We wait with particular interest to hear what Philadelphia will have to
say about the passing of Horace Traubel. Traubel was the official echo
of the Great Voice of Camden, and in his obituary one may discern the
vivacity of the Whitman tradition. This is a matter of no small concern
to the curators of the Whitman cult. The soul of Philadelphia cannot be
kept alive by conventions and statistics alone. Such men as Traubel have
helped.
There are two kinds of rebels. By their neckties you may know them. Walt
Whitman was of the kind that wears no necktie at all. Then there is the
lesser sort, of which Traubel was one--the rebel who wears a flowing
black bow tie with long trailers. Elbert Hubbard wore one of these. It
is a mild rebellion of which this is symbol. It often goes with shell
spectacles.
[Illustration]
We never knew Horace Traubel, though he was the man we most wanted to
meet when we came to Philadelphia. We have heard men of all conditions
speak of him with affection and respect. He was dedicated from boyhood
to the Whitman cause. From Walt himself he caught the habit of talking
about Walt, and he carried it on with as much gusto and happiness as
Walt did. Only recently he said in his little magazine _The
Conservator_:
When I was quite small I used to want to be a great man. But in
my observations of the old man's better than great way of meeting
the gifts as well as the reverses of fate I didn't want to be a
great man. I only wanted to stay unannexed to any institution as
he was. No college ever decorated him. For the best of reasons.
No college could. He could decorate them.
So Traubel remained unannexed. He was fired from a bank because he
happened to take issue in public with one of the bank's chief
depositors. He floated about happily, surrounded by young Whitman
disciples, carrying on his guerrilla for what his leader called the
"peerless, passionate, good cause" of human democracy. His little
magazine led a precarious life, supported by good friends. His protest
against iniquities was an honest, good-humoured protest.
Horace Traubel will be remembered, as he wished to be remembered, as the
biographer of Whitman. Whitman also, we may add, wished Traubel to be so
remembered. In his careful record of the Camden sage's utterances and
pulse-beats he approached (as nearly as any one) the devoted dignity of
Boswell. We were about to say the self-effacing devotion of Boswell; but
the beauty of biography is that the biographer cannot wholly delete
himself from the book. One is always curious about the recording
instrument. When we see a particularly fine photograph our first
question is always, "What kind of camera was it taken with?"
It seems to us--speaking only by intuition, for we never knew him--that
Traubel was a happy man. He was untouched by many of the harassing
ambitions that make the lives of prosperous men miserable. He was
touched in boyhood by one simple and overmastering motive--to carry on
the Whitman message and spread it out for the younger world. Much of the
dunnage of life he cast overboard. He was too good a Whitman disciple to
estimate success in the customary terms. When he left his job in the
bank he opened an account in the Walt Whitman philosophy--and he kept a
healthy balance there to the end.