position, that these two poems, beautiful as they are, are not so
characteristic, so deeply fascinating and impressive, so central in the
whole scheme and cosmos of “Leaves of Grass,” as those other great
poems, which, though not so obviously metrical or artistically balanced
and complete, are governed more directly by the presence and direct
utterance of the personality behind them: I mean, of course, first and
foremost, the “Song of Myself,” and afterwards the two series, _Children
of Adam_ and _Calamus_, and such poems as “By Blue Ontario’s Shore,”
“The Answerer” (p. 134), “The Sleepers” (p. 325), “To Think of Time” (p.
333), “Sunset” (p. 374), “Vocalism” (p. 297), “So Long” (p. 380), and
many others. There is in these poems an extraordinary oracular prophetic
utterance which lifts them right through the sphere of art, and out of
it, into something above. “No one will get at my verses,” he says,[15]
“who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or attempt at
such performance, or as aiming mainly towards art or aestheticism.” It
is in this quality in Whitman’s work, transcending art, yet indeed only
possible through the patient study, through the perfection and final
surrender of art, that the secret of his power lies. In his poems of
this order a technical unity is not demanded (though it may be found in
some of them) because they speak in the name of that Self which is and
remains the unity of all things--the wind which bloweth where it listeth
over the world. They have no need to _seek_ for unity and beauty,
because in uttering the Self these things are already given and found.
Here is a great mystery, difficult to express. No wonder that in that
truly oracular poem, “Vocalism” (p. 297), Whitman announces so great, so
almost terrifying and impossible an apprenticeship before “the divine
power to speak words” can come and be loosened in man or woman--nothing
less than the circling of all experience, and the final surrender:
“For only at last after many years, after chastity,
friendship, procreation, prudence and nakedness,
After treading ground and breasting river and lake,
After a loosen’d throat, after absorbing eras,
temperaments, races, after knowledge, freedom, crimes,
After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations,
and removing obstructions,
After these and more, it is just possible there comes
to a man, a woman, the divine power to speak words....
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him
or her I shall follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid
steps, anywhere around the globe.”
It is here no case of neglecting art; but technical art and all its
devices are only a very very small part of the apprenticeship. Before
the deep music and beauty of these greatest poems we can only stand
silent, absorbing indeed, but in no mood to analyse. Something greater
than mortal speaks to us in them, some voice blended of ages and ages
and vistas of human experience. Something more even than human; for
Nature, the prairies and the lakes, the ocean and the forest by some
hidden magic become vocal in them:
“I hear you whispering there, O stars of heaven,
O suns--O grass of graves--O perpetual transfers and promotions,
If you do not say anything how can I say anything?”
* * * * *
“The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him
shall take me with him all day,
The farm-boy, ploughing in the field, feels good
at the sound of my voice,
In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with
fishermen and seamen and love them.
The soldier camp’d or upon the march is mine,
On the night ere the pending battle many seek me,
and I do not fail them,
On that solemn night (it may be their last) those
that know me seek me.”
Whitman, by his vast command of and sympathy with the things of the
actual world, by his strange interpenetration and identity with the
elemental whole, has in these great poems revealed a presence which, as
long as the waters glisten and the leaves rustle, can never pass or
cease to speak to us; and as in ancient days, from some cavern on a
mountain side, a voice in divine frenzy issuing was taken to be that of
the Earth-god before whose eyes past and future are one, so from these
writings the music arising seems to be the inspiration and
part-utterance even of ageless Nature herself.
For the rest there are, of course, deficiences and weaknesses. As hinted
earlier in this book, the voluminous power which marshals and holds in
leash whole battalions of phrases, to hurl them finally on the reader
with irresistible effect, sometimes fails; and then we get a lumbering,
disjointed, efforted movement which is the reverse of admirable.
Whitman’s later poems, though interesting in many ways, do often show
this deficiency of inspiration and some consequent lapse into
mannerisms; and his prose perhaps shows the same more frequently.
To the reader coming to these works for the first time, the disregard of
conventions in every direction is so great, that it sometimes attracts
all his attention, rendering him insensible to the interior message, and
annoying him with a suspicion of mere affectation. “If he only were not
obscene,” says such a reader, “or slangy, or prosaic, or contradictory;
if he only would not put in lists of trades, or of seaport towns, or
lines that ramble at large across all the proprieties of metre and
grammar--we could endure him! But thus and thus he is intolerable.” It
is only after some familiarity and a gradual change of the point of view
and perspective, that the reader begins to see that much which he
thought affected is perfectly natural and in place. “To speak with the
perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals, and the
unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods, and grass by
the roadside,” is Whitman’s own standard, and the more one reads the
more I think one is compelled to acknowledge his near approach to it.
That he uses the parlance of common folk instead of the set phrases of
the learned is not an affectation, but simply what Dante, and Chaucer,
and Pushkin, and many another pioneer of a national literature has done;
that he speaks freely of physiological things is not obscenity, but a
deliverance from it; that his handling of facts appears prosaic or
unemotional may easily arise from the reader’s own want of association
with the facts that are handled.
In all these cases of a new or unfamiliar style (as in painting or
music) the interpretations do not yield themselves till the new point
of view has been seized. Whitman has often been accused of want of
humour--and it is notorious that nothing is more elusive and variable as
between people and people--English, Scotch, French, German,
American--than just this sense of humour. But no one who knows “Leaves
of Grass” well can fail to detect the fund of quiet humour constantly
flowing there beneath the surface. It has been said, No one with any
sense of the comic could have written the lines:--
“Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and _test propositions_.”
But does it follow that because a minor poet might fear to use such an
expression, lest it should excite a smile, Whitman would also have been
afraid, and have refused it, even though the expression exactly conveyed
his meaning? And again, a phrase like “test propositions” may well
appear comic at Oxford or Cambridge, and yet perfectly serene and
sensible on an American prairie. These things are a little difficult to
locate.
All the same it must be said that the poet does, in this way and at
times, put a considerable strain upon his admirers! as when he writes:--
“O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration,”
or again--
“I will report all heroism from an American point of view.”
And there are affectations--or rather I think I should say, cases in
which he has of set purpose adopted forms and attitudes not perfectly
natural and spontaneous. For the most part his work is marvellously
spontaneous, and, in its prophetic way, deriving at once from
instinctive and subconscious regions; but there is no doubt (he says so
himself) that in parts he “set himself” very deliberately to do certain
things. And it is in these parts that I think he is least successful.
Thus he set himself to vaunt and magnify “these States” in season and
out of season (a good purpose in moderation, but rather overdone); to
ignore all stock-poetic and classic forms and allusions whatever (a
practice which cripples him at times), even to the extent of proscribing
May and June in favour of Fifth-month and Sixth-month; and to coin and
introduce if possible various hybrid and denationalised words, like
Camerado, Santa Spirita, I exposé, and so forth (a matter in which he
has often been anything but successful). These set efforts, which also
appear sometimes in the _construction_ of his poems, detract at such
times from the winging singing quality of his work, and give a sense as
of chains dragged along the ground.
Of these weaknesses and deficiencies, however, I must say that in the
long-run they do not seem to me to bulk very largely. Though they may do
so at first, and may seem serious, yet it is surprising how with
continued reading they wane and lose their importance in the general
splendour and adequacy of expression. And personally--with regard to the
many quaint and outlandish things in Whitman--though they may cause a
ripple in the mind, I find that they do not for me spoil the general
effect, any more than for one sailing into New York harbour the splendid
vista of shipping and shores is spoiled by the sight of a bottle or
other such object borne on the blue and sunlit tide.
And when on the other hand one regards the extraordinary and admitted
felicity and perfection of a vast number of his phrases, the
absoluteness of the rendering and expression of some of the most
difficult and subtle things, one sees that these quaintnesses, whatever
may be their cause, certainly do not arise from lack of literary
ability. The man who could write “the large unconscious scenery of my
land with its lakes and forests,” or “the gentle soft-born measureless
light,” or “dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,” or “the
yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding
the air,” was without doubt a master of expression. And I may conclude
this paper with the words of Addington Symonds (“A Study of Walt
Whitman,” p. 150): “The countless clear and perfect phrases he invented,
to match most delicate and evanescent moods of sensibility, to picture
exquisite and broad effects of natural beauty, to call up poignant or
elusive feelings, attest to his artistic faculty of using language as a
vehicle for thought. They are hung, like golden medals of consummate
workmanship and incised form, in rich clusters over every poem he
produced. And, what he aimed at above all, these phrases are redolent of
the very spirit of the emotions they suggest, communicate the breadth
and largeness of the natural things they indicate, embody the essence of
realities in living words which palpitate and burn for ever.”
WALT WHITMAN’S CHILDREN
Henry B. Binns, in his “Life of Walt Whitman,” lately published,
discusses at some length the question of Whitman’s paternity; and seems
to arrive at the conclusion that the poet formed at least one
relationship (this one probably at New Orleans in 1848) which led to the
birth of a child or children.
Mr. Binns founds his discussion on an article of mine originally
published in the _Reformer_ (Feb. 1902); and, premising that in his book
(pp. 51-3 and 349-50) he has added not a little to the evidence, I
reprint the main portions of my article below, as follows:--
“In regard to Whitman’s most personal and intimate relations there is
curiously little known. Every one is aware that he was never
married--that is, in any formal and acknowledged way. His life after the
Civil War was clouded by intermittent paralysis, bringing with it
invalidism and infirmity; and of his history before his arrival in
Washington, _i.e._, prior to the age of forty-four or so--the period
when he would be most likely to knit up such relations--only the barest
outline is known.
“‘Leaves of Grass,’ that extraordinary piece of self-revelation, gives
us the mental attitude of the author. And perhaps (it may be said) we
ought to be content with that; because if we know the mental and
emotional attitude of a man we know the main thing. His external life
and actions depend largely on accidental circumstances and conditions,
his inner attitude is the expression of himself alone. ‘Leaves of Grass’
reveals to us a man, to whom the most intimate relations with his fellow
men and women were familiar (at any rate in thought), and beautiful (at
least in their proper time and place). The urge to closest contact
appears everywhere through his poems: ‘I sing the body electric’--‘the
body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the man, the
body of the earth.’ He is not satisfied with communication through words
and printed pages, or by the mere looking at photographic portraits:--
“‘Not words of routine this song of mine,
But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet
nearer bring:
This printed and bound book--but the printer
and the printing-office boy?
The well-taken photographs--but your wife or
friend close and solid in your arms?’
“And in the poet’s announcement and summary of his own work, written by
Whitman close after the issue of the first edition of ‘Leaves of Grass,’
he says of himself: ‘Right and left he flings his arms, drawing men and
women with undeniable love to his close embrace, loving the clasp of
their hands, the touch of their necks and breasts, and the sound of
their voices. All else seems to burn up under his fierce affection for
persons.’
“It would not of course be reasonable to suppose that all the personal
utterances, of acts done, of passions expressed, of experiences lived
through, or of individuals loved--which are to be found in ‘Leaves of
Grass’--are to be taken as literal records of things which actually
happened to the author himself. They could hardly be gathered into a
single lifetime. Yet one can see that they are to be taken as
experiences, _either_ actual or potential, for which his inner spirit
was prepared--and as a record of things which he could freely accept,
understand, and find place for. ‘Through the period from 1837 to 1848,’
says John Burroughs, ‘without entering into particulars, it is enough to
say that he sounded all experiences of life, with all their passions,
pleasures, and abandonments. He was young, in perfect bodily condition,
and had the city of New York and its ample opportunities around him. I
trace this period in some of the poems in the _Children of Adam_, and
occasionally in other parts of his book, including _Calamus_.[16]
Certainly at times in these poems one can hardly avoid the conclusion
that he is describing an actual bit of his own history--as in that
poem:--
‘“Once I passed through a populous city imprinting
my brain for future use with its shows, architecture,
customs, traditions,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I
casually met there, who detained me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together--all
else has long been forgotten by me.
I remember I say only that woman who passionately
clung to me.
Again we wander, we love, we separate again;
Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see her close beside me with silent lips sad
and tremulous.”’
“In a life so full and rich as Whitman’s there must have been many such
personal experiences, of which the world knows nothing, and will know
nothing. He has himself told his friends that he had children--and in a
letter to J. Addington Symonds (dated 19th August 1890), he mentioned
that he had had six. Symonds writing to me in 1893 quoted the passage in
question from this letter of Whitman’s, and it runs as follows:--
“‘My life, young manhood, mid-age, times South, &c., have been jolly
bodily, and doubtless open to criticism. Though unmarried I have had
six children--two are dead--one living Southern grandchild, fine boy,
writes to me occasionally--circumstances (connected with their fortune
and benefit) have separated me from intimate relations.’
“This is all, apparently, that the letter contained with reference to
the fact of Whitman’s paternity; but it is sufficient to establish the
fact. Concerning the said children, and their mother, or mothers, there
may be other evidence or information in existence; and if so, it would
be interesting and important to elicit it.[17]
“I have heard people affirm their ‘moral certainty’ that Whitman never
had any intimate relations with women, and that all the expressions in
‘Leaves of Grass’ which seem to point that way, are merely Platonic, or
fanciful, or allegorical--but it is not very easy to see on what such
‘moral certainty’ could in any case be founded; and in the face of the
above extract from Whitman’s own letter, it would certainly have to be
abandoned.
“On the other hand it would be a rash, and I think a wrong conclusion to
suppose that because Whitman had several children (out of the bounds of
formal marriage) he was therefore a dissolute and uncontrolled person,
much given to casual _liaisons_ with the opposite sex. We know nothing,
as I have said, of the circumstances which led to these connections, nor
have we the material for passing any judgment of the kind referred
to--even if we were so disposed. We know at any rate that in his later
life Walt was singularly discreet, almost reserved, in his relations
with women; and in that very interesting interview with Pete Doyle,
which is given by Dr. Bucke in his edition of Whitman’s letters to
Pete[18]--one of the best running accounts of Walt which we have, though
of course quite _extempore_--Pete says in one passage:--‘I never knew a
case of Walt’s being bothered up by a woman. In fact, he had nothing
special to do with any woman, except Mrs. O’Connor and Mrs. Burroughs.
His disposition was different. Woman in that sense never came into his
head.’
“Though there are points in the interpretation of this passage which are
not quite clear, it at any rate conveys the impression of Whitman’s
reserve towards the other sex; and seems in one part to suggest that
his ‘disposition’ was unfavorable to close relations with women.[19]
“Pete’s view in either case may appear a little difficult to reconcile
with the six children; but then we must remember that the inception of
the latter and the ‘times South’ of Whitman’s letter would belong to an
early date--including probably his visit to New Orleans in
1848-49--before he was thirty years of age. And the Whitman of that time
might well differ somewhat in disposition from the Whitman of twenty
years later when Pete knew him.
“That Whitman was not by any means insensible to the charms of the fair
sex, even in this later period, is indicated by the following extract
(dated October 1868), from one of his own letters to Pete--though it
will be seen that there is a certain histrionic air about the passage
which suggests that it should not be taken _too_ seriously:--‘I also
made love to the women, and flatter myself that I created at least one
impression--wretch and gay deceiver that I am. The truth is, Peter, that
I am here at the present time mainly in the midst of female women, some
of them young and jolly, and meet them most every evening in company;
and the way in which this aged party comes up to the scratch and cuts
out the youthful parties and fills their hearts with envy is absolutely
a caution.’
“Pete Doyle was one of Walt’s dearest friends--perhaps his dearest; and
Walt’s letters to Pete are veritable love-letters. The story of their
meeting, as given by Pete in his ‘interview’ is quite romantic: ‘It is a
curious story. We felt to each other at once. I was a conductor (on a
tram). The night was very stormy--he had been over to see Burroughs
before he came down to take the car--the storm was awful. Walt had his
blanket--it was thrown round his shoulders--he seemed like an old
sea-captain. He was the only passenger, it was a lonely night, so I
thought I would go in and talk with him. Something in me made me do it,
and something in him drew me that way. He used to say there was
something in me had the same effect on him. Anyway I went into the car.
We were familiar at once--I put my hand on his knee--we understood. He
did not get out at the end of the trip--in fact went all the way back
with me. I think the year of this was 1866. From that time on we were
the biggest sort of friends.’
“Their intimacy, as shown by the correspondence, lasted on undiminished
for over ten years. Through the letters peep in and out the forms and
names of other friends, mostly young fellows, tram-conductors,
fire-engine men, &c., to whom Walt sends his love and messages. His
devotion to his friends of this kind, the ’bus-drivers in early days in
New York, the ferry-men, the soldiers in the war, and others, is of
course well known; and it appears to have been in many cases ardently
returned. ‘Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.’ In fact,
in his poems we find his expressions of love towards men and towards
women put practically on an equality--if anything indeed the references
to the former are the more frequent and the more passionate. In actual
life, too, during that later period after the war, there can be no
doubt that his intimacies with men were much more numerous and close
than with women. We have no record, I think, during that time, of any
very close intimacy with a woman, though of warm friendships with women
we have several instances.
“Summing up then all that has been said, I gather that in his early
years Walt had some _liaisons_ with the fair sex; certainly one such
relation, which may have lasted several years, and which may (see the
already quoted poem) have been chiefly initiated and pressed from the
lady’s side; but that in his later period (after the age of forty-five
or so)--whether from a change of temperament or any other cause--these
ceased to play a part in his life; at any rate there is no indication of
them. It is clear also that throughout his life his intimacies with men
were very close and ardent; and it seems possible that these, in the
later period, to some extent supplied the deficiency on the other side.
“Walt’s attitude in ‘Leaves of Grass’ towards men or women is, as I have
already remarked, singularly uniform. Both sexes seem to come equally
within the scope of his love. And there is a passage in Pete Doyle’s
already quoted interview which curiously corroborates this. Pete
probably never read ‘Leaves of Grass,’ or took much account of it; but
he gives the following from his own observation: ‘Towards women
generally Walt had a good way--he very easily attracted them. But he did
that with men, too. And it was an irresistible attraction. I’ve had many
tell me--men and women. He had an easy gentle way--the same for all, no
matter who they were, or what their sex.’
“Whether this large attitude towards sex, this embrace which seems to
reach equally to the male and the female, indicates a higher development
of humanity than we are accustomed to--a type super-virile, and so far
above the ordinary man and woman that it looks upon both with equal
eyes; or whether it merely indicates a personal peculiarity; this and
many other questions collateral to the subject I have not touched upon.
It has not been my object in making these remarks to enter into any
vague speculations, but rather to limit myself to a few conclusions
which seemed clear and obvious and fairly demonstrable.”
[Illustration: _R. W. Emerson_
_about the year 1855 (Age 52)_]
WHITMAN AND EMERSON
The relations between Whitman and Emerson form an interesting subject.
There is little doubt that the two men had a deep mutual respect and
admiration for each other; and however any chance expression dropped at
any time, on either side, might seem to belie this, I believe it lasted
to the end. It is quite likely that Whitman owed something in the
inception of “Leaves of Grass” to Emerson’s writings. This does not mean
of course that, without Emerson, Whitman would have failed of his work;
but, as so often happens in such cases, when a mass of material is
forming somewhat undefinedly, and seeking outlet, the work of the
predecessor comes to give it a decisive touch, and bring it to birth.
In his very interesting “Reminiscences of Walt Whitman” (originally
printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_, February 1902[20]), John Townsend
Trowbridge touches on this subject; and without endorsing his remarks in
every particular, it may be interesting to quote them. Relating a
conversation he had with Whitman one Sunday at Boston, in the spring of
1860, when Whitman had come over to Boston to see his third edition
through the press, Trowbridge says:--