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Saturday, December 29, 1888 7.30 P.M W. improved to-day: sitting reading as I entered. He had
received a circular of Poet Lore—a new monthly. Held it up to me after I had shaken
hands. "Didst see this?"—mockingly—"Well—listen!"—thereupon reading. Would he
subscribe? "No, I will not"—laughing heartily: "I was just wondering what to do with it—whether to put it here
with the waste paper or save it for you. I know you are interested in all that 's going." Left with him copy of the current Stage. Did it interest him? "I don't know: I only know I read it through from the beginning to
end." The Carlyle-Goethe letters open. Had he started reading them? "O yes! I slipped into them, but have not gone far." It had not impressed him. W. said:
"Why, Horace—that Herald notice is very good: a very generous
one: I have read every word of it: while they make few comments—only
quote—the comments are extremely good and the quotations apt." Had also read the
little note in Publisher's Weekly. "It, too, is very fair—very
distinctly favorable." W. said: "I have been busy—
reading, writing, sitting up—everything but moving about. I wrote
Doctor—sent a letter off to him to-day." Had enclosed a
Kennedy letter. He asked: "You still think the Sanborn letter good? Still
are content with it?" Said nothing about it himself. I trod on a package: picked it up: found it to be a Post directed to Mrs. Fairchild: should n't it have gone off with the others? W.: "What is it? Oh, certainly: I thought it gone two days ago." I took it with me to mail
over the river. Ed had brought two letters—the one Poet Lore: the other W. now
opened. I saw at once what it was. "For an autograph?" He read a few
lines. "Yes, yes—merely that: listen"—reading
lines closing: "I am a little girl and would so value your
autograph." He laughed. "Do| | |
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you believe it?""It is very doubtful—an old subterfuge." He took the
letter, reaching forward: saying as he dropped it in the wood box: "Here
she goes"—then was about to cut the stamp from the corner of the return envelope
enclosed—"oh a good card"—taking a card out of
the envelope, laying it on the table carefully—removing the stamp also. "It is a weariness to be besieged: but they come every
day—sometimes in squads." He tried to explain my good health: "I explain it by your large intuitional gifts: you have intuitive ways of
knowing what to do, what not to do. There is no better safeguard than that. I have made up my
opinion from our frequent talks: it seems to explain and justify you fully." I returned his Lippincott's. "Well," he asked: "What of Stoddard?" I had read the paper on Poe on my way over in the
morning. I was very vehemently against S.'s point of view. Enlarged on it. W. leaned forward in
his chair: "Oh you are right, boy: you are
right—right—right! Oh! how that sounds like William
O'Connor!—almost his very words: I can hear him in the very tones of your voice.
What you have said, what you have been saying: that is just what he would say: I have heard it
often and often: the same eloquent forgivingness: better, the same refusal to judge,
condemn." W. went on insisting upon this resemblance. He considered Stoddard "sour, dissatisfied, disgruntled: it has been so with him—that
has been his humor—for many years. Poor Poe! Poor Poe! who shall say he did not have
failings, defects, weaknesses: serious weaknesses—grave, oh! so
grave!—from which he suffered?" But why stop with them? "It seems to be Stoddard's principle to pull men down"—I said: "I suppose he would rake you over with the same vim?""He has done it already. Oh! I am sure when I kick the bucket he will be
ready with some columns of obituaries just as vinegary, fault-finding, mean." W. felt that
S.'s character was "warped.""Stoddard is determined certain things should be even if they are not. I
remember the time I spent at St. Louis years ago—some | | |
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years ago: I would go into the schools—the kindergarten, others—there. The
children always insisted on a story—on hearing me talk—say something. I
liked a little fancy—a fable of the cats: I repeated
it—then—often here"—he closed his eyes an instant then
resumed interestingly—simply, as a child—himself—and with much
feeling: "The two cats went on a trip from home, then back again
—along the same road, under the same conditions: the same sky overhead, the same
influences about. When they returned they were asked what they had seen. Oh how different the
stories! They had gone the same road, met with the same experiences: one had to tell of the
most wonderful adventures—had seen the most wonderful things: the road, the fields,
the clouds above—tenderly, lovely, fascinating, compassionating: the other had
realized nothing but horrors—had met reptiles, stagnant pools, poisons,
despairs." He stopped here—looked at me: "I interpret this
as exhibiting a habit of mind—the morbid, the healthy, so to speak. Stoddard is
determined to see the bad, the dark, the venomous: it is his habit of mind: he is the second
cat." I read W. a passage from the Poe piece: Stoddard—a rainy day in New
York—seeing Poe standing on the street corner: S. had not offered
umbrella—P. heroic, defiant, self-reliant, proud: S. saw him so
still—always would. I said: "The man who saw him so still
would not write this article." W. feverently: "Nor would he! Oh boy!
If only William O'Connor could hear you talk so!" I said: "I
alluded to Stoddard in my letter to Doctor this morning." W.: "Did
you? Should we send him the magazine?" Then after a pause during which I must have looked
doubtful: "No, I guess he would not care for it: you can take it along
with you if you wish." Talk took still another turn. "Do you know anything about
Burns—John Burns—a writer: he is a London man—seems to be a
labor agitator—an anarchist—something of that sort: that is his portrait
you have in your hands now. Some one sends me some of his poems: they | | |
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seem to imagine a likeness between us—seem to see some suggestions of me there, of
Leaves of Grass." W. took the Burns picture in his hand: B wore a hat making him look not
unlike the W. of the '55 edition. I remarked it. W. said:"It is a noble
remarkable face, I think: does it not seem so to you?" I asked him if Burns was not the
man arrested with Morris in one of the Socialist troubles in London? "I
do not know: I forget even about Morris: tell me." Added: "When I
have gone through with them you had better take them in hand. I confess I have n't read the letter there that came along with it to see what it is all
about." Not sent from London but from Marshall B. Williams, Philadelphia. M. B. W.'s letter
with portrait, &c. on the table. More talk about Stoddard. W. said: "That type of man is particularly devilish to me: is not big, ample,
inclusive: rather drives away than invites. He hates Poe not because Poe is hateful but
because he—Stoddard I mean—is full of hate. Stoddard has pursued me with a
sort of venom always: he said to Stedman—so Stedman told me: It is your duty to
stamp out, not to encourage, such influences as Whitman in literature. Gilder has told me of
similar things said to him by Stoddard: always against me—always (or my work, which
is me, after all): saying severe things to Gilder on occasions: on one occasion especially, on
Broadway, up there in front of his office—Gilder's office: somewhere—I
think there: said to Watson, if it was not for the sympathy he, Walt Whitman, gets from a few
of you men who really stand for something, he would have no currency whatever—would
disappear: said that to the gentle Gilder, who, though always my friend—God bless
'im!—was never rabidly bitten by Whitman, as you are, as
Symonds is. When I read Stoddard on Poe I think of Stoddard on Walt Whitman: I understand his
quarrelsome, querulous, disposition better than ever. Sometime when you are over there in New
York you must quiz Gilder, Stedman (even others: they all say the same thing about him) as to
this point in Stoddard's history. I never quite | | |
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know whether Dick
is simply agin some of us come-outers on general principles or whether underneath it all in
him towards us there may not lurk some ingredient of jealousy. When he first knew of me he
seems to have said: He 's only vulgar, only indecent: let him alone:
he 'll come to nothing. In the later days, when I seem to have come
to something—when he at least thinks I have come to something—he tells the
fellows: 'He has not kept himself alive—you have kept him alive.'" W. gave me a Carpenter letter. The signature was cut out. Consequently some of the writing on
the other side of the sheet is gone. I asked W." "Who mutilated the
letter?" He said: "It was mutilated for reasons: some one wished the
signature, I suppose: I am not quite clear about it: the autograph fiend is omnipresent: he
turns up everywhere and is irrefusable: there may have been another reason: I guess it was
that." He called it "one of Carpenter's early fine
letters"—adding: "He was never nobler than then, in that
period of interrogating enthusiasm." He had me read the letter aloud.
Brunswick Sq., Brighton, 3 Jan., 1876
Dear Friend:
A few weeks ago I sent you a book of mine—Moses: a drama. It is an effort to
represent the character of one who, being far beyond his time, has conceived a new idea, a
new development for mankind, and by the very force with which he has conceived it wills to
shape out, and shapes out, the way of its realization—standing himself all the
while alone, solitary, upon earth. I hope it may be some pleasure to you to read it, if only
that I may pay part of the debt I owe you for your writings. I write this, having just had put into my hands a letter from Moncure Conway written after
a visit to you at Camden. Is it true that no American publisher will issue your works? When
reading your writings I have thought the future for which you looked quite close, but then
one goes | | |
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out into the world and hears such things as this and
sees the general drift of men's minds towards commonplaces and conventional estimates of
things, and then the future looks far—beyond all attainment as indeed I believe in
some sense it is—and it seems only cruel that men (some) should be born to breathe
their lives out after a mere visionary beauty. Will it ever be that human
love—strong to meet with adventurous joy all chance and change—will
cease to be a mere name? that men will "understand"—eat of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil, and so be immortal? How strange it is! I know that it must be, I see it
everywhere—in face after face in the streets, in the sound of men's voices and in
their silence—clear, unmistakable, as if just about to be disclosed, the divine
"everywhere-equal" life; and yet the children die, hardly knowing what they have sought yet
knowing that they have not found it, and their dreams fade away, and to long suffering
succeeds rest, and still the distance remains immeasurable. All is resumed. As soon as I
remember what the end is—however great the
distance—I do not doubt. It is quite true—even as it is truly present
with us now underlying all thought and these words. Dear friend, you have so infused
yourself that it is daily more and more possible for men to walk hand in hand over the whole
earth. As you have given your life, so will others after you—freely, with amplest
reward transcending all suffering—for the end that you have dreamed. In the midst
of the ferment of this age of material and mechanical intercommunion you have planted the
seed of a spiritual union and identity above all space and time, which yet shall use the
spaces and times of this earth (while it endures) for its manifestation and expression. What
have we dreamed? a union which even now binds us closer than all thought high up above all
individual gain or loss—an individual self which stands out free and distinct,
most solid of all facts, commensurate with all existence—love disclosing each ever
more and more. See, you have made the earth sacred for me.
Meanwhile, they say that your writings are "immoral": | | |
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and you
have to defend yourself against people who will misunderstand your defence as they
misunderstood your original words. Need I say that I do not agree with them in the least? I
believe on the contrary that you have been the first to enunciate the law of purity and
health which sooner or later must assert itself. After ages perhaps man will return consciously to the innocent joyous delight in his own natural powers and
instincts wich characterized the earlier civilizations. I do not understand what it is to be
"shocked" by these things: it seems to me childish. But in the meantime it is certain that
people do not understand. In some way or other our modern civilization has become narrowed
and one-sided. People's minds are dwarfed: one portion of their nature grows up in the dark
(and ceases to be healthy). Men have lost the freedom (free masonry) of Nature and are
plagued with insane doubts of their Duty. For a time I suppose men must grow up in swaddling
bands of morality, and a certain instinct makes them cling to them till they have grown to
be greater than, and the masters of, morality. But I think indeed the time has come for
people to learn to unwrap these bands, and that from this time there will be a world-wide
growth in the direction you have pointed out. So while I regret sometimes that there are
things in your writings which make it difficult, sometimes impossible, to commend them to
some who might otherwise profit by them, yet I feel it is best that they should be there.
Their presence delays the understanding and acceptation of your message, but your message
would not be complete without it, and slowly, gradually, increasingly, without end, its
grandeur will dawn upon men. You are saying something on this subject in your Two Rivulets which I look forward to
seeing. Can I obtain a copy through you, or have you an agent in London? I feel that my work is to carry on what you have begun. You have opened the way: my only
desire is to go onward with it. Though it is out of all question to suppose that one
generation or ten generations will make such a difference | | |
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in men's
minds in the direction of the ideal state, still—to contemplate that ideal and to
live slowly translating it into real life and action is quite certainly the only
good—and is sufficient. I do not think of anything that I have done except as
preparation: on all hands the words seem to me to be flowing in but in exactly what shape
they will issue forth again I am not quite clear, and I think it is my business to wait yet.
Meanwhile there is a wonderful new life springing up here in England. I have been this and
last winter at Leeds doing something in the way of lecturing and teaching, and have seen a
certain amount of the working artisans, &c. There is undoubtedly an entirely new
(social) state of affairs coming about through their rise, and I hail it with delight, for
the wealthier classes though they struggle for light are hopelessly bound in
conventionality, and the rough experience of their contact with the rude unaccommodating
life below them (during the next few years) will be salvation to them. I am very anxious to
see America, partly for my own sake—in order to breathe a less conventional
atmosphere—partly for the sake of seeing the people and appreciating the life that
is growing up in them, for I find that no general account, or seeing through other men's
eyes, helps me towards that, and I have no friend whose opinion I am willing to judge by in
the matter. Should I go it will probably be this next April, if it were not for the
Philadelphia Exhibition—which makes me hesitate: partly because it will increase
the expense considerably and partly because on account of the turmoil one will perhaps not
see so much either of people in general and their ways or of individuals as at another time.
If I thought that one occasion would give me a better chance of seeing you than another I
should be guided by that, but on the other hand I fear to plague you—and I dare
say you are tormented enough by people already. . . . I think or fancy that you are happy in your surroundings, and am glad to think so. Will
you tell me—you see I am not satisfied yet—where
a photograph of yourself is ob-| | |
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tainable? I am very anxious to have one; and will you forgive me
for wearing you—if I have done so—with perhaps needless talk about
myself, and believe me
Yours with continual remembrance
Edward Carpenter.
W. said: "Carpenter seems to have been just a bit dubious about the
Children of Adam poems then: just a trifle: staggers, reels, wonders, just a little: comes
back at once, of course: recovers—stands up: but the question was
there—whether certain things were advisable or not: the suspicion was there. I liked
what he said of the mechanics at Leeds: I put my faith in them—in the crowd of
everyday men—in the rise, the supremacy (not the rule) of the superb masses: the men
who do things—the workers: they are our hope—they will lead us on if we
are led on: not the kid-gloved nobses—the women and the men who dress, who shine,
whose life is not love but toilet: I don't see what they can do for us except lead wrong
ways—to the devil—yes, lead us into a hole. Edward was mistaken if he
thought I had been making explanations—putting up defences—trying by an
argument, an appeal, to make my position clear: I have always left that to take care of
itself: have kept the work going, kept my hands on the wheel, steered the ship, not worrying
about the results: for I always saw that explications did not explicate—that certain
people were eligible to understand me, would understand me—that certain other people
were not to be reached—would only negative me whatever—that no sort of a
plea, no figures quoted, even, would affect them—reduce the quality, quantity,
vehemence of their prejudice. Edward was beautiful then—is so now: one of the
torch-bearers, as they say: an exemplar of a loftier England: he is not generally known, not
wholly a welcome presence, in conventional England: the age is still, while ripe for some
things, not ripe for him, for his sort, for us, for the human protest: not ripe though
ripening. O Horace, there 's a hell of a lot to be done yet: don't
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see? a hell of a lot: you fellows coming along now will have
your hands full: we're passing a big job on to you." |
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