American Men of Mind

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Whitman was by birth and training a man of the people. His father was a carpenter, and, after receiving a common-school education, the boy entered a printer's office at the age of thirteen. A printer's office is, in itself, a source of education, and Whitman soon began to write for the papers, finally going to New York City, where, for twelve years, he worked on Newspaper Row, as reporter or compositor, making friends with all sorts and conditions of men and entering heart and soul into the busy life of the great city. The people, the seething masses on the streets, had a compelling fascination for him.

Tiring of New York, at last, he started on a tramp trip to the southwest, worked in New Orleans and other towns, swung around through the northwest, and so back to Brooklyn, where he became, strangely enough, a contractor—a builder and seller of houses. He had been reading a great deal, all these years, but as yet had given no indication of what was to be his literary life-work.

And yet, fermenting inside the man and at last demanding expression, was a strange new philosophy of democracy, all-tolerant, holding the individual to be of the first importance, male and female equal, the body to be revered no less than the soul. For the promulgation of this philosophy, some worthy literary form was needed—poetry, since that was the noblest form, but poetry stripped of conventions and stock phrases, as "fluent and free as the people and the land and the great system of democracy which it was to celebrate." With some such idea as this, not outlined in words, nor, perhaps, very clearly understood even by himself, Whitman set to work, and the result was the now famous "Leaves of Grass," a collection of twelve poems, printed by the author in Brooklyn in 1855.

Like most other philosophies and prophecies, it fell on heedless ears. Few people read it, and those who did were exasperated by its far-fetched diction or scandalized by its free treatment of delicate topics. In the next year, a second edition appeared, containing thirty-two poems; but the book had practically no sale.

Then came the Civil War, and Whitman, volunteering not for the field, but for work in the hospitals, proved that the doctrine of brotherly love, so basic to his poems, was basic also to his character. "Not till the sun excludes you, neither will I exclude you," he had declared; and now he devoted himself to nursing, on battlefield, in camp and hospital, doing what he could to cheer and lighten the worst side of war, an attractive and inspiring figure.

Lincoln, looking out of a window of the White House, saw him go past one day; a majestic person with snow-white beard and hair, his cotton shirt open at the throat, six feet tall and perfectly proportioned; and the President, without knowing who he was, but mistaking him probably for a common laborer, turned to a friend who stood beside him and remarked, "There goes a man!" And Whitman was a man. Up to that time, he had never been ill a day; but two years later, at the age of fifty-three, his health gave way, under the strain of nursing, and from that time until his death he was, physically, "a man in ruins." Mentally, he was as alert and virile as ever.

He was given a clerical position in one of the departments at Washington after that, remaining there until, in 1873, an attack of paralysis incapacitated him even for clerical labor. Meanwhile he had issued his poems of the war, under the title "Drum-Taps," and had softened some hostile hearts by the two noble tributes to Lincoln there included, "O Captain, my Captain!" and "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." But his poetry brought him no income and, for a time, after his removal to Camden, New Jersey, where the remainder of his life was to be passed, he was in absolute want. Friends increased, however; his poems were re-issued, and his last years were spent in the midst of a circle of disciples, who hailed Whitman as a seer and prophet and were guilty of other fatuities which made the judicious grieve and did much to keep them alienated from the poet's work.

Since his death, his fame has become established on a firmer basis than hysterical adulation; but it is yet too soon to attempt to judge him, to say what his ultimate rank will be. It seems probable that it will be a high one, and it is possible that, centuries hence, the historian of American letters will start with Whitman as the first exponent of an original and democratic literature, disregarding all that has gone before as merely imitative of Europe.

Of our lesser poets, only a few need be mentioned here. Bayard Taylor, born in Pennsylvania in 1825, of Quaker stock and reared in the tenets of that sect, at one time loomed large in American letters, but it is doubtful whether anything of his has the quality of permanency. His personality was a picturesque and fascinating one and his life interesting and romantic.

A poor boy, burning with the itch to write and especially to travel; at the age of nineteen making his way to England, and from there to Germany; spending two years in Europe, enduring hardships, living with the common people; and finally returning home to find that his letters to the newspapers had been read with interest and had won a considerable audience—these were the first steps in his struggle for recognition. He collected his letters into a book called "Views Afoot," which at once became widely popular, and his reputation was made.