Walt Whitman - An American Primer, 1904 by gnosisclassics

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AN AMERICAN PRIMER IS

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AN AMERICAN PRIMER

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AN AMERICAN PRIMER BY WALT WHITMAN WITH FACSIMILES OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT EDITED BY HORACE TRAUBEL

BOSTON SMALL,

MAYNARD & COMPANY MCMIV

Gdpyright, 1904, by

Horace Traubel Entered at Stationers' Hall

Published November, 1904

twdV

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, •

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U.S.A.

FOREWORD The American Primer than a finished fight. this

a challenge rather We find Whitman on is

occasion rather laying his plans than

to perfect them. It would be unfair to take such a mass of more or less disjointed notes and pass them under severe

undertaking

review.

Whitman never intended them for

publication.

should not be

criticised,

he has been by certain American editors, for an act for which he is in no way responsible.

The Primer

Even

rogation.

be said for

was

inter-

dogma something might a question it intimates its One of Whitmans remarks as a

it.

own answer. about

not a dogma.

this

" It does not suggest the

invention but descjibes the growth of an American English enjoying a distinct idenWhitman would every now and then tity," get on his financial uppers. Then he would

say : " / guess

I will

be driven to the lecture

The Primer was one of his projected lecture themes. The lecture idea had possessed him most convinc-

field in spite of

myself

ingly in the period that antedated ourpersonal acquaintance.

Leaves of Grass appeared

M99780

FOREWORD before

I was

contact xmth "

full fury,

When I got

born.

really into

Whitman the fight was on in The Leaves has always meant

It never meant fight to That was what Whitman said of it. would make a point of my youth, " You

fight to the world. me,''

bring young blood to the veterans

— we welcome

Whitman

field.

are

you,''

at different times, especially in

when he struck up his rebel planned for all sorts of literary ven-

the beginning, note,

tures which were not consummated.

man was undoubtedly

Whit-

convinced that he had

This conviction never assumed a mission. Whitman was the most fanatic forms. catholic man who ever thought he had a misBut he did regard himself as such a sion. Yet he never believed or condepository. that tended he possessed exclusive powers or

an extraordinary

divination.

if the message with which he

did not get out through him

He felt

that

was entrusted would get out

through some other. But in his earlier career, after he tired of writing in the formal way and to the formal effect for he played the

—

usual juvenile part in literary mimicry felt that it

would be

difficult,

if not impossible,

to secure publishers either for his detail vi

— he work

FOREWORD He

or for his boohs.

How am I

to deliver

often ashed himself:

He once And he told

my goods ?

decided that he would lecture.

of The American Primer originally came to him it was for a lecture. Yet these notes in themselves were only fragments. He never looked upon them " They as furnishing more than a start, might make the material for a good talk^' he " It 's only a sketch-piece anyway,'' he said, said again : " a few rough touches here and rather there, not rounding up the theme showing what may be made of it, I often think the Leaves themselves are much the same sort of thing : a passage way to some-

that

when

the idea

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

thing rather than a thing in itself concluded

not the best that might be done but the best is

necessary to do for the present, to break

the

ground''

Whitman wrote fifties.

And

there

brief additions to

Primer

at this

in the early

evidence that he

from

made

time to time in the

The most of the manuscript notes are scribbled on sheets of various tints improvised from the paper ten years that followed.

unbound copies of the There is later paper and later

covers used on the

1855

edition.

handwriting.

But

the vii

notes were

largely

FORE W ORD written

rather exciting Jive years

the

That stretch of time after 1855 until 1861 was crowded with personal as well as political preparations for war,'' But after he had issued the first edition of Leaves of Grass, and after he found the book surviving into the 1856 and 1860 editions, some of his old plans, this lecture scheme among them, were abandoned. The Primer was thenceforth, as a distinct project, held I remember that in the late in abeyance. eighties he said to me: " / may yet bring the Primer out.'' And when I laughed incredulously he added: " JVell, I guess you are before the war.

right

laugh:

And the

best

of the

leaked into

suppose

never

shall.

Primer stuff has no doubt

other work."

indeed

Whitman gave expression to the substance of the Primer in one way or anEven some of its sentences are utilized other. here and there in his prose and verse volumes. In referring to the Primer upon another true that

WTiitman said: " This subject of interests me : I never language interests me

occasion,

quite get

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

out of

think the Leaves

ment

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that

sometimes

an attempt to give the spirit, man, new words, new potentiaU-

it is

the body, the

mind.

only a language experi-

viii

FOREWORD —

an American, a cosmopolitan of speech {the best of America is the best cosmopolitanism) range of self expression. The new ties

world, the

new

times, the

new peoples,

— —

need a tongue according more, will have such a tongue

vista,

be satisfied until

evolved,''

the

yes,

new

what

will not

But

the

study brought to bear upon the subject in the manuscript

now under view was never

resumed. The Primer, therefore, is, as a part of Whitmans serious literary product, Whitman said of it : of marked significance. " It was first intended for a lecture : then when I gave up the idea of lecturing it was intended for a book: now, as it stands, it is neither a lecture nor a book,'' As an alternate to his adopted headline I find this among Whitman's memoranda: " The Primer of Words : For American

Young Men and Women, For

Literati,

Musicians,

Judges,

Orators,

Teachers,

Presidents,

S^c,"

have followed the original manuscript without any departures whatever. All its

of capitalization and punctuation are allowed to remain untouched, Horace Traubel.

peculiarities

SOME FACSIMILES OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

• • « •

^ > *

• • •

<^Â«i^.

Ttt 1

'"iiilillilii

"iilillllll

lilllllllli

Ilillll

Illilli

Illlil

(

'i"ii|'M

AN AMERICAN PRIMER Much

said of

what

spiritual,

spirituality, in this, that, or

and of

the other

— For me,

—

no object, no expression, no animal, no tree, no art, no book, but I see, from morning to night, and from night to morning, the spiritual. All words are Bodies are all spiritual. nothing is more spiritual than spiritual objects, expressions.

— words. — Whence

I see

—

they ? along how many thousands and tens of thousands of years have they come ? those eluding, fluid, beautiful, fleshless, realities. Mother, Father, are

Water, Earth, Me, This, Soul, Tongue, House, Fire.

A great observation

will detect

sameness

through all languages, however old, however new, however polished, however rude. As humanity is one under its amazing diversities, language is one under its. The flippant read on some long past age, wonder at its dead costumes [customs?], its amusements, &;c. but the master understands well the old, ever-new, ever-common grounds, below

—

;

AN AMERICAN PRIMER those annual growths. — The master, I say,

between any two ages, any two languages and two humanities, however wide apart in time and space, marks well not the superficial shades of difference, but the massshades of a joint nature.

In a httle while, in the United States, the English language, enriched with contributions from all languages, old and new, will be spoken by a hundred millions of people perhaps a hundred thousand words ("sevNoah enty or eighty thousand words" Webster, of the English language). The Americans are going to be the most fluent and melodious voiced people in the world and the most perfect users of words.

—

— Words follow character —

nativity, inde-

pendence, individuality. I see that the time

quette of saloons that

great

thing,

speech in America.

nigh

when

the

eti-

to be discharged from

the

renovated

English

— The occasions of the

English speech in America are immense, profound stretch over ten thousand vast cities, over millions of miles of meadows, farms, mountains, men, through thousands of years

—

— the occasions of saloons are a a bon or two, — involve waiters standing for

soir

coterie,

AN AMERICAN PRIMER behind

chairs,

What

obedient, with backs

silent,

that can bend and

must often bend.

beauty there

words

What

lurking curious charm in the sound of some

Five or six times in Then voices a lifetime, (perhaps not so often,) you have heard from men and women such voices, as

words

—

What they spoke the most common word can it be that from those few men and women made so much out of the most common word! Geography, shipping, steam, the mint, the electric telegraph, railroads, and so forth, have many strong and beautiful words. Mines iron works the sugar plantations of Louisiana the cotton crop and the rice crop Illinois wheat Ohio corn and pork Maine lumber all these sprout in hundreds and hundreds of words, all tangible and clean-lived, all having texture and beauty. To all thoughts of your or any one's mind 1

—

— to

all

— —

—

yearnings, passions, love, hate, ennui,

madness, desperation of men for women, and of women for men, to all charging and surcharging that head which poises itself on your neck and is electric in the body beneath your head, or runs with the blood through your veins or in those curious in-

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER you call eyesight and hearto all these, and the like of these, ing Such are the words have been made words. that are never new and never old. credible miracles

—

What

a history is folded, folded inward again, in the single word I. inward and The words of the Body I The words of The words of Husband and Parentage Wife. The words of Offspring The word The word Father Mother The words of Behaviour are quite numerThey follow the law they are courous. teous, grave, have polish, have a sound of presence, and abash all furniture and shallowness out of their sight. J'he words of maternity are all the words that were ever spoken by the mouth of man, but they are reborn the child of woman of the full-sized mother, words, and the mouth daughter, wife, amie, does not offend by using any one of them. Medicine has hundreds of useful and new means of cure characteristic words new schools of doctors the wonderful !

—

;

—

anatomy of the body

—

— — the

names of a

—

hysurgeon's terms thousand diseases great dropathy all that relates to the The medical art is organs of the body.

—

— 4

AN AMERICAN PRIMER always grand — nothing affords a nobler of superior men and women. — scope for

It,

course, will

never cease to be near to man,

and add new terms.

Law, (Medicine) personnel of the

Religion, the

Army

Army, the

and Navy, the Arts,

without In the law, is to be noticed a growincrease. with formulas, and with difimpatience ing stand on

their old stock of words,

—

fuseness, and, venerable slang.

The personnel

of the Army and the Navy exists in America, apart from the throbbing

life

of America

—

an exile in the land, foreign to the instincts and tastes of the people, and, of course, soon in due time to give place to something native, something warmed with throbs of our

own

life.

These States are rapidly supplying them-

new words, called for by new new facts, new politics, new com-

selves with

occasions, binations.

— Far

plentier additions will be

needed, and, of course, will be supplied.

(Because

it is

continually used

a truth that) the words

among

the people are, in

numberless cases, not the words used in writing, or recorded in the dictionaries by authority.

— There are just

many words

in daily use, not inscribed in the dictionary,

AN AMERICAN PRIMER — Also, and seldom or never any in

the forms of

grammar

print.

are never persistently

obeyed, and cannot be.

The Real Dictionary

will give all

words

that exist in use, the bad words as well as any.

— The Real Grammar

which declares

itself

will

be that

a nucleus of the spirit

of the laws, with liberty to

all

to carry

out the spirit of the laws, even by violating them, if necessary. The English Language is grandly lawless like the race who use it or, rather, breaks out of the little laws

—

to enter truly the higher ones. instinct with that

which underlies laws, and

the purports of laws,

it refuses all petty way. Books themselves have their peculiar words namely, those that are never used in living speech in the real world, but only used in the world of books. Nobody ever actually talks as books and plays talk. The Morning has its words, and the EvenHow much there is in ing has its words. the word Light How vast, surrounding,

interruptions in

its

—

— —

falling, sleepy, noiseless, is

—

the word Night

hugs with unfelt yet living arms.

Character makes words. stock, full

enough of 6

— The

faults,

English

but averse to

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER all folderol,

equable, instinctively just, latent

pride and melancholy, ready with brawned arms, with free speech, with the knife-blade for tyrants and the reached hand

with

for slaves,

— have put

—

these in words.

all

— —

they are the have them in America, We are to body of the whole of the past. we are to pass it on justify our inheritance

—

who

come

thousand years hence, as we have grown out of the English of a thousand years ago American geography, the plenteousness and variety to those

are to

after us, a

—

— the seacoast —

of the great nations of the Union

— — Cahfornia and Oregon — the inland the mountains — Arizona — the

the thousands of settlements the Mexican south north

—

the Canadian

seas

prairies

—

the immense rivers.

Many

of the slang words

men, gamblers,

thieves,

among

fighting

prostitutes,

are

powerful words. These words ought to be collected the bad words as well as the good. Many of these bad words are

—

fine.

Music has many good words, now technibut of such rich and juicy character that they ought to be taken for common use in writing and speaking. cal,

AN AMERICAN PRIMER New

forms of science, newer freer char-

may have something in them to need One beauty of words is exactinew words. To me each word out of the tude. that now compose the EngHsh language, has its own meaning, and does not stand for any acters,

—

thing but itself

— and there are no two words

the same any more than there are two persons the same.

Much

of America

paper names, and steamboats, ships

—

shown in its newsthe names of its names of characteristic is

amusements and games. What do you think words are ? Do you think words are positive and original things in themselves

— No

Words

are not origi-

— Words are — a they are the progeny of what has been or vogue. — If iron architecture nal and arbitrary in themselves. result

comes in vogue, as it seems to be coming, words are wanted to stand for all about iron architecture, for the different branches of

man

work it causes, for the work and of the work-

— those blocks of buildings, seven

high, with light strong fa9ades,

stories

and girders

that will not crumble a mite in a thousand years.

Also words to describe 8

all

American pecu-

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER liarities,

— the splendid and rugged charac-

forming among these states, or in the cities, the firemen are already formed of Mannahatta and the target excursionist the Boston truckman and Bowery boy

ters that are

—

the Philadelphian.

In America an immense number of new words are needed, to embody the new political facts, the compact of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Constitution the new States the union of the States modes of election the Congress the the

— —

—

— — stump speech — the ways of electioneering — addressing the people — stating that all

to be said in

modes that

fit

the

life

and ex-

perience of the Indianian, the Michiganian,

men

the Vermonter, the

of Maine

—

also

words to answer the modem, rapidly spreading, faith, of the vital equality of women with men, and that they are to be placed on an exact plane, politically, socially, and in business, with men. Words are wanted to supply the copious trains of facts, and flanges of facts, feelings, arguments, and adjectival facts, growing out of all new knowledges. Phrenology.

Drinking brandy,

gin, beer,

of the voice 9

fatal to the perfection

generally

is ;

— mean-

AN AMERICAN PRIMER ness of mind the same; — gluttony in eating, of course the same; a thinned habit of body, or a rank habit of body — masturbagoing with women, rot the Yet no man can have a great voca-

tion, inordinate

voice.

who has no experience with women and no woman who has no experience with men. The final fiber and charm of the voice foltion

lows the chaste drench of love.

The

great Italian singers are above

all

others in the world from causes quite the

same

as those that

make the voices of the na-

Mannahatta young the drivers of horses and

tive healthy substrata of

men, especially whose work leads to free loud calling and commanding, have such a ring and

all

freshness.

Pronunciation of Yankees offensive

—

has the

flat tones.

nasal and

—

It could

probably be changed by placing only those teachers in schools

— and

who have

rich ripe voices

by the children practicing to speak from the chest and in the guttural and baritone (methods) voice.

All sorts of physical,

moral, and mental deformities are inevitably

returned in the voice.

The

races that in their realities are sup-

ple, obedient,

cringing,

have hundreds of

AN AMERICAN PRIMER words to express hundreds of forms of acts, thoughts, flanges, of those reahties, which the English tongue knows nothing of. The English tongue is full of strong words native or adopted to express the blood-born passion of the race for rudeness and resistance, as against poUsh and all acts to give in robust, brawny, athletic, muscular, :

acrid, harsh,

frontery,

rugged, severe, pluck,

stern,

resistance,

grit, ef-

rude,

bracing,

rugged, rough, shaggy, bearded, arrogant,

These words are alive and sinewy they walk, look, step with an air of command. They will often lead the rest they

haughty.

—

will

—

not follow.

They

— How can they follow — ?

will appear strange in

company

unlike

themselves.

— Even people's names by themselves, sometimes one were way sometimes another. — Public necessity — Now, the 80th remedies English words. spelt

all

year

These

diversity in

troubles.

States,

the ways

there

little

of spelling words,

and much diversity in the ways of prosteamships, railroads, nouncing them newspapers, submarine telegraphs, will probIf not, it is not ably bring them in. ;

—

important. 11

AN AMERICAN PRIMER and inflections of words. must cohere it cannot be left loosely to float or to fly away. Yet all the rules of the accents and inflections

in the accents

— Language

—

— of words, drop before a perfect voice — that may follow the or be ignorant of them — which. — Pronunciation the stamina of language, — language. — rules

it is

indifferent

it is

The

noblest pronunciation, in a city or race,

marks the noblest

city or race, or descend-

ants thereof.

Why are names (words)

so mighty

cause facts, ancestry, maternity,

— Be—

move

the souls

(words) are

its (their)

Slowly, sternly, inevitably,

of the earth, and names

faiths, are.

signs.

Kosmos words. Words of the Free Expansion of Thought, History, Chronology, Literature, are showing themselves, with

—

muscular necks and breasts. I put my arms around me. gladden These touch my lips to theirs. The past them hundred centuries have confided much to I think me, yet they mock me, frowning. I am done with many of the words of the

foreheads,

—

past hundred centuries.

poems,

bibles,

words,

—

still

am mad that their

rule

and represent

the earth, and are not yet superseded. 12

— But

AN AMERICAN PRIMER why do say so — I must not, wiU not, be I

impatient.

In American city excursions, for military practice, for firing at the target, for all the

exercises

health and

should not

manhood

— why —

women accompany them ?

expect to see the time in Politics, Business, Public Gatherings, Processions, Excitements, when women shall not be divided

from men, but shall take their part on the same terms as men. What sort of women have Massachusetts, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the rest, correspondent with what they continually want ? Sometimes I have fancied that only from superior, hardy

women These

can

the future superiorities of

rise

States.

Man's words,

for the

young men of these

words that have arisen out of the qualities of mastership, going first, bruntwords to identify a hardy ing danger first, knowledge boyhood an erect, sweet, lusty, body, without taint choice and chary states, are all

—

its

—

— —

love-power.

—

The

spelling of words is subordinate. Morbidness for nice spelling, and tenacity for or against some one letter or so, means dandyism and impotence in literature. Of course

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER the great WTiters must have digested

these

all

— passed etymologies, thographies, through them and extracted the nutriment. — Modern brevity and — probranging words spelling things,

lexicons,

taste

for

or-

for

classes

;

words of the English tongue can never be ranged in spelling classes. The Phonetic (?) Spelling is on natural principles it has arbitrary forms of letters, and comably, the

—

sounds. — may — surely prevail time prevail should. — For many hundred years best there was nothing A perfect user of words uses things — power and beauty from him they exude — miracles from hands — miracles from sunshine, woman, mouth — whirled chainpoured copiously — binations of letters, for in

all

will

if it

like settled spelling.

his

lilies,

clouds,

things,

shot rocks, defiance, compulsion, houses, iron, locomotives, the oak, the pine, the keen eye,

the hairy breast, the

Texan

ranger, the Bos-

ton truckman, the woman that arouses a man, the man that arouses a woman. Tavern words, such as have reference to drinking, or the compliments of those

— the

who

names of some three hundred different American tavern-drinks in one part drink

or another of These States.

AN AMERICAN PRIMER Words of

degrees of dislike, from just

all

a tinge, onward or deepward. Words of approval, admiration, friendship.

This

to be said

among

the young

men

of These States, that with a wonderful tenacity of friendship, and passionate fond-

and always a manly they yet have readiness to remarkably few words of names for the They seem to be words friendly sentiments. that do not thrive here among the muscular classes, where the real quality of friendship ness for their friends,

make

friends,

—

Also, they are is always freely to be found. words which the muscular classes, the young men of these states, rarely use, and have they never give words to an aversion for their most ardent friendships. Words of politics are numerous in these The states, and many of them peculiar. western states have terms of their own: the political the President's message meeting the committees the resolu;

—

— —

—

tions:

new

vegetables

— new

trees

— new

animals. If success and breed follow the camels

dromedaries, that are

now

and

just introduced

into Texas, to be used for travel and traffic

over the vast wilds between the lower Mis15

AN AMERICAN PRIMER and the Pacific, a number of new words will also have to be tried after them. The appetite of the people of These States, in popular speeches and writings, is for unsissippi

hemmed

latitude, coarseness, directness, live

words of opprobrium, reunderstand because I have

epithets, expletives, sistance.

— This

the taste myself as large as largely as any one.

— I have pleasure

sions, of traitor,

doughface, trickster, thief,

in the use,

coward,

liar,

mean

fit

occa-

shyster, skulk,

curse, backslider,

impotent, lickspittle.

The

great writers are often select of their

audiences.

— The

greatest writers only are

well-pleased and at their ease

learned

among the un-

— are received by common men and

women familiarly, do not hold out obscure, but come welcome to table, bed, leisure, by day and night. perfect writer would make words sing, dance, kiss, do the male and female act, bear children, weep, bleed, rage, stab, steal, fire cannon, steer ships, sack cities, charge with cavalry or infantry, or do any thing, that man or woman or the natural powers can do.

Latent, in a great user of words, must actually be stars,

all

God,

passions, crimes, trades, animals,

sex, the past, might, space, metals,

AN AMERICAN PRIMER — because these are the words, and the like

and he who

not these, plays with a foreign tongue, turning helplessly to dictionaries and authorities. How can I tell you ? I put is

—

many

things on record that

you

will

not un-

— perhaps not in a year — but they must be (are to be) understood. —

derstand at

The

first

earth, I see, writes with prodigal clear

hands all summer, forever, and all winter also, content, and certain to be understood in time as, doubtless, only the greatest user of words himself fully enjoys and understands

—

himself.

Words

Names

of Places are strong,

AmeriThe Names of These

copious, unruly, in the repertoire for

can pens and tongues. States the names of Countries, Cities, Rivers, Mountains, Villages, Neighborhoods

—

— poured

from

each of the languages that graft the English language plentifully

—

named from some natural peculiarity of water or earth, or some event that happened or

there

— often named, from death, from some

animal, from that the

some of those subtle analogies

common

people are so quick to per-

— The names in the of the Post These States are What name a has — What name a

ceive.

list

Offices of

studies.

city

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER wood, prairie, has All aboriginal is no indifferent matter. names sound good. I was asking for something savage and luxuriant, and behold here are the aboriginal names. I see how they are being preserved. They are honest words they give the true length, breadth, depth. the word winds They all fit. Mississippi it rolls a stream three thousand with chutes Ohio, Connecticut, Ottawa, miles long. Monongahela, all fit. One word can pour Names are magic. To-day I will such a flood through the soul. mention Christ's before all other names. What Grand words of names are still left. is it that flows through me at the sight of the State, river, sea, mountain,

—

word

Socrates, or Cincinnatus, or Alfred of

the olden time

— or

at the sight of the

word

Columbus, or Shakespeare, or Rousseau, or Mirabeau or at the sight of the word Wash-

—

ington, or Jefferson, or

Out

Emerson ?

of Christ are divine words

this savior.

Some words

— out

are fresh-smelling,

blooming without all words that have arisen from the life and death of Christ, the divine son, who went about speaking perfect words, no patois whose life was

lilies,

failure.

roses, to the soul,

— The

name

of Christ

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER — the touch of whose hands and was miracles — who was crucified — feet

perfect,

his flesh

laid in a shroud, in the grave.^

Words

Names

of Persons, thus

far, still

return the old continents and races — return the past three thousand years — perhaps twenty thousand — return the Hebrew Bible,

Greece,

Rome, France, the Goths, the

Scandinavia, Germany, England.

Celts,

Still

ques-

come What flanges are practicable for names of persons that mean These States ? What is there in the best aboriginal names ? tions

What

—

there in strong words of qualities,

— a name given to the cleanest and most beautiful body, or to the offspring there that conof the same — What and to form to the genius of These — What escape with perfect the bodily, mental,

will

States,

facts

all

free-

dom, without

from the shoals of Or on what ? popular and fluent, could

affectation,

Johns, Peters, Davids, Marys

happy principle, other words be prefixed or 1

Whitman

here inserts a

self-query, to this effect

suffixed to these,

memorandum, a

sort of

A few characteristic words

— words give us to — of poets — Hindoo — Homer — Shakespeare — Pythagoras, Plato, ZoroMenu, Improve — H. T. see

aster,

(list

Socrates, Sesostris,

this;^

Christ).

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER make them show who they

are, what land what government, which of The States, what genius, mark, blood, times, have coined them with strong-cut

they were born

coinage

The

in,

subtle

charm of the

beautiful pronun-

ciation is not in dictionaries,

grammars, marks

of accent, formulas of a language, or in any

laws or

rules.

The charm

pronunciation of

all

of the beautiful

words, of

all

in perfect flexible vocal organs,

veloped harmonious soul.

from

these,

tongues,

and

in a de-

— All words, spoken

have deeper sweeter sounds, new

meanings, impossible on any less terms. Such meanings, such sounds, continually wait

— word that — perhaps slumbering through

in every

exists

in these

words

years, closed

from all tympans of temples, lips,

brains, until

that comes which has the quality patiently

waiting in the words.

The blank

left

words wanted, but unsupplied, has sometimes an unnamably putrid cadaverous meaning. It talks louder than tongues. What a stinging taste is left in that literature and conversation where have not yet been served up by resistless consent, words to be freely used in books, rooms, at table, any where, to specifically mean the act male and female.

AN AMERICAN PRIMER Likely there are other words wanted. — Of words wanted, the matter is summed up in When the time comes for them to represent any thing or any state of things, the words will surely follow. The lack of any this

words, I say again, istence of words. realities, clearly

as historical as the ex-

As for me,

hundred me, that words

I feel a

determined in

are not yet formed to represent.

me — also women,

Men

our counterparts, perbe more and more numerous perhaps swiftly, in shoals then the words will also follow, in shoals. It is the glory and superb rose-hue of the English language, any where, that it favors growth as the skin does that it can soon become, wherever that is needed, the tough skin of a superior man or woman. fectly equal

—

will gradually get to

—

;

—

The stain,

art of the use of words would be a a smutch, but for the stamina of things.

For

manners, poems, orations, music, what is not said is just as important as what is said, and holds just as much meaning. Fond of men, as a living woman is fond of women, as a living

friendship, authorship,

—

man

—

is.

I like limber, lasting, fierce words.

them

applied to myself 21

—

I like

— and I like them in

AN AMERICAN PRIMER newspapers, debates, congress. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Do courts,

you suppose the liberties and the brawn of These States have to do only with delicate lady- words

Bad

with gloved gentleman- words

Presidents, bad judges, bad clients,

bad owners of slaves, and the long ranks of Northern political suckers (robbers, traitors, editors,

suborned),

monopolists,

infidels,

castrated

impotent persons, shaved persons, supplejacks, ecclesiastics, men not fond of women, women not fond of men, cry down the use of strong, cutting, beautiful, rude words. To the manly instincts of the People they will forever be welcome. In words of names, the mouth and ear of

persons,

the people show antipathy to handles.

They

love short

viated to their lips

political tickets for

Expletives, words

misters,

names abbre-

Tom, Bill, Jack.

are to enter into literature, for

titles,

first

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; These

and be voted

the great

naming the

offices.

act male

and

female, curious words and phrases of assent or inquiry, nicknames either to persons or

customs.

(Many

actions,

many

kinds of

and many of the fashions of dress have names among two thirds of the people, that would never be understood among the remaining third, and never appear in print.) character,

— AN AMERICAN PRIMER Factories, mills,

and

all the processes

hundreds of different manufacturers grow thousands of words. Cotton, woollen, and silk goods hemp, rope, carpets, paper-

—

hangings, paints, roofing preparations, hard-

ware, furniture, paper mills, the printing offices

with their wonderful improvements,

engraving, daguerreotyping.

This

the age of the metal Iron.

with all that

Iron,

does, or that belongs to iron,

or flanges from

it,

results in

words

from the

mines they have been drawn, as the ore has Following the universal laws been drawn. of words, these are welded together in hardy They are ponderous, forms and characters. strong, definite, not indebted to the antique they are iron words, wrought and cast.

—

I see them all good, faithful, massive, permanent words. I love well these iron words

of 1856.

— Coal has

similate very

its

much with

words

also,

that as-

those of iron.

Gold of course has always its words. The mint, the American coinage, the dollar piece,

the

dollar piece

—

fifty

dollar or

one hundred

California, the metallic basis

of banking, chemical tests of gold

—

all

these

have their words: Canada words, Yankee words, Mannahatta words, Virginia words.

AN AMERICAN PRIMER Alabama words, Texas words, Mexican and Nicaraguan words California words, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana words. Florida and

;

The

mechanics have different however, under a few great

different

words —

all,

over-arching laws.

— These

are carpenter's

words, mason's words, blacksmith's words,

shoemaker's words,

tailor's

words, hatter's

words, weaver's words, painter's words.

The Farmer's words are immense.

— They

are mostly old, partake of ripeness, home,

the gromid

— have

and milk.

Farm words

are added to, now,

by a new

class of words,

from the introduc-

nutriment, like wheat

tion of chemistry into farming, and from

the introduction of numerous machines into

the

bam and

The

field.

nigger dialect furnishes hundreds of

outr^ words,

common

many

them adopted

into the

speech of the mass of the people.

Curiously, these words

—

show the old Eng-

wide open pronunciations, massah for master as yallah for yellow and for rounding off all the corners of words.

lish instinct for

—

The nigger dialect has hints of the future theory of the modification of all the words of the English language, for musical purposes, for a native

grand opera in America, 24

AN AMERICAN PRIMER leaving the words just as they are for writing and speaking, but the same words so modified as to answer perfectly for musical purposes, on grand and simple principles.

Then we should have two male and female

—

sets of words,

they should be, in these states, both equally understood by the people, giving a fit much-needed medium to that passion for music, which is deeper and purer in America than in any other The music of America land in the world. is to adopt the Italian method, and expand as

—

to vaster, simpler, far superber effects. is

not

—

comprecomprehended by

to be satisfied

till

hends the people and is them. Sea words, coast words, sloop words, sailor's and boatman's words, words of ships, One fourth of are numerous in America. love the people of these states are aquatic the water, love to be near it, smell it, sail

—

on it, swim in it, fish, clam, trade to and fro upon it. To be much on the water, or in constant sight of

the passions.

it,

affects words, the voice,

— Around the markets, among

the fish-smacks, along the wharves, you hear

a thousand words, never yet printed in the repertoire of

any lexicon 25

— words,

strong

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER words solid as logs, and more beauty to me than any of the antique.

Words Words Words Words Words Words Words

of the

Laws

of the Earth,

of the Stars, and about them,

of the

Sun and Moon,

of Geology, History, Geography, of Ancient Races, of the Medieval Races,

of the progress of Religion, Law,

Art, Government,

Words

of the surface of the Earth, grass,

rocks, trees, flowers, grains

and the

Words

of like climates.

Words

of the Air and Heavens,

Words

of the Birds of the

air,

like,

and of

in-

sects.

Words Words of

of Animals, of

Men

different

and

Women — the hundreds

nations,

tribes,

colors,

and

other distinctions,

Words of the Sea, Words of Modern Leading Ideas, Words of Modern Inventions, Discoveries, engrossing Themes, Pursuits,

Words

of These States

— the Year

Wash-

ington, the Primal Compact, the Second

Compact

(namely 26

the

Constitution)

AN AMERICAN PRIMER farms, wild

trades,

lands,

iron,

steam,

and so forth, Words of the Body, Senses, Limbs, Surface, slavery, elections, California,

Interior,

Words

of dishes to eat, or of naturally pro-

duced things to

Words Words Words Words

eat,

of clothes, of implements.

of furniture. of

all

kinds of Building and Con-

structing,

Words Words Words Words

Human of Human of

Physiology,

Phrenology,

of Music, of Feebleness,

Nausea,

Ennui, Repugnance, and the

Sickness, like.

In most instances a characteristic word once used in a poem, speech, or what not, is then exhausted he who thinks he is going to produce effects by freely using strong ;

words,

name as a

ignorant of words.

One

single

belongs to one single place only

key-word of a book

may

—

be best used

only once in the book.

— A true composition

in words, returns the

human

female tion,

— that

and

shall

body, male or

the most perfect composi-

be best-beloved by 27

men and

AN AMERICAN PRIMER women, and

shall last the longest, which no part of the body, and repeats no part of the body. To make a perfect composition in words is more than to make the

slights

—

best building or machine, or the best statue,

or picture.

—

It shall be the glory of the

greatest masters to

make

perfect composi-

tions in words.

—

wonderful delineations of character as the picturesque of men, women, history these plays of Shakespeare and the rest are grand our obligations to them are incalculable. Other facts remain to be contheir foreignness to us in much of sidered the sentiment under which their spirit they were written, that caste is not to be questioned that the nobleman is of one blood and the Costumes are retrospective they rise out of the substrata of education, equality, nation ignorance, caste and the like. that imports its costumes imports deformity. Shall one man be afraid, or one woman

—

— —

—

afraid, to dress in

a beautiful, decorous,

natural, wholesome, inexpensive manner, be-

cause

many

thousands dress in the reverse

manner? There is this, also, about costumes many save themselves from being

—

9»

AN AMERICAN PRIMER exiled,

and keep each other

by being

in countenance,

alike foolish, dapper, extravagant.

I see that the

day

America vrhen there

come very soon

will

not be a

flat level

of costumes.

Probably there

this truth to

the Anglo-Saxon breed use

— that

be said about in real vocal

has less of the words of the various

phases of friendship and love than any other race,

and more friendship and

literature, so full of love, is

love.

The

begotten of the

old Celtic metrical romances, and of the ex-

who sang and narand thence in England and of Italian extravaganzas and all that sighing, vowing, kissing, dying, that was in songs in European literature in the sixteenth century. Still, it seems as if this love-sickness engrafted on our literature were only a fair response and enjoyment that people nour-

travagant lays of those rated, in France,

—

ish themselves with, after repressing their

— The Americans, the English, probably make love worse than any other — Voices follow character, and nothing words.

race. is

better than a superb vocalism.

this land

I think covered with the weeds and chaff

of literature. California

sown thick with the names 589

AN AMERICAN PRIMER and big

Chase them away and substitute aboriginal names. What

all

the fitness

the

little

aboriginal

with

saints.

— What the strange charm of names — Monongahela — it rolls

venison

richness

upon the

palate.

Among names

to be revolutionized: that " of the city of Baltimore."

Never will I allude to the EngHsh Language or tongue without exultation. This the tongue that spurns laws, as the greatest tongue must. It is the most capacious vital is

tongue of

power

—

all

full

—

full

of ease, definiteness and

of sustenance.

— An enormous

treasure-house, or range of treasure houses, arsenals, granary,

chock

full

with so

many

contributions from the north and from the south, from Scandinavia, from Greece

Rome — from

— that

and

Spaniards, Italians and the

its own sturdy home-dated Angles-bred words have long been outnumbered by the foreigners whom they lead

French,

—

which

good enough, and indeed must owes immeasurable respect and love to the past, and to many ances-

be.

is all

— America

tries, for

many inheritances

— but of

all

that

America has received from the past, from the mothers and fathers of laws, arts, letters, &c.,

far the greatest inheritance is the

AN AMERICAN PRIMER English Language — so long in growing — so fitted.

All the greatness of any land, at any time,

—

names. Would I recall some particular country or age ? the most ancient ? the greatest ? I recall a few names a mountain, or sierra of mountains a

lies

folded in

its

— — some

— — sea or bay — a mighty some deed of persons, friends or enemies, — some event, perhaps a great war, perhaps a greater peace — some time-marking and —

river

city

place-marking philosoph, divine person, king, bard, goddess, captain, discoverer, or the Hke.

— Thus

does history, in

all

things,

hang

around a few names. — Thus does human hang around names. — All men exbut no man ciphers perience What the curious rapport of names — I have been informed that there are people who say not important about names — one word good another, the designation be understood. — say that nothing more important than names. — imall

interest

it,

out.

it is is

Is art

portant?

Are forms?

Great clusters of

nomenclature in a land (needed in American nomenclature) include appropriate names for the Months (those

myths)

;

now

appropriate

used perpetuate old

names 31

for the

Days of

— AN AMERICAN PRIMER the

Week

(those

now

used perpetuate Teu-

and Greek divinities) appropriate names for Persons American men, women, and children appropriate names for Amertonic

—

;

ican places,

cities,

rivers,

counties, &c.

The word county itself should be changed. Numbering the streets, as a general thing, with a few

irresistible

exceptions,

very-

country can have its own poems without it have its own names. The name of Niagara should be substituted for the St. Lawrence. Among the places that stand in need of fresh appropriate names are the great cities of St. Louis, New Orleans, St. Paul's. The whole theory and practice of the naming of College societies must be remade good.

—

on superior American principles. The old theory and practice of classical education is to give way, and a new race of teachers is to appear. I say we have here, now, a greater age to celebrate, greater ideas to em-

—

body, than anything ever in Greece or

— or

Rome

in the names of Jupiters, Jehovahs, ApoUos and their myths. The great proper names used in America must commemorate

things belonging

to America and dating

— Because, what

—

America for ? To commemorate the old myths and the

thence.

AN AMERICAN PRIMER gods — To repeat the Mediterranean here Or the uses and growths of Europe here — No — (Na-o-o) but to destroy those from ?

all

;

the purposes of the earth, and to erect a

new

earth in their place.

folded in names, I have heard it said that when the spirit arises that does not brook submission and imitation, it will That throw off the ultramarine names. Spirit already walks the streets of the cities

All

lies

—

of These States it.

—

I say

—

and

America, too,

others, illustrate

shall

commem-

shall stand rooted in the ground and shall flow in the water in names in names and be diffused in time, in days, in

orated

—

months, in their names. Now the days signify extinct gods and goddesses the months half-unknown rites and emperors and chronology with the rest is all foreign all exiles and insults here. to America But it is no small thing no quick growth not a matter of rubbing out one word and of writing another. Real names easily. The never come so greatest cities, the greatest politics, the greatest physiology and soul, the greatest orators, poets, and

—

;

—

literati

—

— —

— The best women, the

freest lead-

ing men, the proudest national character

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER such,

hapd.

and the

like, are

indispensable before-

— Then the greatest names — and there are no they are will fol-

low, for

results

greater results in the world.

Names

are the turning point of

be master.

— There

much

who

shall

virtue in

names that a nation which produces

its

own

names, haughtily adheres to them, and subordinates others to them, leads all the rest of I also promulge the nations of the earth. that a nation which has not its own names, but begs them of other nations, has no identity, marches not in front but behind. Names are a test of the esthetic and of spirituality. delicate subtle something an undemonthere is in the right name

—

—A

strable soul.

—

nourishment that exhilarates the Masses of men, unaware what they

what difference there is But the between one name and another. few fine ears of the world decide for them the masses being also and recognize them always as eligible as any whether they know All that immense volumes, and it or not. more than volumes, can tell, are conveyed in the right name. The right name of a city, state, town, man, or woman, is a perpetual feast to the esthetic and moral nature. like, lazily inquire

—

AN AMERICAN PRIMER a

Names of Newspapers. What has such name as The Mgis, The Mercury, The

Herald, to do in America Californian,'Texan,

New Mexican, and Ari-

zonian names have the sense of the ecstatic

monk, the

cloister,

the idea of miracles, and

of devotees canonized after death.

— They

are the results of the early missionaries and

the element of piety in the old Spanish character.

— They have, in the same connec-

of melancholy and of a curious freedom from roughness and money-making. tion, a tinge

Such names stand strangely in California. do such names know of democracy, of the hunt for the gold leads and the nugget or of the rehgion that is scorn and

What

—

negation

American

writers

are to

show

—

far

freedom in the use of words. Ten thousand native idiomatic words are growing, or are to-day already grown, out of which vast numbers could be used by American writers, with meaning and eifect words that would be welcomed by the nation, being of the national blood words that would give that taste of identity and locality which is so

—

dear in literature. 35

M99780

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

)