The Project Gutenberg EBook of Complete Prose Works, by Walt WhitmanCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloadingor redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do notchange or edit the header without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of thisfile. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can alsofind out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My FancyAuthor: Walt WhitmanRelease Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8813] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was firstposted on August 22, 2003]Edition: 10Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO Latin-1*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE PROSE WORKS ***Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Marc D'Hooghe and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team.COMPLETE PROSE WORKSSpecimen Days and Collect, ...
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Complete Prose Works, by Walt Whitman
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy
Author: Walt Whitman
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8813] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 22, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE PROSE WORKS ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Marc D'Hooghe and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
COMPLETE PROSE WORKS
Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Good Bye My Fancy By
WALT WHITMAN
CONTENTS
SPECIMEN DAYS
A Happy Hour's Command Answer to an Insisting Friend Genealogy—Van Velsor and Whitman The Old Whitman and Van Velsor Cemeteries The Maternal Homestead Two Old Family Interiors Paumanok, and my Life on it as Child and Young Man My First Reading—Lafayette Printing Office—Old Brooklyn Growth—Health—Work My Passion for Ferries Broadway Sights Omnibus Jaunts and Drivers Plays and Operas too Through Eight Years Sources of Character—Results—1860 Opening of the Secession War National Uprising and Volunteering Contemptuous Feeling Battle of Bull Run, July, 1861 The Stupor Passes—Something Else Begins Down at the Front After First Fredericksburg Back to Washington Fifty Hours Left Wounded on the Field Hospital Scenes and Persons Patent-Office Hospital The White House by Moonlight An Army Hospital Ward A Connecticut Case Two Brooklyn Boys A Secesh Brave The Wounded from Chancellorsville A Night Battle over a Week Since Unnamed Remains the Bravest Soldier Some Specimen Cases My Preparations for Visits Ambulance Processions Bad Wounds—the Young The Most Inspiriting of all War's Shows Battle of Gettysburg A Cavalry Camp A New York Soldier Home-Made Music Abraham Lincoln Heated Term Soldiers and Talks Death of a Wisconsin Officer Hospitals Ensemble A Silent Night Ramble Spiritual Characters among the Soldiers Cattle Droves about Washington Hospital Perplexity Down at the Front Paying the Bounties Rumors, Changes, Etc. Virginia Summer of 1864 A New Army Organization fit for America Death of a Hero Hospital Scenes—Incidents A Yankee Soldier Union Prisoners South Deserters
A Glimpse of War's Hell-Scenes Gifts—Money—Discrimination Items from My Note Books A Case from Second Bull Run Army Surgeons—Aid Deficiencies The Blue Everywhere A Model Hospital Boys in the Army Burial of a Lady Nurse Female Nurses for Soldiers Southern Escapees The Capitol by Gas-Light The Inauguration Attitude of Foreign Governments During the War The Weather—Does it Sympathize with These Times? Inauguration Ball Scene at the Capitol A Yankee Antique Wounds and Diseases Death of President Lincoln Sherman's Army Jubilation—its Sudden Stoppage No Good Portrait of Lincoln Releas'd Union Prisoners from South Death of a Pennsylvania Soldier The Armies Returning The Grand Review Western Soldiers A Soldier on Lincoln Two Brothers, one South, one North Some Sad Cases Yet Calhoun's Real Monument Hospitals Closing Typical Soldiers "Convulsiveness" Three Years Summ'd up The Million Dead, too, Summ'd up The Real War will never get in the Books An Interregnum Paragraph New Themes Enter'd Upon Entering a Long Farm-Lane To the Spring and Brook An Early Summer Reveille Birds Migrating at Midnight Bumble-Bees Cedar-Apples Summer Sights and Indolences Sundown Perfume—Quail-Notes—the Hermit Thrush A July Afternoon by the Pond Locusts and Katy-Dids The Lesson of a Tree Autumn Side-Bits The Sky—Days and Nights—Happiness Colors—A Contrast November 8, '76 Crows and Crows A Winter-Day on the Sea-Beach Sea-Shore Fancies In Memory of Thomas Paine A Two Hours' Ice-Sail Spring Overtures—Recreations One of the Human Kinks An Afternoon Scene The Gates Opening The Common Earth, the Soil Birds and Birds and Birds Full-Starr'd Nights Mulleins and Mulleins Distant Sounds A Sun-Bath—Nakedness
The Oaks and I A Quintette The First Frost—Mems Three Young Men's Deaths February Days A Meadow Lark Sundown Lights Thoughts Under an Oak—A Dream Clover and Hay Perfume An Unknown Bird Whistling Horse-Mint Three of Us Death of William Cullen Bryant Jaunt up the Hudson Happiness and Raspberries A Specimen Tramp Family Manhattan from the Bay Human and Heroic New York Hours for the Soul Straw-Color'd and other Psyches A Night Remembrance Wild Flowers A Civility Too Long Neglected Delaware River—Days and Nights Scenes on Ferry and River—Last Winter's Nights The First Spring Day on Chestnut Street Up the Hudson to Ulster County Days at J.B.'s—Turf Fires—Spring Songs Meeting a Hermit An Ulster County Waterfall Walter Dumont and his Medal Hudson River Sights Two City Areas Certain Hours Central Park Walks and Talks A Fine Afternoon, 4 to 6 Departing of the Big Steamers Two Hours on the Minnesota Mature Summer Days and Night Exposition Building—New City Hall—River-Trip Swallows on the River Begin a Long Jaunt West In the Sleeper Missouri State Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas The Prairies—(and an Undeliver'd Speech) On to Denver—A Frontier Incident An Hour on Kenosha Summit An Egotistical "Find" New Scenes—New Joys Steam-Power, Telegraphs, Etc. America's Back-Bone The Parks Art Features Denver Impressions I Turn South and then East Again Unfulfill'd Wants—the Arkansas River A Silent Little Follower—the Coreopsis The Prairies and Great Plains in Poetry The Spanish Peaks—Evening on the Plains America's Characteristic Landscape Earth's Most Important Stream Prairie Analogies—the Tree Question Mississippi Valley Literature An Interviewer's Item The Women of the West The Silent General President Hayes's Speeches St. Louis Memoranda
Nights on the Mississippi Upon our Own Land Edgar Poe's Significance Beethoven's Septette A Hint of Wild Nature Loafing in the Woods A Contralto Voice Seeing Niagara to Advantage Jaunting to Canada Sunday with the Insane Reminiscence of Elias Hicks Grand Native Growth A Zollverein between the U. S. and Canada The St. Lawrence Line The Savage Saguenay Capes Eternity and Trinity Chicoutimi, and Ha-ha Bay The Inhabitants—Good Living Cedar-Plums Like—Names Death of Thomas Carlyle Carlyle from American Points of View A Couple of Old Friends—A Coleridge Bit A Week's Visit to Boston The Boston of To-Day My Tribute to Four Poets Millet's Pictures—Last Items Birds—and a Caution Samples of my Common-Place Book My Native Sand and Salt Once More Hot Weather New York "Ouster's Last Rally" Some Old Acquaintances—Memories A Discovery of Old Age A Visit, at the Last, to R. W. Emerson Other Concord Notations Boston Common—More of Emerson An Ossianic Night—Dearest Friends Only a New Ferry Boat Death of Longfellow Starting Newspapers The Great Unrest of which We are Part By Emerson's Grave At Present Writing—Personal After Trying a Certain Book Final Confessions—Literary Tests Nature and Democracy—Morality
COLLECT
ONEOR TWO INDEX ITEMS
DEMOCRATIC VISTAS
ORIGINS OFATTEMPTED SECESSION
PREFACES TO "LEAVES OFGRASS"
Preface, 1855, to first issue of "Leaves of Grass" Preface, 1872, to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" Preface, 1876, to L. of G. and "Two Rivulets"
POETRYTO-DAYIN AMERICA—SHAKESPEARE—THEFUTURE
A MEMORANDUM AT A VENTURE
DEATH OFABRAHAM LINCOLN
TWO LETTERS
NOTES LEFT OVER
Nationality (and Yet) Emerson's Books (the Shadows of Them) Ventures, on an Old Theme British Literature Darwinism (then Furthermore) "Society" The Tramp and Strike Questions Democracy in the New World Foundation Stages—then Others General Suffrage, Elections, Etc. Who Gets the Plunder? Friendship (the Real Article) Lacks and Wants Yet Rulers Strictly Out of the Masses Monuments—the Past and Present Little or Nothing New After All A Lincoln Reminiscence Freedom Book-Classes-America's Literature Our Real Culmination An American Problem The Last Collective Compaction
PIECES IN EARLYYOUTH
Dough Face Song Death in the School-Room One Wicked Impulse The Last Loyalist Wild Frank's Return The Boy Lover The Child and the Profligate Lingave's Temptation Little Jane Dumb Kate Talk to an Art Union Blood-Money Wounded in the House of Friends Sailing the Mississippi at Midnight
NOVEMBER BOUGHS
OUR EMINENT VISITORS, Past, Present and Future
THEBIBLEAS POETRY
FATHER TAYLOR (AND ORATORY)
THESPANISH ELEMENT IN OUR NATIONALITY
WHAT LURKS BEHIND SHAKSPERE'S HISTORICAL PLAYS?
A THOUGHT ON SHAKSPERE
ROBERT BURNS AS POET AND PERSON
A WORD ABOUT TENNYSON
SLANGIN AMERICA
AN INDIAN BUREAU REMINISCENCE
SOMEDIARYNOTES AT RANDOM
Negro Slaves in New York Canada Nights Country Days and Nights Central Park Notes Plate Glass Notes
SOMEWAR MEMORANDA
Washington Street Scenes The 195th Pennsylvania Left-hand Writing by Soldiers Central Virginia in '64 Paying the First Color'd Troops
FIVETHOUSAND POEMS
THEOLD BOWERY
NOTES TO LATEENGLISH BOOKS
Preface to Reader in British Islands Additional Note, 1887 Preface to English Edition "Democratic Vistas"
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
NEW ORLEANS IN 1848
SMALL MEMORANDA
Attorney General's Office, 1865 A Glint Inside of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet Appointments Note to a Friend Written Impromptu in an Album The Place Gratitude fills in a Fine Character
LAST OFTHEWAR CASES
ELIAS HICKS, Notes (such as they are)
George Fox and Shakspere
GOOD-BYEMYFANCY
AN OLD MAN'S REJOINDER
OLD POETS
Ship Ahoy For Queen Victoria's Birthday
AMERICAN NATIONAL LITERATURE
GATHERINGTHECORN
A DEATH BOUQUET
SOMELAGGARDS YET
The Perfect Human Voice Shakspere for America "Unassailed Renown" Inscription for a Little Book on Giordano Bruno Splinters Health (Old Style) Gay-heartedness As in a Swoon L. of G. After the Argument For Us Two, Reader Dear
MEMORANDA
A World's Show New York—the Bay—the Old Name A Sick Spell
To be Present Only "Intestinal Agitation" "Walt Whitman's Last 'Public'" Ingersoll's Speech Feeling Fairly Old Brooklyn Days Two Questions Preface to a Volume An Engineer's Obituary Old Actors, Singers, Shows, Etc., in New York Some Personal and Old Age Jottings Out in the Open Again America's Bulk Average Last Saved Items
WALT WHITMAN'S LAST
SPECIMEN DAYS
A HAPPY HOUR'S COMMAND
Down in the Woods, July 2d, 1gg2.-If I do it at all I must delay no longer. Incongruous and full of skips and jumps as is that huddle of diary-jottings, war-memoranda of 1862-'65, Nature-notes of 1877-'81, with Western and Canadian observations afterwards, all bundled up and tied by a big string, the resolution and indeed mandate comes to me this day, this hour,—(and what a day! What an hour just passing! the luxury of riant grass and blowing breeze, with all the shows of sun and sky and perfect temperature, never before so filling me, body and soul),—to go home, untie the bundle, reel out diary-scraps and memoranda, just as they are, large or small, one after another, into print-pages,[1] and let the melange's lackings and wants of connection take care of themselves. It will illustrate one phase of humanity anyhow; how few of life's days and hours (and they not by relative value or proportion, but by chance) are ever noted. Probably another point, too, how we give long preparations for some object, planning and delving and fashioning, and then, when the actual hour for doing arrives, find ourselves still quite unprepared, and tumble the thing together, letting hurry and crudeness tell the story better than fine work. At any rate I obey my happy hour's command, which seems curiously imperative. May be, if I don't do anything else, I shall send out the most wayward, spontaneous, fragmentary book ever printed.
Note: [1] The pages from 1 to 15 are nearly verbatim an off-hand letter of mine in January, 1882, to an insisting friend. Following, I give some gloomy experiences. The war of attempted secession has, of course, been the distinguishing event of my time. I commenced at the close of 1862, and continued steadily through '63, '64 and '65, to visit the sick and wounded of the army, both on the field and in the hospitals in and around Washington city. From the first I kept little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted, &c. In these, I brief'd cases, persons, sights, occurrences in camp, by the bed-side, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Some were scratch'd down from narratives I heard and itemized while watching, or waiting, or tending somebody amid those scenes. I have dozens of such little note-books left, forming a special history of those years, for myself alone, full of associations never to be possibly said or sung. I wish I could convey to the reader the associations that attach to these soil'd and creas'd livraisons, each composed of a sheet or two of paper, folded small to carry in the pocket, and fasten'd with a pin. I leave them just as I threw them by after the war, blotch'd here and there with more than one blood-stain, hurriedly written, sometimes at the clinique, not seldom amid the excitement of uncertainty, or defeat, or of action, or getting ready for it, or a march. Most of the pages from 20 to 75 are verbatim copies of those lurid and blood-smuch'd little notebooks.
Very different are most of the memoranda that follow. Some time after the war ended I had a paralytic stroke, which prostrated me for several years. In 1876 I began to get over the worst of it. From this date, portions of several seasons, especially summers, I spent at a secluded haunt down in Camden county, New Jersey—Timber creek, quite a little river (it enters from the great Delaware, twelve miles away)—with primitive solitudes, winding stream, recluse and woody banks, sweet-feeding springs, and all the charms that birds, grass, wild-flowers, rabbits and squirrels, old oaks, walnut trees, &c., can bring. Through these times, and on these spots, the diary from page 76 onward was mostly written.
The COLLECT afterwards gathers up the odds and ends of whatever pieces I can now lay hands on, written at various times past, and swoops all together like fish in a net.
I suppose I publish and leave the whole gathering, first, from that eternal tendency to perpetuate and preserve which is behind all Nature, authors included; second, to symbolize two or three specimen interiors, personal and other, out of the myriads of my time, the middle range of the Nineteenth century in the New World; a strange, unloosen'd, wondrous time. But the book is probably without any definite purpose that can be told in a statement.
ANSWER TO AN INSISTING FRIEND
You ask for items, details of my early life—of genealogy and parentage, particularly of the women of my ancestry, and of its far-back Netherlands stock on the maternal side—of the region where I was born and raised, and my mother and father before me, and theirs before them—with a word about Brooklyn and New York cities, the times I lived there as lad and young man. You say you want to get at these details mainly as the go-befores and embryons of "Leaves of Grass." Very good; you shall have at least some specimens of them all. I have often thought of the meaning of such things—that one can only encompass and complete matters of that kind by 'exploring behind, perhaps very far behind, themselves directly, and so into their genesis, antecedents, and cumulative stages. Then as luck would have it, I lately whiled away the tedium of a week's half-sickness and confinement, by collating these very items for another (yet unfulfilled, probably abandon'd,) purpose; and if you will be satisfied with them, authentic in date-occurrence and fact simply, and told my own way, garrulous-like, here they are. I shall not hesitate to make extracts, for I catch at anything to save labor; but those will be the best versions of what I want to convey.
GENEALOGY—VAN VELSOR AND WHITMAN
The later years of the last century found the Van Velsor family, my mother's side, living on their own farm at Cold Spring, Long Island, New York State, near the eastern edge of Queen's county, about a mile from the harbor.[2] My father's side —probably the fifth generation from the first English arrivals in New England—were at the same time farmers on their