The day
was excessively hot, the thermometer at nearly 100?
was excessively hot, the thermometer at nearly 100?
Whitman
Whitman has light blue eyes,
a florid complexion, a fleecy beard now grey, and a quite peculiar sort of
magnetism about him in relation to those with whom he comes in contact. His
ordinary appearance is masculine and cheerful: he never shows depression of
spirits, and is sufficiently undemonstrative, and even somewhat silent in
company. He has always been carried by predilection towards the society of
the common people; but is not the less for that open to refined and
artistic impressions--fond of operatic and other good music, and discerning
in works of art. As to either praise or blame of what he writes, he is
totally indifferent, not to say scornful--having in fact a very decisive
opinion of his own concerning its calibre and destinies. Thoreau, a very
congenial spirit, said of Whitman, "He is Democracy;" and again, "After
all, he suggests something a little more than human. " Lincoln broke out
into the exclamation, "Well, _he_ looks like a man! " Whitman responded to
the instinctive appreciation of the President, considering him (it is said
by Mr. Burroughs) "by far the noblest and purest of the political
characters of the time;" and, if anything can cast, in the eyes of
posterity, an added halo of brightness round the unsullied personal
qualities and the great doings of Lincoln, it will assuredly be the written
monument reared to him by Whitman.
The best sketch that I know of Whitman as an accessible human individual is
that given by Mr. Conway. [4] I borrow from it the following few details.
"Having occasion to visit New York soon after the appearance of Walt
Whitman's book, I was urged by some friends to search him out. . . .
The day
was excessively hot, the thermometer at nearly 100? , and the sun blazed
down as only on sandy Long Island can the sun blaze. . . . I saw stretched
upon his back, and gazing up straight at the terrible sun, the man I was
seeking. With his grey clothing, his blue-grey shirt, his iron-grey hair,
his swart sunburnt face and bare neck, he lay upon the brown-and-white
grass--for the sun had burnt away its greenness--and was so like the earth
upon which he rested that he seemed almost enough a part of it for one to
pass by without recognition. I approached him, gave my name and reason for
searching him out, and asked him if he did not find the sun rather hot.
'Not at all too hot,' was his reply; and he confided to me that this was
one of his favourite places and attitudes for composing 'poems. ' He then
walked with me to his home, and took me along its narrow ways to his room.
A small room of about fifteen feet square, with a single window looking out
on the barren solitudes of the island; a small cot; a wash-stand with a
little looking-glass hung over it from a tack in the wall; a pine table
with pen, ink, and paper on it; an old line-engraving representing Bacchus,
hung on the wall, and opposite a similar one of Silenus: these constituted
the visible environments of Walt Whitman. There was not, apparently, a
single book in the room. . . . The books he seemed to know and love best were
the Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare: these he owned, and probably had in his
pockets while we were talking.
a florid complexion, a fleecy beard now grey, and a quite peculiar sort of
magnetism about him in relation to those with whom he comes in contact. His
ordinary appearance is masculine and cheerful: he never shows depression of
spirits, and is sufficiently undemonstrative, and even somewhat silent in
company. He has always been carried by predilection towards the society of
the common people; but is not the less for that open to refined and
artistic impressions--fond of operatic and other good music, and discerning
in works of art. As to either praise or blame of what he writes, he is
totally indifferent, not to say scornful--having in fact a very decisive
opinion of his own concerning its calibre and destinies. Thoreau, a very
congenial spirit, said of Whitman, "He is Democracy;" and again, "After
all, he suggests something a little more than human. " Lincoln broke out
into the exclamation, "Well, _he_ looks like a man! " Whitman responded to
the instinctive appreciation of the President, considering him (it is said
by Mr. Burroughs) "by far the noblest and purest of the political
characters of the time;" and, if anything can cast, in the eyes of
posterity, an added halo of brightness round the unsullied personal
qualities and the great doings of Lincoln, it will assuredly be the written
monument reared to him by Whitman.
The best sketch that I know of Whitman as an accessible human individual is
that given by Mr. Conway. [4] I borrow from it the following few details.
"Having occasion to visit New York soon after the appearance of Walt
Whitman's book, I was urged by some friends to search him out. . . .
The day
was excessively hot, the thermometer at nearly 100? , and the sun blazed
down as only on sandy Long Island can the sun blaze. . . . I saw stretched
upon his back, and gazing up straight at the terrible sun, the man I was
seeking. With his grey clothing, his blue-grey shirt, his iron-grey hair,
his swart sunburnt face and bare neck, he lay upon the brown-and-white
grass--for the sun had burnt away its greenness--and was so like the earth
upon which he rested that he seemed almost enough a part of it for one to
pass by without recognition. I approached him, gave my name and reason for
searching him out, and asked him if he did not find the sun rather hot.
'Not at all too hot,' was his reply; and he confided to me that this was
one of his favourite places and attitudes for composing 'poems. ' He then
walked with me to his home, and took me along its narrow ways to his room.
A small room of about fifteen feet square, with a single window looking out
on the barren solitudes of the island; a small cot; a wash-stand with a
little looking-glass hung over it from a tack in the wall; a pine table
with pen, ink, and paper on it; an old line-engraving representing Bacchus,
hung on the wall, and opposite a similar one of Silenus: these constituted
the visible environments of Walt Whitman. There was not, apparently, a
single book in the room. . . . The books he seemed to know and love best were
the Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare: these he owned, and probably had in his
pockets while we were talking.
