Resorts and Reminiscences
Not far away, near another shore of the shimmering "Bowl," that versatile genius "Carl Benson"—Charles Astor Bristed—dwelt for some time in a quaint old farm-house which hassince been destroyed by fire, and here accomplished some of his literary work. Laurel Lake (the Scott's Pond of Hawthorne's "Note-Books"), where Beecher "bought a hundred acres to lie down upon,"—and called them Blossom Farm in the "Star Papers" written there,—was another resort of Hawthorne. We find it a pretty water, although its margins are mostly denuded of large trees. A bright matron of the vicinage, who, when a child, thought the author of the "Wonder-Book" the "greatest man in the world save only Franklin Pierce," lived then by Hawthorne's road to Laurel Lake. Her admiration for him (heightened by his intimacy with Pierce) led her to daily watch the road by which he would come from Tanglewood, and when she saw him approaching—which would be twice a week in good weather—she would go into the yard and reverently gaze at him until his swift gait had carried him out of sight. To her he was a tall, dark man with a handsome clean-shaven face and lustrous eyes which saw nothing but the ground directly before him, habitually dressed in black, with a wide-brimmed soft hat. Usually his walk was solitary, but sometimes Herman Melville, who was well known in the neighborhood, was his companion, and one autumn he was twice orthrice accompanied by "a light spare man,"—the poet Ellery Channing.Fanny KembleOnce Hawthorne strode past toward the lake when Fanny Kemble, who lived near by, rode her black steed by his side and "seemed to be doing all the talking"—she was capable of that—and "was talking politics." Having secured a Democratic auditor, she doubtless "improved the occasion" with her habitual vivaciousness. A neighbor of Hawthorne's tells us this incident of the following year, when the novelist's friend Pierce had been named for the Presidency. One dark night this neighbor went on foot to a campaign lecture at Lenox Furnace. At its close, he essayed to shorten the homeward walk by a "short cut" across the fields, and, of course, lost his way. Descrying a light, he directed his steps toward it, but found himself involved in a labyrinth of obstacles, and had to make so many détours that when he finally reached the house whence the light proceeded, and when in response to his hail the door was opened by Kemble herself, he was so distraught and amazed at being lost among his own farms that he could hardly explain his plight; but she quickly interrupted his incoherent account: "Yes, I see, poor benighted man! you've been to a Democratic meeting; no wonder you are bewildered! NowI'll lend you a good Whig lantern that will light you safe home." We find Mrs. Kemble-Butler's "Perch"—as she named her home here—a little enlarged, but not otherwise changed since the time of her occupancy. She was a general favorite, and her dark steed, which had cost her the proceeds of a volume of her poems, used to stop before every house in the vicinage. She often came, habited in a sort of bloomer costume which shocked some of her friends, to fish in the "Bowl" at the time Hawthorne dwelt by its shore.
The death of Louis Kossuth, some time ago, reminded her former neighbors here that she led the dance with him at a ball in Lenox, when the exiled patriot was a guest of the Sedgwicks.
Monument MountainOur approach to Monument Mountain is along one of those sequestered by-ways which Hawthorne loved, with "an unseen torrent roaring at an unseen depth" near by. A rift in the morning mists which enshroud the valley displays the mountain summit bathed in sunshine. We ascend by Bryant's "path which conducts up the narrow battlement to the north," the same along which Hawthorne and his friends—Holmes, James T. Fields, Sedgwick, and the rest—were piloted by the historian Headley on a summer's day more than forty years ago. Standingupon the beetling verge, which is scarred and splintered by thunderbolts and overhangs a precipice of five hundred feet or more, we look abroad upon a landscape of wondrous expanse and beauty. Here we may realize all the prospect Bryant portrayed as he stood upon this spot:
In the middle distance, across the Bowl, which gleams a veritable "mountain mirror," we see the site of the home whence Hawthorne so often looked upon these cliffs. Yonder detached pinnacle, rising from the base of the precipice beneath us, is the "Pulpit Rock" which Catherine Sedgwick christened when Hawthorne's party picnicked here; from the crag projecting from the verge Fanny Kemble declaimed Bryant's poem, and Herman Melville, bestriding the same rock for a bowsprit, "pulled and hauled imaginary ropes" for the amusement of the company. Among these splintered masses the company lunched that day and drank quantities of Heidsieck to the healthof the "dear old poet of Monument Mountain." On the east, almost within sight from this eminence, is the spot where he was born, near the birthplaces of Warner and the gifted Mrs. Howe.
Hawthorne at Stockbridge
Another day we follow the same brilliant party of Hawthorne's friends through the Stockbridge Ice Glen,—a narrow gorge which cleaves a rugged mountain from base to summit, its riven sides being apparently held asunder by immense rocky masses hurled upon each other in wild confusion. Beneath are weird grottos and great recesses which the sun never penetrates, and within these we make our way—clambering and sliding over huge boulders—through the heart of the mountain. One of Hawthorne's company here testifies that in all the extemporaneous jollity of the scramble through the glen the usually silent novelist was foremost, and, being sometimes in the dark, dared use his tongue,—"calling out lustily and pretending that certain destruction threatened us all. I never saw him in better spirits than throughout this day."
From the glen we trace Hawthorne to the staid old house of Burr's boyhood, where lived and wrote Jonathan Edwards, and the statelier dwelling whence Catherine Sedgwick gave her tales to the world. Near by we find the gravewhere she lies amid the scenes of her own "Hope Leslie," and not far from the sojourn of her gifted niece whose translation of Sand's "Fadette" has been so well received. Overlooking the village is the summer residence of Field of the "Evangelist,"—author of the delightful books of travel.
Farther away is a little farm-house, with a "huge, corpulent, old Harry VIII. of a chimney," to which Hawthorne was a frequent visitor,—the "Arrow-Head" of Herman Melville. "Godfrey Graylock" says the friendship between Hawthorne and Melville originated in their taking refuge together, during an electric shower, in a narrow cleft of Monument Mountain. They had been coy of each other on account of Melville's review of the "Scarlet Letter" in Duyckinck'sLiterary World, but during some hours of enforced intercourse and propinquity in very contracted quarters they discovered in each other a correlation of thought and feeling which made them fast friends for life. Thereafter Melville was often at the little red house, where the children knew him as "Mr. Omoo," and less often Hawthorne came to chat with the racy romancer and philosopher by the great chimney. Once he was accompanied by little Una—"Onion" he sometimescalled her—and remained a whole week. This visit—certainly unique in the life of the shy Hawthorne—was the topic when, not so long agone, we last looked upon the living face of Melville in his city home. March weather prevented walks abroad, so the pair spent most of the week in smoking and talking metaphysics in the barn,—Hawthorne usually lounging upon a carpenter's bench. When he was leaving, he jocosely declared he would write a report of their psychological discussions for publication in a volume to be called "A Week on a Work-Bench in a Barn," the title being a travesty upon that of Thoreau's then recent book, "A Week on Concord River," etc.
Melville's Arrow-Head
Sitting upon the north piazza, of "Piazza Tales," at Arrow-Head, where Hawthorne and his friend lingered in summer days, we look away to Graylock and enjoy "the calm prospect of things from a fair piazza" which Melville so whimsically describes. At Arrow-Head, too, we find the astonishing chimney which suggested the essay, still occupying the centre of the house and "leaving only the odd holes and corners" to Melville's nieces, who now inhabit the place in summer; the study where Hawthorne and Melville discussed the plot of the "White Whale" and other tales; the great fireplace,with its inscriptions from "I and my Chimney;" the window-view of Melville's "October Mountain,"—beloved of Longfellow,—whose autumn glories inspired that superb word-picture and metaphysical sketch.
On a near knoll, commanding a view of the circle of mountains and the winding river, stands the sometime summer residence of Holmes among his ancestral acres, where Hawthorne and Fields came to visit him. His "den," in which he did much literary work, overlooks the beautiful meadows, and is now expanded into a large library, while the trees he planted are grown to be the crowning beauty of the place, which the owner calls Holmesdale. It was the hereditary home of the Wendells.
Pittsfield
Beyond, at the edge of the town of Pittsfield, is the mansion where Longfellow found his wife and his famous "Old Clock on the Stairs." At the Athenæum in the town some thousands of Holmes's books will soon be placed, and here is preserved the secretary from Hawthorne's study in the little red house,—a time-worn mahogany combination of desk, drawers, and shelves, at which he wrote "The House of the Seven Gables," "The Wonder-Book," "The Snow Image," and part of "The Blithedale Romance." Pittsfield was long the home of"Godfrey Graylock;" here the gifted Rose Terry Cooke passed her closing years of life with her husband, and not far away Josh Billings, "the Yankee Solomon," was born and reared as Henry Savage Shaw. One day we trace from Pittsfield the footsteps of Hawthorne and Melville across the Taconics to the whilom home of "Mother Ann" and to the higher Hancock peaks.
Hawthorne's daily walk to the post-office was past the later residence of Charlotte Cushman, and by the church where the older Channing delivered his last discourse and where twenty years ago Parkhurst was preacher. In the church-tower Fanny Kemble's clock still tells the hours above the lovely spot where she desired to be buried.
Hawthorne's Habit of Meditation
These various excursions compass the range of Hawthorne's rambles in this region: he was never ten miles away from the little red house during his residence here. Obviously he preferred short and solitary strolls which allowed undisturbed meditation upon the work in hand. The quantity and finish of the writing done here indicate that much thought was expended upon it outside his study. We may be sure that upon "The House of the Seven Gables" were bestowed, besides the five months of daily sessionsat his desk, other months of study and thought as he strolled the country roads and loitered by the lake-side or in the dell of "Blossom-Brook." He avowed himself a shameless idler in warm weather, declaring he was "good for nothing in a literary way until after the autumnal frosts" brightened his imagination as they did the foliage about him here; yet the meditations of one summer in Berkshire produced his masterpiece, and the next summer accomplished "The Wonder-Book," quickly followed by "The Snow Image" and "Blithedale." During this summer also he had a voluminous correspondence with the many "Pyncheon jackasses" who thought themselves aggrieved by his use of their name in "The House of the Seven Gables."
Life in the Little Red House
Of the simple home-life at the little red house, Hawthorne's diaries and letters, as well as some of the books written here, afford pleasing glimpses. The "Violet" and "Peony" of the "Snow Image" story are the novelist's own little Una and Julian, and the tale was suggested by some occurrence in their play; the incidents related of Eustace Bright and the young Pringles, which are prefixed to the "Wonder-Book" stories, are merely experiences of Hawthorne and his children, and during the composition of these tales he delighted these children—asone of them remembers—by reading to them each evening the work of the day. A grim-visaged negress named Peters, who was the servant here in the little red house, is said to have suggested the character of Aunt Keziah in "Septimius Felton."
Hawthorne's chickens receive notice as members of the family in his diary,—thus: "Seven chickens hatched, J. T. Headley called—eight chickens;" "ascended a mountain with my wife, eight more chickens hatched." In a letter to Horatio Bridge, "Our children grow apace and so do our chickens;" "we are so intimate with every individual chicken that it seems like cannibalism to think of eating one of them." Hawthorne's daily walk with pail in hand to Luther Butler's, the next farm-house, he speaks of as his "milky way." Butler lives now two miles distant. The novelist thus announces to his friend Bridge the birth of the present gifted poetess, Mrs. Lathrop, the daughter of his age: "Mrs. Hawthorne has published a little work which still lies in sheets, but makes some noise in the world; it is a healthy miss with no present pretensions to beauty." Five cats were cherished by the novelist and his children; a snowy morning after Hawthorne's removal, three of the cats came to a neighboringhouse, where their descendants are still petted and cherished.
A few visitors came to the little red house—Kemble, James, Lowell, Holmes, E. P. Whipple, and the others already mentioned—in whose presence the "statue of night and silence" was wont to relax, but for the most part his life was that of a recluse. Here, as elsewhere, his thoughts dwelt apart in "a twilight region" where the company of his kind was usually a perturbing intrusion. For companionship, his family, the lake, the woods, his own thoughts, sufficed; he seldom sought any other, and therefore was unpopular in the neighborhood. It is hardly to be supposed that the creator of Zenobia, Hester Prynne, and the Pyncheons would greatly enjoy the society of his rural neighbors, but they were not therefore the less displeased by his habitually going out of his way—sometimes across the fields—to avoid meeting them. Some of them had a notion that he was the author of "a poem, or an arithmetic, or some other kind of a book,"—as he makes "Primrose Pringle" to say of him in the tale,—but to most he was incomprehensible, perhaps a little uncanny, and the great genius of romance is yet mentioned here as "a queer sort o' man that lived in Tappan's red house."
Reasons for leaving Berkshire
His son records that after Hawthorne had freed himself from Salem "he soon wearied of any particular locality;" after a time he tired even of beautiful Berkshire. Its obtrusive scenery "with the same strong impressions repeated day after day" became irksome; then he grew tired of the mountains and "would joyfully see them laid flat." He writes to Fields, "I am sick of Berkshire, and hate to think of spending another winter here." Doubtless the region which we behold in the glamour of the early autumn seemed very different to Hawthorne in the season when he had daily "to trudge two miles to the post-office through snow or slush knee-deep." Ellery Channing—who had knowledge of the winter here—in his letters to Hawthorne calls Berkshire "that satanic institution of Spitzbergen," "that ice-plant of the Sedgwicks."
A more cogent reason for Hawthorne's discontent here is found in his failing health. He writes to Pike, "I am not vigorous as I used to be on the coast;" to Fields, "For the first time since boyhood I feel languid and dispirited. Oh, that Providence would build me the merest shanty and mark me out a rood or two of garden near the coast."
For these and other reasons Hawthorne finally left Berkshire at the end of 1851, going first toWest Newton and a few months later to "the Wayside," while his friend Tappan occupied the thenceforth famous little red house.
The world of readers owes much to Hawthorne's residence among the mountains. Besides the material here gathered and the exquisite settings for his tales these landscapes afforded, we are indebted to his environment in Berkshire for the quality of the work here accomplished and for its quantity as well; for he responded so readily to the inspiriting influence of his surroundings that he produced more during his stay here than at any similar period of his life. The soulful beauty and the seclusion of the haunts to which we here trace him, suiting well his solitary mood, may measurably account to us for his habit of thought and for the manner of expression by which nature was here portrayed and life expounded by the great master of American romance.
A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET
A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET
Walk and Talk with Socrates in Camden—The Bard's Appearance and Surroundings—Recollections of his Life and Work—Hospital Service—Praise for his Critics—His Literary Habit, Purpose, Equipment, and Style—His Religious Bent—Readings.
"HOW can you find him? Nothing is easier," quoth the Philadelphia friend who some time before Whitman's death brought us an invitation from the bard; "you have only to cross the ferry and apply to the first man or woman you meet, for there is no one in Camden who does not know Walt Whitman or who would not go out of his way to bring you to him." The event justifies the prediction, for when we make inquiry of a tradesman standing before a shop, he speedily throws aside his apron, closes his door against evidently needed customers, and—despite our protest—sets out to conduct us to the home of the poet. This is done with such obvious ardor that we hint to our guide that he must be one of the "Whitmaniacs," whereupon he rejoins, "I never read a word Whitman wrote. I don't know why they call him Socrates, but I do know he never passes mewithout a friendly nod and a word of greeting that warms me all through." We subsequently find that it is this sort of "Whitmania," rather than that Swinburne deplores, which pervades the vicinage of the poet's home.
Our conductor leaves us at the door of three hundred and twenty-eight Mickle Street, a neat thoroughfare bordered by unpretentious frame dwellings, hardly a furlong from the Delaware. The dingy little two-storied domicile is so disappointingly different from what we were expecting to see that the confirmatory testimony of the name "W. Whitman" upon the door-plate is needed to convince us that this is the oft-mentioned "neat and comfortable" dwelling of one of the world's celebrities.
We are kept waiting upon the door-step long enough to observe that the unpainted boards of the house are weather-worn and that the shabby window-shutters and the cellar-door, which opens aslant upon the sidewalk, are in sad need of repair, and then we are admitted by the "good, faithful, young Jersey woman who," as he lovingly testifies, "cooks for and vigilantly sees to" the venerable bard. A moment later we are in his presence, in the spacious second-story room which is his sleeping apartment and work-room.
"You are good to come early while I am fresh and rested," exclaims Walt Whitman, rising to his six feet of burly manhood and advancing a heavy step or two to greet us; "we are going to have a talk, and we have something to talk about, you know," referring to a literary venture of ours which had procured us the invitation to visit him. When he has regained the depths of his famous and phenomenal chair, the "Jersey woman" hands him a score of letters, which he offers to lay aside, but we insist that he shall read them at once, and while he is thus occupied we have opportunity to observe more closely the bard and his surroundings.
Whitman's Personal Appearance
We see a man made in massive mould, stalwart and symmetrical,—not bowed by the weight of time nor deformed by the long years of hemiplegia; a majestic head, large, leonine, Homeric, crowned with a wealth of flowing silvery hair; a face like "the statued Greek" (Bucke says it is the noblest he ever saw); all the features are full and handsome; the forehead, high and thoughtful, is marked by "deep furrows which life has ploughed;" the heavy brows are highly arched above eyes of gray-blue which in repose seem suave rather than brilliant; the upper lid droops over the eye nearly to the pupil,—a condition which obtains in partial ptosis,—and weafterward observe that when he speaks of matters which deeply move him his eyelids have a tendency to decline still farther, imparting to his eyes an appearance of lethargy altogether at variance with the thrilling earnestness and tremor of his voice. A strong nose, cheeks round and delicate, a complexion of florid and transparent pink,—its hue being heightened by the snowy whiteness of the fleecy beard which frames the face and falls upon the breast. The face is sweet and wholesome rather than refined, vital and virile rather than intellectual. Joaquin Miller has said that, even when destitute and dying, Whitman "looked like a Titan god."
We think the habitual expression of his face to be that of the sage benignity that comes with age when life has been well lived and life's work well done. The expression bespeaks a soul at ease with itself, unbroken by age, poverty, and disease, unsoured by calumny and insult. Certainly his bufferings and his brave endurance of wrong have left no record of malice or even of impatience upon his kindly face. His manly form is clad in a loosely fitting suit of gray; his rolling and ample shirt-collar, worn without a tie, is open at the throat and exposes the upper part of his breast; all his attire, "from snowylinen to burnished boot," is scrupulously clean and neat.
His Study and Surroundings
His room is of generous proportions, occupying nearly the entire width of the house, and lighted by three windows in front. The floor is partly uncarpeted, and the furniture is of the simplest; his bed, covered by a white counterpane, occupies a corner; there are two large tables; an immense iron-bound trunk stands by one wall and an old-fashioned stove by another; a number of boxes and uncushioned seats are scattered through the apartment; on the walls are wardrobe-hooks, shelves, and many pictures,—a few fine engravings, a print of the Seminole Osceola, portraits of the poet's parents (his father's face is a good one) and sisters, and of "another—not a sister."
There are many books here and there, some of them well worn; one corner holds several Greek and Latin classics and copies of Burns, Tennyson, Scott, Ossian, Emerson, etc. On the large table near his chair are his writing materials, with the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, and the Iliad within reach. Bundles of papers lie in odd places about the room; piles of books, magazines, and manuscripts are heaped high upon the tables, litter the chairs, and overflow and encumber the floor. This room holdswhat Whitman has called the "storage collection" of his life.
"And now you are to tell me about yourself and your work," says the poet, pushing aside his letters. But, although he is the best of listeners, we are intent to make him talk, and a fortunate remark concerning one of his letters which had seemed to interest him more than the others—it came from a friend of his far-away boyhood—enables us to profit by the reminiscential mood the letter has inspired.
In his low-toned voice he pictures his early home, his parents, and his first ventures into the world; with evident relish he narrates his ludicrous experience when he—a stripling school-master—"went boarding 'round." Than this, there was but one happier period of his life, and that was when he drove among the farms and villages distributing hisLong Islander: "that was bliss."
Later he was a politician and "stumped the island" for the Democratic candidates, but the enactment of the fugitive slave law disgusted him, and he declared his political emancipation in the poem "Blood-Money." At odd times he has done "a deal of newspaper drudgery" and other work, but his "forte always was loafing and writing poetry,—at least until the war."He began early to clothe his thought in verse, and was but a lad when a poem of his was accepted for publication in the New YorkMirror, and he depicts for us the surprised delight with which he beheld his stanzas in that fashionable journal.
His Recollections
A pleasure of those early years was the companionship of Bryant, and he details to us the "glorious walks and talks" they had together along the North Shore in sweet summer days. This, he says with a sigh, was the dearest of the friendships lost to him by the publication of "Leaves of Grass;" "but there were compensations, Emerson and Tennyson." Of later events he speaks less freely. Of the years of devoted service to the wounded and dying in army hospitals, when day and night he literally gave himself for others,—living upon the coarsest fare that he might bestow his earnings upon "his sick boys,"—of these years he speaks not at all, save as to the causation of his "war paralysis." "Yes, it made an old man of me; but I would like to do it all again if there were need." Of his long years of suffering and his brave and patient confronting of pain, poverty, and imminent death, his "Specimen Days" is the fitting record.
Replying to a question concerning a dainty volume of his poems which lay near us, andwhich we have been secretly coveting, he says, "You know I have never been the fashion; publishers were afraid of me, and I have sold the books myself, though I always advise people not to buy them, for I fear they are worthless." But when he writes his name and ours upon the title-page, and lays within the cover several portraits taken at different periods of his life, we wonder if he can ever know how very far from "worthless" the book will be to us. We tender in payment a bank-note of larger denomination than we could be supposed to possess, with a deprecating remark upon the novelty of an author's handling a fifty-dollar note, whereupon he laughs heartily: "A novelty to you, is it? I tell you it's an impossibility to me; why, my whole income from my books during a recent half-year was only twenty-two dollars and six cents: don't forget the six cents," he adds, with a twinkle. Then he assures us that he is not in want, and that his "shanty," as he calls his home, is nearly paid for.
Popularity with his Neighbors
He proposes a walk,—"a hobble" it must be for him,—which may afford opportunity to change the note; and as we saunter toward the river, he leaning heavily upon his cane, it is a pleasure to observe the evident feeling of liking and camaraderie which people have for him.They go out of their way to meet him and to receive merely a friendly nod, for he stops to speak with none save the children who leave their play to run to him. He seems mightily amused when one wee toddler calls him "Mister Socrates," and he tells us this is the first time he has been so addressed, although he understands that some of his friends speak of him among themselves by the name of that philosopher. So far as he knows, the name was first applied to him in Buchanan's lines "To Socrates in Camden."
Everywhere we go, on the ferry, at the hotel where we lunch, he receives affectionate greeting from people of every rank, yet he is not loquacious, certainly not effusive. He shakes hands but once while we are out, and that is with an unknown man, and because heisunknown, as Whitman afterward tells us.
During luncheon we speak of a recent visit to Mrs. Howarth (the poetess "Clementine"). Whitman is at once interested, and questions until he has drawn out the pathetic story of her struggles with poverty, disease, and impeding environment, and then declares he will go to see her as soon as he is able. He declines to receive a copy of her poems, saying he is far more interested in her than he could possiblybe in her books, and that he "nowadays religiously abstains from reading poetry." Confirmation of this latter statement occurs in our subsequent conversation. A friend of ours had met Swinburne, and had been assured by that erratic (please don't print it erotic) bard that he thinks Whitman, next to Hugo, the best of recent poets. When we tell our poet of this, and endeavor to ascertain if the admiration be reciprocal, we find him unfamiliar with Swinburne's recent works. Reference to the latter's retraction of his first praise elicits the pertinent observation, "The trouble with Swinburne seems to be he don't know his own mind," but this is followed by warm encomiums upon "Atalanta" and its gifted author.
Whitman had seen Emerson for the last time when the philosopher's memory had failed and all his powers were weakening: instead of being shocked by this condition, Whitman thinks it fit and natural, "nature gradually reclaiming the elements she had lent, work all nobly done, soul and senses preparing for rest." Mentioning George Arnold,—
"Doubly dead because he died so young,"—
we find that Whitman loved and mourned him tenderly. He expresses an especial pleasureand pride in the successes of the poet Richard Watson Gilder,—"young Gilder," as he familiarly calls him. He loves Browning, and laments that "Browning never took to" him. He thinks our own country is fortunate in having felt the clean and healthful influences of four such natures as Emerson, Bryant, Whittier, and Longfellow.
His Good Word for Everybody
Indeed, he has a good word for everybody, and discerns laudable qualities in some whom the world has agreed to contemn and cast out. He has glowing expressions of affection for his devoted friends in all lands, and only words of excuse for his enemies. Of the pharisaic Harlan, who dismissed him from a government clerkship solely because he had, ten years before, published the poems of "Enfans d'Adam," he charitably says, "No doubt the man thought he was doing right." Concerning his harshest critics, including the author of the choice epithet "swan of the sewers," he speaks only in justification: from their stand-point, their denunciations of him and his book were deserved; "he never dreamt of blaming them for not seeing as he sees."
After our return to his "shanty" we read to him a laudatory notice from the current number of one of our great magazines, in which one of his poems is mentioned with especial favor;whereupon he produces from his trunk a note written some years before from the same magazine, contemptuously refusing to publish that very poem. Evidences like this of a change in popular opinion are not needed to confirm Whitman's faith in his own future, nor in that of the great humanity of which he is the prophet and exponent.
Questioned concerning his habits and methods of literary work, he says he carries some sheets of paper loosely fastened together and pencils upon these "the rough draft of his thought" wherever the thought comes to him. Thus, "Leaves of Grass" was composed on the Brooklyn ferry, on the top of stages amid the roar of Broadway, at the opera, in the fields, on the sea-shore. "Drum Taps" was written amid war scenes, on battle-fields, in camps, at hospital bedsides, in actual contact with the subjects it portrays with such tenderness and power. The poems thus born of spontaneous impulse are finally given to the world in a crisp diction which is the result of much study and thought; every word is well considered,—the work of revision being done "almost anywhere" and without the ordinary aids to literary composition. In late years he wrote mostly upon the broad right arm of his chair.
Complete equipment for his work was derived from contact with Nature in her abounding moods, from sympathetic intimacy with men and women in all phases of their lives, and from life-long study of the best books; these—Job, Isaiah, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—have been his teachers, and possibly his models, although he has never consciously imitated any of them. His matter and manner are alike his own; he has not borrowed Blake's style, as Stedman believed, to recast Emerson's thoughts, as Clarence Cook alleged. His style would naturally resemble that of the Semitic prophets and Gaelic bards,—"the large utterance of the early gods,"—because inspired by familiarity with the same objects: the surging sea, the wind-swept mountain, the star-decked heaven, the forest primeval.
His Literary Work—Its Aims
His purpose, the moral elevation of humanity, he trusts is apparent in every page of his book. By his book he means "Leaves of Grass," the real work of his life, representing the truest thoughts and the highest imaginings of forty years, to which his other work has been incidental and tributary. After its eight periods of growth, "hitches," he calls them, he completes them with the annex, "Good-bye my Fancy," and thinks his record for the future is made up;"hit or miss, he will bother himself no more about it."
When questioned concerning the lines whose "naked naturalness" has been an offence to many, he impressively avers that he has pondered them earnestly in these latest days, and is sure he would not alter or recall them if he could.
His Religious Trust
While not professing a moral regeneration or confessing the need of it, he yet assures us, "No array of words can describe how much I am at peace about God and about death." The author of "Whispers of Heavenly Death" cannot be an irreverent person; the impassioned "prayer"—
is not the utterance of an irreligious heart. One who has known Whitman long and well testifies that he was always a religiousexalté, and his stanzas show that his musings on death and immortality are inspired by fullest faith. As we listen to him, calmly discoursing uponthe great mysteries,—which to him are now mysteries no longer,—we wonder how many of those who call him "beast" or "atheist" can confront the vast unknown with his lofty trust, to say nothing of actual thanksgiving for death itself!
We who survive him will not forget his peaceful yielding of himself to "the sure-enwinding arms," nor the abounding trust breathed in his last message, sent back from the mystic frontier of the shadowy realm: "Tell them it makes no difference whether I live or die."
Readings
In our chat he discloses a surprising knowledge of men and things, and a more surprising lack of knowledge of his own poetry. More than once it strangely appears that the visitor is more familiar with the lines under discussion than is their author. When this is commented upon he laughingly says, "Oh, yes, my friends often tell me there is a book called 'Leaves of Grass' which I ought to read." So when we, about to take leave, ask him to recite one of his shorter poems, he assures us he does not rememberone of them, but will read anything we wish. We ask for the wonderful elegy, "Out of the Cradle endlessly Rocking," and afterward for the night hymn, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," and his compliance confers a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. He reads slowly and without effort, his voice often tremulous with emotion, the lines gaining new grandeur and pathos as they come from his lips.
And this—alas that it must be!—is our final recollection of one of the world's immortals: a hoar and reverend bard,—"old, poor, and paralyzed," yet clinging to the optimistic creeds of his youth,—throned in his great chair among his books, with the waning light falling like a benediction upon his uplifted head, his face and eyes suffused with the exquisite tenderness of his theme, and all the air about him vibrating with the tones of his immortal chant to Death,—the "dark mother always gliding near with soft feet."
Another hand-clasp, a prayerful "God keep you," and we have left him alone in the gathering twilight.
His Future Fame
We will not here discuss his literary merits. The encomiums of Emerson, Thoreau, Burroughs, Sanborn, Stedman, Ruskin, Tennyson, Rossetti, Buchanan, Sarrazin, etc., show whathe is to men of their intellectual stature; but will he ever reach the great, struggling mass for whose uplifting he wrought? His own brave faith is contagious, and we may discern in the wide-spread sorrow over his death, in the changed attitude of critics and reviewers, as well as in the largely increased demand for his books, evidences of his general acceptance.
His day is coming,—is come. He died with its dawn shining full upon him.
INDEX
Abbot, C. C.,104.Agassiz,49,104,115.Alcott, Bronson,21,73,78,92,144;Orchard House,54;Wayside,58.Alcott, L. M.,21,54,102;Grave,78;Homes,21,55.Aldrich,91,111,140;In Boston,92;Ponkapog,146.Amesbury,124.Auburndale,146.Austin, J. G.,102.Bartlett, G. B.,25,34,41.Bartol, Dr.,48,94.Beecher, H. W.,176,185.Benson, Carl,184.Berkshire,155-198.Billings, Josh,193.Boston,83-102.Bridge, Horatio,34,182.Brook Farm,147.Brown, John,20,23.Bryant, W. C.,174,188,189,207.Burritt, Elihu,176.Cambridge,103.Carter, Robert,109.Channing, W. E.,24,41,50,72,186;Homes,22,24,52.Clarke, J. F.,27,76.Clough, Arthur,49,104,118.Concord,17-80;Battle-Field,43;River,39.Conway, Moncure, quoted,29,48.Cooke, Rose Terry,193.Corner Book-Store, Boston,87.Curtis, G. W.,33,48,148,149.Cushman, Charlotte,114,193.Dana, C. A.,149.Dana, R. H.,105.Danvers, Oak-Knoll,138.Day with Walt Whitman,201.Deerfield Arch,173.Deland, Margaret,93.Elmwood,110.Emerson, R. W.,26,27,28,36,41,43,69,86,144,175;Grave,77;Home,45.Emerson, William,26,29,35.Ethan Brand,166.Fanny Fern's Grave,115.Felton, Professor,104.Field, H. M.,190.Fields, Annie,89,91.Fields, J. T.,65,87;Home,89.Fuller, Margaret,48,53,86,115,149;Brattle House,105.Gail Hamilton,66,139.Garrison, W. L.,85,102,139.Gilder, R. W.,211.Gladden, Washington,164.Grant, Robert,89,99.Gray, Asa,105.Graylock,158,167,174,184.Guiney, L. I.,99,102;Home,146.Hale, E. E.,94;Study and Abode,100.Hale, Lucretia P.,99.Hamilton, Gail,66,139.Harris, Professor,56.Haverhill,122.Hawthorne,27,41,50,53,85,88,91;Berkshire,155-198;Brook Farm,149;Manse,28-39;Salem,128-138;Sleepy Hollow,75-77;Wayside,59-67.Headley, J. T.,187,195.Higginson, T. W.,94,99,104.Hilliard, George,34,66,91.Hoar, Elizabeth,25.Hoar, Judge,27.Holmes,84;Boston Abodes,91,95;Cambridge,103;Grave,114;Pittsfield,192.House of the Seven Gables,132,193,194.Howarth, Clementine,209.Howe, Julia W.,98.Howells,49,66;Homes,97,105,117.Jamaica Plain,145.Jewett, Sarah Orne,91.Kemble, Fanny,169,186,188,193.Kossuth, Louis,49,187.Larcom, Lucy,139.Lathrop, G. P.,59.Lathrop, Rose H.,195.Laurel Lake,185.Lenox (Hawthorne),176-198.Little Men,21.Little Women,21,55,78.Longfellow,106,110,139,192;Grave,114;Home,107;Wayside Inn,118.Lowell, J. R.,43,118;Elmwood,110;Mount Auburn,113.Marshfield,142.Martineau, Harriet,85,106.Melville, Herman,177,185,188;Arrow-Head,190.Monument Mountain,168,179,187.Moulton, L. C.,93,98.Mount Auburn,113.Natural Bridge,169.North Adams,158-171.Norton, Professor,104.Oak-Knoll,138.Old Manse,28-39.Orchard House,53-56.Parker, Theodore,49,85.Parkman, Francis,94,113;Home,145.Parsons, T. W.,118,119,120.Parton, James,115;Study,140.Peabody, Elizabeth,29,54,145.Phelps-Ward, Mrs.,91,125,139.Phillips, Wendell,49,85.Pittsfield,190-193.Plymouth,144.Prescott, W. H.,86.Ripley, Ezra,28,33,34.Ripley, Mrs. Samuel,29,35,48.Salem,128.Sanborn, F. B.,20-24.Scarlet Letter,95,135,136.Sedgwick, Catherine,176,189,190.Septimius Felton,55,60-65.Silas Lapham,97,99.Sleepy Hollow,75-80.Sprague, Charles,86.Stockbridge,189;Bowl,176,181;Glen,189.Stone, J. A.,25.Sudbury,118.Summer School of Philosophy,55,56.Sumner, Charles,85,92,124.Swinburne, A. C.,210.Tanglewood,183.Thaxter, Celia,91,139,140.Thoreau,19,22,27,33,41,50,63,76,169,174;Abodes,20,24;Walden,68-74.Ticknor, George,94.Walden Pond,68.Wayside, The,58.Wayside Inn, The,118.Webster, Daniel,19;Marshfield,142.Wheildon, William,25.Whipple, E. P.,66,76,91.Whitefield, George,140.Whitman, Walt,50;A Day with,201;Leaves of Grass,212,213.Whittier,90,93;Homes,122,124,138;Scenes,122,123,124,126;Sepulchre,127.Williamstown,173.Willis, N. P.,84,115.Woodworth;Old Oaken Bucket,141.Zenobia,40,150.