Complete Prose Works
them--having unequal'd influence on the shaping of this Republic (and
therefore the world) as to-day, and then far more important in
the future. Thus the time has by no means yet come for a thorough
measurement of him. Nevertheless, we who live in his era--who have
seen him, and heard him, face to face, and are in the midst of, or just
parting from, the strong and strange events which he and we have had
to do with--can in some respects bear valuable, perhaps indispensable
testimony concerning him.
I should first like to give a very fair and characteristic likeness of
Lincoln, as I saw him and watch'd him one afternoon in Washington, for
nearly half an hour, not long before his death. It was as he stood on
the balcony of the National Hotel, Pennsylvania avenue, making a short
speech to the crowd in front, on the occasion either of a set of
new colors presented to a famous Illinois regiment, or of the daring
capture, by the Western men, of some flags from "the enemy," (which
latter phrase, by the by, was not used by him at all in his remarks.)
How the picture happen'd to be made I do not know, but I bought it a few
days afterward in Washington, and it was endors'd by every one to whom I
show'd it. Though hundreds of portraits have been made, by painters and
photographers, (many to pass on, by copies, to future times,) I have
never seen one yet that in my opinion deserv'd to be called a perfectly
_good likeness_; nor do I believe there is really such a one in
existence. May I not say too, that, as there is no entirely competent
and emblematic likeness of Abraham Lincoln in picture or statue, there
is not--perhaps cannot be--any fully appropriate literary statement or
summing-up of him yet in existence?
The best way to estimate the value of Lincoln is to think what the
condition of America would be to-day, if he had never lived--never been
President. His nomination and first election were mainly accidents,
experiments. Severely view'd, one cannot think very much of American
Political Parties, from the beginning, after the Revolutionary War, down
to the present time. Doubtless, while they have had their uses--have
been and are "the grass on which the cow feeds"--and indispensable
economies of growth--it is undeniable that under flippant names they
have merely identified temporary passions, or freaks, or sometimes
prejudice, ignorance, or hatred. The only thing like a great and worthy
idea vitalizing a party, and making it heroic, was the enthusiasm in '64
for re-electing Abraham Lincoln, and the reason behind that enthusiasm.
How does this man compare with the acknowledg'd "Father of his country"?
Washington was model'd on the best Saxon, and Franklin--of the age of
the Stuarts (rooted in the Elizabethan period)--was essentially a noble
Englishman, and just the kind needed for the occasions and the times of
1776-'83. Lincoln, underneath his practicality, was far less European,
was quite thoroughly Western, original, essentially non-conventional,
and had a certain sort of out-door or prairie stamp. One of the best of
the late commentators on Shakspere, (Professor Dowden,) makes the height
and aggregate of his quality as a poet to be, that he thoroughly blended
the ideal with the practical or realistic. If this be so, I should
say that what Shakspere did in poetic expression, Abraham Lincoln
essentially did in his personal and official life. I should say the
invisible foundations and vertebra of his character, more than any man's
in history, were mystical, abstract, moral and spiritual--while upon all
of them was built, and out of all of them radiated, under the control of
the average of circumstances, what the vulgar call _horse-sense_, and a
life often bent by temporary but most urgent materialistic and political
reasons.
He seems to have been a man of indomitable firmness (even obstinacy) on
rare occasions, involving great points; but he was generally very easy,
flexible, tolerant, almost slouchy, respecting minor matters. I note
that even those reports and anecdotes intended to level him down, all
leave the tinge of a favorable impression of him. As to his religious
nature, it seems to me to have certainly been of the amplest,
deepest-rooted, loftiest kind.
Already a new generation begins to tread the stage, since the persons
and events of the secession war. I have more than once fancied to myself
the time when the present century has closed, and a new one open'd,
and the men and deeds of that contest have become somewhat vague and
mythical-fancied perhaps in some great Western city, or group collected
together, or public festival, where the days of old, of 1863, and '4 and
'5 are discuss'd--some ancient soldier sitting in the background as the
talk goes on, and betraying himself by his emotion and moist eyes--like
the journeying Ithacan at the banquet of King Alcinoiis, when the bard
sings the contending warriors and their battles on the plains of Troy:
"So from the sluices of Ulysses' eyes
Fast fell the tears, and sighs succeeded sighs."
I have fancied, I say, some such venerable relic of this time of ours,
preserv'd to the next or still the next generation of America. I have
fancied, on such occasion, the young men gathering around; the awe, the
eager questions: "What! have you seen Abraham Lincoln--and heard him
speak--and touch'd his hand? Have you, with your own eyes, look'd on
Grant, and Lee, and Sherman?"
Dear to Democracy, to the very last! And among the paradoxes generated
by America, not the least curious was that spectacle of all the kings
and queens and emperors of the earth, many from remote distances,
sending tributes of condolence and sorrow in memory of one rais'd
through the commonest average of life--a rail-splitter and flat-boatman!
Consider'd from contemporary points of view--who knows what the future
may decide?--and from the points of view of current Democracy and The
Union, (the only thing like passion or infatuation in the man was the
passion for the Union of These States,) Abraham Lincoln seems to me
the grandest figure yet, on all the crowded canvas of the Nineteenth
Century.
NEW ORLEANS IN 1848
_Walt Whitman gossips of his sojourn here years ago as a newspaper
writer. Notes of his trip up the Mississippi and to New York._
Among the letters brought this morning (Camden, New Jersey, Jan. 15,
1887,) by my faithful post-office carrier, J.G., is one as follows:
"NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 11, '87.--We have been informed that when you were
younger and less famous than now, you were in New Orleans and perhaps
have helped on the _Picayune_. If you have any remembrance of the
_Picayune's_ young days, or of journalism in New Orleans of that era,
and would put it in writing (verse or prose) for the _Picayune's_
fiftieth year edition, Jan. 25, we shall be pleased," etc.
In response to which: I went down to New Orleans early in 1848 to work
on a daily newspaper, but it was not the _Picayune_, though I saw quite
a good deal of the editors of that paper, and knew its personnel and
ways. But let me indulge my pen in some gossipy recollections of that
time and place, with extracts from my journal up the Mississippi and
across the great lakes to the Hudson.
Probably the influence most deeply pervading everything at that time
through the United States, both in physical facts and in sentiment, was
the Mexican War, then just ended. Following a brilliant campaign (in
which our troops had march'd to the capital city, Mexico, and taken full
possession,) we were returning after our victory. From the situation of
the country, the city of New Orleans had been our channel and _entrepot_
for everything, going and returning. It had the best news and war
correspondents; it had the most to say, through its leading papers, the
_Picayune_ and _Delta_ especially, and its voice was readiest listen'd
to; from it "Chapparal" had gone out, and his army and battle letters
were copied everywhere, not only in the United States, but in Europe.
Then the social cast and results; no one who has never seen the society
of a city under similar circumstances can understand what a strange
vivacity and _rattle_ were given throughout by such a situation. I
remember the crowds of soldiers, the gay young officers, going or
coming, the receipt of important news, the many discussions, the
returning wounded, and so on.
I remember very well seeing Gen. Taylor with his staff and other
officers at the St. Charles Theatre one evening (after talking with them
during the day.) There was a short play on the stage, but the principal
performance was of Dr. Colyer's troupe of "Model Artists," then in
the full tide of their popularity. They gave many fine groups and solo
shows. The house was crowded with uniforms and shoulder-straps. Gen. T.
himself, if I remember right, was almost the only officer in civilian
clothes; he was a jovial, old, rather stout, plain man, with a wrinkled
and dark-yellow face, and, in ways and manners, show'd the least of
conventional ceremony or etiquette I ever saw; he laugh'd unrestrainedly
at everything comical. (He had a great personal resemblance to Fenimore
Cooper, the novelist, of New York.) I remember Gen. Pillow and quite a
cluster of other militaires also present.
One of my choice amusements during my stay in New Orleans was going down
to the old French Market, especially of a Sunday morning. The show was
a varied and curious one; among the rest, the Indian and negro hucksters
with their wares. For there were always fine specimens of Indians,
both men and women, young and old. I remember I nearly always on these
occasions got a large cup of delicious coffee with a biscuit, for my
breakfast, from the immense shining copper kettle of a great Creole
mulatto woman (I believe she weigh'd 230 pounds.) I never have had
such coffee since. About nice drinks, anyhow, my recollection of the
"cobblers" (with strawberries and snow on top of the large tumblers,)
and also the exquisite wines, and the perfect and mild French brandy,
help the regretful reminiscence of my New Orleans experiences of those
days. And what splendid and roomy and leisurely bar-rooms! particularly
the grand ones of the St. Charles and St. Louis. Bargains, auctions,
appointments, business conferences, &c., were generally held in the
spaces or recesses of these bar-rooms.
I used to wander a midday hour or two now and then for amusement on the
crowded and bustling levees, on the banks of the river. The diagonally
wedg'd-in boats, the stevedores, the piles of cotton and other
merchandise, the carts, mules, negroes, etc., afforded never-ending
studies and sights to me. I made acquaintances among the captains,
boatmen, or other characters, and often had long talks with
them--sometimes finding a real rough diamond among my chance encounters.
Sundays I sometimes went forenoons to the old Catholic Cathedral in the
French quarter. I used to walk a good deal in this arrondissement; and I
have deeply regretted since that I did not cultivate, while I had such
a good opportunity, the chance of better knowledge of French and Spanish
Creole New Orleans people. (I have an idea that there is much and of
importance about the Latin race contributions to American nationality
in the South and Southwest that will never be put with sympathetic
understanding and tact on record.)
Let me say, for better detail, that through several months (1848) I
work'd on a new daily paper, _The Crescent_; my situation rather a
pleasant one. My young brother, Jeff, was with me; and he not only grew
very homesick, but the climate of the place, and especially the water,
seriously disagreed with him. From this and other reasons (although I
was quite happily fix'd) I made no very long stay in the South. In due