Complete Prose Works
Shakspere, Walter Scott, Emerson, Ticknor's "Spanish Literature," John
Carlyle's Dante, Felton's "Greece," George Sand's "Consuelo," avery
choice little Epictetus, some novels, the latest foreign and American
monthlies, quarterlies, and so on. There being quite a strew of
printer's proofs and slips, and the daily papers, the place with its
quaint old fashion'd calmness has also a smack of something alert and
of current work. There are several trunks and depositaries back' d up
at the walls; (one well-bound and big box came by express lately from
Washington city, after storage there for nearly twenty years.) Indeed
the whole room is a sort of result and storage collection of my own past
life. I have here various editions of my own writings, and sell them
upon request; one is a big volume of complete poems and prose, 1000
pages, autograph, essays, speeches, portraits from life, &c. Another is
a little "Leaves of Grass," latest date, six portraits, morocco bound,
in pocket-book form.
Fortunately the apartment is quite roomy. There are three windows in
front. At one side is the stove, with a cheerful fire of oak wood, near
by a good supply of fresh sticks, whose faint aroma is plain. On another
side is the bed with white coverlid and woollen blankets. Toward
the windows is a huge arm-chair, (a Christmas present from Thomas
Donaldson's young daughter and son, Philadelphia) timber'd as by some
stout ship's spars, yellow polish'd, ample, with rattan-woven seat and
back, and over the latter a great wide wolf-skin of hairy black and
silver, spread to guard against cold and draught. A time-worn look and
scent of old oak attach both to the chair and the person occupying it.
But probably (even at the charge of parrot talk) I can give no more
authentic brief sketch than "from an old remembrance copy," where I have
lately put myself on record as follows: Was born May 31, 1819, in my
father's farm-house, at West Hills, L.I., New York State. My parents'
folks mostly farmers and sailors--on my father's side, of English--on
my mother's (Van Velsor's), from Hollandic immigration. There was, first
and last, a large family of children; (I was the second.) We moved to
Brooklyn while I was still a little one in frocks--and there in B.
I grew up out of frocks--then as child and boy went to the public
schools--then to work in a printing office. When only sixteen or
seventeen years old, and for three years afterward, I went to teaching
country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties, Long Island, and
"boarded round." Then, returning to New York, work'd as printer and
writer, (with an occasional shy at "poetry.")
1848-'9.--About this time--after ten or twelve years of experiences and
work and lots of fun in New York and Brooklyn--went off on a leisurely
journey and working expedition (my brother Jeff with me) through all the
Middle States, and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Lived a while
in New Orleans, and work'd there. (Have lived quite a good deal in
the Southern States.) After a time, plodded back northward, up the
Mississippi, the Missouri, &c., and around to, and by way of, the
great lakes, Michigan, Huron and Erie, to Niagara Falls and Lower
Canada--finally returning through Central New York, and down the Hudson.
1852-'54--Occupied in house-building in Brooklyn. (For a little while of
the first part of that time in printing a daily and weekly paper.)
1855.--Lost my dear father this year by death.... Commenced putting
"Leaves of Grass" to press, for good--after many MSS. doings and
undoings--(I had great trouble in leaving out the stock "poetical"
touches--but succeeded at last.) The book has since had some eight
hitches or stages of growth, with one annex, (and another to come out in
1891, which will complete it.)
1862.--In December of this year went down to the field of war in
Virginia. My brother George reported badly wounded in the Fredericksburg
fight. (For 1863 and '64, see "Specimen Days.") 1865 to '71--Had a place
as clerk (till well on in '73) in the Attorney.
General's Office, Washington. (New York and Brooklyn seem more like
_home_, as I was born near, and brought up in them, and lived, man
and boy, for 30 years. But I lived some years in Washington, and
have visited, and partially lived, in most of the Western and Eastern
cities.)
1873.--This year lost, by death, my dear dear mother--and, just before,
my sister Martha--the two best and sweetest women I have ever seen or
known, or ever expect to see. Same year, February, a sudden climax and
prostration from paralysis. Had been simmering inside for several years;
broke out during those times temporarily, and then went over. But now a
serious attack, beyond cure. Dr. Drinkard, my Washington physician,
(and a first-rate one,) said it was the result of too extreme bodily and
emotional strain continued at Washington and "down in front," in 1863,
'4 and '5. I doubt if a heartier, stronger, healthier physique, more
balanced upon itself, or more unconscious, more sound, ever lived, from
1835 to '72. My greatest call (Quaker) to go around and do what I
could there in those war-scenes where I had fallen, among the sick and
wounded, was, that I seem'd to be _so strong and well_. (I consider'd
myself invulnerable.) But this last attack shatter'd me completely. Quit
work at Washington, and moved to Camden, New Jersey--where I have lived
since, receiving many buffets and some precious caresses--and now
write these lines. Since then, (1874-'91) a long stretch of illness, or
half-illness, with occasional lulls. During these latter, have revised
and printed over all my books--bro't out "November Boughs"--and at
intervals leisurely and exploringly travel'd to the Prairie States, the
Rocky Mountains, Canada, to New York, to my birthplace in Long Island,
and to Boston. But physical disability and the war-paralysis above
alluded to to have settled upon me more and more the last year or so. Am
now (1891) domicil'd, and have been for some years, in this little old
cottage and lot in Mickle street, Camden, with a house-keeper and man
nurse. Bodily I am completely disabled, but still write for publication.
I keep generally buoyant spirits, write often as there comes any lull
in physical sufferings, get in the sun and down to the river whenever
I can, retain fair appetite, assimilation and digestion, sensibilities
acute as ever, the strength and volition of my right arm good, eyesight
dimming, but brain normal, and retain my heart's and soul's unmitigated
faith not only in their own original literary plans, but in the
essential bulk of American humanity east and west, north and south, city
and country, through thick and thin, to the last. Nor must I forget,
in conclusion, a special, prayerful, thankful God's blessing to my dear
firm friends and personal helpers, men and women, home and foreign, old
and young.
OUT IN THE OPEN AGAIN
_From the Camden Post, April 16, '91_.
Walt Whitman got out in the mid-April sun and warmth of yesterday,
propelled in his wheel chair, the first time after four months of
imprisonment in his sick room. He has had the worst winter yet, mainly
from grippe and gastric troubles, and threaten'd blindness; but keeps
good spirits, and has a new little forthcoming book in the printer's
hands.
AMERICA'S BULK AVERAGE
If I were ask'd _persona_ to specify the one point of America's people
on which I mainly rely, I should say the final average or bulk quality
of the whole.
Happy indeed w'd I consider myself to give a fair reflection and
representation of even a portion of shows, questions, humanity, events,
unfoldings, thoughts, &c. &c., my age in these States.
The great social, political, historic function of my time has been of
course the attempted secession war.
And was there not something grand, and an inside proof of perennial
grandeur, in that war! We talk of our age's and the States'
materialism--and it is too true. But how amid the whole sordidness--the
entire devotion of America, at any price, to pecuniary success,
merchandise--disregarding all but business and profit--this war for
a bare idea and abstraction--a mere, at bottom, heroic dream and
reminiscence--burst forth in its great devouring flame and conflagration
quickly and fiercely spreading and raging, and enveloping all, defining
in two conflicting ideas--first the Union cause--second _the other_,
a strange deadly interrogation point, hard to define--Can we not now
safely confess it?--with magnificent rays, streaks of noblest heroism,
fortitude, perseverance, and even conscientiousness, through its
pervadingly malignant darkness. What an area and rounded field, upon
the whole--the spirit, arrogance, grim tenacity of the South--the long
stretches of murky gloom--the general National Will below and behind
and comprehending all--not once really wavering, not a day, not an
hour--What could be, or even can be, grander?
As in that war, its four years--as through the whole history and
development of the New World--these States through all trials,
processes, eruptions, deepest dilemmas, (often straining, tugging at
society's heart-strings, as if some divine curiosity would find out how
much this democracy could stand,) have so far finally and for more than
a century best justified themselves by the average impalpable quality
and personality of the bulk, the People _en masse_.... I am not sure but
my main and chief however indefinite claim for any page of mine w'd be
its derivation, or seeking to derive itself, f'm that average quality of
the American bulk, the people, and getting back to it again.
LAST SAVED ITEMS
_I'm a vast batch left to oblivion_.
In its highest aspect, and striking its grandest average, essential
Poetry expresses and goes along with essential Religion--has been and
is more the adjunct, and more serviceable to that true religion (for of
course there is a false one and plenty of it) than all the priests and
creeds and churches that now exist or have ever existed--even while the
temporary prevalent theory and practice of poetry is merely one-side and
ornamental and dainty--a love-sigh, a bit of jewelry, a feudal conceit,
an ingenious tale or intellectual _finesse_, adjusted to the low taste
and calibre that will always sufficiently generally prevail--(ranges of
stairs necessary to ascend the higher.)
The sectarian, church and doctrinal, follies, crimes, fanaticisms,
aggregate and individual, so rife all thro' history, are proofs of the
radicalness and universality of the indestructible element of humanity's
Religion, just as much as any, and are the other side of it. Just as
disease proves health, and is the other side of it.... The philosophy of
Greece taught normality and the beauty of life. Christianity teaches how
to endure illness and death. I have wonder'd whether a third philosophy
fusing both, and doing full justice to both, might not be outlined.
It will not be enough to say that no Nation ever achiev'd materialistic,
political and money-making successes, with general physical comfort, as
fully as the United States of America are to-day achieving them. I know
very well that those are the indispensable foundations--the _sine
qua non_ of moral and heroic (poetic) fruitions to come. For if those
pre-successes were all--if they ended at that--if nothing more
were yielded than so far appears--a gross materialistic prosperity
only--America, tried by subtlest tests, were a failure--has not advanced
the standard of humanity a bit further than other nations. Or, in plain
terms, has but inherited and enjoy'd the results of ordinary claims and
preceding ages.
Nature seem'd to use me a long while--myself all well, able, strong and
happy--to portray power, freedom, health. But after a while she seems to