greatest writer (Emerson) had been felt in the making of a book which,
without being at all imitative, was pitched in the very highest key of
self-reliance. In his letter to Emerson, printed in the second edition
of ‘Leaves of Grass,’ speaking of ‘Individuality, that new moral
American continent,’ Whitman had averred: ‘Those shores you found; I
say, you led the States there--have led me there.’ And it seemed hardly
possible that the first determined attempt to cast into literature a
complete man, with all his pride and passions, should have been made by
one whose feet were not already firmly planted on ‘those shores.’ Then
there was the significant fact of his having mailed a copy of his first
edition to Emerson.
“Whitman talked frankly on the subject, that day on Prospect Hill, and
told how he became acquainted with Emerson’s writings. He was at work as
a carpenter (his father’s trade before him) in Brooklyn, building with
his own hands and on his own account small and very plain houses for
laboring men; as soon as one was finished and sold, beginning
another,--houses of two or three rooms. This was in 1854; he was then
thirty-five years old. He lived at home with his mother; going off to
his work in the morning and returning at night, carrying his dinner-pail
like any common laborer. Along with his pail he usually carried a book,
between which and his solitary meal he would divide his nooning. Once
the book chanced to be a volume of Emerson; and from that time he took
with him no other writer. His half-formed purpose, his vague
aspirations, all that had lain smouldering so long within him, waiting
to be fired, rushed into flame at the touch of those electric
words,--the words that burn in the prose-poem ‘Nature,’ and in the
essays on ‘Spiritual Laws,’ the ‘Oversoul,’ ‘Self-reliance.’ The sturdy
carpenter in his working-day garb, seated on his pile of boards; a poet
in that rude disguise, as yet but dimly conscious of his powers; in one
hand the sandwich put up for him by his good mother, his other hand
holding open the volume that revealed to him his greatness and his
destiny--this is the picture which his simple narrative called up, that
Sunday so long ago, and which has never faded from my memory.
“He freely admitted that he could never have written his poems if he had
not first ‘come to himself,’ and that Emerson helped him to ‘find
himself.’ I asked if he thought that he would have come to himself
without that help. He said, ‘Yes, but it would have taken longer.’ And
he used this characteristic expression: ‘I was simmering, simmering,
simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.’
“It was in that summer of 1854, while he was still at work upon his
houses, that he began the ‘Leaves of Grass,’ which he wrote, and
rewrote, and re-rewrote (to quote again his own words), and afterwards
set in type with his own hand.
“I make this statement thus explicit because a question of profound
personal and literary interest is involved, and because it is claimed by
some of the later friends of Whitman that he wrote his first ‘Leaves of
Grass’ before he had read Emerson. When they urge his own authority for
their contention, I can only reply that he told me distinctly the
contrary, when his memory was fresher.
“The Emersonian influence is often clearly traceable in Whitman’s early
poems; seldom in the later. It is in the first line of the very first
poem in which he struck the keynote of his defiant chant: ‘I celebrate
myself.’ Yet the form Whitman chose for his message was as independent
of Emerson’s as of all other literary forms whatsoever.”
One of the “later friends” to whom Trowbridge refers is no doubt John
Burroughs, who on page 16 of his “Walt Whitman as Poet and Person” (New
York, 1867) says, speaking of the first edition of “Leaves of Grass”:--
“I take occasion to say that Whitman, up to the time he published the
quarto edition, here mentioned, had never read the ‘Essays’ or ‘Poems’
of Mr. Emerson at all. This is positively true. In the summer following
that publication, he first became acquainted with the ‘Essays’ in this
wise: He was frequently in the habit of going down to the sea-shore at
Coney Island, and spending the day bathing in the surf and rambling
along the shore, or lounging on the sand; and on one of these excursions
he put a volume of Emerson into the little basket containing his dinner
and his towel. There, for the first, he read ‘Nature,’ &c. Soon, on
similar excursions, the two other volumes followed. Two years still
elapsed, however, and after his second edition was issued, before he
read Mr. Emerson’s poems.”
It is interesting, in these two quotations, to find the incident of the
Emerson volume in the dinner-basket repeated, yet placed by one writer
in the year 1854, and by the other, equally decisively in 1856! The
matter is not extremely important; but it illustrates the extreme and
eternal difficulty of getting reliable historical evidence. In this case
there are three memories, either of which may be at fault, and one of
which _must_ be--Whitman’s, Trowbridge’s, and Burroughs’. Did Whitman,
in forgetfulness, give to Burroughs, sometime between ’63 and ’67, a
different account from what he gave to Trowbridge in ’60? or did either
Burroughs or Trowbridge only imperfectly remember the account he heard?
It is difficult to say. Whitman in his quite late years seems to have
adopted the Burroughs views; but Whitman’s memory in his later years
became very unreliable. In his “Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads”
(published in 1888) he says, speaking of the importance of the Secession
War in his own life and thought, that “ Without those three or four
years and the experiences they gave, ‘Leaves of Grass’ would not now be
existing”; and that although he had “made a start before,” the
beginnings of “Leaves of Grass” might--except for this--have come to
naught,” almost positively would have come to naught.” This, considering
that far the larger and more important part of “Leaves of Grass” was
already printed and _published_ in the 1860 edition, a year or more
before the war broke out, is rather disconcerting; and suggests that his
memory may have been equally at fault with regard to Emerson’s part in
“Leaves of Grass,” as it was with regard to the part played by the war.
I say the matter is not very important; because it is obvious that
whatever part Emerson’s teaching played it was only a small part and of
brief duration. It may very possibly only have come in after a start of
some kind had already been made on “Leaves of Grass” (see letter quoted,
_infra_, p. 186); it certainly had nothing to do with the long
“foreground” of Whitman’s early life on farms, in cities, and by the
sea-shore, where the book was really prepared; nor anything to do with
the special developments of the poems, as in _Children of Adam_, or
their literary style--things which Emerson distinctly disapproved of.
At the same time it seems to me quite likely that at some moment the
magnificent intellectual intuitive outlook of Emerson, as of an eagle in
high-soaring vision of seas and continents, sweeping the whole world
into the compass of his thought, did give to Whitman just what he might
have been waiting for (though probably in any case it would have come to
him some time), the magic touch and inspiration which set his kosmos in
order. No doubt an outside push of some kind is often required for the
launching of a big ship. On the whole the evidence brought forward by
Trowbridge seems to me to favour his case--the fact of Whitman’s sending
a copy of his _first_ edition to Emerson (showing that he already
thought something of Emerson’s opinion), his printed letter to Emerson
in the second edition, “those shores you found ... have led me there,”
his addressing Emerson as “Master” in the same letter, and so on. In the
“Notes left over” of “Specimen Days” (p. 321) Whitman himself says: “The
reminiscence that years ago I began like most youngsters to have a touch
(though it came late, and was only on the surface) of Emerson on the
brain--that I read his writings, and addressed him in print as ‘Master,’
and for a month or so thought of him as such--I retain not only with
composure, but positive satisfaction. I have noticed that most young
people of eager minds pass through this stage of exercise.”
With regard to Emerson’s opinion about the new poems at this period, it
is clear from his letter of July 21, 1855, to Whitman: “Dear Sir,--I am
not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of ‘Leaves of Grass.’ I
find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has
yet contributed,” &c.,--it is very clear, I say, that Emerson was
greatly impressed, and indeed delighted, with the volume. With his clear
and piercing vision he seems to have at once (or in a wonderfully brief
time) reached through the odd rough husk to the sweet and precious
kernel of the book; and for this as well as for his hearty expressions
of appreciation the world must ever be grateful to him. Nevertheless the
book, as was inevitable, roused in him queer doubts and
heart-searchings. Either in 1855 or in the early part of 1856 Emerson
called twice upon Whitman; and though in these visits the foundation of
a personal friendship was laid, it is clear that they revealed also
great gulfs of difference. Emerson could not quite stomach Walt Whitman,
the rough, with his invasively democratic ways, nor see anything
particularly interesting in his working-folk chums and pals; while
Whitman, on the other hand, found his visitor too literary and
intellectual. On the occasion of my own visit to the States in 1877, I
stayed a night at Emerson’s house at Concord--most pleasantly and
hospitably received--and enjoyed greatly his talk as we walked up and
down the old-fashioned garden, or sat in his book-lined study. When I
spoke of Whitman, and asked what he thought of him, he laughed (a little
nervously, I thought) and said, “Well, I thought he had some merit at
one time: there was a good deal of promise in his first edition--but he
is a wayward, fanciful man.[21] I saw him in New York, and asked him to
dine at my hotel. He shouted for a ‘tin mug’ for his beer. Then he had
a noisy fire-engine society. And he took me there, and was like a boy
over it, as if there had never been such a thing before!” He went on, in
words which I do not recall, to object to the absence of metre in
“Leaves of Grass”; and ended, I remember, by taking down a volume of
Tennyson from the shelf--handling it affectionately and showing me the
author’s autograph on the fly-leaf--and dwelling on the beauty of the
Tennysonian diction and metre.[22]
These few words about Whitman, spoken by Emerson to a casual visitor,
must of course not be given too much weight, or supposed to represent
his total and final estimate. But I insert them here, as they probably
represent pretty fairly certain points of difference and even
disagreement which he discovered on personal acquaintance. On further
reading, too, doubtless Emerson felt that he could not corroborate or
justify a great deal of the matter, as well as the metre, of “Leaves of
Grass.” He was probably swayed to and fro by various currents of feeling
with regard to it, and could not settle clearly in his mind what he did
think. This is illustrated by a letter he wrote to Thomas Carlyle in
1856, to accompany a copy of the book, which he was sending:--
“One book, last summer, came out in New York, a nondescript monster,
which yet had terrible eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisputably
American--which I thought to send you; but the book throve so badly with
the few to whom I showed it, and wanted good morals so much, that I
never did. Yet I believe now again, I shall. It is called ‘Leaves of
Grass,’--was written and printed by a journeyman printer in Brooklyn,
New York, named Walter Whitman; and after you have looked into it, if
you think, as you may, that it is only an auctioneer’s inventory of a
warehouse, you can light your pipe with it.”
It could only have been a few weeks after the above letter had been
written to Carlyle about the first “Leaves of Grass,” that--quite
unexpectedly to Emerson--a second edition of the book appeared, with
Emerson’s complete letter of 21st July 1855, printed in an Appendix, and
an extract from the same letter, “I greet you at the beginning of a
great career,” in gold upon the cover! Besides this, there was a long
reply-letter from Whitman to Emerson, addressing the latter as “Master,”
and containing the above-quoted passages about “those shores you found,”
&c.
Whitman has been often blamed for this quite unauthorised use of
Emerson’s letter--and certainly according to our Cis-Atlantic literary
codes it was a cool thing to do: very cool--considering of course that
in this second edition were many pieces that Emerson had never even
seen! But though the act may be difficult to defend, it must be
remembered that public opinion and practice on the other side of the
water was and is decidedly more lax and easy-going in such matters than
on this side. Whitman probably failed to realise (it was hardly his
nature to do so), the reaction this advertisement might have upon
Emerson and _his_ interests. He was thinking of his own bantling first
edition, flouted, scorned, neglected, and like to perish, and of the
splendid testimony from one of the greatest of living names in letters,
which would suddenly lift it into fields of life and light. “I supposed
the letter was meant to be blazoned,”--he said one day to Trowbridge--“I
regarded it as the chart of an emperor.” It did not occur to him that
its blazoning might possibly cost the emperor his throne!
But indeed the matter was serious, comically serious. Here was Emerson,
the imperial one, whose finger laid on a book was like a lighthouse beam
to all the coteries of Boston, actually recommending some new poems to
the whole world in terms of unstinted praise. The whole world, of
course, went to buy them. A hundred parlors of mildly literary folk or
primly polite Unitarian and Congregational circles beheld scenes over
which kind history has drawn a veil!--the good husband or head of the
house, after tea or supper, settling down in his chair, “Now for the new
book, so warmly spoken of!” The ladies taking their knitting and sewing,
their dresses rustling slightly as they arrange themselves to listen,
the general atmosphere of propriety and selectness; and then the
reading! Oh, the reading! The odd words, the unusual phrases, the
jumbled sequences, the stumbling uncertainty of the reader, the
wonderment on the faces of the listeners, and finally--confusion and the
pit! the book closed, and hasty flight and dispersion of the meeting.
Then, later, timid glances again at the dreadful volume, only to find,
amid quagmires and swamps, the reptilian author addressing the belovèd
Emerson as “Master,” and saying, “these shores _you_ found!” Was it a
nightmare? Had the emperor gone mad? or was his printed letter merely a
fraud and a forgery?
One can imagine the annoyance all this caused to Emerson himself--the
deluge of letters and inquiries, the whirlpools of controversy among his
myriad followers, the would-be champions who gaged their word and
everlasting destiny on his entire innocence, &c. Truly the throne rocked
for a season. But it was too well based to be upset. Indeed I cannot but
think that Emerson, with his sterling good sense and mental solidity,
rather enjoyed it all at bottom--the uproar, the searchings of heart,
and the confusion of his congregations and coteries (whose narrowness
and provincialism were often a trial to him). In his heart of
hearts--though doubtless he thought Whitman had played him unfair, and
though certainly he did not think Whitman’s manner of speech on sexual
questions either wise or gracious--still I believe he must have
recognised and did at that time recognise that the book, “Leaves of
Grass,” was a tremendous gain to the world, and that it was even going
to do pioneer work for him, Emerson, along his own line.
I think I am right in saying that there was no public retaliation by
Emerson against the author of the offending book. I have, at any rate,
not heard of any. There was, however, considerable public stir against
it. It was savagely criticised, and “so extreme was the feeling excited
by it, that some good people in New York seriously contemplated having
the author indicted and tried for publishing an obscene book.”[23] The
publishers, Fowler & Wells, fearing injury to their business, threw the
book up; and so after a brief career its publication ceased, and for the
next four years it remained as a thing dead.
It was in 1860 that Emerson and Whitman met again. Whitman had come to
Boston to superintend the printing of a third edition, to be issued by
Thayer and Eldridge. Heroic, calm, and undaunted, unresentful even of
neglect, he simply went on his way. If the first and second editions of
“Leaves of Grass” had aroused opposition, the third was still more
likely to do so. It gathered together many of the most offending poems,
with new ones of the same character, in two groups, _Children of Adam_,
and _Calamus_, which were certain to attract attention. It was bold
indeed of Thayer and Eldridge to undertake the publication. Whether by
any chance one of the firm may have persuaded Emerson to intervene with
the author, in favour of a general toning down of the book, I know not.
But it is certain that Emerson came to see him, and taking him out onto
Boston Common, walked with him for two hours discussing this very
subject. Of that memorable conversation Whitman must speak for himself.
In “Specimen Days,” p. 191, under date 10-13 Oct. 1881, he says: “Up and
down this breadth by Beacon Street, between these same old elms, I
walked for two hours, of a bright sharp February midday twenty-one years
ago, with Emerson, then in his prime, keen, physically and morally
magnetic, arm’d at every point, and when he chose wielding the emotional
just as well as the intellectual. During those two hours he was the
talker and I the listener. It was an argument, statement, reconnoitring,
review, attack, and pressing home (like an army corps in order,
artillery, cavalry, infantry), of all that could be said against that
part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems, _Children of
Adam_. More precious than gold to me that dissertation. It afforded me,
ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson; each point of Emerson’s
statement was unanswerable, no judge’s charge ever more complete or
convincing, I could never hear the points better put--and then I felt
down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all,
and pursue my own way. ‘What have you to say then to such things?’ said
Emerson, pausing in conclusion. ‘Only that while I can’t answer them at
all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and
exemplify it,’ was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good
dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never wavered or was
touched with qualms (as I confess I had been two or three times
before).”
Very fine is this scene between the two men. Emerson bearing no grudge
against the buffalo poet, candidly doing his best to give “Leaves of
Grass” its proper scope, and save it (as he thought) from its own
indiscretions--Whitman, loyal to himself and to Emerson, equally
candidly refusing to budge. A hearty dinner afterwards, and separation
with mutual respect.[24]
It is probable that for the next twenty years the two friends did not
see each other. I find no evidence of their meeting. The war broke out;
Whitman went south and remained at Washington, and afterwards at
Camden, New Jersey, with only occasional and brief visits to New York.
There was not much chance or likelihood of their meeting. Nevertheless
their communications were not broken, and the elder man had not ceased
to be interested in the younger; for we find, according to Trowbridge,
that in November 1863, Whitman (who was then looking about for some
official work or post at Washington) had by him two letters of
recommendation written by Emerson--the one to Senator Sumner, and the
other to Secretary Chase. Of what other correspondence or meetings there
may have been between them for the next twenty years, we do not hear
much.[25] Emerson’s respect for “Leaves of Grass” as a feasible
contribution to literature seems to have waned. He respected of course
much of the matter of it, but could not stomach the manner. He told his
friend Sanborn once that the book read like “a mixture of the
_Bhagvat-Gita_ and the _New York Herald_.”[26] He included no specimen
of it in his collection “Parnassus” (1874); and detested its metre or
want of metre.[27] [Whitman says somewhere--“Specimen Days,” p. 321--“I
see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal polish, or something
old or odd--Waller’s ‘Go, lovely rose,’ or Lovelace’s lines ‘To
Lucasta’--and the like.”] Yet for the Man, as well as I think for his
Message in its real essence, Emerson had a great and enduring respect.
In 1881 Walt came once more to Boston to superintend a new edition of
his poems. Since 1860 much had happened. The first two editions (1855
and 1856) had been scouted by the public and hastily dropped by the
publishers; the 1860 edition fell almost dead through the War. Walt
Whitman went to Washington. It was not till 1867 that he printed a
fourth edition (New York), including “Drum Taps.” The fifth came in 1871
(Washington). The sixth in 1876 (centennial and author’s edition,
Camden) in two volumes, including prose. And the seventh is the one of
which we are speaking (Osgood & Co. Boston, 1881-2). Hardly was the book
out, and selling well, when the Society for the Suppression of Vice in
Boston pounced. The Attorney-general for Massachusetts, through the
District Attorney, served a notice on Osgoods (early in ’82). Osgoods
appealed to Whitman to withdraw some of the poems. Whitman absolutely
refused; and once more the publishers threw the book up and left the
edition on his hands!
But to return to our subject. Emerson of course was not ignorant of the
stir that was being made. Indeed there can be little doubt that both by
his own family and from outside he was urged to dissociate himself from
the book and its author. But he was not going to do anything of the
kind.[28] In September 1881, Whitman came over from Boston (from his
proof-reading) to stay a night with Sanborn at Concord. Emerson (now
quite an old man, seventy-eight) and other friends came in for the
evening--“a long and blessed evening” Walt calls it (“Specimen Days,” p.
189). He describes in fact how, without being rude, he was able to take
a good look at Emerson most of the time, and speaks of “the well-known
expression of sweetness in his face, and the old clear-peering aspect
quite the same.” Then the next day, Sunday, the Emersons asked _him_ to
dinner. “Several hours at Emerson’s house, and dinner there. An old
familiar house (he has been in it thirty-five years), with surroundings,
furnishments, roominess, and plain elegance and fulness, signifying
democratic ease, sufficient opulence, and an admirable old-fashioned
simplicity: modern luxury, with its mere sumptuousness and affectation,
either touched lightly upon or ignored altogether. Dinner the same. Of
course the best of the occasion (Sunday, Sept. 18, ’81) was the sight
of Emerson himself.”
This dinner and hearty reception by Emerson Whitman looked back upon
with something like pride, as a “victor-event” in his life. (See letter
of 1887 to W. S. Kennedy, p. 76 of his book.) The next year, May 6,
1882, he stood by Emerson’s grave. “How shall I henceforth dwell on the
blessed hours when, not long since, I saw that benignant face, the clear
eyes, the silently smiling mouth, the form yet upright in its great
age--to the very last, with so much spring and cheeriness, and such an
absence of decrepitude that even the term _venerable_ hardly seemed
fitting.... We can say, as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is not we
who come to consecrate the dead--we reverently come to receive, if so it
may be, some consecration to ourselves and daily work from him.”
(“Specimen Days,” p. 197.)