Complete Prose Works

W >> Walt Whitman >> Complete Prose Works

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55

"And the worst, or perhaps the best of it all is that it will require
an artist--and a good one--to record the real facts and impressions.
Ten thousand photographs would not have the value of one really finely
felt painting. Color is all-important. No one but an artist knows how
much. An Indian is only half an Indian without the blue-black hair and
the brilliant eyes shining out of the wonderful dusky ochre and rose
complexion."

SOME DIARY NOTES AT RANDOM

NEGRO SLAVES IN NEW YORK

I can myself almost remember negro slaves in New York State, as my
grandfather and great-grandfather (at West Hills, Suffolk county, New
York) own'd a number. The hard labor of the farm was mostly done by
them, and on the floor of the big kitchen, toward sundown, would be
squatting a circle of twelve or fourteen "pickaninnies," eating
their supper of pudding (Indian corn mush) and milk. A friend of my
grandfather, named Wortman, of Oyster Bay, died in 1810, leaving
ten slaves. Jeanette Treadwell, the last of them, died suddenly in
Flushing last summer (1884,) at the age of ninety-four years. I
remember "old Mose," one of the liberated West Hills slaves, well. He
was very genial, correct, manly, and cute, and a great friend of my
childhood.

CANADA NIGHTS--_Late in August_--

Three wondrous nights. Effects of moon, clouds, stars, and
night-sheen, never surpass'd. I am out every night, enjoying all. The
sunset begins it. (I have said already how long evening lingers here.)
The moon, an hour high just after eight, is past her half, and looks
somehow more like a human face up there than ever before. As it grows
later, we have such gorgeous and broad cloud-effects, with Luna's
tawny halos, silver edgings--great fleeces, depths of blue-black in
patches, and occasionally long, low bars hanging silently a while,
and then gray bulging masses rolling along stately, sometimes in long
procession. The moon travels in Scorpion to-night, and dims all the
stars of that constellation except fiery Antares, who keeps on shining
just to the big one's side.

COUNTRY DAYS AND NIGHTS--

_Sept. 30, '82, 4.30 A.M._--I am down in Camden county, New Jersey, at
the farmhouse of the Staffords--have been looking a long while at
the comet--have in my time seen longer-tail'd ones, but never one so
pronounc'd in cometary character, and so spectral-fierce--so like some
great, pale, living monster of the air or sea. The atmosphere and sky,
an hour or so before sunrise, so cool, still, translucent, give the
whole apparition to great advantage. It is low in the east. The head
shows about as big as an ordinary good-sized saucer--is a perfectly
round and defined disk--the tail some sixty or seventy feet--not a
stripe, but quite broad, and gradually expanding. Impress'd with the
silent, inexplicably emotional sight, I linger and look till all
begins to weaken in the break of day.

_October 2_.--The third day of mellow, delicious, sunshiny weather.
I am writing this in the recesses of the old woods, my seat on a
big pine log, my back against a tree. Am down here a few days for a
change, to bask in the Autumn sun, to idle lusciously and simply, and
to eat hearty meals, especially my breakfast. Warm mid-days--the other
hours of the twenty-four delightfully fresh and mild--cool evenings,
and early mornings perfect. The scent of the woods, and the peculiar
aroma of a great yet unreap'd maize-field near by--the white
butterflies in every direction by day--the golden-rod, the wild
asters, and sunflowers--the song of the katydid all night.

Every day in Cooper's Woods, enjoying simple existence and the
passing hours--taking short walks--exercising arms and chest with the
saplings, or my voice with army songs or recitations. A perfect week
for weather; seven continuous days bright and dry and cool and
sunny. The nights splendid, with full moon--about 10 the grandest
of star-shows up in the east and south, Jupiter, Saturn, Capella,
Aldebaran, and great Orion. Am feeling pretty well--am outdoors most
of the time, absorbing the days and nights all I can.

CENTRAL PARK NOTES

_American Society from a Park Policeman's Point of View_

Am in New York city, upper part--visit Central Park almost every day
(and have for the last three weeks) off and on, taking observations or
short rambles, and sometimes riding around. I talk quite a good deal
with one of the Park policemen, C.C., up toward the Ninetieth street
entrance. One day in particular I got him a-going, and it proved
deeply interesting to me. Our talk floated into sociology and
politics. I was curious to find how these things appear'd on their
surfaces to my friend, for he plainly possess'd sharp wits and good
nature, and had been seeing, for years, broad streaks of humanity
somewhat out of my latitude. I found that as he took such appearances
the inward caste-spirit of European "aristocracy" pervaded rich
America, with cynicism and artificiality at the fore. Of the bulk of
official persons, Executives, Congressmen, Legislators, Aldermen,
Department heads, &c., &c., or the candidates for those positions,
nineteen in twenty, in the policeman's judgment, were just players
in a game. Liberty, Equality, Union, and all the grand words of
the Republic, were, in their mouths, but lures, decoys, chisel'd
likenesses of dead wood, to catch the masses. Of fine afternoons,
along the broad tracks of the Park, for many years, had swept by
my friend, as he stood on guard, the carriages, &c., of American
Gentility, not by dozens and scores, but by hundreds and thousands.
Lucky brokers, capitalists, contractors, grocery-men, successful
political strikers, rich butchers, dry goods' folk, &c. And on a large
proportion of these vehicles, on panels or horse-trappings, were
conspicuously borne _heraldic family crests_. (Can this really be
true?) In wish and willingness (and if that were so, what matter about
the reality?) titles of nobility, with a court and spheres fit for the
capitalists, the highly educated, and the carriage-riding classes--to
fence them off from "the common people"--were the heart's desire of
the "good society" of our great cities--aye, of North and South.

So much for my police friend's speculations--which rather took me
aback--and which I have thought I would just print as he gave them (as
a doctor records symptoms.)

PLATE GLASS NOTES

_St. Louis, Missouri, November, '79_.--What do you think I find
manufactur'd out here--and of a kind the clearest and largest, best,
and the most finish'd and luxurious in the world--and with ample
demand for it too? _Plate glass_! One would suppose that was the last
dainty outcome of an old, almost effete-growing civilization; and yet
here it is, a few miles from St. Louis, on a charming little river,
in the wilds of the West, near the Mississippi. I went down that
way to-day by the Iron Mountain Railroad--was switch'd off on a
side-track four miles through woods and ravines, to Swash Creek,
so-call'd, and there found Crystal city, and immense Glass Works,
built (and evidently built to stay) right in the pleasant rolling
forest. Spent most of the day, and examin'd the inexhaustible and
peculiar sand the glass is made of--the original whity-gray stuff in
the banks--saw the melting in the pots (a wondrous process, a real
poem)--saw the delicate preparation the clay material undergoes for
these great pots (it has to be kneaded finally by human feet, no
machinery answering, and I watch'd the picturesque bare-legged
Africans treading it)--saw the molten stuff (a great mass of a glowing
pale yellow color) taken out of the furnaces (I shall never forget
that Pot, shape, color, concomitants, more beautiful than any antique
statue,) pass'd into the adjoining casting-room, lifted by powerful
machinery, pour'd out on its bed (all glowing, a newer, vaster study
for colorists, indescribable, a pale red-tinged yellow, of tarry
consistence, all lambent,) roll'd by a heavy roller into rough plate
glass, I should say ten feet by fourteen, then rapidly shov'd into the
annealing oven, which stood ready for it. The polishing and grinding
rooms afterward--the great glass slabs, hundreds of them, on their
flat beds, and the see-saw music of the steam machinery constantly at
work polishing them--the myriads of human figures (the works employ'd
400 men) moving about, with swart arms and necks, and no superfluous
clothing--the vast, rude halls, with immense play of shifting shade,
and slow-moving currents of smoke and steam, and shafts of light,
sometimes sun, striking in from above with effects that would have
fill'd Michel Angelo with rapture.

Coming back to St. Louis this evening, at sundown, and for over an
hour afterward, we follow'd the Mississippi, close by its western
bank, giving me an ampler view of the river, and with effects a little
different from any yet. In the eastern sky hung the planet Mars,
just up, and of a very clear and vivid yellow. It was a soothing and
pensive hour--the spread of the river off there in the half-light--
the glints of the down-bound steamboats plodding along--and that
yellow orb (apparently twice as large and significant as usual) above
the Illinois shore. (All along, these nights, nothing can exceed the
calm, fierce, golden, glistening domination of Mars over all the stars
in the sky.)

As we came nearer St. Louis, the night having well set in, I saw some
(to me) novel effects in the zinc smelting establishments, the tall
chimneys belching flames at the top, while inside through the openings
at the facades of the great tanks burst forth (in regular position)
hundreds of fierce tufts of a peculiar blue (or green) flame, of a
purity and intensity, like electric lights--illuminating not only the
great buildings themselves, but far and near outside, like hues of the
aurora borealis, only more vivid. (So that--remembering the Pot from
the crystal furnace--my jaunt seem'd to give me new revelations in the
color line.)

SOME WAR MEMORANDA

_Jotted Down at the Time_

I find this incident in my notes (I suppose from "chinning" in
hospital with some sick or wounded soldier who knew of it):

When Kilpatrick and his forces were cut off at Brandy station (last
of September, '63, or thereabouts,) and the bands struck up "Yankee
Doodle," there were not cannon enough in the Southern Confederacy to
keep him and them "in." It was when Meade fell back. K. had his large
cavalry division (perhaps 5,000 men,) but the rebs, in superior force,
had surrounded them. Things look'd exceedingly desperate. K. had two
fine bands, and order'd them up immediately; they join'd and
play'd "Yankee Doodle" with a will! It went through the men like
lightning--but to inspire, not to unnerve. Every man seem'd a giant.
They charged like a cyclone, and cut their way out. Their loss was but
20. It was about two in the afternoon.

WASHINGTON STREET SCENES

_Walking Down Pennsylvania Avenue_

_April 7, 1864_.--Warmish forenoon, after the storm of the past few
days. I see, passing up, in the broad space between the curbs, a big
squad of a couple of hundred conscripts, surrounded by a strong cordon
of arm'd guards, and others interspers'd between the ranks. The
government has learn'd caution from its experiences; there are many
hundreds of "bounty jumpers," and already, as I am told, eighty
thousand deserters! Next (also passing up the Avenue,) a cavalry
company, young, but evidently well drill'd and service-harden'd men.
Mark the upright posture in their saddles, the bronz'd and bearded
young faces, the easy swaying to the motions of the horses, and the
carbines by their right knees; handsome and reckless, some eighty of
them, riding with rapid gait, clattering along. Then the tinkling
bells of passing cars, the many shops (some with large show-windows,
some with swords, straps for the shoulders of different ranks,
hat-cords with acorns, or other insignia,) the military patrol
marching along, with the orderly or second-lieutenant stopping
different ones to examine passes--the forms, the faces, all sorts
crowded together, the worn and pale, the pleas'd, some on their way
to the railroad depot going home, the cripples, the darkeys, the
long trains of government wagons, or the sad strings of ambulances
conveying wounded--the many officers' horses tied in front of
the drinking or oyster saloons, or held by black men or boys, or
orderlies.

THE 195TH PENNSYLVANIA

_Tuesday, Aug. 1, 1865_.--About 3 o'clock this afternoon (sun broiling
hot) in Fifteenth street, by the Treasury building, a large and
handsome regiment, 195th Pennsylvania, were marching by--as it
happen'd, receiv'd orders just here to halt and break ranks, so that
they might rest themselves awhile. I thought I never saw a finer set
of men--so hardy, candid, bright American looks, all weather-beaten,
and with warm clothes. Every man was home-born. My heart was much
drawn toward them. They seem'd very tired, red, and streaming with
sweat. It is a one-year regiment, mostly from Lancaster county, Pa.;
have been in Shenandoah valley. On halting, the men unhitch'd their
knapsacks, and sat down to rest themselves. Some lay flat on the
pavement or under trees. The fine physical appearance of the whole
body was remarkable. Great, very great, must be the State where such
young farmers and mechanics are the practical average. I went around
for half an hour and talk'd with several of them, sometimes squatting
down with the groups.

LEFT-HAND WRITING BY SOLDIERS

_April 30, 1866_.--Here is a single significant fact, from which one
may judge of the character of the American soldiers in this just
concluded war: A gentleman in New York city, a while since, took it
into his head to collect specimens of writing from soldiers who had
lost their right hands in battle, and afterwards learn'd to use the
left. He gave public notice of his desire, and offer'd prizes for the
best of these specimens. Pretty soon they began to come in, and by the
time specified for awarding the prizes three hundred samples of such
left-hand writing by maim'd soldiers had arrived.

I have just been looking over some of this writing. A great many of
the specimens are written in a beautiful manner. All are good. The
writing in nearly all cases slants backward instead of forward. One
piece of writing, from a soldier who had lost both arms, was made by
holding the pen in his mouth.

CENTRAL VIRGINIA IN '64

Culpepper, where I am stopping, looks like a place of two or three
thousand inhabitants. Must be one of the pleasantest towns in
Virginia. Even now, dilapidated fences, all broken down, windows
out, it has the remains of much beauty. I am standing on an eminence
overlooking the town, though within its limits. To the west the long
Blue Mountain range is very plain, looks quite near, though from 30
to 50 miles distant, with some gray splashes of snow yet visible. The
show is varied and fascinating. I see a great eagle up there in
the air sailing with pois'd wings, quite low. Squads of red-legged
soldiers are drilling; I suppose some of the new men of the Brooklyn
14th; they march off presently with muskets on their shoulders. In
another place, just below me, are some soldiers squaring off logs to
build a shanty--chopping away, and the noise of the axes sounding
sharp. I hear the bellowing, unmusical screech of the mule. I mark the
thin blue smoke rising from camp fires. Just below me is a collection
of hospital tents, with a yellow flag elevated on a stick, and moving
languidly in the breeze. Two discharged men (I know them both)
are just leaving. One is so weak he can hardly walk; the other is
stronger, and carries his comrade's musket. They move slowly along
the muddy road toward the depot. The scenery is full of breadth, and
spread on the most generous scale (everywhere in Virginia this thought
fill'd me.) The sights, the scenes, the groups, have been varied and
picturesque here beyond description, and remain so.

I heard the men return in force the other night--heard the shouting,
and got up and went out to hear what was the matter. That night scene
of so many hundred tramping steadily by, through the mud (some big
flaring torches of pine knots,) I shall never forget. I like to go to
the paymaster's tent, and watch the men getting paid off. Some have
furloughs, and start at once for home, sometimes amid great chaffing
and blarneying. There is every day the sound of the wood-chopping
axe, and the plentiful sight of negroes, crows, and mud. I note large
droves and pens of cattle. The teamsters have camps of their own, and
I go often among them. The officers occasionally invite me to dinner
or supper at headquarters. The fare is plain, but you get something
good to drink, and plenty of it. Gen. Meade is absent; Sedgwick is in
command.

PAYING THE 1ST U. S. C. T.

One of my war time reminiscences comprises the quiet side scene of
a visit I made to the First Regiment U. S. Color'd Troops, at their
encampment, and on the occasion of their first paying off, July 11,
1863. Though there is now no difference of opinion worth mentioning,
there was a powerful opposition to enlisting blacks during the earlier
years of the secession war. Even then, however, they had their
champions. "That the color'd race," said a good authority, "is capable
of military training and efficiency, is demonstrated by the testimony
of numberless witnesses, and by the eagerness display'd in the
raising, organizing, and drilling of African troops. Few white
regiments make a better appearance on parade than the First and Second
Louisiana Native Guards. The same remark is true of other color'd
regiments. At Milliken's Bend, at Vicksburg, at Port Hudson, on Morris
Island, and wherever tested, they have exhibited determin'd bravery,
and compell'd the plaudits alike of the thoughtful and thoughtless
soldiery. During the siege of Port Hudson the question was often ask'd
those who beheld their resolute charges, how the 'niggers' behav'd
under fire; and without exception the answer was complimentary to
them. 'O, tip-top!' 'first-rate!' 'bully!' were the usual replies. But
I did not start out to argue the case--only to give my reminiscence
literally, as jotted on the spot at the time."

I write this on Mason's (otherwise Analostan) island, under the fine
shade trees of an old white stucco house, with big rooms; the white
stucco house, originally a fine country seat (tradition says the
famous Virginia Mason, author of the Fugitive Slave Law, was born
here.) I reach'd the spot from my Washington quarters by ambulance up
Pennsylvania avenue, through Georgetown, across the Aqueduct bridge,
and around through a cut and winding road, with rocks and many bad
gullies not lacking. After reaching the island, we get presently in
the midst of the camp of the 1st Regiment U. S. C. T. The tents look
clean and good; indeed, altogether, in locality especially, the
pleasantest camp I have yet seen. The spot is umbrageous, high and
dry, with distant sounds of the city, and the puffing steamers of the
Potomac, up to Georgetown and back again. Birds are singing in the
trees, the warmth is endurable here in this moist shade, with the
fragrance and freshness. A hundred rods across is Georgetown. The
river between is swell'd and muddy from the late rains up country.
So quiet here, yet full of vitality, all around in the far distance
glimpses, as I sweep my eye, of hills, verdure-clad, and with
plenteous trees; right where I sit, locust, sassafras, spice, and many
other trees, a few with huge parasitic vines; just at hand the banks
sloping to the river, wild with beautiful, free vegetation, superb
weeds, better, in their natural growth and forms, than the best
garden. Lots of luxuriant grape vines and trumpet flowers; the river
flowing far down in the distance.

Now the paying is to begin. The Major (paymaster) with his clerk seat
themselves at a table--the rolls are before them--the money box is
open'd--there are packages of five, ten, twenty-five cent pieces.
Here comes the first Company (B), some 82 men, all blacks. Certes, we
cannot find fault with the appearance of this crowd--negroes though
they be. They are manly enough, bright enough, look as if they had the
soldier-stuff in them, look hardy, patient, many of them real handsome
young fellows. The paying, I say, has begun. The men are march'd up in
close proximity. The clerk calls off name after name, and each walks
up, receives his money, and passes along out of the way. It is a real
study, both to see them come close, and to see them pass away, stand
counting their cash--(nearly all of this company get ten dollars
and three cents each.) The clerk calls George Washington. That
distinguish'd personage steps from the ranks, in the shape of a very
black man, good sized and shaped, and aged about 30, with a military
mustache; he takes his "ten three," and goes off evidently well
pleas'd. (There are about a dozen Washingtons in the company. Let us
hope they will do honor to the name.) At the table, how quickly the
Major handles the bills, counts without trouble, everything going on
smoothly and quickly. The regiment numbers to-day about 1,000 men
(including 20 officers, the only whites.)

Now another company. These get $5.36 each. The men look well. They,
too, have great names; besides the Washingtons aforesaid, John Quincy
Adams, Daniel Webster, Calhoun, James Madison, Alfred Tennyson, John
Brown, Benj. G. Tucker, Horace Greeley, &c. The men step off aside,
count their money with a pleas'd, half-puzzled look. Occasionally, but
not often, there are some thoroughly African physiognomies, very black
in color, large, protruding lips, low forehead, &c. But I have to say
that I do not see one utterly revolting face.

Then another company, each man of this getting $10.03 also. The pay
proceeds very rapidly (the calculation, roll-signing, &c., having been
arranged beforehand.) Then some trouble. One company, by the rigid
rules of official computation, gets only 23 cents each man. The
company (K) is indignant, and after two or three are paid, the refusal
to take the paltry sum is universal, and the company marches off to
quarters unpaid.

Another company (I) gets only 70 cents. The sullen, lowering,
disappointed look is general. Half refuse it in this case. Company G,
in full dress, with brass scales on shoulders, look'd, perhaps, as
well as any of the companies--the men had an unusually alert look.
These, then, are the black troops,--or the beginning of them. Well,
no one can see them, even under these circumstances--their military
career in its novitiate--without feeling well pleas'd with them.

As we enter'd the island, we saw scores at a little distance, bathing,
washing their clothes, &c. The officers, as far as looks go, have a
fine appearance, have good faces, and the air military. Altogether it
is a significant show, and brings up some "abolition" thoughts. The
scene, the porch of an Old Virginia slave-owner's house, the Potomac
rippling near, the Capitol just down three or four miles there, seen
through the pleasant blue haze of this July day.

After a couple of hours I get tired, and go off for a ramble. I write
these concluding lines on a rock, under the shade of a tree on the
banks of the island. It is solitary here, the birds singing, the
sluggish muddy-yellow waters pouring down from the late rains of the
upper Potomac; the green heights on the south side of the river before
me. The single cannon from a neighboring fort has just been fired, to
signal high noon. I have walk'd all around Analostan, enjoying its
luxuriant wildness, and stopt in this solitary spot. A water snake
wriggles down the bank, disturb'd, into the water. The bank near by is
fringed with a dense growth of shrubbery, vines, &c.

FIVE THOUSAND POEMS

There have been collected in a cluster nearly five thousand big and
little American poems--all that diligent and long-continued research
could lay hands on! The author of 'Old Grimes is Dead' commenced
it, more than fifty years ago; then the cluster was pass'd on and
accumulated by C. F. Harris; then further pass'd on and added to by
the late Senator Anthony, from whom the whole collection has been
bequeath'd to Brown University. A catalogue (such as it is) has been
made and publish'd of these five thousand poems--and is probably the
most curious and suggestive part of the whole affair. At any rate it
has led me to some abstract reflection like the following.

I should like, for myself, to put on record my devout acknowledgment
not only of the great masterpieces of the past, but of the benefit of
_all_ poets, past and present, and of _all_ poetic utterance--in its
entirety the dominant moral factor of humanity's progress. In view of
that progress, and of evolution, the religious and esthetic elements,
the distinctive and most important of any, seem to me more indebted
to poetry than to all other means and influences combined. In a very
profound sense _religion is the poetry of humanity_. Then the points
of union and rapport among all the poems and poets of the world,
however wide their separations of time and place and theme, are
much more numerous and weighty than the points of contrast. Without
relation as they may seem at first sight, the whole earth's poets and
poetry--_en masse_--the Oriental, the Greek, and what there is of
Roman--the oldest myths--the interminable ballad-romances of the
Middle Ages--the hymns and psalms of worship--the epics, plays, swarms
of lyrics of the British Islands, or the Teutonic old or new--or
modern French--or what there is in America, Bryant's, for instance,
or Whittier's or Longfellow's--the verse of all tongues and ages,
all forms, all subjects, from primitive times to our own day
inclusive--really combine in one aggregate and electric globe or
universe, with all its numberless parts and radiations held together
by a common centre or verteber. To repeat it, all poetry thus has (to
the point of view comprehensive enough) more features of resemblance
than difference, and becomes essentially, like the planetary globe
itself, compact and orbic and whole. Nature seems to sow countless
seeds--makes incessant crude attempts--thankful to get now and then,
even at rare and long intervals, something approximately good.