The nobility of them both, the grandeur, sincerity, and simplicity of
their relation, the hearty accord, affection, and admiration, beneath
grave and acknowledged differences of habit and opinion--all make up a
picture of deep and lasting significance, and one which future ages can
hardly fail to cherish. On the purely literary side, however, it was
perhaps only natural that, as time went on, they should distinctly drift
apart. Emerson was less and less able to adapt himself to Whitman’s
strange new departures. Whitman more and more avowedly separated his
respect for the man from his respect for the writer. In latest years he
seemed almost anxious that he should _not_ be thought to have learnt
anything from Emerson’s books. In the letter already alluded to, of
1887, to W. S. Kennedy, he says: “It is of no importance whether I had
read Emerson before starting ‘Leaves of Grass’ or not. The fact happens
to be positively that I had _not_;”[29] and later in the same letter:
“If I were to unbosom to you in the matter I should say that I never
cared so very much for Emerson’s writings, prose or poems, but from his
first personal visit and two hours with me ... I had a strange
attachment and love for _him_ and his contact, talk, company,
magnetism.” In Whitman’s “Specimen Days,” also (pp. 321-2) he has some
keen criticisms of the “bloodless intellectuality” and other defects of
Emerson’s style--criticisms which, though decidedly good on the whole,
seem to me needlessly stringent, and even a bit captious in parts.
THE END
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Walt Whitman,” by R. Maurice Bucke, M.D. Philadelphia, 1883.
[2] See _infra_, p. 166.
[3] See his Letters to Pete Doyle, published under the title “Calamus,”
by Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
[4] See that remarkable poem printed in the 1860 edition of “Leaves
of Grass” (p. 355), but afterwards omitted, perhaps as being too
personal:--
“Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome
and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning
my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go
forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or
through the city streets, or pacing miles and
miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted--for the one I
cannot content myself without, soon I saw
him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are
passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed--but
it is useless--I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment--I wonder if other men ever
have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one like me--distracted--his friend,
his lover, lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the
morning, dejected, thinking who is lost to
him? and at night, awaking, think who is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and
endless? harbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention
of a name, bring the fit back upon him,
taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these
hours does he see the face of his hours
reflected?”
[5] “Walt Whitman Fellowship Papers” (Philadelphia, 1894), p. 42.
[6] “Leaves of Grass,” p. 298.
[7] We have to remember, too, that their sayings have come down to us
only through priestly, local, racial media. There is not a sacred book
that has not been tampered with, and its teaching distorted in the
direction of narrowing and exclusiveness.
[8] See “Abbas Effendi,” a study of the religion of the Babis, by M. H.
Phelps (Putnams, 1903).
[9] Compare the following from “Leaves of Grass”:--
“O Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
Light of the light, shedding forth universes ...
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.”
(p. 321.)
“Light rare untellable, lighting the very light,
Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages.” (p. 324.)
“Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth
is solid and liquid;
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in
the sky.” (p. 178.)
“I celebrate Myself,
And what I assume, you shall also assume.” (p. 29.)
“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Both in and out of the game, and watching and
wondering at it.” (p. 32.)
“Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me,
I stand indifferent.” (p. 46.)
“What is called good is perfect, and what is called
bad is just as perfect.” (p. 337.)
“Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and
knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth.” (p. 32.)
“No array of terms can say how much I am at peace
about God and about death.” (p 76.)
“My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination
around the whole earth.
I have look’d for equals and lovers, and found them
ready for me in all lands.” (p. 120.)
“Agonies are one of my changes of garments. I do not
ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself
become the wounded person.” (p. 60.)
“I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him
or her who shall be complete.” (p. 179.)
“All parts away for the progress of souls,
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments--all
that was or is apparent upon this globe, or any globe,
falls into niches and corners before the procession
of souls along the grand roads of the universe.” (p. 127.)
“I swear I think now that everything has an immortal soul!
I swear I think there is nothing but immortality.” (p. 337.)
“Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not
for a day but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space,
inseparable together.” (p. 304.)
“I doubt not I have myself died ten thousand times before.
I receive now again of my many translations, from my
avataras ascending, while others doubtless await me.” (p. 382.)
“You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will
infold you.” (p. 66.)
“All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten
their own delivery nor resist it, ...
The insignificant is as big to me as any.” (p. 53.)
“I am possess’d!
Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering.” (p. 64.)
“I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall
bless me.” (p. 123.)
“Vivas to those who have fail’d!” (p. 43.)
“What is providence is indivisible,
Declines to separate one part of life from every part, ...
Knows that the young man who composedly peril’d his life
and lost it has done exceedingly well for himself
without doubt.” (p. 291.)
“Sleep--I and they keep guard all night;
Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you.
I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,
And when you rise in the morning you will find what
I tell you is so.” (p. 66.)
“Camerado, I give you my hand,
I give you my love more precious than money.” (p. 129.)
“Toward you all, in America’s name,
I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal,
To remain after me in sight forever,
For all the haunts and homes of men.” (p. 120.)
[10] “Notes and Fragments,” left by Walt Whitman, and edited by R. M.
Bucke (1899), p. 70.
[11] “I had not dreamed,” says Mrs. Gilchrist in _A Woman’s Estimate of
Walt Whitman_, “that words could cease to be words, and become electric
streams like these. I do assure you that, strong as I am, I sometimes
feel as if I had not bodily strength to read many of these poems.
In the series headed ‘Calamus,’ for instance, in some of the ‘Songs
of Parting,’ the ‘Voice out of the Sea,’ the poem beginning ‘Tears,
Tears,’ &c., there is such a weight of emotion, such a tension of the
heart, that mine refuses to beat under it--stands quite still--and I am
obliged to lay the book down for a while.”
[12] “Angels’ Wings,” by E. Carpenter (1898), p. 73.
[13] “A Woman’s Estimate,” now republished among the papers in “In _re_
Walt Whitman” (McKay. Philadelphia, 1893).
[14] “Birds and Poets” (New York, 1877), p. 234.
[15] See “A Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads,” the prose Appendix to
“Leaves of Grass” (Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1897).
[16] John Burroughs, in “Walt Whitman: as Poet and Person.” (New York,
1867.)
[17] For some evidence that Whitman in his later years not unfrequently
alluded to the fact of his fatherhood, see Binns’ “Life of Whitman,”
p. 349. It is also supposed that, the lady at New Orleans being of
aristocratic connection, her family would only recognise the children
on condition of their fatherhood being concealed; and that these were
the circumstances which separated Whitman “from intimate relations”
with them.
[18] “Calamus: A Series of Letters,” &c. (Small, Maynard & Co. Boston,
1897.)
[19] In a conversation reported by Horace Traubel (“In _re_ Walt
Whitman,” p. 34), George Whitman, the poet’s brother, seems to take
much the same general view as Pete. He says: “Although I am asked that
question, I am confident I never knew Walt to fall in love with young
girls, or even to show them marked attention. He did not seem to affect
the girls.”
[20] Now substantially reproduced in his book, “My Own Story.”
[21] I am here simply transcribing notes made a few days after the
interview. He used a third epithet beside wayward and fanciful,
something like “violent,” but I hardly think it was so strong as that.
(See _supra_, p. 48.)
[22] I may as well here transcribe my further notes of Emerson’s
personal appearance at the time, as follows: “Emerson’s failure of
memory for names is quite painful [his age was then 74], and there is
the fixed look of age in his eye, yet he is active in body and full of
fun and enjoyment of intellectual life. His eyes are greyish blue, the
corners of his lips are often drawn upward, and there is a wonderful
bird-like look about the face, enhanced by his way of jerking his
head forward as he speaks. His eyes sometimes look very straight and
intense: and then comes a moonlight smile over the face, very charming.
His domestic life seems admirable.”
[23] See Bucke’s “Walt Whitman,” p. 141.
[24] In a letter to W. D. O’Connor (see New York _Tribune_, 18th
June 1882) Whitman wrote, “What made and ever makes the argument
of Emerson in that walk on the Common dear and holy to me was its
personal affectionateness, as of an elder brother to a younger. It was
a vehement and even passionate well-wishing, which I felt then, and
feel to this hour, the gratitude and reverence of my life could never
repay.” (W. S. Kennedy’s “Reminiscences of Walt Whitman,” p. 77.)
[25] Emerson seems to have helped Whitman in the matter of hospital
funds; and the two appear to have just seen each other at the re-burial
of Poe at Baltimore in 1875. (See Binns’ “Life of Whitman,” pp. 198 and
258.)
[26] “Reminiscences of Walt Whitman,” by W. S. Kennedy (1896), p. 78.
[27] Nevertheless Emerson himself at an earlier age had made
experiments in the same direction.
[28] “The true fact is, R. W. Emerson had a firm and deep attachment
to Whitman from first to last, as person and poet, which Emerson’s
family and several of his conventional literary friends tried their
best in vain to dislodge.” (See W. S. Kennedy’s “Reminiscences of Walt
Whitman,” p. 77.)
[29] This letter is odd and jumbley and a little confusing in style,
and I must say (considering also its date) does not carry entire
conviction to me.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
across to Philadephia=> across to Philadelphia {pg 7}
on obscene book=> an obscene book {pg 174}