Days with
Walt Whitman
[Illustration: colophon]
[Illustration:
Allen & Co. S.
_Walt Whitman at the age of 35_]
Days with [Illustration: two decorative leaves]
Walt Whitman
_With some Notes on his
Life and Work_ [Illustration: three decorative leaves]
_By_ Edward Carpenter
London: George Allen, _Ruskin House_
156 Charing Cross Road Mdccccvi
_All rights reserved_
PREFACE
My first acquaintance with Whitman’s writings (William Rossetti’s
edition of the Poems) was made at Cambridge during the Long Vacation in
the summer of 1868--or it may have been ’69. But it was not till 1877
that I crossed the Atlantic and paid my first visit to him. In 1884 I
was again in the States, and saw Whitman several times. The notes made
on the occasions of these visits were written out at a later period, and
finally published in the _Progressive Review_ (February and April 1897)
in the same form as they now stand. The other papers in the present
book belong to a still later date, and, with one exception, have not
been published before.
E. C.
_April 1906._
CONTENTS
PREFACE _Page_ v
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN IN 1877 1
WALT WHITMAN IN 1884 33
NOTES AND APPRECIATIONS--
WHITMAN AS PROPHET 71
APPENDIX TO WHITMAN AS PROPHET 94
THE POETIC FORM OF “LEAVES OF
GRASS” 103
WALT WHITMAN’S CHILDREN 137
WHITMAN AND EMERSON 153
PORTRAITS
WALT WHITMAN AT THE AGE OF 35 _Frontispiece_
From a Daguerrotype taken in 1854
(_Photogravure_)
WALT WHITMAN AT THE AGE OF 53 _To face p._ 71
From a Photograph taken in 1872
(_Photogravure_)
R. W. EMERSON (AT THE AGE OF 52) “ 153
From a Photograph taken in 1855
(_Photogravure_)
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN
IN 1877
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN IN 1877
It was on the 2nd of May 1877, that--crossing the water from
Philadelphia--I knocked at the door of 431 Stevens Street, Camden. The
house, a narrow three-storied one, stood in one of those broad
tree-planted streets which are common in the States; and Whitman was
staying there, boarding with his brother Colonel George Whitman and
wife--making the establishment at any rate his headquarters, though
frequently absent from it. I waited a few minutes in a sitting-room of
the usual type--one or two ornamental tables, with photograph books,
things under glass shades, &c.--while “Walt” was called upstairs. He
soon came down, slowly, leaning heavily on the banisters, always
dragging somewhat his paralysed leg--at first sight quite an old man
with long grey, almost white, beard, and shaggy head and neck, grey
dress too; but tall, erect, and at closer sight not so old--a florid
fresh complexion, pure grey-blue eye (no sign of age there), and full,
strong, well-formed hands.
At the foot of the staircase he took me by the hand and said, “I was
afraid we should miss after all”--this in reference to a previous
unsuccessful call I had made. There was no hurry in his manner; having
found me a seat, and then only leaving hold of my hand, he sat down
himself and asked me “what news I brought from Britain.” War had just
been declared between Russia and Turkey. Like other Americans, his
sympathies lay with Russia. His idea was that Russia stood _in need_ of
a southern outlet (Constantinople) for her people and growing energies,
that Turkey was falling in pieces, and that England was beginning to
pursue “the wise policy of absolute non-intervention.” Conversation then
turned on England. He asked about friends there; also about myself some
questions.
Meanwhile in that first ten minutes I was becoming conscious of an
impression which subsequently grew even more marked--the impression,
namely, of immense vista or background in his personality. If I had
thought before (and I do not know that I had) that Whitman was
eccentric, unbalanced, violent, my first interview certainly produced
quite a contrary effect. No one could be more considerate, I may almost
say courteous; no one could have more simplicity of manner and freedom
from egotistic wrigglings; and I never met any one who gave me more the
impression of _knowing what he was doing_ than he did. Yet away and
beyond all this I was aware of a certain radiant power in him, a large
benign effluence and inclusiveness, as of the sun, which filled out the
place where he was--yet with something of reserve and sadness in it too,
and a sense of remoteness and inaccessibility.
Some such impressions, at any rate, I gathered in the first interview. I
remember how I was most struck, in his face, by the high arch of the
eyebrows, giving a touch of child-like wonder and contemplation to his
expression; yet his eyes, though full of a kind of wistful tenderness,
were essentially not contemplative but perceptive--active rather than
receptive--lying far back, steady, clear, with small definite pupils and
heavy lids of passion and experience. A face of majestic simple
proportion, like a Greek temple as some one has said; the nose Greek in
outline, straight (but not at all thin or narrow, rather the contrary),
broad between the brows, and meeting the line of the forehead without
any great change of direction; the forehead high, with horizontal
furrows, but not excessively high; the head domed, and rising to a great
height in the middle, above the ears--not projecting behind; ears large
and finely formed; mouth full, but almost quite concealed by hair. A
head altogether impressing one by its height, and by a certain untamed
“wild hawk” look, not uncommon among the Americans.
After some conversation Whitman proposed a walk across to Philadelphia.
Putting on his grey slouch hat he sallied forth with evident pleasure,
and taking my arm as a support walked slowly the best part of a mile to
the ferry. Crossing the ferry was always a great pleasure to him. His
“Brooklyn Ferry” and the section entitled “Delaware River--Days and
Nights” in “Specimen Days,” sufficiently prove this. The life of the
streets and of the people was so near, so dear. The men on the ferry
steamer were evidently old friends; and when we landed on the
Philadelphia side we were before long quite besieged. The man or woman
selling fish at the corner of the street, the tramway conductor, the
loafers on the pavement--a word of recognition from Walt, or as often
from the other first. Presently a cheery shout from the top of a dray;
and before we had gone many yards farther the driver was down and
standing in front of us--his horses given to the care of some bystander.
He was an old Broadway “stager,” “had not seen Walt for three or four
years”; and tears were in his eyes as he held his hand. We were now
brought to a standstill, and others gathered round; “George” was ill,
and Walt must go and see him. There was a message for the children, and
in his pocket the poet discovered one or two packets of sweetmeats for
absent little ones. But for the most part his words were few. It was the
others who spoke, and apparently without reserve.
Thus we rambled through Philadelphia--mostly using the tramcars. The
Yankees do not walk; the trams in their large towns are very complete,
and are universally used for all but short distances. Whitman _could_
not walk far. I was content being with him anyhow. He certainly was
restfulness itself. When we reached the Ferry on our return, the last
bell was ringing--we might have caught the boat, but Whitman seemed not
to think of hurrying. The boat went, and he sat down to enjoy life
waiting for the next.
A few days later, Walt having gone into the country to stay with his
“dear and valued friends,” the Staffords, I paid him a visit there.
“White Horse,” or Kirkwood, was the third or fourth station from Camden
on the Camden and Atlantic line; and consisted at that time of only some
half-dozen houses and stores, forming a centre to the scattered and
outlying farmsteads of that part. The Staffords’ little farm lay a mile
and a half or so from the station--a five or six-roomed wooden house, a
barn, one or two fruit trees, and a few fields running down 300 or 400
yards to a little stream. The country level, very slightly undulating,
wooded here and there, not unlike some parts of Cambridgeshire that I
have seen--neither particularly attractive or unattractive. Here on this
farm, and working it himself, lived Mr. Stafford with his family; he a
loyal Methodist, sometimes acting as local preacher, silent-mannered,
dark-skinned, of bilious temperament, subject to illness, hard-working,
and faithful; his wife a fine woman of cultured expression and spiritual
mind, pretty well absorbed in domestic work; two sons, young fellows,
one of whom, Harry, at this time working in a printer’s office in
Camden, was a great ally and favourite of Walt’s; a grown-up daughter,
and one or two children. Here Whitman would often stay, weeks or months
at a time, boarding and living with the family, and attracting the
members of it to him, and himself to them, with the ties of enduring
friendship. Mrs. Stafford once said to me: “He _is_ a good man; I think
he is the best man I ever knew.”
It was his delight, and doubtless one of the chief attractions of this
favourite resort, to go down and spend a large part of the day by the
“creek” which I have spoken of--and which figures so largely in
“Specimen Days.” At a point not a quarter of a mile distant from the
house it widened into a kind of little lake surrounded by trees, the
haunt of innumerable birds; and here Whitman would sit for hours in an
old chair; silent, enjoying the scene, becoming a part of it, almost,
himself; or would undress and bathe in the still, deep pool. At this
time he was nearly sixty years old, and for some eight years on and off
had been stricken with paralysis. As is well known, he attributed his
partial recovery very largely to the beneficence of this creek, with its
water-baths and sun-baths and open-air influences generally.
That day being Sunday I found the family all at home, and Whitman in
the midst of them. When the opportunity occurred I told him something
of the appreciation of his writings that had grown up in England during
those years. After a pause he asked if the Rossetti edition was out of
print. I said I thought so. W.: “I hope it is; I approved of Rossetti’s
plan for the time being, but now would rather appear without
alteration.” [I am here simply transcribing my notes made a day or two
after; these are not his exact words, but as good as I could remember.]
“I had hardly realised that there was so much interest in me in England.
I confess I am surprised that America, to whom I have especially
addressed myself, is so utterly silent. Lowell, and indeed almost all
the critics, say that I am crude, inartistic--do you think that?” I said
I had heard such criticisms, but I did not myself think his work crude
and hasty; on the contrary, much of it seemed to me to have been
written very deliberately and carefully; and as to the question of art,
I thought he had laid an altogether broader basis of style (instancing
some of his poems)--a great foundation; others would build here and
there upon it, but he had struck the main lines. W.: “I did, in fact,
re-write and destroy much before I published; I cannot think that I have
altogether attained, but I have planted the seed; it is for others to
continue the work. My original idea was that if I could bring men
together by putting before them the heart of man, with all its joys and
sorrows and experiences and surroundings, it would be a great thing; up
to this time I have had America chiefly in view, but this appreciation
of me in England makes me think I might perhaps do the same for the old
world also. I have endeavoured from the first to get free as much as
possible from all literary attitudinising--to strip off integuments,
coverings, bridges--and to speak straight from and to the heart.” [In
reference to this, he said at another time that it had been a “whim” of
his when writing “to discard all conventional poetic phrases, and every
touch of or reference to ancient or mediæval images, metaphors,
subjects, styles, &c., and to write _de novo_ with words and phrases
appropriate to his own days.”]
When we went in to dinner Mr. Stafford was already seated; I think he
was about to say grace. Walt, with greater grace, stood for a moment
bending over him from behind, and clasped Stafford’s head in his great
hands; then passed on in silence. What a large sweet presence--so
benign, yet so determined! The children loved him, and the little boy
would lie coiled, lost, on his knees, half-asleep, half-awake, Walt’s
hand covering and compressing his entire face.
In Philadelphia, the day before, Whitman had introduced me to his
English friends, the Gilchrists. Mrs. Gilchrist, widow of Alexander
Gilchrist, the biographer of Blake, was a capable and large-minded
woman. A year earlier she, with two daughters and a son, had come from
England for a two or three years’ visit to the States, and had settled
in Philadelphia. As is well known, she was the first of Englishwomen to
fully and publicly recognise (as she did in some printed letters) the
splendid genius of the poet, and that at a time (1868 or ’69) when
“Leaves of Grass” to most of the literary world was little better than
the incoherent ramblings of a maniac. More than once did she relate to
me how, on first opening the volume, when her eye fell upon the fine
nearly full-length engraving (taken from a daguerrotype) of the author,
she exclaimed: “Here at last is the face of Christ, which the painters
have so long sought for”; and she always maintained that the reading of
the book itself did but confirm and deepen that first impression.
At the Gilchrists’ house Whitman would not unfrequently stay. Indeed
there was a kind of prophet’s chamber for him there, always ready. And
as it happened that he was about to pay a visit there, it was arranged
that I also should come. They lived at No. 1929, North 22nd Street. If
the American method of numbering streets and houses is prosaic, it
certainly has the advantage of being practical. Philadelphia is like a
chessboard; you find your way by co-ordinate geometry. The streets are
straight, parallel, and not far from infinite in length. The address
being put in your hands, you know at once the exact spot to which you
are destined.
I remember very well arriving, bag in hand, and finding the whole family
(a general custom in Philadelphia on those warm evenings) sitting out on
the door-steps--Whitman in the midst, in an arm-chair, his white beard
and hair glistening in the young moonlight, looking like some old
god--the others grouped around him or at his feet. After this for a week
of evenings I made one of the party. How pleasant it was! Whitman had a
knack of making ordinary life enjoyable, redeeming it from
commonplaceness. Instead of making you feel (as so many do) that the
Present is a kind of squalid necessity to be got over as best may be, in
view of something always in the future, he gave you that good sense of
_nowness_, that faith that the present is enjoyable, which imparts
colour and life to the thousand and one dry details of existence. As I
have hinted before, he was no great talker, and would generally let the
conversation ebb and flow at its own will, without effort, ready
apparently for grave or gay alike.
Unlike many highly important people who seem to enjoy holding forth to a
general audience, Whitman, as I thought, preferred to let conversation
turn on the pivot of personal relationship. Often as not he would have
his listener by the hand; and his words too had an attractive force,
from their very simplicity and purity from affectation or display. I
think he did not really care to have conversational dealings with people
except on such a basis of personal affection. To such as he did not
like--to all mere gabblers, bores, spying and prying persons--he became
as a precipice, instantly and utterly inaccessible. Certainly it was
one of the pleasures of his society that you always felt he was there
in person, _bonâ fide_, not by deputy; and no current notion of
politeness could make him do a thing he did not enjoy doing. One evening
we were looking over some fine engravings, mostly portraits,
Gainsboroughs, Reynolds, Lelys, and others, from Mrs. Gilchrist’s
collection. He enjoyed them greatly, and very deliberately, dwelling
long and long over some of them, criticising style, workmanship,
composition, character, &c. But when he had had enough of it all--well,
he said so! I have seldom known any one who, though so cordial and near
to others, detached and withdrew himself at times more decisively than
he did, or who on the whole spent more time in solitude. Also no rough
draft of his character would be complete which did not take into account
the strong Quaker element of obstinacy which existed in him--but this
might require a separate chapter!
To return to our evenings. I have said something about Walt Whitman’s
manner in conversation; I cannot attempt to reproduce its effect, but I
will just transcribe such notes of some of his remarks as I have by me.
One evening conversation turned upon the Chinese. W.: “I fancy they are
like the Germans, only more refined. My notion is that the Germans are
simple, true, affectionate folk, but there is a kind of roughness, one
may almost say brutishness, about them; the Chinese have the same good
qualities, with a certain alertness and grace which the Germans lack.” I
quoted some accounts of Japan by a man who had lived there for a long
time, and who told me that the manners of the old Japanese aristocracy
were so elaborately perfect that he himself would go any distance to
get _out of their way_, feeling such a boor compared with them! This
amused Whitman; seemed to “tally with his own idea.” Mrs. Gilchrist
wondered, with regard to the natives of India and Orientals generally,
that the degradation of the women did not bring about a gradual
deterioration of the whole race. W.: “I suppose that among the _masses_
of the people the women (and men too) live, after all, much as they do
in the West, and as they must do in all times and climes; and that the
special treatment of women in the East only applies to the upper
classes. The masses in every part of the globe are dominated by the
necessities of Nature. Thus also among the Greeks and Romans the
peasant-life must have had its races of fine women.” And here he cited
Juvenal, and his comparison of the effeminate lady of his time with the
“stern magnificent mothers” of the early days of Rome.
Going on to Oriental literature, Whitman spoke of “Sakúntala,” the
Indian drama, its “modernness”--the comic scenes especially being as of
the times of Shakespeare; and of the great Hindu epic, the “Ramáyana”;
and told the story of Yudísthura, which occurs as an episode in the
latter. Conversation got round presently--I think in reference to the
cramped life of “high-born” women in the East--to the shoddiness and
vulgarity of modern well-to-do life. W.: “It seems a strange thing to
me, this love of gilt and upholstery among the Americans--that people
leading a free natural open-air life should, directly they make a little
money, want to go in for sofas, expensively furnished rooms, dress, and
the like; yet it seems to be a law, a kind of necessity, that they
should do so. I suppose it is partly that each man wishes to feel
himself as good as others, to feel that he can have of the ‘best’ too;
democracy showing itself for a time in that way, reducing the borrowed
old-world standard of superiority to an absurdity; and I guess it will
not last for ever.”
We did not generally sit up later than eleven. Breakfast was at 7.30 or
8. Walt’s arrival in the morning was as exhilarating as a fine sunrise.
After breakfast and a chat we would separate to our respective
occupations. In the afternoon, almost every day I was there, the poet
went off to Camden to visit his sister-in-law, who was at that time
confined to the house, and to whom, I believe, he was much attached. As
I have said, Walt was very simple and domestic in his ways; and would
quite enjoy, on a rainy afternoon, having a game of twenty questions
such as he had “often played in camp with the soldiers during the war,”
or would take pleasure in preparing some little dish of his own devising
for the evening meal. One evening we pressed him to read. He would not
recite anything of his own; but he read out Tennyson’s “Ulysses”--in a
clear, strong, and rugged tone. The subtle harmonies of the Tennysonian
verse effloresced under the treatment, but the sterner qualities of the
poem stood out finely. We expressed admiration. He said: “I guess it is
about the best Tennysonian poem.” Another evening, I remember, he told
us how, when living at New York, he had had a “fancy” to visit Sing-sing
prison, the great penal establishment up the Hudson river. He obtained
permission to do so, got to know one or two of the warders, and for some
time went there pretty frequently. He wrote letters for the prisoners,
&c. “It was a whim.”
We had a long talk on manual labour. Most of us agreed it would be a
good thing for all classes to take part in--not to be left to one class
only. Walt maintained with regard to reforms and the like, that it was
no good trying to _benefit_ people (labouring people for instance) who
did not feel the need of any change. “Many people came to me at one time
about slavery, and ‘wondered’ that I was so quiet about it; but, in
truth, I felt that abolitionists were making quite noise enough, and
that there were other things just as important which had to be attended
to.” We got talking of Abraham Lincoln--I suppose in reference to
slavery--and I mentioned the story that Lincoln went out of his mind and
nearly committed suicide over a love affair. Walt, who always was a
great admirer of Lincoln, and who knew a good deal about him and his
history, gave this a most emphatic denial, saying that Lincoln was
“never even near being crazy.”
One of the most amusing incidents of my stay occurred one morning
shortly after breakfast, when a visiting card was handed in bearing the
ominous inscription “Madame Dorbiney D’Aubigné,” and was quickly
followed by the appearance of an elderly and loquacious little lady. She
was one of those detached women with a reticule who travel about the
world in quest of anything “interesting.” She had been, she told us, all
over the States and seen many celebrities, but could not return to
Europe without visiting Whitman--and it was only by a piece of luck that
she had found out where he was staying. However, it soon began to appear
that her interest in Walt was not so great, naturally, as in herself;
for after a few preliminary compliments she settled down to tell us all
about the wonderful D’Aubigné family to which she belonged. It ramified
all over the civilised world, she said; and the name was spelt in ever
so many different ways, but they were all branches of the same family,
they were all related to each other--as her own name indeed showed. Walt
listened in an amused manner, and for about ten minutes was quite
decently courteous and patient. Then I suddenly perceived that his face
was becoming ‘precipitous’; the little woman of course was addressing
him, no one else being of any importance; but he seemed to be becoming
deaf, there was no speculation in his eyes; it _was_ rather awful; for a
minute or two she tried vainly to effect a lodgment for her words, to
get any kind of handhold on the sheer surface, and then gathering up her
tackle, she made the best of a bad job, bade a hasty good-bye, and
disappeared.
I told Walt about a visit I paid to Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the
criticisms of “Leaves of Grass” which I heard on that occasion. I saw
the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” at his house in Boston. He was
then about 70 years of age--a dapper active little man, full of life and
go, rather enjoying the visits of strangers--“Oh yes, I have a large
‘parish’--people write to me and come and call from all parts of the
world--we authors are rather vain, you know, and quite enjoy a little
homage; but _my_ parish is not as big as Longfellow’s--not as big as
Longfellow’s. But this is not a good time for you to see Boston. Boston
is very empty now--(getting up and glancing through the window) very
empty; you might almost see a fox run down the street; &c., &c.” I said
something about American literature and “Leaves of Grass.” “Oh!
Whitman,” he said, “well--well--well--Whitman is all very well--he has
capacity, but it won’t do--it won’t do. I tell you what, it’s something
like this: you know, skilful cooks say that the faintest odour, the
merest whiff, of _assafœtida_, will give a piquant flavour to a
dish--and I can believe that; but to _drench_ it in _assafœtida_, no,
that won’t do. The poets _coquette_ with Nature and weave garlands of
roses for her; but Whitman _goes at her_ like a great hirsute man--no,
it won’t do. Now,” he continued, “the other day Lowell and Longfellow
and I were chatting together, and the subject of Whitman turned up. Said
Lowell, ‘I can’t think why there is all this stir about Whitman; I have
read a good deal of his poetry, but I can’t see anything in it--_I can’t
see anything in it_.’ ‘Well,’ said Longfellow, ‘I believe the man might
have done something if he had only had a decent training and education.’
As to my own opinion, why,” said Holmes, “I have already given you that.
So you see what we think of him in America.” Whitman was a good deal
amused, and took it all in good part, saying he knew pretty well already
what they thought.
As the days went by I began to see more clearly the depths which lay
behind the poet’s simple and unconcerned exterior. Literary persons, as
a rule, write over their own heads; they talk a little bigger than
themselves. But Whitman seemed to fill out “Leaves of Grass,” and form
an interpretation of it. I began to see that all he had written there
was matter of absolute personal experience--that you might be sure that
what was said was meant. There was the same deliberate suggestiveness
about his actions and manners that you find in his writings--only, of
course, with the added force of bodily presence; and far down too there
were clearly enough visible the same strong and contrary moods, the same
strange omnivorous egotism, controlled and restrained by that wonderful
genius of his for human affection and love. “Who has the most enamoured
body?” were words which somehow his presence often suggested. It was
with real reluctance that, a week after my arrival, I bade adieu to all
that friendly household; and the next morning but one, from the stern of
the _Siberia_, watched the flat shores of New England, and the
lighthouse that marks the entrance to Boston Harbour, recede and dip
below the broadening waters of the Atlantic.
WALT WHITMAN IN 1884
WALT WHITMAN IN 1884
The next time I saw Walt Whitman was the 17th June 1884. He had then
left Stevens Street, owing to the removal of his brother, but was still
living in Camden, in a small house which he had himself
part-purchased--328 Mickle Street. He had at that time, for
housekeepers, an elderly workman and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Lay, with
whom he was on easy terms, and with whom he had his meals. In appearance
I thought him much the same as in 1877--a trifle thinner perhaps, and
certainly more infirm. Some expression of weariness too I thought I saw,
which would likely arise from the increased confinement of his life. “I
keep going,” he said, “much the same. Visits from English friends are
perhaps my chief diversion.” Then, after tender inquiries, especially
for Mrs. Gilchrist (who was now in London), “have just had a visit from
Oscar Wilde--who told me about England; I made him do the
talking--rather liked him. I have occasional letters from Dowden--a
steady friend--and others. Bucke’s book[1] is going off slowly--not much
cared for by my friends--but I like it. I opposed the book all along,
till Bucke, getting fairly out of patience, came one day and said, ‘Now
I am just as obstinate as you, and I _intend_ to bring it out whether
you like it or no--so you had better make the best of the matter and
help to make it authentic as far as you can’; whereupon I caved in,
laughing heartily, and wrote the account of my birthplace and
antecedents which occupies the first twenty-four pages of the book.”
“I thought that there was a germinal idea in Bucke’s book--the idea that
‘Leaves of Grass’ was above all an expression of the Moral Nature. As to
O’Connor’s letters--I must say I like them. They are comforting. Just as
any woman likes a man to fall in love with her--whether she returns it
or not--so to have once aroused so eloquent and passionate a declaration
is reassuring and a help to me.” We then spoke of the money-making and
gentility business at New York--I remarking that I thought it had all
increased considerably since I was there in ’77, and he corroborating,
though holding that it probably _had_ to be gone through “for reasons.”
Here I find the following passage among my notes: “I am impressed more
than ever with W.’s contradictory, self-willed, tenacious, obstinate
character, strong and even extreme moods, united with infinite
tenderness, wistful love, and studied tolerance; also great caution [he
says: ‘the phrenologists always say that caution is my chief
characteristic--did you know that?’] and a certain artfulness, combined
with keen, penetrating and determined candour; the wild-hawk look still
there, ‘untamable, untranslatable,’ yet with that wonderful tenderness
at bottom.”
The next day Walt came over, at noon, to Crowell’s hotel, where I was
staying; we dined and went to Fairmount Park in the afternoon. Talked a
little about social questions. W.: “I believe, like Carlyle, in _men_; I
think that notwithstanding all set-offs the great capitalists and
masters of private enterprise have, in America at least, been useful. I
have myself had all along a tender feeling for Co-operation, but for
that doubt whether a committee or an elected person could or would do
the work.” As to England, he seemed to think that emigration would
relieve it, and he looked upon the law and custom of _entail_ as the
“hard-pan underlying your social institutions.” “I like and welcome all
agitation, even the fiercest, but like Carlyle have little belief in
reform talk. Society, like a person in middle life, is _set_, and you
have to make the best of it. I am, I hope, a bit of a reformer myself.
Yes, we must _grow_ generous, ungrasping masters of industry; absurd as
the idea would seem to most now-a-days, I believe that is the upshot of
what is going on. The creation of a large, independent, democratic class
of small owners is the main thing--though it is never once mentioned by
our economists and politicians. I am satisfied that for America Free
Trade and open admission of all foreigners is an integral part of its
theory; the future of the world is one of open communication and
solidarity of all races; and if that problem cannot be solved in America
it cannot be solved anywhere.”
We drove to Fairmount Park in a ’bus, walked a little, sat at the
refreshment tables, and listened to the band--Walt absorbed and quiet
for the most part, recognised by a few among the well-dressed crowd, but
seeming to hold himself aloof with almost an air of _hauteur_--looking
fine withal in his grey suit and with grey uncovered head, tho’ perhaps
a little weary. He asked me somewhat about my life and doings at home.
The following evening I stayed to supper with Whitman in the little
kitchen of his home, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Lay. They seemed
homely decent people, rather dull and quiet. Walt, who was dressed just
in shirt and trousers--for the weather was hot--kept things going.
Afterwards we sat in the front room with Folger McKinsey, a young
Philadelphian of literary leanings, who had come in. Walt talked about
Shakespeare, the Bacon theory, the greatness of the historical plays,
the “dragon-rancours” of the barons, King Lear, &c. “I will not be
positive about Bacon’s connection with the plays, but I am satisfied
that behind the historical Shakespeare there is another mind, guiding,
and far, far reaching, giving weight and permanent value to what would
otherwise have been only two plays a year written for a witty, alert,
jocose audience--chiefly of young gallants.”
The conversation turned somehow on death. W.: “It is in reality a very
different affair from the romantic stage view of it; deathbed speeches
and ‘scenes’ are of the rarest occurrence. I have witnessed hundreds of
deaths, and as a rule it seems just a matter of course--like having your
breakfast, or any other event of the day, and met with indifference at
the last, and with apathy, or unconsciousness.”
After an hour or two we went out and walked a little through the Camden
streets--Walt, as usual, with plentiful greetings to passers-by. He
would insist on our coming into a shop and having some refreshment, and
then a few minutes later at the corner of a street, left us, I remember,
with that queer brusque manner of his which so often offended his
friends--just coldly saying “Ta-ta,” and going off as if he didn’t care
if he never saw us again!
The next morning (June 30) was my last visit to Whitman; we had a long
and intimate conversation. He was very friendly and affectionate, and
sat by the open window downstairs enjoying the wafts of fragrant air,
while he talked about “Leaves of Grass.” “What lies behind ‘Leaves of
Grass’ is something that few, very few, only one here and there, perhaps
oftenest women, are at all in a position to seize. It lies behind almost
every line; but concealed, studiedly concealed; some passages left
purposely obscure. There is something in my nature _furtive_ like an old
hen! You see a hen wandering up and down a hedgerow, looking apparently
quite unconcerned, but presently she finds a concealed spot, and
furtively lays an egg, and comes away as though nothing had happened!
That is how I felt in writing ‘Leaves of Grass.’ Sloane Kennedy calls me
‘artful’--which about hits the mark. I think there are truths which it
is necessary to envelop or wrap up.” I replied that all through history
the old mysteries, or whatever they may have been called, had been held
back; and added that probably we had something yet to learn from India
in these matters. W.: “I do not myself think there is anything more to
come from that source; we must rather look to modern science to open the
way. Time alone can absolutely test my poems or any one’s. Personally, I
think that the ‘something’ is more present in some of my small later
poems than in the ‘Song of Myself.’”
This was the last I saw of Whitman. I left him sitting there by the
window in his downstairs room, close to the street and the
passers-by--his clear eye undimmed by age, his rugged, loving nature
unaltered; though there was a certain grave weariness in his otherwise
majestic presence, which gives one a touch of sadness when one thinks
that he had still nearly eight years to pass of increasing physical
disablement and of continually diminishing vitality, culminating at last
in serious bodily misery and wretchedness, before death might relieve
him of the burden of the flesh.
It seems strange at first that Whitman’s death should have been of such
a lingering character--three months, from Christmas 1891, to near the
end of the following March, in a dying state nearly all the time, with
much restlessness, sleeplessness, misery, and even pain at times. But in
some ways this was in consonance with his physical temperament--his
extraordinarily voluminous hold on life, all phases of it, his extreme
tenacity, his strong implication in the life of the body and the senses,
his affectionate and unceasing love towards his friends, and his marked
and obdurate egoism--all things which held him to life, and needed a
long process of disentanglement, fibre by fibre as it were, before he
could be released.
Volume--voluminousness--was one of Walt’s most notable features.
Physically it was so--as witness his ample proportions, his keen and
well-furnished senses; mentally the same--a mind well stocked,
interested in every subject, balancing, weighing, comparing,
slow-moving, but never retracing its steps; emotionally and by
temperament the same, with an immense range of emotion, and volume of
feeling when roused, but slow, deliberate, cautious, lethargic, and at
times even lumpishly immovable. This voluminousness is the key to his
literary style, which at its best is magnificent--thought after thought
culled from every side and department of life, ranged in successive line
and phrase, marshalled and held in suspense as it were in huge array,
till at last they are hurled upon the reader in one mass and with
overwhelming power; but which style at its worst is cumbersome and
disjointed. It is this voluminousness which goes with the whole florid
full emotional nature of the man, fond of materials and plenty of
materials, not especially careful of order or arrangement, not too
studiedly clear or concise in thought and expression, but always ample
and inclusive.
Another main point in Whitman’s character is, I think, best expressed by
the word “cussedness.” I have touched on it once or twice: the contrary
moods, the spirit of refusal, the wilfulness, which by their at times
necessary opposition and antagonism to his ample and loving humanity
formed, I believe, a great tragic element in his nature--and possibly
prevented him ever being quite what is called “happy in love affairs.”
He celebrates in his poems the fluid, all-solvent disposition, but often
was himself less the river than the rock. In these moods, fixed, silent,
and unquestionable, he was a thing you might try your strength upon, but
which you were not likely to move! In the slow downward slope of his
head from back to front, and in the lines of his eye and brow, tenacity
was written; it looked out upon you from the small, well-defined pupil
set under its long, curtain-like lid; and there was at times in his
face, as I have said, the look as of a precipice, sheer, with breakneck
ledges. One can imagine how this portion of his character, at any rate
in his younger days, must have conflicted with his equally innate and
imperious craving for human love and fellowship, and what suffering the
conflict must have brought to him at times. R. W. Emerson said to me
once (1877) of Whitman that when he came to know him he found him “a
wayward, fanciful man.”[2] This was not probably meant to be a complete
account of the man, yet it indicates Emerson’s perception of certain
characteristics in him. In later years the large, equable human heart
asserted itself more and more, and nothing could be more beautiful than
the tolerance towards old and young of all sorts which he exhibited;
while the waywardness became refined into something majestic. I remember
old Mr. Pearsall Smith, of Philadelphia, who knew Whitman very well,
saying that one of the things which impressed him most about Walt was
his “magnificent No!”--how sometimes when invited out, or asked
to do anything which he did not care to do, there would roll
forth--unqualified by any thanks, or explanation, or excuse--the simple
negative, with a great round O, and yet, as a rule, with a large sunny
amiability which made offence impossible.
I have two portraits--photographs--which I am fond of comparing with
each other. One is of Whitman, taken in 1890; the other, taken at about
the same time and at the same age (seventy years), is of an Indian
Gnani or seer. Both are faces of the highest interest and import; but
how different! That of Whitman deeply lined, bearing the marks of
life-long passion and emotion, aggressive and determined, yet wistful
and tender, full of suffering and full of love, indicating serenity, yet
markedly turbid and clouded, ample in brow and frame and flowing hair,
as of one touching and mingling with humanity at all points--withal of a
wonderful majesty and grandeur, as of the great rocks (to return always
to that simile) whose summits pierce at last the highest domain.
The other portrait, of a man equally aged, shows scarcely a line on the
face; you might think for that and for the lithe, active form that he
was not more than forty years old; a brow absolutely calm and unruffled,
gracious, expressive lips, well-formed features, and eyes--the dominant
characteristic of his countenance--dark and intense, and illuminated by
the vision of the seer. In this face you discern command, control,
gentleness, and the most absolute inward unity, serenity, and peace; no
wandering emotions or passions flit across the crystal mirror of the
soul; self-hood in any but the highest sense has vanished--the self has,
as it were, returned to its birthplace--leaving behind the most
childlike, single-hearted, uncensorious, fearless character imaginable.
Yet just here one seems to miss something in the last character--the
touch of human and earthly entanglement. Here is not exactly the great
loving heart which goes a few steps on the way with every child of man;
here is not the ample-domed brow which tackles each new problem of life
and science. Notwithstanding evident signs of culture and experience in
the past, notwithstanding vast power of concentration in any given
matter or affair when necessary, the face shows that heart and intellect
have become quiescent, that interest in the actual has passed or is
passing away.
Whitman’s immense moody and emotional temperament--he calls it
“turbulent” himself--forms a factor of his character and writings, which
has perhaps not been sufficiently considered--especially by some of his
admirers, who, as so often happens, are more concerned to present an
ideal personality than a real portrait. There are indeed some of his
biographers who are at pains to explain that many of his expressions of
sympathy and participation in the weaknesses and sins of humanity are to
be taken as theoretical or allegorical expressions, having by no means a
personal interpretation. Yet surely this is to take the clay out of the
brick, the marble out of the statue. While it is obvious that no man
could have in one lifetime run through _all_ the experiences mentioned
in “Leaves of Grass,” the whole point of the matter is that the author
actually finds in himself the capability of these experiences, and quite
personally identifies himself with them. It is, in fact, just these
earth-entanglements, in a character so cosmic in its range as his, which
are of special import as giving direction and effect to his
individuality and to his work. Not only is it clear that without his
voluminous enfoldment in the earth-life--the Nessus-shirt of
Hercules--he could not well have performed the mighty works that he did;
but it is difficult to see how, without some of that obduracy and
egotism of his, he could have held his own against the great surge of
obloquy and ridicule which covered his first appearance on the field of
literature. Whitman saw (somewhere within himself) the typical man of a
new era; and he gave himself to the utterance of what he saw. It stood
in the most glaring and irremediable contrast to the genteel ideal of
the civilisation around him. Alone, he had to confront the whole of
modern society. Now then, if ever, strength was needed. Now then
tenacity, obstinacy, wilfulness; they had to be made the most of. If
they were faults they were such as could ill be spared. His was perhaps
the most deliberately daring advance ever made in literature; and it is
difficult to believe that it could have been made except by one in whom
the rocky elements of character were abundantly present. “Leaves of
Grass” itself has this quality of undeniable “thereness”; and when the
critics have had their say and expended all their shafts upon it, it
still remains solid and untouched--like the earth, which survives all
the theories of the geologists and surrenders itself to none.
There is a third point. In many ways Whitman marks a stage of human
evolution not yet reached, and hardly suspected, by humanity at large;
but in no respect is this more true than in respect of his capacity of
Love. If you consider Whitman’s life you will see that Love ruled it,
that he gave his life for love. There were other motives no doubt, but
this one ultimately dominated them all. It permeates like a flame his
entire writings; it took him to the battlefield and the hospitals in
succour of the wounded soldiers; it led him (before the war) deep into
the life and comradeship of the people--all phases; after the war it
united him in bonds of tender and life-long friendship with many,[3]
both men and women; it surrounded his death-bed with devotion, and
brought thousands to his funeral. For it he gave away his possessions
and the material means of life, he gave his prospects of professional
success, he gave health, fame--all that a man can give--and accepted
illness and obscurity, and oftentimes long and painful loneliness and
betrayal even of love itself.[4]
He was a man in whom the power of love was developed to an
extraordinary degree. Yet (thanks to him) this was no attenuated or
merely spiritual love, but was a large and generous passion, spiritual
and emotional of course, but well rooted in the physical and sexual
also. In him the various sides and manifestations of the passion were so
blent, that instead of weakening they recognised and reinforced each
other; and, coming into touch with humanity, as he did with a kind of
careless equalness from all these sides; piercing through the layers and
folds of caste, through differences of race, climate, character,
occupation; despising distances of space and time; he drew men and women
of the most varied nature and habits to himself, saved them from their
own little selves--from their own little virtues and vices--and united
them in the solidarity of humanity, by their common attachment to him.
“Leaves of Grass” is the meeting-ground of the human race. There every
nationality, every creed, every trade, every atom of humanity is
represented, and all are fused in the great loving soul that overbroods
them.
If it seems difficult to reconcile this great and abounding charity of
Whitman with his strong egotism, it is perhaps not needful to reconcile
them. They may have been two necessarily opposite poles of his nature.
At any rate to assert this love--physical, sexual, emotional,
spiritual--extending to all races, castes, to the most despised and
degraded, to the near home and far off, to the virtuous and to the
criminal, to men as well as to women, to the animals even--in all its
phases and utterances; and to assert this egoism, plainly, unblushingly,
in all its forms--confidence, pride, self-esteem, desire, and delight in
all the natural powers and appetites--Whitman deliberately set himself.
In doing so he (necessarily) upset all former and formal moralities, and
exposed himself to the fiercest opposition; but some day--when it has
come to be recognised that the medium in which the true _ego_, the soul,
lives and moves is neither gain nor fame, nor duty nor denial, but
indeed love and love alone--it will be seen that “Leaves of Grass” is,
perhaps of all books ever written, the most natural and nobly
inevitable.