CONCORD, December 6, 1853.
MR. BLAKE,--I trust that you got a note from me at Eagleswood, about a
fortnight ago. I passed through Worcester on the morning of the 25th
of November, and spent several hours (from 3.30 to 6.20) in the
travelers' room at the depot, as in a dream, it now seems. As the
first Harlem train unexpectedly connected with the first from
Fitchburg, I did not spend the forenoon with you as I had anticipated,
on account of baggage, etc. If it had been a seasonable hour, I should
have seen you,--_i. e._, if you had not gone to a horse-race. But
think of making a call at half past three in the morning! (would it
not have implied a three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage in both you
and me?) as it were, ignoring the fact that mankind are really not at
home,--are not out, but so deeply in that they cannot be seen,--nearly
half their hours at this season of the year.
I walked up and down the main street, at half past five, in the dark,
and paused long in front of Brown's store, trying to distinguish its
features; considering whether I might safely leave his _Putnam_ in the
door-handle, but concluded not to risk it. Meanwhile a watchman (?)
seemed to be watching me, and I moved off. Took another turn around
there, and had the very earliest offer of the _Transcript_[74] from an
urchin behind, whom I actually could not see, it was so dark. So I
withdrew, wondering if you and B. would know if I had been there. You
little dream who is occupying Worcester when you are all asleep.
Several things occurred there that night which I will venture to say
were not put into the _Transcript_. A cat caught a mouse at the depot,
and gave it to her kitten to play with. So that world-famous tragedy
goes on by night as well as by day, and nature is _emphatically_
wrong. Also I saw a young Irishman kneel before his mother, as if in
prayer, while she wiped a cinder out of his eye with her tongue; and I
found that it was never too late (or early?) to learn something. These
things transpired while you and B. were, to all practical purposes,
nowhere, and good for nothing,--not even for society,--not for
horse-races,--nor the taking back of a _Putnam's Magazine_. It is
true, I might have recalled you to life, but it would have been a
cruel act, considering the kind of life you would have come back to.
However, I would fain write to you now by broad daylight, and report
to you some of my life, such as it is, and recall you to your life,
which is not always lived by you, even by daylight. Blake! Brown! are
you awake? are you aware what an ever-glorious morning this is,--what
long-expected, never-to-be-repeated opportunity is now offered to get
life and knowledge?
For my part, I am trying to wake up,--to wring slumber out of my
pores; for, generally, I take events as unconcernedly as a
fence-post,--absorb wet and cold like it, and am pleasantly tickled
with lichens slowly spreading over me. Could I not be content, then,
to be a cedar post, which lasts twenty-five years? Would I not rather
be that than the farmer that set it? or he that preaches to the
farmer? and go to the heaven of posts at last? I think I should like
that as well as any would like it. But I should not care if I sprouted
into a living tree, put forth leaves and flowers, and bore fruit.
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It
is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite,--only a
sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this
for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think
of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that
there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet
to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague, indefinite riches. No
run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but
enjoyment.
What are all these years made for? and now another winter comes, so
much like the last? Can't we satisfy the beggars once for all?
Have you got in your wood for this winter? What else have you got in?
Of what use a great fire on the hearth, and a confounded little fire
in the heart? Are you prepared to make a decisive campaign,--to pay
for your costly tuition,--to pay for the suns of past summers,--for
happiness and unhappiness lavished upon you?
Does not Time go by swifter than the swiftest equine trotter or
racker?
Stir up Brown. Remind him of his duties, which outrun the date and
span of Worcester's years past and to come. Tell him to be sure that
he is on the main street, however narrow it may be, and to have a lit
sign, visible by night as well as by day.
Are they not patient waiters,--they who wait for us? But even they
shall not be losers.
December 7.
That Walt Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most interesting
fact to me at present. I have just read his second edition (which he
gave me), and it has done me more good than any reading for a long
time. Perhaps I remember best the poem of Walt Whitman, an American,
and the Sun-Down Poem. There are two or three pieces in the book which
are disagreeable, to say the least; simply sensual. He does not
celebrate love at all. It is as if the beasts spoke. I think that men
have not been ashamed of themselves without reason. No doubt there
have always been dens where such deeds were unblushingly recited, and
it is no merit to compete with their inhabitants. But even on this
side he has spoken more truth than any American or modern that I know.
I have found his poem exhilarating, encouraging. As for its
sensuality,--and it may turn out to be less sensual than it
appears,--I do not so much wish that those parts were not written, as
that men and women were so pure that they could read them without
harm, that is, without understanding them. One woman told me that no
woman could read it,--as if a man could read what a woman could not.
Of course Walt Whitman can communicate to us no experience, and if we
are shocked, whose experience is it that we are reminded of?
On the whole, it sounds to me very brave and American, after whatever
deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons, so called, that
have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for
preaching.
We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He occasionally suggests something
a little more than human. You can't confound him with the other
inhabitants of Brooklyn or New York. How they must shudder when they
read him! He is awfully good.
To be sure I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness and
broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind prepared to
see wonders,--as it were, sets me upon a hill or in the midst of a
plain,--stirs me well up, and then--throws in a thousand of brick.
Though rude, and sometimes ineffectual, it is a great primitive
poem,--an alarum or trumpet-note ringing through the American camp.
Wonderfully like the Orientals, too, considering that when I asked him
if he had read them, he answered, "No: tell me about them."
I did not get far in conversation with him,--two more being
present,--and among the few things which I chanced to say, I remember
that one was, in answer to him as representing America, that I did not
think much of America or of politics, and so on, which may have been
somewhat of a damper to him.
Since I have seen him, I find that I am not disturbed by any brag or
egoism in his book. He may turn out the least of a braggart of all,
having a better right to be confident.
He is a great fellow.
* * * * *
There is in Alcott's diary an account of this interview with Whitman,
and the Sunday morning in Ward Beecher's Brooklyn church, from which a
few passages may be taken. Hardly any person met by either of these
Concord friends in their later years made so deep an impression on
both as did this then almost unknown poet and thinker, concerning whom
Cholmondeley wrote to Thoreau in 1857: "Is there actually such a man
as Whitman? Has any one seen or handled him? His is a tongue 'not
understanded' of the English people. I find _the gentleman_ altogether
left out of the book. It is the first book I have ever seen which I
should call a 'new book.'"
Mr. Alcott writes under date of November 7, 1856, in New York: "Henry
Thoreau arrives from Eagleswood, and sees Swinton, a wise young
Scotchman, and Walt Whitman's friend, at my room (15 Laight
Street),--Thoreau declining to accompany me to Mrs. Botta's parlors,
as invited by her. He sleeps here. (November 8.) We find Greeley at
the Harlem station, and ride with him to his farm, where we pass the
day, and return to sleep in the city,--Greeley coming in with us;
Alice Cary, the authoress, accompanying us also. (Sunday, November 9.)
We cross the ferry to Brooklyn, and hear Ward Beecher at the Plymouth
Church. It was a spectacle,--and himself the preacher, if preacher
there be anywhere now in pulpits. His auditors had to weep, had to
laugh, under his potent magnetism, while his doctrine of justice to
all men, bond and free, was grand. House, entries, aisles, galleries,
all were crowded. Thoreau called it pagan, but I pronounced it good,
very good,--the best I had witnessed for many a day, and hopeful for
the coming time. At dinner at Mrs. Manning's. Miss M. S. was there,
curious to see Thoreau. After dinner we called on Walt Whitman
(Thoreau and I), but finding him out, we got all we could from his
mother, a stately, sensible matron, believing absolutely in Walter,
and telling us how good he was, and how wise when a boy; and how his
four brothers and two sisters loved him, and still take counsel of the
great man he has grown to be. We engaged to call again early in the
morning, when she said Walt would be glad to see us. (Monday, 10th.)
Mrs. Tyndale of Philadelphia goes with us to see Walt,--Walt the
satyr, the Bacchus, the very god Pan. We sat with him for two hours,
and much to our delight; he promising to call on us at the
International at ten in the morning to-morrow, and there have the rest
of it." Whitman failed to call at his hour the next day.