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Friday, November
30, 1888.
6.30 P. M. W. lying on bed. Ed entered with me lighting gas. Ed said that W. "spent a day in much the same condition as last night." W. admitted that
he was better: "but I am still weak—still far gone." Had
eaten, however, and was manifestly stronger. Voice, manner, willingness to talk—all
testified to it. He stayed on the bed for some time after I arrived, talking binder and all
that. Could n't get stitched sample to-day. Oldach rather testy about it. W. disappointed but calm. Oldach spoke of the
stitching of books—the style of two centuries ago—"the
old-time style"—and that of the present. "But nobody wants
the old style now." W. said: "Let us be the exception: let us be the
odd fellow: let us get the old stitch." Then added: "Binding
illustrates all life. Show a man a house—one that may be plain but in and out
everything that is honest, durable: he shakes his head: is there not something more? So you
show him a reverse case—show, ornament, external bother: he at once applauds!"
But ours was another path. "While we, too, aim for healthy, utilitarian
considerations not to be disregarded." When he feels physically shaky he gets urgent about
the work. Does so to-day.
Discovered the little Shakespeare piece—cipher piece—left out of Sands at
Seventy. "I don't know how it was I
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missed it:
it has only turned up again within a few days: yet I once had it printed." I said: "Yes: and what is more I referred to it in the summer and supposed from
your manner that you did not intend to use it."
"No: it was not rejected: only forgotten. I still stand by it: it was
only a few lines, perhaps of no importance whatever: yet it should have gone in."
"You will put it in the later editions?"
"O yes." He got up. With my help went over to his chair, turning up
the light, sitting down heavily: legs of little value to-day for
support or locomotion. Spoke of this as "of all attacks—I have
had many of them—the shortest in duration: yet severe, troublesome: Wednesday so
severe I feared for it: it was a close call indeed." He turned to me after he had got
comfortably fixed in his chair: "I should like all my friends to
understand from me—all of them—that the succession of whacks, as I call
them, to which I have been subject these last fifteen years, is the result of two or three
years of great exposure during the critical period of the War: an exposure the most
hardy—some would say, inexcusable: and indeed I see myself I might have 'known
better,' as has been charged upon me." His self-examination: "In
fibre, muscle, organically: in build, arm, leg, chest, belly—in physical
equipment—I started superbly—no one more so—more gifted,
blessed." Then came the War. "I was no spring chicken then." His
consecration "was no youthful enthusiasm—no mere ebullition of
spirits—but deliberate, radical, fundamental." Here he paused, turned his face
towards me, passed his fingers, spread, over his heart. "Deliberate? more
than that: it was necessary: I went from the call of something within—something, I
cannot explain what—something I could not disregard." Whether for good or bad he
"could not pause to weigh it."
"There 's something in the human critter which
only needs to be nudged to reveal itself: something inestimably eloquent, precious: not always
observed: it is a folded leaf: not absent because we fail to see it: the right man
comes—the right hour; the leaf is lifted."
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This experience of the War "was not all simply physical." "Think,"
he argued, "of the sympathetic, emotional outpouring of those years: what
they meant to others, to me: then calculate results: what results must have accrued." He
was "one of the few" who at the outset realized "the vital danger—the real point of weakness." The "critical factors of the national life in those years lay not in the South alone but north
here, too—here more insidiously. I was bred in Brooklyn: initiated to all the
mysteries of city life—populations, perturbations: knew the rough
elements—what they stood for: what might be apprehended from them: there in
Brooklyn, New York, through many, many years: tasted its familiar life. When the War came on I
quite well recognized the powers to be feared, understood: and not alone in New York,
Brooklyn: in Boston as well: the great cities west, north-west, the very hotbeds of
dissent." He felt that the nation—"the thinkers of the
nation—had only commenced to realize what had been escaped in those years."
"I for one feel strongly grateful to Victoria for the good outcome of
that struggle—the war dangers, horrors: finally the preservation of our nationality:
she saved us then." Afterwards saying again: "Victoria and Albert!
Victoria and Albert!" He had "often thought to put this on record,
at least for" his "own satisfaction." It seemed like his duty "to write something: to put myself square with the higher obligations all
must in time come to acknowledge." I asked quizzically: "If you
wrote such a thing, what would Tucker and O'Connor do?" He laughed heartily: "I don't know: but that would not deter me: and at any rate, O'Connor is
fully conscious of the truth of what I say: we often talked it over at the time." Now it
had become "commonplace" to any one who chose to know it—"our public men—the better type of our public men—all
know what it signifies: especially is it conceded by those who have been part of the inner
circle in Washington. When Julius Chambers, out of the rare kindness he somehow developed for
me, first appealed to me to send them scraps
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of thought for The
Herald—I think it was the period when Cleveland was being so sharply taken to task
for having sent a present to the Pope on his jubilee—I wrote a few lines in effect
of this purport: I for one thing must go on record approving the President's action: more than
that, I contended, rather than having done too much the President has done too little: my own
impulse would have been to send, send to the Pope: to send likewise to the Queen—to
England's Queen—from whose forethought of those serious years so much of good came
to us. I never sympathized with—always resented—the common American
criticisms of the Queen." He still kept to his theme. "It was in
such an experience as of the War that my own heart needed to be fully thrown—thrown
without reserve: I do not regret it—could not regret it: what was a man to do? The
War was on, I was strong in my strength—superb of body—I had much to give:
there were thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands needing me—needing
all who might come: what could I do? So you see it was a time that enforced its own
services."
There was a real solemnity in this last outbreak of feeling. He had thrown his head
back—spoke freely, strongly, with great emotion. He said the subject of the War had
come up while Donaldson was here yesterday. "Tom said, John Brown,
Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, were the five men out of that period, brought out by that
period—assured of immortality." I asked: "Well, do you
accept his selection?" He answered: "Of some part of it, anyhow, I
have no manner of doubt: I never enthused greatly over Brown: yet I know he is a great and
precious memory: I don't deny but that he is to be ranked with the best: such devotion, such
superb courage, men will not forget—cannot be forgotten." I referred to
Lincoln's "balance, poise," arguing—"we can imagine the War without Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, but with
Lincoln not there at that time,
what?
" W. responded: "We must not give too much importance to personalism—it is easy
to overcharge it—man
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moves as man, in all the great
achievements—man in the great mass: yet I, too, think of Lincoln much in that same
way: as you say, his poise, his simple, loftiest ability to make an emergency sacred, meet
every occasion—never shrinking, never failing, never hurrying—these are
things to be remembered and things 'providential' if 'providence' ever has a meaning in human
affairs."
I used the word "Secession." W. said: "The
word recalls much—much that is hideous as well as wonderful." Reference was made
to Sam Randall's supposed Southern sympathies, in the early years of the War. W. said: "Randall is essentially what the English call a trimmer: study his course
in Pennsylvania politics: Randall is always quasi-protective. And—the more I think
of protection, the principle it goes upon, its practice, our worship of it, the more convinced
I am, the clearer my mind becomes, that it is the most hollow pretence, fraud, humbug, of our
political life. I cannot say I have recently been reading anything on the
subject—any serious treatment of it: for two years and more I have not: yet my
conviction against it, my contempt for it, grows stronger and stronger." He had "no statistical table from which to educe a formal argument of any
sort"—"it is the atmosphere—the position of the parties—more
than all else, a realization of the course of nature that appeals to and overwhelms me."
"I object to the tariff primarily because it is not
humanitarian—because it is a damnable imposition upon the masses."
"Imagine," he exclaimed, "the bottom absurdity
of America's cry for protection. Of all lands—America! We can conceive of lonely
islands, faraway provinces, agitated for such a defence: but for us—why it would be
laughable if it was not fraught with serious consequences. With our mines, railroads,
agriculture—the richest the world has known: an inventive spirit past parallel: land
without end: ambition, freedom: it is madness to reach forth for external
protectives—not madness alone either: it goes to make a national farce also."
W. likes Osler. Says fine things about him. Not so
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much caring for
him professionally as humanly. I asked him about Drinkard. "I have been
singularly fortunate in my doctors," he said: "I often think of Dr.
Drinkard—noble old fellow he was"—here paused, starting to correct
himself: "I should not say old: why do I say old? Drinkard has been dead
many years: he was really a young man: he was a Rebel—a hot one, in fact: red-hot:
but that subject never came up between us: he would not allow any heavy mental pabulum for me
then: I was not in great shape at the time: rather than talk thinking matters, when that
danger seemed imminent, he would turn his conversation into the light frivolous channels. But
Drinkard was one of my true friends whose affection was something to be recked of: he was to
me then in some ways, though not so strongly, what Bucke now has grown to be."
Gave me the Verestchagin pictures. "I looked long, long at
them—the portrait, the others"—adding of The Crucifixion: "What a wealth of suggestion it has—a power—an
appearance as of a man who had made up his mind to say—do—something and
had fulfilled himself." Verestchagin's head was "splendid in
strength and beauty"—almost a "monstrosity" for
size—yet, "intellectually, sympathetically a marvel to
behold." Altogether V. was "a considerable man." "I read Clarence
Cook's piece too—the whole of it: liked it—got from it some new points
about Verestchagin." "The elements so simple, yet so much made of them." He said again: "Verestchagin is our man—comes along in the same stream with us
(or we with him): stands for our contention, as we do for his: against the formulas, the art
sophistries, the textualists."
I spoke of my going to Germantown to hear Brinton lecture. W. inquired: "What will he speak about?" adding, when I had said: "The Quest
of the Beautiful": "It is a big, a fruitful subject: I don't know
but the biggest: and Brinton should be able to tell about it: his scientific training,
truth-lovingness—all that brought to bear." I don't know how the thing came up.
We found ourselves talking
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of the spontaneities—how some
of the most beautiful things happen without a plan. I spoke of the driver of a wagon on the
Chestnut Street hill by the river: "his horse fell down—could
not get up: a dozen men as by one instinct rushed into the street—gave the carter a
boost, got the horse safely on his feet: all then laughingly going their ways again: no
scheme, no reward: just the finer human impulse at play." W. was immensely moved. "How splendid that is! That is wonderfully à propos: there are
more cases like it than we can count. Tennyson's Northern Famer says to his son, 'the poor in a lump is bad': but stories like yours tend to
show that Tennyson is wrong. There is always a manifest streak of good side by side with the
bad: I have seen much of men, of the masses": "out of all this conviction has come to
me—this faith. Every day instances confront us. I had a visitor—a Quaker
lady—to-day: she came—was from the city: her
name, Brotherton: she asked to see me: I consented. She was here but
shortly—explained that she had been out a while since, called on a friend: while
waiting in the parlor had hit upon November Boughs on the table there: she had read, it
appears, been attracted chiefly, I suppose, by the Hicks piece: said that simply seeing that
much had created in her the desire to see more. The old lady—she much be quite
old—is poor, not famous: not intellectual, not even literary: but with a face
remarkably gentle, sweet: and she 'thee'd' and 'thou'd' me—tickled me much: I own up
to it. She did not stay long: was mindful of what had been told her down stairs. When she came
to go she took my hand, put into it a little folded piece of
paper—so"—indicating: "said, "Don't open it till I 'm gone—this is
not for thee alone but for me': passed out. When I looked, lo! she had left me a two
dollar and a half gold piece. The whole manner of it was characteristic: much the way of the
Friends. It is a singular feature in men, that to simply confess a love is not enough: there
must be some concrete manifestation of it."
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W. said: "I have a letter here which I have left for you to
answer." Moulton, of Buffalo, editing the Magazine of Poetry, wants permission to use
copyright poems. McKay referred M. to W. Bucke has written him a biographical note on W. to go
along with them. W. said: "Tell him I am perfectly agreed—that
if he finds it worth while to use the poems I will find it worth while to give my consent to
it." Gave me two Bucke letters. "There 's
something in one of them that you must see—I don't know which one: to make sure you
don't miss it take both letters." Said he had passed an idle day. "Wrote to Bucke—a long letter: that was all." George Whitman's wife in. I read
the Bucke letters. "Was the mention of the big book what you wanted me
to see?" He answered: "Maybe—maybe." Then: "Oh! I remember now. It was his reference to the cover: Maurice never seems
very fertile in esthetic suggestion: that is a talent that has been neglected in him." I
said: "Maybe it goes along with his utter failure to enter into musical
things." W. assented: "I should n't
wonder: in fact it seems almost necessarily true."
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