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Thursday, November
1, 1888.
7.45 P. M. W. lying on his bed—clothed. Remained recumbent during the time of my
stay, except when here and there, in the course of our animated talk, he half rose on his elbow
to give some emphasis to a remark. Complained of weariness. I asked him how he had spent the
day. "I am not as bad as I might be—not as good as I wish to
be." Last night after I left he took a trip down stairs again, alone. "I went silently, so as not to disturb Mary, but I realized my
exhaustion." I asked anxiously: "Why do you do that? Why don't you
listen to our warnings? Why don't you warn yourself?" He made no kick. I thought he would.
He said: "I'll never again attempt to make the trip
alone—never: I promise." He said to Mrs. Davis after this experiment: "I see I 'm far gone, Mary: I'll not be with you
long, Mary." He has been down on his bed a great part of the day. "I
feel weak—exhausted." He speaks less of a rally than he did. "I 'm down a certain distance and there I'll stay
till I slip farther down: I 'm not likely to slip up any more." Yet
he cheerfully goes his way. He asked me after our hellos were all over: "Did I tell you about yesterday's caller?"—and on my shaking my head: "Well—I intended to: it escaped me." W. went on tersely: " His name was Aldrich"—spelling it carefully: "He is just back from Europe: as I understand it, on his way home: stopped
in here: a likely man: we had quite a talk." Then
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he relapsed a
minute—all was quiet over on the bed: "He said he dined with
Rossetti—William Rossetti—while he was in England." I asked: "Did Rossetti send you any word like Tennyson?"
"Ah! no: Rossetti is not effusive: nor is Tennyson for that matter: but
Tennyson knew Herbert was coming over—would see me." He added: "But however that be, Rossetti is my friend: he has always borne me in
mind—stayed close: he has always done whatever seemed at the moment necessary to
demonstrate his loyalty." Aldrich, as W. had said before, had "dined
with Rossetti"—"met there once a Frenchman—I think a writer—who
said he had seen in one of the great French periodicals some big piece about
me—about Leaves of Grass." I asked: "Who was
that?—and who wrote the piece?" W. replying: "I don't know
either: I do not remember the name of the man Aldrich met: Aldrich did not remember the name
of the piece: but I will hear from Aldrich—he said he had memoranda on the subject
which he would look up for me." Here he described Aldrich himself. "He is gray, not large, active—a very likeable man—I suppose what they
would call in England a tufthunter"—asking me: "You know
what a tufthunter is?" and hardly waiting for my nodded assent before going on: "Though that is not peeping out, so far as I could see—not making
itself obtrusive." Then he added: "He is from Iowa—has
probably make money: is a man of affairs: I noticed that he had a little touch of local pride:
he told me of Des Moines—said they have there what he described as the best of the
Western capitols—capitol buildings: in one building a suite of rooms dedicated as a
public library in which Aldrich himself is a sort of king-pin."
I had met Hunter's daughter this evening on the boat and walked up the street with her, she
telling me about her father's sickness (he has been in bed for weeks) and alluding to his later
visits to W., which, she said, her father feared had worried W. I said to her: "Walt likes your father—I can assure you likes him to come.
There are
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times, of course, when he can see nobody, or, seeing
people, can do little talking, but when he is in good condition there are few people he would
rather see." W. said very heartily: "I 'm
glad you said what you did—mighty glad: glad you said it in that way, as if it came
from me." He asked: "So he thought I looked bored? I may have seemed
troubled: sometimes that can't be helped: I am not always well—never well in fact:
not altogether seeable: but Hunter is always cheery, hearty, interesting: has a story to tell
which I want to hear—would not miss—and all that." I read W. Bucke's
letter of the thirtieth to me, in which he said on the nurse question: "Still you say nothing definite about Wilkins. Meanwhile W. has written quite a strong letter
wanting him sent." W. interrupted me at this point: "Did he say
'strong' letter?"—then: "I don't think that—I
don't remember that"—yet confessing that he had written approvingly, much in the
temper of his talks on the same subject with me. He no doubt would welcome a change. Yet he
does not want to do anything, to say a word, which would seem like wanton criticism of
Musgrove. Musgrove is curt, rough, almost surly—creates a bad atmosphere for a sick
room. "He has done his best," said W., "but
don't quite understand that I 'm a peculiar critter mostly determined
to have my own way—not to be unnecessarily interfered with even here, even in my
incompetencies." Walt's mild, "I am not disinclined for a
change," helps us out of the puzzle. We have not given him any details of the fund which
puts the nurse in the house, but he knows of it in general, and in general defers to our notion
as to how it should be disposed of.
W. monologued on politics: started off on his own accord and went on for some time about the
situation. "I am troubled by the merely mercenary influences that seem to
be let loose in current legislation: the hog let loose: the grabber, the stealer, the arrogant
honorable so and so: but I still have my faith—in the end my faith prevails.
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It has been my ambition for America that she should permit, excite,
high ideals—enlarged views. Take the West case: what a disgrace we made of ourselves
out of it! I should have advised, urged,
say nothing
—don't
break the silence by a breath even. Why should n't we allow even
to the British minister or any minister or anybody, the largest liberty of opinion and
expression?—why not? Why not? Cleveland lost his head—should not have
given West his passports. They call it that—"giving him his passports." It was
unworthy of Cleveland—unworthy of all of us—was little instead of big: I
hate with my whole soul anything that smacks of truckling to our meaner, baser impulses, as
this act surely does. I watch the campaign interestedly, but without passion: it has its
meanings for me: but it scarcely sinks very deep or goes very high: as I wrote Dr. Bucke the
other day, I 'm in no danger of getting worried or excited over it: I
feel llike taking the advice of Epictetus to the youth who was bent upon seeing the Roman
games—don't get heated, don't fret over results, accept the facts as they appear:
wish but this—that the fellow who deserves to win will win: something in that
strain." I asked W.: "But suppose neither deserves to win?" He
laughed. "There you've got me: abstractly speaking, neither deserves to
win: neither Democrats nor Republicans."
"But sometimes though neither is good one is not as bad as the other:
is that your idea?"
"Yes—just that: though I don't get into a boil over it I keep
up a devil of a thinking in my corner—my silent thunderings. There are reasons why
Cleveland should win—good reasons: then there are reasons the opposite." He
shaded his eyes from the light with one hand and lifted himself on his elbow. "Personally I can see no point of view from which it appears desirable to
me to elect Harrison. To me the condemnation of Harrison is in his support—in the
fact that he is the candidate of all the toploftical conventionalisms of the
North—of all that is formal, sectional, schismatic—of all that is
commercially iniquitous,
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arrogant, macerating." He said he was
anti-Harrison quite apart from his free-trade antagonism. "That would be
enough, but there 's vastly more—vastly more: it is a
serious consideration to me—the buffet, the slap in the face, which Harrison's
election would be to the South: to me it is abhorrent, deplorable, to find all the States of
the North on one side, all the States of the South on the other. I know what our people say
about that: it 's their fault, our people say: but that don't say it
all—not by a long shot. Why is everybody more interested in boundary lines than in
unity?—in sects, parties, classes, hates, passions? What a humbug is our so-called
civilization if it can't lead us the way out of the jungle! Why North, South—why
even America—alone? I know the problem has its difficulties: it must be many years
before we heal that old sore." But he had "lived in the South,"
had "known the meanness of the Southern people" to the
full—"known also their strong points."
"I can hardly be accused of abasing my high ideals to the Southern
contagion: I was anti-slavery, always: the horror of slavery always had a strong hold on
me." Yet he "saw other things, too," and refused to "permit one fact to close all other facts out."
"I can never forget or deny that the acts of some of the Southern
officials, agents who went into rebellion, were as black, perfidious, forbidding, as any known
in history: yet these elements of treachery were exceptional: I regard them as exceptional:
after all I am an optimist, I suppose: I agree with Dr. Buck that man is better than he
was—is constantly growing better still: but there are passions in man to be fought
by man to extinction: in our own campaign, here, in America, this year now, there is on one
side a spirit of
section
which must be met and destroyed: I can never
condone it. As for free-trade—it is greatly to be desired, not because it is good
for America, but because it is good for the world. For Cleveland personally I have no great
admiration, though there are some things in him which I like: but the West
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matter, Cleveland's attitude, his official mock heroic indignation, is not
creditable to him—rather a blot on his record: a play made to the Paddy O'Reillys
and the McMullins."
I said: "Our officialism, most of it, is foreign: it is mainly
foreign." W. replied: "So it is: you have touched the nerve: but you
have to live in Washington for a time, as I did, to fully comprehend the length to which the
tradition is carried: I remember at least one occasion in point during my stay: the question
was brought up—the question of officialism, clothes, habit: the question whether a
minister should wear a sword, gilt buttons—clothes cut so and so—on
demand—to conform with social etiquettical dogmatisms. They all declared to me, in
Rome it behooved me to do as the Romans did: to make no demurrer—to take my chances
with the rule. I objected—took the ground that men should dress as befitted tastes,
habits, necessities, no matter for what the occasion: I did not believe in small clothes, and
so forth, and so forth, and so forth. You should have seen the imposing air with which I was
sat down on—with which I was assured that if one went to court he should accept the
court's dictum." But this was not invariable: "Even officals,
usually formal enough, sometimes recognized the tyrrany of the code: we know what happened to
Buchanan at the English court. Buchanan (was it from Marcy that he got the appointment under
Van Buren?) was a simple, quiet man in his manner: went to a reception—was barred
out because he was not formally attired: went home without a murmur. The Queen heard of what
had transpired—sent a messenger after Buchanan telling him the Queen would be glad
to receive him in any habit he himself elected to adopt: but Buchanan received the messenger
slippered in a dressing gown—said he would not go back, and so forth—which
seems to me to have been an admirably simple and effective rebuke: it enforces my
view—has the American
I am
in it—or what ought to
be the American
I am
. Sanford, in France, went through the same
experience, except
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that he was not barred out: the French court
more wisely, less stiffly, construed official right and wrong. But there was Franklin, too: he
set the teeth of the French court on edge: his wonderful exceptionalness from the ways of
other men—the daring liberties he took—allowed to him probably because of
his magnificent personal magnetism,"—"that quality least
of all to be defined, yet least to be left out of the qualities of men," as I put it and
as he endorsed it with accented warmth—"Amen! Amen! to the end
of the chapter!" When he said "good night" to me, I said back:
"It sounds so much better to say good night than bad night": to
which he replied: "Yes—bad nights don't seem so good as good
nights! We 'll only wish bad nights to them who hate!"
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