 section 17 of specimen days. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Specimen days by Walt Whitman, section 17. Carlisle from American Points of View. Later thoughts and jottings. There is surely at present an inexplicable rapport, all the more frequent from its contradictiveness, between that deceased author and our United States of America, no matter whether it lasts or not. 13. As we Westerners assume definite shape and result in formations and fruited unknown before, it is curious with what a new sense our eyes turn to representative outgrowths of crisis and personages in the old world. 14. Beyond question, since Carlisle's death and the publication of Proud's Memoirs, not only the interest in his books but every personal bit regarding the famous Scotchman, his dyspepsia, his buffettings, his parentage, his paragon of the white, his career in Edinburgh, in the lonesome nest on Craig and Patek Moor, and then so many years in London, is probably wider and livelier today in this country than in his own land. Whether I succeed or not, I too, reaching across the Atlantic and taking the man's dark fortune telling of humanity and politics, would offset it all, such is the fancy that comes to me, by a far more profound horoscope casting those themes. G. F. Hegel's 14. First about a chance, a never fulfilled faculty at this pale cast of thought, this British hamlet from Cheyenne Row, more puzzling than the Danish one, with these contrivances for setting the broken and spave and joints at the world's government, especially its democratic dislocation. Carlisle's grim fate was cast to live and dwelling, and largely in body, the parturition, agony and qualms of the old order, amid crowded accumulations of ghastly morbidity, giving birth to the new. But conceive of him or his parents before him, coming to America, recuperated by the cheering realities and activity of our people and country, growing up and delving face to face, resolutely among us here, especially at the West, inhaling and exhaling our limitless air and eligibility, devoting his mind to the theories and developments of this Republic amid its practical facts as exemplified in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee or Louisiana. I say facts and face to face confrontings so different from books and all those quiddities and mere reports in the libraries, upon which the man, it was witty said of him at the age of 30, that there was no one in Scotland who had gleaned so much and seen so little, almost wholly fed and which even his sturdy and vital mind but reflected at best. Something of the sort narrowly escaped happening. In 1835, after more than a dozen years of trial and non-success, the author of Sata Rezatis, removing to London very poor a confirmed hypochondriac, Sata universally scoffed at, no literary prospects ahead, deliberately settled on one last casting throw of the literary dice, resolved to compose and launch forth a book on the subject of the French Revolution. And if that one no higher-garden or prize than hitherto to sternly abandon the trade of author forever and immigrate for good to America, but the venture turned out a lucky one and there was no immigration. Carl Isle's work in the sphere of literature as he commenced and carried it out is the same in one or two leading respects that Emmanuel Pantz was in speculative philosophy. But the Scotchman had none of the stomach flim and never perturbed placidly at the Konersberg sage and did not like the latter understand his own limits and stop when he got to the end of them. He clears away jungle and poison vines and underbrush at any rate hacks valiantly at them, smitting high and thigh, canted like in his fear and it was all his professed to do. His labours have left the ground fully prepared ever since and greatest service was probably never performed by mortal man. But the pang and hiatus of Carl Isle seemed to me to consist in the evidence everywhere that amid a whirl of fog and fury and cross purposes he firmly believed he had a clue to the medication of the world's ills and that his bound and mission was to exploit it. 15. There were two anchors or sheet anchors for studying as a last resort the Carlian ship one will be specified presently the other perhaps the main was only to be found in some marked form of personal force an extreme degree of competent urge and will a man or men born to command probably they ran through every vein and current of the Scotchman's blood something that warmed up to this kind of trait and character above all else in the world and which makes him in my opinion the chief celebrator and promulgar of it in literature more than Plutarch more than Shakespeare the great masses of humanity stand for nothing at least nothing but nebulous raw material only the big planets and shining suns for him two ideas almost invariably languid or cold a number one forceful personality we're sure to rouse his eulogistic passion and savage joy in such case even the standard of duty here in after raised was to be instantly lowered and veiled all that is comprehended under the terms republicism and democracy were distasteful to him from the first and as he grew older they became hateful and contemptible for an undoubtedly candid and penetrating for Cality such as he's the bearings he persistently ignored were marvelous for instance the promise nay certainty of the democratic principle to each and every state of the current world not so much of helping it to perfect legislators and executives but as the only effectual method for surely however slowly training people on a large scale toward voluntarily ruling and managing themselves the ultimate aim of political and all other development to gradually reduce the fact of governing to its minimum and to subject all its staffs and their doings to the telescopes and microscopes of committees and parties and greatest of all to afford not stagnation and obedient content which went well enough with the feudalism and ecclesiasticism of the antique and medieval world but a vast and sane and recurrent and tied action for those floods of the great deep that have henceforth palpably burst forever their old bounds seem never to have entered Carl Isle's thought it was splendid how he refused any compromise to the last he was curiously antique in that harsh picturesque most potent voice and figure one seems to be carried back from the present of the British islands more than 2000 years to the range between Jerusalem and Tarsus his fullest best biographer just says of him he was a teacher and a prophet in the Jewish sense of the word the prophecies of Azir and Jeremiah had become a part of the permanent spiritual inheritance of mankind because events proved that they had interpreted correctly the sign of their own times and their prophecies were fulfilled Carl Isle like them believed that he had a special message to deliver to the present age whether he was correct in that belief and whether his message was a true message remains to be seen he has told us that our most cherished ideas of political liberty with their kindred collies are mere illusions and that the progress which has seemed to go along with them is a progress towards anarchy and social dissolution if he was wrong he has misused his powers the principles of his teachings are false he has offered himself as a guide upon a road of which he had no knowledge and his own desire for himself would be the speediest oblivion both of his person and his works if on the other hand he has been right if like his great predecessors he has read truly the tendencies of this modern age of ours and his teaching is authenticated by facts then Carl Isle too will take his place among the inspired seers to which I add an amendment that under no circumstances and no matter how completely time and events disprove his lurid vacations should the English speaking will forget this man nor fail to hold in honor his unsurpassed conscience his unique method and his honest fame never were convictions more earnest and genuine never was there less of a flunky or temporizer never had a political progressivism a foe it could more heartily respect the second main point of Carl Isle's utterance was the idea of duty being done it is simply a new condosal if it be particularly new which is by no means certain on the time honored the quest of dinotism the mould eaten rules of legitimacy and kings he seems to have been impatient sometimes to madness when reminded by persons who thought at least as deeply as himself that this formula though precious is rather a vague one and that there are many other considerations to a philosophical estimate of each and every department either altogether I don't know anything more amazing than these persistent strides and throbbing so far through our 19th century at perhaps its biggest sharpest and most erudite brain indefiance and discontent with everything contemptuously ignoring either from constitutional in aptitude ignorance itself or more likely because he demanded a definite cure all here and now the only solace and solvent to be had there is apart from mere intellect in the makeup of every superior human identity in its moral completeness considered as ensemble not for that moral alone but for the whole being including physique a wondrous something that realizes without argument frequently without what is called education though I think it the goal and apex of all education deserving the name an intuition of the absolute balance in time and space of the whole of this multi-therias mad chaos of fraud frivolity hoggishness this revel of fools an incredible made-believe and general unsettledness we call the world a sole sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole conjuries of things all history and time and all events however trivial however momentous like a leashed dog in the hand of the hunter such sole sight and root center for the mind mere optimism explains only the surface or fringe of it kala was mostly perhaps entirely without he seems instead to have been haunted in the play of his mental action by a specter never entirely laid from first to last quick scholars I believe find the same mocking and fantastic apparition attending arista feigns his comedies the specter of will destruction how large is triumph or failure in human life in war or peace may depend on some little hidden centrality hardly more than a drop of blood a pulse beat or a breath of air it is certain that all these weighty matters democracy in america karlilism and the temperament for deepest political or literally exploration turn on a simple point in speculative philosophy the most profound theme that can occupy the mind of man the problem on whose solution science are the basis and pursuits of nations and everything else including intelligent human happiness here today 1882 new york texas california the same as all times all lands subtly and finally resting depends for competent outset an argument is doubtless involved in the query what is the fusing explanation and tie what the relation between the radical democratic me the human identity of understanding emotion spirit etc on the one side of and with the conservative not me the whole of the material objective universe and laws with what is behind them in time and space on the other side immanuel pan though he explained or partially explained as maybe said the laws of the human understanding left this question an open one spelling answer or suggestion of answer is and very valuable and important as far as it goes that the same general and particular intelligence passion even the standards are right and wrong which exists in a conscience and formulated state in man exist in an unconscious state or perceptible analogies throughout the entire universe of external nature in all its objects large or small and all its movements and processes thus making the impelpable human mind and concrete nature not withstanding their duality and separation convertible and in centrality and essence one but gf Hegel's fuller statement of the matter probably remains the last best word that has been said upon it up to date substantially adopting the scheme just epitomized he so carries it out and fortifies it and merges everything in it with certain serious gaps now for the first time field that it becomes a coherent metaphysical system and substantial answer as far as there can be any answer to the foregoing question a system which while I distinctly admit that the brain of the future may add to revise and even entirely reconstruct at any rate beams forth today in its entirety illuminating the thought of the universe and satisfying the mystery thereof to the human mind with the more consoling scientific assurance than any yet according to Hegel the whole earth an old nucleus thought as in the Vedas and no doubt before he never hitherto brought so absolutely to the front fully surcharge with modern scientism and facts and made the sole entrance to each and all with its infinite variety the past the surroundings of today or what may happen in the future the contrairities of material with spiritual and of natural with artificial are all to the eye of the ensembles but necessary sides and unfoldings different steps or links in the endless process of creative thought which amid numberless apparent failures and contradictions is held together by central and never broken unity not contradictions or failures at all but radiations of one consistent and eternal purpose the whole mass of everything steadily unearingly tending and flowing toward the permanent utile and morale as rivers to oceans as life is the whole law and incessant effort of the visible universe and death only the other or invisible side of the same so the utile so truth so health are continuous immutable laws of the moral universe and vice and disease with all their perturbations are but transient even if ever so prevalent expressions to politics throughout Hegel applies the light catholic standard and faith not any one party or any one form of government is absolutely and exclusively true truth consists in the just relations of objects to each other a majority or democracy may rule as outrageously and do us great harm as an oligarchy or disposition though far less likely to do so but the great evil is either a violation of the relations just referred to or of the moral law the specious the unjust the cruel and what is called the unnatural though not only permitted but in a certain sense like shade to light inevitable in the divine scheme are by the whole constitution of that scheme partial inconsistent temporary and though having ever so great an Austin sensible majority are certainly destined to failures after causing great suffering theology Hegel translates into science 16 all apparent contradictions in the statement of the day-thick nature by different ages nations churches points of view are but fractional and imperfect expressions of one essential unity from which they all proceed crude endeavors or distorted parts to be regarded both as distinct and united in short to put it in our own form or summing up that thinker or analyzer or overlooker who buy an inscrutable combination of trained wisdom and natural intuition most fully accepts in perfect faith the moral unity and sanity of the creative scheme in history science and all life and time present and future is both the truest cosmical devotee or religious and the profoundest philosopher while he who by the spell of himself and his circumstance sees darkness and despair in the summer the workings of God's providence and who in that denies or prevaricates is no matter how much piety plays on his lips the most radical sinner and infidel I am the more assured in recounting Hegel a little freely here 17 not only for offsetting the carline letter and the spirit cutting it out all and several from the very roots and below the roots but to counterpoise since the late death and deserved hypothesis of Darwin the tenets of the evolutionists unspeakably precious as those are to biology and henceforth indispensable to a right aim and estimate in study they neither compromise or explain anything and the last word or whisper still remains to be breathed after the utmost of these claims floating high and forever above them all and above technical metaphysics while the contributions which German Kant and Fitch and Skelling and Hegel have bequeathed to humanity and which English Darwin has also in his field are indispensable to the erudition of America's future I should say that in all of them and the best of them when compared with the lightning flashes and fights of the old prophets and exalts the spiritual poets and poetry of all lanes as in the Hebrew Bible there seems to be no certainly is something lacking something cold a failure to satisfy the deepest emotions of the soul a want of living glow fondness warmth which the old exalts and poets supply and which the keenest modern philosophers so far do not upon the whole and for our purposes this man's name certainly belongs on the list with the just specified first-class moral physicians of our current era and with Emerson and two or three others though his prescription is drastic and perhaps destructive while these is assimilating normal and tonic feudal at the core and mental offspring and radiation of feudalism as are his books they afford ever valuable lessons and affinities to democratic America nations or individuals we surely learn deepest from unlikeness from a sincere opponent from the light throne even scornfully on dangerous spots and liabilities Michael Angelo invoked heaven's special protection against his friends and affectionate flatterers palpable foes he could manage for himself in many particulars Carlisle was indeed as proud terms him one of those far off hebraic utterers and new mica of Habakkuk his words at time bubble forth with abyssmic inspiration always precious such men as precious now at any time his rude rasping taunting contradictory tones what ones are more wanted amid the supple polished money worshiping Jesus and Judas equalizing suffrage sovereignty echoes of current America he has lit up our 19th century with the light of a powerful penetrating and perfectly honest intellect of the first class turned on british and european politics social life literature and represent personages thoroughly dissatisfied with all and mercilessly exposing the illness of all but while he announces the milady and scolds and raves about it he himself born and bred in the same atmosphere is a marked illustration of it notes 13 it will be difficult for the future judging by his books personal disabilities etc to account for the deep hold this author has taken on the present age and the way he has colored its methods and thought i am certainly at a loss to account for it all as affecting myself but there could be no view or even partial picture of the middle and latter part of our 19th century that did not markedly include Thomas Carlisle in his case as so many others literary productions works of art personal identities events there has been an impeccable something more effective than the palpable then i find no better text it is always important to have a definite special even oppositional living man to start from for sending out certain speculations and comparisons per home use let us see what they are now to those reactionary doctrines fears scornful analysis of democracy even from the most erudite and sincere mind of europe 14 not the least mentionable part of the case a streak it may be of that humor with which history and fate loved to contrast their gravity is that although neither of my great authorities during their lives considered the united states worthy of serious mention all the principle works of both might not inappropriately be this day collected and bound up under the conspicuous title speculations for the use of north america and democracy there with the relations of the same to metaphysics including lessons and warnings encouragements to and of the fastest from the old world to the new 15 i hope i shall not myself fall into the error i charge upon him or prescribing of specific for indispensable evils my utmost pretension is probably but to offset that old claim of the exclusively curated power of first-class individual men as leaders and rulers by the claims and general movement and result of ideas something of the latter kind seems to me the distinctive theory of america of democracy and of the modern or rather i should say it is democracy and is the modern 16 i am much indebted to jay gostick's abstract 17 i have deliberately repeated at all not only in offset to carlyle's ever lurking pessimism and will decadence but as presenting the most thoroughly american points of view i know in my opinion the above formulas of heckle are an essential and crowning justification of new-world democracy in the created realms of time and space there is that about them which only the vastness the multiplicity and the vitality of america would seem able to comprehend to give scope and illustration to or to be fit for or even originate it is strange to me that they were born in germany or in the old world at all while a carlyle i should say is quite the legitimate european product to be expected a couple of old friends a coal ridge bit later april have run down in my country haunt for a couple of days and am spending them by the pond i had already discovered my kingfisher here but only one the mate not here yet this fine bright morning down by the creek he has come out for a spree circling flirting chirping at a round rate while i am writing these lines he is distorting himself in scoots and rings over the wider parts of the pond into whose surface he dashes once or twice making a loud south the spray flying in the sun beautiful i see his white and dark grey plumage and peculiar shape plainly as he has deigned to come very near me the noble graceful bird now he is sitting on the limb of an old tree high up bending over the water seems to be looking at me while i memorandize i almost fancy he knows me three days later my second kingfisher is here with his or her mate i saw the two together flying and whirling around i had heard in the distance what i thought was the clear raspings to kato of the birds several times already but i couldn't be sure the notes came from both until i saw them together today at noon they appeared but apparently either on business or for a little limited exercise only no wild frolic now full of free fun and motion up and down for an hour doubtless now they have cares duties incubation responsibilities the frolics are deferred till summer close i don't know as i can finish today's memorandum better than with collages lines curiously appropriate in more ways than one all nature seems at work slugs leave their lair the bees are stirring birds are on the wing and winter slumbering in the open air wears on his smiling face a dream of spring an eye the while the soul unvisiting nor honey make nor pair nor build nor sing a week's visit to boston may 1 81 seems as if all the ways and means of american travel today had been settled not only with reference to speed and directness but for the comfort of women children invalids and old fellows like me i went on by a through train that runs daily from washington to the yankee metropolis you get in a sleeping car soon after dark in philadelphia and after ruminating an hour or two have your bed made up if you like draw the curtains and go to sleep in it fly on through jersey to new york here in your half slumbers a dull jolting and bumping sound or two are unconsciously tottered from jersey city by midnight steamer around the battery and under the big bridge to the track of the new haven road resume your flight eastwood and early the next morning you wake up in boston all of which was my experience i wanted to go to the revere house a tall unknown gentleman a fellow passenger on his way to newport he told me i had just chatted a few moments before with him assisted me out through the depot crowd perfcured a hack put me in with my traveling bag saying smilingly and quietly now i want you to let this be my ride paid the driver and before i could remonstrate bowed himself off the occasion was my jaunt i suppose i had better say here was for a public reading at the death of abraham Lincoln essay on the 16th anniversary of that tragedy which reading duly came up night of april 15 then i lingered a week in boston felt pretty well the mood propitious went around everywhere and saw all that was to be seen especially human beings boston's immense material growth commerce finance commission stores the plethora of goods the crowded streets and sidewalks made of course the first surprising show in my trip out west last year i thought the wand of future prosperity future empire must soon surely be wielded by st louis chicago beautiful denver perhaps san francisco but i see the said wand stretched out just as decidedly in boston with just as much certainty of staying evidences of copious capital indeed no center of the new world ahead of it half the big railroads in the west are built with yankee's money and they take the dividends old boston with its zigzag streets and multitudinous angles crush up a sheet of letter paper in your hand throw it down stamp it flat and that is a map of old boston new boston with its miles upon miles of large and costly houses beacon street commonwealth avenue and a hundred others but the best new departures and expansions of boston and of all the cities of new england are in another direction the boston of today in the letters we get from dr schleiman interesting but fishy about his excavations there in the far off homerick area i notice cities ruins etc as he digs them out of their graves are certain to be in layers that is to say upon the foundation of an old concern very far down indeed is always another city or set of ruins and upon that another super added and sometimes upon that still another each representing either a long or rapid stage of growth and development different from its predecessor but unearly growing out of and resting on it in the moral emotional heroic and human growths the main of a race in my opinion something of this kind has certainly taken place in boston the new england metropolis of today may be described as sunny there is something else that makes warmth mastering even winds and meteorologies though those are not to be sneezed at joyous receptive full of ardor sparkle a certain element of yearning magnificently tolerant yet not to be filled fond of good eating and drinking costly in costume as its purse can buy and all through its best average of houses streets people that subtle something generally thought to be climate but it is not it is something indefinable in the race the turn of its development which effuses behind the will of animation study business a happy and joyous public spirit as distinguished from a sluggish and satanine one makes me think of the glints we get as in simons books of the jolly old greek cities indeed there is a good deal of helenic in being and the people are getting handsomer too padded out and free motions and with color in their faces i never saw although this is not greek so many fine-looking grey-haired women at my lecture i caught myself pausing more than once to look at them plentiful everywhere through the audience healthy and mildly and bubbly and wonderfully charming and beautiful i think such is no time or land that ours could show my tribute to four poets april 16 a short but pleasant visit to longfellow i am not one of the calling kind but as the author of evangeline kindly took the trouble to come and see me three years ago in camden where i was ill i felt not only the impulse of my own pleasure on that occasion but a duty he was the only particular eminence i called on in boston and i shall not soon forget his lit up face and glowing warmth and courtesy in the modes of what is called the old school and now just here i feel the impulse to impolite something about the mighty four who stabbed this first american century with its birthmarks of poetic literature in a late magazine one of my reviewers who ought to know better speaks of my attitude of contempt and scorn and intolerance toward the leading poets of my deriding them and preaching their uselessness if anybody cares to know what i think and have long thought and avowed about them i am entirely willing to profound i can't imagine any better luck befalling these states for a poetical beginning an initiation than has come from emison longfella bryant and wittier emison to me stands unmistakably at the head but for the others i am at a loss where to give any precedents each illustrious each rounded each distinctive emison three sweet vital tasting melody rhymed philosophy and poems as amber clear as the honey of the wild bee he loves to sing longfella for rich color graceful forms and incidents all that makes life beautiful and love refined competing with the singers of europe on their own ground and with one exception better and finer work than that of any of them bryant pulsing the first interior first throbs of a mighty world barred of the river and the wood ever conveying a taste of open air with scents as from hayfields grapes birch borders always lookingly fond of trinodes beginning and ending his long career with chance of death with here and there through all poems or passages of poems touching the highest universal truths enthousiasms duties murals as grim and internal if not as stormy and fateful as anything inertial while in wittier with his special themes his outcropping love of heroism and war for all his quakerdom his verses at times like the measured step of cromwell's old veterans in wittier lives the zeal the moral energy that founded new england the splendid rectitude an idol of luther milton george fox i must not dare not say the wilfulness and narrowness though doubtless the will needs now and always will need almost above all just such narrowness and wilfulness millard's pictures last items april 18 went out three or four miles to the house of quincey shore to see a collection of jf millard's pictures two wrapped ours never before have i been so penetrated by this kind of expression i've still long and long before the sour i believe what the picture men designate the first sour as the artist executed a second copy and a third and something improved in each but i doubt it there is something in this that could hardly be caught again a sublime mercanness an original pen fury besides this masterpiece there were many others i shall never forget the simple evening scene watering the cow all inimitable all perfect as pictures works of mere art and then it seemed to me with the last impelpable epic purpose from the artist most likely unconscious to himself which i am always looking for to me all of them told the full story of what went before and necessitated the great french revolution the long president crushing of the masses of the heroic people into the earth in abject poverty hunger humanity attempted to be put back for generations yet nature's force titanic here the stronger and hardier for that repression waiting terribly to break forth revengeful the pressures on the dikes and the bursting at last the storming of the base steel the execution of the king and queen the tempest of massacres and blood yet who can wonder could we wish humanity different could we wish the people made of wood or stone or that there be no justice in destiny or time the true france base of all the rest is certainly in these pictures i comprehend few people reposing the diggers and the angeles in this opinion some folks always think of the french as a small race five or five and a half feet high and ever frivolous and smoking nothing of the sort the bulk of the personnel of france before the revolution was large sized serious industrious as now and simple the revolution and napoleon's wars dwarfed the standard of human size but it will come up again if for nothing else i should dwell on my brief boston visit the opening to me the new world of millard's pictures will america ever have such an artist out of her own gestation body soul sunday april 17 an hour and a half late this afternoon in silence and half light in the great nave of memorial hall cambridge the walls thickly covered with mural tablets bearing the names of students and graduates of the university who fell in the succession war april 23 it was well i got away in fair order for if i had stayed another week i should have been killed with kindness and with eating and drinking end of section 17 chapter 18 of specimen days this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org recording by david jackway specimen days by walt whitman chapter 18 birds and the caution may 14 home again down temporarily in the jersey woods between eight and nine a.m a full concert of birds from different quarters in keeping with the fresh scent the peace the naturalness all around me i am lately noticing the russet back size of the robin or a trifle less light breast and shoulders with irregular dark stripes tail long sits hunched up by the hour these days top of a tall bush or some tree singing blithely i often get near and listen as he seems tame i like to watch the working of his bill and throat the quaint saddle of his body and the flex of his long tail i hear the woodpecker and night and early morning the shuttle of the whipper will noons the gurgle of the thrush delicious and meow of the cat bird many i cannot name but i do not very particularly seek information you must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft a certain free margin and even vagueness perhaps ignorance credulity helps your enjoyment of these things and of the sentiment of feathered wooded river or marine nature generally i repeat it don't want to know too exactly or the reasons why my own notes have been written off hand in the latitude of middle new jersey though they describe what i saw what appeared to me i daresay the expert ornithologist botanist or entomologist will detect more than one slip in them samples of my commonplace book i ought not to offer a record of these days interests recuperations without including a certain old well-thumbed commonplace book filled with favored excerpts i carried in my pocket for three summers and absorbed over and over again when the mood invited i find so much in having a poem or fine suggestions sink into me a little then goes of great ways prepared by these vacant sane and natural influences note samples of my commonplace book down at the creek i have says old pender many swift arrows in my quiver which speak to the wise though they need an interpreter to the thoughtless such a man as it takes ages to make and ages to understand hd throw if you hate a man don't kill him but let him live buddhist famous swords are made of refuse scraps thought worthless poetry is the only verity the expression of a sound mind speaking after the ideal and not after the apparent emerson the form of oath among the shoshone indians is the earth hears me the sun hears me shall i lie the true test of civilization is not the census nor the size of cities nor the crops no but the kind of man the country turns out emerson the whole wide ethers the eagles sway the whole earth is a brave man's fatherland euripides spices crushed their pungents yield trodden sense their sweets respire would you have its strength revealed cast the incense in the fire matthew arnold speaks of quote the huge mississippi of falsehood called history unquote the wind blows north the wind blows south the wind blows east and west no matter how the free wind blows some ship will find it best preach not to others what they should eat but eat as becomes you and be silent epictetus victor hugo makes a donkey meditate and apostrophize thus my brother man if you would know the truth we both are by the same dull walls shut in the gate is massive in the dungeon strong but you look through the keyhole out beyond and call this knowledge yet have not at hand the key wherein to turn the fatal lock william cullen bryant surprised me once relates a writer in a new york paper by saying that prose was the natural language of composition and he wondered how anybody came to write poetry farewell i did not know thy worth but thou art gone and now to his prized so angels walked unknown on earth but when they flew were recognized hood john burrows writing of the row says he improves with age in fact requires age to take off a little of his asperity and fully ripen him the world likes a good hater and refuse her almost as well as it likes a good lover and acceptor only it likes him farther off louise michel at the burial of blanqui 1881 blanqui drilled his body to subjection to his grand conscience and his noble passions and commencing as a young man broke with all that is siberidish in modern civilization without the power to sacrifice self great ideas will never bear fruit out of the leaping furnace flame a mass of molten silver came then beaten into pieces three went forth to meet its destiny the first crucifix was made within a soldier's knapsack laid the second was a locket fair where a mother kept her dead child's hair the third a bangle bright and warm around a faithless woman's arm a mighty pain to love it is and tis a pain that pain to miss but of all pain the greatest pain it is to love but love in vain marise f egan on de geren a pagan heart a christian soul had he he followed christ yet for dead pan he sighed till earth and heaven met within his breast as if theocritus in cissole had come upon the figure crucified and lost his gods in deep christ given rest and if i pray the only prayer that moves my lips for me is leave the mind that now i bear and give me liberty emily bronte i travel on not knowing i would not if i might i would rather walk with god in the dark than go alone in the light i would rather walk with him by faith than pick my way by sight end of note my native sand and salt once more july 25 81 far rock away long island a good day here on a jaunt amid the sand and salt a steady breeze setting in from the sea the sun shining the sedge odor the noise of the surf a mixture of hissing and booming the milk white crust curling i had a leisurely bath and naked ramble as of old on the warm gray shore sands my companions off in an oat in deeper water i shouting to them jupiter's menaces against the gods from popes homer july 28 to long branch eight and a half a.m on the steamer plimoth rock foot of 23rd street new york for long branch another fine day fine sights the shores the shipping and bay everything comforting to the body and spirit of me i find the human and objective atmosphere of new york city and brooklyn more affiliative to me than any other an hour later still on the steamer now sniffing the salt very plainly the long pulsating swash as our boat steams seaword the hills of knave sink and many passing vessels the air the best part of all at long branch the bulk of the day stopped at a good hotel took all very leisurely had an excellent dinner and then drove for over two hours about the place especially ocean avenue the finest drive one can imagine seven or eight miles right along the beach in all directions costly villas palaces millionaires but few among them i opine like my friend george w child's whose personal integrity generosity unaffected simplicity go beyond all worldly wealth hot weather new york august in the big city a while even the height of the dog days there is a good deal of fun about new york if you only avoid fluster and take all the buoyant wholesomeness that offers more comfort too than most folks think middle-aged man with plenty of money in his pocket tells me that he has been off for a month to all the swell places has dispersed a small fortune has been hot and out of kilter everywhere and has returned home and lived in new york city the last two weeks quite contented and happy people forget when it is hot here it is generally hotter still in other places new york is so situated with a great ozonic brine on both sides it comprises the most favorable health chances in the world if only the suffocating crowding of some of its tenement houses could be broken up i find i never sufficiently realized how beautiful are the upper two-thirds of manhattan island i am stopping at mott haven and i've been familiar now for 10 days with a region above 100th street and along the harlem river in washington heights i'm dwelling a few days with my friends mr and mrs jhj and a merry house full of young ladies and putting the last touches on the printer's copy of my new volume of leaves of grass the completed book at last work at it two or three hours and then go down and loaf along the harlem river i've just had a good spell of this recreation the sun sufficiently veiled a soft south breeze the river full of small or large shells light taper boats darting up and down some singly now and then long ones with six or eight young fellows practicing very inspiring sights two fine yachts lie anchored off the shore i linger long enjoying the sundown the glow of the streaked sky the heights distances shadows august 10 as i haltingly ramble an hour or two this forenoon by the more secluded parts of the shore or sit under an old cedar halfway up the hill the city near in view many young parties gather to bathe or swim squads of boys generally twos or threes some larger ones along the sand bottom or off an old pier close by a peculiar and pretty carnival at its height a hundred lads or young men very democratic but all decent behaving the laughter voices calls re-responses the springing and diving of the bathers from the great string piece of the decayed pier where climbers stand long ranks of them naked rose colored with movements postures ahead of any sculpture to all this the sun so bright the dark green shadow of the hills the other side the amber rolling waves changing as the tide comes into a transparent tea color the frequent splash of the playful boys sowsing the glittering drops sparkling and the good western breeze blowing custer's last rally went today to see this just finished painting by john malvaney who has been out in far dakota on the spot at the forts and among the frontiersmen soldiers and indians for the last two years on purpose to sketch it in from reality or the best that could be god of it sat for over an hour before the picture completely absorbed in the first view a vast canvas i should say 20 or 22 feet by 12 all crowded and yet not crowded conveying such a vivid play of color it takes a little time to get used to it there are no tricks there is no throwing of shades and masses it is all at first painfully real overwhelming needs good nerves to look at it 40 or 50 figures perhaps more in full finish and detail in the midground with three times that number or more through the rest swarms upon swarms of savage sue in their war bonnets frantic mostly on ponies driving through the background through the smoke like a hurricane of demons a dozen of the figures are wonderful altogether a western autocratic phase of america the frontiers culminating typical deadly heroic to the other most nothing in the books like it nothing in homer nothing in shakespeare more grim and sublime than either all native all our own and all a fact a great lot of muscular tan-faced men brought to bay under terrible circumstances death ahold of them yet every man undaunted not one losing his head ringing out every scent of the pay before they sell their lives custer his haircut short stands in the middle with dilated eye and extended arm aiming a huge cavalry pistol captain cook is there partially wounded blood on the white handkerchief around his head aiming his carbine coolly half kneeling his body was afterwards found close by custers the slaughtered or half slaughtered horses for breastworks make a peculiar feature two dead indians hercules and lie on the foreground clutching their winchester rifles very characteristic the many soldiers their faces and attitudes the carbines the broad brimmed western hats the powder smoke and puffs the dying horses with their rolling eyes almost human in their agony the clouds of war bonneted sue in the background the figures of custer and cook with indeed the whole scene dreadful yet with an attraction and duty that will remain in my memory with all its color and fierce action a certain greek continents pervades it a sunny sky and clear light envelop all there is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of european war pictures the physiognomy of the work is realistic and western i only saw it for an hour or so but it needs to be seen many times needs to be studied over and over again i could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring it is very tonic to me then it has an ethic purpose below all as all great art must have the artist said the sending of the picture abroad probably to london had been talked of i advised him if it went abroad to take it to paris i think they might appreciate it there nay they certainly would then i would like to show mr crepeau that some things can be done in america as well as others some old acquaintances memories august 16 chaka big mark for today was one of the sayings of an old sportsman friend of mine when he had had unusually good luck come home thoroughly tired but with satisfactory results of fish or birds well today might warrant such a mark for me everything propitious from the start and ours fresh stimulation coming down 10 miles of manhattan island by railroad and eight o'clock stage then an excellent breakfast at faff's restaurant 24th street our host himself an old friend of mine quickly appeared on the scene to welcome me and bring up the news and first opening a big fat bottle of the best wine in the cellar talk about antebellum times 59 and 60 in the jovial suppers at his then broadway place near bleaker street ah the friends and names and frequenters those times that place most are dead a declare wilkins daisy shepherd o'brien henry clap stanley mullen wood brome arnold all gone and their faff and i sitting opposite each other at the little table gave a remembrance to them in a style they would have themselves fully confirmed namely big brimming filled up champagne glasses drained in abstracted silence very leisurely to the last drop faff is a generous german restaurateur silent stout jolly and i should say the best selector of champagne in america a discovery of old age perhaps the best is always cumulative one's eating and drinking one once fresh and for the nonce right off and have done with it but i would not give a straw for that person or poem or friend or city or work of art that was not more grateful the second time than the first and more still the third nay i do not believe any grandest eligibility ever comes forth at first in my own experience persons poems places characters i discover the best hardly ever at first no absolute rule about it however sometimes suddenly bursting forth or stealthily opening to me perhaps after years of unwitting familiarity unappreciation usage a visit at the last to rw emerson conquered massachusetts out here on a visit elastic mellow indian summery weather came today from boston the pleasant ride of 40 minutes by steam through summerville belmont waltham stony brook and other lively towns convoyed by my friend fb sandborn to his ample house and the kindness and hospitality of mrs and their fine family and writing this under the shade of some old hickories and elms just after four p.m. on the porch within a stone's throw of the conquered river off against me across stream on a meadow and side hill haymakers are gathering and wagging in probably their second or third crop the spread of emerald green and brown the nulls the score or two of little hay cocks dotting the meadow the loaded up wagons the patient horses the slow strong action of the men in pitchforks all in the just waning afternoon with patches of yellow sunsheen modeled by long shadows a cricket shrilly chirping herald of the dusk a boat with two figures noiselessly gliding along the little river passing under the stone bridge arch the slight settling haze of aerial moisture the sky and the peacefulness expanding in all directions and overhead fill and soothe me same evening never had i a better piece of luck before me along in blessed evening with emerson in a way i couldn't have wished better or different for nearly two hours he has been placidly sitting where i could see his face in the best light near me mrs s's back parlor well filled with people neighbors many fresh and charming faces women mostly young but some old my friend abe alcott and his daughter luisa were there early a good deal of talk the subject henry throw some new glints of his life and fortunes with letters to and from him one of the best by margaret fuller others by hoarse grilly chanting etc one from throw himself most quaint and interesting no doubt i seemed very stupid to the room full of company taking hardly any part in the conversation but i had my own pale to milk in as the swiss proverb puts it my seat in the relative arrangement were such that without being rude or anything of the kind i could just look squarely at emerson which i did a good part of the two hours on entering he had spoken very briefly and politely to several of the company then settled himself in his chair a trifle pushed back and though a listener and apparently an alert one remained silent through the whole talk and discussion a lady friend quietly took a seat next to him to give special attention a good color in his face eyes clear with a well known expression of sweetness and the old clear peering aspect quite the same next day several hours at emerson's house and dinner there an old familiar house he has been in at 35 years with surroundings furnishment roominess and plain elegance and fullness signifying democratic ease sufficient opulence and an admirable old-fashioned simplicity modern luxury with its mere sumptuousness and affectation either touched lightly upon or ignored all together dinner the same of course the best of the occasion sunday september 1881 was the site of emerson himself as just said a healthy color in the cheeks and a good light in the eyes cheery expression and just the amount of talking that best suited namely a word or short phrase only where needed and almost always with a smile besides emerson himself mrs emerson with their daughter ellen the son edward and his wife with my friend fs and mrs s and others relatives and intimates mrs emerson resuming the subject of the evening before i sat next to her gave me further and fuller information about the row who years ago during mr emerson's absence in europe had lived for some time in the family by invitation other conquered notations though the evening at mr and mrs sandborn's and the memorable family dinner at mr and mrs emerson's have most pleasantly and permanently filled my memory i must not slight other notations of conquered i went to the old mance walked through the ancient garden entered the rooms noted the quaintness the unkempt grass and bushes the little panes in the windows the low ceilings the spicy smell the creepers empowering the light went to the conquered battleground which is close by scan french's statue the minute man red emerson's poetic inscription on the base lingered a long while on the bridge and stopped by the grave of the unnamed british soldiers buried there the day after the fight in april 75 then writing on thanks to my friend mrs em and her spirited white ponies she driving them a half hour at hawthorns and therose graves i got out and went up of course on foot and stood a long while and pondered they lie close together in a pleasant wooded spot well up on the cemetery hill sleepy hollow the flat surface of the first was densely covered by myrtle with a border of arbor vita and the other had a brown headstone moderately elaborate with inscriptions by henry's side lies his brother john of whom much was expected but he died young then to walden pond that beautiful empowered sheet of water and spent over an hour there on the spot in the woods where throw had his solitary house is now quite a cairn of stones to mark the place i too carried one and deposited on the heap as we drove back saw the school of philosophy but it was shut up and i would not have it opened for me nearby stopped at the house of wt harris the hegelian who came out and we had a pleasant chat while i sat in the wagon i shall not soon forget those conquered drives and especially that charming sunday forenoon one with my friend miss m and the white ponies boston common more of emerson october 10 through 13 i spend a good deal of time on the common these delicious days and nights every midday from 1130 to about one and almost every sunset another hour i know all the big trees especially the old elms along tremont and beacon streets and have come to a sociable silent understanding with most of them in the sunlit air yet crispy cool enough as i saunter along the wide unpaved walks up and down this breadth by beacon street between these same old elms i walked for two hours of a bright sharp february midday 21 years ago with emerson then in his prime keen physically and morally magnetic armed at every point and when he chose wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual during those two hours he was the talker and i the listener it was an argument statement reconnoitering review attack and pressing home like an army corps in order artillery cavalry infantry of all that could be said against that part and a main part in the construction of my poems children of adam more precious than gold to me that desertion it afforded me ever after this strange and paradoxical lesson each point of emerson statement was unanswerable no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing i could never hear the points better put and then i felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all and pursue my own way what have you to say then to such things said emerson pausing in conclusion only that while i can't answer them at all i feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory and exemplify it was my candid response whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the american house and thence forward i never wavered or was touched with qualms as i confess i had been two or three times before an oceanic night dearest friends november 81 again back in camden as i crossed the Delaware in long trips tonight between nine and eleven the scene overhead is a peculiar one swift sheets of flitting vapor gauze followed by dense clouds throwing an inky pall on everything then a spell of that transparent steel gray black sky i have noticed under similar circumstances on which the moon would beam for a few moments with calm luster throwing down a broad dazzle of highway on the waters then the mists careering again all silently yet driven as if by the furies they sweep along sometimes quite thin sometimes thicker a real oceanic night amid the world absent or dead friends the old the past somehow tenderly suggested while the gale strains chant themselves from the mists be thy soul blessed o caril in the midst of thy eddying winds that thou wouldst come to my hall when i am alone by night and thou dost come my friend i hear often thy light hand on my harp when it hangs on the distant wall and the feeble sound touches my ear why dost thou not speak to me in my grief and tell me when i shall behold my friends but thou passest away in thy murmuring blast the wind whistles through the gray hairs of ocean but most of all those changes of moon and sheets of hurrying vapor and black clouds with a sense of rapid action in weird silence recall the far back airspelief that's such above with the preparations for receiving the wraiths of just slain warriors we sat that night in selma around the strength of the shell the wind was abroad in the oaks the spirit of the mountain roared the blast came rustling through the hall and gently touched my harp the sound was mournful and low like the song of the tomb fingull heard it first the crowded size of his bosom rose some of my heroes are low so the gray haired king of morvin i hear the sound of death on the harp ocean touched the trembling string bid the sorrow rise that their spirits may fly with joy to morvin's woody hills i touched the harp before the king the sound was mournful and low bend forward from your clouds i said ghosts of my father's bend lay by the red terror of your course receive the falling chief whether he comes from a distant land or rises from the rolling sea let his robe of mist be near his spear that is formed of a cloud place a half extinguished meteor by his side in the form of a hero's sword and oh let his countenance be lovely that his friends made the light in his presence bend from your clouds i said ghosts of my father's bend such was my song in selma to the lightly trembling harp how or why i know not just at the moment but i too muse and think of my best friends in their distant homes of william o'connor of marice buck of john burrows and of mrs. gilchrist friends of my soul stanchished friends of my other soul my poems only a new ferry boat january 12 82 such a show as the delaware presented an hour before sundown yesterday evening all along between philadelphia and camden is worth weaving into an item it was full tide a fair breeze from the southwest the water of a pale tawny color and just enough motion to make things frolicsome and lively add to these an approaching sunset of unusual splendor a broad tumble of clouds with much golden haze and profusion of beaming shaft and dazzle in the midst of all in the clear drab of the afternoon light they're steamed up the river the large new boat the winona as pretty an object as you could wish to see lightly and swiftly skimming along all trim and white covered with flags transparent red and blue streaming out in the breeze only a new ferry boat and yet in its fitness comparable with a prettiest product of nature's cunning and rivaling it high up in the transparent ether gracefully balanced and circled four or five great seahawks while here below amid the pomp and picturesqueness of sky and river swim this creation of artificial beauty in motion and power in its way no less perfect death of long fellow camden april 82 i have just returned from an old forest hunt where i love to go occasionally away from parlors pavements and the newspapers and magazines and where of a clear fornoon deep in the shade of pines and cedars and a tangle of old laurel trees and vines the news of long fellow's death first reached me for want of anything better let me lightly twine a sprig of this sweet ground ivy trailing so plentifully through the dead leaves at my feet with reflections of that half hour alone there in the silence and lay it as my contribution on the dead bard's grave long fellow in his voluminous works seems to me not only to be imminent in the style and forms of poetical expression that mark the present age an idiosyncrasy almost a sickness of verbal melody but to bring what is always dearest as poetry to the general human heart and taste and probably must be so in the nature of things he is certainly the sort of bard and counteractant most needed for a materialistic self-assertive money worshiping Anglo-Saxon races and especially for the present age in America an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufacturer the merchant the financier the politician and the day workman for whom and among whom he comes as the poet of melody courtesy deference poet of the mellow twilight of the past in idly germany spain and in northern europe poet of all sympathetic gentleness and universal poet of women and young people i should have to think long if i were asked to name the man who has done more and in more valuable directions for america i doubt if there ever was before such a fine intuitive judge and selector of poems his translations of many german and scandinavian pieces are said to be better than the vernaculars it is not urge or lash his influence is like good drink or air he is not tepid either but always vital with flavor motion grace he strikes a splendid average and does not sing exceptional passions or humanity's jagged escapades he is not revolutionary brings nothing offensive or new does not deal hard blows on the contrary his songs soothe and heal or if they excite it is a healthy and agreeable excitement his very anger is gentle is at second hand as in the quadruined girl and the witnesses there is no undue element of pensiveness in longfellow's trains even in the early translation the man reek the movement is as of strong and steady wind or tide holding up and boing death is not avoided through his many themes but there is something almost winning in his original verses and renderings on that dread subject as closing the happiest land dispute and then the landlord's daughter up to heaven raised her hand and said you may know more contend there lies the happiest land to the ungracious complaint charge of his want of racing nativity and special originality i shall only say that america and the world may well be reverently thankful can never be thankful enough for any such singing bird vouchsafed out of the centuries without asking that the notes be different from those of other songsters adding what i have heard long fellow himself say that air the new world can be worthily original and announce herself and her own heroes she must be well saturated with the originality of others and respectfully consider the heroes that lived before agamemnon end of chapter 18 chapter 19 of specimen days this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by rich mires specimen days by walt whitman chapter 19 starting newspapers reminiscences from the camden courier as i sat taking my evening sail across the delaware in the staunch ferry boat beaverly a night or two ago i was joined by two young reporter friends i have a message for you said one of them the sea folks told me to say they would like a piece signed by your name to go in their first number can you do it for them i guess so said i what might it be about well anything on newspapers or perhaps what you've done yourself starting them and off the boys went for we had reached the philadelphia side the hour was fine and mild the bright half moon shining venus with excess of splendor just setting in the west and the great scorpion rearing its length more than half up in the southeast as i crossed leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night scene my young friend's words brought up quite a string of reminiscences i commenced when i was but a boy of eleven or twelve writing sentimental bits for the old long island patriot in brooklyn this was about 1832 soon after i had a piece or two in george p morris's then celebrated and fashionable mirror of new york city i remember with what half suppressed excitement i used to watch for the big fat red faced slow moving very old english carrier who distributed the mirror in brooklyn and when i got one opening and cutting the leaves with trembling fingers how it made my heart double beat to see my piece on the pretty white paper in nice type my first real venture was the long islander in my own beautiful town of huntington in 1839 i was about 20 years old i had been teaching country school for two or three years in various parts of suffoke and queens counties but liked printing had been at it while a lad learned the trade of compositor and was encouraged to start a paper in the region where i was born i went to new york bought a press and types hired some little help but did most of the work myself including the press work everything seemed turning out well only my own restlessness prevented me gradually establishing a permanent property there i bought a good horse and every week went all around the country serving my papers devoting one day and night to it i never had happier jaunts going over to south side to babelone down the south road across to smith town and comac and back home the experiences of those jaunts the dear old-fashioned farmers and their wives the stops by the hayfields the hospitality nice dinners occasional evenings the girls the rides through the brush come up in my memory to this day i next went to the aurora daily in new york city a sort of freelance also wrote regularly for the tatler an evening paper with these and a little outside work i was occupied off and on until i went to edit the brooklyn eagle where for two years i had one of the pleasantest sits of my life a good owner good pay and easy work in hours the troubles in the democratic party broke forth about those times 1848 49 and i split off with the radicals which led to rows with the boss and the party and i lost my place being now out of a job i was offered impromptu it happened between the axe one night in the lobby of the old broadway theater near pearl street new york city a good chance to go down to new orleans on the staff of the crescent a daily to be started there with plenty of capital behind it one of the owners who was north buying material met me walking in the lobby and though that was our first acquaintance after 15 minutes talk and a drink we made a formal bargain and he paid me 200 down to bind the contract and bear my expenses to new orleans i started two days afterwards had a good leisurely time as the paper wasn't to be out in three weeks i enjoyed my journey in louis anna life much returning to brooklyn to year or two afterward i started the freemen first as a weekly then daily pretty soon the secession more broke out and i too got drawn in the current southward and spent the following three years there as memorandized preceding besides starting them as offer mentioned i have had to do one time or another during my life with a long list of papers at diverse places sometimes under queer circumstances during the war the hospitals at washington among other means of amusement printed a little sheet among themselves surrounded by wounds and death the armory square gazette to which i contributed the same long afterward casually to a paper i think it was called the gym placute out in colorado where i stopped at the time when i was in kebek province in canada in 1880 i went into the queerest little old french printing office near tatoo sack it was far more primitive and ancient than my camden friend william curts is placed up on federal street i remember as a youngster several characteristic old printers of a kind hard to be seen these days the great unrest of which we are part my thoughts went floating on vast and mystic currents as i sat today in solitude and half shade by the creek returning mainly to two principal centers one of my cherished themes for a never-achieved poem has been the two impetuses of man and the universe in the latter creation's incessant unrest exfoliation darwin's evolution i suppose indeed what is nature but change in all its visible and still more its invisible processes or what is humanity in its faith love heroism poetry even morals but emotion note fifty thousand years ago the constellation of the great bear or dipper was a starry cross a hundred thousand years hence the imaginary dipper will be upside down and the stars which form the bowl and handle will have changed places the misty nebulae are moving and besides are whirling around in great spirals some one way some another every molecule of matter in the whole universe is swinging to and fro every particle of ether which fills space is in jelly like a vibration light is one kind of motion heat another electricity another magnetism another sound another every human sense is the result of motion every perception every thought is but motion of the molecules of the brain translated by that incomprehensible thing we call mind the process is of growth of existence of decay whether in worlds or in the minutest organisms are but motion by emerson's grave may 6th 82 we stand by emerson's new made grave without sadness indeed a solemn joy and faith almost hotter our soul venison no mere warrior rest thy task is done for one beyond the warriors of the world lies surely symboled here a just man poised on himself all loving all enclosing and sane and clear as the sun nor does it seem so much emerson himself we are here to honor it is conscience simplicity culture humanities attributes at their best yet applicable if need be to average affairs and eligible to all so use are we to suppose a heroic death can only come from out of battle or storm or mighty personal contest or amid dramatic incidents or danger have we not been taught so for ages by all the plays and poems that few even of those who most sympathizingly mourn emerson's late departure will fully appreciate the ripened grandeur of that event with its play of calm and fitness like evening light on the sea how I shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when not long since I saw that benign and face the clear eyes the silently smiling mouth the form yet upright in its great age to the very last with so much spring and cheeriness and such an absence of decrepitude that even the term venerable hardly seemed fitting perhaps the life now rounded and completed in its mortal development and which nothing can change or harm more has its most illustrious halo not in its splendid intellectual or aesthetic products but as forming in its entirety one of the few alas how few perfect and flawless excuses for being of the entire literary class we can say as Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg it is not we who come to consecrate the dead we reverently come to receive if so it may be some consecration to ourselves and daily work from him at present writing personal a letter to a german friend extract may 31st 82 from today I enter upon my 64th year the paralysis that first affected me nearly 10 years ago has since remained with varying course seems to have settled quietly down and will probably continue I easily tire and very clumsy cannot walk far but my spirits are first rate I go around in public almost every day now and then take long trips by railroad or boat hundreds of miles live largely in the open air and sunburned and stout way 190 keep up my activity and interest in life people progress and the questions of the day about two-thirds of the time I am quite comfortable what mentality I ever had remains entirely unaffected though physically I am a half paralytic and likely to be so long as I live but the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplished I have the most devoted and ardent of friends and affectionate relatives and of enemies I really make no account after trying a certain book I tried to read a beautifully printed in scholarly volume on the theory of poetry received by mail this morning from England but gave it up at last for a bad job here are some capricious pencilings that followed as I find them in my notes in youth and maturity poems are charged with sunshine and varied pomp of day but as the soul more and more takes precedence the sensuous still included the dusk becomes the poet's atmosphere I too have sought and ever seek the brilliant sun and make my songs according but as I grow old the half lights of evening are far more to me the play of imagination with the sensuous objects of nature for symbols and faith with love and pride as the unseen impetus and moving power of all make up the curious chess game of a poem common teachers or critics are always asking what does it mean symphony of fine musician or sunset or sea waves rolling up the beach what do they mean undoubtedly in the most subtle elusive sense they mean something as love does and religion does and the best poem but who shall fathom and define those meanings I do not intend this as a warrant for wildness and frantic escapades but to justify the soul's frequent joy in what cannot be defined to the intellect part or to calculations at its best poetic lore is like what may be heard of conversation in the dusk from speakers far or hid of which we get only a few broken murmurs what is not gathered is far more perhaps the main thing grandest poetic passages are only to be taken at free removes as we sometimes look for stars at night not by gazing directly toward them but off one side to a poetic student and friend I only seek to put you in rapport your own brain heart evolution must not only understand the matter but largely supply it final confessions literary tests so draw near their end these garrulous notes there have doubtless occurred some repetitions technical errors in the consecutiveness of dates in the minutia of botanical astronomical and so on exactness and perhaps elsewhere for in gathering up writing peremptorily dispatching copy this hot weather last of july and through august 82 and delaying not the printers I have had to hurry along no time to spare but in the deepest veracity of all in reflections of objects scenes natures outpouring to my senses and receptivity as they seem to me in the work of giving those who care for it some authentic glints specimen days of my life and in the bonafide spirit and relations from author to reader on all the subjects designed and as far as they go I feel to make unmitigated claims the synopsis of my early life long island new york city and so forth and the diary jottings of the secession war tell their own story my plan in starting what constitutes most of the middle of the book was originally for hints and data of a nature poem that should carry one's experiences a few hours commencing at noon flush and so through the after part of the day I suppose led to such an idea by my own life afternoon now arrived but I soon found I could move at more ease by giving the narrative at first hand then there is a humiliating lesson one learns in serene hours of a fine day or night nature seems to look on all fixed up poetry and art as something almost impertinent thus I went on years following various seasons and areas spinning forth my thought beneath the night and stars or as I was confined to my room by half-sickness or at midday looking out upon the sea or far north steaming over the Saguenay's black breast jotting all down in the loosest sort of chronological order and here printing from my impromptu notes hardly even the seasons grouped together or anything corrected so afraid of dropping what smack of outdoors or sun or starlight might cling to the lines I dare not try to metal with or smooth them every now and then not often but for a foil I carried a book in my pocket or perhaps tore out from some broken or cheap addition a bunch of loose leaves most always had something of the sort ready but only took it out when the mood demanded in that way utterly out of reach of literary conventions I reread many authors I cannot divest my appetite of literature yet I find myself eventually trying it all by nature first premises many call it but really the crowning results of all laws tallies and proofs has it never occurred to anyone how the last deciding tests applicable to a book are entirely outside of technical and grammatical ones and that any truly first-class production has little or nothing to do with the rules and calibers of ordinary critics or the bloodless chalk of alabona's dictionary I have fancied the ocean and the daylight the mountain and the forests putting their spirit and a judgment on our books I have fancied some disembodied human soul giving its verdict nature and democracy morality democracy most of all affiliates with the open air is sunny and hearty and sane only with nature just as much as art is something is required to temper both to check them restrain them from excess morbidity I have wanted before departure to bear special testimony to a very old lesson in requisite American democracy in its myriad personalities in factories workshops stores offices through the dense streets and houses of cities and all their manifold sophisticated life must either be fibred vitalized by regular contact with outdoor light and air and gross farm scenes animals fields trees birds sun warmth and free skies or it will certainly dwindle and pale we cannot have grand races of mechanics work people and commonality the only specific purpose of America on any less terms I conceive of no flourishing and heroic elements of democracy in the united states or of democracy maintaining itself at all without the nature element forming a main part to be its health element and beauty element to really underlie the whole politics sanity religion and art of the new world finally the morality virtue said marcus aurelius what is it only a living and enthusiastic sympathy with nature perhaps indeed the efforts of the true poets founders religions literatures all ages have been and ever will be our time and times to come essentially the same to bring people back from their persistent strains and sickly abstractions to the costless average divine original concrete end of chapter 19 section 20 of specimen days this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne specimen days by Walt Whitman section 20 collect one or two index items though the ensuing collect and preceding specimen days are both largely from memoranda already existing the hurry parenterie needs a copy for the printers already referred to the musician's story of a composer up in a garret rushing the middle body and last of his school together while the figures are playing the first parts down in the concert room of this haste while quite willing to get the consequent stimulus of life and motion i am sure there must have resulted sundry technical errors if any are too glaring they will be corrected in a future edition a special word about pieces in early youth at the end on George's over Long Island as Boy and Young Fellow nearly half a century ago i heard of or came across in my own experience characters true occurrences incidents which i tried my printers hand at recording i was then quite an abolitionist an advocate of the temperance and anti-capital punishment causes and published during occasional visits to new york city a majority of the sketches appeared first in the democratic review others in the columbian magazine or the american review of that period my serious wish were to have all those crude and boyish pieces quietly dropped in oblivion but to avoid the annoyance of their surreptitious issue as lately announced from outsiders i have with some qualms tack them on here a do-face song came out first in the evening post blood Mary and wounded in the house of friends in the tribute poetry today in america etc first appeared under the name of the poetry of the future in the north american review for february 1881 a memorandum at adventure in same periodical sometime afterward several of the convalescent outdoor scenes and literary items preceding originally appeared in the fortnightly critic of new york end of specimen days i walked with me