Complete Prose Works
fancy, may-be I can see and understand it all better by being deprived
of most of those.
How difficult it is to add anything more to literature--and how
unsatisfactory for any earnest spirit to serve merely the amusement of
the multitude! (It even seems to me, said H. Heine, more invigorating to
accomplish something bad than something empty.)
The Highest said: Don't let us begin so low--isn't our range too
coarse--too gross?... The Soul answer'd: No, not when we consider what
it is all for--the end involved in Time and Space.
Essentially my own printed records, all my volumes, are doubtless but
off-hand utterances f'm Personality spontaneous, following implicitly
the inscrutable command, dominated by that Personality, vaguely even if
decidedly, and with little or nothing of plan, art, erudition, &c. If I
have chosen to hold the reins, the mastery, it has mainly been to give
the way, the power, the road, to the invisible steeds. (I wanted to see
how a Person of America, the last half of the 19th century, w'd appear,
but quite freely and fairly in honest type.)
Haven't I given specimen clues, if no more? At any rate I have written
enough to weary myself--and I will dispatch it to the printers, and
cease. But how much--how many topics, of the greatest pointand cogency,
I am leaving untouch'd!
WALT WHITMAN'S LAST [49]
_Good-Bye my Fancy_.--concluding Annex to _Leaves of Grass_.
"The Highest said: Don't let us begin so low--isn't our range too
coarse--too gross?... The Soul answer'd: No, not when we consider what
it is all for--the end involved in Time and Space."--_An item from last
page of "Good-Bye."_
H. Heine's first principle of criticising a book was, What motive is the
author trying to carry out, or express or accomplish? and the second,
Has he achiev'd it?
The theory of my _Leaves of Grass_ as a composition of verses has been
from first to last, (if I am to give impromptu a hint of the spinal
marrow of the business, and sign it with my name,) to thoroughly possess
the mind, memory, cognizance of the author himself, with everything
beforehand--a full armory of concrete actualities, observations,
humanity, past poems, ballads, facts, technique, war and peace,
politics, North and South, East and West, nothing too large or too
small, the sciences as far as possible--and above all America and the
present--after and out of which the subject of the poem, long or short,
has been invariably turned over to his Emotionality, even Personality,
to be shaped thence; and emerges strictly therefrom, with all its merits
and demerits on its head. Every page of my poetic or attempt at poetic
utterance therefore smacks of the living physical identity, date,
environment, individuality, probably beyond anything known, and in style
often offensive to the conventions.
This new last cluster, _Good-By my Fancy_ follows suit, and yet with a
difference. The clef is here changed to its lowest, and the little book
is a lot of tremolos about old age, death, and faith. The physical just
lingers, but almost vanishes. The book is garrulous, irascible (like old
Lear) and has various breaks and even tricks to avoid monotony. It
will have to be ciphered and ciphered out long--and is probably in some
respects the most curious part of its author's baffling works.
_Walt Whitman_.
Note:
[49] Published in _Lippincott's Magazine_, August, 1891, with the
following note added by the editor of the magazine: "With _Good-Bye my
Fancy_, Walt Whitman has rounded out his life-work. This book is his
last message, and of course a great deal will be said about it by
critics all over the world, both in praise and dispraise; but probably
nothing that the critics will say will be as interesting as this
characteristic utterance upon the book by the poet himself. It is
the subjective view as opposed to the objective views of the critics.
Briefly, Whitman gives, as he puts it, 'a hint of the spinal marrow of
the business,' not only of _Good-Bye my Fancy_, but also of the _Leaves
of Grass_.
"It was only after considerable persuasion on the editor's part that Mr.
Whitman consented to write the above. As a concise explanation of the
poet's life-work it must have great value to his readers and admirers.
After the critics 'have ciphered and ciphered out long,' they will
probably have nothing better to say."