7.45 P. M. W. lying on his bed—clothed. Remained recumbent during the time of my stay, except when here and there, in the course of our animated talk, he half rose on his elbow to give some emphasis to a remark. Complained of weariness. I asked him how he had spent the day. "I am not as bad as I might be—not as good as I wish to be." Last night after I left he took a trip down stairs again, alone. "I went silently, so as not to disturb Mary, but I realized my exhaustion." I asked anxiously: "Why do you do that? Why don't you listen to our warnings? Why don't you warn yourself?" He made no kick. I thought he would. He said: "I'll never again attempt to make the trip alone—never: I promise." He said to Mrs. Davis after this experiment: "I see I 'm far gone, Mary: I'll not be with you long, Mary." He has been down on his bed a great part of the day. "I feel weak—exhausted." He speaks less of a rally than he did. "I 'm down a certain distance and there I'll stay till I slip farther down: I 'm not likely to slip up any more." Yet he cheerfully goes his way. He asked me after our hellos were all over: "Did I tell you about yesterday's caller?"—and on my shaking my head: "Well—I intended to: it escaped me." W. went on tersely: " His name was Aldrich"—spelling it carefully: "He is just back from Europe: as I understand it, on his way home: stopped in here: a likely man: we had quite a talk." Then

     I had met Hunter's daughter this evening on the boat and walked up the street with her, she telling me about her father's sickness (he has been in bed for weeks) and alluding to his later visits to W., which, she said, her father feared had worried W. I said to her: "Walt likes your father—I can assure you likes him to come. There are

      W. monologued on politics: started off on his own accord and went on for some time about the situation. "I am troubled by the merely mercenary influences that seem to be let loose in current legislation: the hog let loose: the grabber, the stealer, the arrogant honorable so and so: but I still have my faith—in the end my faith prevails.

     I said: "Our officialism, most of it, is foreign: it is mainly foreign." W. replied: "So it is: you have touched the nerve: but you have to live in Washington for a time, as I did, to fully comprehend the length to which the tradition is carried: I remember at least one occasion in point during my stay: the question was brought up—the question of officialism, clothes, habit: the question whether a minister should wear a sword, gilt buttons—clothes cut so and so—on demand—to conform with social etiquettical dogmatisms. They all declared to me, in Rome it behooved me to do as the Romans did: to make no demurrer—to take my chances with the rule. I objected—took the ground that men should dress as befitted tastes, habits, necessities, no matter for what the occasion: I did not believe in small clothes, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth. You should have seen the imposing air with which I was sat down on—with which I was assured that if one went to court he should accept the court's dictum." But this was not invariable: "Even officals, usually formal enough, sometimes recognized the tyrrany of the code: we know what happened to Buchanan at the English court. Buchanan (was it from Marcy that he got the appointment under Van Buren?) was a simple, quiet man in his manner: went to a reception—was barred out because he was not formally attired: went home without a murmur. The Queen heard of what had transpired—sent a messenger after Buchanan telling him the Queen would be glad to receive him in any habit he himself elected to adopt: but Buchanan received the messenger slippered in a dressing gown—said he would not go back, and so forth—which seems to me to have been an admirably simple and effective rebuke: it enforces my view—has the American I am in it—or what ought to be the American I am . Sanford, in France, went through the same experience, except

     8 P.M. W. reading Pepacton—rather lazily. "I see little in it to hold me: but I had a little notion towards it: I have John humors when I pick up his books and browse with him for a while." Looked pretty well. Yet said in reply to my question: "I can say I am here—little else, nothing else." Sat up near the light: no fire: the evening warmer, as the day had been: the stars out: a touch almost of something that felt like Indian summer. W. particularly interested as always in the state of things outdoors. Questioned me: "Where have you been? What have you been doing?" and so on. Gets great pleasure out of my recital of average experiences—particularly street incidents: likes me to tell him about people I meet—particularly everyday people. "At last and for good I 'm penned up here," said W. He said again: "We hear nothing but politics—cheap politics: cheap and nasty politics: a wearying platitudinous wrangle of politics: with hardly a sincere note anywhere to relieve the tedium of corruption." I showed him The Bulletin of Tuesday containing a review of November Boughs. W. read it while I stood looking

Richfield Springs, N. Y., Oct. 31, 1888.

     I am illustrating E. C. Stedman's Poets of America, and in it I find mention made of a portrait of Walt Whitman; the one which was in his Leaves of Grass, first edition, and also, I think, in the two volume Centennial edition. I am anxious to get a copy of this portrait, and Mr. Stedman suggests that I may do so through you. Will you kindly inform me whether or no a copy is obtainable, and, if obtainable, the price?

Yours respectfully,

William H. Blauvelt.

     After reading the note W. said: "This means the Linton cut or the steel"—then, as he looked again: "No—it means the steel—it could mean no other: there was no other in that edition"—continuing: "Well—send him the steel. I wonder anyhow why he chose that picture: I wonder: I wonder." He looked at the postmark: "Richfield Springs: ah! I know: the name is familiar: it suggests tone—it is the place for the eight and ten dollars a day fellows: not the ten cents a meal fellows like us:

Washington, D. C., Nov. 1, 1888.

Dear Walt:

     I was so impressed with the letter Mr. Stetson wrote a year ago about the calendar that I got Grace to send it to me from California, and enclose you a copy, thinking you might like to see it. You can return it sometime, as I have sent back the original. It does not say much, to be sure, and makes me long for such a mind to do the calendar. Don't you think so?

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     The eye is as bad as ever and I see with difficulty. Good bye.

Always faithfully,

W. D. O'C.

Providence, R. I., 27th July, 1887.

Dear Miss Channing:

     Yours of the 17th came yesterday. I am glad indeed to have such definite information as to what you do not want the calendar to be. I was never so at a loss for an appropriate design, probably because of the greatness of Whitman, of whom I think more highly, and probably more truly, each time I renew my reading.

     My idea thus far for a cheap calendar is a nearly square card large enough to hold the three and one-half by four inch days, and a photogravure in some warm tint of the head of the poet, surrounded by a sort of wreath of lilac leaves and pine (with cones and needles of course). I am convinced that pine and lilac are the keynote of the poetry. Then I thought that at the sides I could faintly—I mean delicately—indicate the evolution out of mortality to life that is so strong a feature in many of the poems, by a half-buried inoffensive skull, out of which—or rather the surface of which—merges the "leaves of grass," with their seeds, perhaps. I 'm afraid that will seem to you rather ghastly, but it would not be as I should do it. If there is any one thing that the poems suggest to me, it is the permanent change of all things, but always towards life. Things die constantly, but only to give energy to life by the nourishment of the living. I cannot see any simpler way to express it than by the accepted emblem of death out of which grows grass that so pleases him. I should dearly like to work in something expressive of the enormous sympathy he has with the earth, air, and water, but I confess myself unable to see how to do it in one card with any degree of simplicity and expressiveness.

     I had read most of the letter aloud. I stopped at this place. W. said: "Stetson goes on in detail: do you know

     I had been to a committee meeting of the Contemporary Club. Gave W. a message from Coates. "Coates is always cheerful, encouraging, gentle. He struck me as that sort of a man: and comfortable, too: perhaps too comfortable—perhaps with a little too big pocket book, God help 'im!" I said to Brinton at the meeting: "Walt has a thorough liking for you." Brinton replied: "I take that as a great honor—a fact to cherish." I quoted this now to W. who said: "Yes, I like him: yet when you tell me of his self congratulation I recall a little story told of Oscar Wilde when he was in this country—in Boston, at some drawing room reception. Wilde said to those there—said it gravely, I think—(at least, I have taken it gravely): 'If I may presume to speak for them—to include myself among them—I should say, it is not your praise, your laudations, that we, the poets, seek, but your comprehension—your recognition of what we stand for and what we effect.'" I drifted into fuller details of my talk with Brinton. "Brinton is simple, candid, forceful, and never flatters: it 's your significance that Brinton first and last of all realizes: he is scientific: he never talks of things he has not examined and never acquiesces in things he does not approve of." W.

     I read this out of Bucke's letter: "In the afternoon came McKay's November Boughs—for which many thanks. I like it well, and if I had not seen the other should have thought it quite perfect. As it is like YOUR November Boughs with the limp covers the best." But W. shook his head: "But mine was not the best: Maurice likes what I do when I do not like what I do myself." Bucke said this about the change in nurses: "Horace tells me that Musgrove is to leave on Sunday or Monday morning. I have written Ed Wilkins and will have him leave here by 11.40 train Sunday morning. He will reach Philadelphia about 8 A. M. Monday." This seemed to make W. serious. Yet he said: "I guess the shift on the whole will be welcome: no doubt the time has come for it." He put his name on a copy of the title page medallion. "Give it to Acton," he said. Acton is Bilstein's proof-reader. He had expressed himself as "a Whitmanite." W. said: "Give him that: give him that for me. I still find in myself that simple childlike instinct which says, I like you because you like me." And he said further: "I have a great emotional respect for the background people—for the folks who are not generally included—for the absentees, the forgotten: the shy nobodies who in the end are the best of all." A letter was handed him by Mrs. Davis. It had been left by someone at the door. "It is from Hunter: he is better: he says he hopes to get up in person on Sunday to report: he says he has suffered greatly from a boil." W. then added in a laughing way: "It 's always a boil or something: we're all in for it more or less: no one is exempt." W. referred in this way to the two O'Connor letters in Bucke's book: "I think one is as good as the other—they are alike in quality—in power—in immense impetuosity." He asked me as I was leaving: "Well: how do our book affairs get along?"

     W. suddenly spoke out briskly as if he had almost forgotten to say something he wanted to speak of. "Now I am in the way of it, Horace, I want to let you know that I took up the Conway book again to-day—sort of fell across it, got interested in it and I read on for fifty pages or more. I mean the Carlyle—Conway's. By the merest accident I struck upon a reference to myself. Conway had had some talk with Carlyle—some talk about democracy: some point arose: he tried to set Carlyle right by quoting me: Carlyle stopping him instantly: 'No—no—don't quote that man! he 's the fellow who thinks he must be a big man because he lives in a big country.'" W. was highly amused. Exploded in quiet chuckles. "It may be I put it a little strong but that 's the gist of it: it consorts mighty well with Carlyle—with the Carlyle we otherwise hear of—his humor, his judgment, as it has been told of so often by so

     Something or other induced me to mention John Boyle O'Reilly. This started W. right off. He is immensely approbrative of O'Reilly always. "Boyle's charm came out of his tremendous fiery personality: he had lived through tremendous experiences which were always appearing somehow reflected in his speech and in his dress and in his attitude of body and mind. I had wonderful talks with him there in Boston when I was doing the Leaves: he came every day. Oh! he is not the typical Irishman: rather, Spanish: poetic, ardent." Then reflectively: "You know his life in outline: he has given me glimpses into it: short, sharp, pathetic look-ins." He stopped a minute. "They were like this: it was in his prison days: the prisoners suffered from bad food or too little food or something: O'Reilly is deputed to present a complaint: he does it: the overseer does not answer—pays no attention whatever: raises his hand, this way"—indicates it—"hits Boyle—slaps him in the mouth—violently—staggers him or knocks him over." Walt had raised his voice. His eyes flashed. "Think of it, Horace!—think of it! what must that have meant to O'Reilly: he was a mere boy, I should say: scarcely twenty or not more: noble, manly, confiding: think of it: try to comprehend it: what it must have aroused and entailed." W. dropped back into his chair: closed his eyes. "It is horrible! horrible!" I did n't intervene. W. after a bit talked on: "O'Reilly has had a memorable life: this is but a sample item: he is full of similar dramatic retrospections: who can fail to be aroused when a man meets you that way stepping right out of a background of vital experience? Here is Kennan, too. I have read him: at first, specifically, deliberately: then with pain: with added grief, more emotion, almost a nightmarish dread: till the horror of it drove me off. I swore I would

     W. passed me back The Star piece about Carlyle: "I read it with considerable interest: it corroborates all that has gone before—is in the usual strain: is genuine: it adds nothing to the Carlyle story but goes over the old ground vividly." He quizzed me. "How does the title page seem to you to-day? Do you think it looks lean? Has it a

     W. picked up The North American Review volume on Lincoln and opened it at his own piece. He pointed to the portrait facing it. "See this: of all the Lincoln pictures this is the best." He looked at it long and earnestly in silence. "I think I must at one time have collected fully fifty pictures of Lincoln: there were lots of them; they were countless: most of them very cheap and hideous—as ugly as the devil. I had a copy of this picture: they wanted it: I sent it for the book. They promised me faithfully they would use it and return it, which they have never done. The figure is better than St. Gaudens'—far better: Lincoln has for the most part been slanderously portrayed. I vividly remember a street view I once had of Lincoln: he was on a balcony speaking to a big crowd—a mixed popular assemblage—a usual American audience—not too still, not too noisy: it affected me powerfully: Lincoln stood just as we see him here—he had one hand behind him, he was in spite of his speechifying calm and in a way reposed: his face—its fine rugged lines—was

     W. asked me further about the Germantown party at Clifford's. Some one there had asked about W.'s weight at the the time the steel was made. W. said: "I should say about forty pounds less than for the last twenty years—about a hundred and sixty-five or thereabouts: I formerly lacked in flesh, though I was not thin: I was less fleshy than in after years—had less belly—though I never had belly in excess—was never at all portly: I had a good liberal frame—was all right that way: I owed a lot to my mothers and fathers." Another question came up. Had Sam Longfellow been over during his occupancy of the Germantown Unitarian pulpit which Clifford now has charge of? Clifford said: "He must have been here at the time of the Boston affair: if so, if he was Walt's friend, it was his place to call—to put himself on record by Walt's side." W. said to that: "I should never have thought of that myself but now that Clifford says it I can see very well why it should have been said. I don't think Sam was ever here: I may have met him over there in the city—in Germantown—though even that seems doubtful. Sam is a fellow who would not do anything to

Chicago, Feb. 3rd, 1887.

My dear and honored Walt Whitman:

     It is less than a year ago that I made your acquaintance so to speak, quite by accident, searching among the shelves of a book store. I was attracted by the curious title: Leaves of Grass, opened the book at random, and my eyes met the lines of Elemental Drifts. You then and there entered my soul, have not departed, and never will depart.

     Be assured that there is as least one (and I hope there are many others) who understands you as you wish to be understood; one, moreover, who has weighed you in the balance of his intuition and finds you the greatest of poets.

     To a man who can resolve himself into subtle unison with Nature and Humanity as you have done, who can blend the soul harmoniously with materials, who sees good in all and overflows in sympathy toward all things, enfolding them with his spirit: to such a man I joyfully give the name of Poet—the most precious of all names.

     At the time I first met your work, I was engaged upon the essay which I herewith send you. I had just finished Decadence. In the Spring Song and the Song of the Depths my orbit responded to the new attracting sun. I send you this essay because it is your opinion above all

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other opinions that I should most highly value. What you may say in praise or encouragement will please me, but sympathetic surgery will better please. I know that I am not presuming, for have you not said: "I concentrate toward them that are nigh"—"will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?"

     After all, words fail me in writing to you. Imagine that I have expressed to you my sincere conviction of what I owe to you.

     The essay is my first effort at the age of thirty. I, too, "have sweated through fog with linguists and contenders." I, too, "have pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair," reaching for the basis of a virile and indigenous art. Holding on in silence to this day, for fear of foolish utterances, I hope at least that my words may carry the weight of conviction.

     Trusting that it may not be in vain that I hope to hear from you, believe me, noble man, affectionately your distant friend,

Louis H. Sullivan.

     7.50 P. M. W. reading George Eliot. Very cheerful though speaking of an only "tolerable day." I asked him at once: "Did you get the manuscript completed to-day?" He answered: "No, I could not make it fit: it would not come out as I wished it." He had attempted it. "The prefatory note is satisfactory—all done: the other is helter-skelter." He would stick to it. "If I can't manage it in a day or two I must let it all go." I protested: "But you will manage: if you have anything to say you must

West Park, N. Y., Nov. 2, '88.

Dear Horace:

     I rec'd the book all right and wrote so to W. W. in a few days. Many many thanks. I shall find time to read it by and by. I see there are new things in it. I am busy with the farm these fine days and pretty well. I hardly need to tell you how much joy your letters have of late given me. With love to W. W. and yourself.

J. B.

     W. talked freely of various things, Ed remaining. W. addressed himself to Ed: "Do you know that you have plunged into the very heart of protectionism? that the merest breath against the tariff is blasphemy here? stirs the whole community against you? Some one says, if you have an odious law, enforce it—let it be seen for what it is: maybe: Grant said something of the same import: there may be good sense, philosophy, in the idea: but the question is, can you enforce it? If most people or a tremendous mass of the people (a large minority) is against it, can it be enforced?" Then he inquired playfully of Ed: "But There 's nothing to keep Canadians out, is there? If a Canadian chooses to come over what shall we do with him? That raises a point which if settled humanly right impeaches the whole system." I asked if Bucke was an out and out free-trader. W. seemed uncertain: "I don't know: don't remember that we ever talked of it: but he should be—it would seem logical for him to be: by his antecedents, tastes, training in science: what else could he be? It would seem like gross self-contradiction for Maurice

     W. asked me some questions having to do with to-morrow's election. "I'd like to smash out two damnable idols—the tariff and the bloody shirt. I don't want to see Harrison elected: yet I don't anticipate anything special from the election of Cleveland—in fact, from any President as Presidents go, with party policies as they are these days. We have in a sense been fortunate in our Presidents: no matter what their backgrounds may have been the Presidents after they become Presidents have borne themselves well—the whole line of them: carried themselves according to their lights"—"Yes, dim as some of their lights have been," I interrupted—he was laughing: "Yes, dim as some of them undoubtedly were. But if they had all of them except Lincoln been inadequate, impossible, he would have redeemed, justified, the tribe." Then after a pause: "But there have been other forcible goodsized men: there was Jackson: he was a great character: true gold: not a line false or for effect—unmined, unforged, unanything, in fact—anything wholly done, completed—just the genuine ore in the rough. Jackson had something of Carlyle in him: a touch of irascibility: quarrelsome, testy, threatening humors: still was always finally honest, like Carlyle: Jackson was virile and instant. Look at some of the other Presidents: take Andy Johnson and Frank Pierce, who were the worst of the lot: they tried every way they know how to steady up—to redeem themselves from their weaknesses. Take Buchanan: he was perhaps the weakest of the President tribe—the very unablest: he was a gentleman—meant to do well—was almost basely inert in the one crisis of his career: though at the last, in the two or three weeks before his retirement, he came to himself, stood straight again, saved his soul. It goes much so all the way on. Start with Washington: come down to our own day—to Cleveland: the selection of men from the first to last registered a certain average of success. We are too apt to pause with

     7.15 P. M. W. lying on the bed when I came, but at once got up and with my assistance crossed the room to his chair. Seemed extra heavy and weak on his pins. Very bright. Talked of many things. I had brought him The Impressions of Theophrastus Such. He took it, repeated its title line, went over the subheads. "No doubt," he said, "the matter is better than the manner"—putting his forefinger down on the list of themes: "The old essayists, the Addison fellows, would say, On Power, On Love—all that: it was their custom, tradition: on this, on the other." I said: "Emerson used the simplified caption—Power, Love, and so on." "Yes," W. nodded: "it was justified in him: I only hope my own titles will be justified in me." "George

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