7.55 P. M. Fine night. Cool and clear. W. still holding his head up. "All right at the top": that is his favorite assurance. He sat near the light (the room very cosy). Pad on his knee. Writing to Bucke. Stopped upon my entrance. Talked freely at once. "What news do you bring?" Returned him the soft dummy I got from Oldach to-day. Oldach incorrigible: would not yield: Monday will be the day—not before, but then sure, though: even then only half a dozen books at best. W. was merry over it. "Well, like the fellow whose whole wardrobe was stolen but his hat: it 's not worth much, it 's not of much practical benefit, but thank God something is left!" Then added: "I suppose

     Boozer said to-day pointing to the '55 W. W.: "I still think this the best of the pictures." W.: "It is good: something is to be said for it: but I feel that the best picture is the frontispiece, the title-page"—the complete W. W.— "but not only as a piece of art (where it is effective, refined), but because so thoroughly characteristic of me—of the book—falls in line with the purposes we had in view at the start." As he sat there, pen in hand, his hair free off his head, he made me think of some of the operatic Fausts I had seen. I said so. He laughed: "I am not troubling myself with Faustian problems: I have heard

     Harned left at this point. H. is a tariff man. W. said: "That 's one of the things in Tom it 's best not to try to explain: the whole tariff business is a robbery—a highwayman's job: sort of police's commerce—interferes with the normal everyday freedom of one man treating with another. Tom ought to know better." Was curious: learned I often wrote on trips: cars, boats, &c.: "Do you carry little books about with you?" he asked. He was "never without them: two or three sheets of the best paper folded, stitched together." I reminded him of his promise to give me one of his note-books. "One of the War time?" and when I said: "Yes—that"—he replied: "Surely if you want it: well and good." Then he laughed in his quiet kindly way: "I guess I'll have to do for you what I 've often threatened to do to Bucke—I'll get a trunk here: put into it the things I want you to have." Then: "The trunk I mean would be a box. Ed has been very anxious to have something done: the boy thinks the room has too littery a character: I told him to-day that it should be definitively, dis-

     I had a copy of the Bazar with me. W. regarded the pictures with considerable interest—for one, Otto Zimmerman's picture (1881) of Christ and the Fisherman. W. thought "its most remarkable feature the absence of the aureola about the head of Jesus here"—pointing with finger: "It is a wonderful powerful portrayal—this"—indicating Jesus— "a very significant face." Afterwards happened upon some illustrations of a story. "These are good, too: pictures of another sort: not like the Christ picture—but important, for their place." Greatly attracted by a picture, The Yoke of Misery, painted by J. Geoffroy, French: a man and boy harnessed to a cart of household movables, &c. He looked at it "long and long," as he puts it— "a touch of common life" which greatly "appealed" to him. He thought: "What a strange power our men are getting—the artists: nothing eludes them—defeats them." The Christ picture: "The engraving itself is noteworthy: as you say, there 's something in it never expressed by a steel engraving—something that steel can't compass." A reference some way to Eschylus. W. said: "He wrote his plays in trilogies (I have a friend—he always amuses me—calls them trillogies ): Eschylus thought it consistent with nature that he should do so: but by and by came along fellows who broke the traces." I said Eschylus had interested me as a boy more than Homer. W.: "That is because you must have come upon Pope's translation of Homer." I owned up. "I thought so: and

     Was Tennyson exempt from the shackles of form and precedent? "Yes: oh! yes! Tennyson is exempt: his work, all of his work, is free from taint: polite, refined, polished, rich in color—but nature's own, after all, at bottom, in essence." I mentioned The Relief of Lucknow and The Revenge. "I agree with you: they are great emotional utterances—both of them: I felt them so at the time: I do not withdraw my opinion now." Adler said in a letter to me to-day: "Remember me most cordially to our dear friend." W. said: "Thanks! thanks! write to him: tell him Walt Whitman thanks him." I met Hunter with his daughter on the boat this evening. H. is unsteady on his feet: does not go out on evenings; sent his love to W. W. said: "Thanks: thanks again!" I described Hunter's designation of W.: "A noble good mon he is!"—the Scotch of it—and, "a cheerful mon is that!" W. pleased. "It is characteristic—it is Scotch: the 'mon' greatly Scotch: it does me good merely to hear such a man talk." We discussed the point—why not some time issue an edition of L. of G. in small vols, for pocket wear and tear? Song of Myself, Children of Adam, &c. &c., in separate books? W. believed in it. "It has long been my ambition to bring out

New York City, Aug. 9, 1867.

Friend Whitman:

     I publish in to-morrow's Citizen Rosetti's article. It may wake people up.

     I wish you would send me a copy of your book—a thing which I don't possess. I will mail you a copy of to-morrow's paper.

Very respectfully yours

W. L. Alden (Associate Editor).

     I said: "I suppose Alden is another one of your editor enemies, Walt." He was on to my point. "Well—he was warmer then than he was later on." "In spite of your many enemies on newspapers you also had friends there." "Yes—I know: sometimes I growl so much about the enemies I forget the friends, which is wrong." Gave me an old Burroughs letter. He called it "one of John's come-out letters." I asked: "What do you mean by that?" He answered: "Don't you know?" "Yes, in general: but are not all John's letters come-out letters?" W. said: "They used to be: they are not so much so now." "What happened to him?" "I don't know. I don't mean that he has turned tail and run: I mean only that he has

Roxbury, N. Y., Aug. 24th, 1879.

Dear Walt:

     Your letter came the other day and with the enclosure was very welcome. The papers came also. I am glad you keep well. I wish you here daily, it is so cool and salubrious. I imagined you off to some of the watering places. I was sorry I could not bring about the arrangement to have you come to our place, but Emma has not been very well, and though she said yes, I thought she was a little reluctant, and our own household was deranged by the cuttings up and running off of the girl. But I shall not rest till I have you up there.

     I was much interested in the letters you enclosed. I must write to the Gilchrists.

     I made the trip down the Delaware the last of June, all alone; went only to Hancock on the Erie Road, about fifty miles. Had a pretty good time, though lonely. I was not quite a week on the river. I slept in my boat or under it all the time. The next week after I returned home I wrote up my trip for the magazine, using the health and strength I gained on the voyage. Since I have been here I have written an article on Nature and the Poets, showing where our poets trip in their wood lore and natural history, and where they hit the mark. I catch them all napping. Emerson, Bryant, Whittier, Longfellow, &c. I shall have something to say about you, with extracts, but I cannot catch you in any mistake, as I wish I could, for that is my game. I wish I could also find a slip in Shakespeare or Tennyson, but I cannot according to my knowledge, except where Shakespeare follows the unscientific thought of his times, as in his treatment of the honey bee.

     Yesterday i wrote a sort of Pastoral Letter to The Tribune, but I doubt if they find it worth while, and it is

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no matter. I will send you the proof of the article on the poets before it goes into the magazine.

     There are two articles in the August Appleton's Journal that are worth glancing over—Arnold on Wordsworth and Earl D. on moosehunting. What simple good hearty fellows those English earls must be; not a false or conventional note in this one.

     The baby is doing well and completely fills my heart. Wife is about as usual.

     I find I cannot read Whittier and Longfellow and Lowell with any satisfaction. Your poems spoil me for any but the greatest. Coming from them to you is like coming from a hothouse to the shore or the mountain. I know this is so and is no pre-determined partiality of mine.

Faithfully

John Burroughs.