failing health. He writes to Pike, "I am not vigorous as I used to be on
the coast;" to Fields, "For the first time since boyhood I feel languid
and dispirited. Oh, that Providence would build me the merest shanty and
mark me out a rood or two of garden near the coast."
For these and other reasons Hawthorne finally left Berkshire at the end
of 1851, going first to West Newton and a few months later to "the
Wayside," while his friend Tappan occupied the thenceforth famous little
red house.
The world of readers owes much to Hawthorne's residence among the
mountains. Besides the material here gathered and the exquisite settings
for his tales these landscapes afforded, we are indebted to his
environment in Berkshire for the quality of the work here accomplished
and for its quantity as well; for he responded so readily to the
inspiriting influence of his surroundings that he produced more during
his stay here than at any similar period of his life. The soulful beauty
and the seclusion of the haunts to which we here trace him, suiting well
his solitary mood, may measurably account to us for his habit of thought
and for the manner of expression by which nature was here portrayed and
life expounded by the great master of American romance.
A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET
A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET
_Walk and Talk with Socrates in Camden--The Bard's Appearance and
Surroundings--Recollections of his Life and Work--Hospital Service--
Praise for his Critics--His Literary Habit, Purpose, Equipment, and
Style--His Religious Bent--Readings._
"How can you find him? Nothing is easier," quoth the Philadelphia friend
who some time before Whitman's death brought us an invitation from the
bard; "you have only to cross the ferry and apply to the first man or
woman you meet, for there is no one in Camden who does not know Walt
Whitman or who would not go out of his way to bring you to him." The
event justifies the prediction, for when we make inquiry of a tradesman
standing before a shop, he speedily throws aside his apron, closes his
door against evidently needed customers, and--despite our protest--sets
out to conduct us to the home of the poet. This is done with such
obvious ardor that we hint to our guide that he must be one of the
"Whitmaniacs," whereupon he rejoins, "I never read a word Whitman wrote.
I don't know why they call him Socrates, but I do know he never passes
me without a friendly nod and a word of greeting that warms me all
through." We subsequently find that it is this sort of "Whitmania,"
rather than that Swinburne deplores, which pervades the vicinage of the
poet's home.
Our conductor leaves us at the door of three hundred and twenty-eight
Mickle Street, a neat thoroughfare bordered by unpretentious frame
dwellings, hardly a furlong from the Delaware. The dingy little
two-storied domicile is so disappointingly different from what we were
expecting to see that the confirmatory testimony of the name "W.
Whitman" upon the door-plate is needed to convince us that this is the
oft-mentioned "neat and comfortable" dwelling of one of the world's
celebrities.
We are kept waiting upon the door-step long enough to observe that the
unpainted boards of the house are weather-worn and that the shabby
window-shutters and the cellar-door, which opens aslant upon the
sidewalk, are in sad need of repair, and then we are admitted by the
"good, faithful, young Jersey woman who," as he lovingly testifies,
"cooks for and vigilantly sees to" the venerable bard. A moment later we
are in his presence, in the spacious second-story room which is his
sleeping apartment and work-room.
"You are good to come early while I am fresh and rested," exclaims Walt
Whitman, rising to his six feet of burly manhood and advancing a heavy
step or two to greet us; "we are going to have a talk, and we have
something to talk about, you know," referring to a literary venture of
ours which had procured us the invitation to visit him. When he has
regained the depths of his famous and phenomenal chair, the "Jersey
woman" hands him a score of letters, which he offers to lay aside, but
we insist that he shall read them at once, and while he is thus occupied
we have opportunity to observe more closely the bard and his
surroundings.
[Sidenote: Whitman's Personal Appearance]
We see a man made in massive mould, stalwart and symmetrical,--not bowed
by the weight of time nor deformed by the long years of hemiplegia; a
majestic head, large, leonine, Homeric, crowned with a wealth of flowing
silvery hair; a face like "the statued Greek" (Bucke says it is the
noblest he ever saw); all the features are full and handsome; the
forehead, high and thoughtful, is marked by "deep furrows which life has
ploughed;" the heavy brows are highly arched above eyes of gray-blue
which in repose seem suave rather than brilliant; the upper lid droops
over the eye nearly to the pupil,--a condition which obtains in partial
ptosis,--and we afterward observe that when he speaks of matters which
deeply move him his eyelids have a tendency to decline still farther,
imparting to his eyes an appearance of lethargy altogether at variance
with the thrilling earnestness and tremor of his voice. A strong nose,
cheeks round and delicate, a complexion of florid and transparent
pink,--its hue being heightened by the snowy whiteness of the fleecy
beard which frames the face and falls upon the breast. The face is sweet
and wholesome rather than refined, vital and virile rather than
intellectual. Joaquin Miller has said that, even when destitute and
dying, Whitman "looked like a Titan god."
We think the habitual expression of his face to be that of the sage
benignity that comes with age when life has been well lived and life's
work well done. The expression bespeaks a soul at ease with itself,
unbroken by age, poverty, and disease, unsoured by calumny and insult.
Certainly his bufferings and his brave endurance of wrong have left no
record of malice or even of impatience upon his kindly face. His manly
form is clad in a loosely fitting suit of gray; his rolling and ample
shirt-collar, worn without a tie, is open at the throat and exposes the
upper part of his breast; all his attire, "from snowy linen to
burnished boot," is scrupulously clean and neat.
[Sidenote: His Study and Surroundings]
His room is of generous proportions, occupying nearly the entire width
of the house, and lighted by three windows in front. The floor is partly
uncarpeted, and the furniture is of the simplest; his bed, covered by a
white counterpane, occupies a corner; there are two large tables; an
immense iron-bound trunk stands by one wall and an old-fashioned stove
by another; a number of boxes and uncushioned seats are scattered
through the apartment; on the walls are wardrobe-hooks, shelves, and
many pictures,--a few fine engravings, a print of the Seminole Osceola,
portraits of the poet's parents (his father's face is a good one) and
sisters, and of "another--not a sister."
There are many books here and there, some of them well worn; one corner
holds several Greek and Latin classics and copies of Burns, Tennyson,
Scott, Ossian, Emerson, etc. On the large table near his chair are his
writing materials, with the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, and the Iliad
within reach. Bundles of papers lie in odd places about the room; piles
of books, magazines, and manuscripts are heaped high upon the tables,
litter the chairs, and overflow and encumber the floor. This room holds
what Whitman has called the "storage collection" of his life.
"And now you are to tell me about yourself and your work," says the
poet, pushing aside his letters. But, although he is the best of
listeners, we are intent to make him talk, and a fortunate remark
concerning one of his letters which had seemed to interest him more than
the others--it came from a friend of his far-away boyhood--enables us to
profit by the reminiscential mood the letter has inspired.
In his low-toned voice he pictures his early home, his parents, and his
first ventures into the world; with evident relish he narrates his
ludicrous experience when he--a stripling school-master--"went boarding
'round." Than this, there was but one happier period of his life, and
that was when he drove among the farms and villages distributing his
_Long Islander_: "that was bliss."
Later he was a politician and "stumped the island" for the Democratic
candidates, but the enactment of the fugitive slave law disgusted him,
and he declared his political emancipation in the poem "Blood-Money." At
odd times he has done "a deal of newspaper drudgery" and other work, but
his "forte always was loafing and writing poetry,--at least until the
war." He began early to clothe his thought in verse, and was but a lad
when a poem of his was accepted for publication in the New York
_Mirror_, and he depicts for us the surprised delight with which he
beheld his stanzas in that fashionable journal.
[Sidenote: His Recollections]
A pleasure of those early years was the companionship of Bryant, and he
details to us the "glorious walks and talks" they had together along the
North Shore in sweet summer days. This, he says with a sigh, was the
dearest of the friendships lost to him by the publication of "Leaves of
Grass;" "but there were compensations, Emerson and Tennyson." Of later
events he speaks less freely. Of the years of devoted service to the
wounded and dying in army hospitals, when day and night he literally
gave himself for others,--living upon the coarsest fare that he might
bestow his earnings upon "his sick boys,"--of these years he speaks not
at all, save as to the causation of his "war paralysis." "Yes, it made
an old man of me; but I would like to do it all again if there were
need." Of his long years of suffering and his brave and patient
confronting of pain, poverty, and imminent death, his "Specimen Days" is
the fitting record.
Replying to a question concerning a dainty volume of his poems which lay
near us, and which we have been secretly coveting, he says, "You know I
have never been the fashion; publishers were afraid of me, and I have
sold the books myself, though I always advise people not to buy them,
for I fear they are worthless." But when he writes his name and ours
upon the title-page, and lays within the cover several portraits taken
at different periods of his life, we wonder if he can ever know how very
far from "worthless" the book will be to us. We tender in payment a
bank-note of larger denomination than we could be supposed to possess,
with a deprecating remark upon the novelty of an author's handling a
fifty-dollar note, whereupon he laughs heartily: "A novelty to you, is
it? I tell you it's an impossibility to me; why, my whole income from my
books during a recent half-year was only twenty-two dollars and six
cents: don't forget the six cents," he adds, with a twinkle. Then he
assures us that he is not in want, and that his "shanty," as he calls
his home, is nearly paid for.
[Sidenote: Popularity with his Neighbors]
He proposes a walk,--"a hobble" it must be for him,--which may afford
opportunity to change the note; and as we saunter toward the river, he
leaning heavily upon his cane, it is a pleasure to observe the evident
feeling of liking and camaraderie which people have for him.
They go out of their way to meet him and to receive merely a friendly
nod, for he stops to speak with none save the children who leave their
play to run to him. He seems mightily amused when one wee toddler calls
him "Mister Socrates," and he tells us this is the first time he has
been so addressed, although he understands that some of his friends
speak of him among themselves by the name of that philosopher. So far as
he knows, the name was first applied to him in Buchanan's lines "To
Socrates in Camden."
Everywhere we go, on the ferry, at the hotel where we lunch, he receives
affectionate greeting from people of every rank, yet he is not
loquacious, certainly not effusive. He shakes hands but once while we
are out, and that is with an unknown man, and because he _is_ unknown,
as Whitman afterward tells us.
During luncheon we speak of a recent visit to Mrs. Howarth (the poetess
"Clementine"). Whitman is at once interested, and questions until he has
drawn out the pathetic story of her struggles with poverty, disease, and
impeding environment, and then declares he will go to see her as soon as
he is able. He declines to receive a copy of her poems, saying he is far
more interested in her than he could possibly be in her books, and that
he "nowadays religiously abstains from reading poetry." Confirmation of
this latter statement occurs in our subsequent conversation. A friend of
ours had met Swinburne, and had been assured by that erratic (please
don't print it erotic) bard that he thinks Whitman, next to Hugo, the
best of recent poets. When we tell our poet of this, and endeavor to
ascertain if the admiration be reciprocal, we find him unfamiliar with
Swinburne's recent works. Reference to the latter's retraction of his
first praise elicits the pertinent observation, "The trouble with
Swinburne seems to be he don't know his own mind," but this is followed
by warm encomiums upon "Atalanta" and its gifted author.
Whitman had seen Emerson for the last time when the philosopher's memory
had failed and all his powers were weakening: instead of being shocked
by this condition, Whitman thinks it fit and natural, "nature gradually
reclaiming the elements she had lent, work all nobly done, soul and
senses preparing for rest." Mentioning George Arnold,--
"Doubly dead because he died so young,"--
we find that Whitman loved and mourned him tenderly. He expresses an
especial pleasure and pride in the successes of the poet Richard Watson
Gilder,--"young Gilder," as he familiarly calls him. He loves Browning,
and laments that "Browning never took to" him. He thinks our own country
is fortunate in having felt the clean and healthful influences of four
such natures as Emerson, Bryant, Whittier, and Longfellow.
[Sidenote: His Good Word for Everybody]
Indeed, he has a good word for everybody, and discerns laudable
qualities in some whom the world has agreed to contemn and cast out. He
has glowing expressions of affection for his devoted friends in all
lands, and only words of excuse for his enemies. Of the pharisaic
Harlan, who dismissed him from a government clerkship solely because he
had, ten years before, published the poems of "Enfans d'Adam," he
charitably says, "No doubt the man thought he was doing right."
Concerning his harshest critics, including the author of the choice
epithet "swan of the sewers," he speaks only in justification: from
their stand-point, their denunciations of him and his book were
deserved; "he never dreamt of blaming them for not seeing as he sees."
After our return to his "shanty" we read to him a laudatory notice from
the current number of one of our great magazines, in which one of his
poems is mentioned with especial favor; whereupon he produces from his
trunk a note written some years before from the same magazine,
contemptuously refusing to publish that very poem. Evidences like this
of a change in popular opinion are not needed to confirm Whitman's faith
in his own future, nor in that of the great humanity of which he is the
prophet and exponent.
Questioned concerning his habits and methods of literary work, he says
he carries some sheets of paper loosely fastened together and pencils
upon these "the rough draft of his thought" wherever the thought comes
to him. Thus, "Leaves of Grass" was composed on the Brooklyn ferry, on
the top of stages amid the roar of Broadway, at the opera, in the
fields, on the sea-shore. "Drum Taps" was written amid war scenes, on
battle-fields, in camps, at hospital bedsides, in actual contact with
the subjects it portrays with such tenderness and power. The poems thus
born of spontaneous impulse are finally given to the world in a crisp
diction which is the result of much study and thought; every word is
well considered,--the work of revision being done "almost anywhere" and
without the ordinary aids to literary composition. In late years he
wrote mostly upon the broad right arm of his chair.
Complete equipment for his work was derived from contact with Nature in
her abounding moods, from sympathetic intimacy with men and women in all
phases of their lives, and from life-long study of the best books;
these--Job, Isaiah, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare--have been his teachers,
and possibly his models, although he has never consciously imitated any
of them. His matter and manner are alike his own; he has not borrowed
Blake's style, as Stedman believed, to recast Emerson's thoughts, as
Clarence Cook alleged. His style would naturally resemble that of the
Semitic prophets and Gaelic bards,--"the large utterance of the early
gods,"--because inspired by familiarity with the same objects: the
surging sea, the wind-swept mountain, the star-decked heaven, the forest
primeval.
[Sidenote: His Literary Work--Its Aims]
His purpose, the moral elevation of humanity, he trusts is apparent in
every page of his book. By his book he means "Leaves of Grass," the real
work of his life, representing the truest thoughts and the highest
imaginings of forty years, to which his other work has been incidental
and tributary. After its eight periods of growth, "hitches," he calls
them, he completes them with the annex, "Good-bye my Fancy," and thinks
his record for the future is made up; "hit or miss, he will bother
himself no more about it."
When questioned concerning the lines whose "naked naturalness" has been
an offence to many, he impressively avers that he has pondered them
earnestly in these latest days, and is sure he would not alter or recall
them if he could.
[Sidenote: His Religious Trust]
While not professing a moral regeneration or confessing the need of it,
he yet assures us, "No array of words can describe how much I am at
peace about God and about death." The author of "Whispers of Heavenly
Death" cannot be an irreverent person; the impassioned "prayer"--
"That Thou, O God, my life hast lighted
With ray of light, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee.
For that, O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,
Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee....
I will cling to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me.
Thee, Thee, at least, I know"--
is not the utterance of an irreligious heart. One who has known Whitman
long and well testifies that he was always a religious _exalte_, and his
stanzas show that his musings on death and immortality are inspired by
fullest faith. As we listen to him, calmly discoursing upon the great
mysteries,--which to him are now mysteries no longer,--we wonder how
many of those who call him "beast" or "atheist" can confront the vast
unknown with his lofty trust, to say nothing of actual thanksgiving for
death itself!
"Praised be the fathomless universe
For life and joy, for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love,--but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death."
We who survive him will not forget his peaceful yielding of himself to
"the sure-enwinding arms," nor the abounding trust breathed in his last
message, sent back from the mystic frontier of the shadowy realm: "Tell
them it makes no difference whether I live or die."
[Sidenote: Readings]
In our chat he discloses a surprising knowledge of men and things, and a
more surprising lack of knowledge of his own poetry. More than once it
strangely appears that the visitor is more familiar with the lines under
discussion than is their author. When this is commented upon he
laughingly says, "Oh, yes, my friends often tell me there is a book
called 'Leaves of Grass' which I ought to read." So when we, about to
take leave, ask him to recite one of his shorter poems, he assures us he
does not remember one of them, but will read anything we wish. We ask
for the wonderful elegy, "Out of the Cradle endlessly Rocking," and
afterward for the night hymn, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
Bloomed," and his compliance confers a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure.
He reads slowly and without effort, his voice often tremulous with
emotion, the lines gaining new grandeur and pathos as they come from his
lips.
And this--alas that it must be!--is our final recollection of one of the
world's immortals: a hoar and reverend bard,--"old, poor, and
paralyzed," yet clinging to the optimistic creeds of his youth,--throned
in his great chair among his books, with the waning light falling like a
benediction upon his uplifted head, his face and eyes suffused with the
exquisite tenderness of his theme, and all the air about him vibrating
with the tones of his immortal chant to Death,--the "dark mother always
gliding near with soft feet."
Another hand-clasp, a prayerful "God keep you," and we have left him
alone in the gathering twilight.
[Sidenote: His Future Fame]
We will not here discuss his literary merits. The encomiums of Emerson,
Thoreau, Burroughs, Sanborn, Stedman, Ruskin, Tennyson, Rossetti,
Buchanan, Sarrazin, etc., show what he is to men of their intellectual
stature; but will he ever reach the great, struggling mass for whose
uplifting he wrought? His own brave faith is contagious, and we may
discern in the wide-spread sorrow over his death, in the changed
attitude of critics and reviewers, as well as in the largely increased
demand for his books, evidences of his general acceptance.
His day is coming,--is come. He died with its dawn shining full upon
him.
INDEX
Abbot, C. C., 104.
Agassiz, 49, 104, 115.
Alcott, Bronson, 21, 73, 78, 92, 144;
Orchard House, 54;
Wayside, 58.
Alcott, L. M., 21, 54, 102;
Grave, 78;
Homes, 21, 55.
Aldrich, 91, 111, 140;
In Boston, 92;
Ponkapog, 146.
Amesbury, 124.
Auburndale, 146.
Austin, J. G., 102.
Bartlett, G. B., 25, 34, 41.
Bartol, Dr., 48, 94.
Beecher, H. W., 176, 185.
Benson, Carl, 184.
Berkshire, 155-198.
Billings, Josh, 193.
Boston, 83-102.
Bridge, Horatio, 34, 182.
Brook Farm, 147.
Brown, John, 20, 23.
Bryant, W. C., 174, 188, 189, 207.
Burritt, Elihu, 176.
Cambridge, 103.
Carter, Robert, 109.
Channing, W. E., 24, 41, 50, 72, 186;
Homes, 22, 24, 52.
Clarke, J. F., 27, 76.
Clough, Arthur, 49, 104, 118.
Concord, 17-80;
Battle-Field, 43;
River, 39.
Conway, Moncure, quoted, 29, 48.
Cooke, Rose Terry, 193.
Corner Book-Store, Boston, 87.
Curtis, G. W., 33, 48, 148, 149.
Cushman, Charlotte, 114, 193.
Dana, C. A., 149.
Dana, R. H., 105.
Danvers, Oak-Knoll, 138.
Day with Walt Whitman, 201.
Deerfield Arch, 173.
Deland, Margaret, 93.
Elmwood, 110.
Emerson, R. W., 26, 27, 28, 36, 41, 43, 69, 86, 144, 175;
Grave, 77;
Home, 45.
Emerson, William, 26, 29, 35.
Ethan Brand, 166.
Fanny Fern's Grave, 115.
Felton, Professor, 104.
Field, H. M., 190.
Fields, Annie, 89, 91.
Fields, J. T., 65, 87;
Home, 89.
Fuller, Margaret, 48, 53, 86, 115, 149;
Brattle House, 105.
Gail Hamilton, 66, 139.
Garrison, W. L., 85, 102, 139.
Gilder, R. W., 211.
Gladden, Washington, 164.
Grant, Robert, 89, 99.
Gray, Asa, 105.
Graylock, 158, 167, 174, 184.
Guiney, L. I., 99, 102;
Home, 146.
Hale, E. E., 94;
Study and Abode, 100.
Hale, Lucretia P., 99.
Hamilton, Gail, 66, 139.
Harris, Professor, 56.
Haverhill, 122.
Hawthorne, 27, 41, 50, 53, 85, 88, 91;
Berkshire, 155-198;
Brook Farm, 149;
Manse, 28-39;
Salem, 128-138;
Sleepy Hollow, 75-77;
Wayside, 59-67.
Headley, J. T., 187, 195.
Higginson, T. W., 94, 99, 104.
Hilliard, George, 34, 66, 91.
Hoar, Elizabeth, 25.
Hoar, Judge, 27.
Holmes, 84;
Boston Abodes, 91, 95;
Cambridge, 103;
Grave, 114;
Pittsfield, 192.
House of the Seven Gables, 132, 193, 194.
Howarth, Clementine, 209.
Howe, Julia W., 98.
Howells, 49, 66;
Homes, 97, 105, 117.
Jamaica Plain, 145.
Jewett, Sarah Orne, 91.
Kemble, Fanny, 169, 186, 188, 193.
Kossuth, Louis, 49, 187.
Larcom, Lucy, 139.
Lathrop, G. P., 59.
Lathrop, Rose H., 195.
Laurel Lake, 185.
Lenox (Hawthorne), 176-198.
Little Men, 21.
Little Women, 21, 55, 78.
Longfellow, 106, 110, 139, 192;
Grave, 114;
Home, 107;
Wayside Inn, 118.
Lowell, J. R., 43, 118;
Elmwood, 110;
Mount Auburn, 113.
Marshfield, 142.
Martineau, Harriet, 85, 106.
Melville, Herman, 177, 185, 188;
Arrow-Head, 190.
Monument Mountain, 168, 179, 187.
Moulton, L. C., 93, 98.
Mount Auburn, 113.
Natural Bridge, 169.
North Adams, 158-171.
Norton, Professor, 104.
Oak-Knoll, 138.
Old Manse, 28-39.