Monday, November 26, 1888

     7.50 P. M. W. relieved at last. Better. Very cheerful. Change indicated in tone, gesture, generally. Reading when I entered—Boswell. Book close to his eyes—chair drawn up to the light. Quickly attentive to me—to what I brought. Asked about the weather: urged me to throw my coat off: altogether most cordial. The reported who had called last evening while I was there (talked with Ed at the door: none of them see W.) had inserted this in the Ledger to-day:

     W. read, commenting: "That tells about the truth: that is about the way things stand." He added: "Mary was trying to tell me of someone who called: I could not altogether make out who it was: probably this fellow." I handed Sims' piece to W. Referred to before. He read it carefully.

     "Zola as a moral writer. The author of Lights of London on the writer of Nana. G. R. Sims in the London Referee.

     "That Zola is obscene goes without saying. He is recklessly and wantonly dirty. He seeks out the mudheaps that are gathered together along the roadway of life, and, jumping into the middle of them, commences to kick that filth about with both his feet at once. But to say that Zola is an immoral writer is an absurdity. He is perhaps the most moral writer that the present century has witnessed. There is not one page in Zola that makes vice seductive. The one steady and absorbing purpose of the man is to paint vice in hideous and repellant forms. He is obscene, dirty, coarse, disgusting and brutal in his method, but there is far less real harm in all the books that Zola has written than in one page of the modern society novel written by ladies for gentlemen and clothed in the choicest language of the drawing-room.

     Zola has been called the apostle of realism (realism with a big sneer). As a matter of fact, he is the apostle of of truth. The misfortune to art is that he is foul-mouthed, and that his sermons, which are worth miles upon miles of the conventional twaddle talked in the bulk of our pulpits, are full of dirty allusions and disgusting descriptions. For this there is no defence which will hold water. Meat is a good thing for us (vegetarians need not reply), but no one will argue that because meat is useful and helps to build up our

     "Obscene? dirty? who but Sims is obscene, dirty? Nonsense! What right has Sims to call him obscene? I do not see that he is—do not see how." Then as he read along further: "It is the usual plea: the average criticism: in England they have to do this—in fact here, too: do it in deference to conventional opinion, society, Sunday schools, the parsons—I don't know but the parsons chiefly." He stopped reading in the middle of the second paragraph and handed the slip to me. "Cheap! Cheap! I hate it!"

     Had he any news? First he said "No—nothing." Then half in doubt reached forward, raised the papers on the corner of the chair where he often puts the letters he has for me: then shook his head, saying again: "Nothing." I drew from my pocket the Blauvelt letter I received to-day. As I did so his face lighted up. "Yes there is news, to be sure: some one sent me a box of pheasants—some unknown friend or friends: I have his card here." With that searching his table. But I opened B.'s letter and read it to W. He exclaimed: "That 's the man! that sounds handsome! that is handsome! Of course we are grateful: I was intending to write him a line to-night about it: I 'm going to take half a one to-morrow for breakfast." I brought him his stitched copy of the complete W. W. His pleasure extreme. No cover but a bit of thick brown-red paper. "Why!" exclaimed W., "it 's good enough to go this way." Pointed to the title page. "That looks handsome: I don't know but it 's the best thing in the book." He hit upon the November Boughs frontispiece. "It tickles me," he said, "that that that appears to be justifying itself: nobody seemed at first to like it: I stood alone: now they appear to be coming around." Then: "I hope it will be so with Leaves of Grass—believe it will." I asked: "With the world?" and he answered: "Yes, the world."

     Talked considerably about the dummy, he handling it, opening and shutting it, all the time. We were not to try any false economies. "I am as well aware as anyone could be that this volume requires serious attention—work and, above all, good binding—cover: something characteristic—strong." What should that be? I consulted Dave to-day, he giving me ideas, proposing a green vellum. I brought over a volume of McKay's Brown for W. to examine. W. spoke of Brown's reputation. "It is all gone: he is weak—has no virility: no staying power." W. tapped this book—Wieland. "This is a sort of Udolpho business watered—twice watered—thinned out. A ghost story, a phantasy, must be interesting: it is a bad sign when it is not: Brown is one of the fellows you can lay down any time—go from him, enjoy a meal, not the least excited—not the least anxious to take up the book again: which is a bad sign for a story." The general reader certainly no longer reads Brown "if ever." Why was he reprinted? "For the libraries: the schedulistic books—there are many of them now: books like Richardson's, Stedman's, call attention to them: then no library is complete without them. There are now so many libraries in the United States it takes a good pile of books to go round." McKay told me his edition is going pretty well but that while guaranteeing that there were buyers he would not guarantee that there were readers. W. said: "Of course not: he could not: Brown has no constituency."

     When Oldach looked at W.'s sheet of instructions to-day he asked: "Did he write this himself?" I answered "yes." He declared: "Why, it 's wonderful: the man who wrote this is good for ten years yet." W. answered. "Well, I 'm sure we hope so—hope that he is a good prophet. But tell him these books—whatever of me—are designed to accomplish certain things, are to last many times ten years, to go down the corridors of time: to be preserved, not to be duplicated, added to, surrendered. Tell him they have a mission: that to insure this we must have his aid: let him