7.55 P. M. W., sitting in his chair, against the light, dozing—his eyes closed. Aroused by my entrance he was at once cordial and inquisitive. Talked well. Looked well. "To-day has been much like yesterday: I have in fact been fortunate the past week in being blessed with tolerable relief." Seemed depressed though. "It is wearisome, almost sad, to be confined in this way, imprisoned, for days, months, years. Yet I have made up my mind to be cheerful: to sustain myself by what philosophy I can." Bucke says: "We doctors too often fail to take account of Walt's ancestry—the wonderful recuperative potentiality of his constitution." W. said: "It is encouraging to a fellow to hear that: it boosts him a little even if he knows better himself: I do not fail to take account of the arguments the Doctor has to present: but there 's more and more than that." Mrs. Coates said to me at the Club: "Walt Whitman is Olympian." W. laughed. "That has a new sound—is a new rôle for me." As to the too cheerful reports of those who visit him: "There is often a mistake about that: people come: I brighten up: they brighten me up: they go away thinking that 's the whole story: little do they know the underlying facts!" Arthur Stedman sent back the Linton cut. Also writes. I gave W. the Millet piece: he was glad to get it. "I should read it with special care, now that you

     "1. Both born and brought up near the sea which exerts a profound influence on the mode of thought and feeling of each.

     "2. M.'s books in youth the Bible and Virgil. W.'s Homer and Shakespeare.

     "3. Each born of country people and always stuck to these in preference to city and polished folk.

     "4. Each strangely affected by a wreck at sea or coast near home in childhood.

     "5. M. left country early: went to Paris. W. left country early: went to New York.

     "6. Sensier speaks of M.'s twelve years' apprenticeship in Paris. John Burroughs of W.'s twelve years of preparation in New York.

     "7. The time M.—Le Grand Rustique—revealed himself for the first time in 1850 (thirty-six years old—born 1814) in Le Sémeur—The Sower, which was hailed by at least one critic as a fine and original conception. The time W. came out, 1855 (thirty-six years old) first edition of L. of G. which was hailed by one critic (Emerson) as a fine and original conception.

     "8. The fate of both: constant neglect varied by fierce attacks, relieved by the passionate faith and friendship of a few.

     "9. This, then (the beauty, pathos and grandeur of labor and of the common laboring man) was M.'s (W.'s) discovery—this the message he had to give the world. Before this time the peasant had never been held a fit object for art.

     "10. 'Here is a man,' said Gautier, 'who finds poetry

     "11. They wish to drive me into their drawing-room art. No, no—a peasant I was born and a peasant I will die.

     W. referred to something Mrs. Coates had said to me about him. "Yes, I often think of it, especially of late days—how fortunate I have been in my friends: I doubt if any man has been more blessed: such advocates, comrades, men affiliated through thick and thin: O'Connor, Mrs. Gilchrist, Burroughs, Dowden, Symonds, Rossetti: and there have been and are others: Bucke, Tom, you: and now Kennedy, too." I said: "It sounds middle-agey with heroics." W. smiled: "So it does: it seems like romance." Bucke says: "If Walt had stayed away from the War he would have been good for ninety years." W. assented "Yes: but there 's more to the story: I never once have questioned the decision that led me into the War: whatever the years have brought—whatever sickness, whatnot—I have accepted the result as inevitable and right. This is very centre, circumference, umbillicus, of my whole career. You remember Homer—the divine horses: 'Now, Achilles, we 'll take you there, see you safely back again, but only on condition you will not do this thing again—act unwisely;

     We talked about what I called "manners and matters." Dress and substance. W. said: "We can't always get at a man immediately through externals. Years ago there was a man who came here to see me—a perfect Dundreary: came several times: his manners, his talk, the tone of his voice—they were sickish, nauseating"—here W. pressed his forefinger into his belly, indicating—: "he lived at Newport—was a man of some fame, power. Well, he was about the worst. But I learned by and by that back of all the pretence, affectation, sickishness, Dundrearyism, there were diamonds, pearls—gems of unquestionable richness: so that after all, so far as currents of the world's meanings were concerned, he knew as much, he got as close to essentials, as the rest of us." He quoted another instance—that of "an army man: the case of a colonel—a dandy: much criticised, talked over; everybody having a whack at him: an old fellow defended him: 'Here you growlers, let up: try this man in a battle: he 'll be as brave as the rest of you!' and I have no doubt he was." So W. counselled me in a fatherly way. "It is well to allow a liberal margin to the dudes, dandies, dawdlers: I know the probabilities