Whitman, WALT, the unique poetic celebrant of Democracy, the Pindaric laudator of the 'average man,' was born, of mingled English and Dutch stock, on 31st May 1819, at West Hills, Long Island, in New York state, and died on 27th March 1892. Like many another man of genius Whitman seems to have owed little to his formal education, as he left school at the age of twelve to serve first in a lawyer's and then in a doctor's office, and finally in a printer's as an apprentice or learner. But that he profited by such schooling as he had (in the public schools of New York state) is shown by the fact that his next employment was that of itinerant teacher in country schools. He returned shortly to his printing, with spells of summer holiday and even farm-work, and in 1846 became editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. This and his other numerous press engagements were only of short duration, a certain restlessness, love of wandering, and eagerness for fresh experiences making him pass rapidly from one post or employment to another. He even built and sold houses at one time, and was in serious peril of growing wealthy on the proceeds, a peril he was zealous and successful in avoiding. All along haunted by the yearning and sense of obligation to produce a life-work, Whitman seemed quite unable to find full and free expressions for his emotions and thoughts until he hit upon the curious, irregular, recitative measures in which he composed the Leaves of Grass. When first issued in 1855 this unique publication was but a small quarto of 94 pages, but it grew in the course of the seven succeeding editions till it contained nearly 400 pages. The later and complete editions, taken together with his prose book Specimen Days and Collect, may be held to embrace the life-work of Whitman as a writer. But Whitman least of all men was content with an idle and remote spectatorship of life; he was ever bold and determined to face and grapple with life's saddest and sternest realities, to put the full strength of his shoulder to the burden of his fellows. Thus it came that summoned to tend his own brother, wounded in the war against the South, he became the brother-nurse to every wounded or sick mother's son in the Northern army. Not Florence Nightingale's self could be more tender and more beloved than the stalwart, bearded Walt, passing like a broad sunbeam from bedside to bedside in the long hospital wards, with cheery words and helpful offices to the living and last hand-clasp and brotherly kiss to dying comrades. The exertion, the exposure, and the high nervous and emotional strain Whitman underwent in these few years left him a shattered and almost aged man. About the close of the war he received (the magnificent reward of devotion and genius) a subordinate clerkship under government, and was summarily dismissed by Secretary
Harlan as the author of 'an indecent book'; though he fortunately obtained a similar post almost immediately. In 1874 he left Washington for Camden, New Jersey, where he lived till his death. Partially paralysed as he now was, Whitman was in no small danger of falling into absolute poverty, had it not been for the timely help of his admirers beyond the Atlantic, a movement in which Tennyson, Carlyle, and Ruskin and other leading authors took generous and active part. Later on several wealthy American citizens honoured themselves and their country by liberally providing for the aged poet's simple wants.
All the auspices seem in favour of Whitman's immortality: the neglect of his own countrymen, tempered only by ridicule, abuse, and even persecution; the recognition by a few of the leading minds of Europe and America; his slow emergence into acceptance and appreciation if not into popularity; all these seem auguries of a true man of genius. Although Whitman, like Carlyle and Browning, may be a dangerous and dangerously easy model for disciples to imitate, he undoubtedly worked out for himself a style of distinction as notable as theirs. This in itself is a title to fame, or at least a charm against oblivion, even though his style, like that of Lyly, runs to extremes and vices. This style or form is a sort of rhythmic recitative or irregular chant, the precursors of which may be found in the English translation of the Psalms and other Biblical poems, in Macpherson's Ossian, and in the later poems of William Blake. These chants vary in movement, and seem governed by laws rhythmic rather than metric, which (like the grammar of an unwritten tongue) have never been formulated even by the inventor himself. They have a peculiar, wild, stirring charm, which is apt to make regular verses seem tame and insipid after them. As to subject, Whitman set himself the Atlantean task of uplifting into the sphere or dominion of poetry the whole of modern life and man, omitting nothing, concealing nothing. Like Wordsworth, he would sing 'man as man,' only with a far wider and bolder sweep of subject and greater daring of treatment. His thesis is that of St Peter's vision; 'there is nothing common or unclean.' Hence the logical necessity with Whitman to include the treatment of subjects which in modern society were tabooed as obscene and unmentionable; hence too the accusations of indecency, so just and pertinent from the accuser's point of view, so futile and irrelevant from that of the accused. Whitman is in fact an idealist who has bound himself by a solemn vow to be a thorough-going realist; and it is his resolute and often successful endeavour to secure this union that gives his work its exceptional artistic quality. He is a prince of impressionists in literature. But so high and hard is the task Whitman sets himself that it is no matter of surprise that he sometimes, if not often, fails, and from heights where he was approaching the sublime falls perilously near the ridiculous. It is the fate of all artists who strive for the highest things that their failings—often only apparent—are more easily detected than their solid achievements; hence the contumely and ridicule that a Turner or a Wordsworth, Keats, or Landor, or Shelley suffers at the hands of a clever but uninitiated criticism. So largely with Whitman; but it is better to approach him in the same spirit that he has shown toward man and nature, that of for ever seeking for what is great and good, while outfacing steadily and bravely every stern and refractory reality.
Whitman's Leaves of Grass fell still-born from the press, but in England, of some copies sold in 1865 by a book-peddler at Sunderland, one was given to W. Bell Scott, who in turn sent one to W. M. Rossetti (see
Athencum for 9th April 1892). A selection from Whitman was published by Mr Rossetti in 1868 (new ed. 1886); another in 1886 by E. Rhys; another, Autobiographia, by A. Stedman (1892). See W. D. O'Connor, The Good Grey Poet (1866); and books by J. Burroughs (1866 and 1897), Dr Bucke (1885), W. Clarke (1892), and J. A. Symonds (1893).