Walt Whitman - The Complete Prose Works of Walt Whitman, Volume VI, 1902

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THIS EDITION

IS

ISSUED

UNDER ARRANGEMENT WITH

MESSRS. SMALL, MAYNARD,

&

CO.,

OF BOSTON

THE PUBLISHERS OF THE AUTHORIZED EDITIONS OF

THE WRITINGS OF WALT WHITMAN

PAUMANOK

EDITION

This Edition of the Complete Works of Walt

Whitman

printed on Ruisdael hand^^made

is

paper, and limited

which

to

Three Hundred

Sets,

of

this is

Number. ^LS1.J£.

\

\j\

dcCtutOA^^CayQ-trHii

TYiE

COMPLETE WRITINGS or

WALT

VHITMA Issued under the editorial super-

of his Literary Execu-

vision tors,

Richard

Maurice Bucke, Thomas B.Harned,and Horace L. Traubel

With

additional

bibliographical

and

critical

ma-

prepared by Oscar Lovell Triggs, Ph.D. terial

m

G.P.PUTNAM'3 59NS NEWY<?RK ^ LONDON THE KMCK£RB9CKEIl PRESS

^.

THE COMPLETE PROSE WORKS OF

WALT WHITMAN

VOLUME

G. P.

VI

PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON ITbe •Rnicfterbocfter

1902

press

s

Copyright, 190a

By

THOMAS

B.

HARNED

and

HORACE

SURVIVING LITERARY EXECUTORS OF

L.

Entered at Stationers' Hall

XSbc ftnidterbocfter

TRAUBEL

WALT WHITMAN

pvcwt View

Kotft

NOTES AND FRAGMENTS LEFT BY WALT WHITMAN

AND NOW EDITED BY

DR. RICHARD BUCKE ONB OF HIS LITERARY BXBCUTOKS

PARTS

««

Waift from the deep

I-III

cast high

and dry

"

Uaves of Grass.

[HI]

S73537

v>"

^^,

'

I •

•

•

*-•

•

•

"»

•

•

f'^

'*A Trail of Drift and Debris." Leaves of Grass.

w

Contents

PAGB

Parti.— NOTES

TION

Part

ON THE MEANING AND

OfLEASES OF GRASS''

IL— MEMORANDA FROM BOOKS

INTEN-

...

3

AND FROM

OWN

REFLECTIONS— INDICATING THE POETS READING AND THOUGHT PREPARATOR Y TO WRITING LEASES OF GRASS " .47 HIS

''

Part

III— SHORTER NOTES,

BRIEF SENTENCES, TiyE EXPRESSIONS,

ISOLATED WORDS,

MEMORANDA, SUGGESNAMES AND DATES .

[vU]

207

miustrations IValt Whitman, 1872 From a photograph by

IValt

.

.

.

Frontispiece

Pearsall, Brooklyn, N, Y.

Whitman, 1888

36

The Seventieth Year,

Walt Whitman on J., July,

the

Wharf at Camden,

N,

1890

114

Walt Whitman From

160 Jerome, Hubbard, Esq.

the bas-relief by Saint

sion of Elbert

H

By permis-

fiMtor'0 preface to tbe je&ltlon of

the

In

of

*'

first

edition of this

First Drafts

mostly very

work

Part

I.

1902

consisted

and Rejected Lines and Passages,

fragmentary,

from

Leaves of Grass.

Largely antecedent to the 1855 edition."

In

this

Whitman's Works these passages have been used by Prof. Triggs in his Variorum Readings edition of

or Rejected Lines

and Passages

in

Volume

III.

of

Leaves of Grass.

The Part

remember

that,

of the original edition being thus used else-

I.

where

reader will please therefore

Part

II.,

becomes

Part

I.,

Part

III.

Part

II.,

and

so on throughout.

The

autographical matter mentioned in the orig-

inal preface

has been used

in

the Life prefixed to this

edition.

R. M. B. Asylum, London, Ontario, 190a.

[xi]

le&ltor'a

preface to tbe flrat

CMtlom

As one of Walt Whitman's literary executors there came to me under his will: (i) Letters from himself to his mother written from Washington in war-time (1862-5) and which have lately been published by Small, Maynard & Co. under the title of The Wound Dresser. (2) Many hundred letters written by members of the Whitman family to one another, as letters from Mrs. Whitman to W. W., Mrs. Heyde,

etc., letters

from George,

Jeff,

Mary, Hannah,

Mrs. Whitman, and so on. All these letters had been preserved by Mrs. Whitman and upon her death in 1873 passed to Walt Whitman, who, a very sick man at the time and for long afterwards, simply let them lie in old boxes and bundles until, at his etc., to

death, they passed to the present editor.

(3)

Quite

number of books from Whitman's library, many of them annotated by the poet. (4) A great mass of MS., the bulk of which is printed in this volume— good deal of the rest is of an autobiographical chara

acter

and

Whitman

is

reserved for a

new

edition of

my Walt

or to be used in publications supplemental [xiii]

jÂŁ&itor'0

to that volume.

(5)

preface

The magazine

paper cuttings enumerated

Each of the other two

articles

in Part VI.

and news-

of this volume.

literary executors

took under

same amount of material as myself, so it will be seen that these MS. remains were quite extensive, and judging by the careless, haphazard manner of their preservation it would seem certain that more must have been lost than were left the poet's will the

in existence at

the time of the poet's death.

and considerations (when we join to them others equally well known and obvious, as that he knew the Bible, Shakespeare, and Homer almost

These

by

facts

heart) bring out pretty clearly the extraordinary

industry of this man,

who

has generally been con-

sidered as easy-going, careless,

who must have

idle,

even

**

a loafer,"

though almost in secret, one of the most indefatigable workers who ever lived even in America. For it must be remembered that from childhood he not only had to make his own living by actual but

been

in fact,

daily

work ('tending office,

ing,

editing newspapers, carpentering, house-build-

ing) but

all

his

life,

typesetting, school-teach-

after early

the maintenance of other

And

besides

all this,

youth, he assisted in

members

of the family.

consider the time taken up

—

by

numerous friendships his frequent trips into the country, his sails on the bay with pilots, fishermen and others, the many hours spent on the ferry boats his

[xiv]

ÂŁMtor'0 preface and omnibuses, and later his work in the hospitals. But (though it often seems almost or quite miraculous) Walt Whitman always had time and always

had money

for all his purposes.

The notes

printed in this

scrapbooks and

in

bundles.

volume came to me in They are all on loose

sheets and small pieces of paper of endless sizes, shapes, shades and qualities, (some even written on

Sometimes they a scrapbook but more often stuck in

the back of scraps of wall-paper! are pasted in

).

loose, or (as said) tied in bundles.

In

both the scrap-

books and bundles the MS. notes are mixed with the magazine articles and the newspaper cuttings.

These notes, cuttings

down

etc.

extend from the

to the seventies or eighties

largely to the

forties

— they belong very

fifties.

Every word printed

in

the body of this book (ex-

cept in the sixth part, which contains the

list

of

mag-

azine articles and newspaper cuttings, and excepting

and footnotes) is before handwriting of Walt Whitman. When

also headings

me a

in

the

passage

has been quoted by him the quotation marks are preserved.

Any words

by me

are

given

footnotes and in a smaller type so that

my

in

of explanation added

words can never be confounded with Whitman's. As there are some to-day so it seems likely that the future there will be

Walt Whitman

many

for

whom

in

the study of

will possess a singular fascination. [XV]

jeMtor'0 preface

All

know

the poetry and

in print,

but will want,

such will desire not only to

prose that he

left

behind him

know whence and how this came. And above all they will desire to know as much as possible of the man himself, of his spiritual genesis and of his mental evolution. To such the present even more, to

record of the early ideas and impulses out of which his

mature works grew, as giving an insight which

nothing else could

and

will

seem

afford, will

at least as

works themselves.

To

be warmly welcomed

important as the finished

receive this information with

— not only

Whitman's own hand but from documents absolutey private and seems to never intended for any eye but his own me a piece of extraordinary good fortune. It is made as good as certain by these notes that Whitman's original thought was to publish his ideas in the form of lectures. believe he had formed this intention some years before such a book as Leaves of Grass was planned or even thought of. Nor did he absolute authenticity

in

—

1

drop the notion of lecturing as an integral part of his

scheme of self presentation Leaves, but held to is

even

it

and

It

apparent impossibility of ever

really publishing his verse in '55

he began to write the

certainly until after the war.

likely that the

'56 (for

after

even

after this

was

printed

the copies of these early editions

could neither be sold nor given away) caused him more

than ever to turn his thoughts to the lecture platform.

leMtor'e preface

Be

this as

it

may

the present volume

Whitman

clusively that

shows con-

planned, and at least partly

wrote, lectures before he began to write the Leaves,

and that he continued to plan and to work at almost

at least at intervals,

Whitman,

like

all

lectures,

the rest of his

Bacon, took

''all

life.

knowledge

for

though he would perhaps attach a slightly different meaning to that expression. In any case he aimed to know as far as possible all there was

his province,''

to be learned. to observe

how

It is

both interesting and instructive

he sought to carry out his scheme

One

means he employed, a means that, in part, gave material for this volume and is therefore mentioned here, was as follows: He took a work on universal geography divided it into pieces of some fifty pages each; between these pieces he distributed numerous extra maps, a large quantity of self-education.

of the

—

of blank paper (about equal

in

quantity to that printed

upon) and every dozen or so leaves a number of stub leaves

— then had the whole bound into a

big, thick

volume, which was so made as to open very

freely.

This volume he studied and kept continually adding to.

To

the stubs and on the blank leaves he pasted

newspaper and magazine pieces proper place,

— those relating

— each

one

in

its

to Italy, Greece, Asia

would be pasted in so as to fill out and complete the text. Then when he met a man who had travelled he got from him all he could, wrote out Minor,

etc.,

[xvii]

£Mtor'0 preface an abstract of the book.

In

it

and placed that in its proper place in this way he constructed a volume

which was a storehouse of information (geographical, ethnological, social, religious, industrial, etc.) dealing

with

all

parts of the

world and the inhabitants of

each part.

Other of his scrap books were good-sized volumes of blank paper intermixed with stub leaves

— into

— some loose,

some pinned, and others pasted in newspaper cuttings and magazine articles, MS. notes being added either written on the these he collected

—

margin of magazine

articles,

on the leaves of the

scrapbook or on loose paper which was either pinned or pasted

in,

or in

many

instances simply placed be-

tween the leaves of the book. R. M. B.

[xviii]

part f laotes on tbe ObcanirxQ anb Intention ot **%cavc3 ot

Grass **

TOL. IX.—X,

M

part H •Rotes on tbc /©eanlna anb Intention ot

**

Xeaves of

(Brass" I

My poems when

complete should be a unity,

the same sense that the earth

is,

body, (senses, soul, head, trunk,

in

or that the humaiK'' feet,

blood, viscera,

man-root, eyes, hair,) or that a perfect musical composition

is.

Great constituent elements of viz.:

Materialism

Esthetic

beautify

— Spirituality — The

what is and make is

Remember

my poetry— Two,

to be the

medium

Intellect,

the

of these and to

serviceable there.

in scientific

and

similar allusions that

the theories of Geology, History, Language, &c., &c., are continually changing.

Be

careful to put in only

centuries hence.

what must be appropriate

"'"*'''nDeamn9 an& IFntentlon of '*Xeave0 of (Svaee

3 I

say that

if

once the conventional distinctions

were dispelled from our eyes much.

we

should see just as

them by arguing against them, sweep them away by advancing to a new phase of development where they fail of themselves. I

do not expect to

dispel

I

4

What

poet be then ?

shall the great

Shall he be

a timid apologetic person, deprecating himself, guard-

ing off the effects ?

.

.

.

5

Poem

of adherence to the

''good old cause" lands, at

all

promulges

is

that in

times, under

all

liberty, justice,

good old cause

all its

— the

diversities, in all

circumstances,

— which

the cause of the people as

against infidels and tyrants.

Poem

of the People

— represent

the People, so

copious, so simple, so fierce, so frivolous.

.

.

.

6

Write a new burial service.

A book of new things.

7

Make no

quotations and no reference to any other

writers. [4]

mb

ilDeanlnfl

Intention of **Xeave0 of (Bra^e''

Lumber the writing with nothing lightly as a bird flies in the air

—

—

let it

or a fish

go as

swims

in

the sea.

Be

careful [not] to

temper down too much.

.

.

.

8 All

through writings preserve the equilibrium of

the truth that the material world, and

and superb as the

are as grand

spiritual

its

all

laws,

world and

all

Most writers have disclaimed the physical world and they have not over-estimated the other, or its

laws.

soul, but shall

my

have under-estimated the corporeal.

eye separate the beauty of the blossoming

buckwheat matter as

I

see

field

How

? it

How

in

from the stalks and heads of tangible shall

I

the flesh ?

know what I

the

life is

will not praise

except

one without

the other or any more than the other.

Do

not argue at

strate things.

compose proofs to demonnothing which it will not do to

all

State

state as apparent to

all

or

eyes.

9 Intersperse here

women — sometimes

and there pictures of just a

word

or

two

athletic

— some-

times an elaborated description. 10 Tell the

American people [5]

their faults

—the depart-

flDeanlng anb llntention of

leaver of ©rae^''

where they are most liable speak to them with unsparing

ments of

their character

to break

down

—

*'

tongue—carefully systematize beforehand their faults. II

some poem to the effect of denouncing and threatening whoever translates my poems into any other tongue without translating Put

in a

passage

every line and doing

in

without increase or dimi-

it all

nution. 12

— To unite

Leading characteristics ties, States,

lawyers, disputants,

(universology)

— To be

one

all

sects, par-

young men, women

whom

all

look toward

with attention, respect, love.

13 It

seems to

faithful to

me

to avoid

all

poetical similes

the perfect likelihoods of nature

— to be

— healthy,

exact, simple, disclaiming ornaments.

M The Great Construction

of the

New Bible.

be diverted from the principal object

work

— the three

hundred and

to be ready in 1859 (June

'57).

[6]

—

Not to the main life

sixty-five.

—

It

ought

flDcaning an^ Intention of ''Xeavea of ©raaa''

15

Boldness

encourage alone.

my

— Nonchalant ease and

me

— So

it

To

any one continually to strike out seems good to me This is my way, or

—

my

pleasure,

indifference.

choice,

my

costume, friendship,

amour, or what not.* 16

Make

the IVorks

arguments

at

all.

natural works.

idioms,

Be

full

— Do

not go into criticisms or

Make

full-blooded,

rich,

flush,

Insert natural things, indestructibles,

characteristics,

of strong sensual

rivers,

states,

persons, &c.

germs* 17

Friday, April 24,

True vista

before

'57.

— The strong thought-impression

or conviction that the straight, broad, open, well-

marked true vista before, or course of public teacher, *' wander speaker," by powerful words, orations, uttered with copiousness and decision, with all the

—

aid of art, also the natural flowing vocal luxuriance

That the mightiest rule over America could be thus as for instance, on occasion, at Wash-

of oratory.

—

ington to be, launching from public room, at the

opening of the session of Congress Written about 1856.

[7]

— perhaps launch-

ffteanins anb llntention of ''Xeave0 of (5ra60''

ing at the President, leading persons, Congressmen, or Judges

of the Supreme Court.

some

hither or thither, as

demand

That to dart

great emergency might

— the greatest champion America ever could

know, yet holding no ofifice or emolument whatever,— but first in the esteem of men and women. Not to direct eyes or thoughts to any of the usual avenues, as of

official

appointment, or to get such

anyway. To put all those aside for good. But always to keep up living interest in public questions and always to hold the ear of the people.

—

i8

— Hasting, urging, resistless,— no flagging thoughts" or meditations — not even the — — good, not from the direct but indirect meanings — to be perceived with the same perception that enjoys music, flowers and the beauty of men and women — and luxuriant. Poems

in

florid

'*

spiritual

free

19

— Clear, luminous,— of — acknowledging the democracy, of physiology — the people must have an character, even the Lessons

alive,

full

facts,

full

alert

in

The enclosing theory of Lessons " to permeate All The States, answering for all (no foreign imported models), full of hints, laws and reading of them.

[8]

anb Intention of ''Xeavee of

flDeanlnfl

informations, to

and Character

in

make

a superb American Intellect

any or

Command and

Strength,

(Braea''

all

The

Also the

States.

Luxuriance of Oratory.*

20

none dispense with it, but a man may [be] of great excellence and effect with very little of it. Washington had but little.

Book

learning

Andrew Jackson stands

the

in

is

good,

also.

way

let

Fulton also.

Frequently

it

of real manliness and power.

Powerful persons and the

first

inventors and poets of

the earth never come from the depths of the schools

— never.

man who

no chemist, nor yet he nor antiquary, nor mathematician There

is

a

is

—

linguist,

takes very easily the perfection of these sciences, or of the belle lettres and eats of the tion if

is

low among the

those

this

who

day

in

best

glories of

embody

it

fruit

all.

humanity.

were

the public assembly

of

it

ErudiI

think

collected together

would be grand.

But powerful unlearned persons are also grand.

book knowledge is important as helping one's personal qualities, and the use and power of a man. Let a man learn to run, leap, swim, wrestle, fight, to take good aim, to manage horses, to speak readily and clearly and without mannerism, to feel But

all

* 1856 or 1857. [9]

riDeanlnfl

anb llntention of ''Xeave6 of

home among common own in terrible positions. at

(Braee**

people and able to hold his

With these

.

.

.

21

poems

Poet! beware lest your

made

in

the

comes from the study of pictures of things and not from the spirit that comes from the contact that

spirit

—

are

with

real

things themselves.

22

Behind

and and

— Eluding — Mocking

all

the text-books

and proofs and diagrams

professor's expositions

show, stand or lie millions of all the most beautiful and common facts. We are so proud practical

of our learning! fluids

to

and

map

As

call certain

out stars and

were anything to analyze parts oxygen or hydrogen, or

if it

call

.

.

.

23

Nature tires.

is

rude at

first

Most works of

Chef d'CEuvres never

— but

art

tire

tire.

once begun never

Only the Great

and never dazzle

at

first.

24

The greatest poems may not be immediately, fully understood by outsiders any more than astronomy or engineering may. The work of the poet is as deep [10]

flDeanlng anb Untention of ''%cavcB of (Braee'*

as the astronomer's or engineer's,

Science proves

far-fetched.

itself.

and

his art

is

— Let poets

also as .

.

.

25

— the idea of the mother with numerous children — great and small, old and young, equal her eyes — Poems

In

— bring

the idea of Mother

in

all,

in

as the identity of America.

America rate

face

(I

to myself have said)

demands

at

any

one modern, native, all-surrounding song with like

hers turned

the present or the past.

to

the future rather

should nourish with joy the

It

pride and completion of

man

mother, our continent,

in

finally

means (where

it

than

in himself.

What

the

reference to humanity,

centres around the prairies,

Missouri, Ohio, the great lakes, and branches

away

toward the Eastern and Western Seas) is Individuality strong and superb, for broadest average use, for

man and woman: and that most should such in its own form express. Of such a Poem had that dream)

let

me

initiate

a

poem

(I

have

the attempt; and

bravas to him or to her who, coming after me, triumphs. 27

do not choose to write a poem on a lady's sparrow, like Catullus or on a parrot, like Ovid No,

I

—

—

flDeamnQ anb Untentlon of ''Xeavee of 6ra00'' nor love-songs like

— nor

Homer

— nor

.

like

.

.

Anacreon

— nor

even

.

.

.

the siege of Jerusalem like Tasso

nor

...

have these themes to do

What

as Shakespeare.

America? or what are

in

they to us except as beautiful studies, reminiscences?

— they are what they are — know they should not have been different — do not say will will furnish anything better — but instead aim at high immortal works — American, the robust, manly character — the perfect woman — the All those are

good

I

I

I

I

large,

illustriousness of sex,

which

I

will celebrate.*

28

Philosophy of Leaves of Grass.

—

or perhaps metaWalt Whitman's philosophy as evinced physics, to give it a more definite name in his poems, and running through them and some-

—

times quite palpable latent, is

and

like

in his verses,

nality

— at

for

far oftener

the unseen roots or sap of trees

not the least of his peculiarities

originalities,

but

Whitman

—

— one must not say

himself disclaims origi-

least in the superficial sense.

His notion

new

only

an accumulation or fruitage or carrying out these

new

explicitly

is

that there

is

nothing actually

occasions and requirements.

He

evidently thinks that behind * Written probably

["]

all

in fifties.

the faculties of

flDeanlng ant) llntention of ''Xeaves of (Bra^a**

the

human

being, as the sight, the other senses

even the emotions and the

intellect

power, the mystical identity, the

and

stands the real

real

I

or

Me

or

You.* 29

Yet there

is

something

certainly

in

Walt Whit-

man's works which has never been ventured before

— something which never could have been ventured now

until

(on the arrival and successful proof of

America) — something which even yet many leading cities refuse to

admit as a legitimate theme

Perhaps the chief and

Poems, with of Prose,

is

final clue to

for verse.

these books of

their parti-varied themes, intertwinings

the determined attempt or resolution to

put Democracy (we would szy American Democracy, but the author himself never ceases to bring in

other people, the British, French, German, &c., and

never loses sight of them or indeed of entire Hu-

manity) [into] an imaginative and poetical statement.

Nay,

it is

certain that this

is

the underlying purpose

and there

is

the books

is

no ''perhaps" about it. The idea of Democracy, that is carried far beyond

Polities, into

the regions of taste, the standards of

Manners and Beauty

^d

even into Philosophy and

Theology. * Probably written as a note to be used by some friend

about Leaves of Grass

— possibly

as part of a notice to

periodical.

(13)

who was

writing

be given by himself to some

meaning anb Intention one

In

way

now at second

of ''Xeave^ of 6va^^"

now

or another,

strongly odorous,

or third or fourth remove,

now a silent

poems of the Hospitals and the Dead in Drum-Taps) this determined resolution or idea pervades the whole of both books, like some background, (as

in

the

indigenous scent, and, to a fine tected in every page

nostril, will

— we might almost say

be de-

in

every

line."^

30

The same thoughts and

July, by the Pond,

themes

— unfulfilled

aspirations, the enthusiasms of

youth, ideal dreams, the mysteries and failures and

broken hopes of of

life,

and then death the

and the impenetrable uncertainty of the

all,

wards—which Wordsworth of Immortality Bryant

in his

Thanatopsis and

in

the

in his pieces,

W.

how

dif-

also treats in Leaves of Grass.

the

ferent

treatment!

hopelessness and

spirit

After-

treats [in] his Intimations

Flood of Years, and Whittier often

W.

common fate

But

of the gloom and

Instead

of wailing and reproach, or

bowed down submission

as to

some grim

destiny,

which is the basis and background of those fine poems. Instead of Life and Nature growing stale instead of Death coming lilft a blight and end-

—

all

.

.

* See 1876

—

it

last

.t note above

— 29 was written on the back of a

refers evidently to the '76 edition, in

f See note to 28.

two volumes.

Written probably July, 1876.

£14]

letter

dated 21st April,

flDeanlng anb Intention of ''TUavce of (Braea"

31

Amid the vast and complicated edifice of human beings many accomplishments and fitments and furnishings—the results of History and civilization, as they have come to us the various conventions,

—

social, ecclesiastical, literary, political

and precious

accretion,

— the

always treated by him [the

Amid

poet] with respect and even reverence. edifice or

resistless

complex mass of

edifices

he

this

builds, as

were, an impregnable and lofty tower, a part of

with the

rest,

and overlooking

all

—the

it

all

citadel of the

primary volitions, the soul, the ever-reserved right of a deathless Individuality

— and these he

occupies

and dwells, and thence makes observations and issues verdicts.

32

Preface to Democratic Vistas, In the following

what I

is

at first reading

book

may

had better say here

at

I

have combined together

appear incongruous— (and

once that he or she

not willing to give the book at least

perusals,

had better leave

it

two

who

or three

untouched altogether).

But the truest analogies and connections are not those of the surface, or of first sight, or visible; they are often like the subterranean streams of far-apart outlets

and

different

names, but identical [IS]

at

bottom.

flReaning

So

my

mb

songs refuse to be described or grouped or

classified in a

only

Untentlon of ''Xeavee of (Braee''

statement and are themselves their

real description

and

classification.

and dominant facts and glories of America are always to be found in the mass or bulk of the People. Other lands in quite all past ages and

The

central

mainly at present show justifying greatness special, exceptional

in their

heroes and eminences and kings

and martyrs, sages, warriors, bards, intellectualists, or what not, making a gem-like sufficient setting to the whole. If the mass, the slag, possess any brilliance or importance

it

and as a background

for

But here

in

reflected

is

from these gems

them.

the United States, while

we

have

curiously few ''great men," in the hitherto accepted sense, in any department,

is

True with tremendous

before seen or imagined. streaks of crudeness,

a People in a sense never

and with deficiencies and

faults

upon the whole, with all the elements, promise, and certainty of a Democratic Nationality on the largest scales and huarousing deepest anxiety, yet

still,

manities en-masse such as have yet existed only in

dreams pages,

— a People

it is

as will be seen in the following

my opinion

(repeated perhaps almost tire-

somely) that Democracy on established itself in Politics percolation

of

all

in

classes,

New World

soil,

having

now waits for its thorough

Literature, in the Social intercourse

and

especially that [i6]

between employers

flDeanlna anb llntention of '^Xeavea of (Braee''

These only will breathe into that corpus the breath of life and make it a living, and employed persons.

throbbing, talking, acting soul

Of course

my

way, that

it is

to enforce this in various forms, in

add the

I

— personality.

.

.

.

The idea of Democracy to which the young men and young women of these States must habituate and adjust themselves, and grow up to, is actual life in all its minutiae, is

not an abstract something

a theory, in the laws, or for election days

.

.

in .

33

The name

of this* tells

How

and Afterwards. results of

Book or

much

of the story— Before

the whole purport, history,

Life,

range between and within

— that nebula of thoughts and plans and misty hopes! — the ardor — (most curious

those words!

resume of

Before

all!)

those startings out, urging, clearing,

beating flights of wings, uncertain where you will soar, or bring

up

— or whether you

will soar at

all

—

end perhaps in ignominious fall and failure! Those toils and struggles of baffled impeded articulation to

—

moods of proudest ambition and daring, quickly followed by deeper moods of qualm, despair, utter

those

distrust of one's self

Seems

— those

to be a rejected passage from

January, 1887, and afterwards largely used in rent edition of Leaves of Grass. VOL. IX.— a.

1x7]

My

years of venture and Book and

I,

printed in Lippincott,

^ Backward Glance,

annexed to cur-

flDeanlng anb IFntention of ''Xeavee of (Braee"

callow formation! unfoldings so copious, often in-

— so

opportune

many

failures

— so much unsatisfac-

— a meagre dash or dot of genuine at best — the fortunes, misfor— the vast mass of tunes, happenings, surprises, through many years — the Afterwards — the carried along and merged way things work — the apparent terminations, the tory

light

stolidity

in

all

results so unexpected.

Finally the looking back out

and pensive evening

of the

still

ghosts

in arri^re in

calls,

tions, hauteurs,

procession of

the soul's twilight, of

angry wrestlings, those absurd

sounding

—a

trusts,

those contrasts, expectations, rejec-

shames, loves, joys.

be ushered into no palace ment.

those

those high-

Accordingly, the reader of the ensuing

company

all

hall,

book

will

a banquet, or the

of gentlemen and ladies of highest refine-

It is

established

probable

— nay certain — that

Goethean,

doctrine or principle of verse-writing

the well-

Tennysonian

Emersonian, :

to carefully

and express the beautiful, with the most exquisite metre, polish and verbal elegance will view the bulk of these writings with dismay and indigselect

nation.

Poems have long been directing admiration and awe to something in others, other days. In the following book the reader is pointed in the main, and and herself, the existing quite altogether, to him

—

day. [i8]

flDeanlng an& llntentlon of *'%cavce of <5ra66

Finally

I

think the best and largest songs yet

remain to be sung. 34

The unknown refused to explain himself. What could say to you that have not said in another (my own) language ? Is it my fault that you have not understood me ? You think wished to speak to your senses, and it was my soul spoke to you. What do say! It was the soul of the whole of humanity that spoke to you through mine.' " George '*

'

I

I

I

1

—

Sand.

Consuelo, Vol.

5, p.

264.*

35

Put

in a

passage

in

some poem

to the effect of

denouncing and threatening whoever translates my poems into any other tongue without translating every line and doing

it all

without increase or dimi-

nution.

36 Tell the

American people

their faults

— \ht

de-

partments of their character where they are most liable to

break

ing tongue

down

— speak to them with

unspar-

— carefully systematize beforehand

faults. In

Whitman's hand among these MSS. [19]

their

HDeanlna

ant) Ifntention of

''Xeavc0 of (Braee''

37 If

the following book * does not contain exhaus-

tively within

itself,

and forever emanate when

read,

the atmosphere of normal joy and exhilaration which

enveloped the making of every page, failure in

will

it

be a

the most important respect.

38

No one the stock

W. W.

of the fit

Themes

for or

generally considered as

motif for poetry

No

for his foundation.

taken by

is

romantic occurrence,

nor legend, nor plot of mystery, nor sentimentalizing,

nor historic personage or

woven

tale of love,

work.

The

art,

nor any

event,

ambition or jealousy

usual dominant requirements

is

in his

— beauty,

hero and heroine, form, meter, rhyme,

regu-

have not only not been the laws of

its

crea-

at first glance to

have

larity,

tion but

might almost seem

never been suspected by the author.

Thus com-

pared with the rich ornamentation of the plots and passions of the best other poems, the palace

hall,

the

velvet, the banquet, the masterpieces of paintings

and

statues, the costly vessels

and furnishings, the

melody, the multitudinous wealth of conceit, trope, incident, florid

and dulcet

versification

and the much

elaborated beauty of the accepted poets, there * Leaves of Grass. [30]

is

^canine anb Untention something

in

of ''%cavce of (Braea''

Leaves of Grass that seems singularly

simple and bare. Instead of any such appetizing richness

you

are

vouchsafed merely a spring, or springs, of plain water,

You stand

bubbling and cold.

in a cluster

of

si-

walk a zigzag path through the fields or pace the barren sea-beach and look on nothing but airy solitude and hear only the monotonous surging of the waves or sand. Yet the book is also saturated with active human life, the stir and hum of cities, the noise and show of trades, factories, ships, locomotives fill page after page; with you lent trees at sunrise, or

—

move

all

the practical activity of our aroused land

and time.

These occupy half the book or more. Again you are met by the silent apparition of domestic and other transactions common to you and every one, personal life, and again by many a secret thought, wish and memory, supposed unknown. Through these and through the whole world of visible shows, employments and of thought you are continually hurried along while a dim form, a friendly face accompanies and guides you, as the phantom of the Roman bard accompanied Dante on his difficult and untried way. In

these

graphed.

everything

Leaves

Nothing

is

is

literally

photo-

poetized, no divergence, not

a step, not an inch, nothing for beauty's sake, no

euphemism, no rhyme.

fiDeanins an& llntention of ''Xeavee of (Braea''

That such a course gives offence to many good people

— that

of poetry

is

it

violates the established conventions

But

certain.

is

there not something se-

adherence

cretly precious to the soul in this aw^ful

to the truth?

After everything

admitted against them, from

is

the points of view of ladies and gentlemen

in

draw-

ing-rooms or clergymen

in their pulpits is there

an inference that puts us

all

to

gated and all-comprehending

shame

not

the unmiti-

in

faith of these

poems?

Indeed, the qualities which characterize Leaves of

Grass are not the qualities of a fine book or

any work of

art

poem

or

but the qualities of a living and

full-blooded man, amativeness, pride, adhesiveness, curiosity, yearning for immortality,

sometimes of uncertainty.

someone

that

you see

joyousness and

You do not

in action, in

read,

it

is

war, or on a ship,

or climbing the

mountains, or racing along and

shouting aloud

pure exultation.

A (it

certain

in

vagueness almost passing into chaos

remains to be acknowledged)

or passages; but this

is

is

in a

few pieces

apparently by the deliberate

intention of the author.

W. W.

is

now

fifty-two years old.

aim has engrossed his

None

life.

He

is still

No

worldly

unmarried.

of the usual ardors of business ambition, of the

acquisition of ure, nor

money, or the claims of

society, pleas-

even the attractions of culture or [32]

art

seem

flDeanlng anb Intention of ''Xeavee of ©raee"

to

The thought

have enslaved him.

of and the

making of this work has spanned, as it were, the whole horizon of his life, almost since boyhood.*

39

Current Criticism. Notes on

Walt Whitman as

New

John Burroughs.

Poet

and

Person,

By

York American News Co.

1871. It

seems as

if

the debate over Walt

Whitman and

were not only going to be kept up with more and more animation and earnestness

his Leaves of Grass

every year but that the discussion

is

to bring (and

indeed has so brought already) an examination, un-

wonted among us, of the very bases of the art of poetry, and of the high original laws of ethics and criticism. These bases how do they refer to our special age and country? Those laws what are they, as applied to poets and artists of the first class, for America and for the wants of American

—

—

people?

Such are the questions which the advent of Walt Whitman has evidently roused and of which these notes are attempts to at least suggest the

answer. W. W. was

fifty-two on 31st

General's Office, Washington.

May, 1871— was

It is still

nearly

two

at that time in the Attorney

years before his paralysis.

flDeanlng anb llntentlon of ''Xeavee of ©raee*'

40

Walt Whitman's second wind. Although the phrase

not be thought a very

no description that so thoroughly the mark as the foregoing one borrowed from

refined one, there hits

may

is

the vocabulary of the prize ring.

There

is

a certain poise of self-pride about the

book that offends many. It

is

very certain not only that

not have

anywhere

been written

America and

at the present,

its

pages could

else

except

in

but that the Secession

War, or as he calls it the ''Union War" is their latent father, and that the result of that war gives an undertone or background of triumph and prophecy to every page.

How

little

posterity really

[of] a far-back person or

knows about the

facts

his or its

own

certain that this

work

book

in

time If

my poems

survive

it

is

of Dr. Bucke's with Mr. O'Connor's contribution* will-

some

able proof

fair

day be brought forward as unanswer-

how

strong were contemporary eulogy

and support of them.

Alas!

We who know —

the

* IValt IVhitman, by Richard Maurice Bucke David McKay, Philadelphia, D. O'Connor's Good Gray Pott is included.

1883— in which W.

[24]

flDcanlna an& llntention of ''Xeavea of (Braea''

exact state of the case perceive in tional half-submerged rock,

it

a

little

excep-

breasting alone a vast

and angry sea of cross winds and

refusal.

42

For Ottawa lecture.*

For thousands of years

masses of humanity

was

history

all

why

the history of the

in

seem as if dominated by one word war? does

—

too necessary to the progress, civilization, the

Now, Japan,

Business does

Africa,

communicates Is If

it

colonizes, .

that

it

all

— opens

builds

roads,

All

.

.

.

up China, penetrates,

.

.

there going to be but one heart to the world?

should dare

I

friends

I

own up

should perhaps, rude as that

shape, for late trip

you to-night

confess to

it

is

my own

on the

it

my

might seem,

more with the wish

to put in

sake, the brief experiences of a

line of

the

St.

Lawrence and the

Lakes t and touches at the great

cities

with some

thoughts arising out of them, than from any hope of pleasing you, that certainly not only

I

am now

be unable to

speaking. tell

I

shall

you anything

* Must have been written in 880, but I did not know until I found this fragment Whitman ever had at that or any time any thought of lecturing at 1

in 1899 that

Ottawa. t The trip to Chicoutimi.

made by W. W. and

the editor in the

[35]

summer of 1880 from London

flDeanlng anb llntentlon of ''Xeavee of 6ra00''

new, but

it

may

very likely prove that

have only

I

caught surface and present surface impressions.

Still

Frenchman Taine says in premising his fine ensemble of the letter and spirit of English Literature it is worth something to see how these things seem

as the

to a

new comer and

a stranger.

43

Whitman's Poems Summed up.

Two Rivulets, joined with Leaves of Grass, may be summed up as the result of twenty years' labor new, unrhymed, but rhythmical expression the events, and still more the

and the attempt

[to put] into a

tremendous develand opments of war, peace, inventions, science the advent of America and Republicanism. For spirit

such

of those years with

may be

although

all

their

—

called the general

everything,

aim of

both volumes,

in

around the central human personality.

and the Soul is

immortal.

are one,

and

Thus the

elementary qualities of

this author,

in

The Body

the latter the former

principal

all

revolves

underlying and

Whitman's writings

a powerful sense of physical perfection,

are

size, health,

strength and beauty, with great amativeness, adhesiveness, a wonderfully buoyant joyousness of spirit,

and of immortality, not as an

but as a pervading

instinct. [26]

intellection

—

With these comes

flDeanlng an& IFntcntlon of ''Xeavce of (Braae''

forward in

far

more prominently

Two

in

Rivulets than

the preceding volume, the moral law, the ''inner

Quakers, the pure conscience, rising

light " of the

over

the

all

building.

rest, like

We

sexes (not at

pinnacles to

some

elaborated

have, too, the radical equality of the

all

from the

'*

woman's

rights " point

of view however), and the duties of these

women

men and

as practical citizens, to the National, State,

and Municipal Governments. Undoubtedly this book could never have been written

— neither the prose or verse — except We

do not mean

for the

mere material statements or themes, but in its spirit, its tints and half tints, its singular, almost gloating pride and Secession War.

its

patriotism and Nationality, the subtle bouquet palpa-

enough palate and ble

in

every page to him or her

nostrils to catch

who

it,— and even

in

has that

negative feature of the masters which Schiller celebrates:

Most the great artist we behold just untold. what his art leaves

—

In

The

entire

work

is

finally to

be considered

as,

understand, the author himself markedly claims be, from his point of view, the literary result of the

With

this

we

and their author.

we

it

to

first characteristic

war.

take our leave of these utterances

Their position [27]

in literature

remains

flDeanlng an& Intention of ''%cavce of (Braee''

yet to be tried and

established,

there

for

is

no

denying that they are opposed to most of the literary and art-laws, and many of the decorums established

by the

intellects of all civilized lands, all ages,

yet they are perhaps the most vitalized pulsations of living, loving blood yet thrown into literature,

and

their roots are democratic

and modern

far

be-

yond anything known. Their patriotism is of a vehemence hitherto unknown in American authorship. Then Whitman has a fond confidence that he will yet be absorbed and appreciated by his country. He says: From

my

last years, last

thoughts

1

here bequeath,

Scattered and dropt, in seeds, and wafted to the west,

Through moisture of Ohio, orado, California

For Time to germinate

prairie soil of Illinois

— through Col-

air,

fully.

44 For criticism of Leaves of Grass.

We have had man lations

— man

in

war,

indoors and under in

love (both the natural, uni-

human lives) parlors man in

versal elements of

bowers,

castles,

artificial re-

—

— man

in

courts,

personal haughti-

ness and the tussle of war, as in

Homer

— or

the

passions, crimes, ambitions, murder, jealousy, love carried to extreme as in

Shakespeare.

[28]

We

have

flDeanlng ant) Intention of ''Xeavee of (Braea''

been listening to divine, ravishing

tales, plots inex-

pressibly valuable, hitherto (like the Christian

reli-

gion) to temper and modify his prevalent perhaps

and hoggishness

natural ferocity

have

we had man

— but

never before

in the open air, his attitude ad-

justed to the seasons and as one might describe

it,

adjusted to the sun by day and the stars by night.

As the Universal comrade each nation courteously saluting

all

other nations.

45

There

is

that about these assumptions that only

the vastness, multiplicity and vitality of America w^ould seem able to comprehend, to be

fit

for,

and

give scope to.

46 America needs her

and

spirit different

own poems

from

all

in

hitherto

her

—

own body

freer

— more

comprehending more and unspeakably grander. Not importations or anything in the spirit of importations aloof, and in These States muscular,

exiles:

— not

—

the superb chronicles, faultless,

rich,

perennial as they are and deserve to be in their native lands of the past events and characters of

Europe

— Not

the current products of imaginative

persons, with tropes, likenesses, piano music and

smooth rhymes

— nor of

.

9]

.

.

flDeaninQ anb llntention of ''Xeavee of (5ra66''

47

Caution

— ^ot

constantly for

to blaart

Native

and bluster out *' nothing foreign." The best way to promulge native American models and literature is to supply such forcible and superb specimens of the same that

American models,

by

literature

own

they

will,

of

and put foreign models

all

their

etc.,

move

volition, in

to the

head

the second class.

would be best not at all to bother with Arguments against the foreign models I

to-day think

it

or to help American models

— hut Just go on supplv-

ing American models."^

48 It is

not that the

the books themselves

The

realities are in

water,

plants,

Poems

these things are in

realities of all

—

in

the

poems

the realities only, in the earth,

animals,

souls,

men and women.

are to arouse the reason, suggest, give free-

dom,

strength, muscle, candor to

reads

them

ities for

] etc.

[

— and

himself

viduality

and

assist that

in his

after his

any person that

person to see the real-

own way, with own fashion.

his

own

indi-

49

(Of the great poet)

— (Finally)

For preface.

not that he gives his country great poems; * Probably written [30]

in

fifties.

it is

It is

that

flDeanlng an& Intention of

he gives his country the greatest

poems and the

*'

Xcapce of (Braee

**

which makes the

spirit

greatest material for poems.

He could say know well enough the perpetual myself in my poems but it is because the universe is in myself— it shall all pass through me as a proI

—

cession.

I

say nothing of myself which

equally say of ? (or)

you

all

I

do not

men and women.

others,

(Finally)

(It is

not that he gives

— his country).

He does not give you the usual poems and metaphysics. He gives you materials for you to form for yourself poems, metaphysics, politics, behavior, histories,

romances, essays and everything else.*

50

No of

one

will perfectly

my own

enjoy

me who

has not some

rudeness, sensuality and hauteur. 51

A poem which more who will, in future ages I

familiarly addresses those

understand

me

(because,

write with reference to being far better understood

then than

I

can possibly be now). 52

Other poets have formed for themselves an idea apart from positive life, and disdainful of it (?)

—

*Cf. Leaves 0/ Grass,

'56 edition, p. 264.

[31]

flDeanlng anb Untentlon of ''Xeavee of Sraea''

but

me

for

real

life,

I

ask nothing better or more divine than

here,

now,

your work, house-

yourself,

building, boating, or in

any

factory;

and

1

say of

every male and every female, he or she can bring out of

it all

divine (?) growths (?) fruits (?). 53

Mine are not the songs of a story teller, or of a voluptuous person, or of an ennuyeed person, but of an American constructor, looking with friendly eyes upon the earth and men and beholding the

—

vista of the great mission of

The

States.

54 If

I

[say]: in

could speak to personified America I

do not consider

it

of so

much

I

should

importance,

themselves merely, what amount of wealth you

and yours have, nor what spread of territory, nor the curious arts and inventions, nor the crowded cities and produce-bearing farms, nor whether one party or another party takes the lead in the Government. But the main thing, the result of all those things, upon favoring the production of plenty of

men and women.

perfect-bodied, noble-souled 55

Be more severe with revision of the poem, nothing will do,

In future Leaves

the

final

of Grass.

ÂŁ32]

flDeanlng anb Intention of *'%cnvcB of (Braea*'

not one

word

or sentence, that

not perfectly clear

is

— with positive purpose — harmony with the name, poem. Also no ornaments, especially no ornamental adjectives, unless they have come molten hot, and imperiously prove themselves. not one : perfect transA^^ ornamental similes at all that parent clearness sanity and health are wanted nature, drift of the

—

—

is

the divine style

—O

if it

can be attained

56

What we

call

literature

is

wobbling cub, just born and in

many

days.

You

its

but the moist and eyes not open yet

are a living

man, and think;

more heightless and fathomless wonder than all the productions of letters and arts in all the nations and periods of the earth. in

that alone

is

a

57 *'

Don't read

my

books"

I

heard Walt

Whitman

good-naturedly, yet emphatically, say one day to

whom

he

**You want something good

in

an intelligent but conventional questioner personally liked:

the usual sense; a plot, a love story

— something

based on the accepted principles and on precedent.

You

want something to wrestle with you and puzzle you, you want one of the good English poets' books or the good and pleasing Longfellow, or such. I have written no such books. don't

—

VOL. IX.—3.

_

_

[33]

*'%cane of

flDeaning mt> Untcntion of

I

(Braae

have attempted to construct a poem on the open

comprehended not only in the material worlds of astronomy with the earth and sea, but as in all the movements of history and civilization, wars, the shows of cities, and in man principles of nature, as

with

and

his

all

animal, intellectual, moral

attributes,

The whole

spiritual.

form a race of

for

of

yet

fuller athletic,

men and women

ters,

drift

the

my

books

unknown

is

to

charac-

United States to

do not wish to amuse or furnish so-called poetry, and will surely repel at first those who have been used to sweets and the jingle of rhymes. come.

I

Then every page

my

book emanates Democracy, absolute, unintermitted, without the slightest compromise, and the sense of the New World in its future, a

of

thoroughly revolutionary formation to be

exhibited less in

politics

and more

in

theology,

and manners; all of which, at present, while interested in and discussing many things, literature

America, curious as

and

in fact

amid

nothing of her will

come along

all

real

in

may

knows little of, her knowledge knows almost

it

appear,

destination

and

life.

But

all

proper time.* 58

Rules

for

Composition

— A perfectly transparent,

plate-glassy style, artless, with * Written

no ornaments, or

April, 1869.

[34]

at-

fIDeanina anb Intention of *'%cavcB of (Sxaee'*

tempts

at

ornaments,

when

looking well

for their

own sake—they

only

the beauties of the person

like

by nature and intuition, and never lugged in to show off, which nullifies the best of them, no matter when and where. Take no illustrations whatever from the ancients or character

or classics, nor from the

Rome — nor

Greece or

mythology, nor Egypt,

from the royal and aristo-

and forms of Europe. Make no mention or allusion to them whatever except as

cratic institutions

new, present things

they relate to the country

— to

specific

mention of them, even

as

American character or

our

Of

interests.

for these purposes,

as possible.

little

Too much attempt nearly

— to

all

at

ornament

is

the blur upon

literary styles.

no

Clearness, simplicity, tences, at

all

— the

twistified or foggy sen-

most translucid clearness with-

out variation.

Common vulgarisms

idioms and phrases

— Yankeeisms

and

— cant expressions, when very pat only.* 59

We

suppose

it

will excite the mirth of

our readers to be told that a

man

many

has arisen,

has deliberately and insultingly ignored

all

of

who

the other,

the cultivated classes as they are called, and set * Quite

early

—

early in the fifties (?)

[35]

flDeanlna an& Intention of *'%cnvce of (Braae''

work

himself to

''

to write

America's

first

distinctive

Poem," on the platform of these same New York Roughs, firemen, the ouvrier class, masons and carpenters, stagedrivers, the Dry Dock boys, and so forth; and that furthermore, he either is not aware of the existence of the polite social models, and the imported literary laws, or else he don't value them

two

cents for his purposes.

60

The origination and continuance of metre, and of rhyme afterwards, were not only from their pleasantness to the barbaric ear, but more from their convenience to the

memory

in

arresting

and

and passing along

retaining tales

and

what they

from person to person, generation

tell

recitations

after generation, preserving

ages and ages as

was

often

the epic song or ballad

done

in old

times with-

out the aid of writing or print*

61

have adhered to the principle, and that the poet and savan form classes by

All others

shown

it,

themselves, above the people, and more refined than the people;

I

show

that they are just as great

of the people, partaking of the *

'56 or '57.

[36]

common

when

idioms, man-

flDeanina an& Intention of ''Xeavea of (5ra66''

ners, the earth, the rude visage of animals

and what

is

and

trees,

vulgar.*

62

The

foreign theory

is

that a

man

or

woman

re-

by grant, demise, or inheritance. The theory of These States is that humanity's rights belong to every man, every woman in the inherent nature of things, and cannot be alienated, or if alienated must be brought back and resumed.* ceives rights

63

The

must be of the spirit and show itself in new combinations and new meanings and discovering greatness and harmony where there was before thought no greatness. The style of expression must be carefully purged of anything striking or dazzling or ornamental and with great severity originality

—

precluded from

all

that

is

eccentric.

64

ter

Not to dazzle with profuse descriptions of characand events and passions. The greatest poet is

Written about

'56.

f Written as note to following sentence in magazine article, dated Oct. '51, on Keats' * * Hyperion " ; " It is perhaps safe to affirm that originality cannot be attained ,

by seeking artist

for

it,

but only eccentricity

— oddity

avoids as he values his immortality."

[37]

and

eccentricity,

which the great

flDeaninQ ant) Untention of ''Xeavee of (Braee

not content with dazzling his rays over character and events and passions and scenery and does not de-

scend to moralize or make applications of morals.

The

soul has that measureless pride

which

consists

never acknowledging any lessons but

in

.

this invariably.

But to bring the

own

its

Spirit of

.

.

all

events and persons and passions to the formation

...

of the one individual that hears or reads

of

you up there now."^ 65

A new

doctrine

— leading

feature.

There

is

in

the soul an instinctive test of the sense and actuality of anything

— of

any statement of

fact or morals.

of each man,

Thus the soul or what not re-

alizes

to

Let this decide.

new

school (or theory) in

not decide

— Let

?

itself.

For a

the test of anything

metaphysics be this instinct of the soul

this self-settling

the

it

woman, nation, age, only what is proportionate

proposed

—

Does

power.

body—\i must be

First

however prepare

healthy, mature, clean.

66

Other writers (poets) look on a laborer as a laborer, a poet as a poet, a President as a President,

a merchant as a merchant Written

'55 or '56.

Cf.

— and

He

so on.

Leaves of Grass, '56 edition,

p.

260,

looks

flDeanlng an& Intention of

^'

leaver of ©raee*'

on the President as a man, on the laborer as a man, or the poet and all the rest, as men.

67

Many laws. A

trouble themselves about conforming to great poet

is

followed by laws

— they con-

form to him. 68

Understand that you can have qualities

yourself.

your writing no

which you do not honestly entertain in Understand that you cannot keep out of

your writing the indication of the

you

in

entertain

in

yourself.

If

evil or

shallowness

you love

to have a

servant stand behind your chair at dinner,

appear

in

your writing;

women,

if

you possess a

vile

it

will

opinion

you grudge anything, or doubt immortality, these will appear by what you leave unsaid more than by what you say. There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe by which you can have in your writing that which you do not possess in yourself that which is not in you can [not] appear in your writing. No rival of life no sham for generation no painting friendship or love by one who is neither friend or lover. Come, now, will give the first lesson for a young man for newer and of

or

if

— —

—

1

greater

literati.

Absorb no longer, [39]

mon ami,

from the

flDeanlng ant) llntentton of '^Xeavea of (Brae^''

text books.

Go

not, for

room

of the recitation

some

years, to the labors

or desk or on the accepted

Ascend to your own country. Go to the west and south. Go among men in the spirit of men. Go to the swimming-bath, the gymnasium, the new buildings where the working carpenters and masons are. Learn of the elements and track of tourists.

miliar

Become fagood fighter, a good

Learn to master the horse.

animals.

Become

with arms.

a

rower, a sure marksman, hardy, one that dress and the criticisms of others and the usages of parlors

can not master, one

under a tree

if

who

could sleep in a blanket

need be, one

who

does not condemn

and refinement but grows through them What is lacking in literature to be superior to them. can only be generated from the seminal freshness and propulsion of new masculine persons. Books have generated upon books, and religions upon reI say a man is to ligions, and poems upon poems. vindicate himself above all things and a woman above all things. Do not grumble at any fact or civilization

condition whatever.

and what could also

is

is

to

has been has been well,

well, for nothing but

come out are

What

of such as underlay them.

They

what could be

upon

underlie

nothing better than them. order

— sure

built

Sure as the geological

developments follow each other tiful

such as they

in

steady and beau-

as the saurian ages terminate in [401

flDeanlng anb Intention of ''%cavcB of (Braee

—

sure as man was more advanced developments sure as he makes his prepared for upon the earth

—

resistless progress

through time, over

all

impedi-

ments, and coming on with renewed vigor from

retrogrades and delays — sure as arise this as the soul — shall

in

land the literature

embody not a few phases only, but all known and conceivable phases and to identify all men and women and

that shall be eligible to life life,

all

materialism — sure

climates and States,

New

of

of all

York, Canada, Texas, the

Mississippi, the planter, the Yankee, the Californian,

the native, the immigrant,

town government and

State and Federal Governments.

the

Literature this of

the largest friendship, and the vitalest pride and the truest freedom

and

practical equality ever

known

upon the earth; literature the roomiest and least cramped because it shall arise from the broadest geography the most diverse because it shall absorb the greatest diversity, the grand organs of whose head shall correspond to the grandeur of its body. Literature not only of the dilletanti and few pleasant reminiscences but of all living things and of the past and future. Literature for a mighty breed of male and female, represented no longer in their legislatures and executives, but represented better by their

—

—

successions of poets, orators, debaters, readers, musi-

and mixers with the rest, trades and employments, and

cians, philosophers, equals

springing

from

all

[41]

flDeanlrtQ

an& Intention of ''Xeavea of (Braee"

and landsmen and from the city and the country, making of the vaunted [deeds] of the past but a support to their feet and so treading them under their feet, poets, musicians, effusing them,

and from

sailors

—

whom

philosophers

the rest of the world shall not

deny, because their greatness shall accept the rest of the world as

send back

all

much

that

as any,

and incorporate

and

it

has sent to them with interest

it

more than a thousand

fold.*

69 After

all is

said

and done

in the

way of argument,

the whole bubble of the sea-ooze against that un-

speakable something

me know

in

my own

without being able to

soul tell

which makes

how

that

it is

I

know. Though the linguists and lore of the whole earth deny what say, it amounts but to this: So it seems to them. I simply answer. So it seems to me. The greatest of thoughts and truths are never I

put a

They

in print.

sum I

in

simple multiplication.

see myself sweating in the fog with the linguists

and learned men.

own

are not susceptible of proof like

days.

I

I

look back upon that time

have no mockings or laughter.

only to be silent and patiently wait.f Written

'55 or '56.

f Cf. Leaves of Grass, '55 edition, p. 15.

[42]

in I

my

have

flDeanins anb Intention of '^Xeavea of (Braee''

70 Leaves of Grass must be called not ob-

Sept. '56. jective,

but altogether subjective

through them as a perpetual

—

*'I

refrain.

Know'' runs Yet the great

Greek poems, also the Teutonic poems, also Shakespeare and epic

all

the great masters have been objective,

— they have described characters, events, wars,

heroes &c.

do not compose a grand opera, with good instrumentation and parts which you shall sing as have written them, and whose performance will give fits to the dilletanti, for its elegance and measure. I

I

To

sing well your part of opera

enough. all

is

You should be master

well; but

all

and perhaps

for

less

is

not

of the composers of

operas — and of tenors — and of — they were men

first violins,

it

all

all

violins

and

like yourself,

developed than yourself.

72

America needs her

and

spirit.

own poems,

Different from

all

in

her

own body

hitherto— freer, more

comprehending more and unspeakably grander. Not importations or anything in the spirit of the importations, aloof and in These States exiles; muscular,

not the superb chronicles,

faultless, rich, perennial as

[43]

flDeanlng an& Untentlon of ''Xeat>e6 of (Braaa*'

they are and deserve to be

in their native lands, of

the past events and characters of Europe

— not

the

current products of imaginative persons, with tropes, likenesses, piano

of

.

.

music and smooth rhymes

.

[44]

— nor

part

IFir

/l>emotan&a from JSoofts an& from Dis ©wn IRetlections fnMcating tbe poet'5 IReaMna an^ XlbouGbt

—

preparatory to Mrlting

[4d

**

Xeaves ot Orass"

part

irir

©wn

/l^emoran^a from JBoofts anb from Dis

IRcflecttons

— ITnMcattng

tbe lpoet*5 IReaMng ant) Ubouabt " preparatory to TOritina ** Xeaves of Grass

Space considered with reference to the earth, as all

parts of the universe bear reference to each other,

and

all

down

other things therefore bear

THE

ence more or less upon this earth. description of those things that

their influ-

may be

AIR,

—

said to be

—

most closely identified with the air for movement, visibility, occupancy &c., as the orbs, space, light, heat (as Silliman says

THE

SEA,

—

all

— cosmical

not terrestrial).

the wonders of the sea, the sea

covering three-fourths of the land.

— physical

facts of the land, as first its

ginning, then

then

home

its

its

geology

all

THE LAND, nebulous be-

through to the present,

present beauty realty and diversity as the ^

of man. [47]

Ipreparator? IReaMng an& ZTbougbt

The most

perfect

wonders of the earth

are not

and distant but present with every person, you Not distant caverns, volcanoes, as much as any. rare

cataracts, curious islands, birds, foreign cities, archi-

tecture, costumes, markets, ceremonies,

shows, are

any more wonderful than what is common to you, near you, now and continually with you. Man! Woman! Youth! Wherever you are, in the Northin Kanern, Southern, Eastern or Western States what is more ada, by the sea-coast or far inland

—

—

amazing than the light

sunrise, the day, the floods of

enveloping the

sons?

fields,

waters, grass, trees, per-

What is more beautiful than the night,

the

full

moon and the stars? The prairies, lakes, rivers, forests? 3

A new way and

the true

way

of treating in books

— History, geography, ethnology, astronomy — by long of dates, terms, summary paraetc.,

etc.

list

graphic statements

etc.

Because

all

those things to

be carried out and studied in full in any particular department need to have recourse to so many books it is impossible to put them, or think of putting

—

—

any history so that brief Data, all comprehensive, and to be pursued as far and to as full information as anyone will, afford the best way of

them,

in

inditing history for the

common [48]

reader.

Iprcparator? IReaMiiG anb ^bougbt

—

The History of the World, digested collection of sentative persons

lists

An immense

viz.:

names of repremaps and census re-

of dates,

and events,

turns.

4

The most immense part of ancient history is altogether unknown.* Previous to ten thousand years ago there were surely empires, toral tribes

and uncivilized hordes upon the

Do you suppose the best writers get

that history

all

and pasearth.

when few commu-

complete

arrange them clearly in

Sublime characters lived and died and

do not know when or where that

is

they can of the

known and

nities that are

books?

cities, states

we now

—

full

as sublime as

celebrate over the world.

poems, essays of philosophy, witty

we any

Beautiful

replies, excellent

works of art and ornament. There were busy, populous and powerful nations

histories,

on

all

the continents of the earth at intervals through

the stretch of time from ten thousand years ago to twenty-six als of

religions, social

nations.

— signs and materigovernment, — general

hundred years ago

them remain.

silence.

down

Of their

literature,

customs and

No one

can

They had

corresponding to First sketch, in prose,

all of

now in

civilization

tell

their

the names of those

own way something

the essentials of a modern

Unnamed Lands.

tion, p. 413. VOL. DC.—4.

[49]

Tlie

poem

first

printed in '60 edi-

preparatory TReaMng an& ^bought political

power. Their agriculture, factories and handi-

work, houses and modes of domestic

what they thought

of worship and soul,

how

their

of death and the

and

dress, the physiology of

various and separated races, which of

were of

and

fine person

what

them

warm-hearted and

style,

and of a beautiful candor and

clean, heroic, simple

dignity,

forms

they were ruled, their trade or want of

trade, their traditions their

life,

sort of marriage,

what condition of

schools and art and medicine, and the laying out of

and what about liberty and slavery among them, and public benevolence and war and justice, and who were witty and wise, and who were brutish and undeveloped, and who were accomplished and cities,

elegant and rich —all these are to be thought about as facts.

No

figure that

is

dates,

no

statistics

demonstrably

so.

Upon America stood many and upon

not a mark nor a

of these vast nations

and Europe. In the trance of the healthy brain of man. Time, the passage of Asia, Africa

many thousands letters

of years, the total vacuity of our

about them, their places blank upon the map,

not a mark nor a figure that

With They

all

lived

Europe. these

this

is

demonstrably

they lived as surely as

upon America and upon

In the trance of the

unknown

in their outlines.

peoples

show

healthy brain of

Some grand and [50]

we do now.

Asia, Africa

afar off

so.

and

man

dim and filmy

elaborated,

some

preparatory IReaMna anb ZbowQbt with graceful faces learned and calm, some naked

and savage, some

huge collections of meaningless insects, some engaged in the chase living for generations in the woods and unfenced fields.

Nobody can

like

possess a

idea of the earth with-

fair

out letting his or her mind walk perfectly easy and

A few

loose over the past.

deeds and national the like

eras, lists of titles

make up very

manity and events

at

mark and battles and

definite points

movement of huThe best and most

of the

little

any time.

important part of history cannot be told.

being examined or printed.

and

reliable information.

able,

because by

tistics

far

It is

It is

It

eludes

above even dates

surer

and more

reli-

the greatest part of the old sta-

of history are only approaches to the truth and

are often discrepant

and suspicious.

The native name of Egypt is Khami (black). The Semitic and Iranian families are primitively connected with each other? Are they not the same? Ancient Chaldea

veh

— Babylon and Assyria

i.e.

Nine-

— Cuneiform inscriptions.

Aramaean (from Aram) a name which applies equally to Mesopotamia and Syria.

Chaldean Christians

in

Kurdistan called Nes-

torians. In

Egypt and

in Assyria,

and doubtless

in

other

ancient nations there were separate castes in lan-

guage as

in

men.

There was one written language L54

preparatori? IReaMng an& ICbouQbt

one perhaps

for religion,

doubt one

the

for

for the nobility

common mass and

and without

Thus

people.

there in Assyria (as in Egypt) they had a written

language, financial

numerals, weights,

tables,

mediums and dispatches

calculations,

— they had an ap-

propriate religion, poetry, history, amusements.

The

inscriptions

on the rocks on the road on the

west side of the Sinaitic peninsula, to Mount Sinai had already occupied the attention of Cosmos Indicopleustes in the earlier part of the sixth century. After

many

suggestions from others, different ages,

Niebuhr divined

their contents,

and scorned the idea

of anything but greetings and memorials of travelers in different ages.

The

ruins in North America

— the copper

mines

of Lake Superior which have evidently been worked

many

centuries since

— probably more than

a thou-

sand years ago, perhaps two or three thousand the

mounds

in

the valley of the Mississippi

— the

vast ruins of Central America, Mexico and South

— grand temple walls &c., now overgrown the existence, prove beyond with old trees — America

cavil

all

ages since,

in

the Western World, of powerful, popu-

lous and probably civilized nations, histories

and even

traditions

before the discovery of

whose names,

had been

lost

long

Columbus and Vespucius. [S2j

Ipreparator? IReablnQ

mb

^bougbt

upon which I am now working are Graham's Magazine (no date must

In the big scrap-book

pasted

some

belong to the Fact."

The

of

leaves fifties)

—

containing an article ^^Imagination and

writer says,

"We

should

like to see a history of the

campaigns in Greece of Darius, Xerxes, and Mardonius written by Persians." Upon which W. W. has this note:

Yes, an ancient history not written. by a Greek or

— what

Roman

a face that

would put upon

old

times. Again the writer says:

"The

mountains,

rivers, forests

and

them round about would be only blank conditions of matter if the mind did not fling its own divinity around them." W. W. makes this marginal note: the elements that gird

This tences

I

I

think

''

one of the most indicative sen-

ever read.

Scythia part of

is

— as used by the

Greeks— the

northern

Europe and Asia and the people thereof

woodsmen.

These were descendants from the same ancestors as the Greeks and Romans themselves. the Another name of the above "Umbri." Kelts," viz.,

—

The

Teutonic and Gothic races are

Celtic,

all

of

Japhetic stock.

Sarmatia,

Ancient

Russia and Poland.

Teutonic races originally from Persia. [53]

?

the

Then the

preparatory IReaMng anb ZCbougbt inhabitants of India and the descendants of the Keltic

and Teutonic nations are all of one family and must all have migrated from one country. Whether that country was Persia or Cashmir or a country further but it seems that, east is not easily determined accordingly, the white man of Europe and the tawny

—

man

of India have a

common

ancestry.

8 British

human

Elias Pierson

kind of

beings, wild men, the *'Koboo."

G^ne,

human

me

'57) describes to

beings he

saw

in

a very

one of the Ladrone

they were quite hairy, had a few rags

Islands,

low for

clothing and lived in earthen shelters, something like

ovens, into which they crawled.

affirms that

and made be

so.

lowest

in

all

Capt. Gibson

book are true Then the Koboo " must does it make whether the

his statements in his

good

faith.

''

What difference men are Borneans

or not?

Their brutish

and that is enough. After all are not the Rocky Mountain and Californian aborigines quite as bestial a type of humanity as any ? Remember Le Brun's illustrations of comparative anatomy nature

is

certain

where he groups the physiognomy of the native races of animals of a country and the physiognomy of the native races of human beings of the same country. [54]

preparatory IRea&inQ anb Ilbougbt

9 ? Spinal idea

American

Founding a new religion). That which is

of a 'Messon/'

religion ( ?

No

comprehensive enough to include

and sects and give them

all

all

the doctrines

places and chances, each

after its kind.

— existing

in

nascence or devel-

opment through many thousand

years, five or ten

Egyptian religion

The

or perhaps even twice ten thousand years.

seems to have been the wonderfulness and divinity of life, the beetle, the bull, the snipe were divine in that they exemplified the inexplicable mystery of life. It was a profound and exquisite religion. Greek existing through several thousand years central idea

—

:— certainly two, very idea, a

likely several

combination of Love,

more.

Intellect

Central

and the Es-

thetic (the beautiful and harmonious) — Refined per-

ceptions, the presence of perfect

human

bodies, the

climate, the peculiar adhesiveness or friendship of

Greek mythology. Hebrew— the most etherial and elevated

the people

ituality

rest

all

are in the

— this seems to be what subordinates

— The Soul, the

spirit rising in

spir-

all

the

vagueness.

10 ?

condition mentioned.

must

imagining myself

in that

You must do the work

— you

Outlines of lecture.

I

think. [55]

preparatory IReaMng anb n;bou9bt

To

you.

First of all prepare for

lowing self-teaching exercises. from this book;

study by the

Abstract yourself

where you

realize

fol-

are at present

you stand that is now to you the centre of all. Look up overhead, think of space stretching out, think of all the unnumbered orbs wheeling safely there, invisible to us by day, some visible by night; think of the sun around which the located, the point

earth revolves; the

and accompanying

moon it;

revolving round the earth,

think of the different planets

Spend some minutes

belonging to our system.

Then

fully in this exercise.

upon the occupy. country,

way

the

earth,

again realize yourself

at the particular point

you now and what

Which way stretches the north, seas etc.? Which way the south? Which east? Which way the west? Seize these

firmly with your mind, pass freely over tances.

faith-

Turn your

a

face

definitely the direction

moment

immense

dis-

thither.

Fix

and the idea of the distances

of separate sections of your

own

country, also of

England, the Mediterranean Sea, Cape Horn, the

North Pole, and such

like distinct places.

II

This National

list

of one

Patent

Office

week's at

issue

Washington

from

the

illustrates

America and American character about as much as [56]

anb ZTbouQbt

Ipreparatori? IReabing

know. Remember the show at the CrysPalace and the American Institute Fairs.*

anything tal

I

12

•

Salt

tion

Works.

At Salina,

of Syracuse,

liamsburg

'*

now a por-

Salt Point,"

Onondaga

Co., N. Y.

(as Wil-

a part of Brooklyn), there are

is

some

Also they bore into the neighboring

salt springs.

ground (sometimes 300 ft. deep) 50, 70, 100 ft. A ''block" is erected in which there are arches, with water

kettles for boiling the

under day and night —

till

— these

at the

are kept fired

end of a week they

have to be cleaned of the sediment, coating

etc.

By the

and

kettles are baskets

contain the

A

salt.

the kettles lets

in

the water as

off

ladles to take out

spout and trough ranging over

tion supplies the best salt.

boxes and sent

and

on the

it is

It is

wanted.

put

in

Evapora-

bags and large

canals.

The old-fashioned keel-boats and keel-boatmen have, of course, almost disappeared with steamboating.

Still

they are occasionally to be seen west,

north, on the streams of Kanada, etc. * Remarks by Whitman on a

list

of the patents issued at Washington in a

week. f Marginal note

paper scrap pasted

by Whitman on

in.

the

word "keel-boatman

" used in a

news-

preparaton? IRcablno anb tCbougbt

M The

English masses (Talk with Frank Leonard,

*'Yank," etc.— their travels through English towns

with the American

The

circus).

large

mass

(nine-

tenths) of the English people, the peasantry, laborers, factory operatives, miners, workers in the docks, on

numand another have some

shipping, the poor, the old, the criminals, the berless flunkies of

one

sort

of the bull-dog attributes but are generally minus the

They

best attributes of humanity. fine physique, or

have no

any

They

mies (such as are

manly audacity, candor, freedom, agility, and

spirituality, or

clarified faces,

quick wit.

are short, in

common

city bred,

being very seldom

the city and becoming less and less

in in

have mean physiogno-

the caricatures in Punch), fine-

shaped men and women,

met with

are not a race of

Bad blood,

the country.

goitre, con-

sumption, and the diseases that branch out from venerealism, gin drinking, excessive

toil

and poor

diet are to-day apparent, to greater or less degree in

common people of England. They poor, own neither houses nor lands for

two-thirds of the are wretchedly

themselves, have no homes, cannot look to have any

homes and

are acquiring

something

threatening in their physiognomy.

nology there race

known,

made

is

all

fierce,

In

morose,

their phre-

the most substantial basis of any that can

make

it.

[58]

a solid nation and has

preparatori? TReablng anb ^bougbt

Among

the

common

dwindling out.

few

drink,

All

towns

classes in

are

chastity

is

virtuous.

In

knowledge, the

regard to intelligence,

education,

masses of the people

comparison with the masses

in

of the United States are at least

behind

With

us.

common

years

these terrible things about the

all

people what grand things must be said

about England!

Power, wealth, materials, energy,

individualism, pride, is

two hundred

command

are hers

— and there

to-day but one nation greater than she and that

own

her

is

daughter.*

15

British in China.

me) size.

sion,

Hong Kong

an island, something

is

Of

this

and have

soldiers there.

(Elias Pierson tells

like

Staten

Island

in

the British have exclusive possesfortified

Dates

it,

and keep regiments of

referring to

China.

Fo,

a

— a God plenty — they

divine being, ruler, lawgiver, and teacher

— 2500

years before Christ.

have a white coarse foreigners,

good repute

in

shirts,

linen.

China

is

stuff of grass, that

very good

than cotton or

Silk

lasting

makes,

much

The Americans

for

longer

are in very

— the English and French very

bad. * Pinned

in

December, 1857.

saapbook along with

part of a Brooklyn Daily

Doubtless written about that date.

[59]

EagU, dated nth

preparatorij IRea&lng anb ^bougbt

i6

Talk with Elias Pierson,

June 23, 1857. in

China

the rebel

in

army

in

Canton and

who was

all

through

the country.

A

religious building:

There would be here and

there, in the cities a large long building, perhaps

or

two hundred

and

fifty

feet in length,

perhaps even more,

Along the walls on both gods and ''Joshes," mostly of

or sixty feet high.

sides range the idols,

wood, some of them carved,

one

gilt,

small,

Some

etc.

some

are devils,

some monsters, deformed and so on. The Chinese

thirty feet high,

some on horse-

back,

persons, half animals,

fish

are

priests,

—

The in

on

their knees, pattering,

''Josh "

is

the Chinese

around with the

mumbling

idol, in

temples or dwelling houses.

etc.

wood

It is

or clay

the same in

general as other pagan idols.

Tea.

— This

of course. here) and

Slavery. to color.

the universal beverage.

comes

It is

cheap,

cakes (like chewing tobacco boiled, not " drawn " as here.

It

is

is

in

— This exists

in

China.

It

has no regard

Nine-tenths of the slaves are

women and

Polygamy also exists among rich persons. " The "fair Chinese Personal size and Attributes. are of good size and proportions with brunette skin, and are generally light and nimble. They have not the muscle of the beef-eating races. They feed on rice, greens, soups and similar diet.

girls.

—

[60]

preparatory TReaMng anb G;j}ougbt Chinese Army.

— Two contending

against each other take dresses, use their fans

if

forces, arrayed

quite easy, adjust their

it

the weather

is

hot,

quite careful not to have their faces injured.

and are

— They

dandy soldiers. An engagement may happen and no killed or wounded be the result. Climate. A large part of China has about the same climate as New York, with snow and ice in winter and some very hot days in summer. are

—

Executions.— Criminals are executed ways.

A common mode

is

in

several

to set the victim in a

box which tightens around his neck and ankles and compresses his body by degrees with sort of

a special screw against his breast,

— this squeezing

Sometimes may be seen twenty or thirty such victims in rows dead or dying, with their eyes protruded and their tongues hanging out of him to death.

their

mouths.

Pekin. city,

the

*'

— Away

in

the interior

Chinaman's heaven."

is

Pekin, the great

Here

is

the Emperor

and the imperial government. Lascars.

—Once or twice a year the

a characteristic spree.

They

attire

Lascars have

themselves fan-

one has a chain around his neck, one around his waist, another around his ankles, and the

tastically,

others lead

and music. fifty

them through the

And such

or sixty primitive

music!

streets

There are perhaps

instruments, [61]

with dances

reeds, gongs,

preparatory IReabing mi> ZTbougbt shells

etc.,

rhythm.

keeping

all

The

in

a wild sort of uniform

Lascars in this

way march

and

to

fro,

making merry and collecting money in a vessel which they proffer to everybody. But the strangest destiny awaits this money. At night the Lascars all go together out upon the water, some very deep place, and pour this money into the eating, drinking,

all

This

sea!

Pluto,

a gift to the Chinese Neptune, or to

is

that they

those deities

may have

in their

grace at the hands of

voyages, or after

all

voyages are

over. 17

Morality and talent are affected more

by

food,

drink, physical habits, cheerfulness, exercise, regu-

lated or irregulated amativeness than

O.

S.

Fowler.

A

character.

new literature, was

prison in

New

sensible as a

in

the sugar-house

York City, hale and vigorous and

man

Of Insanity. in

a chap-

the revolutionary army, an intimate acquaint-

ance of Washington, confined

lia,

supposed.

Ninety-four years old, keeps up

with the times, reads the lain in

is

of thirty

— Some

— Was never

sick.

are affected with melancho-

these the organ of cautiousness will be found [62]

IReaMng anb tTbougbt

Ipreparatori?

some fancy themselves the Deity, in these self-esteem predominates; some are furious, in these But destructiveness, or more likely, combativeness. a small organ may become diseased and often large;

does

so.

20

The temperaments bilious

and nervous.

particular

— four — lymphatic, sanguine, Depend on the condition

systems of the body.

of

Brain and nerves

predominantly active seem to produce the nervous

temperament.

The lungs and blood

vessels being

constitutionally predominant give rise to the san-

guine.

The muscular and

fibrous systems being

predominant give

rise to

more properly be

called the fibrous)

The predominance organs give

rise to

Lymphatic:

the bilious (w^hich should

temperament.

of the glands and assimilating

the lymphatic.

round form,

soft muscle, fair

hair,

pale skin, sleepy eyes, inexpressive face, brain lan-

guid, other organs ditto. factory of

The system

a great

manu-

fat.

Sanguine: well defined form, moderate plumpness, firm flesh, chestnut hair, blue eyes,

great fondness for exercise and

air,

fair

complexion,

brain active.

Bilious (Judas in Lord's Supper): black hair, dark skin,

moderate stoutness, firm

great endurance and bottom. [63]

flesh,

harsh features,

preparatory IRcablng an& ZCbougbt Nervous:

fine thin hair, small muscles, thin skin,

pale countenance, bright eyes, great mental vivacity.

These temperaments are seldom found pure, almost always mixed, as nervous and bilious in Lord Brougham. This nobleman was engaged in a court of law all day, went to the House of Commons at evening, and remained there until

two

the morn-

in

went home, wrote an article for Edinburgh Review, then went again to court, then again to House ing,

of

Commons, and only towards

bed

— his vigor having been

the next morning to

unabated

that time.

all

Nervous and lymphatic are frequently combined, these give great alternations of activity and indolence. Prof. Leslie would, for a day or two, apply himself with vigor and success to scientific affairs

—

then as

if

the nervous energy were exhausted and

the nutritive system

and dose and

sleep,

came up he would

sit

and eat

paying no attention to study

—

then again the nervous would come into preponderance.

mental

Nervous and sanguine give

—the other physical.

thoughtful temperament

activity

The nervous

— sanguine has

is

—

first

a grave,

hilarity

and

hope, lights the countenance, impels to motion and to animal gayety. 21

Cervantes speare) and

(i

547-1616, contemporary with Shake-

Don Quixote. [64]

preparatory IRea&lng an& ZhowQbt romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance of feeling and a happy external condition, nor composed in Cervantes' best years when his spirits were light and his hopes high; but that with all its unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright views of the world and its cheerful trust in goodness and virtue it was Bear

in

mind that

this delightful

—

written in his old age, at the conclusion of a

whose every

step had been

marked by disheartening

struggles and sore calamities; that he began

prison and finished

it

life

when he

felt

it

in

a

the hand of death

pressing cold and heavy on his heart.*

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra— born about 20 miles from Madrid 8th or 9th Oct., 1547.

Wrote verses while a youth, attended the atrical pieces

of Lope de Rueda.

1570 (23 years old) serving at

hold of a Cardinal.

common

Rome

Whence he

soldier in an expedition sent

by sea and land. was captured and carried to in

by the Pope 1570-75

was 1575

Algiers as prisoner;

durance as a slave

ransomed and returns home

the house-

1575-80— in

battles

remained

in

volunteers as a

and the Venetians against the Turks. in

the-

5

years.

— father

dead

1580

is

— family

poor. 1

58 1 joins the

army again

as a soldier

— serves

in

* This opening passage seems to have been quoted by Whitman, not known from where. VOL. IX.— 5.

preparatory IReabing anb ZCbougbt Portugal

— becomes

with Portuguese

familiar

litera-

ture.

1584

at

is

home

agaia in Madrid and writes

and publishes Galatea a prose pastoral. Same year marries poor but a lady. Remained united in marriage 30 years and his widow at her death desired to

—

be buried

at his side.

Now

Dramatic performances.

for several years

writes plays for the theatre.

seem

1584-5-6, does not

to have gained

position or profit as a play-wright. earlier plays are in existence

much

the

miracle-shows

*'

yet

— but

" of the

of these

resemble too

times for modern

Was maimed

Cervantes remains poor.

taste.

Two

much

from

an old wound. 1588 goes to Seville.

Acts as agent to a govern-

ment commissary and money collector, etc. 1598 in these employments and the like he

Was

Andalusia and Granada. faulter

— released

From 1603 he

travels

imprisoned as a de-

in 1597.

1598 to 1603 is

1588-

we

lose track of him, but in

established at Valladolid.

there under Philip

III.

and

The

his favorite the

court

Duke

is

of

Lerma. 1604-5.

of

Don

Quixote.

Don Quixote was

1604).

The

In 1605 the

''

First Part

printed at Madrid (licensed

received tradition

in

Spain

is

that Cer-

vantes having been, employed by the Prior of the [66]

preparatory TReabing order of

St.

John

the monastery

ant) ZCbougbt

La Mancha to

in

due

of Argamasilla — that

the village

in

collect rents

he went there and was persecuted and thrown into

—

and that while there by the debtors Don Quixote and located the hero in La

prison himself

he started

Mancha perhaps in revenge. The first part of Don Quixote was favor — a

once with great mediately called 1606.

second edition was im-

for.

Follows the court back to Madrid.

Joins the Brotherhood of the

Holy Sacrament

is

the great literary idol of the age,

Cervantes was fulness, activity

full

1609.

—a

re-

Lope de Vega, the

ligious association (all this time

poet,

received at

of good nature —

in Spain).

full

of cheer-

and a happy tolerance toward every-

thing and everybody. 161

3.

Publishes Novelas Exemplaras (moral tales)

— very good, since very popular other countries. satire

poem.

Journey

16 14.

161

5.

Spain but not in

in

From

this time

Don

Qtiixote

— are

— second

part— .

161

first.

[67]

in

In this

year

Quixote, dedi-

Cervantes

This second part written

said to be better than the

5.

Don

cation alludes to his failing health

death.

forward writes

inferior productions.

also appears the second part oi

cated to the Count de L

a

Eight plays for

plays, also Entremeses (interludes).

popular acceptation

Parnassus,

to

in this dedi-

and anticipated very old age

is

preparatory IRcaMng an& ZbowQbt

Death.—23rd April, buried in the Convent

— was of the Nuns of the Trinity — 161 6, at the

age of 68

but a few years afterwards this convent was removed to another part of the city and

what became

ashes of the greatest genius of his country that time wholly Persiles

161 7.

widow.

vantes'

of the is

from

unknown. and Sigismunda printed by CerThe story is a northern romance,

— the islands — wild

the hero the daughter of a King of Iceland story

full

men and

of savage

and strange adventures

frozen

— then

the scene changing

to south of Europe. 1

8 18.

A medal

in

France

in a series to

commem-

orate genius. 1835.

A

bronze

monument

of Cervantes

was

raised in the Plaza del Estamento, Madrid.

Don

The object, besides writing a good and amusing story, was to foil the fanaticism for Quixote.

romances of chivalry of the Amadis de Gaul type

—

which then generally prevailed in Spain (The esoteric meaning discovered by modern critics is mostly bosh). The effect. No romance of chivalry of the old pattern appeared after the publication of the First Part

oi

Don

The

Quixote, in 1605.

effect

was

perfect

—

from that time they have been rapidly disappearing.

A bogus Second out

in

ferior,

1

6 14

Part to

by Alonzo

F.

Don Quixote was

de Avellanada

sent

— very

in-

and with insulting allusions to old Cervantes. [68]

preparatory IRea&lng an^ ^bougbt Cervantes seems to have originally intended his hero to be a parody of the character of Amadis, but

soon to have made him the independent creation he is;

very distinct

—a

—with his round,

crazed, gaunt, dignified knight

amusing

selfish,

squire.

22 Saturday, June 21 [1856J. clear

and determined that

It

seems to be quite

should concentrate

I

my

—

powers [on] Leaves of Grass not diverting any of my means, strength, interest to the construction of anything else of any other book.

—

23

My own opinion is that myriads have been

lost

of superior works

— superior to existing works

department, except law, physics, and

in

every exact

the

sciences— 1856 24

Then poets must unable to say

this.

arise to

Why

make

future D'Israelis

the best poetry

is

the real

history.*

25

The

New

religion of the Bible, or rather of the

Testament,

is

a beautiful advanced stage

in

* Marginal note on following: " believe that a philosopher," says M. " would consent to lose any poet to regain an historian." 1856. I

[69]

the

D 'Israeli,

preparatory IReabing

ant)

^bougbt

neverending humanitarianism of the world

— but as

the Bible admits of exhaustion like the rest and

now

exhausted

it

terms: As long as

may be stands

it

is

on these

left

to

it is

worthy of standing;

its

these are perhaps the true terms of

all

fate

religions.

*

26

A main it

humanity is that any time or under any circumstances

part of the greatness of a

never at

arrives at

stand

I

to say:

its finality

— never

am fixed forever. am fixed — and

able to say:

Now as

1

anyone has the

feeling

retains that feeling

— then

If

I

is

a longer or shorter farewell to the greatness of that

Every day something more

humanity.

unsuspected the previous day. advancing, retreating, enlarging,

— something

Always changing, condensing, wid-

ening, being wafted to Spirituality.

Always new

materialism and things. + 27 I

think

it

probable or rather suggest

it

as such that

Bacon or perhaps Raleigh had a hand How much, whether as speare's plays. pruner, poetical

what he was tell

illuminator,

or did,

if

knowledge

anything,

it is

in

Shake-

furnisher,

infuser

not possible to

with certainty. 1 1857.

1856.

[70]

—

preparatory IReablng an& ZTbouQbt

Romeo

Shakespeare's earliest printed plays 1597.

and Juliet, Richard III., Richard II. Chapman's translation of Homer printed 1600. The gift of the ;^iooo was without doubt made about 1593 when Southampton was 20 years old and Shakespeare

29.

1596 his son

I

suspect earlier than that

Hamnet

?

died, in the 12th year of his

age. 1598.

To

of his plays had

this year only five

been printed although he had been a public writer for

twelve years.

ties,

more

The

among the

great masters as early as this

1598, in the 35th year of his age.

.

dramas was without is thought quite cer-

printing of Shakespeare's

his instigation or assistance. tain he

certain par-

or less numerous, adjudged already to de-

serve a place

date—

was by

Positively he

was

It

indifferent as to their appearance in print,

and did not mind even the blunders and omissions probably for the same reason that marred them

—

that Forrest

would not

like to

have

his plays in print

now. 1598.

Now

(12 years after going to

London) he

returns to Stratford, purchases and lives in one of the

best houses of the place 1601.

—

'*

New

Place."

His father died aged 71

— his

last

years

were probably comfortable. Queen Elizabeth no doubt often saw Shakespeare as an actor and applauded him. [71]

preparatory IReabing anb ZhoixQht

James

1603.

commenced

of England and VI. of Scotland

I.

Previously, of course,

to reign.

Queen

Elizabeth reigned.

Susanna, his eldest daughter, aged 24, was

1607.

married to John Hall, ''gentleman" 1

died

608 his mother died

— the

—a

— a physician.

previous his brother

little

mother was probably over 70 years of

age.

Shakespeare at this time, 1608, seems to have had ;^4oo a year

his reputation at its height.

to

have

now been

is

supposed

his income, 1608.

Burbage died with ;^3oo a year.

About Adonis" speare

)

1607

(15

years

after

Lord Southampton

— writing a

letter to

still

the

''Venus and

befriends

Shake-

the Lord Chamberlain

in

behalf of him and Burbage.

1600 and for some time before and after juvenile

companies were

much

patronized.

They must have

been very good companies too. Shakespeare friars

Theatres.

thrifty,

owned in both the Globe and BlackHe bought and sold, bargained, was

borrowed money, loaned money, had law-

suits.

Richard his youngest brother died 40.

two

His brother Gilbert, in

afterwards.

His sister Joan (5

in

161 2,

aged

years his elder, proba-

bly resided

Stratford

in

and before and years younger than

16 12

he) married William Hart, hatter,— they called their [7a]

anb tTbougbt

Ipreparatori? IReablng

first

child ''William."

him

a grandfather

His daughter Susanna

when he was

made

45 years old.

had a chancery suit. was entrusted with comDid right and wrong lost by fires, thieves, cheats, committed missions 1605

—

—

debaucheries, crimes.

follies,

His daughter Judith married to Thos.

16 16, Feb.

Judith had three children, she

Quiney, a vintner. died 166 1-2.

Made his will, signed it twice with unsteady hand, made an effort with firmness on the final signature, *' By me William Shakespeare." Death

at the

Death.

age of

52.

Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jonson

had a merrie meeting, and, for

seems, drank too hard,

it

Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted. His wife

Anne

outlived him.

She died

1623.

His last lineal descendant died 1670.

The

half-length

terior to 1623) ful,

upon

his

monument

(erected an-

''conveys the impression of a cheer-

good-tempered, somewhat jovial man." It is

in his

among

evident to

me beyond

own day and

at death

cavil that

Shakespeare

was by many

the great masters and acknowledged.^

yet the florid style of praise

placed

And

was applied to everybody

and almost everything in those times. " He was handsome, well-shaped man, very good Later

Whitman

has put a ? to this paragraph.

[73]

preparatory IReabing anb ZbowQbt company, and of a very ready and pleasant and smooth wit. "—Aubrey

Some

reason retired

some

was lame and for that from the stage came perhaps from

think Shakespeare

—

accident.

*'

Gentle "is the epithet often ap-

At that time was not its signification 'Mike a gentleman," ''of high-blooded bearing"?

plied to him.

Fuller speaks

of the

" wit-combats " between

Shakespeare and Ben Jonson at the Mermaid Club. " Myriad-minded Shakespeare." Evidently he

was

His autograph

Essays

— he

familiar

is in

with the

Iliad.

a translation of Montaigne's

then must

have been

familiar

with

Montaigne.

and Adonis passed through six editions Shakespeare's lifetime, and a number more afterl^enus

in

wards. Sonnets

first

printed 1609.

Milton admired and loved Shakespeare, praises of him,

Charles

I.

writes

— But yet he charges harshly against

that the

monarch had

a copy of Shake-

speare in his cabinet for his constant use.

The

character of the bastard Falconbridge

gloating pleasure over the fact that he

is

— his

the bastard

of a King rather than the legitimate son of a Knight what was this but either from a sentiment now

—

repudiated or to please the aristocracy?

was

it

Yet what

also but a true depicting of those days? [74]

A

anb ^bouQbt

Ipreparatori? IRcabing

depicting also of thousands of men's minds

true

these days?

Shakespeare

is

much

indebted to the ancients.

Hamlet's soliloquy, *'To be, or not to be,"

To

almost verbatim from Plato.*

one of

is

taken

the Iliad every-

his best plays is largely indebted.

See Emerson's Shakespeare. Shakespeare put such things into his plays as

would please the family

pride of Kings and Queens,

and of his patrons among the nobility. He did this His renderings for Queen Elizabeth and for James I. of man, phases of character, the rabble. Jack Cade,

the French Joan, the greasy and stupid canaille that

Coriolanus cannot stomach, cratic vanity

of the

men and

them

is

feed

but wash

Doubtless strictly

— the

in

these fed the aristo-

young noblemen and England

in

hero

yet.

always

is

truth.

salesmen, attendants

was

to

gentle-

Common blood of

high lineage.

so rendering humanity

rendered what

what was the

all

him the

Shakespeare truth

The'Class of mechanics, etc.,

in

— and

tailors,

Europe then, perhaps

even now, are they or are they not properly reflected

by such

reflections as

Shakespeare gives of them?

London News, 25 Oct., 1856. A paper read by Wm. Henry Smith, author of PVas Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays? '*What Pope says of some of the plays of Shakespeare is Illustrated

*

Later

Whitman

writes against this as marginal note:

[75]

—"

Is this

so?"

IReaMng anb

Ipreparatori?

probably true of

known

— that

all

Zbombt

they were pieces of un-

authors or fitted up for the theatre while

under his administration

— revised and added

to

by

him."

seems according to Malone that The London Prodigal was acted at his theatre and afterwards It

printed with his (SJiakespeare's)

name on

the

title

page — and though he had never written a

line of

he was

printer's

indifferent to the cheat

impudence.

and to the

Bacon, according to

most probably the reasons therefor,

author

real

W.

H. Smith,

was

— he goes on with his

some of them very

plausible, especially a

it

curious and

contemporary letter to Viscount

Albans saying: ''the most prodigious wit that

St.

ever

I

knew

of

my

nation or of this side of the sea,

was of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another." Jan. '57. Smith continued these lec-

—

tures.

Many

Over-coloring.

over-colored

in

little

Shakespeare

features of beloved

things are too

much

much.

The

— far

too

women, compliments,

the de-

scriptions of moderately brave actions, professions of service, It is

and hundreds more,

no answer to

state the case

this to

about a

are painted too intensely.

say that a lover would so

woman

he loved, or that a

would be apt to describe incidents in that manner; and that Shakespeare is therefore correct in so presenting them. Immensely too much

strong, rich nature

[76]

preparaton? IReaMna anb ^bougbt

is

unnaturally colored

— the

sentiment

is

piled on,

immortalities, bestowed upon themes certainly not worthy the same, thus losing proportion. ( ? ? Also most of the discursive speeches of the great and little characters are glaringly inappropriate, both words and similes, comparisons, defiances, exaltations,

come from

sentiments such as could not have

mouths

in real life

in

the

Yet on great occasions the character and

plays.)

action are perfect. Is

and therefore should not

their

This

is

he imitative of Homer?

what saves Shakespeare. If so where and how?

28

Edmund

Was

Born about 1553

Spencer.

—died

an intimate friend of Philip Sydney

1599.

who was

by a wound at the battle of Zutphen. Wrote adulatory verses on Queen Elizabeth

killed

—

Great Gloriana, Raleigh

Had

was

Spencer's next friend after Sydney.

a pension of £"^0 from the

actual Laureateship.

Queen and the

He danced attendance

like

He

lacky for a long time at court, but without luck. left in

disgust at last and

went

a

to his Irish estate

on

the banks of the Mulla. Earl **

E.

Leicester

was

his patron

and

K." often mentioned by Spencer

is

friend.

The

supposed to

have been himself— ''E, K." has much to say of Spencer's Writings

— commends them. [77]

preparatory IReaMng anb ^bougbt Spencer took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. at

Cambridge 1573 and

1576.

After serving in an Irish Secretaryship

received

from the Queen the profitable grant of property, the

—

Abbey of Enniscorthy in the County of Wexford making the poet rich owner of and resident in Kil-

—

colman

Castle.

There

in his castle

he must have written or

ished in 1588-89 the Fairy Queen

1590

in

('*

it

was published

twelve books fashioning twelve moral

Was

virtues ").

—

married

when 40

or over.

Kilcolman Castle attacked by insurgents cer

and

fin-

his family fled

— one

— Spen-

of his children burned

to death, the castle being fired.

A

flight

from Ireland.

Poverty ensued, comparative poverty anyhow. Lived a year

in

minster Abbey.

London.

was

Died,

A monument

buried in West-

erected 30 years after

death by Anne, Countess of Dorset. In his is

poems reverence

paramount to In

all

the

for purity

and goodness

rest.

was small and delicate, and became a man of taste."

person Spencer

custom precise ''as His face had sweetness and refinement almond-shaped eyes, forehead

lofty

— mild

but not very

wide — was well beloved by contemporaries who

exempted him from satire. Tone of Spencer's poetry [78]

is

in

all

inwardly abstracted,

preparatory IReaMng anb ZCbougbt

— loving high themes, princeliness, purity, white garments — rather — his personages being only half averse to contemplative

in

the highest degree

reality

He

real.

beauty

—

haunted by a morbid refinement of beauty three times washed and strained. is

No doubt

but he was very learned.

Even at the time of writing them, Spencer's words, in his poems, were many of them unusual, obsolete, or considered affected and strained. Fairy Queen personages: Red Cross Knight '* " Faith"Truth," Sansfoy Holiness," Una less," Arthur—*' Magnanimity," Orgoglio— 'Tride," " Queen Elizabeth." In the Gloriana— " Glory " Fairy Queen are also Despair, Fear, Care and Mammon. First book a king's daughter applies to a knight

—

—

—

—

— her parents and

terrible

are confined in their castle

dragon has

country, and forth,

— is

now

laid in

after

—a

vast

wait devouring the

them.

The knight

encounters a monster, an enchanter,

kills

sets

the

dragon, delivers the king and queen, marries the daughter.

29

Swedenborg

— born

1688

— died

1772,

aged

85.

At 55 years of age suddenly renounced the world.

He

is

a precursor, in

some

sort,

of great differences

between past thousands of years and future thou[79]

preparatory IReabing an& ZTbougbt

He was

sands.

little

thought of

at the time.

Per-

haps only the celebrity of his knowledge of minerals,

mathematics, chemistry and the classics saved

him from being counted a fool; it is wonderful the king and officers did not desert him and leave him to the usual fate of innovators, but they did not.

Neither Voltaire nor Rousseau notice him,

probably they did not

know

philosophs and

the same; the

literats

of him; the

English

German the

same.

He was

a contemporary of the French encyclo-

Goethe born 1749; Addison 1672-1719; Sam Johnson 1709-1784; Pope 1688-1744; Hume 171 11776; Gibbon 1737; Wm. Pitt 1708-1778; Franklin; paedists:

Jefferson;

Washington. 30

J. J.

by

Born

Died 1778 (some say An American poet may read Rousseau

Rousseau.

suicide).

17 12.

He

but shall never imitate him.

and

will cause

Rousseau's fall

a curious study

some contempt. Confessions

(Swinton's

translation

Rousseau, 54 years old, took Wooton, Staffordshire, England, and wrote

of 1856).

refuge in

is

In 1766

this frivolous,

book that still pages, and whose revelations

chattering, repulsive

has a great lesson

in its

one keeps reading somehow to the end.

Born

in

Switzerland— a [80]

sort

of

vagabond

—

preparatory IReaMng anb ZTbougbt a

of music

copyist

bourgeoisie.

not

much

— parents

decent,

Lost his mother early.

together.

Jean Jacques

left

One

brother,

Father a quiet, easy person.

— lived with various perbashful — learned a of

home

— worked — was everything — his Confessions are

sons

substantial

little

a singular opening

up of the trivial incidents, some quite disgusting, which find their tally in every man's life.

A

sensitive, Frenchy, frivolous, keen, proud,

happy,

restless,

Note

how

contemplative nature.

''character"

How

beginning.

the

is

the

and "Biography" come

we

un-

built

up

after all

pompous

down

from

''History"

to just

such

as

are.

Remember

in

those days there were no jour-

no "reviews," or masses of cheap literature demanded. After many wanderings the last ten years of Rousseau's life were in and around Paris. He was very poor; he lived in a garret and earned his food by copying music. He was old, discouraged, not nals,

robust, not popular, not happy.

What

a ten years

and what an ending to them. Six weeks before his death Rousseau was invited to a country mansion. There he walked, meditated, thought who knows what? Spent the day in botanizing before the night of his death. Did he or did he not die of suicide? OL.

IX.—6.

pi]

preparatory IReabinQ an5 ZTbouQbt

31

Louis XIV. born 1638 died 1715.

Corneille— Louis

XIII.

Racine towards the

last

of Louis XIV.

Tragedies

models — characters Greek Roman — everything on — the talk

rigidly after the antique

or

stilts

in

all

heroics. I

fancy the classical tragedies of Corneille, Racine,

must illustrate the vital difference between a native and normal growth (as the Greek tragedies themselves) and all that comes from the mere study of that growth. November, 1855, saw Rachel in Athalie at the Voltaire &c.,

I

Academy

of Music.

Myrrha, by Alfieri, the Italian, lurid passions with long winded dialogues about nothing.

32

Burns faithful to

1

759-1 796.

By

his

poems Burns was

lowly things, customs, idioms, Scotland,

the lasses, the peasants, and to his nature.

He was

often

own

robust

hard up, an improvident

—

he made poems succeeded He took a farm, was ;^5oo, an immense sum. appointed exciseman (^75 a year) lived two or three

freehanded man.

His

years in that way, drank, sickened, died. [82]

preparatory IReabing anb ZboixQbt

33

Heldenbuch— Book of Heroes—full of half-ghostly, raw head and bloody bones stories ancient German.

—

Nibelungenlied

known)— it

— song

of Nibelung (author un-

Probably

objective like the Iliad.

is

dates back to about the 6th or 7th century.

supposed tion)

it

from

to be about the third redaction (diges-

primitive form out of myths, acts,

its

traditions, or

what

not.

Characters: Siegfried full

Carlyle

— the hero, a warrior King,

of courage, the usual type-hero, as seen, duly

followed

in

Chriemheld kingly

modern novels and

all

— a beautiful

brothers,

of

plays.

princess, sister of three

Worms,

in

time

Siegfried's

wife.

Gunther, the principal of the three brothers. Brunhilde, a brave, vindictive, relentless

— Gunther's wife. Hagen — a brave warrior.

woman

Etzel (King of Hun-land) Chriemheld's second

husband

— supposed

to be the historic Attila, died

450 A.D. In their present

shape these poems Heldenbuch

and Nibelungenlied cannot be older than the twelfth century.

The poet himself is unknown up the poem

in

the

1

—he probably made

3th century. [83]

ZbowQU

preparatory IReaWng anb

34

Shakespeare and Walter Scott are indeed the limners and recorders

and the

— as

Homer was one

greatest, perhaps, of

long to the class

who

any

before, All be-

recorder.

depict characters

and events

and they are masters of the kind. 1

will

be also a master

my own

after

kind,

making the poems of emotions, as they pass or stay, the poems of freedom, and the expose of personality singing in high tones Democracy and the New World of it through These States.*

—

35

Keats died 1821. Shelley,

born

gentry — must L.

Harris.

slight, tall,

died

1792

1822

— stock

English

have been quite such another as T.

Went

to Eton,

and Oxford

18 10, figure

stooped, aspect youthful, screamed loud

when enthusiastic, head small, hair and bushy—generous, benevolent, pure early in talking

—

long

—

in

riser

winter evenings lay on the rug before the

fire

a cat — fed simply, liked

and sleep curled round like expelled from college bread and raisins

— ried same year — separated

ried

second

18 16.

Was

181 3

1,

mar-

not healthy, or rather not

rudely so. * Probably

181

— wife died — mar-

written before 1850.

[84]

preparatori? IReabing ant) ^bought

Gower, born

1326, died

who calls him

friend of Chaucer,

Seems

1402,

to have been a devout

orthodox —

'

'

''

was an

the moral Gower."

churchman.

one of the fathers

"

intimate

Rich and

— with Chaucer.

37

Geoffrey Chaucer, born 1328, died 1400 aged 72, parents citizens of London. Contemporary of Froissart,

Walter de Manny, King Edward and Queen

Phillippa.

Chaucer familiarly

is

supposed to have seen and conversed

with Petrarch.

He received in the 39th and 44th years of his age two grants or annuities from the King. He cultivated his own growth out of that of the Italian and Proven9al poets.

Appointed by the King Comptroller of the cuswool-fells and hides— income ;^iooo,

toms of wool,

equal to about $15,000 now. After death

of

Edward

Wickliffe

Chaucer

was

II.

contemporary

his

and

friend.

sat in Parliament 1386.

Personally (aged 30)

complexion, his

medium,

held similar favor

III.

and kindness under Richard

lips

''

of a

red and

his air polished

fair

and beautiful

his

size a just

and graceful."

Married at

full,

37 to the daughter of a Hainault knight. [85]

preparatory? IReaMng ant) ^bougbt

Of

course

in

Chaucer's time the language of the

court and of learned and refined persons, especially

of poetical-disposed genteel persons, must have assimilated to the

French and mostly was French,

coming on to them from William the Conqueror and his nobles and their descendants. Spencer copied Chaucer 200 years after his time.

Of all Chaucer's poem's Driden mon and Aroite, As great

as Spencer

preferred Pala-

and Milton very

easily

— and

no obstinate quarrel about Dante; but wait awhile before putting him with Homer or Shakespeare.* Doubtless at that time no one knew or thought those persons heroes or those wars and politics important. Also Chaucer alone of eminent English poets seems to have been above adulating royalty and nobles for gain's sake.f There has been hardly a poet in the English language since 1400 but imitates Chaucer more or less. Driden founded the school under which Pope's style comes. all

Driden's forte

was

satire

— his

poems

—

visibly or invisibly. more or less Chaucer was humorous perhaps as humorous

have

it

—

as Shakespeare.

Chaucer was plainly a strong wholesome man * Marginal note.

The

writer in magazine has said:

" Chaucer must be classed

with Homer and Dante, with Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton." f Chaucer did not laud the heroes victories of Cressy

and

Poitiers

— upon

and beauties of this fact

[86]

his

time nor celebrate the great

Whitman comments

as above.

B^reparator? IReablng anb

with large perceptive organs, independent tastes, rude, ing,

amative, of

friendly,

— possessed

spirit

ZbowQbt

of the true English

fond of women, fond of eating and drink-

not to be quelled by priestcraft or kingcraft.

38

think

I

all

the peculiarities of poets (perhaps of

marked persons) spirit

,

are to be taken calmly

and

in

all

a

of latitude, not criticised and found fault with.

Those traits were the men

—

as facts in the landscape, in mathematics, in istry.

same chem-

facts in nature the

This must of course be applied to Milton,

Pope, Tennyson,

etc., just

the same as any.

39

Most poets

—

I

will

finish single

specimens of characters

never finish single specimens;

them by exhaustless laws

1

will

shower

as nature does, indicating

not only themselves but successive productions out of themselves, later and fresher continually.*

40 Perfect

Vision. ness.

Sanity.

Divine

Instinct.

Healthy rudeness of body.

Gayety.

Sun-tan and

* Cf. Leaves of Grass. t Cf. Leaves of Grass, '56 edition, p. 26^. [87]

air

Breadth

of

Withdrawn-

sweetness, t

preparatori? IReabing ant) ^bougbt

41

Heine

Heinrich

Travel

Poems cious,

portrait

(1856),

dead 1856)

(just

(as translated)

rather ironical

— leaning,

Pictures

sleeping

of

head.

seem to be fanciful and vivaand melancholy with a dash

of the poetical craziness.

42

As to Shakespeare's

much

translation of so

human body and

translations

— they

are the

beef and bread into

vital

soul.

43

Shakespeare, born April, 1564, died

One

the 53rd

of eight children.

Mar-

subsequent to) 28th Nov., 1582.

First

year of his age) 1616. ried (on or

(in

May, 1583. Wife had twins No more children afterwards. Went

child christened 26th

early in 1585.

to

London 1586

—

is

heard of three years afterwards

as a sharer in the Blackfriars' theatre.

Shakespeare

—

first

nearly 1,000 pages

folio

edition

— complete

— one

volume

collection of

Com-

and Tragedies published by his asand first editors Heminge and Condell, 1623

edies, Histories

sociates

(seven years after Shakespeare's death). the next eight or nine years the

first

1609 or '10

year of

from the about his forty-sixth year

17th century to about

poet's thirty-seventh to

— from the

''During

[88]

—

preparatory? IReablng anb ZCbougbt

his genius rose at

mination.

It

was the

resistless control

its

highest point of cul-

era of his tragic power, of his

over the emotions of terror

and of

and most gloomy philosoThis was the period when he appeared as

and of

pity,

phy. '

once to

his deepest

the stern censurer of man,'

when

his deeper insight

human heart led him to dark and sad views human nature, sometimes prompting the melan-

into the

of

sometimes bursting forth in the fiery indignation of Timon and Lear. It was during this period that he most impressed upon choly philosophy of Hamlet,

which we now recognize as Shakespearian by crowding into his words

his style that character

peculiarly

a weight of thought until the language bent under

His versification becomes like his diction bolder,

it.

freer, careless

melody

of elegance, of regularity and even of

— a sterner music

fitted for sterner

themes."

44

Ben Jonson, born

1574,

was

a working bricklayer.

Plutarch, English translation from a French one in

the reign of

Queen

Elizabeth.

Shakespeare evidently did not anticipate the fame that

was

fame.

to follow

him

? also

was

indifferent

about

Did not even see to the printing of his plays

and poems or even correcting them when misprinted. He minded his thrift, was hospitable, lived on what he made. [89]

lpreparatori2

IReaMng anb ^bought 45

Troubadours Italy,

— poets and singers — South France,

Germany,

Spain,

The troubadours

centuries.

The troubadours were fit

12th, 13th

of the middle ages.

''gentle," knightly, refined,

—

and ladies in saloons the trouveres comparison fitter for the common people.

for lords

were

nth,

Britain, etc.

in

— to find). and villeinage — Crusades.

Trouveres (trouver

Serfdom trarch.

Froissart.

Boccaccio

poraries of Chaucer).

(all last

Feudality.

Pe-

Dante.

three contem-

— With

the close

of the 15th century the middle age period expires.

Middle age architecture.

Modern poetry

is

neutral

tints.

The English poet has reminiscences and continually extols them. The American poet has a future, and must extol

it.

46 Published l^enus and Adonis 1593; Tarquin and Lucrece 1594; Pilgrim 1599; Sonnets Shakespeare.

1609.

Shakespeare commenced at 27 years of age,

in

London — was already the father of three children — seems

to

have hardly seen

nor did they certain,

house

live

his wife afterwards (?)

together (?)

This

they possibly lived sociably

after

Shakespeare settled [90]

last

is

in

the

in Stratford.

not so

same

preparatory IReaMna anb ^bought

As a young man must have been a great pet with everybody.

— young man — his friend — the company — the original actor of the

Richard Burbage ''star" of the

leading 1

Shakespearean

Was

619.

the

original

been a superb man.

Burbage

characters.

died

He must have children, two sons.

Hamlet.

He

left

was the original Macbeth, Brutus, Coriolanus, Shylock, Romeo, Lear, Othello, etc. Venus and Adonis is dedicated to Lord Southampton, and styled by the poet the 'first heir of his Besides Hamlet he

'

This, the Lucrece

invention."

and the Sonnets

all

precede his great dramas. Spencer,

him

in 1591

his

(Shakespeare then only 27 years old) as

a superior writer

mock

contemporary, already alludes to

"whom

nature's self

had made to

herself," and as " our pleasant Willy."

Spencer was doubtless intimate with Shakespeare

and knew what he had

in

him.

47 Spring of '59 read Dante's Inferno.

It is

one of

those works (unlike the Homeric and Shakespearean) that ties

make an

intense impression on the susceptibili-

of an age, or

two

or three ages of the peculiar

by previous training and surrounding influences to absorb it and be mastered by its strength. But as what it grows out of and needs present for

temper

fitted

[91]

preparatory IReaMuQ anb ^bougbt

its

has also passed away. it

away

understanding and love has passed quite It

achieved under circumstances

The

points of the Inferno

fitted to

(I

am

it

on the fame

rests entirely

it.

giving

my

first

impressions) are hasting on, great vigor, a lean and

muscular ruggedness; no superfluous fascination there

matter

how

always

is in

and the a well told tragedy, no

painful or repulsive.

It

flesh;

signifies, in its

way, that melancholy and imperious part of humanity, or its elements, out of which the whole structure of the stern and vindictive Jehovahn theology has arisen

— from the time

of the primitive Jews

geance, gloating

in

down

— ven-

the agony of sinners, bad men,

enemies to be punished, and the usual distinctions of good and It is

to

evil.

poem. Dante's whole works appear a very moderate compass. It seems strange

a short

lie in

that he should stand as the highest type of Italian

imaginative art-execution in literature

so haggard and un-rich, un-joyous.

— so

But the

Italian art-execution flourishes of course in

—

in

gaunt, real

other fields

music, for instance, peerless in the whole earth,

teaching high over the heads of all lands,

Mark the different

all

times.

simplicity of Dante, like the Bible's

from the tangled and

florid

—

Shakespeare.

Some of his idioms must, in Italian, cut like a knife. He narrates like some short-worded, superb, illiterat

— an

old farmer or

some

New

England blue-light

preparatori? IReaWng anb ^bougbt

common

minister or or her story all

— makes the

that he says, as

wonder really

person interested

impression of bona fide

were

if it

in telling his

certainly so.

I

descended into Hell and seen what he de-

Mark,

say, his

I

economy of words

other writer ever equal to him.

ignored.

— perhaps no

One

simple

trail

—

all else resolutely makes the poem This alone shows the master, in this reA great the most perfect in all literature.

of idea, epical,

spect

is

study

for diffuse

moderns.

Dante's other principal work, the Paradise,

not read.

gil

do not

that the middle ages thought he had indeed

scribed.

tiful

in

In

it,

I

believe, Beatrice, a pure

woman, conducts him through Heaven

has conducted him through Hell.

does not succeed so well

What

is

more

have

and beau-

— as Vir-

Probably he

giving heavenly pictures.

in

effective

I

conforming to the vulgar

and extreme coarsely rank pattern of Hell than the tableaux in the ''ninth circle," where two brothers

murdered each other are made to continually ''butt" each other by their heads, steeped in mud, ice and filth.

that have hated and

48

" Even to sing in

now

Jasmund, the people's poet, prefers Proven9al."— De Vere's Comparative Phil-

ology, 1853. C93]

preparatory IReaMng a^^ ^bougbt

49

Pythagoras was very beautiful and lived to a great age.

He was

of athletic tastes, a boxer, a

dancer, wrestler, runner etc.

and perfumes

He

delighted in music

— wore his beard long. 50

James Macpherson, 737-1 796. Ossian, the real Ossian, if ever there were one, is put down at 300 or 400 B.C. Very likely a myth altogether. Ossian, 1

bosky shield

The

— wooden

shield.

swear that Ossian belongs to them that he was born, lived and wrote in Ireland.* Irish

—

51

An

Ossianic

paragraph

f:

Margaret

Fuller be-

nighted and alone on Ben Lomond.

kind of thought and character rude, combative, illiterate poetical,

—

means that growing among a

Ossian must not be despised

it

people, heroic,

on mountains, not on

rich

dreamy,

lowlands, not

with placid Gods and temples, not with cultivated benevolence,

conscientiousness,

agreeableness,

or

constructiveness. * Ossian's " Address to the Sun " paper and above note appended to f 51

is

it

is

pasted by

W. W.

a marginal note to an Ossianic paragraph which

on which Whitman

on a piece of writing

by him.

writes.

[94]

is

pasted on the paper

preparatory IReabing anb ^bouQbt

How

misty,

how

windy,

How

only half-meaning words! (Don't

fall

Can it

how

full

of diffused,

curious a study!

any chance).

into the Ossianic, by

be a descendant of the Biblical poetry?

it

Is

not Isaiah, Job, the Psalms and so forth, transferred

to the Scotch Highlands? (or to Ireland?)

The tremendous figures and poems are they not original?

ideas of the

—

great.

for

Hebrew

they are certainly

(Yes they are original.) 52

Produce great persons and the producers of great

...

persons

been

has

but

all

the rest surely follows.

indicated

America must receive

growth

...

in

other

the time

is

is

age

is

to pass the

it.

Produce great persons

The time

in

and numberless arrived and ^e land

got ready and every present

lows.

continents,

definite

its

sinewy lesson and add to

What

(all)

the rest surely

fol-

arrived and the land got ready

the free growth of that which has been in* dicated. for

53

Passing through the

town

of Borgo in old Fin-

land, Russia.

Runeberg, the favorite poet of the Fin. *Cf. Leaves of Grass, i860 [95]

edition, p. 109.

He

is

preparatory IReaMng anb ZbouQbt said to possess

more than mediocre

talent

his harp gracefully to granite, furs

music of the

northern

blasts,

all

and tunes

and the rough of which the

Finnish people love.

Of

Finland the roads are good, the scenery wild,

pleasing landscapes, of which granite boulders,

hills,

—

and pine trees are the principal features prevented from appearing mountainous by the endless lakes

variety of their arrangement.

The country is rough,

the people are rough also, but friendly and strong.*

54

The

florid, rich, first

oriental

poems,

in

phases of poetry, as

in

the

the Bible, Arabian Nights, Tales

of the Genii, Ossian, the Indians of America (Logan). Song, of Spring—

The all

the Persian.

ixovc\

primitive poets, their subjects, their style,

assimilate.

Very ancient poetry of the Hebrew

prophets, of Ossian, of the Hindu singer and ecstatics,

of the Greeks, of the American aborigines, the

old Persians and Chinese, and

Sagas,

all

the

Scandinavian

resemble each other.

55

As now

are given to science

many names— ge-

ology, botany, astronomy, physiology, etc. Oct.

1855.

[96]

But the

Ipreparaton? IReaMng an& ^bouQbt

science

real

is

omnient,

sciences comprehending

nothing less than

is all

the

all

known names and

many unknown. 56*

The Paradise Lost is, to us, nonsense, anyhow, because it takes themes entirely out of human cognizance and treats them as Homer treats his siege and opposing armies and their disputes. The Iliad stands perfectly well and very beautiful for what it is, an appropriate blooming of the poet and what he had received and what he believed and what to him was so in a certain sense. The Paradise Lost is offensive to modern science and intelligence it is a

—

few great strong features

poetical fanaticism with a

but not a great poem.

Another point of difference

the

is

Iliad

was

wanted to give body and shape to the nebulous float of traditions and it gives them the .

beautiful,

swift,

Paradise Lost pose.

What

.

.

rolling,

continuing

was not wanted is in

for

in

The

any such pur-

the Bible had better not be para-

The Bible is indescribably perfect rhyme, would that improve it or not?

phrased. it

shape.

— putting

Think of a writer going into the creative action of the Deity! * The notes that follow (under

this

number)

are written

on the margin of certain

pages of Christopher under Canvas, in an 1849 magazine, and are annotations on that text. VOL. IX.—7.

[97]

preparatory IReabina anb ZTbougbt

The

is

simply that which has the per-

beauty— beauty

fectest

brain,

best poetry

to the ear, beauty to the

beauty to the heart, beauty to the time and

There cannot be a true poem unless the various needs of beauty.

place. fies

sympathy with men and that does not pervade him enough by a

Wordsworth

women —

satis-

it

lacks

long shot.

Whoever

believes in the Calvinistic theology to

him the thread of Paradise Lost may seem strong to others

The

it

be weak.

will

difference

second-hand

between

originality

is

and

perfect originality

the difference between

the Bible and Paradise Lost. Milton's

mind seems

sort of muscle

poetry wants.

to have

had the grandest

and much of the other

The

descriptions are large

stuff that

and

defi-

—

He has nothing little or nice about him but he was in too much with sectarian theology and nite.

with the disputes between puritans and churchmen. For instance what nations

in

Asia or Africa, not

would see any great point them?

Christian,

read to

in his

poem

if

57

Sophocles, /Eschylus, Euripides flourished just before the maturity of Socrates.—Their best

have not come

down

to moderns. [98]

works

preparatory? IRea&lng anb XLbougbt

^schylus the figures are shadowy, vast, moving with haughty grandeur, majestic, dreamy strength and will— born 525, died 456 B.C. In

—

Sophocles, born 495 b.c. to 406. The dialogue and feelings are more like reality ('*the harmonious gracefulness of Sophocles tuning his love labored

song

sweetest warbling from

the

like

grove") the

interest

comes home

a

sacred

nearer.

Great

poetical beauty.

— love and sonings and melting pathos of Euripides") — someEuripides born 495 B.C., died very old

compassion, scientific refinement (''the subtle reaThis writer

thing like skepticism.

was

a hearer of

Socrates.

Aristophanes born 480

B.C.

Nineteen of his plays

remain out of eighty or ninety Socrates,

whom

he lampoons

in

— contemporary

of

The Clouds,

Aristotle born 384 B.C., at Stagira, in Macedonia,

went

early to Athens,

studied

under

Plato,

was

afterwards tutor to Alexander the Great, returned to Athens, opened a

gymnasium

or school,

left

to

escape a charge of atheism, poisoned himself. Plutarch born 50 a.d., lived to old age. Zoroaster,

two

ceded both 1700

centuries after Moses.

Menu

pre-

B.C.

Confucius, China, 500 B.C.

Pindar

was

in his

prime about the time of the

birth of Socrates, [99]

preparatory IReaMng anb ^bougbt 58

The

Iliad,

the Bible, and

as Prometheus, the dies as

Hamlet

poems

is

The yEschylean Tragedies

Principal

— are

is

but an episode

a filled up entirely perfected

mastery; but the building

is

— each,

poem

— neither work

of

strictly

them

is

though Something far more

what is supplied is admirable. is wanted than all that is supplied. grandly planned and what is done

Of

Each of these

not complete.

but a portion of a

considered,

Shakspearean Trage-

of

art,

The is

building

is

done by great

not even half done.

the Bible the parts do not have that unques-

tionable self-proved identity that

does Christ merge and make

necessary

is

fruitful at all

Canticles that preceded him.

The

— nor

the Syrian

owners and

real

Hebrew Bible, rejecting the New Testament and what it stands for still wait for the climax

heirs of the

of the poem.

how

Taking

it

altogether

it

is

wonderful

such a contradictory repertoire was brought

together and has held sway. the very reason

it

Or

is

has held together

this diversity ?

Has there

been something to touch or approach every phase of

human want, development,

cism

tenderness, fanati-

etc.

59 Oct. and Nov., 1857.

Reading

Eclogues and the ytneid. [100]

Virgil's Bucolics,

IPreparatori? IReabing

The y^neid was one

ZhowQU

anb

of the very

first

books

(trans-

lated in

English) printed after the invention of print-

ing.

was

It

Virgil

born 70

B.C.,

of the patrician order

patrons

Of

among

second-hand It

is

aged

B.C.,

it

and

poetical

article

me

seems to

well

— Homer's

Iliad

enough

being the model.

too plain an attempt to get up a case, by an

Roman

origin

and

for the divine

participation in old Italian affairs just as

those of besieged Troy and

The death

me

Was

— naturstudies — had

well educated

defect of being an imitation, a

fatal

expert hand, for

in

51.

was

the leading Ronnans.

the /Eneid,

except for the

died 19

—

of elegant tastes

ally

by Caxton.

printed before 1500

in

much

as

mythical Greece.

of Turnus, at the conclusion,

seems to

a total failure as a piece of invention, description,

etc.

The

Bucolics and Georgics are finely

they are

expressed—

first-rate.

60 Immortality

thought of

it

was

modern

— the

influence of the

entering into the positive acts of the

citizens every day,

to

realized

ages,

sending yet

its

tangible bequest

and looking with calm and rugged

quaintness to-day from the slopes of the pyramids.

(when they not accepted and obeyed?) Through these

Personal qualities were accepted and obeyed are

[lOl]

Ipreparator? IReabing anb Zi;bou9bt

more than three thousand years ago ruled Egypt for more than three score years. He was six feet ten inches high and nobly proportioned and supple. He was considerate of the common people. He conquered Asia and Europe, honoring most those He was a rugged, wholethat resisted him most. some and masculine person and in the list of Egyptian greatness comes first after Osiris. not only Phoenicia Not only Assyria and Egypt and Lydia and Persia and Media and India had their literature growing out of the nature and circumstances and governments and enjoyments of the people, with more or less specimens, of course long since lost, of the grandest and most perfect forms of expression but the men and women of other nations, other empires and states, other mighty and populous cities contemporary with them in other Sesostris

—

—

parts of the world, or ages antecedent of them,

may

be

or

may

it

in distant regions of the

it

Eastern Hemisphere,

[be] in North or South America,

had

their

loves and passions and prides and aspirations also typified

and put

in

shape and held

in

compositions.

Language was systematized and passed on from one generation to another in methods answering to what was needed. These unknown empires and cities and their literatures existed just as certainly as the

ones and perhaps the

known

ones.

in greater

known

vigor and fluency than

Travellers in every age and in [102]

all

Ipreparatori? IReabina

parts of the world

come upon

an& ^bougbt their

dumb and

puz-

zling relics. In

those early days the bards were the only histo-

They were far more. All that all times lives men and women, the feelings, the aspirations,

rians. in

pride, majesty, delicacy, adhesiveness, amativeness,

the dread of being thought mean, the

vogue more and better than

demand

practical

life

for a

affords,

and poets of those rude races and make the bards who spoke to them sacred and beloved.

urged audiences

for the singers

6i

Egypt (and probably much of the sentiment of the Assyrian Empire) represents that phase of devel-

opment, advanced childhood,

full

of belief, rich and

amazed and awed before the nothing more wonderful than life,

divine enough, standing

mystery of even

in

a

— hawk — a life

bull or a cat

— the

masses of

the people reverent of priestly and kingly authority.

The

definite history of the

world cannot go back

far-

most important particuof man, except in These States,

ther than Egypt, and in the lars

the average

spirit

has not gone forward of the

spirit

of ancient Egypt.

62 India represents meditation, oriental

rhapsody,

passiveness, a curious schoolmaster-teaching of wise [103]

preparatory TReabing anb ^bougbt precepts and

is

the beginning of feudality, or the

in-

and the serf— much of the lategentleman so nice and delicate dates

stitution of the lord

age lord or fine

back to Hindustan. Assyria and Egypt.

Greeks

—

development of our race tiful,

in

and intellectual poems, the beau-

illustrating the aesthetic in fluency,

theory and action, friendship, architecture,

manners, philosophy and

much

else.

Romans — the physical, that which makes a commanding and mighty

race, that

which gives

perfec-

tion to war, conquest, invasions, audacity, amplitude, victory, the majesty

dignified in attitude,

Hebrews

— the

and discriminations of law, the speech, and the like. element, the indefinite,

spiritual

the immortal, sublimity, the realm to which the material tends, the realm of shadows, meditation,

the influence of the stars

sublime idea of a coming

in solitude at night,

man

the

or Saviour, a perfect

individual.

More

or less undoubtedly Hindustan, Egypt, As-

syria, Persia,

China, Phoenicia and other elder lands

preceded the Greeks,

what preceded these

Romans and Hebrews. latter is

hard to

tell

But

except by

the process of reasoning from effects to causes.

Back to ten thousand years before These States, all nations had, and some yet have, and perhaps always will have, tradition of coming men, great bene[104]

preparatory IReabtng an^ ZboiXQbt factors, of divine origin, capable of

blessings,

poems,

enlightenment.

deeds of might,

From time

to

time these have arisen, and yet arise and will always arise.

Some

are called

gods and

deified

— enter into

the succeeding religions.

We know of no any more than

what is The

first

in

beginning

in universal literature

chronology.

We

only [know]

to be mentioned.

first literature

to be mentioned

is

doubtless

Assyrian literature and the literature of Egypt and

Many,

Hindostan.

many thousand

years

since,

books, histories, poems, romances, Bibles, hymns,

works illustrative of mechanics, science, arithmetic, humor. Government, war, manners, manufactures and all the principal themes of interest to civilized life and to men and women, were common in the great Asiatic cities of Nineveh and Babylon and their empires, and in the empire of Hindostan, and in the African Memphis and Thebes and through Egypt and Ethiopia. Cheap copies of these books circulated among the commonality or were eligible to them. Vast libraries existed; there were institutions in which learning and religion grew together. Religion had a deep and proportionate meaning, the best fitted to the people and the times. Astronomy was understood with which no nation can be degraded

—

[105]

IReaMng anb ^bougbt

Ipreparatori?

nor any race of learned persons remain without grand

thoughts and poems. 64

Sustenance

for the great geniuses of the

world

is

always plenty and the main ingredients of it are perhaps always the same. Yet nothing ever happened to former heroes, sages

them, so

fit

and poets so

inspiring to

upon them of works newer,

to shine resplendent, light

and make them

original creators

nobler, grander,

as the events of the last eighty

years.

I

mean

the advent of America.* 65

A poem

which is minutely described the whole particulars and ensemble of a first-rate healthy Human Body it, looked into and through, as if it were and now reported in transparent and of pure glass a poem. in

—

—

Why need genius

and the people of These States

be demeaned to romances

be properly

told, there is

?

Let facts and histories

no more need of romances. 67

Still

tonic

more

among

is

due those episodes of France.

lands,

? Plu-

more dreadful than any, yet * Written about [106]

'56.

in-

preparatory IRea&lnQ anb tlbougbt they,

dispensable,

another,

larger,

the few moral strata, enfolding the globe,

They

are not inviting.

streaming

gashed,

we know

them, ials,

more

They

are not

blood—

with

is

theirs.

good

— they

But,

examining

the future will not have credent-

to be envied, than, sole

erent, colossal, those dread

race of France

among

latest

among men,

deeds will present

diff-

for the

I

68 .

.

.

that

it

perpetually fibre and strengthen and

which is good, and erase all which is bad. Compulsion, on the other hand, is a temporary support, gained at the price of much bad feeling and reaction. Schools proud of and valuing it for its good name, works of art, architecture, parks, ornaments, aqueducts, avenues and the perfection of its civilization and conveniences. Every one of these vivify

all

—

officers

should be possessed with the eternal Ameri-

can ideas of age.

liberty, friendliness,

nonsense to fancy that the sphere of

It is all

such fine diffused

traits

can only be on some higher and more

and commanding

ator or President.

emplify

them

amptitude and cour-

The

scale, as

Governor or Sen-

right sort of

man

will ex-

just as well here directly at our doors

or in our City Hall.* The MS. of this

piece

[X07]

is

in a

bad

state.

lpreparatori2 IReabing ant)

The

Zbongbt

true friends of the Sabbath and of

ing and elevating influences and of the

its

purify-

many

ex-

and other reforms that mark the

cellent physical

present age, are not necessarily those

who

compla-

cently put themselves forward and seek to carry the

good through by penalties and stoppages and arrests and fines. The true friends of elevation and reform For

are the friends of the fullest rational liberty.

there it

is

this vital

and antiseptic power

in liberty that

tends for ever and ever to strengthen what

and erase what

is

good

Compulsion is a temporary support, causing much bad blood and certain reacbad.

is

For the city or state to become the general

tion.

overseer and dry nurse of a man, and coerce any further than before

mentioned

•

.

.

70

Of visible visible,

this

broad and majestic universe,

world, and is

much

owned by

in

the

all

in

the

the greater world inPoet.

He owns

the

and reaps from every field and harvests cotton and grain and clover. All the the corn ear and woods and all the orchards stalk and tassel, the buckwheat its white tops solid

ground and

tills

it

—

and

the

meadows

bees that .

.

hum

there

.

[1083

all

day— the

salt

preparatory IReablng

ant)

ZCbougbt

71 In

What

remarks on myself.

he was just

out— one

men common

other

like

of the

— he .

they say of him

shall

.

—

not be singled

.

72

For dropping.

— embodying the sentiment

Poem

of perfect happiness, in myself all

right

body and soul being

— regardless of whatever may happen. 73

Lafontaine, born about 1621, lived 73 years (1694) was of good family, inherited some property wrote

—

— somewhat Esop's — also wrote plays — lived 20 years supported by a her house — was intimate with (? Ra-

fables in verse

poems and noble lady

like

in

cine, Boileau, Bossuet, Moli^re).

74

What

life

hides too!*

* Among other printed gether

I

slips,

find the following sonnet

newspaper, and other

— pasted and huddled to— a sonnet which

by Rev. Joseph Blanco White

Coleridge praised highly:

Mysterious Night!

when

our

first

parent

knew

Thee, from report Divine, and heard thy name. Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet, 'neath a current of translucent dew,

Bathed

in the rays of the great setting flame,

£109]

preparatori? IReaMng anb ZhoiXQht

75

Goethe's complete works, of his

own

complete edition

last

revision, 1827-8 a short time before his

—

died 1832. Goethe born 1749 Carlyle, in reviews and otherwise, seems to have been the introducer of Goethe and the principal Gerdeath.

man

writers from 1827

onward

Goethe (reading Carlyle's His

first literary

productions

10 years.

criticisms

on Goethe).

in his

fell

23rd year.

Goethe was seen by the heir-apparent of Weimar. Soon after invited to court and accordingly settled at Wei-

Sorrows of IVerter

mar.

25th year.

in his

(Goethe was

In 1776

handsome, every

tall,

way

sonally attractive)

had the

(some time

By degrees whatever was

after).

per-

of Legations-rath

title

bright-

Germany had been gathered in this little court. There was a classical theatre under Goethe and est in

There Wieland taught and sang.

Schiller.

pulpit there Herder

(was

this

about 1807?).

In

the

Goethe

Hesperus with the host of heaven came,

And

lo!

Who

creation

widened

in

man's view.

could have thought such darkness lay concealed

Within thy beams, Whilst

fly,

and

leaf,

O

and

Sun

? or

who

could find,

insect stood revealed,

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?

Why

If light

On life

the

can thus deceive, wherefore not

margin Whitman

hides too."

Cf.

has written

the

Leaves of Grass, '$6 edition,

[no]

life?

above

p. i66.

four

words

:

**

What

preparatory IReaMng mi> ZhonQbt had risen until at last he was appointed minister (I suppose chief). Here is now (January, 1856,) my opinion of Goethe. (Had not better read more of Goethe beHe is the most profound fore giving an opinion?) 1

reviewer of

To him

known.

life

mind, death, people, are

life,

things, the

studies, dissections, ex-

all

These he enters upon with unequalled coolness and depth of penetration. As a critic he stands apart from all men and criticises them. He is the first great critic and the fountain of modern hibitions.

Yet Goethe will never be well beloved

criticism.

Perhaps he knows too much.

of his fellows.

I

can

fancy him not being well beloved of Nature for the

same

A

reason.

calm and mighty person whose

anatomic considerations of the body are not enclosed

by superior considerations makes the perfect surgeon and operator upon the body upon all occasions. So his office Goethe operates upon the world is great what indeed is greater? He shall have the respect and admiration of the whole. There is however what he cannot have from any. So Goethe lived amid princely persons, all cere-

...

.

.

.

monies, etiquettes, ranks, ribbons, caste, the classics, refinements, that

taxes,

money

belongs to a petty

plenty, deference,— all

German

court

and the

minutest observances of the same, with exact pre-

cedence and routine

for everything. [III]

Arranged

art

preparatory IReablng anb ^bougbt exhibitions, palace-building, laws for the university

and so on. Goethe's poems, competitive with the antiqwe,

They

are so because he has studied the antique.

pear to

me

cept one.

as great as the antique in

That

the antique

is

ap-

respects ex-

all

poems were growths

— they were never studied from antiques. Goethe's Wanderjahre was published {Sorrows of Wetter

year

ters illustrate (in dialogue

in his 25th)

72nd

in his

—

its

charac-

and incident) a philosoph-

theory of the Christian religion, finely spun.

ical

The orthodox statement of etc.,

are re-stated —

''

Christ, the Crucifixion

the sun hiding

its

head when

died " etc.

He

18 Feb.,

There

1856.

one point of the Goe-

is

thean philosophy, which, without appeal and forever incapacitates

coming

it

years.

from suiting America and the forthIt is

the cardinal Goethean doctrine

too, that the artist or poet

alone apart from

affairs,

persons and things 22 Feb.

theme

— he

to live in art or poetry

politics,

facts,

vulgar

life,

— seeking his ''high ideal."

Goethe is

is

is

never carried

always Master.

He

son, saying to a pupil: Here, see

away by

his

the head per-

is

how

well this can

be done. Carlyle vaunts live

him

as

even these days as

showing that a man can an ''Antique Worthy."

This vaunt Goethe deserves [112]

— he

is

indeed a

culti-

^

Ipreparatori? 1Rea^inQ anJ) ZboiXQbt

vated German aristocrat, physically inextricable from

and position, but morally bent to the Attic spirit and its occasions two thousand and more years ago. That is he, such are his productions. The ashis age

sumption that Goethe passed through the

first

stage

of darkness and complaint to the second stage of con-

and knowledge and thence to the third stage of triumph and faith this assumption cannot sideration

—

amid the judgments of the

pass, cannot stand

Goethe's

good

was the

digestion

faith of

and

a physical well being, a

appetite,

it

was not the

faith of

the masters, poets, prophets, divine persons.

he perhaps came near and saw the

faith

beauty of

had

soul.

Such

artistical

— perhaps fancied he had — but he never it

it.

Goethe

is

the result of a well-ordered, polished,

learned state, not physically great, acknowledging etiquette,

— of moving mainly among gentlemen and

ladies of culture, is

and taking

it

for

granted that there

nothing better needed than culture.

The educated

mind has pleasure in Goethe's works [this passage was first written : The mind has almost boundless

—

many, perhaps all of them. Still questions arise: Why do uneducated minds also receive pleasure from Goethe? Is he pleasure in Goethe's works]

really

tators

in

an original creator or only the noblest of imi-

and compositors?

Would

or could he have

written anything without the studies of the antiques?

IPreparatore IReaMns ant) c:bougbt

Is

a

man

or

woman

grander, sweeter,

and for

by

less suspicious?

invigorated,

made

cleaner,

poems? Or more

his

Has he

raised

freedom and against tyrants?

friendly

any strong voice Has he satisfied

his reader of immortality?

What Goethe was was.

It

is

is

it

doubtless best that he

also eligible, without finding

with him, to inquire what he was not. not have been what he was without also

he was not

[/. e.,

which he had].

any

fault

He could being what

without having those deficiencies

To

the

little

court of Weimar, to

the poetical world, to the learned and literary worlds,

Goethe has a deserved greatness. To the genius of America he is neither dear nor the reverse of dear.

He

passes with the general crowd upon

American glance descends with road

is

whom

indifference.

the

Our

our own.

76

born 1759, died 1806, aged 47. Of the years of his life not an hour could have been

Schiller, last 15

entirely free

from pain.

aided to emoluments.

Was. helped by Goethe, They two were friends

—

had frequent and learned correspondence.

(It

is

published.)

77

What

are inextricable from the British poets are

the ideas of royalty and aristocracy, the ideas of [114]

preparatory IReaMnQ an& ^bougbt the radical division of those

who

are served

serve from those

and a continual recognition of the

principles at the bases of

and

who

monarchy and the

societies

In the continents of the East-

beliefs of caste.

ern Hemisphere a bard whether ancient or

modern

has been an attache to a nobleman or a court or

The

to the order of noblemen or courts.

skald,

the harper, the troubadour, Shakespeare, the feudal

more modern

minstrel, the

poet, the laureate,

all

write, or did write or speak for those selected per-

sons and at their behest and for the honor and

Shakespeare composed

largesse they gave.

alto-

gether for the court and for the young nobility and

The

the gentry; he had no other audiences.

have

at

all

courts

times pensioned eminent poets and do

so at this day.

has been the

In all times

faith of

and

in

poets to believe

all

in

nations

it

the noblest

thoughts and deeds and to express them and to diffuse the love of beauty.

In this

we

inherit

and

partake of every one without distinction of place. In this is

the

common

of period or place.

the good of

all.

unless he be of

glory of poets irrespective

In this the

good of any one

is

no poet dear to a people them and of the spirit of them, a Yet

is

growth of the soil, the water, the climate, the age, the Government, the religion, the leading characteristics,

a height and individuality for

nation and days

and not ["5]

for

other

his

nations

own

—

in

preparatory IReablnQ an& ZCbougbt Egypt an Egyptian, a

German,

in

in

Greece a Greek,

England an Englishman,

in

in

Germany

the United

States an American.

Of the

leading British poets

with the rights of

came out

for

man

many who began

abjured their beginning and

obedience

kingcraft,

and so

forth.

Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth did so.

78

Barthold at

Niebuhr—

1

776-1831

Copenhagen, during youth

Edinburgh.

Was

—55

visited

an occupant of

Born

years.

London and

political offices for

the younger-manhood years of his

life

— but

in 1823

(aged 47) retired to Bonn and became the great reformer of Roman History (and ancient History generally).

Was much

excited

by the French

Revolution of July 1830, said to have hastened his death, Jan.

183

1

— See

pages 249-50-51

German

Literature.

79

Niembsch von Strehlenau (Nikolaus Lenau), Hungarian— died 1853, insane, idiotic and animal

— aged poem —

from love popular

35. life

—

''Tanko, the Horse-herd," a of a

Hungarian

scenes, characteristic adventures, life.

[116]

horse -herd,

common

life

—

real

preparatory IRea&Ing anb ZbowQbt 80 Conversation with Mr. Held about German poets

—his

talk

pulsive

— as follows:

Freiligrath a

when he meets any

the road, or at a meal

— im-

one, or as he walks

etc.

etc.

democrat

he composes

— he

Ruckert, Uhland, Kinkel, Hoff-

improvises easily.

man, Heine, Xavier. 81

Shakespeare depicts actual

Goethe mixes both actual and

life,

Schiller the ideal,

ideal.

81 Niebelungen Lied

— scene

much

Worms and environs— Siegfried of

it

far

century— much

dialogue, passed on from one character to an-

Only experts

other, flowing out.

man

fifth

the City of

in

in

antique Ger-

can get along with the Niebelungen

different

—

it

is

as

from modern German as the Saxon

preceding Chaucer

is

from the present English.

83

The

secret

here: Perfections are only under-

is

stood and responded to by perfections.

This rule runs through ocrity,

crime and

only by the

like

all

of

all

and applies to medi-

the rest; each

itself. [117]

is

understood

preparatori? IRea&lng anO C^bouQbt

Any

degree of development

the soul

in

responded to by the similar degree

in

One

A

religion

wonders

at another.

only

is

other souls. nation

won-

how another nation can be what it is, wonders how it can like what it likes and dislike what it dislikes; a man wonders at another man's folly and so on. But what a nation likes, is part of that nation; and what it dislikes is part of the same ders

nation;

its politics

and

religion,

whatever they

and events that

are inevitable results of the days

have preceded the

nation, just

are,

as

much

as the

condition of the geology of that part of the earth is

the result of former conditions. 84 Oliver Goldsmith, born at Pallas (Ireland) Nov.

— father a curate and small farmer — moved to Westmeath — ;^200 a year— educated Trinity Col1728

lege,

Dublin,

thoughtless,

credulous,—

heedless,

gambled, was helped to money — to Edinburgh to lectures — thence

— at 24 went to Ley den — at

lost

27 with a smattering of medical

it

knowledge wan-

dered through France, Switzerland, Flanders,

Italy

— returned to England — lived low — from 30 hack — then better known and better to 36 a off — then prosperous, received sums of ;^200, ;^3oo, As for his poems, histories and plays. ;^6oo, — as a writer and frivolous, weak, no good a in

literary

etc.

talker,

[118]

life

Preparatory IReaWng mt> ^boufibt

Was

wonderfully ignorant.

compiler,

a gambler

^2000 — preyed upon

— got deeply debt his mind — associates regarded him with kindness and contempt — he was envious and showed — in

still

it

come, Died

last

seven years of his

3 April,

life,

1774, in his 46th year.

in-

;^400 a year.

He sometimes

keenly the sarcasm which his wild blundering

felt

talk

brought upon him. 85*

Leigh Hunt criticised his

Also the same sort of

criticised himself.

cism by other poets. follows: critical

'*We

will

analysis

though many of

own poems.

Spencer self-criti-

The piece thus headed runs as not go with Mr. Hunt into the

of his

own

poetical

productions

his remarks thereon are as racy as

poems themselves. This method of commenting upon one's own productions is not altogether unauthorised. Mr, Hunt gives for it the example of the old Italian poets, with Dante at their head. He regrets that Shakespeare had not been his own comthe

mentator, and Spencer given elucidations respecting his Platonic mysticisms

on the nature of man.

He

would have enjoyed *A divine gossip with him about his wood and his solitudes, and his nymphs, his oceans, and his heaven.' * This (apropos of

his

paper paragraph headed

in

own

later doings) is

W.'s hand

as above.

["9]

an interesting item.

It

is

a news-

preparatory IReaMns anb ICbougbt 86

The

great poet absorbs the identity of others and

the experience of others and they are definite in him

them

or from him; but he presses

powerful press of himself

.

.

.

all

through the

loads his

own

masterly identity.

87 Keats' poetry

is

'

ornamental, elaborated, rich in

imbued with the sentiment, at second-hand, of the gods and goddesses of twentyfive hundred years ago. Its feeling is the feeling of wrought imagery,

it is

a gentlemanly person lately at college, accepting

what was commanded him there, who moves and would only move in elegant society, reading classical books in libraries. Of life in the nineteenth century It does it has none any more than the statues have. not come home at all to the direct wants of the bodies and souls of the century. 88

FrederickSchlegel— 1772-1829— one of two brated literary brothers

Had

cele-

— the other named Augustus.

a strong predilection toward the wonderful and

mysterious.

1803 entered

Roman

Catholic Church.

Wrote Philosophy of History, most valuable tenet of which is, '' the inexpediency of destroying old institutions before new ideas are prepared to develop them[xao]

Ipreparator? IReaMng anb ^Ebougbt

selves

in

with the order of

consistency

society.**

Lectures (History of Literature) i8i 1-12 have chiefly

He makes

extended his fame.

sentative expression of all that

thus elevating

views of garding

as

product of

superior in a nation,

is

especially poetry, far

it,

trivial

it

literature the repre-

and commonplace

above the

criticism,

and

re-

incorporating and being the highest

human

and genius.

life

the great masters of

He

appreciates

countries and sets

all

them

off

from crowds of temporary persons. Prejudices.

tures Schlegel

— But remember was

in

reading these lec-

of the prejudices of a zealous,

full

newly converted Roman Catholic* 89

Wun-

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, born 1763 at siedel,

Germany — died

1825 aged

earlier years, father a

subordinate

near Bayreuth,

62, rather

poor the

clergyman — went to

university — his father died —

he was hard up

many

for

years afterwards.

Re-

by writing books — his — work being finished no publisher — tried some time, at found one Berlin — unnoticed by the solved to

make

his living

first

last

in

reviews, except one, and that gave a scornful notice.

Richter

still

holds

his

purpose

— writes

another

—

work. Selections from the Papers of the Devil ransacked high and low for a publisher, but found none Above

dated by

[121]

W. W.

'57.

preparatori? IReabing anb ^bougbt

—

some years afterwards. Stood out in costume, wore his shirt open at the neck etc.— horrified until

all

the '*Magisters"— held out in costume seven

and then returned to orthodoxy. Living in the most scanty manner for some ten years, in 1793, when 30 years old, he began to be known and his works marketable. The Invisible years,

Lodge, Hesperus etc. about that time (novels).

The

reviews acknowledged him, and he went on writing

and receiving good returns. He wrote many, many He believe). works (some sixty or more vols. married 1798, a good wife of rather upper grade had a pension from a princely prelate in 1802 and I

continued for

life.

—

His eldest son died 1821.

Was

writing on a favorite theme, Immortality (had been quite blind

some

when

years),

14

November,

1825,

he died. Richter seems to have been a thoroughly irregular

He was

genius, according to the laws and models.

gay, sparkling, a that to

profound — one

rattler,

new readers do

not please, but once falling in

with him, and reading his books,

He seems

up.

to

have

of those

''

it

believed in

amply made Christ " and the is

orthodox tenets. His person

was huge,

queer,

irregular.

He

is

witty, very — yet a certain true pathos pervades even his

comedy. I

should say that he was unnatural and [122]

lurid,

preparatory? IReablnQ anb ZTbougbt

judged by the calm and wholesome models. He is full of love and appears to be the originator of

and sentimental ways of the swarms of tale-writers of the last thirty years, in Britain and

much

of the soft

America. 90 Carlyle certainly introduced the

German

style,

writers, sentimentalism, transcendentalism etc. etc. etc.

from 1826 to

1840— through

and magazines— and through

the great reviews

his

own works and

example. 91

Tennyson has a pension of ;^200 a year, conferred by the Queen some time since. His age now (1856) 48 years. Sept. '55 Tennyson published Maud and Other Poems. It is a love story, rather tedious and affected, with some sweet passages.* 92

Homer and Shakespeare serve

all

(both are objective) de-

the reward that has been bestowed upon

them.

They

work

divinely.

did

what was

Homer

to be done,

and did the

poetized great wars, persons,

events, throwing together in perfect proportion a

poem, noisy, muscular, manly, amative, an amusement and excitement, a sustenance and health. perfect

Above

written on margin of magazine article on " Poets Laureate."

["3]

Ipreparatori? IReatJlng

an&

ti;bougl)t

Shakespeare, the gentle, the sweet musical, well-

They

beloved Shakespeare, delineated characters.

by him than by any other poet Kings, traitors, lovers, am-

are better represented at

any time

bition,

—

.

.

.

perplexed persons, youth, old age he easily

He through them thoughts many poetical, reflects.

—

delivers

subtle

many profound fancies many

—

involved, rather elaborate, unnatural comparisons.

Well may Homer remain, and Shakespeare remain. Could (shall) there not be a poet of America no less than they but different from, doing more than Stamping this age, and so all ages, either of them? Feeding character with a strong clean in his poems? meat ? Riveting the passing incidents, sentiment, persons, tendencies, visible things, landscapes, voyages, politics, Manhattan Island, the Yankee, the Californian, all American features and leading facts in poems? Bequeathing the most precious of all works in literature to the future American woman and

man?* 93

Samuel Johnson— 1709- 1784—Was born field,

England.

oughly

— read

in Litch-

Father a bookseller, educated thor-

everything

— went

through college,

physically queer, scrofulous, purblind, crotchety,

mentive, married a vulgar old

woman

* Written about 1856.

C"4]

ali-

that painted

preparatory IReaMng anb ^bougbt

— was

and '' Dear Titty " went to London fond to the last struggled on there thirty years through all sorts of

and wore

—

— wrote

little)

week

a

expenses

—

and starvations

privations

in

sorts of false things

all

etc.

sometimes lucky

— (a

Rambler etc— Rasselas written

Idler,

to

faithful

make money

— wrote

mother's

for

Dictionary

— had

funeral

;^i500 for

— edited an edition of Shakespeare (a poor one) — at received a pension of ;^3oo a year from the Government — was always of coarse behavior,— it

last

wrote

not simple and with un-

in a latinized style,

learned instincts but

pompous and

full

of polysyl-

lables.*

94

A good all

article

[added

this glorification of

traits of

later']

yes

it is.

Yet with

Wordsworth read the personal

him, with sayings, looks, foibles

given by those

who knew

etc.,

Died 1850

him.

as

— aged

80.

Of a poet lish

— Keats perhaps, — His words are Eng-

and American, but

his

poem

is

Greek.f

95

Wordsworth,

it

seems,

is

the originator of this

kind of poem — followed here by Bryant and others. J Written about f Notes

1856.

on magazine

article

on Wordsworth, date of article 1851, date of notes

about 1856.

JNote on Wordsworth poem:

"

It is

the

[125]

first

mild day of March."

preparatory IReaMiiG anb n;bou0f}t

96

Memory. —^Nothing makes this faculty so good as the employment of — Locke. it

97 Plutarch

may

— born

be, 125 a.c.

lations,

when

about the year 50

Notes of

books

life,

a.

c— died,

it

Trans-

etc.

appeared.

Amiot's translation (French) 1558.

A Greek First

text at Paris 1624.

English translation

— during reign of Queen

Elizabeth.

Dry den, with many others in company,

also

made

a translation— ''a motley work."

Born

Greece about the year 50 of the Studied (like the general Greek youth)

in Boeotia in

Christian era.

— acquired

a great art of

memory

— read

all

the

— leaned toward the tenets Was of patrician family — supposed

books (MSS.) of his time of Pythagoras.

— had two brothers his associates study and amusements — he always speaks of them with wealthy

in

pleasure and affection. Certainly into Italy

Probably traveled into Egypt.

— studied

— never made much progress. so,

lectures,

it

Latin quite late in

Lectured

in

seems, there were, even

life

Rome in

those

days; quite like the modern fashion, they seem to

good reputation at Rome. Some say he was preceptor to the Emperor Trajan. have been.

Plutarch has a

[126]

anb ^bougbt

Ipreparatori? IReabina

Notes, literary

in

the time of Plutarch, were

compositions

— this

unknown

in

accounts for his digres-

sions and tedious episodes.

Late in

life

retired to Choeronea, a philosopher,

priest.

Was

married

— had five children, four sons and a

daughter. I

suppose he attained a good old age

**a long

life."

Most of his

writings, with

many

lives, are lost

—

those that remain big, but a portion of what he wrote.

98

Tennyson

is

the imitation of Shakespeare, through

a refined, educated, traveled, modern English dandy.

99

The Poets are the them come spirits and men and women.

divine

mediums— through

materials to

all

the people,

100

Imagination and actuality must be united. lOI

—

Dryden 1631 to 1701— seems to have been of vigorous make, sharp-tempered used his poetical

—

[127]

ZhowQU

preparatory IReaMng anb talent to

make money, show up

of the opposite party,

He

sings a

good

classical style of

enemies,— those noblemen, politicians etc.— his

deal in the inflated, distressingly

those times.

102

But

I

will take

condition and

all

those things that produce this

make them produce

as great characters

as any.* 103

This redeems a hundred Princesses and Mauds,

and shows the great master. 1 have read Maud, it will not

live

long.f

104

See

man

how

for their

these fellows always take a handsome

God!

% 105

Every great

artist,

poet, etc.,

have some precursors or ness.

Doubtless

first

will

be found to

beginners of his great-

Homer had though we know them

not. * This

man

is

written as note to a long argument that for

many

reasons the

cannot be as heroical as the ancient.

fNote to T's " Ulysses "—date May, '57. % Referring to Keats' description of Hyperion, " Golden his hair" etc [128]

modem

preparatory IReaMng anb ZTbougbt 106 Dr. Priestly or Priestley

Arnold

7

March,

'57.

— conversation with

Dr. Priestly

was

Mr.

quite a thor-

ough man of science (physical science) as well as of morals and mentals. Mr. Arnold says the Dr. first made the definite discovery of oxygen can this be He was a Unitarian came from England to so? settled on a small farm in Norththe United States umberland, Pa. His great tenet seems to be *' philo-

—

—

—

—

sophical necessity," that spiritual,

all results,

physical, moral,

everything, every kind, rise out of per-

petual flows of endless causes (to state

want of more

owned by Mr.

little

Unitarian

that Dr. P. died

—

I

church

Bakewell, a rich person, a follower,

admirer, and personal friend of Dr. Priestly.

nearer '20

so for

Mr. Arnold went to

elaboration).

Pittsburgh to preach in a

it

somewhere

cannot get

been a real man.

American Unitarians.

it

about 18 10

exactly.

I

— perhaps

He must have

He was not followed by

(How

infer

the

these Unitarians and

want to be respectable and orthodox, much as any of the old line peoplel)

Universalists

just as

107

— Madame D'Arnsmont — talk Mrs. Rose, Feb. — Frances Wright was Scotland of gentle lineage — parents died

Frances

with born

Wright

9, '57

in

VOL. IX.— 9.

[129]

preparatory IReablng anb ZTbougbt

— educated by uncles — noblemen — was ented early — of inquiring disposition — repub— wrote A Few Days in Athens when 20 years old — came to America — lectured — had to do with the Free Enquirer, an atheistical weekly — was a noble (but much scorned) woman — married D'Arns— he coveted her mont — the great error of her property — thwarted her — kept exclusive possession early

tal-

free

lican

life

Frances had great wealth

of her child, a daughter.

(Mrs. Rose says $150,000)

a second bequest

left

— D'A. obtained — even all

to Frances

by a Scotch aunt

Frances had even to sue for a maintenance out of her

— Judge allowed her $1000 a year. Frances died somewhere about 1853, a heartbroken, her philanthropic schemes and harassed woman — own

property

all

coming to nought. (I like much her portraitengraving where she is represented seated.) ideas

—

108 .

.

Where he withdrew

.

for a long

time to a

solitary part of the house. In this

manner

one day he

felt

just after

commencing

his dinner

the horrible touch quicken the pulses

knew

He stopped, pushed back the plate from under his mouth and Mother nor any one else spoke a word rose to go.

within him and

the sign well.

Something more ghastly and blear than ever seemed this time to ride upon his galloping

to him.

[130]

preparatory IReaMng an& (Ibougbt Swiftly he sped from the house and along

heart.

the road to the graveyard and threw himself

on the earth and folded

his belly

flat

arms under

his

on his

open eyes.

Then the world receded from him and as it became dim in the distance he plainly heard the bell of the church tolling the burial

saw

How

Presently he

toll.

afar off the funeral ranks approaching.

slow, and

how

How

long.

Slow:

noiseless entering

the old gate and treading on that never

mowed grass.

They set down the coffin and a cry of despair went from him when he saw that the black dressed mourners

who

stood nearest were his

own

folks.

Perhaps

was himself he should see in the linen shroud They lifted the lid and he looked on the there. dead face of his sister who was that minute at home it

with the others at the table and health.

beheld

He

Yet

it

all

came

certainly

knew days beforehand

This terrible

spective of place

him

young man

had the power of a foreseen

He

of a death that

was and how it was to consciousness came to him irreSometimes it came or occasion.

should happen, and

to

to pass as the

it.

very often

be.

her ordinary

in

who

at night while

it

he lay sleeping

in

bed; some-

times while he

was

eating at the table.

came he would

rise

up and prepare

When

it

himself, speak-

ing not a word, walking straight for the graveyard [131]

preparatory IReaMng an J) ITbougbt There he would remain a short time

of the village.

one with a

like

He would then sometimes

vision.

whole of the future, soon coming, funeral. The procession would arrive and the minister. The coffin would be brought in and placed on the trestles and the lid would be silently taken off and he with the rest would look on the face of the corpse. Then they would screw the lid on for the last time and the minister would pray, and then the burial, then a pause, after which the peosee mistily, the

would

ple

home and

leave and .

•

]

[

with

] return

[

.*

109 .

.

.

distinctness every syllable the flounderer

spoke, up to his hips in the the sharp crystals that white.

was

He swore,

night and by

ever known.

huge

drifts.

made

the

air

blinded by

one opaque

prayed, howled and wept.

terrified himself,

terest

snow and

it

far

was the

Pete

blackest and bit-

the wildest storm he had

The snow lay deep and had many He went aloft in the garret and gave

hand to get up and go with him in search of the tipsy friend. While they stood inside the door, listening more clearly the farm laborer a dollar cash in

for

the point

whence the poor

ceeded, they could hear every * Belongs

to forties.

[132]

fellow's cries pro-

word with the mi-

fbreparator)?

IReaMng anb tTbougbt

when one

nutest clearness; but

and standing

rod from the stoop,

the storm, of not one sound were

in

they conscious except the soughing storm, strained

they ever so hard. through the

drifts,

an

For

hour they plunged

guiding themselves as well as

they could by well-known trees and fences.

Pete

had been satisfied, while listening in the house, that the drunken youth was stuck in a certain field, So they went usually a horter cut across the road. treading to and fro over that ground feeling as well as they could with their feet; and sure enough at last there

they

hit

him, under the snow, perfectly

and still. They carried him back to the house and had a good time fighting the death in him the whole night. But they saved him. Coarse, wild, sensual and strong was this young man's nature, for coarse, wild and strong had been stiff

his

He has

life.

but he

is

large

and ugly

qualities

enough,

self-complete, and his very grossness

and

The

cas-

dishonesty are noble from their candor. trated goodness of schools

and churches he knew

nothing of.*

no 20 March, Bill

Guess

— aged

A

22.

thoughtless,

'^4,

strong,

generous animal nature, fond of direct pleasures, Written probably in

'40's or early '50'$,

[133]

preparatory IReabins anb ^bougbt

women,

Taken sick with the small-pox, had the bad disorder and was furious eating, drinking,

fun etc.

Was

with the delirium tremens.

with

Was

a thoughtless good fellow.

Peter

,

large,

driver.

Should weigh

the very

first

will,

strong-boned young fellow, Free and candid to

i8o.

Man

time he saw me.

of strong

me

self-

Had a somewhere

powerful coarse feelings and appetites.

quarrel, in

the

in

weighed over

Crystal Palace, a large, broad fellow, 200.

me

borrowed $300,

left

the interior of the State,

gamblers, hadn't been

seven years.

would be

I

fell

home

there in

or written

by the orthodox.

He seemed

independence, dashed with a

sentment, toward the world

met a man

with a couple of

in

liked his refreshing wickedness, as

called

feel a perfect

his father's

in

general.

it

to

little reI

never

seemed to me, as far as could tell in forty minutes, more open, coarse, self-willed, strong and free from the sickly desire to be on society's lines and points. Yankee boy, driver. Fine nature, George Fitch that

I

—

amiable, sensitive feelings, a natural gentleman, of quite a reflective turn. father

told

was

me

perpetually

Left his

''down on him."

of his mother his eyes watered.

ing, tall, curly haired, black

23 or 24

home because

eyed fellow

When Good

his

he

look-

— age about

— slender, face with a smile, trousers tucked

in his boots,

cap with the front-piece turned behind. [134]

Ipreparatorij

IReaMng anb tTbougbt III

man was unnoted

This singular young

for

any

strange qualities; and he certainly had no bad qualities.

Possessed very

tion.

He remained much by

many

brothers, sisters

little

of

and

what

called educa-

is

himself, relations

though he had and acquaint-

By far the most of the time he remained silent. He was not He eccentric, nor did any one suspect him insane. loved in summer to sit or lean on the rails of He was the fence, apparently in pleasant thought. rather less than the good size of a man; his figure and face were full, his complexion without much He never color, his eyes large, clear and black. drank rum, never went after women, and took no ance.

He

did no

work

like

the

rest.

part in the country frolics. 112

Something that presents the sentiment of the Druid walking

in

pow-wow ...

the

woods

...

of the Indian

of the Sacramental supper

of the Grecian religious

.

.

.

rites.

113

Works. There is a forge in the Adirondack To get to it Mountains the '* Adirondack forge " you land at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain and go back forty miles. Iron

—

—

[135]

IPreparators IReaMng anb ZCbougbt

A

would be a large rude building with from a dozen or more charcoal fires on which the

forge

—

one to ore

thrown, and melted

is

bottom,

settles at the

— the iron runs down and

like

a bushel-basket-shaped

lump

—a

men

are around these fires with

'Moup"

they have to

or 'Moop,'' as they

tell

the state

call

it.

The

—

huge crowbars of the melting by the

of the ore and iron with these crowbars.

''feel "

The

forge-fires in the

mountains and the

men

around, feeling the melt with huge crowbars.

The work

of colliers and miners.

Electro-plating.*

114

The Whale.

When

man.) feeding,

its

(Talk with Mr. Maher, an old whale-

the black- whale

is

sculling itself along

head projected two-thirds out of water,

scooping up turned back,

its it is

jects that can

food from the surface,

its

great lips

one of the most hideous looking ob-

be imagined and would frighten badly

a ''green hand "

who

The sperm-whale,

a

should see

it

for the first time.

good specimen,

is

one of the

grandest-looking creatures, for beauty and strength

— when When her

—

enraged and swiftly moving

it

is

splendid.

cow whale is struck the others never desert but new ones continually arrive as if to assist a

*Cf. Leaves of Grass, '55 edition,

[136]

p. 62; '56 edition, p. 133.

preparatory IReabing anb ZTbouQbt

When a bull

her.

is

struck,

times the whales sport

in

all

the rest leave.

the water coming

up, perpendicular quite out

— others

Somestraight

turning with

their bodies half out, vibrating their flukes playfully.

Others again descending,

after elevating their flukes

a great distance straight

up

in

the

air,

and waving

them.

—

The spout of air and water when dying the red spout of blood. The whale boat. The harpooneersman. The blubber, the clear oil in the head.

An old whale is probably a thousand years old. The cow has but one calf at a birth.* She will sometimes when alarmed enclose it as with her Qust like a fins and dive down into the deep sea mother protects her Feeding on squid larger, are it

is,

I

drum,

child).

— large chunks a foot square or

sometimes found

in

the belly of a whale

—

white meat of the halibut,

believe, like the etc.

"5 Paul Jones bore for his banner on the

Richard, a rattlesnake with thirteen

motto:

*'

Bon Homme

rattles

— and the

Don't tread on me."

*Cf. Leaves of Grass, '55 edition, p. 36, and '56 edition, p. 57, where text "Where the she whale swims with her calves"; and '60 edition, p. 68:

reads:

" Where the she whale swims with her '56 and '60.

calf."

tween

[137]

The

date, then, of

above note

is

be-

Ipreparatori?

IReaMng anb ^bouabt ii6

Audubon proposed the wild turkey of America

— he

says

or perched,

flight,

it is

in its native

as the ensign

woods, either

in

a magnificent bird.

117

Describing the death ot seven brothers and their parents

who

— who

can say that those were least lucky

died the earliest or under the most appalling

cumstances? or that those were luckiest

cir-

who made

the most wealth and lived the longest stretch of mortality?

118

One good is

of knowing the great politics of nature

to initiate their rectitude

and

impartiality in

all

the

politics of the State.

119

Did you ever think

young men,

full

moment how so many stuff to make the noblest

for a

of the

heroes of the earth, really live lives, toil

year after year, and so

— ever

alert to

— really

pass their

death?

Constant

till

keep the wolf back from the door

— no development — no

rational pleasure

—

— sleeping

some cramped dirty place never knowing once a beautiful happy home never knowing once in their whole lives real affection, sweetly returned, the in

—

[138]

preparatory IReaMng anb ^bougbt joy, the religion

of

life

— no

life

— always kept down,

habitual

— unaware

unaware of

rendezvous except the bar-

amusements except these preposterous theatres, and of a Sunday these and those equally preposterous and painful screamings

room

of any

from the pulpits. 120 All the nations of this earth, diverse as in

mind

or body, are

members

they appear

of one family, and

own themselves, through distant removes, and after many ages, many incredible fortunes and different developments — own themselves as the children of a common father. 121

The two

ideas of unity

idea of humanity

ing and

filling

—

still,

nations,

by all

progress— onward! onward! backsometimes a every step contested

—

— sometimes

degrees, a sure, resistless progress.

show more

times,

with unlimited

itself,

.

—

a retrogression

All

or less of this idea

but the splendid centripetal place where lected

great

is

a long interregnum

but

The

and progress.

.

it

has col-

.

122 In this

.

.

.

Deploying on every

what point you like, are were unworthy a live man to pray

or start from It

.

[139]

side, .

touch

.

or complain

preparatory IReaWng anb ZCbougbt no matter what should happen. Will he descend among those rhymsters and sexless priests, whose virtues are lathered and shaved three times a week, to pronounce his race to whine about -sin and hell

—

a sham or swindle— to squall out at

.

.

.*

123

most flowing grandeur of a man. When a man joined to his great power and wealth and strength has the knowledge of the perfect equanimity and Picture of the

.

A man

.

.

of gigantic stature, supple, healthy, ac-

complished, powerful and resistless

But

any

when

partiality

a

man with

—when

he

all

that

is

is

a great

man.

not trapped into

strikes the balance

between

the eternal average of the developed and the unde-

veloped

— when he

goes on the square with those

who

have not yet climbed as high as he children and old people and women

most the

— tender to — indulging

and the vulgar— because most down upon

stupid, the sinful

them the world

is

124

steamboats and vaccination, gunpowder and spinning -jennies; but are our people half as peaceable and happy as were the Peruvians and .

.

.

Mexicans ere the Spanish navigators introduced to *Cf. Uavis of Grass, '55 edition, p. 25.

[140]

preparatory IReaMns anb ZhoixQbt

them the

blessings of

artificial

science and of the

true faith? It

out of this mass of

is

and

injustice

to

man

influence that a

its

wickedness and

folly,

himself, as the very first step

lift

He must have independence. The mere

being perfect. ulty of

required

is

towards his

a very

high fac-

authority of law,

custom or precedent, must be nothing, absolutely nothing at

all

High

with him.

.

.*

.

125

This

ment

is

the Earth's

or lesson

Word — the

pervading senti-

to be that the only

is

good of

learn-

ing the theory of the fluency and generosity and

and exactitude of the earth those toward the theory of character—

impartiality, largeness is

to use

human

all

character.

126

A

City

Walk— Just

a

list

of

all

that

is

seen

walk through the streets of Brooklyn and York and crossing the Ferry. a

in

New

127

When is

the whole combined force of the nation

champion

rights of

life

for

one human being, outraged

in his

no matter of what

color,

or liberty,

Old page (numbered 4) of a MS. [141]

preparatory IReaMng anb Cbougbt birth or degree of ignorance or education

may

be, then the

law

is

he or she

grand. 128

Bloom.

— Broad-shouldered, six-footer, with a hare

Clever fellow and by no means bad looking.

lip.

(George Fitch has roomed with him tells

me

ing).

there

is

year and

for a

no more honorable man breath-

Direct, plain-spoken, natural-hearted, gentle-

tempered, but awful a horse, cart etc. of

when roused. Cartman with his own drives for a store in

—

Maiden Lane. 129

Poem.

There can be no greatest and sublimest

Not

character without having passed through sin.

the earth has all

now

the beautiful

arrived rotund

upon the

life

running waters, the geological

.

.

.

air,

the

and compact with

surface, the trees, the .

Any more than

when he becomes, has

pas

.

.

after

.

.

all

the

the divine man, .

130 In

Metaphysical Points, here

about pure and positive truths. all

is I

what

I

guess that

guess after

reasoning and analogy, and their most palpable

demonstrations of anything, faction

when

the soul

tells

we

have the

and

tests

real satis-

by

its

own

archchemic power — superior to the learnedest proofs [142]

preparatory IReaMng anb ZhoixQbt as one glance of living sight

is

more than quarto

volumes of description and of maps. There is something in vast erudition melancholy and

fruitless as

an Arctic sea.

With most men it is moving fog. So com-

dreamed in a placent! So much body and muscle; fine legs to but the eyes are owl's large supple hands walk eyes, and the heart is a mackerel's heart. These words are for the great men the gigantic few that have plunged themselves deep through density and confusion and pushed back the jealous coverings of the earth, and brought out the true and great things, and the sweet things, and hung them like oranges rounder and riper than all the rest, among our literature and science. These words are for the five or six grand poets, too; and the masters of artists. waste no ink, nor my a slow dream,

—

—

I

throat on the ever-deploying armies of professors, authors, lawyers, teachers

and what

not.

Of them we

expect that they be very learned and nothing more.

What pose

it

gentlemen!

is

for

What

then?

Do you

sup-

your geology and your chemistry

and your mathematics

.

.

.*

131

For Oratory. to triumph

It is

great art in a

man

to be able

on either side of an argument and get Written about 1856.

[143]

preparator? IReaMng anb ZTbouQbt But the highest

applause.

art

is

to be able to

triumph only on the right side without regard to applause. 132

There are leading moral truths underlying tics,

in

poli-

as invariable and reliable as the leading truths

These truths

geology, chemistry or mathematics.

are the foundation of

American

politics.

133

Such boundless and your head in reverence, through

power of

my

the strata of

all

bend They are met

affluent souls

man!

life.

.

.

.

Their centrifugal

makes the awfulest forces of nature stand back. Its perennial blow the frost shall never touch; and what we call death shall go round outside it forever and ever. (Every hour of the day and night, and every acre of the earth and shore, and every point or love,

1

think,

patch of the sea and sky,

two

is

full

of pictures.

No

of this immortal brood are alike, except that

they are

all

of unspeakable beauty and perfection,

and large and small

Something

in

alike

Man whose

descend into that greedy appetite

is

more undying

than hope, and more insatiate than the sand with water.) [144]

preparatori? IReablng anb ^bought

134

The noble

soul steadily rejects any liberty or

privilege or wealth that

terms to every other

is

not open on the same

man and

every other

Meanwhile

on the face of the earth.

it is

woman

the end-

and little smouchers, in all their varieties, whether usurping the rule of an empire or thieving a negro and selling him whatever and whichever of the ways that legislators, lawyers, the priests and the educated and pious less

delusion of big

—

prefer certain

advantages to themselves over the

vast retinues of the poor,

man, black men,

the laboring, ignorant

—

and so on to suppose they have succeeded when the documents are signed and sealed, and they enter in possession of their gains. Shallow dribblets of a day! are less in their

sinners,

high success than the dullest of the people

they would overtop. 135

The regular time for baking bread is one hour. The good hostess that could always make fine apple dumplings, except once

when

company and mixed her

up so

cooked to

flour

seems perpetually goading seems right it is not right

then

rich that

tatters in the pot.

?

all

she had grand

— putridity — then

me — the

soul

it all

—

If

— then corruption —

mean maggots grow among

VOL. IX.— 10.

[HS]

preparatory? IReabing anb ^bougbt

— they are

men

born out of the too richly manured

earth.

136

Of

summer evening

a

a

boy

fell

asleep with

the tears of foolish passion yet undried upon his cheeks.

And

with

their

all

rolled in

there he

Many were

away.

— which pursuit

was nigh

to death

and

Swift wheels rattled then

patter of horses' hoofs

road — but

sounded rapidly on

the beatings of the traveller's heart

were more rapid early

— some

the hot-brained fever of youth, a mes-

desired his presence.

the

travel

in

At an advanced age, and sobered

sage came that his mother

and the

spent

power and wealth

successful.

down from

Years

chequered events of pain and joy

the pursuit of

was

dreamed a dream.

When

still.

home he found

his

he arrived

mother dead.

at

his

He stood

and looked upon her face and then went aside, and many a time again approached he the coffin and He held up the white linen and gazed and gazed. came in the day when crowds were in the rooms

— though

all

to

him was a vacant blank

the corpse of his mother. in

the silence of

when

And

at

last

—

the midnight before the burial,

the tired watchers were asleep.

corpse,

but

he came

Long— long

— long were his eyes rivetted on the features dead

all

with

an

expecting [146]

look,

as

of that if

he

Ipreparators IReaMng anb ^bougbt

He bent down

waited something.

blue lips and listened

hushed

— but the cold blue

Now for two little

forever.

that proud, rich

his ear to the cold lips

were

words, I pardon,

man would almost have been

ing to live in poverty for ever: but the

will-

words came

From the moment when he first saw his mother's face, and whenever he looked at her, a wondrous faculty had awoke within him. All that was present everything connected with his businot.

—

— his

schemes of ambition, his worldly gains, his friendship and his plans of life, seemed entirely melted from his thought. A doubly refined memory called up before him and around him all he had ness

ever done in his rectly unfilial

life

toward

that

seemed

his mother.

look, each action returned;

directly or indi-

Each word, each

not the minutest

connected with them but stood

in

brilliant

trifle

light

He remembered how on such a day in boyhood he ran from home how once, in vicious spite, he terrified her by plot to make her believe he was drowned how at such a time he had mocked her words and again how he had many times denied her authority. And strangely distinct was the remotest, the tiniest, of all circum-

before him.

—

— —

stances involved in these memories.

Who

meekly

down from

at the

command

O, Crucified!

of thy parents

went

the temple at Jerusalem, and wast ever

gentle to her

that

gave thee birth [147]

— thy

dreary

preparatory IRea&ina an^ ZCbougbt death-agonies alone

— so

seemed to him

it

— outdid

the pangs of that gazer on the dead!

And boy

to

this

was the boy's

wake and

find

it

vision.

Ah, happy that

indeed but a dream!

Cov-

ered with huge drops of sweat, and trembling in

every limb, the youth raised himself from his horrid

God

slumber and blessed

that the future years yet

lay before him.*

137

I

know

well enough that

man grows up becom-

ing not a physical being merely, but markedly the

mental being of the earth

and

being, the benevolent

But the main thing that

he

is

— the esthetic and .

in

is,

.

.

the same connection,

to be the seer of nature

— he

celebrate things, animals, and landscapes.

If

is

only can His

men-

be used toward things, as his

tality is a quality to

vision

spiritual

used.

he depart from animals and things he

In other

words,

man

is

is lost.

not only an animal

like

the others, but he alone has the quality of under-

standing and telling is

— what

life,

He alone by

how

matter, passion, volition, are.

carries all the substances of the

this quality in himself •From

divine a thing an animal

paper, writing, etc.,

I

and

illustrates

judge the above was written

[148]

world

them. in the forties.

preparatory IReabing anb ZEbougbt

138

There are that

as the only revelation.

divine

life,

own

whatever

see

it

it is

all

likes

and

too doubtless

I

and each and

appertains, the processes of time, verses,

some one

to be a revelation, a part, but

else, all nature,

all

a book, or

specialize

all

that to

it

men, the uni-

all

—

and developments

dislikes

I

hundred, a thousand other Saviours and Mediators

and Bibles

— they

too just as

The grand and

any.

all,

revelations as

theory of religion for

vital

These States must admit

much

and not a part merely.

139

How mean a

man

in

a person

a great office

is

sometimes a

— even

in

rich

man

or

the Presidency!

140

A volume— (dramatic characters etc.)

— running

machinery in

idea and description

through the whole range of recorded tian,

for localities,

time— Egyp-

Hindostanee, Assyrian, Greek, Roman,

Gallic,

Alb,

Teutonic,— and so on down to the pres-

ent day. 141

One

... ...

obligation

of great

the clink of words

is

fresh

bards

empty and

remains offensive

the poetic quality blooms simple and earnest

as the laws of the world. [149]

preparatory IRca&ing anb ZTbougbt

The

...

rhyme soon nauseates rhyme is delicious without end.

audible

inaudible

the

142

Theory of a Cluster of Poems the same passion of

Woman-Love manly

to adhesiveness,

to the

as the Calamus-Leaves are

love.

Full of animal-fire, tender, burning,

— the tremu-

lous ache, delicious, yet such a torment.

The swelling

elate

and vehement, that

will not

be denied.

Adam,

One

as a central figure

and type.

piece presenting a vivid picture (in connec-

tion with the spirit) of a fully complete,

veloped,

man,

eld,

bearded,

swart,

well-de-

fiery,— as a

more than rival of the youthful type-hero of novels and love poems. 143

The

divinest blessings are the

commonest be-

stowed everywhere, and the most superb beauties are the cheapest, the world over. 144

Materialism reality

— (put

this section

forward

and demonstration with the opening)

that this earth

lioration—as

it

is

.

.

.

.

.

.

under a constant process of ame-

always has [150]

been— that

it,

in

some

preparatori? IReaWng anb ZTbougbt

manner not perhaps demonstrable in astronomy, expands outward and outward in a larger and larger orbit that our immortality is located here upon

— earth, — that

\^t are

immortal

— that

the processes

of the refinement and perfection of the earth are in steps, the least part of

— that

which involves

trillions of

due time the earth beautiful as it is now will be as proportionately different from what it is now, as it now is proportionately different from what it was in its earlier gaseous or marine period, years

in

uncounted cycles before man and

That from

woman

grew.

we also shall be here, proportionately different now and beautiful. That the Egyptian idea of

the return of the soul

after

time involved a beautiful

mystery

.

.

.

a certain period of .

nature

.

.

.

.

.

145

Outdoors

is

the best antiseptic yet.

men that have among horses at

there

is

about

open

air

—

—

— digging clams — timberers — ers or framers of

What a charm

lived mainly in the

sea

— on the canals — steamboat-

rafters

houses and mechanics generally.

Cleanly shaven and grammatical folks

I

call mister,

and lay the tips of my fingers inside their elbows after the orthodox fashion, and discuss whatever had the biggest head line in the morning papers, and pass the time as comfortably as the law allows. [X51]

But

for

IPreparator? IReaMng an^ ^bougbt

the others,

my

around their

arm leans over their shoulders and In them nature justifies herself. necks.

Their indefinable excellence gives out something as

much beyond pews and

the special productions of colleges and

parlors as the

morning

air

of the prairie or

the sea-shore outsmells the costliest scents of the

perfume shop.

How gladly we leave the best of what

and refined society or the company of men from stores and offices to sail all day on the river amid a party of fresh and jovial boatmen with is

called learned

no coats or suspenders and

their trousers

Then the quick blood within

their boots.

tucked

in

joins their

gay blood and the twain dance polkas from the bot-

tom in

After long constraint

to the top of the house.

the respectable and money-making dens of exist-

man emerges

ence a

for a

few hours and comes up

a whale to spout and breathe!

like

of the eternal realities of things

One

— the

glimpse then

real sun,

burning

—

the old, forever young and solid earth and dazzling —real men and women refreshing, hearty and wicked. 146 .

.

.

tainting the best of the rich orchard of

and he who anyway does not respect his own organs and cherish them and strengthen them, and keep himself clean outside and inside

himself

.

.

.

—

let

that

man young or

old never deceive himself with

the folly that the sore stuff [152]

is

hid by the cloth he

preparatori? IReaMng an& ZboixQbt

wears and makes no avowal.

Though the

secret is

well hid, though the eyes do not see, nor the

hand

touch, nor the nose smell, the rank odor strikes out. 147

The only way in which anything can really be owned is by the infusion or inspiration of it in the soul. Can dully suppose that may attain to cer1

tain possessions

goods; and

I

— as

when

I

houses or stocks or lands or

have paid the money and taken

the receipts and warranty deeds such property will

be mine to enter upon and enjoy

may-be

Yes,

?

as

people stone blind from their birth enjoy the exhibitions of pictures

and sculpture.

But the true owner of the library

.

.

.*

148

The money value of real and personal estate in New York City is somewhere between five hundred millions

what

and a thousand millions of

Though

dollars.

Now

seems to be the ] of all men and women to [too?], though for [ its security the laws are made and the police drilled though [ yet in its positive, intrinsic ] is all

this in itself?

—

— [

it is

it

] it is all

nothing of account.

The whole of

much account as a pitcher of water, or fresh eggs. The only way we attach it

not of so

a basket of Cf.

Liaves of Grass, '60 edition, p. 410

[153]

**

of ownersliip."

preparatory TReabing anb Cbougbt to our feelings spirit

by

is

— through

identifying

love,

human

with the

it

through pride, through our

craving for beauty and happiness. 149

ground where you may rest yourself and look quietly upon such, and on the theories of the schools and upon governments and religions. All .

.

.

have something noble and

true,

all

and every one of

them; but not the best that ever was

built or ever

on earth can stand as the

final destina-

be

built

tion of

man.

will

Sit awhile, wayfarer.

I

give

you

bis-

and milk to drink; but when afterwards you have bathed and renewed yourself in sweet shall surely clothes, and stayed here a little time, kiss you on the cheek, and open the gate for your cuits to eat

I

egress hence.

The law which

thus both greater and less than * the finest compilation is

... 150

Theories of Evil dise Lost,

Festus, Faust,

Manfred, Para-

Book ofJob, 151

Feb. 25,

Asked

Dined with Hector Tyndale.

'57.

H. T. where he thought to be directed for Cf.

my

I

needed particular attention

improvement

— where

Leaves of Grass, '55 edition, p. 53.

[154]

I

could

preparatory IReaMng

my

especially be bettered in

ant)

ZCbougbt

He

poems.

massiveness, breadth, large, sweeping

out regard to details. [he said]

1

myself with

Asked

in

came away with

largeness, solidity ling

— As

said:

"In

with-

effects,

the Cathedral at York

great impressions of

its

and spaciousness, without troub-

its

parts."

Le B. same question,

What

most lacked. He said: ''In euphony your poems seem to me to be full of the raw material of poems, but crude, and wanting finish and rythm.'' Put in my poems: American things, idioms, mateF.

viz.

:

I

—

rials, persons, groups, minerals, vegetables, animals, etc.

152

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing— 1729-87 porary of Voltaire Leipsic, Breslau,

— very

Hamburg,

— lived

etc.

Was

in

Berlin,

a severe and

— exposed Klopstock's deficien-

almost perfect

critic

cies as a poet

and the

— author oi Laocoon

active

— contem-

false imitations of

(i']66)

—

and of

the classics

good dramas

—

Nathan the IVise, inculcating Kosmos religious notions. He was the R. W. Emerson of his age and paved the way for Goethe and Schiller Lessing was a Jew. also a didactic drama,

—

In art originality is

an

effect just as

cause. [iss]

much

as a

preparatory IReabin^ an& ZCbouQbt

154 1

854

— Alexander Smith's Poems — A

and minor

pieces.

this poetry,

There

is

one

electric

where the announcement

is

Life

Drama

passage in

made

of a

great forthcoming Poet, and the illustration given of

who, about dying, plunges his sword into his send him on before. Alexander Smith is imbued with the nature of Tennyson. He is full of what are called poetical images full of conceits and likenesses; in this respect copying after Shakespeare and the majority of the received poets. He seems to be neither better nor worse than the high average. a king

favorite attendant, to

—

155

Bayard Taylor's poems more resemble N. P. Willis's than any others. They are polished, oriental, sentimental and have as attribute their psychology.

You cannot

what may be

called

see very plainly at

times what they mean, although the poet evidently

has a meaning.* 156

The Song of Hiawatha by H. pleasing ripply ideas,

poem

— the

W.

Longfellow.

A

measure, the absence of

the Indian process of thought, the droning Written [156]

1854.

preparatory IReaMna anb

woody

metre, the sleepy, misty, tions, pleased

me

ZbowQU

character, the tradi-

well enough. 157

1855.

I

have looked over Gerald Massey's Poems

— London.— They seem to me zealous, candid, warlike,

intended, as they are, to get up a strong feeling

against the British aristocracy both in their social and political

man, a

capacity.

radical,

Provincial towns.

man

in

Massey,

a factory

I

His early

hear,

I

now

an editor

is

a youngish

believe in one of the

1

life

laborious, a

work-

think.

158

Sculpture.

Then

was an eminent

was necessary

sculpture

part of religion,

beautiful forms to the

gods

—

it

it

—

it

gave grand and

appealed to the mind,

harmony, with the climate, belief, governments, and was the needed expression of the people, the times, and their aspirations. in perfect

It

was

a part of architecture

— the temple stood

made they were not made

unfinished without statues, and so they were

with reference to the temple abstractly

—

by themselves. 159

In the

geography of poetry there

five continents

— the

rest

range

[157]

are only four or

among the

plenteous

preparatory IReabing anb tTbouabt archipelagos

— some large islands and countless

little

ones.

i6o

in

You cannot a poem or in

a great poet

is

define too clearly

a

man

or

you love A great work of

what

women.

not remembered for

it is

its

parts

— but

remembered as you remember the complete person and spirit of him or her you love. When he becomes vitalized with nationality and individuality from top to toe when he seizes upon life with masculine power when he stands out in

— —

simple

relief as

America does.*

i6i

Health does not

does that

in literature. is

tell

any more

Which

not diseased ?

is

body than it the poem or any book in

(If perfect

the

health appear in a

poem, or any book, it propagates itself a great while.) Show health and native qualities and you are wel-

come

to

all

the

rest.

162

This

is

as one feels.

One

with the garden trimly cut and Above I

feels better satisfied laid out,

and another

—

—

paragraphs written on same piece paper

should judge.

[158]

at

same time

in fifties

Ipreparatori?

(I

IReaMng anb ^bought

too) enjoys the natural landscape, even barrens

and shores and

sterile hills

above

all

gardens.*

163

The

superiority of Emerson's writings

character

— they mean something. he

scure, but

is

Any

certain.

American writers has

in

their

is in

He may be ob-

other of the best

general a clearer style, has

more of the received grace and ease, is less questioned and forbidden than he, makes a handsomer appearance

in

the society of the books, sells better,

passes his time

more apparently

derstanding; yet there

specimen of

New

is

in

the popular un-

something

in

the solitary

England that outvies them

all.

He has what none else has; he does what none else does. He pierces the crusts that envelope the secrets of life. He joins on equal terms the few great sages and original seers. He represents the freeman, America, the individual. He represents the gentleman.

No

times has

teacher or poet of old times or

made

a better report of

qualities, heroism, chastity,

fortitude.

manly and womanly

temperance, friendship,

None has given more

of truth and justice.

modern

beautiful accounts

His words shed light to the

best souls; they do not admit of argument.

As a

Written on margin apropos of following passage: " Emerson seems to desire not art, but undisciplined, untrimmed nature. He does not appear practically to apprehend that

art

is

not

artificiality, is

only nature raised to higher and more perfect

degrees."

[159]

preparatory IReaMng an& tTbougbt

anywhere into the daylight belittles all artificial flower work and all the painted scenery of theatres, so are live words in a book compared to cunningly composed words. A few among men (soon perhaps to become many) will enter easily into Emerson's meanings; by those he will be well-beloved. The flippant writer, the orthodox critic, the numbers of good or in different imitators, will not comprehend him; to them he will indeed be a transcendentalist, a writer of sunbeams and moonbeams, a strange and unapproachable sprig from the pine tree or a glimpse

person.* 164

The

perfect poet

must be unimpeachable

in

man-

it

were

ner as well as matter. 165 Still if

a

this

be so

in spirit as well as

form

fatal defect, t

166

One having

attained those insights and contents

which the universe gives to men capable of comprehending it, would publish the same and persuade * Written

as note to a

writing goes back to early

magazine fifties.

May, '47. To judge by paper and would seem) knew Emerson pretty well

article, date,

— W.

(it

in those early days.

f Marginal note to following: "There is hardly a proposition in Emerson's or prose which you cannot find the opposite of in some other place."

poems

[160]

PnOTOa/MVUK

a

COLOH

CO.

Walt Whitman After the Bas-relief by

Saini

Jerome

R oyer oft

IPreparatorp IReaMns an& tTbougbt

other

men and women

to the same.

The

are simple, spiritual, physical, close at

conditions

hand

.

.

.

they are long and arduous and require faith, they exist altogether with the taught and not with the teaching or teacher. 167

What and

.

is

wanted

not inquiries and reviews

is

.

.

We want satisfiers, joiners, lovers.

These heated, torn, distracted ages are to be compacted and made whole. These frothing, maddening waves are to be

.

.

.

168 Still all

gossip tions

kinds of light-reading, novels, newspapers,

etc.,

and

serve as manure for the few great produc-

are indispensable or perhaps are premises

to something better.

The whole

raft

of light reading

honor of the original good reading which preceded it. The thousands of common poets, romancers, essayists and attempters exist

is

also a testimony in

because some twenty or led the

way

fifty

geniuses at intervals

long before. 169

all

When

American

others.

When

VOL. IX.— Jl.

becomes distinct from American writers become national, literature

r

^ 1

[161]

preparatory IReaMna an& ZTbougbt

When America

idiomatic, free from the genteel laws. herself appears (she does not at in the spirit

literary

all

appear hitherto)

and the form of her poems, and

works

.

.

all

other

.

170

The

great poet submits only to himself.

rude, free, irregular? so.

Do you suppose

Is

nature

nature be so, do you too be

If

nature has nothing under those

forms?

beautiful, terrible, irrational

171 It is

not enough of these states that they are to

hold sway over physical objects, over armies, navies, wealth, manufactures and

They must be eminent agination.

Here must

orators that

all

new

all

substantial

leaders of the arise

objects.

mind and im-

the great poets

and

centuries continually wait for.

172

Commencements? An idea. dentiads).

(for It

review of the past Presinot only to great heroes

is

and representative men that the world is indebted, but it is indebted to weak and shameful persons in high places.

I

say this nation makes as great use

of shallow Presidents as of ington, or

its

its

wise Jefferson. [162]

brave and just

Wash-

preparatory IRcabina anb ^bougbt

Torquato Tasso

—

173

544-1

1

6th or

1

7th year.

Torquato studied

the nobility, the court, the learned

poem Rinaldo

in his

went

at

i8th year —

at his

— moved among etc.

in 10

Wrote the months re-

—

ceived through Italy with great applause. of 21

Born

years.

Mother died

Tasso) and educated gentleman. 1

1

Father a poet (Bernardo

near Naples.

Sorrento,

595—5

At the age

to Ferrara as a gentleman of the house-

The two

hold of the Cardinal d'Este.

ladies '*the

Princesses," sisters of the Cardinal d'Este, Lucretia

Leonora 30 (the former soon married to Prince d'Urbino), with these ''Tassino" was a

aged

31,

favorite.

The life

father Bernardo died 1569, aged 76,

marked by many

vicissitudes

*'

after a

and sorrows, but

cheered throughout by literary enjoyment and a truly Christian philosophy." In 1570

Tasso

''

attended his Lord the Cardinal to

the Court of France."

time

after to

Tasso made application some

be received into the service of Alphonso,

Duke d'Urbino, Lucretia's husband, and succeeded. He was assigned a pension of 1,500 crowns of gold a month. He soon after worked faithfully and at leisure

on the Jerusalem,

published his pastoral

through

Italy

Jerusalem

in

But

poem

first

(age

31).

[163]

and

of Aminta, received

with great applause. 1575

finished

Completed the

He submitted the

preparatory? IReaMng an& ZTbougbt

poem

—

judgment of a number of his friends step which in the sequel involved him in the

''a

to the

greatest difficulties, not less from the diversity of

opinions than from the ascetic severity of

who

his censors,

some of

professed to see, in his charm-

ing fictions, something profane and seductive " etc. etc.

The Jerusalem underwent grand ones it

not as a

in particular critic

several revisions,

— one

of the censors read

but as an ''inquisitor."

absurd criticisms, heartsickness

Tasso goes to

Rome

two

Jealousies,

etc. etc.

but soon returns to Ferrara.

Has an interview with one of the Duke's greatest enemies.

Italian suspicion

doubts and cross purposes.

— fears —

and treachery

Several troubled years

— the Jerusalem printed. Tasso had not long returned from [to?] Ferrara ere

his

melancholy, induced originally on his ar-

dent temperament by the severity of his

critics

and

the persecutions of his enemies, returned upon him

more deeply than

that mental disorder

reason." fantastic

He

of his

disturbed himself with hundreds of

fears.

(^ged 33) d'Urbino he ran 1577

He had ''symptoms which was soon to affect

ever.

"At in

length one evening in June,

the chamber of the

after

Duchess

one of her servants with a

drawn dagger." The Duke now issued orders [164]

to have Tasso con-

preparatori? IReaMng anb ZCbougbt

More

fined in his chamber.

groundless alarms,

fears,

dread of losing the favor of the Duke.

Tasso takes leaving his

MSS.

flight

clandestinely from

etc.

From

from court to court

morbid to

heart.

Rome — at

this period a

wanderer

a prey to sorrow

in Italy,

Goes to Sorrento last returns to

permission from the Duke.

Ferrara,

to his sister

— goes

Ferrara under a cool

But leaves Ferrara again

soon — wanders — wanders — wanders — at the court,

is

last

During a marriage

bringing up again at Ferrara. festival at

and

neglected —

in a

fit

of invec-

tive gives loose to the keenest invectives against the

House of Tasso

Este.

The Duke

is

apprised of them and

arrested and taken to the hospital of St.

is

Anne, an asylum

for lunatics

and paupers.

This was 1579 — years passed — sick — declining — sometimes sane, sometimes crazed — in

croer

He was

seven years passed in this prison. in 1586.

— Again he travels up and down

liberated

Italy.

seem to have passed very unhappily, wandering, insane— just conscious enough of it to make it doubly poignant

The

last

twenty years of

— either persecuted or (which

his

is

life

always worse) sup-

posing himself to be persecuted. Personally Tasso

was

of lofty stature,

fair

com-

plexion (eventually pale), head large, beard brown,

eyes large (their look generally directed toward the

heavens)

— of attractive appearance — born a gentle[165]

Ipreparatorij IReabing

man

an age

in

when

anb n:bougl)t

the term had

all its

high dis-

tinction.

174

Wm.

Simms.

Gilmore

Notice

in

Emerson's

United States Maga:(ine, June '57. *'The man of great and commanding genius,

mark upon the

leaves his

who

ages, inevitably takes his

stand-point of observation outside of that which

is

He

in

current and approved

by

his contemporaries.

more than his compeers. He has an omniscient perception by which he separates the dross from the crucible and finds the pure effect represents posterity

gold "

etc. etc.

W. 1806

G.

Simms

— now

florid,

51

— born

years old

warm, of rich

copious

writer

descriptions

Charleston, S.

characters etc. are

is

April,

a true Southerner,

nature, defends slavery etc.,

— rather

— too

—

C,

a

too wordy, overloads his

self-conscious

good

is

— his

descriptions,

— well drawn. 175

Sunday evening *

All his

life

lectures.*

Whitman planned

to deliver lectures,

and occasionally he did deliver Those in question here,

one, as for instance that on the assassination of Lincoln.

on the great German metaphysicians were never completed and, of course, never delivered. The MS. in my hands is simply a series of fragments which are here given

word

for

word

as they stand.

They were probably

or very early seventies.

[166]

written in the late sixties

Ipreparatori? IReablng

Kant,

to

1724

Schelling,

Hegel, 1770 to

1

83

Fichte,

1804.

to

1775

an& ITbougbt

1854

— died

to

1762 in

18 14.

Switzerland.

1.

Metaphysics — Hegel and Metaphysics. 1770— died 1831 at Hegel — born at Stuttgard Berlin of cholera — educated at University of Tubinin

gen— student of theology— matriculated in 788, aged 18— then in retirement pursued extensive and severe 1

At

courses of study.

w^as a public lecturer at

31

— w^as an associate of Schelhis lectures, the difference beling— examined, tween Fichte and Schelling— edited a newspaper —

Jena, at the University in

then conducted an academy or gymnasium at place (as rector)

work

— inaugurated and planned his great

or works.

Was 18 1 8)

latter

professor of philosophy at Heidelberg (18 16-

and there published

his Encyclopcedia, develop-

ing his whole philosophy.

*

«

«

^

«

»

«

by impressing upon your attention the growing and greater particularity with which the moderns use the words relating to those philosophical inquiries. The realms of all words are more or less filling the past and will fill the future, getting more definitely bounded. This is one of the marked characteristics Though they of our times. Precision is demanded. I

will begin

inevitably run into each other, each term in the cat-

egory has yet

its

own

exact and limited area, and the [167]

Ipreparator? IReabing anb ZTbougbt

best writer [illegible Science,

word] often leaps beyond

speaking, deals in

strictly

practical experiments, proofs.

proof.

positive facts,

Philosophy combines

them, applies them to solve the vast problem of

harmony, ensemble, the idea of the

universal

Religion

means moral development, duty, the

all.

idea

of man's duty in the abstract, and duty toward his

and colored by that something above him or enclosing him out of which prayer and worship arise. Theology is the thought and science of fellows, toned

God.

Metaphysics, defined by Kant

according to another and perhaps tion, that

still

...

is

better descrip-

which considers the whole concrete show

of things, the world,

man

himself, either individually

or aggregated in History, as resting on a spiritual, invisible basis, continually shifting, yet the real sub-

stance,

and the only immutable one.

doctrine of Hegel.

born — died —

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,

Hegel was a philosopher physics and service than Strictly

in

This was the

in

the domain of meta-

that has probably rendered greater

any man

we know,

past or present.

speaking the transcendental metaphysics

present no new contribution to morals, to the formation or guidance of character, the practice of virtue

or for the better regulation either of private

public

affairs.

With

life

or

respect to such morals, virtue,

or to heroism and the religious incumbency the old [168]

preparatori? IReabine anb ZCbougbt

principles remain, without notable increase or diminu-

same to-day

tion, the

we

as

trace

them

in farthest

Egypt, Greece, the Vedas, the Talmud, the

India,

Old Testament,

Zerdusht,

Epictetus,

the

divine

teachings of Christ, and as substantially agreed upon

by

lands,

all

times as

all

far

Religion and morals, fected,

back as

we

can go.

say, are not palpably af-

1

although doubtless there has to be more or

less of a re-adjustment

and perhaps re-statement of

theology.

/ Nor

does the Hegelian system,

strictly speaking,

explain the universe, either in the aggregate or in

The

detail.

senses, eyesight,

life,

the least insect,

growth, the dynamics of nature are not

Thought trate

To peneproblems the human

not caught, held, dissected.

Nature and solve her

faculties

ble

is

under present conditions are no more

now

mystery this there

is

still

never be

a mystery.

eligible.

Then

in fact

had before gone by all is

its

The

Eternal

granting

after

remains an entirely legitimate

human mind, to

eligi-

than before and under mortal conditions

will in all probability

mount

eclaircized.

field for

chosen ground where

default.

Because

man's idea of his

own

final

the all

and para-

position in the

universes of time, space and materials, his faith in

the scheme of things, the destinies which tates, his clue to

it

necessi-

the relations between himself and

the outside world, his ability in intellect and [169]

spirit

preparatory IReablng an& ZbouQbt at

any

rate to

cope and be equal with them, and

with Time and Space.

come

these

remain of other

to the soul

vital

fields.

interest

These, and thoughts upon

and

after

These touch

and exercise

fill

all

it

and

it

has exhausted

human

all

beings with-

out exception and include everything that

is

of per-

manent importance to them. They are the greatest themes. They are greater than Science, History, Art, Democracy, or any problems of the Utilities or prosperity or wealth or any sectarian Religion. I

would not be understood

to

Departments, the Specialties I

I

deprecate the Great

have

just

say that compared with the question of

visible

and

invisible

man

in

the

worlds the others become com-

paratively insignificant. baffling labyrinths

named, but

Yourself,

— what am

I,

myself,— amid the

what

are

you here

for?— give us some suggestion (however indirect or inferential), or clue, or satisfying reason— the world the beginningless, endwith its manifold shows onethe other wonder Space less wonder, Time

—

self,

—

—

the darkest labyrinth, mightiest wonder.

triumphs of our kind out-topples

What

this — that

one,

a man, has lived and has bestowed on his fellow-

men

the Ariadne's thread to guide them through

the maze?

—

is large enough Only Hegel is fit for America and free enough. Absorbing his speculations and imbued by his letter and spirit, we bring to the

[170]

Ipreparatori? IRea&ing

study of its

anb ^Tboubbt

here and the thought of hereafter,

life

in all

mystery and vastness, an expansion and clearness

unknown.

of sense before

we

As a

face in a mirror

see the world of materials, nature with

objects,

shows, reflecting

processes,

the

all

its

human

and by such reflection formulating, identifying, developing and proving it. Body and mind are one; spirit

an inexplicable paradox, yet no truth

truer.

human

all

soul stands in the centre, and

and serve

The

the uni-

and revolve round They are one side of the whole and it is the

verses minister to it.

other side.

it,

it

escapes utterly from

It

all

limits,

dog-

matic standards and measurements and adjusts self to the ideas of

and

sails

them

God, of space, and to

and

at will as oceans,

fills

it-

eternity,

them

as

beds of oceans.

The

varieties,

contradictions and paradoxes of

and even good and evil, so to the superficial observer, and so often

the world and of baffling

life,

leading to despair, sullenness or infidelity, a series of infinite radiations and

become

waves of the one

and progress, never ''The heavens and the

sea-like universe of divine action

stopping, earth " to

never hasting. use the

whose

brief

and

things

all

of history

I

of Joseph Gostick

endorse: ''The heavens and the earth

withm

— the

ment of the

summing up their

compass

facts of the present

future (such

is

[171]

—

all

the events

and the develop-

the doctrine of Hegel)

preparatory IReabing anb ^bought

all

form a complication, a succession of steps

in

the

one eternal process of creative thought."

The

Man The

essential quality, nature, scope, position of

What

Time and Space.

in

relations

between

it

and

he

is

this manifold nature,

the world,

with

—the

worlds— the perplexing

tality

other

its

countless objects

variegated,

— how fuse the material

His soul ?

?

idea of

immor-

the fact of death,

life,

chemical dissolution, segregation, with the puzzling

thought of Identity's continuance, despite of death

Humanity, the

race.

History, with

contradictory

of baffling,

procession — the dark of the infinite tions,

problem of

scheme — these

which have

all

its

events — the evil,

long train

tumultuous forming half

are the themes, ques-

directly or indirectly to

do with

any profound consideration of Democracy and finally testing it, as all questions and as underlying all questions.

Who

advances

me

to light

without depreciating poets,

men, inventors

and the

upon these?

patriots,

like

I

And

saints, states-

rate

[Hegel]

as

Humanity's chiefest teacher and the choicest loved physician of It is

my

mind and

true, analogy,

gestions are perhaps

soul.

comparison, indirection, sugall

that

is

possibly'

soul quickly seizes the divine limits^

them with

But the

and absorbs

avidity.

Penetrating beneath the [172]

shows and

materials of

Ipreparatori? IReabing

we

the objective world

find,

anb XCbouQbt according to Hegel

though the thought by itself is not new but very antique and both Indian and Grecian) that in respect to human cognition of them, all and several are pervaded by the only absolute substance which is Spirit, endued with the eternal impetus of development, and producing from itself the opposing powers and

A

forces of the universe.

seems the

curious, triplicate process

resultant action;

first

the Positive, then

the Negative, then the product of the mediation

between them; from which product the process is In his Introrepeated and so goes on without end. duction to the Philosophy of History, this trated in the portion

on

''

is

illus-

History as a manifestation

of Spirit."

He has given the same

clue to the fitness of

reason and fitness of things and unending progress, to the universe of moral purposes that the sciences in

astronomy and geology, have the material purposes, and the last and

their spheres, as

established in

crowning proof of each is the same, that they fit the mind, and the idea of the all, and are necessary to be so

in

the nature of things./

Religions.— Pagan and Christian. Probably the great distinction of the Pagan re-

grouped into one and led by the Greek theology, is that they appreciated and expressed the ligions,

sense of nature,

life,

beauty, the objective world, [173]

preparatory IRea&lng anb Zhonobt and of fate, immutable law, the senses of power and precedence, and also, to a greater or less degree, the mystery and baffling unknownness which meet us at a certain point of

things.

our investigation of any and

the Christian cultus, as

In

we

get

all

in-

it,

stead of these the moral dominates, gentleness, love,

the distinctions of right and wrong, the ideas of

abnegation of

purity,

self,

terminating often

in

a

diseased benevolence, voluntary penances, celibacy,

the bloodless, cast-iron virtue, gaunt Calvinism, the

harping on ''rights," and traversing the ecstasy of

Roman

Catholicism, the revolt of Protestantism to

Unitarianism, addressed merely to the intellect.

Kant was born in

Koningsburg, Eastern Prussia,

in

1724, of Scotch stock

father

was

on the paternal

a saddler, carrying

side.

on a small business.

His mother seems to have been a superior of deep religious sensibilities.

His

woman

At sixteen he entered

the University of Koningsburg as a theological student and preached occasionally pits

of the

neighborhood.

in

the country pul-

He was

poor, took

employment

as tutor,

among people

of rank and others, returned to the Uni-

went from family

to family

versity as private lecturer, spending fifteen years in

that position.

Was then and always fond of the study

of physical geography and astronomy. series of essays lecturer,

was

and

treatises,

often sought

became popular

by persons of

[174]

Published a as a

distinction.

preparatory? IReaMng anb ZhonQbt

Thus going

we

on, increasing in fame,

find

him

at the age of 42 advanced to the post of an under-

keeper of the royal library at the salary of about

$50 a

year— and

four years later

promoted to the

ordinary chair of logic and metaphysics at $300 a

He

year.

Critique of Pure Reason, year.

His

ripens slowly.

Though

great

published

is

work, the in

his 57th

danger of sinking into ob-

in great

importance can be understood,

livion before its

surmounts that danger and

in

it

a few years becomes

famous.

/ Kant— like Socrates and to some extent like Plato is more a searcher and tester of systems than a Like them, though in his own maker of them. way, not theirs, he discusses, inquires, suggests, speculates,

is

very cautious,

He

nothing absolutely.

dom ''

propounds

clears, frees,

absolutely furnishes or

or

little

removes,

sel-

fulfils.

Metaphysics, according to Kant

—

in

which he

only echoes the general voice of philosophers

—

is

conversant with the world above sense, or beyond experience."

He

is

occupied with such problems as

— Ontology. The essence and immortality of the soul — Pneumatology. The prevalence of freedom or the world — — Cosmology. The being of God — Speculative

the nature of absolute being

fate in

theology. Before Kant

two

stages: [175]

Dogmatism

—

lots of

preparatory IReabine an^ tCbougbt systems, each affirmed positively their contradictions

typified in

We

and absurdities

Hume and some of the

must sum him up

— which

by

led

to: Scepticism

—

French philosophs.

briefly.

Kant analyses,

dissects, dissipates the vast suffocating

miasma

that

—

had so long spread impediments to philosophy clears away, removes, sometimes discusses much yet in fact and after all delike a surgeon's knife

—

cides

little

— nothing —

or

is

of indescribable value

—

denies the possibility of absolute knowledge of the external world receive

all

—begins with Hume—admits that we

the materials of our knowledge through

the senses

— but

mission.

Long

immediately before, the

and the other

materialists,

that ''there

nothing

is

in

rises

above that ad-

speculations of Locke

had reached the formula the understanding which

has not arrived there through the senses.''

had

replied, ''Yes, there is the

Leibnitz

understanding itself"

Kant's entire speculations are but a splendid amplification of this reply.

state

He endeavors

to get at

the philosophy of the understanding.

problem of the

relation

and

The

between the understanding

and the universes of material nature, he did not attempt to solve.

The

pursuit or examination

and elaboration of

the inquiry: Is a science of metaphysics possible practicable?

and

involves the gist of Kant's entire la-

bors, forms (leaving out

much [176]

that he accepts from

preparatory IReabing others) his

and

itself,

own is,

ZbowQ^t

ant)

original contribution to

in

some

respects, probably the

Previous to him, strange as

it

most

human mind.

rendered to the

illustrious service ever

Metaphysics

may seem, no

philos-

opher appears to have troubled himself seriously w^ith this vast all

impediment

Successive dogmatists had sprung

metaphysics.

up from time to time less confidently

rising at the threshold of

who had

treated and

more or

decided on absolute being, origin of

materials, the immortality of the soul, the question

of a personal God, and the other problems that have in

all

human

ages vexed

reason and cannot

be

escaped. /

Moral portrait of him ** I

opher

K.)

(I.

by Herder

—

1795.

have had the good fortune to know a philos-

who was my

teacher.

the vigor of

In

he had the same youthful gaiety of heart that follows him,

1

believe, into old age.

head, built for thought,

was the

life

now

His open fore-

seat of imperturbable

cheerfulness and joy; the most pregnant discourse

flowed from his to

him

at will,

lips;

and

wit,

humor and

his instructions

of an entertainment.

had

came the charm

raillery all

With the same easy mastery

with which he tested the doctrines of Leibnitz, Wolf, Baumgarten, Cousins and Hume, or pursued the discoveries of Newton, Kepler, and other lights of science, he also took up the current writings of

Rousseau, such as Emile or VOL. rx.— la.

[177]

Helo'ise, or

any new

preparator? IReaMitQ anb ZbowQht

phenomenon of the natural world, and from the criticism of each, came back to the impartial study of nature, and to the enforcement of the dignity

of man.

History in

all its

branches, natural sciences,

were the materials that gave interest to his lectures and his conversation; nothing worthy of study was to him indifferent; no faction or sect, no selfishness or vanity, had for him the least attraction, compared He with the extension and elucidation of truth. physics, mathematics, and experience

excited and pleasantly impelled us to mental inde-

This

man whom

and respect

The

was foreign to his nature. name with the deepest gratitude

despotism

pendence;

is

I

Immanuel Kant."

objection has been taken and well taken

that the journey of philosophy beginning in Kant

brings us to an uncertainty about everything.

laws

ot

sight, touch, weight, etc. are

Materials and material experiences

The

dethroned.

amount

to noth-

we

thought so absolute are only ostensible and are either scattered to the winds or permitted but a passing and temporary sway. Fichte (1762-1814) commenced life as a poor boy, ing.

was

The

realities

by a wealthy person, received a education, became tutor in Prussia, was

sent to school

university

intimate with Kant, absorbed his philosophy, wrote

work which passed for the master's own, traveled through Germany and Switzerland, married a niece a

[178]

IPreparatorp IRcablnQ an&

of the poet Klopstock, Jena,

where,

in

his

^bougbt

was appointed

lectures,

professor at

he inaugurated and

by where

gradually developed his philosophy, gave offence

some

of his notions, resigned,

he occupied himself

made

lectures,

in

went

writing and

to Berlin, in

giving private

a great impression on the learned,

was appointed professor in the university of Erlangen, was compelled to flee from the invading armies of France, in due time repaired again to Berlin, was appointed rector of the

where he

new

university of that city,

died.

/t^ichte

is

described as a fervid and telling speaker,

but not so clear or/acceptable as a writer.

he begins by de-

are voluminous, in his philosophy claring for Kant.

He founds and

builds largely on

the distinction between the / and the not the fact that a relations

to

man

His works

Upon

I.

can only realize anything

himself,

in its

and from the capacities and

measurements that constitute himself, he lays so much stress, that the whole universe becomes, in brief,

the / as that

principle

will

His philosophy

complete and logical as

always be a select

perior ones, to thing.

the only thinking subject, active

and consciousness.

ple, single,

There

is

which

And perhaps

class of minds,

seem

it

sim-

goes.

and su-

Fichte's theory will be every-

there will always be a stage in

the progress of every mind which satisfy or

far as

is

to satisfy. [179]

it

only will

fill

and

preparatori? IReaMng anb ZTbouQbt

Fichte, as will

related to Kant.

be seen, grows out of and is closely But while the master was satisfied

with inquiry and at most with love of or comprehen-

would put it in practilife he was as noble and

sion of the truth, the follower cal action.

In his peaceful

heroic in his

way

as the best

war's campaigns. plaining

And

/.

and bravest warrior

in

Subjeotiveness is his principle, ex-

Strongly stated nothing exists but the

all.

the central fact

in this

ever moral obliga-

is

tion, duty, conscience, giving vitality to

Then comes

Schellihg (1775-1854)

all.

who

professes

answer the questions left open by Kant with a doctrine of '' spontaneous intuition " in other words to solve the problem left open by Kant with

to largely

—

human mind and

the theory that the

external nature

That that which

are essentially one.

exists in con-

and mentally in the human spirit. The difference between him and Fichte is that Schelling's philosophy is more crete forms etc. in Nature, exists morally

largely objective.

The and

chief forte of

it

— seeking

restrain Fichte's all-devouring

sential identity of the subjective or, in

terms, that

what

to counterbalance

egoism

and

—

is

the es-

objective worlds,

exists as mentality, intelli-

gence, consciousness in man, exists in equal strength

and absoluteness tical

laws

in

in

concrete forms,

material

one with man's sane

shows and

nature — making

intuitions. [180]

.

prac-

the latter

The same

universal

Ipreparatorp IReaWns anb ^tbouQbt

spirit

manifests

itself in

the individual Man, in aggre-

and

gates, in concrete Nature,

He

in Historic progress.

elevates Man's reason, claims for

prehension

it

demands

of divine things,

the coma sort of

Platonic ecstasy or inebriation as the fountain of utter-

ance of first-class philosophy.* His palace of idealistic pantheism w^as never com-

more or less deficient and fragmentary, yet is one of the most beautiful and majestic structures ever achieved by the intellect or imagination of man. pleted,

For

is

in Schelling's

philosophy there

is

at least as

much

four w^ho

have

imagination as intellect.^

/ These

then are the

illustrious

originated and carried out, with epic succession and

completeness, the modern systems of transcendental philosophy.

The

critical is

critical

and

represented

by Kant, who begins and ends it. The transcendental rises out of and is founded upon the critical and could have had no beginning or growth except from

its

previous existence.

There

between

is

a close relative-connection, sequence etc.

the four even in time.

all

each other

like a nest of

boxes

They

fit

into

— and Hegel encloses

them all. Taking their whole philosophy, it is the most important emanation of the mind of modern Throughout

175, as in

all

Whitman's

writings, the hands

of Esau (Ellas Hicks, Hegel, Schelling, etc., etc.) but the voice

of Jacob

— Whitman

himself.

[181]

may be is

the hands

always the voice

preparatory IRcabing an& XCbougbt ages and of

all

ages, leaving even the wonderful inpolitical progress,

ventions, discoveries of science,

great engineering works, utilitarian comforts etc. of

the

last

hundred years

of importance

in a

comparatively inferior rank

— outstripping them

sumes to answer and does answer,

all.

Because

it

as-

as far as they can be

answered, the deepest questions of the soul, of identof purposes worthy the world and of the relation

ity,

between man and the material nature and workings of the external universes, not depreciating them but elevating man to the spiritual plane where he belongs, and where after all that physical comfort and luxury, with mental culture, and political freedom, can accomand there only finds, a satisfacworthy of his highest self, and achieves Happiness.

plish,

tion

It

he

is

at last finds,

no philosophy possible can,

true

analysis, explain the universe.

eyesight, motion, baffle us.

The

in

deepest

least insect, the

No thought can

be seized

and though the corporeal parts and aggregates can, the main things, the atoms and vitality, remain in mystery. But subtle, vast, electric is the

and

dissected,

soul,

even

in

present relations, and restless and sad

however indirect to itself and to the relations between itself and Time, Space and all the processes and objects that fill them. until

it

gets

some

clue

Idealism underlies the Four great philosophers, all

alike.

It

does not crop to the surface

but he necessitates

it

in

more than any of them. [182]

Kant,

Hireparator? IReaMng an& tTbougbt

Taking the advent of the 19th century nological centre, the years surrounding

ably of an importance

in

for a chro-

it

are prob-

the history of metaphysical

science (the science that cognizes that which

is

above

sense and beyond experience) beyond any others

known. All the Four have mentioned were living, Kant at a great age, Hegel was being formed. see to my own satisfaction and see very clearly, that to any individual mind the ambition for universal knowledge is a vain ambition, and that it [is] already carried to extravagant lengths and [is] tainting the schools. But it seems to me the thought of I

I

universality

— the

conception of a divine purpose in

the cosmical world and in history, the realization

knowledge and sciences however important are branches, radiations only each one relative is not only the grand antedating background and appropriate entrance to the study of any science but

that

—

—

to the in

fit

understanding of the position of one's

Nature, to the performance of

appreciation

life's

self

duties, to the

and application of sane standards to

and to the judgment upon and construction of works in any department of art, and that by its politics

realization

is

ogy that can

provided a basis for religion and theolsatisfy the

modern.

Perhaps to have begun properly

1

ought to have

mentioned Leibnitz (1646-17 16) a moralist and osopher,

by many considered [183]

as starting

phil-

German

IPreparatori? IRea&lng ant) ICbougbt

metaphysics, perhaps too timid and orthodox,

when

by the great standards, but of noblest mind and powerful influence. His favorite themes were natural theology and the moral government of the world. In his book Theodicee he exhibits loftiest thoughts and doctrines, goodness, benevolence, a harmonious

tried

unity in variety etc. are inculcated

all

through his

pages.

He has

read

my

Vistas to

little

not seen that the Democracy

choose) willingly leaves

all

I

purpose

favor

material

(if

and

who

has

forced to political

successes to enter upon and enjoy the moral, philosophical and religious ones.

have mentioned Hegel

I

but

find

I

I

in

the preceding pages

cannot be contented without saying

something more elaborate about him and what he stands If

for.

I

were asked to specify who,

in

my

opinion,

has by the operation of his individual mind done the

most

signal service to humanity, so

far,

I

sometimes

my

answer would be to point to him and join with his name the name of Kant and perhaps Fichte and Schelling. If were questioned who most fully and definitely illustrates Democracy by carrying it

think

I

into the highest regions

I

should make the same

answer. Finale?

It

remains to be inquired and the inquiry

has the most important bearing upon metaphysics [184]

preparatory IReaMng anb ^bouQbt and especially with reference to

— whether after

all

allowance

worlds

for

not the absolute but onJy the relative truth

is

what we

is

Kant's tremendous

point,

from our existing point of view this

future discoveries

namely that what we the objective and other Natural

and unquestionable realize as truth in

its

;

in

other terms, that

realize of the objective

world by our

present imperfect senses and cognizance and that

what we thus

would be entirely changed and perhaps overthrown and reversed if we were adrealize

vanced to superior development and points of view. It

remains,

there

is

even as being

I

say, to be inquired (considered)

whether

not probably also something in the soul, it

exists

itself

under present circumstances, which

adjusted to the inherent and immutable

laws of things (which laws and the principal points of resemblance being the

same throughout time and

space, irrespective of apparitions, partialisms, pro-

moods) does not afford a clue to unchangeable whether in itsabysmic depths, standards and tests far from ken or analysis, it (the soul) does not somehow, even now, by whatever removes and indirections, by its own laws, repel the inconsistent, and gravitate forever toward the absolute, the supernatural, the eternal truth. Perhaps this is what Fichte really meant. / It is certain that what is called revealed religion as founded or alleged to be founded on the Old and cesses,

—

[i8S]

lI^reparator?

New

IReaMns anb ^bougbt

Testament, and

churches

still

taught by the various

Europe and America,

in

is

not responded to

by the highest, devoutest modern mind. Having its truths and its purposes in History, and the greatest ones, the time has unquestionably

.

.

.

176

.

.

those stages, Egyptian, Hindu, Hebraic,

.

Greek, Christian as the

.

.

— with a hundred dimly preserved,

.

Those stages all over the world their memories and inheritances in

— how

how

credulous!

childlike

the priests revered — the bloody

and

all

puerile

by

underlying

fervor

.

wayward forms

.

and simple!

rites,

how

the mumeries

before the

movements

meaning out of which

Complaint?

will pause —

I

.

.

.

.

.

I

stand silent and admirable

I

man

in all

look inward upon myself

I

look around upon our

.

Nay — as

of the great soul of

lands and in every age. I

leaving

the continents

that one

arose.

walk here

—

all

.

.

and bad things, redeemed through the

ages, the continents, .

.

own times — and how Of

can

do not blame them for doing what they have done and are doing applaud them that they have done so I

complain of the past?

—

well —

I

present and past,

I

I

applaud

.

.

.*

* Written on two fragments of paper, both [186]

torn

and indeed almost destroyed.

preparatori? IReabing anb ZCbouflbt

177

The celebrated old German poem we are going to make a running sketch of is traceable back to the Twelfth Century, when, or* soon after when, it was probably put in the shape transmitted to modern times, by some rhapsodist whose name is now unknown, yet it is quite certain that this remarkable epic,

long antedates even that

much

further back, though,

it

far-off" is

How

period.

impossible to

tell,

with any certainty.

Of

the

many

critical

theories about the construc-

tion of the Niebelungen the

most

plausible

is

that

the ballads or versions floating about, were collected

by

this

rhapsodist before

alluded

to

during

the

Twelfth or Thirteenth Century, and fused into one

The

connected Epic.

critics

say they can

tell

connecting passages; and they point to marked ences of style and contradictions. is

thus,

by high

authorities,

the

differ-

The Niebelungen

stated to have been

formed from ballads belonging to several ages, but having a general principle of union and character,

and thus come to be united upon the thread of one main plot. 178

Reading Ossian awhile Ossian

this

morning.

? for note. Preface. [187]

iC^reparator? IReabing

For

their

all

worse — there

is

restorations

to

me

so

anb tCbougbt

— perhaps

much

something

race (to use an old

Scotch word) of the prehistoric, primitively

Caledonian thought and personality

— notwithstanding their general

Irish

these

in

and

poems

mistiness and gos-

samer character (they always bring up to me the long trailing drape of the moss hanging down so profusely on the live-oaks

and slowly have had more

in Florida or Louisiana,

moving to the twilight breezes) —

I

good from what they give out. It [is] like the reminiscence of an odor shut up for ages in some venerable chest. A witty friend of mine calls them

or less

the real ghosts of poems. 179

The

who the

by Kant) that it isn't those the most that know the most or think

idea (illustrated

travel

deepest, widest,

sometimes a squandered

life

life.

clearest.

I

even think that

devoted to persistent travel

The knowingest people

I

is

a

have met

have not been the gad-abouts. 180

The

relations

between the mass of employed

persons on one side and the employers factories, R. R. organizations,

other side

is

one of the

owners

(capitalists,

etc.)

on the

vast, complicated, unsettled

problems of America to-day [188]

— one

of the problems

preparatory IReaMng anb ZTbougbt to which, although fess

I

think

1

it

be solved,

will

do not yet see any solution or indications of

solution.

There are to be sure plenty of reforms

and panaceas offered

— but

some

like

(chemistry for instance) though that

con-

I

we

have either got

absolute structure,

we

it,

cannot be said

it

or see

of the sciences

its

and

resultant

—

working thousands of working towards that re-

are

—

good men are faithfully sultant and absolute structure. i8i

Reading Shakespeare, Sept.

Wm.

Edition in eight volumes of

The

1859. [?

text

regulated

Portrait

1623].

ford Church.

from

1865,

Veazie, Boston,

by the

the

Washington. Folio of

monument

Ben Jonson's eulogy

in

—very

1632 Strat-

and

fine

sounding ''

He was not

of an age, but for

''A good Poet's

made

all

time."

as well as born/'

Shake-

speare born about 23 April, 1564 (died 1616) began

London (about) 1586. two theatres Globe and Blackfriars.

his theatrical career in

owner

in

Was

182

Richard Burbage, principal owner principal actor of first parts,

a character

— he

was

[189]

and

must have been quite

quite rich

(worth ;^3oo a year).

in a theatre

— died

in

16 19

—

preparatori? IReaMuQ anb ^bougbt

183

Poem

Poem of the Unimen humanity. Though the times, climes, differ, men do not so much differ. There is a universal language. What is heroic is universal among men. Love is universal among of the Universalities.

likenesses of

versal

[men]. ness

is

Liberty

—

Poem

is

—

all

—justice

— the hatred of mean-

is

etc.

of the Longings of Friendship.

Pictures of

— the hankering friends — the memory of only a look — the boy lingering and waiting. Friendship

for

184

West

In the

—a

vision

Depicting the

future.

now — two hundred

—

West

?

a

Poem

of vision of

hundred years from hundred years.

years — five

(This ought to be a splendid part of the

poem)

—

(?poem of Ohio?) it ought to lay in the colors and draw the outlines with a large, free and bold hand. 185

The Poem. of Materials. this

model

— words, solid etc.)

One grand

poems.

? Several

— the

figures,

with

?

Poem.

Poem

Many poems on

bringing together of the materials suggestions,

as timbers, stone, All

eclipsing

iron,

reference [190]

things— (words brick,

to main

as

glass,

planks

central

ideas.

preparatori? IReabing anb ^bought

With powerful

— yet

loose,

fluid-like,

reader eligible to form the resultant-

leaving each

poem

indications

Leading Chicago poem.

for herself or himself.

186

Speaking of

more easy," nature

literary style in

poems, ''Nothing

said Voltaire, ''than to

— nothing more

Verse was the

Greek— the Old

writing of

Testament.

do violence to

than to imitate her."

difficult

first

is

.

.

all

we know —

.

187

On

the other side

very different poet

is

the "barbaric

yawp "of

— as different as a Collins' steam-

ship or

modern locomotive tearing along the

railroad

with

its

men and women of

train

Erie

of cars well-filled with the

of to-day

is

from the Lord Mayor

London's state barge or his carriage with

adorned slowness and

its

pageantry and

or as different as the strong and hearty

people

from

is

a

the

bookish

life

liveries life

its

—

of the

of cloisters and

from the etiquette of the English or French Courts.

With

.

.

.

188

Cheap looking distort things

glasses

and nearly

all

pictures

from the unerring harmony and equi-

librium of nature. [191]

preparatori? IReaMng anb ^bougbt

Superb and

infinitely

manifold as natural objects

are — each foot out of the countless

cubic leagues of space being lute or relative

the whole of

octillions of the

crammed

of abso-

full

wonders — not any one of these, nor

them

awry

together, disturbs or seems

When

one mind of man or woman. or old or irritable and the richest parlors and est ornaments appear unsightly and to the

.

is

sick

costli-

.

.

189 Literature

and sanity in

if

is

it

certain

would be

of vigor

fuller

authors were in the habit of composing

the forenoon

— and never at night. 190*

That these lectures are hints or en-passant toward further development. That they That the Past and the are but primary lessons. Premonitory.

Present [are] to be treated with perfect respect that whatever

mendous seer of

.

.

all

know well enough the treThat man is the master and over-

say,

I

.

religions.

slave) admiration

growths of the

I

That

I

stand with (not their

and boundless awe before

Past, of

men

in

all

ages,

all

the present, civilizations, religions, politics * This

section

is

written on a series of slips

of paper — the order

—pieces between have been dropped out.

.

in

all

the

lands, .

.

which they

They are quite old, probAt the time these notes were made Whitman seems to ably belong to early fifties. have had the idea of promulgating his doctrines by talks, lectures, either in place of or jointly with a book to be written.

come

is

not clear

[192]

preparatory IReaMng anb ZTbougbt do not condemn either the Past or the Present. the very ground Shall denounce my own ancestry under my feet? that has been so long building. I know that they are and were what they could not I

—

I

When

but be.

I

think of the past

Do you suppose

— the

religion consists in

or creed — the

one

.

.

.

particular

any other? No it is the whole universal heart of man. In religion a modest statement, and proposition of things as if presented with subdued mind, suggestive, modest, not flaunting and arbitrary. form

Christian or

—

Religion

—

In the Introductory remarks.

While to the ordinary, the divine masses, to those whose inherent religious capacity is deep enough (and it is just as deep in the American people as in any race known upon the earth, old or new) While to such, thoughtless, the sublimest and most

— —

spiritual facts are

taken for granted as well under-

stood and settled, and as being preached

churches and taught for

me,

in

the schools and books.

approach these

I

in

as,

even

in

beginnings, impenetrable mysteries

the

As

their littlest

— and

yet with

audacious hand to be seized upon and wrestled with. .

.

amid new combinations, more copious,

.

more turbulent than

earth's

preceding times,

new world mental and new races of men.

augurating a as any

—

Of these,

I,

throwing

my voice

VOL. IX.—13.

[193]

spiritual as

in-

much

toward the youths

Ipreparatorp IReaMng anb ^bought

them and myself, my them these: That they

of the West, rapidly draft for lectures

— and

in

]

[

etc. etc. .

processions of races,

.

.

and countermarching over the

swiftly

fields of

the sublime creeds of different eras,

mering the its

yet, others quite faded out

new ones

marching

the Earth

some

— the

left

arising out of the old ones, each filling

For

all

due

in

more needed one that must

time, giving place to the it.

glim-

religions,

time and land yet helplessly withdrawing

succeed

—

religions,

but

are

divine,

all

temporary journeys subordinate to the eternal soul of the

What

woman, the man supreme they

are

traveller

...

through them

all

the decider of

to the ineffable,

man, before

[to]

all.

eternal

whom

all

religions, the divinest idols, the gods, these of ours

with the

rest,

When

I

sink into the

stand

off,

—

silent,

[

]

corners?

and view

Present, as perhaps in the Past after

its

vain forms and toys, amid vermin and overlaid with stifling

and suffocating

how

in

ways, amid

gnawing

rust,

things, corpses

piled over them, smothered, as in subterranean invisible,

the

fire,

yet impossible to die, the divine ideas of

spirituality, of

the man,

the immortal soul of the

woman and

of another sphere of existence, of con-

science and perfect justice and goodness, have been

serenely preserved through

with

many

millenia

of years and

traditions are here transmitted to us, to [194]

preparatory IRcaMng anb H^bougbt me, to you, whoever you

are,

receive the great

I

welcome joy. know well enough the life is in my soul, not in but know the tradithe traditions, the phantoms inheritance with I

—

me

tions help

so

far,

and

well

talk

— how could

too, that

religions

am

I

all

those traditions?

the master and overseer of

1

all

Finale.

last.

The

Inquiries, free children of

know and do its

be developed even

— and you shall be — not their slave.

Toward the

rest,

I

with decision to-day, beginning the

study of these things without

know,

1

States, aspiring to

greater things, sweeping on with the

with this universe, this globe, whelmed with

mysterious miracles, compact every side, every

moment,

as fishes in the sea

World, mental and glittering

.

.

— inaugurating a New

spiritual, as

much as any— rising,

.

191

The

lesson

is

The Union

a profound one.

proved solid by proof that none can gainsay.

is

Every

State that permits her faction of secessionists to carry

her out, shrivels and wilts at once. first

thing that goes.

reign of terror

business stops.

All trade,

all

routes

suspended.

is

A

wealthiest citizens

Her

The escape by

is

credit

the

inaugurated.

Travel by the usual

best and flight.

many

of the

Incomes are not

paid to widows, orphans and old persons. [1951

is

The arm

preparatory TRea&lng anb Zhongfyt of the law ceases to

The

lift

itself in

devils are unloosed.

any one's protection.

Theft, outrage, assassina-

tion stalk around, not in the night only but in

open

day. 192

Tennyson shows how one can be a British poet laureate, elegant and '* aristocratic," and a little queer and affected, and at the same time perfectly manly and realistic. What, on the whole, is this man's service to his Age, to Humanity, and especially to America? First,

I

should say, his personal character.

He

is

probably not to be mentioned as a rugged, evolution-

but (and a great lesson

ary, aboriginal force,

he has been true to the

vital, native,

and veracious (though

otic

moral

line in himself.

ment,

its

Then

my

true:

*'

He

local

healthy, patri-

and conventional)

reflects the age, its refine-

pale cast of thought, perhaps friend

John Burroughs' simile

His glove

is

is in it)

a glove of

silk,

its is

ennui. entirely

but his hand

is

a

hand of iron."* 193 In

the present state of society and literature noth-

—

more singular than to be without singularity Viothing more eccentric than to be entirely sane and ing

is

without eccentricity. * C/. Prose works,

vol.

[196]

iii.,

p. 145.

preparatory TRca&ing anb Zlbougbt

194

What we thought we knew or nothing about,

little

know

teach

least of

all

all

and they about

[it].

we know

about

who presume It is

to

so unspeak-

we thought. There is more miracle wave, a rock, a tree, than we were attributing to What children's fables are whole theology.

ably greater than a

in

the

those you are gauging this mighty thing by? 195 Literature.*

The tendency permitted been and

now

is

to Literature has

to magnify

technism, to isolate

itself

and

always

intensify its

own

from general and vulgar

and to make a caste or order. America has been called proud and arrogant. It may be, but she does not show it in her literature. life,

and therefore more effective. Day by day and hour by hour in tragedy and comedy, in It is

indirect

picture letters,

and

print,

in

every importation of art and

she submits to one steady flow of discrepancy

and one supercilious and ceaseless (Bring in a sockdologer on the Dickens-fawners.) There is something very bitter in the tacit adoption in our great democratic cities of these forms and .

.

.

laws imported from the royal capitals of Europe, the * never

.

A (I

.

series

.

of scraps under this head intended for use in some lecture or

think) completed.

1197]

article

preparatory IReablng an& ^bouobt romance presented to us, all the novels, all the poems really dish up one only figure, various forms and preparations of one only plot, namely, a sickly, scrofulous, crude, amorousness. True, the malady described is the general one which all have to go through on their way to be In the plentiful feast of

eligible to love,

Books,

as

but this

now

not love.

is

have reached

produced,

twentieth remove from

Our

verities. is

at except Literary Literature.

But

and

institute

in its

profound

minds, this great

re-

medium

has only to do with thoughts, men,

and even the soul

things,

writers have

anything to be aimed

apparently forgotten that there

lations, in its origin in great

their

at first hand.

196

Poem

(subject) ? for recitation.

Something which in each verse shall comprise a call (local and native, sea or land, American, wild).

As the country letting

down

girl

(or

boy) toward sun-down

the bars and calling the

lot— Kush! Kush! Kush! Or the horses and colts,

cows out of the

exhibiting an ear of

corn with one hand and holding the halter behind

out

of sight with

the

other— Ku-juk! Ku-juk!

Ku-jukl [198]

preparatory? IReabing anb CbouQbt

Or the watch out for whales

Or the

at

mast-head of the whaler looking

— There she blo-o-o-ws!

quail whistling (whistling)

Phoo! Phoo!

Phooet!

What

are the peculiar calls of drovers with a great

herd of cattle?

What

are

—

if

any

— some of the peculiar

calls of

raftsmen?

How What

would the

of a

calls

man

driving oxen do?

are those calls?

Don't attempt too close or vivid a rendering of the

calls

more

—a

mere

trick

— leave

—

an easy margin

poetical.

For the three-stanza-piece of out-door First,

There she blows

cries:

— there she blows.

Second, Cu-juk! C'juk! C'juk! or Co! Co! Co! Third, Here goes your fine fat oysters

Point oysters

— here they go.

— Rock

197

How many

deeds of

moment

ing that old thought lately),

(I

have been think-

how many

long and

connected process-causes of future great results

How many

quiet solid lives entirely unfanfaronaded,

unknown, unnoted by the public or newspapers friends

—

— are

talk or telegrams,

— often unsuspected by neighbors and

transacting

dem

[199]

.

.

.

preparatory IReabing anb c;bougbt 198*

Had been simmering

— broke

inside for six or seven years

out during those times temporarily

— and

then went over.

But

my whom

now

a serious attack,

beyond

all

cure.

Dr.

Washington physician (and a good one to pay respect and faith yet) said it was the result of too extreme bodily and emotional strain continued at Washington and down in front, in 1862-3-4 and 5. D.,

I

doubt

I

ever

if

lived

a heartier, stronger, healthier, physique

from

1840

to

'70.

My

(Quaker) to go around and do what the suffering, sick and to be so welL

I

wounded was

I

greatest call

could that

I

among seemed

considered myself invulnerable.

i99t List of things

recognized by

my

Lectures.

The Texan Ranger. The Boston Truckman. The young men and young women too delphia, Cincinnati,

Charleston,

Above of

all

my own *

A

New I

of Phila-

Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis,

Orleans.

recognize the localities and persons

land.

—The Kentuckian, the Tennessean,

reference to his paralysis.

f This note takes us back to the pre-poetical era in idea was to present his thought in Lectures.

[200]

Whitman's life— when

his

preparatory IReablng anb ZCbougbt the Kanadian, the Californian, the Alabamian, the Virginian.

The lumberer

of Maine, the oysterman of Vir-

ginia, the corn gatherer of

Census— or I

Tennessee.

(Look

in

rather List, MS.).

recognize in America the land of materials, the

land of iron, cotton, wheat, beef, pork, fish and fruit. I

recognize

the great inventions, machines,

all

and improvements of to-day, the ten-cylinder press printing thirty thousand sheets an hour ^the electric

—

telegraph that binds continents and threads the bot-

toms of seas

— the

tracks of railroads

— the

cheap

newspaper. [I

recognize] the idea that the

mechanic, farmer, sailor

etc.,

is

common American just as eligible as

any to the highest ideal of dignity, perfection and knowledge. (I sometimes think an independent American workingman is more eligible than any other.)

200 * Railroad poem.

Poem

beef, fish.

Poem

of corn and meat

— pork,

Inland poem.

Poem

of mines.

In

woman's hand. Western edition don't make it

it

is

of the man's hand and the

N.B. —

—namely,

enough

if

too

West

there be nothing in the

*This piece belongs to the [201]

fifties.

preparatory IRea&ing an^ ^bougbt

book that less to

it

is

distasteful to the

— and

enough

if

West, or

there be

meaning-

is

two

or three

enough to all men and welcome to Western men and

pieces, first-rate, applicable

women, but women.

specially

201 Idea of a poem. brate the beauty of

sun

—

with

life

its

— action —

Day and night. Namely, celeDay with all its splendor, the strength. Then Night love

—

beauty (rather leaning to the celebration of

the superiority of the Night).*

202

Was Liberty

no

it

thought that

was achieved?

was achieved when

all

(Shaking the head

— no —

— no.) Make

a large part of lectures-meaning consist in

significant gestures.

When

liberty

is

achieved

— when

rage no more

the red and circling rivers, with death in every eddy.

When

the exiles that pined

and died have borne the

fruit

away

in distant lands

they died for

—f

203

A poem, theme — Be ing

all

*

happy.

Going

the beautiful perfect things.

of Grass, '60 edition, p. 234. t Cf. Leaves of Grass, '56 edition, p. 269. Cf. Leaves

[202]

forth, see-

preparatory IReaMng an& ^bought 204

you greedy smoucher! I will have nothing which any man or any woman, anywhere on the I

tell

face of the earth, or of

any color or country cannot

also have.

Remember

that the clock and the hands of the

clock, only tell the time

the aggregated years.

which

— they are

— Which

baffles us, or its indexes,

is

not themselves greatest

made

of

— time,

wood and

by a workman at ten dollars a week? Time itself knows no index, it is merely to stand us a little in help that we combine sets of springs and wheels and arbitrarily divide by hours and quarters and call this measuring time.* brass,

—

* Cf. Leaves of Grass, '55 edition, p. 29. " By God! I will accept etc." The above note is very early and is almost certainly a passage in a proposed lecture and belongs to the time that Leaves of Grass as a poem had not been planned.

Cao3l

Ipart IFHir Sborter tiotcs, Isolated XKIlor^B, Brief Sentences, /Šem* crania, SuQaestive :Erpre6Bions, flames ant> 2)ates

[305]

pattiririr

Sbortcr flotcs, Hsolateb TRIlor&0, 3Brtet ScntenccSt HDemoranOa, Sugaestive Bipressions, flames an^ Bates

Language.

Topography — look

medals.

town

Government,

parties.

ogy.

Phrenology.

ers,

bays,

The medical

The

art.

country.

tariffs,

mines

etc.

etc.

Riv-

Laws, jurisprudence. pictures, statues,

Architecture, both city

Crime, criminals

newspapers,

Manu-

Commerce.

fine arts,

labor-saving machinery.

Physiol-

Education, schools,

agriculture,

Climate.

ports.

—

Geography.

Marriage.

philosophs.

Products,

facturers.

or place.

Literature.

leading

teachers,

census reports

in

description of a city, politics,

coins and

Numismatics,

Religion.

Prisons.

farming, ancestry.

and

Legislation,

— Who are the

most eminent men? also women? Trades, mechanics etc. Servants and masters. Slavery. Death. Cheapness and dearth. Luxury. Wages. Domestic

animals.

ness.

Artificial drinks.

Markets.

Soirees.

Amusements, [207]

Licentious-

festivals,

games,

Sborter 1Rotc0, Ifaolateb Mor&0, Etc

War.

holidays.

? Individual

tifications.

women.

of

dition

usages, customs.

steamers,

For-

freedom.

Insurance.

Con-

Manners,

social

Furniture.

Travel,

Aqueducts.

What

Fisheries.

— poets

by Cuvier

?

roads,

Costumes. ships,

railroads,

Post offices,

Holidays.

canals.

expresses.

Poetry

Architecture.

Diet, food, cooking.

meetings.

Public

Police.

Iron.

mail,

Music, sculpture, painting.

Most eminent persons?

heroes?

Erpetology (from gr.) of reptiles

—

into four orders, ist Chelonians, tortoises,

2nd Saurians, lizards, crocodiles etc. 3rd Ophidians, slow-worms, serpents, etc.; 4th Batrachians, frogs, toads, newts etc. Marine, both of peace and war. Longevity. Visits. Health.

turtles etc.

;

Philosophy, look at phrenological

Cleanliness.

list.

Weights and measures. Express. Persons, in history and geography of the world, introduce everywhere lists of persons the great persons of every age and land. Acoustics, hearing or sound. Aero-

—

nautics,

navigating

abstract quantities

the

Algebra,

air.

by help of signs and symbols.

Casuisty, affairs of conscience. writing.

Dialectics,

metaphysics.

show tion,

computing

reasoning,

Dialling,

the time of day.

moving powers.

Chirography, hand-

used by Plato

for

from day, an instrument to

Dynamics, matter

Entomology,

in

insects.

moEth-

wrong, morals.

Geoponics, agriculture.

Horology, measuring time.

Logic, reasoning, con-

ics,

right or

[208]

Shorter IRotes, llBoIateb TKHor&s, Meteorology, weather,

nection of ideas. ology,

of

science

all

that

to

relates

Etc air.

Oste-

the bones.

Pathology, causes, effects and differences of diseases. Philology, words, languages, etymology, grammar, rhetoric,

poetry and criticism, phonology and ide-

Ethnology,

ology. races of

osophy,

men, and

the

divine

different

Sociology.

The-

illumination.

Pho-

their origins.

wisdom and

the

of

science

nology, sounds, writing where each sound has a Philanthropy.

specific character.

of the

mind

human life,

— history,

ideas.

elucidation

Ideology, Science

and

illustration of

Biology, Science of the mystery of

term introduced by Treviranus of Bremen

stead of physiology.

Psychology, science of man's

spiritual nature or of the soul.

of the causes

in-

of anything

Etiology, an account

— particularly

diseases.

Mathematics, the science that treats of quantity,

whatever can be measured, numbered

etc.

Pure

or speculative Mathematics considers quantity abstractly,

without relation to matter.

ematics

treats of

material bodies.

Trigonometry

magnitude Arithmetic,

etc.

etc.,

Mixed Mathas

existing

Geometry,

are branches

of

in

Algebra,

Mathematics.

Ethnology, the tracing of the divisions, parentage

—

and localities of races as whence they sprang and what are their typical marks. Language. Politics, under this come all of what are called governments, laws, YOL.

K. —14.

human

rights, ,

and the _

[209]

like.

Religions.

Sborter IRotee, laolateb Literature,

Bible,

Iliad,

"CClorbe,

Nibelungen,

Etc

Shakespeare,

Ramayana, Dante, books of Egypt, Persia and Assyria are lost, ries,

Emerson, Voltaire, Rousseau, histo-

novels, essays, newspapers.

names of

all

all

of

lists

Gases and Waters, Minerals,

animals.

Vegetables, Animals.

Zoology,

— Four

Kingdoms

of Nature

—

there as in the myriad forms and identities of

the world and under the divine something called

life.

2

The Teutonic latter

a branch

is

Visigoth

includes the Scandinavian

—a

— the

of the Teutonic.

or a portion

western Goth, one from the western

shores of the Baltic or Eastern Goth.

—

in distinction

Asia

now

from Ostrogoth,

contains and has from

time immemorial contained more than one half the population of the earth and more than one-third the land of the earth.

China alone has (so estimated)

360,000,000 inhabitants. Scythia,

— the

name given

to the northern

of Asia and Europe adjoining to

Asia — from

part

the

same root as Scot — from a word meaning woods, or shade — Scot — a man of the woods. viz.

:

Ancient Numidia, Gelutia Africa

on the Mediteranean,

etc.

now

northern part of

Algiers, Tripoli etc.

3

There

is

a river in the ocean [210]

—

i.e.

the gulf stream.

Sborter IRotee, fleolateb XKHorba,

4

Religions — Gods.

thousand

religions.

prophets:

Phtah,

jÂŁtc.

Supposed to be about one of Gods, sects and Osiris, Kneph, Chiven (god

Names

Isis,

Mahomet with

of desolation and destruction),

a

green banner, a sabre, a bandage and a crescent, priests

with

imaums, mollahs, muftis, dervish, santon

:

dishevelled

Adonai,

Jehovah,

hair.

Brahm, Buddha, Ormuzd, god of

Christ,

Ahri manes,

light.

god of darkness. Parsees, from Persia, followers of Zoroaster, their pope or high priest is called ''Mobed."

Vishnu, preserver of

Foraaster (Ferdusht).

image of the Lingam the male

the world,

the Chinese god (Phtah).

Fot,

with a yellow rope.

Germans.

Kaldee

Orus, the sun.

made up volts.

of

all

(Sabian

Serapis

Hercules,

think.

Tuisco, a

or

god of the ancient

Kaldee

God

of

Assyria).

of ensemble,

I

Typhon,

Lucifer.

that opposes, hinders, obstructs, re-

Charon, the ferry

Elysium.

Bowze, Japanese

Satan,

Pluto,

sign.

Minos,

man

to Tartarus

Rhadamanthus,

judges

and to of the

dead, the wand, the bend, the ushers and the urn.

God

(Mercury) Hermes, the 3000

B.C.

Greeks

also)

b.c.

regarded

health as a point of the

first

Zoroaster B.C.

Manu

The Egyptian

priests

(Bunsen) others say 600 or 700

preceded Moses 2100 (the

of Science.

the

preservation

of

importance and indis-

pensably necessary to the practice of piety and the 1211}

Sborter IRotea, service of the Gods.

Thibet and China.

flaoIateJ)

MorJ)9,

Confucius 550 b. c. Lamas in African negroes worshipping a

Mithras, the Persian deity

great snake.

Etc

ern parsees are the representatives

— the mod-

— the

mediator

between Ahrimanes and Ormazd. Brahma, to creChiven (Siva) to deate. Vishnu, to preserve. all the three deities In India the Vedas stroy.

—

—

from ''the eternal'' Siva.

Zoroaster or Zerdusht,

two

Pouranas, Vedas (there

centuries after Moses.

are three

or four,

Bible

sacred

are

Shastras,

books.

Zendavesta,

Sadder,

Pouranas treat of my-

thology and history.

Vedas, the fourth, concerning

ceremonies,

Boudha, Bhudda (Fot, Phtah,

is

lost.

Mercury) the Boudha doctrine 3000

B.C.

is

found

in

book of

Hermes, author of Egyptian Vedas.

All

seems to go back to Manu who preceded Zoroaster, Moses and the rest, and must have been 2100 b.c. and more definitely embodied on the banks of the Ganges, the Indian theology with Brahma, Vishnu and Chiven. Manu son or grandson of Brahma. Tar a nis a Celtic divinity, the evil principle, sometimes confused by Latin writers with Jupiter. ras,

masculine,

the

sun.

Mylitta,

Mith-

feminine,

the

— SybilTuesday. Talmud (of Jerusalem) very — verses among the ancients always looking moon.

Tuisco, ancient Teutonic deity, leading

?

old.

for

line

a great

mediator, a judge, god, lover,

friend of the poor

legislator,

and degraded, conqueror of pow[212]

Sborter IRotea, flaolateb Morb^, letc

ers.

Krishna

( ?

Young Bacchus,

thence Christ).

the clandestine nocturnal son of the virgin Minerva

and even death bring to mind those of Christ and have the star of day for their emblem

whose

life

—the holocaust, the prayer,

ablution, light,

healing

libation, circumcision,

Apollo,

confession.

and deliverance.

baptism,

the god of

divine being,

Fo,

Confucius, 531 B.C. god 2500 years B.C. Pan, the great whole with a forehead of stars, body Kneph existence " of planets, feet of animals. a Theban god, a human figure dressed in dark blue holding in one hand a sceptre and a girdle, with a

teacher,

—

—

'

'

cap of feathers on his head (to express the fugacity of thought),* Zeus.

Pythagoras,

three

centuries

Orpheus 1450 b. c. Ancient verses of the orphic sect which originated in Egypt. Orafter

Homer.

pheus, Musaeus, the old Persian

1400 B.C. in Greece.

Mylitta in

was the name of the the sun, of the sun. Sunday

mysteries

—

moon, Mithras that Monday— the moon, Tuesday Tuisco, an anWoden or Odin, cient Teuton deity, Wednesday Thor (thunder), Friday goddess Frixa Thursday

— —

—

—

? Frigah, equal, co-ordinate

divinity,

Saturday

— Saturn

feminine principle or

(? Kronos).

Scythian

from Scythes, a son of Jupiter and founder of the Scythian nation. See

Leaves

of Grass,

Pelops seems to have been a son edition of '56, p. 111; in this edition,

5.6. [213]

" Salut au Monde *

Sborter IRotc^, Heolateb Morba, or grandson

of Jupiter,

Greece and

laid

who came

from Asia to

foundation of a

the

Etc

new

royal

dynasty which supplanted the older order of the

Danadi about 1300 in

the Iliad

Tacitus cient

was

B.C.,

''

Agamemnon

king of

men

"

his (Pelops) grandson.

— of the

Germans

(? Scythians).

In an-

songs they celebrate Tuisto, a god sprung

from the earth, and his son Mannus, the origin and

To Mannus they

founder of their nation.

assign

three sons.

6 Law,

Lux,

lex.

light.

Alcoran signifies law. Originally laws were

Lecture, lectio (latin) to read.

promulgated by word of mouth to the people.

Abra-

hamic movement 28th or 29th century before Christ. Buddhism was the state religion of India from the 3rd century before to the 6th century after Christ.

Tien or Tin was a Chinese

name

for the divinity.

7 Birth of Hercules 1205 B.C. 1

153

taken

B.C.

Trojan

expedition

Death of Hercules 1136

B.C.

Troy

Very unsatisfactory previous to 776 B.C., when the Greek olympiads commence. Moses of course born in Egypt while the Jews (de1127

b.c.

[214]

Sborter IWotee, 1I6oIate^

'DClor&e,

Etc

scendants of Joseph and companions) were settled

and degraded race

as a sort of half-captive

Moses born in and governed B.C.,

1355

the land

1571

Queens reigned

B.C.

absolutely.

there.

Egypt Remesis 2nd,

Sesostris,

in

He partitioned and compounded with

reigned over 62 years.

among

the peasants

them to pay a fixed tax to him. Time first began to be computed ''from the Christian era" the (birth of Christ) about the year 536.

8

me my

*'Give V.

when

were the words of Charles '* know a volume of history.

liar"

calling for

I

said Walpole.

history to be a lie," 16

18— his

He saw from

prison.

two

history of the world his

parties of disputants.

Raleigh, 1552-

— written

window

while

a contest

in

between

Afterwards listening to ac-

counts of the same from outsiders he says

**

These liars," and :

must be samples of the historians— all threw his compilation away. America now of all lands has the greatest energy.

But has

pure intellect?

it

practical

not also the highest infusion of

Well

if

it

has,

does

it

not want

something besides intellect? What are you after in people? Merely the intellect? A man more resolute in the hour of defeat than in that Is

of triumph.

not our putting up of monuments, statues to [215]

Sborter IRotea, 1l60lateb Morbe, lEtc

Washington or

Roman

etc.

a poor relic of the old Asiatic, Greek

spirit?

Russian

serfs.

It

seems that the Russian empire,

with a population of from 50 to 60 millions, has Finland

forty millions of serfs or slaves.

— a large

ancient country, an important part of Russia.

David 1020

Palestine,

Dido 800

B.C.

B.C.

y^neas 800

B.C.

Mahommedanism

rose 600 a.d.

569, died 632.

Independent and Chinese Tartary

Mahomet born

— the belly of

Asia (one-third of that continent) from the Caspian

Sea to the

Pacific.

Anciently called Scythia, south-

ern part Parthia.

From

Khan, a Mongol

chief,

stretched

his

empire.

this region

sprung Zinghis

1226 a.d.,

and ravaging,

Tamerlane,

1400 a.d.,

in

He extended his rule to Hindostan, founding the Mogul rule there which terminated 1803. From Tartary issued the Celts, Goths, time his successor.

Turks

etc.

10 Asia.

Peoples:

— Caucasians,

Georgians, Turks

(Asiatic)

10,000,000, Arabs 12,000,000, Persians 8,-

000,000,

Afghans 5,000,000, Beloochistans 500,000, [216]

Sborter IRote^, flaolateb Morba,

£tc

Tartars 5,000,000, Muscovites or Russians 66,000,000,

Kamskatkans, Thibetians, Clans of Nomadic Tartans,

Hindoos 142,000,000, Chinese 367,000,000, Burmese 2,000,000, Japanese 25,000,000, Bornese 3,000,000, Ceylonese

3,000,000, Malays etc. in

Anamese

1,500,000,

—

all

Siamese

5,000,000,

the lands, islands, peninsulas

the S. E., Sumatrans 2,500,000.

Celts, Goths, Chaldees, Assyrians.

.

Ancient .

—

.

II

Europe. Rivers. Trent,

Britain:

France:

Severn.

Thames, Shannon, Tay, Loire, Rhone. Seine, Rhine.

Spain: Douro, Tagus, Guadalquiver.

Elbe

Danube (Aus(Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, Austria). Oder (Prussia). Po (Sartria, runs into Turkey). dinia

and divides Austria from

States). Cities.

125,000,

Hague

Arno (Tuscany). Christiana

Norway.

Ural.

Copenhagen

Bremen 53,000, Netherlands. Brussels 124,Cracow. same.

66,000,

France: Paris, Bordeaux, Marseilles.

Spain:

Madrid^

Cadiz.

burgh.

Dublin.

London.

Austria.

Rome

Switzerland.

Turin

the Danube.

Prague

Lisbon.

Portugal:

Palermo,

Sicily.

EdinNaples.

Genoa

120,000.

Venice

184,000.

Berne

24,000,

Florence. 105,000, Tuscany.

many.

Volga.

Dneiper.

27,000,

Tiber (Papal

Sweden.

000, Belgium.

120,000,

Italy).

Vienna 425,000, on 114,000, Elbe, North Ger-

135,000.

Milan 205,000. [2x7]

Sborter

IFlotea, 1l60lateb

Morbe, ÂŁtc.

12

Europe

bounded: North,

Arctic

Ocean:

East,

Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea, Ural River and mountains; West, Atlantic; South, Mediterranean.

Countries: Iceland, 60,000: Norway,

i,-

Sweden, 3,440,000; Denmark, 2,300,000; Russia (in Europe), 54,000,000; England (including Wales) 18,000,000; Scotland, 2,889,000; Ireland, 328,000;

6,516,000;

France,

Spain,

36,000,000';

14,000,000;

Portugal; Austria, 36,515,000; Prussia; Netherlands, 3,363,000; Belgium,

4,360,000;

Rome,

000; Sardinia, 5,000,000; 9,000,000;

Switzerland, 2,3903,000,000;

Naples,

Hungary, 11,000,000; Venice and Lom-

bardy, 5,000,000; Germany; Bavaria; Wurtemberg;

Baden: Saxony, 2,000,000;

Sicily;

Greece, 1,100,000.

White Sea, North Russia; North Sea, English Channel; Bay of Biscay; Mediterranean; Baltic (between Sweden and Russia); Gulf of Bothnia; Gulf Seas:

of

Venice;

(South

Sea

Black

Russia);

(South-west); Zuyder Zee, a great bay

in

Caspian,

the Neth-

erlands; the Schelt.

13

Two

samples of Voltaire's writings.—Translated

from his Philosophical

marked on pages

173

Dictionary.

and

174.

[218]

See

what

is

'

Sborter IRotce, 1l60late&

XKIlorJ)6,

jStc

14 Africa.

The Equator

— on

it

in Africa

eas; Ethiopia; Zanzibar; Liberia, only a

the

Gaboon

high

coast; the

Mountains of the Moon

the Guin-

little

interminable

north;

ridged

just north of the equator

and

running east and west 2000 miles, three miles high.

Cape Verde, the westernmost cape of the continent of Africa on the coast of Senegambia not far north of Liberia; Cape of Good Hope, southern extremity; Cape Guadafui, eastern, lat. 10 north, point dividing the Indian Ocean from the Red Sea; Cape Bon, northermost, coast of Tunis, in the Mediterranean; Cape Bajadore, on the desert, western Capes.

—

extremity.

Isthmus of Suez.

The Red

Seas.

Sea; the fresh sunned Mediter-

ranean and from one to another of

its

islands;

Gulf

of Guinea; Straits of Gibraltar; small islands off the

western coast, and large island, Madagascar,

off the

eastern coast.

Moon; Snow Mts. southern part Africa, Cape Colony; Red Mts. Madagascar. Cape of Good Hope 8550 miles from New York. Rivers in Africa: The Niger 3300 ms. long; the Congo, 1000 ms. or more emptying into the Atlantic Mountains.

Mts. of the

through lower Guinea; the Nile (the black, venerable, vast

mother the

in Ethiopia

emptying

Nile);

White

river,

away down

into the Nile; Senegal, 900 ms., [219]

Sborter tiotCB, Heolateb TKHor&e, letc emptying

Orange

the Atlantic

into

river,

Peoples.

through Senegambia;

Cape Colony. Caffres, southern extremity of Africa;

Nubians, below Egypt, up the Nile; Liberians C' free Liberians") the new colony, only a little north of the equator; Fezzanese, of Fezzan, a province north part of Africa a tees, in

little

from the Mediterranean; Ashan-

Guinea, just north of the equator, west side;

Bushnanas, of South Africa, probably the same as Hottentots;

Foulahs,

in

Senegambia, west coast,

10 n. lat.; Berbers, of Berbera, a city

same name,

province on the equator, eastern shore of Africa; Abyssinians, a large fine formed race, black, athletic, fine heads,

—city

Gondar, Abyssinia, province east

coast Africa, bordering partly on

Red

Sea, partly on

Indian Ocean; Barcanese, of Barca, on the Mediter-

ranean; Soudanese,

of Soudan,

pians, quite entirely inland,

equator,

7,000,000;

Ethyo-

on and mostly below

a country doubtless of hot-breathed airs

and exhalations,

cities,

ignorance, altogether unen-

lightened and unexplored; Fellahtas,

River in Soudan

on the Niger

10° n. of equator.

15

Europe.

Cape

Clear, southern point of Ireland;

Malin head, northern point; Lands End, south-west point England; Kinnard's head, a north-east point

Scotland; Shetland islands, [220]

away

north; Hebrides,

Sborter Motce, fleolateb Moiba, jetc west Scotland; **The Minch," the passage between the Hebrides and Scotland. 16

Provencal and Scandinavian Poetry.

Remains of

American Poets. Pope.

ages.

Literature of the middle

Robert Southey.

Characteristics of

Sand.

Moralists, La Bru-

Shakespeare

Shelley.

Chaucer.

y^re, Montaigne.

.

vs. .

.

Poets and Poetry of Eu-

Scotch School of Philosophy and Criticism,

rope.

Campbell.

Dr. Beattie's

life

of

.

.

.

Waller and

Wordsworth's Prelude. Speculative PhilosCentury. ophy Keats. The Raven. on Duykinck Literature E. A. On Poetry for 184^. Marvell.

of the 19th

Wordsworth and Tennyson. Songs and song writers. Bells and Pomegranates, Robert Browning. Casa Guidi Windows, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Wordsworth, American Literature (Mar(an excerpt).

Tennyson, Shelley, Keats.

garet Fuller).

Eve of the Conquest. Oliver Goldsmith.

Book of Job. Laocoon, J.

D. W.

J.

Style,

W. J.

between Poet and

J.

D.

W.

Festus, Manfred, Paradise Lost,

Festus.

D.

Hyperion of Keats,

Taylor's

Miss Barrett's Poems.

Lessing,

Phrenology, a Socratic Dialogue

D. W.

Essay on Critics.— Dialogue

Critic.

17

1854.

10,000

new books were

published in Ger-

many — 2025 journals, of which 403 [221]

political.

Prose

Sborter IRotea, writers of America

1l60latet) THIlorbe,

— Review

Etc

of Emerson,

Styles

America and the early Eng-

American and Foreign. Thoughts on Reading. lish Poets.

Pleasures of the

Owen

Meredith (young

New

Pen.

Bulwer),

English Poets,

Mathew

Arnold, Sidney Dobell, Alexander

Smith, Gerald Massey.

A good word

*'

Scantlings."

i8

Leigh Hunt

aged

72.

dition,

— born

—

he now living? old and in fair con-

is

Yes (July '57) he lives, \_Added afterwards:'] in London, aged 73.

Died, Aug.,

'59,

Hexameter

aged

75.

translation

man's translation. iad

1784

of

Homer

—

Get Buckley's prose

Prof.

trans, of

Il-

— republished here by Harper. Translators of Homer.

The

greatest poets can

never be translators of the poetry of others in

New-

any other way than Shakespeare

which was by taking the poor or others and making it incomparable. Sixteen English translations of

— that

is

translated —

tolerable stuff of

Homer and more

besides [1857]. 19

Hume Chanson

1711-1776.

Chansoniere (song singer)

(a song).

Driden born 1631, died 1700. [222]

Pope, 1688-1744.

Sborter IRotea, Haolateb Morba, jBtc

same now.* very finely done

It is

the

This

is

i774.t

Old age of great masters Plato,

Southey born

criticism.

— Pythagoras, Socrates,

Demosthenes.

This

article

contains

good

stuff.

J

See above and Beware.^ Read, Read, Read.|

20 Shakespeare, Wordsw^orth, Scott, Milton, Byron,

Hume,

Swift, Addison.

Chaucer, Spencer and Milton were full-blooded

Shakespeare alone was not a Londoner

Cockneys.

although a long resident. 1

The

356.

first

English book

— Sir John Mande-

villa's Travels.

Polychronicon

1385.

tory.

—a

sort of

For to those dates there

erature—hardly even

for

jumble of

was no

many

his-

English Lit-

years afterwards.

The English language was not thought of

as

fit

for

the learned or for poets. * Written on margin of review of Pope in North British for Aug., 1848; the "an immoderate craving for glittering effects from contrasts too harsh to be natural, too sudden to be durable, and too fantastic to be harmonious." t Written on margin of article on Robert Southey from same review (no name)

writer speaks of

printed Feb., 1851 X Written

— a note by Whitman.

on margin

of

an

article

on egotism torn out of Graham's Maga^ne and annotated.

(Philadelphia) for March, 1845; has been carefully read

§ Against \

a passage pointing out the dangers of egotism.

Against another passage.

[233}

Shorter motee, llaolateb Morbe,

Etc

21

Orphans of Vorosmarty, the greatest Hungarian

poet— June

1856.

22* ?

Hallam,

1400.

Chaucer born

D'Israeli.

1328

Gawin

John Gower born 1325 died 1409.

Douglas, Scotch, 1474-1522.

Chaucer),

1

324-1 384.

Edmund Spencer

1

Sir

John Wickliffe (with

Thomas Moore

558-1 598.

Ben Jonson 1574-

Shakespeare 1564-1616.

1637.

Phil Massinger 1584-1640. Sir

1480-1535.

Marlow 1562-

Christ.

1592.

1554-1586.

Sidney

Sir Philip

Walter Raleigh 1552-1618.

Bacon 1561-1627.

Milton 1608-1674.

Hudibras, 1612-1680.

Locke 1632-1704.

died

Francis

Sam

Butler,

John Driden 1631-1700.

John Bunyan

1628-1688.

John Alex.

Pope 1688-1744. Jos. Addison 1672-1719. Samuel Johnson 709-1 784. Jonathan Swift 1667-1745. Daniel Defoe 1663-1731. Henry Fielding 1707-1754. Lawrence Sterne 171 3-1768. Tobias Smollet 1721Oliver Goldsmith 1729-1774. Henry Mac1771. 1

kenzie 1745-1831.

Gibbon

Hugh

1737. Blair

David

Hume

1711-1776.

Edward

Dr. William Robertson 1721-1793. Philip Dorner Stanhope, 1729-1774.

Earl Chesterfield

Lady Mary Wortley Edmund Burke 1730-1797.

1694-1773.

Montague 1690-1762.

Letters ofJunius i769-'70-'7i. * The notes

in this section (22)

[224]

''

Transition School,"

were made

in 1855.

Sborter IRotea, 1l0Olate& Mor^0, James Thompson

1

Thomas Gray,

177

William Collins

1

1.

Elegy in Churchyard, 1

Chatterton

1

752-1 770.

Reliques of Ancient Poetry,

1716-

Mark Akenside

720-1 756.

James McPherson, Ossian,

721-1770.

Thos.

William Cowper 1731^

700-1 748.

1800.

etc

1737-1796.

Thos.

Dr.

Percy,

Robert Burns,

1755.

1759-1796.

Modern

''

James Macintosh 1765James Montgomery born 1771. Sir Walter

1832.

Literature."

Scott 1771-1832.

H. K.

White 1785-1806.

Ann

Bloomfield 1766-1823.

Letitia

Lord Byron 1788-1824.

1825.

1

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Wm.

Wordsworth

Taylor Coleridge 1773-1834. 1800

—

Robt. 1842.

E.

L.

1835.

Robt. South ey Samuel 1770-1850.

Hemans

Felicia

Landor 1802-1838.

T.

1794-

Macaulay

B.

Scotch: Jas.

living.

1764-1823.

ward Bulwer Lytton of

Camp-

Hogg 772-1 835. Tannahill 1774-1 8 10. Allan Cunningham 1784Wm. Motherwell 1797-1835. Novelists: Ann still

Radcliffe

1812.

Thos.

Thos. Moore 1780.

777-1 843.

1774-1843.

Robert

Barbauld 1743-

Geo. Crabbe 1754-1832.

1792-1822. bell

Sir

G.

P. R.

James

1

Maria Edgeworth 1771. 1784. 1801.

Chatham 1708-1778

Ed-

Charles Dickens, about Orators:

— 2nd

Wm.

Wm.

Pitt

Pitt, Earl

1759-1806.

Fox 748-1 806. Henry Grattan 750-1 820. Geo. Canning 770-1 827. O'Connell 1774-1847. Brougham C.

J.

1

1

1

1779.

Peel 1788.

1775-1835.

Hazlitt 1780-1830.

Carlyle born 1795.

VOL. IX.— 15.

[225]

Chas.

Lamb

Sborter motea, IFeoIateb Mort)0,

Etc

—

the lists of Of the foregoing two or three pages Remember, these are names on colored paper

—

Europeans and Americans, not the whole world's Each continent, each nation, gives its contribution. contributions as

it

— every

one, at any time, as perfect

can be, considering what preceded

Dennis father

was

Diderot a cutler,

171

3-1784

—

educated well by the Jesuits.

man.

Lived ten years a

hack.

Emerged by degrees

also.

Came to

Diderot

Paris a

loafer, a rascal,

—

His

years).

(71

good man mother

it.

young

a literary

is

the backbone and

brain of the French encyclopoedia.

(The encyclopoe-

dia

was some

years —

16 or 20

12,

—

in

being

fin-

was befriended by the Russian Empress Catherine. She gave him ;^3,ooo. It is said of him that he had the most encyclopoedical head ever in the world, and was a most superb talker. Diderot with his mouth of gold. ished).

Diderot

23

For lecture on *'The Poet" Chaucer born 1328 died 1400 aged 72

was

a contemporary of Petrach

also of Wycliffe the reformer.

About 500 years ago the English language commenced. The main thing dates back about half a century; the essentials are as old as Chaucer. positive living

and

sufficiently

formed shape

held by us with modern improvements. [226]

X

The

now

Sborter

IFlotee,

Haolateb HClorba,

Chaucer born 1328 either

County of Kent. In the army in 1

In

367.

1

In

359.

in

Etc

London

or in the

the king's household

1

360-

when towards Was a contemporary of the poet Gower

Parliament

38 years old.

in

1

Married

387.

and befriended him

— also contemporary of Petrach;

was

Wife died

in Italy

sophic

1

374.

Consolations,

year

1

387.

522

Boethius' Philo-

— then

the

middle

became acquainted with the flattering doctrine that man, by the exercise of his reason, becomes superior to the dominion of fortune. Zeno. Chaucer Love, Language. English .Language. A reliable short resume of Language.* ages

first

24

— Thoreau.

Macpherson 1737 - 1796. Chaucer. An important thought to open ''History of Brooklyn" or any History. Names of poets: Ossian

bards, scalds, minstrels, minne-sangers (love singers)

and meister-sangers, troubadours, trouvers,

— minne-

lieder (love songs).

by his noble Germany literature as

Until the i6th century that Luther translation of the Bible

gave to

well as religion. * The

notes in this section (23) are made by W. W. on the margin of a magazine on " Chaucer," dated 1849. Name of magazine does not appear nor month of issue. The article has been very carefully read and elaborately marked, underscored etc. It would seem that Whitman intended basing a lecture upon it. " Prot He reads and marks an article in Edinburgh Review for July, 1848, on Which lecture he was venfal and Scandinavian Poetry," for lecture on The Poet. evidently planning to write and deliver. article

[a27]

Etc

Sborter notce, 1l0olate& Morbe,

Trobar and trouver (langue d'oc and langue d'oui)

The word ''poet" has

signifying ''to find."

Greek a similar derivation (poet Niebelungens Not

— maker

— continuous

in

gr.).

poem

of 10,000

verses.

Resume of the Niebelungen. The battle of Chalons, deciding the

— 451. Subjective

fate of

— out of the person himself.

Europe

Objective

— of other persons, things, events, places, characters. As the

Iliad

is

profoundly objective, Leaves of Grass

are profoundly subjective.

Subjective or stance the Iliad

lyric,' is

objective or epic, as for in-

notably objective but Leaves of

Grass are profoundly subjective.

Who

was Tyrtasus?

Persian Poetry.

Poems among the Siamese.

The

cast of the

southern Asiatic mind, literature, poetry. Suppleness,

Caste

—

— so much that the Teutonic descendant

cannot sympathise with Zerdusht.

Zoroaster? "the Chaldeans or ancient

Persians with their Zerdusht " Carlyle.

Cossacks,

fierce, ruthless, sitting

around a table

drinking brandy, after a battle, singing a song praise

of blood,

the gallows,

the

knout,

in

torture

etc.

Phrase

— his

biographer says of Diderot (171?[228]

Sborter IRotee, lleolateb 'HWorba, lEtc 1784)

— "all the virtues which do not require a great

suite of ideas

were

his."

—

Of animals or very inferior persons the minus human. Of superior persons— the plus human. 25*

The Ramayana

is

the most ancient having one

Vedas, there are four.

separate distinct thread.

One was

written 1400 B.C., other anterior.

—

Two

most ancient Indian poems the Ramayana of almost unknown antiquity, one continued thread of action the Mahabharata full of mixed episodes and legends.

—

Ramayana by the poet Valmiki. and Homer were contemporaries

Probably Valmiki

— perhaps

V.

was

the earlier of the two.

The Athenian Dorian,

Rama;

Hercules;

the

historical

pet

was Theseus; the

Hindostanee

the

Napoleon.

French,

— Brahminic,

Who

was the

Arthur — Alfred.

Roman? Scandinavian? Briton? The style of a great poem must flow on hasting and unresting."

Vyasa, poet of the Mahabharata. 26 Carlyle, born 1795, * Notes on a magazine

Nov. C57), aged article

62.

(1848) on Indian Epic Poetry.

[229]

**un-

Sborter motea, lleolateb Morbe, letc Dec. to be

'57 Carlyle' s Frederi{;k

now

the Gr^a/

is

"^

announced

in press.

Byron born

at

Dover, England,

1788,

died at

Missolonghi, 1824 aged 36.

Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Colridge, Southey, Moore,

Campbell, Bulwer,

Crabbe,

Rogers,

Keats,

Wordsworth,

D'Israeli.

Appearance of Carlyle

1827.

Appearance of Dickens 1835 (then 23 years

old).

[230]

i.

DAV

14

rrsp.

DAY

USF

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