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Flux (A. W.)=, M.A., William Dow Professor of Political Economy in
+    M'Gill University, Montreal. ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. _Demy 8vo. 7s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Fortescue (Mrs. G.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Fraser (David).= A MODERN CAMPAIGN; OR, WAR AND WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
+    IN THE FAR EAST. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Fraser (J. F.).= ROUND THE WORLD ON A WHEEL. With 100 Illustrations.
+    _Fourth Edition Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =French (W.)=, M.A. See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Freudenreich (Ed. von).= DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. A Short Manual for the
+    Use of Students. Translated by J. R. AINSWORTH DAVIS, M.A. _Second
+    Edition Revised. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Fulford (H. W.)=, M.A. See Churchman's Bible.
+
+  =C. G., and F. C. G.= JOHN BULL'S ADVENTURES IN THE FISCAL
+    WONDERLAND. By CHARLES GEAKE. With 46 Illustrations by F.
+    CARRUTHERS GOULD. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 1s. net._
+
+  =Gallichan (W. M.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Gambado (Geoffrey, Esq.).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Gaskell (Mrs.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Gasquet=, the Right Rev. Abbot, O.S.B. See Antiquary's Books.
+
+  =George (H. B.)=, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. BATTLES OF
+    ENGLISH HISTORY. With numerous Plans. _Fourth Edition._ Revised,
+    with a new Chapter including the South African War. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Gibbins (H. de B.)=, Litt.D., M.A. INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND: HISTORICAL
+    OUTLINES. With 5 Maps. _Third Edition. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
+
+  A COMPANION GERMAN GRAMMAR. _Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. _Tenth Edition._ Revised. With
+    Maps and Plans. _Crown 8vo. 3s._
+
+  ENGLISH SOCIAL REFORMERS. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._ See
+    also Commercial Series and Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Gibbon (Edward).= THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. A New
+    Edition, edited with Notes, Appendices, and Maps, by J. B. BURY,
+    M.A., Litt.D., Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. _In Seven
+    Volumes. Demy 8vo. Gilt top, 8s. 6d. each. Also, Crown 8vo. 6s.
+    each._
+
+  MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE AND WRITINGS. Edited, with an Introduction and
+    Notes, by G. BIRKBECK HILL, LL.D. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Gibson (E. C. S.)=, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester. See Westminster
+    Commentaries, Handbooks of Theology, and Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Gilbert (A. R.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Godfrey (Elizabeth).= A BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE. _Second Edition. Fcap.
+    8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Godley (A. D.)=, M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. LYRA
+    FRIVOLA. _Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  VERSES TO ORDER. _Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  SECOND STRINGS. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Goldsmith (Oliver).= THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. With 24 Coloured Plates
+    by T. ROWLANDSON. _Royal 8vo. One Guinea net._
+
+    Reprinted from the edition of 1817. Also _Fcap. 32mo._ With 10
+    Plates in Photogravure by TONY JOHANNOT. _Leather, 2s. 6d. net._
+    See also Illustrated Pocket Library and Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Goodrich-Freer (A.).= IN A SYRIAN SADDLE. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Goudge (H. L.)=, M.A., Principal of Wells Theological College. See
+    Westminster Commentaries.
+
+  =Graham (P. Anderson).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Granger (F. S.)=, M.A., Litt.D. PSYCHOLOGY. _Second Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  THE SOUL OF A CHRISTIAN. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Gray (E. M'Queen).= GERMAN PASSAGES FOR UNSEEN TRANSLATION. _Crown
+    8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Gray (P. L.)=, B.Sc. THE PRINCIPLES OF MAGNETISM AND ELECTRICITY: an
+    Elementary Text-Book. With 181 Diagrams. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Green (G. Buckland)=, M.A., Assistant Master at Edinburgh Academy,
+    late Fellow of St. John's College, Oxon. NOTES ON GREEK AND LATIN
+    SYNTAX. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Green (E. T.)=, M.A. See Churchman's Library.
+
+  =Greenidge (A. H. J.)=, M.A. A HISTORY OF ROME: During the Later
+    Republic and the Early Principate. _In Six Volumes. Demy 8vo._ Vol.
+    I. (133-104 B.C.). _10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Greenwell (Dora).= See Miniature Library.
+
+  =Gregory (R. A.)=, THE VAULT OF HEAVEN. A Popular Introduction to
+    Astronomy. With numerous Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Gregory (Miss E. C.).= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Greville Minor.= A MODERN JOURNAL. Edited by J. A. SPENDER. _Crown
+    8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Grinling (C. H.).= A HISTORY OF THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY, 1845-95.
+    With Illustrations. Revised, with an additional chapter. _Demy 8vo.
+    10s. 6d._
+
+  =Grubb (H. C.).= See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Guiney (Louisa I.).= HURRELL FROUDE: Memoranda and Comments.
+    Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  *=Gwynn (M. L.).= A BIRTHDAY BOOK. New and cheaper issue. _Royal 8vo.
+    5s. net._
+
+  =Hackett (John)=, B.D. A HISTORY OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF CYPRUS.
+    With Maps and Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 15s. net._
+
+  =Haddon (A. C.).= Sc.D., F.R.S. HEAD-HUNTERS, BLACK, WHITE, AND
+    BROWN. With many Illustrations and a Map. _Demy 8vo. 15s._
+
+  =Hadfield (R. A.).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Hall (R. N.) and Neal (W. G.).= THE ANCIENT RUINS OF RHODESIA. With
+    numerous Illustrations. _Second Edition, revised. Demy 8vo. 10s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Hall (R. N.).= GREAT ZIMBABWE. With numerous Plans and
+    Illustrations. _Royal 8vo. 21s. net._
+
+  =Hamilton (F. J.)=, D.D. See Byzantine Texts.
+
+  =Hammond (J. L.).= CHARLES JAMES FOX: A Biographical Study. _Demy
+    8vo. 10s. 6d._
+
+  =Hannay (D.).= A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY, FROM EARLY TIMES
+    TO THE PRESENT DAY. Illustrated. _Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+    each._ Vol. I., 1200-1683.
+
+  =Hannay (James O.)=, M. A. THE SPIRIT AND ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN
+    MONASTICISM. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE WISDOM OF THE DESERT. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Hare. (A. T.)=, M.A. THE CONSTRUCTION OF LARGE INDUCTION COILS. With
+    numerous Diagrams. _Demy 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Harrison (Clifford).= READING AND READERS. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Hawthorne (Nathaniel).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Heath (Frank R.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Heath (Dudley).= See Connoisseur's Library.
+
+  =Hello (Ernest).= STUDIES IN SAINTSHIP. Translated from the French by
+    V. M. CRAWFORD. _Fcap 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  *=Henderson (B. W.)=, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. THE LIFE
+    AND PRINCIPATE OF THE EMPEROR NERO. With Illustrations. _New and
+    cheaper issue. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Henderson (T. F.).= See Little Library and Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Henley (W. E.).= See Methuen's Half-Crown Library.
+
+  =Henley (W. E.) and Whibley (C.).= See Methuen's Half-Crown Library.
+
+  =Henson (H. H.)=, B.D., Canon of Westminster. APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY:
+    As Illustrated by the Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
+    _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  LIGHT AND LEAVEN: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SERMONS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  DISCIPLINE AND LAW. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Herbert (George).= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Herbert of Cherbury (Lord).= See Miniature Library.
+
+  =Hewins (W. A. S.)=, B.A. ENGLISH TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE
+    SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Hewitt (Ethel M.).= A GOLDEN DIAL. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Heywood (W.).= PALIO AND PONTE: A Book of Tuscan Games. Illustrated.
+    _Royal 8vo. 21s. net._
+
+  =Hilbert (T.).= See Little Blue Books.
+
+  =Hill (Clare).= See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Hill (Henry)=, B.A., Headmaster of the Boy's High School, Worcester,
+    Cape Colony. A SOUTH AFRICAN ARITHMETIC. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Hillegas (Howard C.).= WITH THE BOER FORCES. With 24 Illustrations.
+    _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Hobhouse (Emily).= THE BRUNT OF THE WAR. With Map and Illustrations.
+    _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Hobhouse (L. T.)=, Fellow of C.C.C., Oxford. THE THEORY OF
+    KNOWLEDGE. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Hobson (J. A.)=, M.A. INTERNATIONAL TRADE: A Study of Economic
+    Principles. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._ See also Social Questions
+    Series.
+
+  =Hodgkin (T.)=, D.C.L. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Hodgson (Mrs. A. W.).= HOW TO IDENTIFY OLD CHINESE PORCELAIN. _Post
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hogg (Thomas Jefferson).= SHELLEY AT OXFORD. With an Introduction by
+    R. A. STREATFEILD. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net._
+
+  =Holden-Stone (G. de).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =Holdich (Sir T. H.)=, K.C.I.E. THE INDIAN BORDERLAND: being a
+    Personal Record of Twenty Years. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d.
+    net._
+
+  =Holdsworth (W. S.)=, M.A. A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW. _In Two Volumes.
+    Vol. I. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  *=Holt (Emily).= THE SECRET OF POPULARITY. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Holyoake (G. J.).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Hone (Nathaniel J.).= See Antiquary's Books.
+
+  =Hoppner.= See Little Galleries.
+
+  =Horace.= See Classical Translations.
+
+  =Horsburgh (E. L. S.)=, M.A. WATERLOO: A Narrative and Criticism.
+    With Plans. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s._ See also Oxford
+    Biographies.
+
+  =Horth (A. C.).= See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Horton (R. F.)=, D.D. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Hosie (Alexander).= MANCHURIA. With Illustrations and a Map. _Second
+    Edition. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =How (F. D.).= SIX GREAT SCHOOLMASTERS. With Portraits and
+    Illustrations. _Second Edition. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Howell (G.).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Hudson (Robert).= MEMORIALS OF A WARWICKSHIRE VILLAGE. With many
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 15s. net._
+
+  =Hughes (C. E.).= THE PRAISE OF SHAKESPEARE. An English Anthology.
+    With a Preface by SIDNEY LEE. _Demy 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Hughes (Thomas).= TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS. With an Introduction and
+    Notes by VERNON RANDALL. _Leather. Royal 32mo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Hutchinson (Horace G.).= THE NEW FOREST. Illustrated in colour with
+    50 Pictures by WALTER TYNDALE and 4 by Miss LUCY KEMP WELCH. _Large
+    Demy 8vo. 21s. net._
+
+  =Hutton (A. W.)=, M.A. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Hutton (Edward).= THE CITIES OF UMBRIA. With many Illustrations, of
+    which 20 are in Colour, by A. PISA. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  ENGLISH LOVE POEMS. Edited with an Introduction. _Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
+    net._
+
+  =Hutton (R. H.).= See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Hutton (W. H.)=, M.A. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. With Portraits.
+    _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s._ See also Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Hyett (F. A.).= A SHORT HISTORY OF FLORENCE. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Ibsen (Henrik).= BRAND. A Drama. Translated by WILLIAM WILSON.
+    _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Inge (W. R.)=, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Hertford College, Oxford.
+    CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. The Bampton Lectures for 1899. _Demy 8vo. 12s.
+    6d. net._ See also Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Innes (A. D.)=, M.A. A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH IN INDIA. With Maps
+    and Plans. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS. With Maps. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  *=Jackson (C. E.)=, B.A., Science Master at Bradford Grammar School.
+    EXAMPLES IN PHYSICS. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Jackson (S.)=, M.A. See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Jackson (F. Hamilton).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Jacob (F.)=, M.A. See Junior Examination Series.
+
+  =Jeans (J. Stephen).= See Social Questions Series and Business Books.
+
+  =Jeffreys (D. Gwyn).= DOLLY'S THEATRICALS. Described and Illustrated
+    with 24 Coloured Pictures. _Super Royal 16mo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Jenks (E.)=, M.A., Reader of Law in the University of Oxford.
+    ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Jenner (Mrs. H.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Jessopp (Augustus)=, D.D. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Jevons (F. B.)=, M.A., Litt.D., Principal of Hatfield Hall, Durham.
+    See Churchman's Library and Handbooks of Theology.
+
+  =Johnson (Mrs. Barham).= WILLIAM BODHAM DONNE AND HIS FRIENDS. With
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Johnston (Sir H. H.)=, K.C.B. BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. With nearly
+    200 Illustrations and Six Maps. _Second Edition. Crown 4to. 18s.
+    net._
+
+  *=Jones (R. Crompton).= POEMS OF THE INNER LIFE. Selected by.
+    _Eleventh Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Jones (H.).= See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Jones (L. A. Atherley)=, K.C., M.P., and =Bellot (Hugh H. L.)=. THE
+    MINERS' GUIDE TO THE COAL MINES' REGULATION ACTS. _Crown 8vo. 2s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Jonson (Ben).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Julian (Lady) of Norwich.= REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. Edited by
+    GRACE WARRACK. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Juvenal.= See Classical Translations.
+
+  =Kaufmann (M.).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Keating (J. F.)=, D.D. THE AGAPE AND THE EUCHARIST. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Keats (John).= THE POEMS OF. Edited with Introduction and Notes by
+    E. DE SELINCOURT, M.A. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._ See also Little
+    Library and Methuen's Universal Library.
+
+  =Keble (John).= THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. With an Introduction and Notes by
+    W. LOCK, D.D., Warden of Keble College. Illustrated by R. ANNING
+    BELL. _Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.; padded morocco, 5s._ See
+    also Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Kempis (Thomas A).= THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. With an Introduction
+    by DEAN FARRAR. Illustrated by C. M. GERE. _Third Edition. Fcap.
+    8vo. 3s. 6d.; padded morocco, 5s._ See also Library of Devotion and
+    Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+    Also Translated by C. BIGG, D.D. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Kennedy (Bart.).= THE GREEN SPHINX. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Kennedy (James Houghton)=, D.D., Assistant Lecturer in Divinity in
+    the University of Dublin. ST. PAUL'S SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES TO
+    THE CORINTHIANS. With Introduction, Dissertations and Notes. _Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Kestell (J. D).= THROUGH SHOT AND FLAME: Being the Adventures and
+    Experiences of J. D. KESTELL, Chaplain to General Christian de Wet.
+    _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Kimmins (C. W.)=, M.A. THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH.
+    Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Kinglake (A. W.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Kipling (Rudyard).= BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. _73rd Thousand. Crown 8vo.
+    Twenty-first Edition. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  THE SEVEN SEAS. _62nd Thousand. Tenth Edition. Crown 8vo, gilt top
+    6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  THE FIVE NATIONS. _41st Thousand. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES. _Sixteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Knowling (R. J.)=, M.A., Professor of New Testament Exegesis at
+    King's College, London. See Westminster Commentaries.
+
+  =Lamb= (=Charles= and =Mary=), THE WORKS OF. Edited by E. V. LUCAS.
+    With Numerous Illustrations. _In Seven Volumes. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+    each._
+
+  THE LIFE OF. See E. V. Lucas.
+
+  THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. With over 100 Illustrations by A. GARTH JONES,
+    and an Introduction by E. V. LUCAS. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
+
+  THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS: An 1805 Book for Children. Illustrated
+    by WILLIAM MULREADY. A new edition, in facsimile, edited by E. V.
+    LUCAS. _1s. 6d._ See also Little Library.
+
+  =Lambert (F. A. H.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Lambros (Professor).= See Byzantine Texts.
+
+  =Lane-Poole (Stanley).= A HISTORY OF EGYPT IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Fully
+    Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Langbridge (F.)=, M.A., BALLADS OF THE BRAVE: Poems of Chivalry,
+    Enterprise, Courage, and Constancy. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Law (William).= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Leach (Henry).= THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. A Biography. With 12
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Lee (Captain L. Melville).= A HISTORY OF POLICE IN ENGLAND. _Crown
+    8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Leigh (Percival).= THE COMIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Embellished with
+    upwards of 50 characteristic Illustrations by JOHN LEECH. _Post
+    16mo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Lewes (V. B.)=, M.A. AIR AND WATER. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Lisle (Fortunée de).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Littlehales (H.).= See Antiquary's Books.
+
+  =Lock (Walter)=, D.D., Warden of Keble College. ST PAUL, THE MASTER
+    BUILDER. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  *THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIAN LIFE: BEING ADDRESSES AND SERMONS. _Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Leaders of Religion and Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Locke (John).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Locker (F.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Longfellow (H. W.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Lorimer (George Horace).= LETTERS FROM A SELF-MADE MERCHANT TO HIS
+    SON. _Thirteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  OLD GORGON GRAHAM. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Lover (Samuel).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =E. V. L. and C. L. G.= ENGLAND DAY BY DAY: Or, The Englishman's
+    Handbook to Efficiency. Illustrated by GEORGE MORROW. _Fourth
+    Edition. Fcap. 4to. 1s. net._
+
+    A burlesque Year-Book and Almanac.
+
+  =Lucas (E. V.).= THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB. With numerous Portraits
+    and Illustrations. _Two Vols. Demy 8vo. 21s. net._
+
+  A WANDERER IN HOLLAND. With many Illustrations, of which 20 are in
+    Colour by HERBERT MARSHALL. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Lucian.= See Classical Translations.
+
+  =Lyde (L. W.)=, M.A. See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Lydon (Noel S.).= See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Lyttelton (Hon. Mrs. A.).= WOMEN AND THEIR WORK. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =M. M.= HOW TO DRESS AND WHAT TO WEAR. _Crown 8vo. 1s. net._
+
+  =Macaulay (Lord).= CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS. Edited by F. C.
+    MONTAGUE, M. A. _Three Volumes. Crown 8vo. 18s._
+
+    The only edition of this book completely annotated.
+
+  =M'Allen (J. E. B.)=, M.A. See Commercial Series.
+
+  =MacCulloch (J. A.).= See Churchman's Library.
+
+  *=MacCunn (Florence).= MARY STUART. With over 60 Illustrations,
+    including a Frontispiece in Photogravure. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published. See also Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =McDermott (E. R.).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =M'Dowall (A. S.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Mackay (A. M.).= See Churchman's Library.
+
+  =Magnus (Laurie)=, M.A. A PRIMER OF WORDSWORTH. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Mahaffy (J. P.)=, Litt.D. A HISTORY OF THE EGYPT OF THE PTOLEMIES.
+    Fully Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Maitland (F. W.)=, LL.D., Downing Professor of the Laws of England
+    in the University of Cambridge. CANON LAW IN ENGLAND. _Royal 8vo.
+    7s. 6d._
+
+  =Malden (H. E.)=, M.A. ENGLISH RECORDS. A Companion to the History of
+    England. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  THE ENGLISH CITIZEN: HIS RIGHTS AND DUTIES. _Second Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  *A SCHOOL HISTORY OF SURREY. With many Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 1s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Marchant (E. C.)=, M.A., Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. A GREEK
+    ANTHOLOGY. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Marchant (C. E.)=, M.A., and =Cook (A. M.)=, M.A. PASSAGES FOR
+    UNSEEN TRANSLATION. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Marlowe (Christopher).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Marr (J. E.)=, F.R.S., Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. THE
+    SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF SCENERY. _Second Edition._ Illustrated. _Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  AGRICULTURAL GEOLOGY. With numerous Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Marvell (Andrew).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Masefield (J. E.)=, SEA LIFE IN NELSON'S TIME. With many
+    Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Maskell (A.).= See Connoisseur's Library.
+
+  =Mason (A. J.)=, D.D. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Massee (George).= THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE: Lower Forms. With
+    Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Masterman (C. F. G.)=, M.A. TENNYSON AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. _Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  *=Matheson (Hon. E. F.).= COUNSELS OF LIFE. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+    A volume of Selections in Prose and Verse.
+
+  =May (Phil)=, THE PHIL MAY ALBUM. _Second Edition. 4to. 1s. net._
+
+  =Mellows (Emma S.)=, A SHORT STORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. _Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d._
+
+  *=Methuen (A. M. S.)=, THE TRAGEDY OF SOUTH AFRICA. _Cr. 8vo. 2s.
+    net._
+
+    A revised and enlarged edition of the author's 'Peace or War in
+    South Africa.'
+
+  ENGLAND'S RUIN: DISCUSSED IN SIXTEEN LETTERS TO THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH
+    CHAMBERLAIN, M.P. _Crown 8vo. 3d. net._
+
+  =Michell (E. B)=, THE ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING. With 3
+    Photogravures by G. E. LODGE, and other Illustrations. _Demy 8vo.
+    10s. 6d._
+
+  =Millais (J. G.)=, THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS,
+    President of the Royal Academy. With many Illustrations, of which 2
+    are in Photogravure. _New Edition. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Millais (Sir John Everett).= See Little Galleries.
+
+  =Millis (C. T.)=, M.I.M.E. See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Milne (J. G.)=, M.A. A HISTORY OF ROMAN EGYPT. Fully Illustrated.
+    _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *=Milton, John=, THE POEMS OF, BOTH ENGLISH AND LATIN, Compos'd at
+    several times. Printed by his true Copies.
+
+    The Songs were set in Musick by Mr. HENRY LAWES, Gentleman of the
+    Kings Chappel, and one of His Majesties Private Musick.
+
+    Printed and publish'd according to Order.
+
+    Printed by RUTH RAWORTH for HUMPHREY MOSELEY, and are to be sold at
+    the signe of the Princes Armes in Pauls Churchyard, 1645.
+
+  A MILTON DAY BOOK. Edited by R. F. TOWNDROW. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+    See also Little Library and Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Mitchell (P. Chalmers)=, M.A. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. Illustrated.
+    _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *=Mitton (G. E.).= JANE AUSTEN AND HER ENGLAND. With many Portraits
+    and Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  '=Moil (A.).=' See Books on Business.
+
+  =Moir (D. M.).= See Little Library.
+
+  *=Money (L. G. Chiozza).= WEALTH AND POVERTY. _Demy 8vo. 5s. net._
+
+  =Moore (H. E.).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Moran (Clarence G.).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =More (Sir Thomas).= See Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Morfill (W. R.)=, Oriel College, Oxford. A HISTORY OF RUSSIA FROM
+    PETER THE GREAT TO ALEXANDER II. With Maps and Plans. _Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d._
+
+  =Morich (R. J.)=, late of Clifton College. See School Examination
+    Series.
+
+  *=Morris (J.)=, THE MAKERS OF JAPAN. With many portraits and
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Morris (J. E.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Morton (Miss Anderson).= See Miss Brodrick.
+
+  =Moule (H. C. G.)=, D.D., Lord Bishop of Durham. See Leaders of
+    Religion.
+
+  =Muir (M. M. Pattison)=, M.A. THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. The Elementary
+    Principles of Chemistry. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Mundella (V. A.)=, M.A. See J. T. Dunn.
+
+  =Munro (R.)=, LL.D. See Antiquary's Books.
+
+  =Naval Officer (A).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Neal (W. G.).= See R. N. Hall.
+
+  =Newman (J. H.) and others.= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Nichols (J. B. B.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Nicklin (T.)=, M.A. EXAMINATION PAPERS IN THUCYDIDES. _Crown 8vo.
+    2s._
+
+  =Nimrod.= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Northcote (James)=, R.A. THE CONVERSATIONS OF JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A.,
+    AND JAMES WARD. Edited by ERNEST FLETCHER. With many Portraits.
+    _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
+
+  =Norway (A. H.)=, Author of 'Highways and Byways in Devon and
+    Cornwall.' NAPLES. With 25 Coloured Illustrations by MAURICE
+    GREIFFENHAGEN. A New Edition. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Novalis.= THE DISCIPLES AT SAÏS AND OTHER FRAGMENTS. Edited by Miss
+    UNA BIRCH. _Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Oliphant (Mrs.).= See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Oman (C. W. C.)=, M.A., Fellow of All Souls', Oxford. A HISTORY OF
+    THE ART OF WAR. Vol. II.: The Middle Ages, from the Fourth to the
+    Fourteenth Century. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Ottley (R. L.).= D.D. See Handbooks of Theology and Leaders of
+    Religion.
+
+  =Owen (Douglas).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =Oxford (M. N.)=, of Guy's Hospital. A HANDBOOK OF NURSING. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Pakes (W. C. C.).= THE SCIENCE OF HYGIENE. With numerous
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 15s._
+
+  =Palmer (Frederick).= WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA. With many
+    Illustrations. _Third Edition. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Parker (Gilbert).= A LOVER'S DIARY: SONGS IN SEQUENCE. _Fcap. 8vo.
+    5s._
+
+  =Parkinson (John).= PARADISI IN SOLE PARADISUS TERRISTRIS, OR A
+    GARDEN OF ALL SORTS OF PLEASANT FLOWERS. _Folio. £4, 4s. net._
+
+  =Parmenter (John).= HELIO-TROPES, OR NEW POSIES FOR SUNDIALS, 1625.
+    Edited by PERCIVAL LANDON. _Quarto. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Parmentier (Prof. Léon).= See Byzantine Texts.
+
+  =Pascal.= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  *=Paston (George).= SOCIAL CARICATURES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+    _Imperial Quarto. £2, 12s. 6d. net._ See also Little Books on Art
+    and Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Paterson (W. R.)= (Benjamin Swift). LIFE'S QUESTIONINGS. _Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Patterson (A. H.).= NOTES OF AN EAST COAST NATURALIST. Illustrated
+    in Colour by F. SOUTHGATE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *NATURE NOTES IN EASTERN NORFOLK. A series of observations on the
+    Birds, Fishes, Mammals, Reptiles, and stalk-eyed Crustaceans
+    found in that neighbourhood, with a list of the species. With 12
+    Illustrations in colour, by FRANK SOUTHGATE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Peacock (N.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Pearce (E. H.)=, M.A. ANNALS OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL. With many
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Peel (Sidney)=, late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and
+    Secretary to the Royal Commission on the Licensing Laws. PRACTICAL
+    LICENSING REFORM. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  =Peters (J. P.)=, D.D. See Churchman's Library.
+
+  =Petrie (W. M. Flinders)=, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at
+    University College. A HISTORY OF EGYPT, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
+    THE PRESENT DAY. Fully Illustrated. _In six volumes. Crown 8vo.
+    6s. each._
+
+  VOL. I. PREHISTORIC TIMES TO XVITH DYNASTY. _Fifth Edition._
+
+  VOL. II. THE XVIITH AND XVIIITH DYNASTIES. _Fourth Edition._
+
+  VOL. III. XIXTH TO XXXTH DYNASTIES.
+
+  VOL. IV. THE EGYPT OF THE PTOLEMIES. J. P. MAHAFFY, Litt.D.
+
+  VOL. V. ROMAN EGYPT. J. G. MILNE, M.A.
+
+  VOL. VI. EGYPT IN THE MIDDLE AGES. STANLEY LANE-POOLE, M.A.
+
+  RELIGION AND CONSCIENCE IN ANCIENT EGYPT. Fully Illustrated. _Crown
+    8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  SYRIA AND EGYPT, FROM THE TELL EL AMARNA TABLETS. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  EGYPTIAN TALES. Illustrated by TRISTRAM ELLIS. _In Two Volumes. Crown
+    8vo. 3s. 6d. each._
+
+  EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. With 120 Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Phillips (W. A.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Phillpotts (Eden).= MY DEVON YEAR. With 38 Illustrations by J. LEY
+    PETHYBRIDGE. _Second and Cheaper Edition. Large Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *UP ALONG AND DOWN ALONG. Illustrated by CLAUDE SHEPPERSON. _Crown
+    8vo. 5s. net._
+
+    A volume of poems.
+
+  =Pienaar (Philip).= WITH STEYN AND DE WET. _Second Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  *=Plarr (Victor)= and =Walton (F. W.).= A SCHOOL HISTORY OF
+    MIDDLESEX. With many Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  =Plautus.= THE CAPTIVI. Edited, with an Introduction, Textual Notes,
+    and a Commentary, by W. M. LINDSAY, Fellow of Jesus College,
+    Oxford. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Plowden-Wardlaw (J. T.)=, B.A., King's College, Cambridge. See
+    School Examination Series.
+
+  =Pocock (Roger).= A FRONTIERSMAN. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Podmore (Frank).= MODERN SPIRITUALISM. _Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. 21s.
+    net._
+
+    A History and a Criticism.
+
+  =Poer (J. Patrick Le).= A MODERN LEGIONARY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Pollard (Alice).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Pollard (A. W.).= OLD PICTURE BOOKS. With many Illustrations. _Demy
+    8vo. 7s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Pollard (Eliza F.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Pollock (David)=, M.I.N.A. See Books on Business.
+
+  =Pond (C. F.)=, A MONTAIGNE DAY BOOK. Edited by. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+    net._
+
+  =Potter (M. C.)=, M.A., F.L.S. A TEXT-BOOK OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY.
+    Illustrated. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d._
+
+  =Potter Boy (An Old).= WHEN I WAS A CHILD. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Pradeau (G.).= A KEY TO THE TIME ALLUSIONS IN THE DIVINE COMEDY.
+    With a Dial. _Small quarto. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Prance (G.).= See R. Wyon.
+
+  =Prescott (O. L.).= ABOUT MUSIC, AND WHAT IT IS MADE OF. _Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Price (L. L.)=, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. A HISTORY OF
+    ENGLISH POLITICAL ECONOMY. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Primrose (Deborah).= A MODERN BOEOTIA. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Pugin= and =Rowlandson=. THE MICROCOSM OF LONDON, OR LONDON IN
+    MINIATURE. With 104 Illustrations in colour. _In Three Volumes.
+    Small 4to. £3, 3s. net._
+
+  ='Q' (A. T. Quiller Couch).= See Methuen's Half-Crown Library.
+
+  =Quevedo Villegas.= See Miniature Library.
+
+  =G. R.= and =E. S.= THE WOODHOUSE CORRESPONDENCE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Rackham (R. B.)=, M.A. See Westminster Commentaries.
+
+  =Randolph (B. W.)=, D.D. See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Rannie (D. W.)=, M.A. A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. _Cr. 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Rashdall (Hastings)=, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford.
+    DOCTRINE AND DEVELOPMENT. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Rawstorne (Lawrence, Esq.).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =A Real Paddy.= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Reason (W.)=, M.A. See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Redfern (W. B.)=, Author of 'Ancient Wood and Iron Work in
+    Cambridge,' etc. ROYAL AND HISTORIC GLOVES AND ANCIENT SHOES.
+    Profusely Illustrated in colour and half-tone. _Quarto, £2, 2s.
+    net._
+
+  =Reynolds.= See Little Galleries.
+
+  =Roberts (M. E.).= See C. C. Channer.
+
+  =Robertson, (A.)=, D.D., Lord Bishop of Exeter. REGNUM DEI. The
+    Bampton Lectures of 1901. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Robertson (C. Grant)=, M.A., Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford,
+    Examiner in the Honours School of Modern History, Oxford,
+    1901-1904. SELECT STATUTES, CASES, AND CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS,
+    1660-1832. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  *=Robertson (C. Grant)= and =Bartholomew (J. G.)=, F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S.
+    THE STUDENT'S HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. _Quarto. 3s.
+    6d. net._
+
+  =Robertson (Sir G. S.)=, K.C.S.I. See Methuen's Half-Crown Library.
+
+  =Robinson (A. W.)=, M.A. See Churchman's Bible.
+
+  =Robinson (Cecilia).= THE MINISTRY OF DEACONESSES. With an
+    Introduction by the late Archbishop of Canterbury. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Robinson (F. S.).= See Connoisseur's Library.
+
+  =Rochefoucauld (La).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Rodwell (G.)=, B.A. NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. A Course for Beginners.
+    With a Preface by WALTER LOCK, D.D., Warden of Keble College.
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+
+  =Roe (Fred).= ANCIENT COFFERS AND CUPBOARDS: Their History and
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+
+  *OLD OAK FURNITURE. With many Illustrations by the Author, including
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+
+  =Rogers (A. G. L.)=, M.A. See Books on Business.
+
+  *=Romney.= A GALLERY OF ROMNEY. By ARTHUR B. CHAMBERLAIN. With 66
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+
+  =Roscoe (E. S.).= ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD. Illustrated. _Demy
+    8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+    This is the only life of Harley in existence.
+
+    See also The Little Guides.
+
+  =Rose (Edward).= THE ROSE READER. With numerous Illustrations. _Crown
+    8vo. 2s. 6d. Also in 4 Parts. Parts I. and II. 6d. each; Part III.
+    8d.; Part IV. 10d._
+
+  =Rowntree (Joshua).= THE IMPERIAL DRUG TRADE. _Crown 8vo. 5s. net._
+
+  =Rubie (A. E.)=, D.D. See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Russell (W. Clark).= THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COLLINGWOOD. With
+    Illustrations by F. BRANGWYN. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =St. Anselm.= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =St. Augustine.= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =St. Cyres (Viscount).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  ='Saki' (H. Munro).= REGINALD. _Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+    net._
+
+  =Sales (St. Francis de).= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Salmon (A. L.).= A POPULAR GUIDE TO DEVON. _Medium 8vo. 6d. net._
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+
+  =Sargeaunt (J.)=, M.A. ANNALS OF WESTMINSTER SCHOOL. With numerous
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+
+  =Sathas (C.).= See Byzantine Texts.
+
+  =Schmitt (John).= See Byzantine Texts.
+
+  =Scott (A. M.).= WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL. With Portraits and
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+
+  =Seeley (H. G.)=, F.R.S. DRAGONS OF THE AIR. With many Illustrations.
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+  =Sells (V. P.)=, M.A. THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. Illustrated. _Cr.
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+
+  =Selous (Edmund).= TOMMY SMITH'S ANIMALS. Illustrated by G. W. ORD.
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+
+  =Settle (J. H.).= ANECDOTES OF SOLDIERS, in Peace and War. _Crown
+    8vo. 3s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Shakespeare (William).=
+
+  THE FOUR FOLIOS, 1623; 1632; 1664; 1685. Each _Four Guineas net_, or
+    a complete set, _Twelve Guineas net_.
+
+  =The Arden Shakespeare.=
+
+    _Demy 8vo. 2s. 6d. net each volume._ General Editor, W. J. CRAIG.
+    An Edition of Shakespeare in single Plays. Edited with a full
+    Introduction, Textual Notes, and a Commentary at the foot of the
+    page.
+
+  HAMLET. Edited by EDWARD DOWDEN, Litt.D.
+
+  ROMEO AND JULIET. Edited by EDWARD DOWDEN, Litt.D.
+
+  KING LEAR. Edited by W. J. CRAIG.
+
+  JULIUS CÆSAR. Edited by M. MACMILLAN, M.A.
+
+  THE TEMPEST. Edited by MORETON LUCE.
+
+  OTHELLO. Edited by H. C. HART.
+
+  TITUS ANDRONICUS. Edited by H. B. BAILDON.
+
+  CYMBELINE. Edited by EDWARD DOWDEN.
+
+  THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Edited by H. C. HART.
+
+  A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Edited by H. CUNINGHAM.
+
+  KING HENRY V. Edited by H. A. EVANS.
+
+  ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Edited by W. O. BRIGSTOCKE.
+
+  THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. Edited by R. WARWICK BOND.
+
+  TIMON OF ATHENS. Edited by K. DEIGHTON.
+
+  MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Edited by H. C. HART.
+
+  TWELFTH NIGHT. Edited by MORETON LUCE.
+
+  THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Edited by C. KNOX POOLER.
+
+  =The Little Quarto Shakespeare.= Edited by W. J. CRAIG. With
+    Introductions and Notes. _Pott 16mo. In 40 Volumes. Leather, price
+    1s. net each volume._
+
+    See also Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Sharp (A.).= VICTORIAN POETS. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Sharp (Mrs. E. A.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Shedlock (J. S.).= THE PIANOFORTE SONATA: Its Origin and
+    Development. _Crown 8vo. 5s._
+
+  =Shelley (Percy B.).= ADONAIS; an Elegy on the death of John Keats,
+    Author of 'Endymion,' etc. Pisa. From the types of Didot, 1821.
+    _2s. net._
+
+    See also Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Sherwell (Arthur)=, M.A. See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Shipley (Mary E.).= AN ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. With a
+    Preface by the Bishop of Gibraltar. With Maps and Illustrations.
+    Part I. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Sichel (Walter).= DISRAELI: A Study in Personality and Ideas. With 3
+    Portraits. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+    See also Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Sime (J.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Simonson (G. A.).= FRANCESCO GUARDI. With 41 Plates. _Royal folio.
+    £2, 2s. net._
+
+  =Sketchley (R. E. D.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Skipton (H. P. K.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Sladen (Douglas).= SICILY: The New Winter Resort. With over 200
+    Illustrations. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net._
+
+  =Small (Evan)=, M.A. THE EARTH. An Introduction to Physiography.
+    Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Smallwood, (M. G.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Smedley (F. E.).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Smith (Adam).= THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. Edited with an Introduction
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+    21s. net._
+
+    See also Methuen's Standard Library.
+
+  =Smith= (=Horace= and =James=). See Little Library.
+
+  *=Smith (H. Bompas)=, M.A. A NEW JUNIOR ARITHMETIC. _Crown 8vo. 2s.
+    6d._
+
+  *=Smith (John Thomas).= A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY. Edited by WILFRID
+    WHITTEN. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 15s. net._
+
+  =Snell (F. J.).= A BOOK OF EXMOOR. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Snowden (C. E.).= A BRIEF SURVEY OF BRITISH HISTORY. _Demy 8vo. 4s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Sophocles.= See Classical Translations.
+
+  =Sornet (L. A.).= See Junior School Books.
+
+  =South (Wilton E.)=, M.A. See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Southey (R.)=, ENGLISH SEAMEN. Edited, with an Introduction, by
+    DAVID HANNAY.
+
+    Vol. I. (Howard, Clifford, Hawkins, Drake, Cavendish). _Second
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+
+  =Spence (C. H.)=, M.A. See School Examination Series.
+
+  =Spooner (W. A.)=, M.A. See Leaders of Religion.
+
+  =Stanbridge (J. W.)=, B.D. See Library of Devotion.
+
+  '=Stancliffe.=' GOLF DO'S AND DONT'S. _Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 1s._
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+  =Stedman (A. M. M.)=, M.A.
+
+  INITIA LATINA: Easy Lessons on Elementary Accidence. _Eighth Edition.
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+  EASY SELECTIONS FROM LIVY. Part I. The Kings of Rome. _18mo. Second
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+  EASY LATIN PASSAGES FOR UNSEEN TRANSLATION. _Ninth Edition. Fcap.
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+
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+    _Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  GREEK TESTAMENT SELECTIONS. For the use of Schools. With
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+
+  STEPS TO FRENCH. _Sixth Edition. 18mo. 8d._
+
+  FIRST FRENCH LESSONS. _Sixth Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. 1s._
+
+  EASY FRENCH PASSAGES FOR UNSEEN TRANSLATION. _Fifth Edition, revised.
+    Fcap. 8vo. 1s. 6d._
+
+  EASY FRENCH EXERCISES ON ELEMENTARY SYNTAX. With Vocabulary. _Fourth
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+
+  FRENCH VOCABULARIES FOR REPETITION: Arranged according to Subjects.
+    _Twelfth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 1s._
+
+    See also School Examination Series.
+
+  =Steel (R. Elliott)=, M.A., F.C.S. THE WORLD OF SCIENCE. With 147
+    Illustrations. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+    See also School Examination Series.
+
+  =Stephenson (C.)=, of the Technical College, Bradford, and =Suddards
+    (F.)= of the Yorkshire College, Leeds. ORNAMENTAL DESIGN FOR WOVEN
+    FABRICS. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. Second Edition. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Stephenson (J.)=, M.A. THE CHIEF TRUTHS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
+    _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Sterne (Laurence).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Sterry (W.)=, M.A. ANNALS OF ETON COLLEGE. With numerous
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Steuart (Katherine).= BY ALLAN WATER. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  =Stevenson (R. L.).= THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON TO
+    HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS. Selected and Edited, with Notes and
+    Introductions, by SIDNEY COLVIN. _Sixth and Cheaper Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 12s._
+
+  LIBRARY EDITION. _Demy 8vo. 2 vols. 25s. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  VAILIMA LETTERS. With an Etched Portrait by WILLIAM STRANG. _Fourth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  THE LIFE OF R. L. STEVENSON. See G. Balfour.
+
+  =Stevenson (M. I.).= FROM SARANAC TO THE MARQUESAS. Being Letters
+    written by Mrs. M. I. STEVENSON during 1887-8 to her sister, Miss
+    JANE WHYTE BALFOUR. With an Introduction by GEORGE W. BALFOUR,
+    M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.S. _Crown 8vo. 6s. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Stoddart (Anna M.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Stone (E. D.)=, M.A. SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY. _Fcap. 8vo. 1s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Stone (S. J.).= POEMS AND HYMNS. With a Memoir by F. G. ELLERTON,
+    M.A. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Straker (F.).= See Books on Business.
+
+  =Streane (A. W.)=, D.D. See Churchman's Bible.
+
+  =Stroud (H.)=, D.Sc., M.A. See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Strutt (Joseph).= THE SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
+    Illustrated by many engravings. Revised by J. CHARLES COX, LL.D.,
+    F.S.A. _Quarto. 21s. net._
+
+  =Stuart (Capt. Donald).= THE STRUGGLE FOR PERSIA. With a Map. _Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  *=Sturch (F.)=, Staff Instructor to the Surrey County Council.
+    SOLUTIONS TO THE CITY AND GUILDS QUESTIONS IN MANUAL INSTRUCTION
+    DRAWING. _Imp. 4to._
+
+  *=Suckling (Sir John).= FRAGMENTA AUREA: a Collection of all the
+    Incomparable Peeces, written by. And published by a friend to
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+
+    Printed for HUMPHREY MOSELEY, and are to be sold at his shop, at
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+
+  =Suddards (F.).= See C. Stephenson.
+
+  =Surtees (R. S.).= See Illustrated Pocket Library.
+
+  =Swift (Jonathan).= THE JOURNAL TO STELLA. Edited by G. A. AITKEN.
+    _Cr. 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Symes (J. E.)=, M.A. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. _Second Edition. Crown
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+
+  =Syrett (Netta).= See Little Blue Books.
+
+  =Tacitus.= AGRICOLA. With Introduction, Notes, Map, etc. By R. F.
+    DAVIS, M.A. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s._
+
+  GERMANIA. By the same Editor. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s._ See also Classical
+    Translations.
+
+  =Tallack (W.).= HOWARD LETTERS AND MEMORIES. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Tauler (J.).= See Library of Devotion.
+
+  =Taunton (E. L.).= A HISTORY OF THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND. With
+    Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 21s. net._
+
+  =Taylor (A. E.).= THE ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d.
+    net._
+
+  =Taylor (F. G.)=, M.A. See Commercial Series.
+
+  =Taylor (I. A.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Taylor (T. M.)=, M.A., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,
+    Cambridge. A CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF ROME. _Crown
+    8vo. 7s. 6d._
+
+  =Tennyson (Alfred, Lord).= THE EARLY POEMS OF. Edited, with Notes and
+    an Introduction, by J. CHURTON COLLINS, M.A. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  IN MEMORIAM, MAUD, AND THE PRINCESS. Edited by J. CHURTON COLLINS,
+    M.A. _Crown 8vo. 6s._ See also Little Library.
+
+  =Terry (C. S.).= See Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Terton (Alice).= LIGHTS AND SHADOWS IN A HOSPITAL. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Thackeray (W. M.).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Theobald (F. W.)=, M.A. INSECT LIFE. Illustrated. _Second Ed.
+    Revised. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
+
+  =Thompson (A. H.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Tileston (Mary W.).= DAILY STRENGTH FOR DAILY NEEDS. _Eleventh
+    Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._ Also an edition in superior
+    binding _6s._
+
+  =Tompkins (H. W.)=, F.R.H.S. See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Townley (Lady Susan).= MY CHINESE NOTE-BOOK. With 16 Illustrations
+    and 2 Maps. _Third Edition. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Toynbee (Paget)=, M.A., D.Litt. DANTE STUDIES AND RESEARCHES. _Demy
+    8vo. 10s. 6d. net._ See also Oxford Biographies.
+
+  =Trench (Herbert).= DEIRDRE WED: and Other Poems. _Crown 8vo. 5s._
+
+  =Trevelyan (G. M.)=, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. ENGLAND
+    UNDER THE STUARTS. With Maps and Plans. _Second Edition. Demy 8vo.
+    10s. 6d. net._
+
+  =Troutbeck (G. E.).= See The Little Guides.
+
+  =Tuckwell (Gertrude).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Twining (Louisa).= See Social Questions Series.
+
+  =Tyler (E. A.)=, B.A., F.C.S. See Junior School Books.
+
+  =Tyrell-Gill (Frances).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Vardon (Harry).= THE COMPLETE GOLFER. With numerous Illustrations.
+    _Fourth Edition. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Vaughan (Henry).= See Little Library.
+
+  =Voegelin (A.)=, M.A. See Junior Examination Series.
+
+  =Wade (G. W.)=, D.D. OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. With Maps. _Third
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Wagner (Richard).= See A. L. Cleather.
+
+  =Wall (J. C.).= DEVILS. Illustrated by the Author and from
+    photographs. _Demy 8vo. 4s. 6d. net._ See also Antiquary's Books.
+
+  =Walters (H. B.).= See Little Books on Art.
+
+  =Walton (F. W.).= See Victor Plarr.
+
+  =Walton (Isaac)= and =Cotton (Charles)=. See Illustrated Pocket
+    Library, Methuen's Standard Library, and Little Library.
+
+  =Warmelo (D. S. Van).= ON COMMANDO. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+    A Colonial Edition is also published.
+
+  =Waterhouse (Mrs. Alfred).= WITH THE SIMPLE-HEARTED: Little Homilies
+    to Women in Country Places. _Second Edition. Small Pott 8vo. 2s.
+    net._ See also Little Library.
+
+  =Weatherhead (T. C.)=, M.A. EXAMINATION PAPERS IN HORACE. _Cr. 8vo.
+    2s._ See also Junior Examination Series.
+
+  =Webb (W. T.).= See Little Blue Books.
+
+  =Webber (F. C).= See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Wells (Sidney H.).= See Textbooks of Technology.
+
+  =Wells (J.)=, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College. OXFORD AND
+    OXFORD LIFE. By Members of the University. _Third Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =A SHORT HISTORY OF ROME.= _Sixth Edition._ With 3 Maps. _Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d._
+
+    This book is intended for the Middle and Upper Forms of Public
+    Schools and for Pass Students at the Universities. It contains
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+
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+  THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Edited by C. Bigg, D.D. _Third
+    Edition._
+
+  THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Edited by Walter Lock, D.D. _Second Edition._
+
+  THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. Edited by C. Bigg, D.D. _Fourth Edition._
+
+  A BOOK OF DEVOTIONS. Edited by J. W. Stanbridge. B.D. _Second
+    Edition._
+
+  LYRA INNOCENTIUM. Edited by Walter Lock, D.D.
+
+  A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE. Edited by C. Bigg, D.D.
+    _Second Edition._
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+  THE TEMPLE. Edited by E. C. S. Gibson, D.D. _Second Edition._
+
+  A GUIDE TO ETERNITY. Edited by J. W. Stanbridge, B.D.
+
+  THE PSALMS OF DAVID. Edited by B. W. Randolph, D.D.
+
+  LYRA APOSTOLICA. Edited by Canon Scott Holland and Canon H. C.
+    Beeching, M.A.
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+  THE INNER WAY. By J. Tauler. Edited by A. W. Hutton, M.A.
+
+  THE THOUGHTS OF PASCAL. Edited by C. S. Jerram, M.A.
+
+  ON THE LOVE OF GOD. By St. Francis de Sales. Edited by W. J.
+    Knox-Little, M.A.
+
+  A MANUAL OF CONSOLATION FROM THE SAINTS AND FATHERS. Edited by J. H.
+    Burn, B.D.
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+  THE DEVOTIONS OF ST. ANSELM. Edited by C. C. J. Webb, M.A.
+
+  GRACE ABOUNDING. By John Bunyan. Edited by S. C. Freer, M.A.
+
+  BISHOP WILSON'S SACRA PRIVATA. Edited by A. E. Burn, B.D.
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+  LYRA SACRA: A Book of Sacred Verse. Edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A.,
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+  A DAY BOOK FROM THE SAINTS AND FATHERS. Edited by J. H. Burn, B.D.
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+  HEAVENLY WISDOM. A Selection from the English Mystics. Edited by E.
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+
+  LIGHT, LIFE, AND LOVE. A Selection from the German Mystics. Edited by
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+
+  *THE DEVOUT LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. Translated and Edited by T.
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+
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+Methuen's Half-Crown Library
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+_Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
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+  THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN. By W. G. Collingwood, M.A. With Portraits.
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+  THE GOLDEN POMP. A Procession of English Lyrics. Arranged by A. T.
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+  CHITRAL: The Story of a Minor Siege. By Sir G. S. Robertson, K.C.S.I.
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+  STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPERSTITIONS. By S. Baring-Gould. _Third
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+  *YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. By S. Baring-Gould. _Fourth
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+  ENGLISH VILLAGES. By P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A. With many
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+  *A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE. By W. E. Henley and C. Whibley.
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+  *THE LAND OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. Being a Description of Montenegro.
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+    and 90 Woodcuts in the Text by John Leech.
+
+  JORROCKS' JAUNTS AND JOLLITIES. By R. S. Surtees. With 15 Coloured
+    Plates by H. Alken.
+
+    This volume is reprinted from the extremely rare and costly edition
+    of 1843, which contains Alken's very fine illustrations instead of
+    the usual ones by Phiz.
+
+  ASK MAMMA. By R. S. Surtees. With 13 Coloured Plates and 70 Woodcuts
+    in the Text by John Leech.
+
+  THE ANALYSIS OF THE HUNTING FIELD. By R. S. Surtees. With 7 Coloured
+    Plates by Henry Aiken, and 43 Illustrations on Wood.
+
+  THE TOUR OF DR. SYNTAX IN SEARCH OF THE PICTURESQUE. By William
+    Combe. With 30 Coloured Plates by T. Rowlandson.
+
+  THE TOUR OF DOCTOR SYNTAX IN SEARCH OF CONSOLATION. By William Combe.
+    With 24 Coloured Plates by T. Rowlandson.
+
+  THE THIRD TOUR OF DOCTOR SYNTAX IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. By William
+    Combe. With 24 Coloured Plates by T. Rowlandson.
+
+  THE HISTORY OF JOHNNY QUAE GENUS: the Little Foundling of the late
+    Dr. Syntax. By the Author of 'The Three Tours.' With 24 Coloured
+    Plates by Rowlandson.
+
+  THE ENGLISH DANCE OF DEATH, from the Designs of T. Rowlandson, with
+    Metrical Illustrations by the Author of 'Doctor Syntax.' _Two
+    Volumes._
+
+    This book contains 76 Coloured Plates.
+
+  THE DANCE OF LIFE: A Poem. By the Author of 'Doctor Syntax.'
+    Illustrated with 26 Coloured Engravings by T. Rowlandson.
+
+  LIFE IN LONDON: or, the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq.,
+    and his Elegant Friend, Corinthian Tom. By Pierce Egan. With 36
+    Coloured Plates by I. R. and G. Cruikshank. With numerous Designs
+    on Wood.
+
+  REAL LIFE IN LONDON: or, the Rambles and Adventures of Bob Tallyho,
+    Esq., and his Cousin, The Hon. Tom Dashall. By an Amateur (Pierce
+    Egan). With 31 Coloured Plates by Aiken and Rowlandson, etc. _Two
+    Volumes._
+
+  THE LIFE OF AN ACTOR. By Pierce Egan. With 27 Coloured Plates by
+    Theodore Lane, and several Designs on Wood.
+
+  THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. By Oliver Goldsmith. With 24 Coloured Plates
+    by T. Rowlandson.
+
+    A reproduction of a very rare book.
+
+  THE MILITARY ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY NEWCOME. By an Officer. With 15
+    Coloured Plates by T. Rowlandson.
+
+  THE NATIONAL SPORTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. With Descriptions and 51
+    Coloured Plates by Henry Aiken.
+
+    This book is completely different from the large folio edition of
+    'National Sports' by the same artist, and none of the plates are
+    similar.
+
+  THE ADVENTURES OF A POST CAPTAIN. By A Naval Officer. With 24
+    Coloured Plates by Mr. Williams.
+
+  GAMONIA: or, the Art of Preserving Game; and an Improved Method
+    of making Plantations and Covers, explained and illustrated by
+    Lawrence Rawstorne, Esq. With 15 Coloured Plates by T. Rawlins.
+
+  AN ACADEMY FOR GROWN HORSEMEN: Containing the completest Instructions
+    for Walking, Trotting, Cantering, Galloping, Stumbling, and
+    Tumbling. Illustrated with 27 Coloured Plates, and adorned with a
+    Portrait of the Author. By Geoffrey Gambado, Esq.
+
+  REAL LIFE IN IRELAND, or, the Day and Night Scenes of Brian Boru,
+    Esq., and his Elegant Friend, Sir Shawn O'Dogherty. By a Real
+    Paddy. With 19 Coloured Plates by Heath, Marks, etc.
+
+  THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY NEWCOME IN THE NAVY. By Alfred Burton. With
+    16 Coloured Plates by T. Rowlandson.
+
+  THE OLD ENGLISH SQUIRE: A Poem. By John Careless, Esq. With 20
+    Coloured Plates after the style of T. Rowlandson.
+
+  *THE ENGLISH SPY. By Bernard Blackmantle. With 72 Coloured Plates by
+    R. Cruikshank, and many Illustrations on wood. _Two Volumes._
+
+
+PLAIN BOOKS
+
+  THE GRAVE: A Poem. By Robert Blair. Illustrated by 12 Etchings
+    executed by Louis Schiavonetti from the original Inventions of
+    William Blake. With an Engraved Title Page and a Portrait of Blake
+    by T. Phillips, R.A.
+
+    The illustrations are reproduced in photogravure.
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF JOB. Invented and engraved by William
+    Blake.
+
+    These famous Illustrations--21 in number--are reproduced in
+    photogravure.
+
+  ÆSOP'S FABLES. With 380 Woodcuts by Thomas Bewick.
+
+  WINDSOR CASTLE. By W. Harrison Ainsworth. With 22 Plates and 87
+    Woodcuts in the Text by George Cruikshank.
+
+  THE TOWER OF LONDON. By W. Harrison Ainsworth. With 40 Plates and 58
+    Woodcuts in the Text by George Cruikshank.
+
+  FRANK FAIRLEGH. By F. E. Smedley. With 30 Plates by George Cruikshank.
+
+  HANDY ANDY. By Samuel Lover. With 24 Illustrations by the Author.
+
+  THE COMPLEAT ANGLER. By Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. With 14
+    Plates and 77 Woodcuts in the Text.
+
+    This volume is reproduced from the beautiful edition of John Major
+    of 1824.
+
+  THE PICKWICK PAPERS. By Charles Dickens. With the 43 Illustrations
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+Junior Examination Series
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+  LANCELOT ANDREWES. By R. L. Ottley, D.D. _Second Edition._
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+  AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. By E. L. Cutts, D.D.
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+  WILLIAM LAUD. By W. H. Hutton, M.A. _Third Edition._
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+  8. A BOOK OF BAD CHILDREN. By W. T. Webb.
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+
+  GREEK ART. _Second Edition_, H. B. Walters.
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+  BOOKPLATES. E. Almack.
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+  REYNOLDS. J. Sime.
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+  ROMNEY. George Paston.
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+  WATTS. R. E. D. Sketchley.
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+  LEIGHTON. Alice Corkran.
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+  VELASQUEZ. Wilfrid Wilberforce and A. R. Gilbert.
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+  GREUZE AND BOUCHER. Eliza F. Pollard.
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+  VANDYCK. M. G. Smallwood.
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+  TURNER. Frances Tyrell-Gill.
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+  DÜRER. Jessie Allen.
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+  HOPPNER. H. P. K. Skipton.
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+  HOLBEIN. Mrs. G. Fortescue.
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+  BURNE-JONES. Fortunée de Lisle.
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+  REMBRANDT. Mrs. E. A. Sharp.
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+  COROT. Alice Pollard and Ethel Birnstingl.
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+  RAPHAEL. A. R. Dryhurst.
+
+  MILLET. Netta Peacock.
+
+  ILLUMINATED MSS. J. W. Bradley.
+
+  CHRIST IN ART. Mrs. Henry Jenner.
+
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+  A LITTLE GALLERY OF ENGLISH POETS.
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+  OXFORD AND ITS COLLEGES. By J. Wells, M.A. Illustrated by E. H. New.
+    _Fourth Edition._
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+  CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES. By A. Hamilton Thompson. _Second
+    Edition._ Illustrated by E. H. New.
+
+  THE MALVERN COUNTRY. By B. C. A. Windle, D.Sc., F.R.S. Illustrated by
+    E. H. New.
+
+  SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY. By B. C. A. Windle, D.Sc., F.R.S. Illustrated
+    by E. H. New. _Second Edition._
+
+  SUSSEX. By F. G. Brabant, M.A. Illustrated by E. H. New.
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+  BRITTANY. By S. Baring-Gould. Illustrated by J. Wylie.
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+  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. By E. S. Roscoe. Illustrated by F. D. Bedford.
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+  THE NORTH RIDING OF YORKSHIRE. By J. E. Morris. Illustrated by R. J.
+    S. Bertram.
+
+  HAMPSHIRE. By J. C. Cox. Illustrated by M. E. Purser.
+
+  SICILY. By F. H. Jackson. With many Illustrations by the Author.
+
+  DORSET. By Frank R. Heath. Illustrated.
+
+  CHESHIRE. By W. M. Gallichan. Illustrated by Elizabeth Hartley.
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+
+Little Library, The
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+
+A series of small books under the above title, containing some of
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+
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+
+Each volume has a photogravure frontispiece, and the books are produced
+with great care.
+
+  =Anon.= ENGLISH LYRICS, A LITTLE BOOK OF.
+
+  =Austen (Jane).= PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Edited by E. V. LUCAS. _Two
+    Volumes._
+
+  =NORTHANGER ABBEY.= Edited by E. V. LUCAS.
+
+  =Bacon (Francis).= THE ESSAYS OF LORD BACON. Edited by EDWARD WRIGHT.
+
+  =Barham. (R. H.).= THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS. Edited by J. B. ATLAY. _Two
+    Volumes._
+
+  =Barnett (Mrs. P. A.).= A LITTLE BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE.
+
+  =Beckford (William).= THE HISTORY OF THE CALIPH VATHEK. Edited by E.
+    DENISON ROSS.
+
+  =Blake (William).= SELECTIONS FROM WILLIAM BLAKE. Edited by M.
+    PERUGINI.
+
+  =Borrow (George).= LAVENGRO. Edited by F. HINDES GROOME. _Two
+    Volumes._
+
+  THE ROMANY RYE. Edited by JOHN SAMPSON.
+
+  =Browning (Robert).= SELECTIONS FROM THE EARLY POEMS OF ROBERT
+    BROWNING. Edited by W. HALL GRIFFIN, M.A.
+
+  =Canning (George).= SELECTIONS FROM THE ANTI-JACOBIN: with GEORGE
+    CANNING'S additional Poems. Edited by LLOYD SANDERS.
+
+  =Cowley (Abraham).= THE ESSAYS OF ABRAHAM COWLEY. Edited by H. C.
+    MINCHIN.
+
+  =Crabbe (George).= SELECTIONS FROM GEORGE CRABBE. Edited by A. C.
+    DEANE.
+
+  =Craik (Mrs.).= JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN. Edited by ANNE MATHESON.
+    _Two Volumes._
+
+  =Crashaw (Richard).= THE ENGLISH POEMS OF RICHARD CRASHAW. Edited by
+    EDWARD HUTTON.
+
+  =Dante (Alighieri).= THE INFERNO OF DANTE. Translated by H. F. CARY.
+    Edited by PAGET TOYNBEE, M.A., D.Litt.
+
+  THE PURGATORIO OF DANTE. Translated by H. F. CARY. Edited by PAGET
+    TOYNBEE, M.A., D.Litt.
+
+  THE PARADISO OF DANTE. Translated by H. F. CARY. Edited by PAGET
+    TOYNBEE, M.A., D.Litt.
+
+  =Darley (George).= SELECTIONS FROM THE POEMS OF GEORGE DARLEY. Edited
+    by R. A. STREATFEILD.
+
+  =Deane (A. C.).= A LITTLE BOOK OF LIGHT VERSE.
+
+  =Dickens (Charles).= CHRISTMAS BOOKS. _Two Volumes._
+
+  =Ferrier (Susan).= MARRIAGE. Edited by A. GOODRICH-FREER and LORD
+    IDDESLEIGH. _Two Volumes._
+
+  THE INHERITANCE. _Two Volumes._
+
+  =Gaskell (Mrs.).= CRANFORD. Edited by E. V. LUCAS.
+
+  =Hawthorne (Nathaniel).= THE SCARLET LETTER. Edited by PERCY DEARMER.
+
+  =Henderson (T. F.).= A LITTLE BOOK OF SCOTTISH VERSE.
+
+  =Keats (John).= POEMS. With an Introduction by L. BINYON, and Notes
+    by J. MASEFIELD.
+
+  =Kinglake (A. W.).= EOTHEN. With an Introduction and Notes.
+
+  =Lamb (Charles).= ELIA, AND THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA. Edited by E. V.
+    LUCAS.
+
+  =Locker (F.).= LONDON LYRICS. Edited by A. D. GODLEY, M.A. A reprint
+    of the First Edition.
+
+  =Longfellow (H. W.).= SELECTIONS FROM LONGFELLOW. Edited by L. M.
+    FAITHFULL.
+
+  =Marvell (Andrew).= THE POEMS OF ANDREW MARVELL. Edited by E. WRIGHT.
+
+  =Milton (John).= THE MINOR POEMS OF JOHN MILTON. Edited by H. C.
+    BEECHING, M.A., Canon of Westminster.
+
+  =Moir (D. M).= MANSIE WAUCH. Edited by F. HENDERSON.
+
+  =Nichols (J. B. B.).= A LITTLE BOOK OF ENGLISH SONNETS.
+
+  =Rochefoucauld (La).= THE MAXIMS OF LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. Translated by
+    DEAN STANHOPE. Edited by G. H. POWELL.
+
+  =Smith (Horace and James).= REJECTED ADDRESSES. Edited by A. D.
+    GODLEY, M.A.
+
+  =Sterne (Laurence).= A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. Edited by H. W. PAUL.
+
+  =Tennyson (Alfred, Lord).= THE EARLY POEMS OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
+    Edited by J. CHURTON COLLINS, M.A.
+
+  IN MEMORIAM. Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M.A.
+
+  THE PRINCESS. Edited by ELIZABETH WORDSWORTH.
+
+  MAUD. Edited by ELIZABETH WORDSWORTH.
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+  =Thackeray (W. M.).= VANITY FAIR. Edited by S. GWYNN. _Three Volumes._
+
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+
+  ESMOND. Edited by S. GWYNN.
+
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+
+  =Vaughan (Henry).= THE POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN. Edited by EDWARD
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+
+  =Walton (Izaak).= THE COMPLEAT ANGLER. Edited by J. BUCHAN.
+
+  =Waterhouse (Mrs. Alfred).= A LITTLE BOOK OF LIFE AND DEATH. Edited
+    by. _Seventh Edition._
+
+  =Wordsworth (W.).= SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. Edited by NOWELL C.
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+
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+
+
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+
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+
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+
+  SAVONAROLA. By E. L. S. Horsburgh, M.A. With 12 Illustrations.
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+  JOHN HOWARD. By E. C. S. Gibson, D.D., Vicar of Leeds. With 12
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+  TENNYSON. By A. C. Benson, M.A. With 9 Illustrations.
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+  ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. By Anna M. Stoddart. With 16 Illustrations.
+
+  CANNING. By W. A. Phillips. With 12 Illustrations.
+
+  BEACONSFIELD. By Walter Sichel. With 12 Illustrations.
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+  GOETHE. By H. G. Atkins. With 12 Illustrations.
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+  *FENELON. By Viscount St. Cyres. With 12 Illustrations.
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+  TRADE UNIONISM--NEW AND OLD. By G. Howell. _Third Edition._
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+  A SHORTER WORKING DAY. By H. de Gibbins and R. A. Hadfield.
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+  WOMEN'S WORK. By Lady Dilke, Miss Bulley, and Miss Whitley.
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+  SOCIALISM AND MODERN THOUGHT. By M. Kauffmann.
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+  THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED. By J. A. Hobson, M.A.
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+  LIFE IN WEST LONDON. By Arthur Sherwell, M.A. _Third Edition._
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+  RAILWAY NATIONALIZATION. By Clement Edwards.
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+Methuen's Standard Library
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+EDITED BY SIDNEY LEE. _In Sixpenny Volumes._
+
+MESSRS. METHUEN are publishing a new series of reprints containing both
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+
+These are the early Books, all of which are in the Press--
+
+  THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. In 10 volumes.
+
+    VOL. I.--The Tempest; The Two Gentlemen of Verona; The Merry Wives
+      of Windsor; Measure for Measure; The Comedy of Errors.
+
+    VOL. II.--Much Ado About Nothing; Love's Labour's Lost; A Midsummer
+      Night's Dream; The Merchant of Venice; As You Like It.
+
+    VOL. III.--The Taming of the Shrew; All's Well that Ends Well;
+      Twelfth Night; The Winter's Tale.
+
+    *Vol. IV.--The Life and Death of King John; The Tragedy of King
+      Richard the Second; The First Part of King Henry IV.; The Second
+      Part of King Henry IV.
+
+    *Vol. V.--The Life of King Henry V.; The First Part of King Henry
+      VI.; The Second Part of King Henry VI.
+
+    *Vol. VI.--The Third Part of King Henry VI.; The Tragedy of King
+      Richard III.; The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII.
+
+  THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. By John Bunyan.
+
+  THE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN. In 5 volumes.
+
+    VOL. I.--Sense and Sensibility.
+
+  THE ENGLISH WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM.
+
+    Vol. I.--Essays and Counsels and the New Atlantis.
+
+  THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
+
+  ON THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By Thomas à Kempis.
+
+  THE WORKS OF BEN JONSON. In about 12 volumes.
+
+    *VOL. I.--The Case is Altered; Every Man in His Humour; Every Man
+      out of His Humour.
+
+    *Vol. II.--Cynthia's Revels; The Poetaster.
+
+  THE PROSE WORKS OF JOHN MILTON.
+
+    *VOL. I.--Eikonoklastes and The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.
+
+  SELECT WORKS OF EDMUND BURKE.
+
+    Vol. I.--Reflections on the French Revolution.
+
+  THE WORKS OF HENRY FIELDING.
+
+    Vol. I.--Tom Jones. (Treble Volume.)
+
+  THE POEMS OF THOMAS CHATTERTON. In 2 volumes.
+
+    *Vol. I.--Miscellaneous Poems.
+
+  *THE LIFE OF NELSON. By Robert Southey.
+
+  THE MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. Translated by R. Graves.
+
+  THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By Edward
+      Gibbon. In 7 volumes.
+
+    The Notes have been revised by J. B. Bury, Litt.D.
+
+  THE PLAYS OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.
+
+    *Vol. I.--Tamburlane the Great; The Tragical History of Doctor
+      Faustus.
+
+  *THE NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. By Gilbert White.
+
+  THE POEMS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. In 4 volumes.
+
+    *Vol. I.--Alastor; The Daemon of the World; The Revolt of Islam,
+      etc.
+
+    *Vol. II.--Prometheus Unbound; The Cenci; The Masque of Anarchy;
+      Peter Bell the Third; Ode to Liberty; The Witch of Atlas; Ode
+      to Naples; Oedipus Tyrannus. The text has been revised by C. D.
+      Locock.
+
+  *THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS. Translated by W. Heywood.
+
+  THE WORKS OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. In 6 volumes.
+
+    *Vol. I.--Religio Medici and Urn Burial.
+
+  THE POEMS OF JOHN MILTON. In 2 volumes.
+
+    *Vol. I.--Paradise Lost.
+
+    *Vol. II.--Miscellaneous Poems and Paradise Regained.
+
+  SELECT WORKS OF SIR THOMAS MORE.
+
+    *Vol. I.--Utopia and Poems.
+
+  *THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED. By Joseph Butler, D.D.
+
+  *THE PLAYS OF PHILIP MASSINGER.
+
+    Vol. I.--The Duke of Milan; The Bondman; The Roman Actor.
+
+  *THE POEMS OF JOHN KEATS. In 2 volumes.
+
+  *THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. Translated by Taylor and Sydenham.
+
+
+Technology, Textbooks of
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+Theology, Handbooks of
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+  AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. By F. B. Jevons, M.A.,
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+  THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION. By R. L. Ottley, D.D. _Second and
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+  AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE CREEDS. By A. E. Burn, B.D.
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+  A HISTORY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. By J. F. Bethune Baker, M.A.
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+Westminster Commentaries, The
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+General Editor, WALTER LOCK, D.D., Warden of Keble College, Dean
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+
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+
+  THE BOOK OF GENESIS. Edited with Introduction and Notes by S. R.
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+
+  THE BOOK OF JOB. Edited by E. C. S. Gibson, D.D. _Second Edition.
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+  THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. Edited with Introduction and Notes by R. J.
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+
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+  =Albanesi (E. Maria).= SUSANNAH AND ONE OTHER. _Fourth Edition. Crown
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+
+  THE BLUNDER OF AN INNOCENT. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
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+
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+
+  =Barlow (Jane).= THE LAND OF THE SHAMROCK. _Crown 8vo. 6s._ See also
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+
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+
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+
+  THE MUTABLE MANY. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
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+
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+
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+
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+
+  THE TEMPESTUOUS PETTICOAT. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
+  =Begbie (Harold).= THE ADVENTURES OF SIR JOHN SPARROW. _Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  =Belloc (Hilaire).= EMMANUEL BURDEN, MERCHANT. With 36 Illustrations
+    by G. K. CHESTERTON. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Benson (E. F.).= See Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Benson (Margaret).= SUBJECT TO VANITY. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Besant (Sir Walter).= See Shilling Novels.
+
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+
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+
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+
+  A BRANDED NAME. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
+  =Capes (Bernard)=, Author of 'The Lake of Wine.' THE EXTRAORDINARY
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+
+  A JAY OF ITALY. _Third Ed. Cr. 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Chesney (Weatherby).= THE TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT EMERALD. _Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  THE MYSTERY OF A BUNGALOW. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Clifford (Hugh).= A FREE LANCE OF TO-DAY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Clifford (Mrs. W. K.).= See Shilling Novels and Books for Boys and
+    Girls.
+
+  =Cobb (Thomas).= A CHANGE OF FACE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
+  VENDETTA. _Twenty-First Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THELMA. _Thirty-Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  ARDATH: THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF. _Fifteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE SOUL OF LILITH. _Twelfth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  WORMWOOD. _Fourteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  BARABBAS: A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S TRAGEDY. _Fortieth Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+    'The tender reverence of the treatment and the imaginative
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+    conception. This "Dream of the World's Tragedy" is a lofty and
+    not inadequate paraphrase of the supreme climax of the inspired
+    narrative.'--_Dublin Review._
+
+  THE SORROWS OF SATAN. _Forty-Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A very powerful piece of work.... The conception is magnificent,
+    and is likely to win an abiding place within the memory of man....
+    The author has immense command of language, and a limitless
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+
+  THE MASTER CHRISTIAN. _165th Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'It cannot be denied that "The Master Christian" is a powerful
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+    manner which shows the inevitable disaster heaping up.... The good
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+    Bishop in "Les Misérables." It is a book with a serious purpose
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+
+  TEMPORAL POWER: A STUDY IN SUPREMACY. _130th Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
+  GOD'S GOOD MAN: A SIMPLE LOVE STORY. _134th Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
+  =Cotterell (Constance).= THE VIRGIN AND THE SCALES. _Second Edition.
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+
+  =Crane (Stephen)= and =Barr (Robert)=. THE O'RUDDY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
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+    Illustrated. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE STANDARD BEARER. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Croker (B. M.).= ANGEL. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =PEGGY OF THE BARTONS.= _Sixth Edit. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE OLD CANTONMENT. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  A STATE SECRET. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  JOHANNA. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
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+  =Dawson (A. J.).= DANIEL WHYTE. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Doyle (A. Conan)=, Author of 'Sherlock Holmes,' 'The White Company,'
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+
+  =Duncan (Sara Jeannette)= (Mrs. Everard Cotes). THOSE DELIGHTFUL
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+
+  THE POOL IN THE DESERT. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
+  =Findlater (J. H.).= THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE. _Fifth Edition.
+    Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
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+
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+
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+
+  =Fitzpatrick (K.).= THE WEANS AT ROWALLAN. Illustrated. _Second
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+
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+
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+
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+    _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  HOLY MATRIMONY. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  MADE OF MONEY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE BRIDGE OF LIFE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  *THE IMPROBABLE IDYLL. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Gerard (Emily).= the HERONS' TOWER. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Gissing (George)=, Author of 'Demos,' 'In the Year of Jubilee,' etc.
+    THE TOWN TRAVELLER. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Gleig (Charles).= BUNTER'S CRUISE. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Harrod (F.) (Frances Forbes Robertson).= THE TAMING OF THE BRUTE.
+    _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Herbertson (Agnes G.).= PATIENCE DEAN. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hichens (Robert).= THE PROPHET OF BERKELEY SQUARE. _Second Edition.
+    Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  TONGUES OF CONSCIENCE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  FELIX. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE WOMAN WITH THE FAN. _Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  BYEWAYS. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. _Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE BLACK SPANIEL. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hobbes (John Oliver)=, Author of 'Robert Orange.' THE SERIOUS
+    WOOING. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hope (Anthony).= THE GOD IN THE CAR. _Tenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible
+    within our limit; brilliant, but not superficial; well considered,
+    but not elaborated; constructed with the proverbial art that
+    conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers to whom
+    fine literary method is a keen pleasure.'--_The World._
+
+  A CHANGE OF AIR. _Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters
+    are traced with a masterly hand.'--_Times._
+
+  A MAN OF MARK. _Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'Of all Mr. Hope's books, "A Man of Mark" is the one which best
+    compares with "The Prisoner of Zenda."'--_National Observer._
+
+  THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO. _Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'It is a perfectly enchanting story of love and chivalry, and pure
+    romance. The Count is the most constant, desperate, and modest and
+    tender of lovers, a peerless gentleman, an intrepid fighter, a
+    faithful friend, and a magnanimous foe.'--_Guardian._
+
+  PHROSO. Illustrated by H. R. MILLAR. _Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'The tale is thoroughly fresh, quick with vitality, stirring the
+    blood.'--_St. James's Gazette._
+
+  SIMON DALE. Illustrated. _Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'There is searching analysis of human nature, with a most
+    ingeniously constructed plot. Mr. Hope has drawn the contrasts of
+    his women with marvellous subtlety and delicacy.'--_Times._
+
+  THE KING'S MIRROR. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'In elegance, delicacy, and tact it ranks with the best of
+    his novels, while in the wide range of its portraiture and
+    the subtilty of its analysis it surpasses all his earlier
+    ventures.'--_Spectator._
+
+  QUISANTE. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'The book is notable for a very high literary quality, and an
+    impress of power and mastery on every page.'--_Daily Chronicle._
+
+  THE DOLLY DIALOGUES. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  A SERVANT OF THE PUBLIC. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hope (Graham)=, Author of 'A Cardinal and his Conscience,' etc.,
+    etc. THE LADY OF LYTE. _Second Ed. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hough (Emerson).= THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  =Housman (Clemence).= AGLOVALE DE GALIS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Hyne (C. J. Cutcliffe)=, Author of 'Captain Kettle.' MR. HORROCKS,
+    PURSER. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Jacobs (W. W.).= MANY CARGOES. _Twenty-Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    3s. 6d._
+
+  SEA URCHINS. _Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  A MASTER OF CRAFT. Illustrated. _Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+    'Can be unreservedly recommended to all who have not lost their
+    appetite for wholesome laughter.'--_Spectator._
+
+    'The best humorous book published for many a day.'--_Black and
+    White._
+
+  LIGHT FREIGHTS. Illustrated. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+    'His wit and humour are perfectly irresistible. Mr. Jacobs writes
+    of skippers, and mates, and seamen, and his crew are the jolliest
+    lot that ever sailed.'--_Daily News._
+
+    'Laughter in every page.'--_Daily Mail._
+
+  =James (Henry).= THE SOFT SIDE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE BETTER SORT. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE AMBASSADORS. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE GOLDEN BOWL. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Janson (Gustaf).= ABRAHAM'S SACRIFICE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Keays (H. A. Mitchell).= HE THAT EATETH BREAD WITH ME. _Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  =Langbridge (V.)= and =Bourne (C. Harold)=. THE VALLEY OF
+    INHERITANCE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Lawless (Hon. Emily).= See Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Lawson (Harry)=, Author of 'When the Billy Boils.' CHILDREN OF THE
+    BUSH. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Le Queux (W.).= THE HUNCHBACK OF WESTMINSTER. _Third Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE CLOSED BOOK. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. Illustrated. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo._
+    6s.
+
+  BEHIND THE THRONE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Levett-Yeats (S.).= ORRAIN. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Linton (E. Lynn).= THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON, Christian
+    and Communist. _Twelfth Edition. Medium 8vo. 6d._
+
+  =Long (J. Luther)=, Co-Author of 'The Darling of the Gods.' MADAME
+    BUTTERFLY. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  SIXTY JANE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Lyall (Edna).= DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. _42nd Thousand. Cr. 8vo.
+    3s. 6d._
+
+  =M'Carthy (Justin H.)=, Author of 'If I were King.' THE LADY OF
+    LOYALTY HOUSE. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE DRYAD. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Macnaughtan (S.).= THE FORTUNE OF CHRISTINA MACNAB. _Third Edition.
+    Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Malet (Lucas).= COLONEL ENDERBY'S WIFE. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION. _New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  LITTLE PETER. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  THE WAGES OF SIN. _Fourteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE CARISSIMA. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE GATELESS BARRIER. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'In "The Gateless Barrier" it is at once evident that, whilst Lucas
+    Malet has preserved her birthright of originality, the artistry,
+    the actual writing, is above even the high level of the books that
+    were born before.'--_Westminster Gazette._
+
+  THE HISTORY OF SIR RICHARD CALMADY. _Seventh Edition._
+
+    'A picture finely and amply conceived. In the strength and insight
+    in which the story has been conceived, in the wealth of fancy and
+    reflection bestowed upon its execution, and in the moving sincerity
+    of its pathos throughout, "Sir Richard Calmady" must rank as the
+    great novel of a great writer.'--_Literature._
+
+    'The ripest fruit of Lucas Malet's genius. A picture of maternal
+    love by turns tender and terrible.'--_Spectator._
+
+    'A remarkably fine book, with a noble motive and a sound
+    conclusion.'--_Pilot._
+
+  =Mann (Mrs. M. E.).= OLIVIA'S SUMMER. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  A LOST ESTATE. _A New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE PARISH OF HILBY. _A New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE PARISH NURSE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  GRAN'MA'S JANE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  MRS. PETER HOWARD. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  A WINTER'S TALE. _A New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS. _A New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Books for Boys and Girls.
+
+  =Marriott (Charles)=, Author of 'The Column.' GENEVRA. _Second
+    Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Marsh (Richard).= THE TWICKENHAM PEERAGE. _Second Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  A DUEL. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE MARQUIS OF PUTNEY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Mason (A. E. W.)=, Author of 'The Courtship of Morrice Buckler,'
+    'Miranda of the Balcony,' etc. CLEMENTINA. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo.
+    Second Edition. 6s._
+
+  =Mathers (Helen)=, Author of 'Comin' thro' the Rye.' HONEY. _Fourth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  GRIFF OF GRIFFITHSCOURT. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE FERRYMAN. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Maxwell (W. B.)=, Author of 'The Ragged Messenger.' VIVIEN. _Third
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Meade (L. T.).= DRIFT. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  RESURGAM. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Meredith (Ellis).= HEART OF MY HEART. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  '=Miss Molly=' (The Author of). THE GREAT RECONCILER. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Mitford (Bertram).= THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. Illustrated. _Sixth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  IN THE WHIRL OF THE RISING. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE RED DERELICT. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Montrésor (F. F.)=, Author of 'Into the Highways and Hedges.' THE
+    ALIEN. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Morrison (Arthur).= TALES OF MEAN STREETS. _Sixth Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A great book. The author's method is amazingly effective, and
+    produces a thrilling sense of reality. The writer lays upon us a
+    master hand. The book is simply appalling and irresistible in its
+    interest. It is humorous also; without humour it would not make the
+    mark it is certain to make.'--_World._
+
+  A CHILD OF THE JAGO. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'The book is a masterpiece.'--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+  TO LONDON TOWN. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'This is the new Mr. Arthur Morrison, gracious and tender,
+    sympathetic and human.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  CUNNING MURRELL. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'Admirable.... Delightful humorous relief ... a most artistic and
+    satisfactory achievement.'--_Spectator._
+
+  THE HOLE IN THE WALL. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A masterpiece of artistic realism. It has a finality of touch that
+    only a master may command.'--_Daily Chronicle._
+
+    'An absolute masterpiece, which any novelist might be proud to
+    claim.'--_Graphic._
+
+    '"The Hole in the Wall" is a masterly piece of work. His characters
+    are drawn with amazing skill. Extraordinary power.'--_Daily
+    Telegraph._
+
+  DIVERS VANITIES. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Nesbit (E.).= (Mrs. E. Bland). THE RED HOUSE. Illustrated. _Fourth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Norris (W. E.).= THE CREDIT OF THE COUNTY. Illustrated. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE EMBARRASSING ORPHAN. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  NIGEL'S VOCATION. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  BARHAM OF BELTANA. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Ollivant (Alfred).= OWD BOB, THE GREY DOG OF KENMUIR. _Eighth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Oppenheim (E. Phillips).= MASTER OF MEN. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  =Oxenham (John)=, Author of 'Barbe of Grand Bayou.' A WEAVER OF WEBS.
+    _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE GATE OF THE DESERT. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Pain (Barry).= THREE FANTASIES. _Crown 8vo. 1s._
+
+  LINDLEY KAYS. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Parker (Gilbert).= PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. _Sixth Edition._
+
+    'Stories happily conceived and finely executed. There is strength
+    and genius in Mr. Parker's style.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  MRS. FALCHION. _Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A splendid study of character.'--_Athenæum._
+
+  THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. Illustrated. _Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A rousing and dramatic tale. A book like this is a joy
+    inexpressible.'--_Daily Chronicle._
+
+  WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. _Fifth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'Here we find romance--real, breathing, living romance. The
+    character of Valmond is drawn unerringly.'--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+  AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH: The Last Adventures of 'Pretty Pierre.'
+    _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'The present book is full of fine and moving stories of the great
+    North.'--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+  THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. Illustrated. _Thirteenth Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+    'Mr. Parker has produced a really fine historical
+    novel.'--_Athenæum._
+
+    'A great book.'--_Black and White._
+
+  THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG. A Romance of Two Kingdoms. Illustrated.
+    _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'Nothing more vigorous or more human has come from Mr. Gilbert
+    Parker than this novel.'--_Literature._
+
+  THE POMP OF THE LAVILETTES. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+    'Unforced pathos, and a deeper knowledge of human nature than he
+    has displayed before.'--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+  =Pemberton (Max).= THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THRONE. Illustrated. _Third
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  I CROWN THEE KING. With Illustrations by Frank Dadd and A.
+    Forrestier. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Phillpotts (Eden).= LYING PROPHETS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  CHILDREN OF THE MIST. _Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE HUMAN BOY. With a Frontispiece. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'Mr. Phillpotts knows exactly what school-boys do, and can lay bare
+    their inmost thoughts; likewise he shows an all-pervading sense of
+    humour.'--_Academy._
+
+  SONS OF THE MORNING. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    'A book of strange power and fascination.'--_Morning Post._
+
+  THE RIVER. _Third Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s._
+
+    '"The River" places Mr. Phillpotts in the front rank of living
+    novelists.'--_Punch._
+
+    'Since "Lorna Doone" we have had nothing so picturesque as this new
+    romance.'--_Birmingham Gazette._
+
+    'Mr. Phillpotts's new book is a masterpiece which brings him
+    indisputably into the front rank of English novelists.'--_Pall Mall
+    Gazette._
+
+    'This great romance of the River Dart. The finest book Mr. Eden
+    Phillpotts has written.'--_Morning Post._
+
+  THE AMERICAN PRISONER. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE SECRET WOMAN. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  KNOCK AT A VENTURE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Pickthall (Marmaduke).= SAID THE FISHERMAN. _Fifth Edition. Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  BRENDLE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  ='Q,'= Author of 'Dead Man's Rock.' THE WHITE WOLF. _Second Edition.
+    Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Rhys (Grace).= THE WOOING OF SHEILA. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE PRINCE OF LISNOVER. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Rhys (Grace) and Another.= THE DIVERTED VILLAGE. With Illustrations
+    by DOROTHY GWYN JEFFREYS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Ridge (W. Pett).= LOST PROPERTY. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  ERB. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  A SON OF THE STATE. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  A BREAKER OF LAWS. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  MRS. GALER'S BUSINESS. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  SECRETARY TO BAYNE, M.P. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  =Ritchie (Mrs. David G.).= THE TRUTHFUL LIAR. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Roberts (C. G. D.).= THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
+    6d._
+
+  =Russell (W. Clark).= MY DANISH SWEETHEART. Illustrated. _Fifth
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  HIS ISLAND PRINCESS. Illustrated. _Second Edition. Crown 6vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Sergeant (Adeline).= ANTHEA'S WAY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE PROGRESS OF RACHEL. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE MYSTERY OF THE MOAT. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  MRS. LYGON'S HUSBAND. _Cr. 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Shannon (W. F.).= THE MESS DECK. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Sonnichsen (Albert).= DEEP SEA VAGABONDS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Thompson (Vance).= SPINNERS OF LIFE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Urquhart (M.).= A TRAGEDY IN COMMONPLACE. _Second Ed. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Waineman (Paul).= BY A FINNISH LAKE. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE SONG OF THE FOREST. _Crown 8vo. 6s._ See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Watson (H. B. Marriott).= ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  CAPTAIN FORTUNE. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  TWISTED EGLANTINE. With 8 Illustrations by FRANK CRAIG. _Second
+    Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._ See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Wells (H. G.).= THE SEA LADY. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Weyman (Stanley)=, Author of 'A Gentleman of France.' UNDER THE RED
+    ROBE. With Illustrations by R. C. WOODVILLE. _Nineteenth Edition.
+    Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =White (Stewart E.)=, Author of 'The Blazed Trail.' CONJUROR'S HOUSE.
+    A Romance of the Free Trail. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =White (Percy).= THE SYSTEM. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE PATIENT MAN. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  =Williamson (Mrs. C. N.)=, Author of 'The Barnstormers.' THE
+    ADVENTURE OF PRINCESS SYLVIA. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  THE WOMAN WHO DARED. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE SEA COULD TELL. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  THE CASTLE OF THE SHADOWS. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+    See also Shilling Novels.
+
+  =Williamson (C. N. and A. M.).= THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR: Being the
+    Romance of a Motor Car. Illustrated. _Twelfth Edition. Crown 8vo.
+    6s._
+
+  THE PRINCESS PASSES. Illustrated. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+  MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR. With 16 Illustrations. _Second Ed. Crown
+    8vo. 6s._
+
+  *=Wyllarde (Dolf)=, Author of 'Uriah the Hittite.' THE FORERUNNERS.
+    _Crown 8vo. 6s._
+
+
+Methuen's Strand Library
+
+_Crown 8vo. Cloth, 1s. net._
+
+Encouraged by the great and steady sale of their Sixpenny Novels,
+Messrs. Methuen have determined to issue a new series of fiction at a
+low price under the title of 'METHUEN'S STRAND LIBRARY.' These books
+are well printed and well bound in _cloth_, and the excellence of their
+quality may be gauged from the names of those authors who contribute
+the early volumes of the series.
+
+Messrs. Methuen would point out that the books are as good and as long
+as a six shilling novel, that they are bound in cloth and not in paper,
+and that their price is One Shilling _net_. They feel sure that the
+public will appreciate such good and cheap literature, and the books
+can be seen at all good booksellers.
+
+The first volumes are--
+
+  =Balfour (Andrew).= VENGEANCE IS MINE.
+
+  TO ARMS.
+
+  =Baring-Gould (S.).= MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN.
+
+  DOMITIA.
+
+  THE FROBISHERS.
+
+  =Barlow (Jane).= Author of 'Irish Idylls.' FROM THE EAST UNTO THE
+    WEST.
+
+  A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES.
+
+  THE FOUNDING OF FORTUNES.
+
+  =Barr (Robert).= THE VICTORS.
+
+  =Bartram (George).= THIRTEEN EVENINGS.
+
+  =Benson (E. F.)=, Author of 'Dodo.' THE CAPSINA.
+
+  =Besant (Sir Walter).= A FIVE-YEARS' TRYST.
+
+  =Bowles (G. Stewart).= A STRETCH OFF THE LAND.
+
+  =Brooke (Emma).= THE POET'S CHILD.
+
+  =Bullock (Shan F.).= THE BARRYS.
+
+  THE CHARMER.
+
+  THE SQUIREEN.
+
+  THE RED LEAGUERS.
+
+  =Burton (J. Bloundelle)=. ACROSS THE SALT SEAS.
+
+  THE CLASH OF ARMS.
+
+  DENOUNCED.
+
+  =Chesney (Weatherby).= THE BAPTIST RING.
+
+  THE BRANDED PRINCE.
+
+  THE FOUNDERED GALLEON.
+
+  JOHN TOPP.
+
+  =Clifford (Mrs. W. K.).= A FLASH OF SUMMER.
+
+  =Collingwood (Harry).= THE DOCTOR OF THE 'JULIET.'
+
+  =Cornfield (L. Cope).= SONS OF ADVERSITY.
+
+  =Crane (Stephen).= WOUNDS IN THE RAIN.
+
+  =Denny (C. E.).= THE ROMANCE OF UPFOLD MANOR.
+
+  =Dickson (Harris).= THE BLACK WOLF'S BREED.
+
+  =Embree (E. C. F.).= THE HEART OF FLAME.
+
+  =Fenn (G. Manville).= AN ELECTRIC SPARK.
+
+  =Findlater (Mary).= OVER THE HILLS.
+
+  =Forrest (R. E.).= THE SWORD OF AZRAEL.
+
+  =Francis (M. E.).= MISS ERIN.
+
+  =Gallon (Tom).= RICKERBY'S FOLLY.
+
+  =Gerard (Dorothea).= THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED.
+
+  =Glanville (Ernest).= THE DESPATCH RIDER.
+
+  THE LOST REGIMENT.
+
+  THE INCA'S TREASURE.
+
+  =Gordon (Julien).= MRS. CLYDE.
+
+  WORLDS PEOPLE.
+
+  =Goss (C. F.).= THE REDEMPTION OF DAVID CORSON.
+
+  =Hales (A. G.).= JAIR THE APOSTATE.
+
+  =Hamilton (Lord Ernest).= MARY HAMILTON.
+
+  =Harrison (Mrs. Burton).= A PRINCESS OF THE HILLS. Illustrated.
+
+  =Hooper (I.).= THE SINGER OF MARLY.
+
+  =Hough (Emerson).= THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE.
+
+  ='Iota' (Mrs. Caffyn).= ANNE MAULEVERER.
+
+  =Kelly (Florence Finch).= WITH HOOPS OF STEEL.
+
+  =Lawless (Hon. Emily).= MAELCHO.
+
+  =Linden (Annie).= A WOMAN OF SENTIMENT.
+
+  =Lorimer (Norma).= JOSIAH'S WIFE.
+
+  =Lush (Charles K.).= THE AUTOCRATS.
+
+  =Macdonnell (A.).= THE STORY OF TERESA.
+
+  =Macgrath (Harold).= THE PUPPET CROWN.
+
+  =Mackie (Pauline Bradford).= THE VOICE IN THE DESERT.
+
+  =M'Queen Gray (E.).= MY STEWARDSHIP.
+
+  =Marsh (Richard).= THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN.
+
+  GARNERED.
+
+  A METAMORPHOSIS.
+
+  MARVELS AND MYSTERIES.
+
+  BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL.
+
+  =Mayall (J. W.).= THE CYNIC AND THE SYREN.
+
+  =Meade (L. T.).= OUT OF THE FASHION.
+
+  =Monkhouse (Allan).= LOVE IN A LIFE.
+
+  =Moore (Arthur).= THE KNIGHT PUNCTILIOUS.
+
+  =Nesbit (Mrs. Bland).= THE LITERARY SENSE.
+
+  =Norris (W. E.).= AN OCTAVE.
+
+  =Oliphant (Mrs.).= THE PRODIGALS.
+
+  THE LADY'S WALK.
+
+  SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE.
+
+  THE TWO MARY'S.
+
+  =Penny (Mrs. F. A.).= A MIXED MARRIAGE.
+
+  =Phillpotts (Eden).= THE STRIKING HOURS.
+
+  FANCY FREE.
+
+  =Randal (J.).= AUNT BETHIA'S BUTTON.
+
+  =Raymond (Walter).= FORTUNE'S DARLING.
+
+  =Rhys (Grace).= THE DIVERTED VILLAGE.
+
+  =Rickert (Edith).= OUT OF THE CYPRESS SWAMP.
+
+  =Roberton (M. H.).= A GALLANT QUAKER.
+
+  =Saunders (Marshall).= ROSE A CHARLITTE.
+
+  =Sergeant (Adeline).= ACCUSED AND ACCUSER.
+
+  BARBARA'S MONEY.
+
+  THE ENTHUSIAST.
+
+  A GREAT LADY.
+
+  THE LOVE THAT OVERCAME.
+
+  THE MASTER OF BEECHWOOD.
+
+  UNDER SUSPICION.
+
+  THE YELLOW DIAMOND.
+
+  =Shannon (W. F.).= JIM TWELVES.
+
+  =Strain (E. H.).= ELMSLIE'S DRAG NET.
+
+  =Stringer (Arthur).= THE SILVER POPPY.
+
+  =Stuart (Esmé).= CHRISTALLA.
+
+  =Sutherland (Duchess of).= ONE HOUR AND THE NEXT.
+
+  =Swan (Annie).= LOVE GROWN COLD.
+
+  =Swift (Benjamin).= SORDON.
+
+  =Tanqueray (Mrs. B. M.).= THE ROYAL QUAKER.
+
+  =Trafford-Tannton (Mrs. E. W.).= SILENT DOMINION.
+
+  =Waineman (Paul).= A HEROINE FROM FINLAND.
+
+  =Watson (H. B. Marriott-).= THE SKIRTS OF HAPPY CHANCE.
+
+
+Books for Boys and Girls
+
+_Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
+
+  THE GETTING WELL OF DOROTHY. By Mrs. W. K. Clifford. Illustrated by
+    Gordon-Browne. _Second Edition._
+
+  THE ICELANDER'S SWORD. By S. Baring-Gould.
+
+  ONLY A GUARD-ROOM DOG. By Edith E. Cuthell.
+
+  THE DOCTOR OF THE JULIET. By Harry Collingwood.
+
+  LITTLE PETER. By Lucas Malet. _Second Edition._
+
+  MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By W. Clark Russell.
+
+  THE SECRET OF MADAME DE MONLUC. By the Author of "Mdlle. Mori."
+
+  SYD BELTON: Or, the Boy who would not go to Sea. By G. Manville Fenn.
+
+  THE RED GRANGE. By Mrs. Molesworth.
+
+  A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. Meade.
+
+  HEPSY GIPSY. By L. T. Meade. _2s. 6d._
+
+  THE HONOURABLE MISS. By L. T. Meade.
+
+  THERE WAS ONCE A PRINCE. By Mrs. M. E. Mann.
+
+  WHEN ARNOLD COMES HOME. By Mrs. M. E. Mann.
+
+
+The Novels of Alexandre Dumas
+
+_Price 6d. Double Volumes, 1s._
+
+  THE THREE MUSKETEERS. With a long Introduction by Andrew Lang. Double
+    volume.
+
+  THE PRINCE OF THIEVES. _Second Edition._
+
+  ROBIN HOOD. A Sequel to the above.
+
+  THE CORSICAN BROTHERS.
+
+  GEORGES.
+
+  CROP-EARED JACQUOT; JANE; Etc.
+
+  TWENTY YEARS AFTER. Double volume.
+
+  AMAURY.
+
+  THE CASTLE OF EPPSTEIN.
+
+  THE SNOWBALL, and SULTANETTA.
+
+  CECILE; OR, THE WEDDING GOWN.
+
+  ACTÉ.
+
+  THE BLACK TULIP.
+
+  THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE.
+
+    Part I. Louis de la Vallière. Double Volume.
+
+    Part II. The Man in the Iron Mask. Double Volume.
+
+  THE CONVICT'S SON.
+
+  THE WOLF-LEADER.
+
+  NANON; OR, THE WOMEN'S WAR. Double volume.
+
+  PAULINE; MURAT; AND PASCAL BRUNO.
+
+  THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN PAMPHILE.
+
+  FERNANDE.
+
+  GABRIEL LAMBERT.
+
+  CATHERINE BLUM.
+
+  THE CHEVALIER D'HARMENTAL. Double volume.
+
+  SYLVANDIRE.
+
+  THE FENCING MASTER.
+
+  THE REMINISCENCES OF ANTONY.
+
+  CONSCIENCE.
+
+  *THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER. A Sequel to Chevalier d'Harmental.
+
+
+Illustrated Edition.
+
+  THE THREE MUSKETEERS. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams. _2s. 6d._
+
+  THE PRINCE OF THIEVES. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams. _2s._
+
+  ROBIN HOOD THE OUTLAW. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams. _2s._
+
+  THE CORSICAN BROTHERS. Illustrated in Colour by A. M. M'Lellan. _1s.
+    6d._
+
+  THE WOLF-LEADER. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams. _1s. 6d._
+
+  GEORGES. Illustrated in Colour by Munro Orr. _2s._
+
+  TWENTY YEARS AFTER. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams. _3s._
+
+  AMAURY. Illustrated in Colour by Gordon Browne. _2s._
+
+  THE SNOWBALL, and SULTANETTA. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams.
+    _2s._
+
+  THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. Illustrated in Colour by Frank Adams. _3s.
+    6d._
+
+  *CROP-EARED JACQUOT; JANE; Etc. Illustrated in Colour by Gordon
+    Browne. _1s. 6d._
+
+  THE CASTLE OF EPPSTEIN. Illustrated in Colour by Stewart Orr. _1s.
+    6d._
+
+  ACTÉ. Illustrated in Colour by Gordon Browne. _1s. 6d._
+
+  *CECILE; OR, THE WEDDING GOWN. Illustrated in Colour by D. Murray
+    Smith. _1s. 6d._
+
+  *THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN PAMPHILE. Illustrated in Colour by Frank
+    Adams. _1s. 6d._
+
+  *FERNANDE. Illustrated in Colour by Munro Orr. _2s._
+
+  *THE BLACK TULIP. Illustrated in Colour by A. Orr. _1s. 6d._
+
+
+Methuen's Sixpenny Books
+
+  =Austen (Jane).= PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
+
+  =Baden-Powell (Major-General R. S. S.).= THE DOWNFALL OF PREMPEH.
+
+  =Bagot (Richard).= A ROMAN MYSTERY.
+
+  =Balfour (Andrew).= BY STROKE OF SWORD.
+
+  =Baring-Gould (S.).= FURZE BLOOM.
+
+  CHEAP JACK ZITA.
+
+  KITTY ALONE.
+
+  URITH.
+
+  THE BROOM SQUIRE.
+
+  IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA.
+
+  NOÉMI.
+
+  A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES. Illustrated.
+
+  LITTLE TU'PENNY.
+
+  THE FROBISHERS.
+
+  *WINEFRED.
+
+  =Barr (Robert).= JENNIE BAXTER, JOURNALIST.
+
+  IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS.
+
+  THE COUNTESS TEKLA.
+
+  THE MUTABLE MANY.
+
+  =Benson (E. F.).= DODO.
+
+  =Bloundelle-Burton (J.).= ACROSS THE SALT SEAS.
+
+  =Brontë (Charlotte).= SHIRLEY.
+
+  =Brownell (C. L.).= THE HEART OF JAPAN.
+
+  =Caffyn (Mrs.), 'Iota.'= ANNE MAULEVERER.
+
+  =Clifford (Mrs. W. N.).= A FLASH OF SUMMER.
+
+  MRS. KEITH'S CRIME.
+
+  =Connell (F. Norreys).= THE NIGGER KNIGHTS.
+
+  *=Cooper (E. H.).= A FOOL'S YEAR.
+
+  =Corbett (Julian).= A BUSINESS IN GREAT WATERS.
+
+  =Croker (Mrs. B. M.).= PEGGY OF THE BARTONS.
+
+  A STATE SECRET.
+
+  ANGEL.
+
+  JOHANNA.
+
+  =Dante (Alighieri).= THE VISION OF DANTE (CARY).
+
+  =Doyle (A. Conan).= ROUND THE RED LAMP.
+
+  =Duncan (Sarah Jeannette).= A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION.
+
+  THOSE DELIGHTFUL AMERICANS.
+
+  =Eliot (George).= THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
+
+  =Findlater (Jane H.).= THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE.
+
+  =Gallon (Tom).= RICKERBY'S FOLLY.
+
+  =Gaskell (Mrs.).= CRANFORD.
+
+  MARY BARTON.
+
+  NORTH AND SOUTH.
+
+  =Gerard (Dorothea).= HOLY MATRIMONY.
+
+  THE CONQUEST OF LONDON.
+
+  =Gissing (George).= THE TOWN TRAVELLER.
+
+  THE CROWN OF LIFE.
+
+  =Glanville (Ernest).= THE INCA'S TREASURE.
+
+  THE KLOOF BRIDE.
+
+  =Gleig (Charles).= BUNTER'S CRUISE.
+
+  =Grimm (The Brothers).= GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. Illustrated.
+
+  =Hope (Anthony).= A MAN OF MARK.
+
+  A CHANGE OF AIR.
+
+  THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO.
+
+  PHROSO.
+
+  THE DOLLY DIALOGUES.
+
+  =Hornung (E. W.).= DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES.
+
+  =Ingraham (J. H.).= THE THRONE OF DAVID.
+
+  =Le Queux (W.).= THE HUNCHBACK OF WESTMINSTER.
+
+  =Linton (E. Lynn).= THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON.
+
+  =Lyall (Edna).= DERRICK VAUGHAN.
+
+  =Malet (Lucas).= THE CARISSIMA.
+
+  A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION.
+
+  =Mann (Mrs. M. E.).= MRS. PETER HOWARD.
+
+  A LOST ESTATE.
+
+  THE CEDAR STAR.
+
+  =Marchmont (A. W.).= MISER HOADLEY'S SECRET.
+
+  A MOMENT'S ERROR.
+
+  =Marryat (Captain).= PETER SIMPLE.
+
+  JACOB FAITHFUL.
+
+  =Marsh (Richard).= THE TWICKENHAM PEERAGE.
+
+  THE GODDESS.
+
+  THE JOSS.
+
+  =Mason (A. E. W.).= CLEMENTINA.
+
+  =Mathers (Helen).= HONEY.
+
+  GRIFF OF GRIFFITHSCOURT.
+
+  SAM'S SWEETHEART.
+
+  =Meade (Mrs. L. T.).= DRIFT.
+
+  =Mitford (Bertram).= THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER.
+
+  =Montrésor (F. F.).= THE ALIEN.
+
+  =Moore (Arthur).= THE GAY DECEIVERS.
+
+  =Morrison (Arthur).= THE HOLE IN THE WALL.
+
+  =Nesbit (E.).= THE RED HOUSE.
+
+  =Norris (W. E.).= HIS GRACE.
+
+  GILES INGILBY.
+
+  THE CREDIT OF THE COUNTY.
+
+  LORD LEONARD.
+
+  MATTHEW AUSTIN.
+
+  CLARISSA FURIOSA.
+
+  =Oliphant (Mrs.).= THE LADY'S WALK.
+
+  SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE.
+
+  =Oppenheim (E. Phillips).= MASTER OF MEN.
+
+  =Parker (Gilbert).= THE POMP OF THE LAVILETTES.
+
+  WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC.
+
+  THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD.
+
+  =Pemberton (Max).= THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THRONE.
+
+  I CROWN THEE KING.
+
+  =Phillpotts (Eden).= THE HUMAN BOY.
+
+  CHILDREN OF THE MIST.
+
+  =Ridge (W. Pett).= A SON OF THE STATE.
+
+  LOST PROPERTY.
+
+  GEORGE AND THE GENERAL.
+
+  =Russell (W. Clark).= A MARRIAGE AT SEA.
+
+  ABANDONED.
+
+  MY DANISH SWEETHEART.
+
+  =Sergeant (Adeline).= THE MASTER OF BEECHWOOD.
+
+  BARBARA'S MONEY.
+
+  THE YELLOW DIAMOND.
+
+  =Surtees (R. S.).= HANDLEY CROSS. Illustrated.
+
+  MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. Illustrated.
+
+  ASK MAMMA. Illustrated.
+
+  =Valentine (Major E. S.).= VELDT AND LAAGER.
+
+  =Walford (Mrs. L. B.).= MR. SMITH.
+
+  THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER.
+
+  =Wallace (General Lew).= BEN-HUR.
+
+  THE FAIR GOD.
+
+  =Watson (H. B. Marriot).= THE ADVENTURERS.
+
+  =Weekes (A. B.).= PRISONERS OF WAR.
+
+  =Wells (H. G.).= THE STOLEN BACILLUS.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+In order to preserve the experience of the book, some obcure,
+inconsistent and archaic words and spellings were maintained,
+especially in the catalog.
+
+The entries in the List of Illustrations does not match the
+wording of the captions, however if the reader compares them,
+it will be apparent that the meanings correspond.
+
+Throughout the book, some obvious errors were corrected. These and
+other notes are listed below.
+
+  Page xvii
+  In this book: _Good-bye and Hail_ = _Good-bye and Hail, W. W._, 1892.
+  Originally:   _Goodbye and Hail_ = _Goodbye and Hail, W. W._, 1892.
+
+  Page 23
+  In this book: election,[53] an Adams of Massachusetts was returned
+  Originally:   election,[53] Adams of Massachussetts was returned
+
+  Page 46
+  In this book: as strange and fascinating to the son of Mannahatta as
+  Originally:   as strange and fascinating to the son of Mannhatta as
+
+  Page 55
+  In the original book, the only footnote on the page was numbered "4"
+  but the anchor was numbered "1".
+
+  Page 62
+  In this book: suggest, at any rate, a theory for his attitude toward
+  Originally:   suggest, at anyrate, a theory for his attitude toward
+
+  Page 122
+  In this book: the Broad-axe as the true emblem of America, Whitman's
+  Originally:   the Broadaxe as the true emblem of America, Whitman's
+
+  Page 178
+  In this book: of a new island republic of New York? "Tri-Insula"
+  Originally:   of a new island republic of New York? "Tri-insula"
+
+  Page 188
+  In this book: from Chattanooga through Atlanta to the
+  Originally:   from Chattanooga through Atalanta to the
+
+  Footnote 398
+  In this book: _Recollections of Washn. in War Time_
+  Because of the odd abbreviation of Washington, I looked for this
+  book. The only book I found with a similar title by A. G. Riddle
+  was _Recollections of War Times--Reminiscences of Men and Events in
+  Washington, 1860-1865_.
+
+  Footnote: 436
+  In this book: _Wound-Dresser_, 139.
+  Originally:   _Wound-Dresser_, 189.
+
+  Page 215
+  In this book: He went on great walks, especially by night,
+  Originally:   He went great walks, especially by night,
+
+  Page 260
+  In this book: former is now circled with a wooden seat; but the kecks
+  Originally:   former is now circled with a wooden seat; but the keks
+
+  Page 274
+  In this book: the "Song of the Broad-axe"--the best-beloved,
+  Originally:   the "Song of the Broadaxe"--the best-beloved,
+
+  Page 338
+  In this book: The volume, _Good-bye, my Fancy_, appeared in the
+  Originally:   The volume, _Goodbye, my Fancy_, appeared in the
+
+  Page 340
+  In this book: his _Good-bye, my Fancy_ is but a new welcome,
+  Originally:   his _Goodbye, my Fancy_ is but a new welcome,
+
+  Page 352
+  In this book: Barnum, P. T., 85.
+  Originally:   Barnum, T. P., 85.
+
+  Page 352
+  In this book: "Broad-axe, Song of the," 122, 274.
+  Originally:   "Broadaxe, Song of the," 122, 274.
+
+  Page 359
+  In this book: Lafayette, Gen., revisits America, 11.
+  Originally:   Lafayette, Gen., re-visits America, 11.
+
+  Page 362
+  Entries starting with "Op" followed entries starting with "Or". They
+  have been alphabetized.
+
+  Page 365
+  In this book: example of the broad-axe, 122.
+  Originally:   example of the broadaxe, 122.
+
+  Page 6
+  In this book: AND ANGEVINS: 1066-1272. With
+  Originally:   AND ANGEVINS: 1066-1072. With
+
+  Page 27
+  In this book: =Crashaw (Richard).= THE ENGLISH
+  Originally:   =Crawshaw (Richard).= THE ENGLISH
+
+  Page 27
+  In this book: POEMS OF RICHARD CRASHAW.
+  Originally:   POEMS OF RICHARD CRAWSHAW.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56536 ***