Friday, January 4, 1889.

     W. asked me to "look out" for The Critic to-morrow. "If you can see it anywhere look if it contains a little poem of mine." I said: "I usually get my copy Saturday anyhow." W.: "Well, look in that: you need not buy me a copy: I shall get one anyhow Sunday or Monday. What I want to know is simply this—whether the poem is there. It is a little matter of eight or nine lines. I am anxious to have Doctor see it: I have slips of it here: if I find it has turned up I shall send a slip to Doctor—not otherwise. It is a point of honor: I argue that the man who pays for an article owns it till it appears: I never till then give copies to any one: never break the rule." Says little to me even about what he writes till it has appeared in print. I suppose this is his strong New Year's poem. I did not ask him.

     Frances Emily White speaks at the Club next Tuesday on the Evolution of Ethics. W.: "You should have Bucke come before you and talk on that subject: give you twenty minutes or so. It would be worth while: he knows it: is full up." I said: "Unfortunately he won't be here till next week." W.: "Well—some other meeting then: arrange for it." I said: "I would rather have him speak on Walt Whitman: Rhys did not treat you radically enough." W.: "No: Rhys could not: I do not count Rhys among my out and out endorsers: Rhys wants the lilt—whatever that is: insists upon it: I have not the lilt, therefore I am not his man." Gilchrist, however, is more positive. "Herbert gets it probably from his mother: there was no compromise in Mrs. Gilchrist's position: it was clean—cut: and she never abandoned it. Did I ever give you a copy of The Radical containing her Woman's Estimate?" He had. I think the first time I took Clifford to see him. "Well—then you know it: it has never been beaten: it stands at the top still." I said: "I think the only thing in you at which

     W. stopped talking for a while. Then he said: "The big bottle of sherry Harned brought me was downstairs: somebody made love to it: when the bottle came back there was hardly anything in it." Spoke of the comfortable lap-robe: made by George's wife: then described George's occupation—inspector of pipes, &c. "He has been solely occupied with that: years and years now: even to—day New York is putting up some new reservoir: George is inspecting the pipes furnished. It is important: the interests are immense: one of the conditions usually being (or always) that an inspector may be placed on the ground: many of the biggest contracts were given to the Starrs out here."

     W. handed me an old Redpath letter which he said I "might keep." He said: "Redpath was one of the men in at the birth: just see when that was—1860: I had few friends back there: I was practically alone. What Redpath was then he was always: he stayed so: he helped me in many ways: he was not only loyal—he was militantly so: he was a perpetual challenge: he would say: if you don't like this Walt Whitman I'd like to know the reason why: yes, why? why? and he would hold people up—make them stand and deliver. I was never of that sort myself—always felt rather like slinking away: it did not seem to me I could say yes when another man said no: I could live yes, as you say: but I was not disposed to put my confidence in myself into blatant affirmations." I said: "Walt, some people think you blew your own horn a lot—wrote puffs on yourself—sort of attitudinized and called attention to yourself quite a bit." He was quizzy over this. "Do they say so? Do they? Who are some people? What are puffs? I have often talked of myself: I talked of myself