Having spent the summer months in solitude in the country,[198] Whitman decided upon a somewhat questionable method of advertisement: he contributed unsigned notices of his book to the Brooklyn Times,[199] with which he appears to have been connected,[200] and to a phrenological sheet issued by Fowler and Wells, his agents on Broadway. He fortified himself[201] for his task by observing that Leigh Hunt had written for the Press upon his own work, and even claimed the high example of Dante.
These articles, whose anonymity seems to infringe on the impartiality of the Press, and to be in some sense a breach of journalistic honour, are not a little astonishing. That in the phrenological journal may, perhaps, be dismissed as a mere publishers’ circular or puff, contributed, as such things frequently are, by the writer. As to the other, Whitman was for a while the editor of the Brooklyn Times, and may have written on himself while serving in this capacity, or perhaps at the request of the actual editor, doubtless his personal friend. Or, again, if we would excuse, or rather explain, his action, we may regard the reviews as his own attempt to look impersonally at his work.
Whatever we may think of the moral aspect of the notices, or however we may account for them, they have considerable interest as further expositions of his purpose, re-inforcing the Preface after an interval of meditation. As such, and as a corrective of popular misapprehensions, he doubtless intended them. In these pages he lays special emphasis on the American character of his work. He notes his studied avoidance of all foreign similes and classical allusions. He compares himself with Tennyson and other poets, only to declare that he is alone in understanding the new poetry, which will not aim at external completeness and finish, but at infinite suggestion; which will be an infallible and unforgettable hint—a living seed, not merely of thought, but of that emotional force which is of the Soul and alone can mould personality.
FOOTNOTES:
[168] This is given in full in O. L. Trigg’s Selections; parts only, in Comp. Prose, 256.
[169] Comp. Prose, 261.
[170] L. of G., 29.
[171] L. of G., 54.
[172] Ib., 59.
[173] L. of G., 55.