Dr. Daniel G. Brinton on Walt Whitman

            The death a few weeks ago, of Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, of Philadelphia, gave me a touch of genuine personal sorrow.  Through familiarity with some of his writings had high esteem for the man and admiration for the scientist and scholar.  I knew that he had been for some time in precarious health, but I was far from anticipating so prompt a termination of his career. Indeed, his appearance when I saw him in January of the present year did not even suggest ideas of apprehension.  His face was ruddy, his eyes clear and vivacious, his manner alert and animated.  And yet at that very time he was traveling South, hoping that rest, change of air and environment would arrest the enfeeblement which was gradually mastering him.

Dr. Brinton arrived in Atlanta on the 19th of January and sent me word that he was at the Aragon Hotel.  There I visited him and we had a long and to me highly interesting talk.  Toward the last, I purposely directed the conversation to Walt Whitman, knowing that the Doctor was an old and tried friend of the poet.  I have more than once congratulated myself upon having done so, because of the frank and unrestrained manner in which my interlocutor detailed a portion of his Whitman reminiscences.

The gist of the Doctor’s talk touching the great democrat and poet, I jotted down that same evening, and it is these notes which I desire without more ado to lay before the readers of The Conservator, hoping that in the reading of the same they will experience some of the interest and charm which permeated the original utterances.

“My first meeting with Whitman,” said Dr. Brinton, “was at a dinner of the Triplet Club, in the city of Philadelphia—a club of which the celebrated Shakespearean scholar, Howard Furness, was president.  When I reached the club on that occasion the attendant told me that one of the guests had already arrived and was up stairs in the reading room.  I went up and saw a large man with venerable white hair and beard, toasting his feet at the big open grate fire.  I knew at the first glance that it was Whitman.  I was familiar with his appearance from having seen him several times before on the streets or in other public places.  I introduced myself to him, and spoke about my being familiar with his work, mentioning several poems which had struck me as peculiarly impressive.  I specified one which abounds in description of Long Island scenery.  We fell into a discussion of the large part which dreams play in shaping the delineations of nature found in the writings of very many authors.  He said that his descriptions were drawn direct and at first hand from the natural objects themselves and possessed no elements due to the transformations wrought by the strange perspective of dreams.  We had probably twenty minutes’ conversation before other members or guests arrived.

“Whitman was never what you would call convivial, jocular or witty. He never joked, never told humorous stories, never indulged m repartee, never sought to raise a laugh. Still he was not solemn or gloomy ; quite the reverse of that. He was possessed by a perennial cheerfulness—a cheerfulness which was consistent and apparently unfluctuating. That he had a quiet vein of humor in his nature was evident to those who knew him well.  But there is no sign of this in his poems.

“As a conversationalist Whitman was peculiarly slow and deliberate in his speech.  He had a fashion of stating a thought and then going back and carefully restating it; sometimes he would put it in more literary form, but oftener he would clothe it in terms of the common vernacular.  Frequently he would hesitate and grope for a word, but I speedily discovered that he did not kindly accept aid from the listener!  He desired to work out the form of his utterances undisturbed by outside suggestions.

“I remember on one occasion that a party of literary and artistic Englishmen thought they would shine and help Whitman to shine, and so they interpolated and suggested in his talk to that point of aggravation where Whitman suddenly shut up like a clam and they got nothing more out of him.

“Whitman liked a patient listener.  After he had got a thought stated in definitive terms—terms which suited him—then he would go on and link it with another, and so his talk would progress. And there was this singular thing about a conversation with Whitman; you might go away rather dissatisfied, saying to yourself, ‘Well, I did not get as much out of the talk as I expected.’  But perhaps days or weeks after, something which he said would suddenly recur to you illuminated by a new and strange light, and then you would begin to see that you had not before understood the man’s real meaning.  It would seem to you, perhaps, that at the time you had listened in a, so-to-speak, hypnotic condition, though that is a word which applies in this condition only as remotely suggestive. Whitman would certainly have repudiated any intimation of possessing such an influence. What is to be noted, however, is that Whitman’s talk was singularly suggestive and awakening and that it produced effects remotely simulating organic growth.

“The best which I got from him was purely informal.  During the later years of Whitman’s life I used to go across to Camden about every six weeks to visit him.  Often instead of going upstairs to his workroom he would take me into the kitchen. He had a rickety old splint-bottomed chair, in which he liked to sit, and an old shawl which, he was fond of wrapping about him, and there by the kitchen stove we would hold converse. And those were the occasions which I think were most satisfactory to me.

“So far as my experience goes, there was nothing peculiarly attractive in Whitman’s manner or deportment. He was plain, simple, natural. There never seemed to be any straining for effect. He always conveyed to me the impression of poise and equilibrium, as also of one who would not tolerate trifling or familiarity. He was not the sort of a man to slap upon the shoulder or/back in the hail-fellow-well-met style. Whitman’s heart was full of sympathy and love for many with whom he came in contact.  Peter  Doyle, for instance, is an illustration of how warm an affection Whitman could bestow.  But Whitman was discriminating.  He dwelt for years in a rather unsavory part of Camend, but that did not bother him, since he was a citizen of the universe.  His life there was isolated.  His neighbors seldom visited him.  He had no following among them, save Traubel and his brother-in-law Harned.  People from a distance, however, came  to see  him, now and then, even from across the ocean.

“Whitman was not popular either in Camden or in Philadelphia.  Twice he was the guest of the Contemporary Club of Philadelphia, of which I am a member.  The result of his first visit was rather startling—it caused the resignation of several members.  Philadelphians were wont to look upon Whitman as indecent, disreputable, obscene. Other publishers used to expostulate with the McKays for having anything to do with his books.  Many of the bookshops would not tolerate his works upon their shelves.  No woman there dared to express a liking for his poems.  This intolerance has measurably abated with lapse of time, but still holds powerful sway.

“I do not take much stock in Dr. Bucke’s theory of ‘Cosmic Consciousness,’ as applied to Whitman.  However, the fact remains that a great change took place in Whitman just about the time he reached his thirtieth year.  He attained a new form of expression, mastered a distinct literary style, if you choose to call it by that name, of which there is absolutely no suggestion in anything that he had previously written.  Whitman’s is by no means a unique case.  The poet Shelley furnishes a very happy illustration of a sudden and unexpected transformation in style.  Nevertheless, it must be conceded that back of the changed form of expression lay a spiritual evolution which sanctioned the new vehicle of thought.  In conversation with Whitman touching this matter, he told me that many of the ideas found in Leaves of Grass had long existed in his mind before he was able to give them utterance, the method of expression then at his command proving inadequate.

“I remember arguing with Whitman once that war was, in a way, necessary—that out of the conflict came elements of human character essential to progress, elements which could be attained in no other way.  But he would agree to nothing of the sort.  He said that war had no redeeming features: it was unmitigatedly bad.  It is evident that Whitman’s ministrations to the sick and wounded soldiers in the great hospitals of Washington during the War of Secession exercised a profound and lasting impression upon his mind.  These experiences probably aggravated, if they did not produce the paralysis which maimed him during the last twenty years of his life.  However, paralysis was hereditary in his family.  His father suffered in that way, and his brother George, whom I know, has experienced repeated strokes.  Whitman came of Quaker stock and that fact will perhaps account measurably for his ideas regarding war.

“Whitman was strongly orthodox when it came to a belief in immortality.  My conversations with him leave no room for doubt on that point. He believed in personal immortality—continuous identity after death.  He spoke of these things not as matters of simple belief, but with an assurance, a conviction, as though born of actual knowledge.

“Whitman lived for years in a small two-story house in Camden.  His study was a large upstairs front room.  The floor of this room was littered almost knee deep with a tangled mass of books, newspapers, magazines, letters, clippings and manuscript notes, which were not cleared out, perhaps, for six month at a time.  In the midst of these heaps stood a small coal stove, and Whitman had a fashion of setting his coal oil lamp on the floor at night when searching in the litter for some letter, paper, or other object.  He was exceedingly heavy, and the paralysis with which he was afflicted rendered him excessively slow, awkward and insecure in his movements.  The chances of an accidentally overturned lamp, or of a red-hot cinder from the shackly stove igniting the inflammable material scattered about in such rich profusion, caused me for years a great deal of apprehension.  I dreaded to hear that the poet and all his belongings had been consumed in a quick conflagration, kindled in the way I have suggested.  I mentioned my fears to Traubel, who shared my apprehension; but expostulations were fruitless.  Whitman with habits unmodified “went serenely on his way.

“Probably a large majority of readers of Whitman’s poems have an idea that the poet flung out his thoughts to the world, without study or revision, in the chance garb in which they happened to be clothed at birth.  No conception of Whitman’s method could be more erroneous. He wrote and rewrote with indefatigable industry.  Every line, every phrase, every word, was patiently considered and reconsidered.  “The Prayer of Columbus,” for instance, was rewritten about twenty times.  The rescripts are in existence.  I have examined them, are covered with erasures and interlineations which suggest a critical appreciation exceedingly difficult to please.  And yet Whitman was so successful in hiding his tracks that he seemed to end where most writers begin.

“There are many people for whom Whitman has no message. They would not or could not understand him. I have known persons who were desirous of liking the poet, but they read him in vain—he baffled them.  Hence I have latterly become chary about recommending Whitman.  If anyone asks me ‘Shall I read the poems?’  I say, ‘Yes, get the book and glance over it; you may find something you like.  If so, hold to that and read on.’  Those who are ripe for Whitman will work round to him.

“During the last year of Whitman’s life, I talked with him especially about his work.  I said, ‘Now that your message is about complete, what is your conviction regarding it?  Is it destined to be recognized, to be accepted?’  His reply was an answer, and yet no answer.  He said, ‘It will be accepted, if it deserves to be.’  ‘I have no premonition,’ he continued, ‘no conviction, regarding its fate.  I simply wrote what I was moved to write.  There it stands.  What posterity will extract from it I can only guess.’  Whitman wrote much which I believe he could not himself explain.    He wrote what he was moved to write.

“Shortly before the poet passed away I visited him.  He was too feeble to talk much.  He spoke about the seriousness of his physical condition and the probability of his speedy death. I responded cheeringly, told him I believed he was good for another year at least, and that we should have him with us at his next birthday celebration. He raised his eyes to mine and slowly uttered this query,  ‘Is it worth while, Doctor?’  Then I spoke of the affection, the love with which his friends regarded him.  He smiled with closed eyes, and while the smile still lingered on his face I said good-bye and left him.”

Lucius Daniel Morse.