_To English Edition "Specimen Days"_
As I write these lines I still continue living in Camden, New Jersey,
America. Coming this way from Washington city, on my road to the
sea-shore (and a temporary rest, as I supposed) in the early summer
of 1873, I broke down disabled, and have dwelt here, as my central
residence, all the time since--almost 14 years. In the preceding pages
I have described how, during those years, I partially recuperated (in
1876) from my worst paralysis by going down to Timber creek, living
close to Nature, and domiciling with my dear friends George and Susan
Stafford. From 1877 or '8 to '83 or '4 I was well enough to travel
around, considerably--journey'd westward to Kansas, leisurely exploring
the Prairies, and on to Denver and the Rocky Mountains; another time
north to Canada, where I spent most of the summer with my friend Dr.
Bucke, and jaunted along the great lakes, and the St. Lawrence and
Saguenay rivers; another time to Boston, to properly print the final
edition of my poems (I was there over two months, and had a "good
time.") I have so brought out the completed "Leaves of Grass" during
this period; also "Specimen Days," of which the foregoing is a
transcript; collected and re-edited the "Democratic Vistas" cluster (see
companion volume to the present)--commemorated Abraham Lincoln's death,
on the successive anniversaries of its occurrence, by delivering my
lecture on it ten or twelve times; and "put in," through many a month
and season, the aimless and resultless ways of most human lives.
Thus the last 14 years have pass'd. At present (end-days of March,
1887--I am nigh entering my 69th year) I find myself continuing on here,
quite dilapidated and even wreck'd bodily from the paralysis, &c.--but
in _good heart_ (to use a Long Island country phrase,) and with about
the same mentality as ever. The worst of it is, I have been growing
feebler quite rapidly for a year, and now can't walk around--hardly from
one room to the next. I am forced to stay in-doors and in my big chair
nearly all the time. We have had a sharp, dreary winter too, and it has
pinch'd me. I am alone most of the time; every week, indeed almost every
day, write some--reminiscences, essays, sketches, for the magazines;
and read, or rather I should say dawdle over books and papers a good
deal--spend half the day at that.
Nor can I finish this note without putting on record--wafting over sea
from hence--my deepest thanks to certain friends and helpers (I would
specify them all and each by name, but imperative reasons, outside of
my own wishes, forbid,) in the British Islands, as well as in America.
Dear, even in the abstract, is such flattering unction always no doubt
to the soul! Nigher still, if possible, I myself have been, and am
to-day indebted to such help for my very sustenance, clothing, shelter,
and continuity. And I would not go to the grave without briefly, but
plainly, as I here do, acknowledging--may I not say even glorying in it?