Complete Prose Works
old man minister'd--to enter and leisurely scan the building, the low
ceiling, everything strongly timber'd (polish'd and rubb'd apparently,)
the dark rich colors, the gallery, all in half-light--and smell the
aroma of old wood--to watch the auditors, sailors, mates, "matlows,"
officers, singly or in groups, as they came in--their physiognomies,
forms, dress, gait, as they walk'd along the aisles--their postures,
seating themselves in the rude, roomy, undoor'd, uncushion'd pews--and
the evident effect upon them of the place, occasion, and atmosphere.
The pulpit, rising ten or twelve feet high, against the rear wall, was
back' d by a significant mural painting, in oil--showing out its bold
lines and strong hues through the subdued light of the building--of a
stormy sea, the waves high-rolling, and amid them an old-style ship,
all bent over, driving through the gale, and in great peril--a vivid
and effectual piece of limning, not meant for the criticism of artists
(though I think it had merit even from that standpoint,) but for its
effect upon the congregation, and what it would convey to them.
Father Taylor was a moderate-sized man, indeed almost small, (reminded
me of old Booth, the great actor, and my favorite of those and preceding
days,) well advanced in years, but alert, with mild blue or gray eyes,
and good presence and voice. Soon as he open'd his mouth I ceas'd to pay
any attention to church or audience, or pictures or lights and shades;
a far more potent charm entirely sway'd me. In the course of the sermon,
(there was no sign of any MS., or reading from notes,) some of the parts
would be in the highest degree majestic and picturesque. Colloquial in a
severe sense, it often lean'd to Biblical and Oriental forms. Especially
were all allusions to ships and the ocean and sailors' lives, of
unrival'd power and life-likeness.
Sometimes there were passages of fine language and composition, even
from the purist's point of view. A few arguments, and of the best, but
always brief and simple. One realized what grip there might have been in
such words-of-mouth talk as that of Socrates and Epictetus. In the main,
I should say, of any of these discourses, that the old Demosthenean rule
and requirement of "action, action, action," first in its inward and
then (very moderate and restrain'd) its outward sense, was the quality
that had leading fulfilment.
I remember I felt the deepest impression from the old man's prayers,
which invariably affected me to tears. Never, on similar or any other
occasions, have I heard such impassion'd pleading--such human-harassing
reproach (like Hamlet to his mother, in the closet)--such probing to
the very depths of that latent conscience and remorse which probably lie
somewhere in the background of every life, every soul. For when Father
Taylor preach'd or pray'd, the rhetoric and art, the mere words, (which
usually play such a big part) seem'd altogether to disappear, and the
_live feeling_ advanced upon you and seiz'd you with a power before
unknown. Everybody felt this marvellous and awful influence. One young
sailor, a Rhode Islander, (who came every Sunday, and I got acquainted
with, and talk'd to once or twice as we went away,) told me, "that must
be the Holy Ghost we read of in the Testament."
I should be at a loss to make any comparison with other preachers or
public speakers. When a child I had heard Elias Hicks--and Father Taylor
(though so different in personal appearance, for Elias was of tall and
most shapely form, with black eyes that blazed at times like meteors,)
always reminded me of him. Both had the same inner, apparently
inexhaustible, fund of latent volcanic passion--the same tenderness,
blended with a curious remorseless firmness, as of some surgeon
operating on a belov'd patient. Hearing such men sends to the winds all
the books, and formulas, and polish'd speaking, and rules of oratory.
Talking of oratory, why is it that the unsophisticated practices often
strike deeper than the train'd ones? Why do our experiences perhaps of
some local country exhorter--or often in the West or South at political
meetings--bring the most definite results? In my time I have heard
Webster, Clay, Edward Everett, Phillips, and such _célébrès_ yet I
recall the minor but life-eloquence of men like John P. Hale, Cassius
Clay, and one or two of the old abolition "fanatics" ahead of all those
stereotyped fames. Is not--I sometimes question--the first, last, and
most important quality of all, in training for a "finish'd speaker,"
generally unsought, unreck'd of, both by teacher and pupil? Though
may-be it cannot be taught, anyhow. At any rate, we need to clearly
understand the distinction between oratory and elocution. Under the
latter art, including some of high order, there is indeed no scarcity in
the United States, preachers, lawyers, actors, lecturers, &c. With all,
there seem to be few real orators--almost none.
I repeat, and would dwell upon it (more as suggestion than mere
fact)--among all the brilliant lights of bar or stage I have heard in
my time (for years in New York and other cities I haunted the courts
to witness notable trials, and have heard all the famous actors and
actresses that have been in America the past fifty years) though
I recall marvellous effects from one or other of them, I never had
anything in the way of vocal utterance to shake me through and through,
and become fix'd, with its accompaniments, in my memory, like those
prayers and sermons--like Father Taylor's personal electricity and the
whole scene there--the prone ship in the gale, and dashing wave and foam
for background--in the little old sea-church in Boston, those summer
Sundays just before the secession war broke out.
THE SPANISH ELEMENT IN OUR NATIONALITY
[Our friends at Santa Fe, New Mexico, have just finish'd their
long-drawn-out anniversary of the 333d year of the settlement of their
city by the Spanish. The good, gray Walt Whitman was asked to write
them a poem in commemoration. Instead he wrote them a letter as
follows:--_Philadelphia Press_, August 5, 1883.]
CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, _July 20, 1883_.
_To Messrs. Griffin, Martinez, Prince, and other Gentlemen at Santa Fé_:
DEAR SIRS:--Your kind invitation to visit you and deliver a poem for the
333d Anniversary of founding Santa Fé has reach'd me so late that I have
to decline, with sincere regret. But I will say a few words offhand.
We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort
them, to unify them. They will be found ampler than has been supposed,
and in widely different sources. Thus far, impress'd by New England
writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion
that our United States have been fashion'd from the British Islands
only, and essentially form a second England only--which is a very great
mistake. Many leading traits for our future national personality, and
some of the best ones, will certainly prove to have originated from
other than British stock. As it is, the British and German, valuable as
they are in the concrete, already threaten excess. Or rather, I should
say, they have certainly reach'd that excess. To-day, something outside
of them, and to counterbalance them, is seriously needed.
The seething materialistic and business vortices of the United States,
in their present devouring relations, controlling and belittling
everything else, are, in my opinion, but a vast and indispensable stage
in the new world's development, and are certainly to be follow'd
by something entirely different--at least by immense modifications.
Character, literature, a society worthy the name, are yet to be
establish'd, through a nationality of noblest spiritual, heroic
and democratic attributes--not one of which at present definitely
exists--entirely different from the past, though unerringly founded on
it, and to justify it.
To that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character
will supply some of the most needed parts. No stock shows a grander
historic retrospect--grander in religiousness and loyalty, or for
patriotism, courage, decorum, gravity and honor. (It is time to dismiss
utterly the illusion-compound, half raw-head-and-bloody-bones and half
Mysteries-of-Udolpho, inherited from the English writers of the past 200
years. It is time to realize--for it is certainly true--that there
will not be found any more cruelty, tyranny, superstition, &c., in the
_résumé_ of past Spanish history than in the corresponding _résumé_ of
Anglo-Norman history. Nay, I think there will not be found so much.)
Then another point, relating to American ethnology, past and to come,
I will here touch upon at a venture. As to our aboriginal or Indian
population--the Aztec in the South, and many a tribe in the North and
West--I know it seems to be agreed that they must gradually dwindle as
time rolls on, and in a few generations more leave only a reminiscence,
a blank. But I am not at all clear about that. As America, from its
many far-back sources and current supplies, develops, adapts, entwines,
faithfully identifies its own--are we to see it cheerfully accepting
and using all the contributions of foreign lands from the whole outside
globe--and then rejecting the only ones distinctively its own--the
autochthonic ones?
As to the Spanish stock of our Southwest, it is certain to me that we
do not begin to appreciate the splendor and sterling value of its
race element. Who knows but that element, like the course of some
subterranean river, dipping invisibly for a hundred or two years, is now
to emerge in broadest flow and permanent action?
If I might assume to do so, I would like to send you the most cordial,
heartfelt congratulations of your American fellow-countrymen here. You
have more friends in the Northern and Atlantic regions than you
suppose, and they are deeply interested in the development of the great
Southwestern interior, and in what your festival would arouse to public
attention.
Very respectfully, &c.,
WALT WHITMAN.
WHAT LURKS BEHIND SHAKSPERE'S HISTORICAL PLAYS
We all know how much _mythus_ there is in the Shakspere question as it
stands to-day. Beneath a few foundations of proved facts are
certainly engulf d far more dim and elusive ones, of deepest
importance--tantalizing and half suspected--suggesting explanations that
one dare not put in plain statement. But coming at once to the point,
the English historical plays are to me not only the most eminent as
dramatic performances (my maturest judgment confirming the impressions
of my early years, that the distinctiveness and glory of the Poet reside
not in his vaunted dramas of the passions, but those founded on the
contests of English dynasties, and the French wars,) but form, as we
get it all, the chief in a complexity of puzzles. Conceiv'd out of
the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism--personifying in
unparallel'd ways the mediaeval aristocracy, its towering spirit of
ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance
(no mere imitation)--only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the
plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be
the true author of those amazing works--works in some respects greater
than anything else in recorded literature.
The start and germ-stock of the pieces on which the present speculation
is founded are undoubtedly (with, at the outset, no small amount of
bungling work) in "Henry VI." It is plain to me that as profound and
forecasting a brain and pen as ever appear'd in literature, after
floundering somewhat in the first part of that trilogy--or perhaps
draughting it more or less experimentally or by accident--afterward
developed and defined his plan in the Second and Third Parts, and from