The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-04-02
Walt whitman's want-A Public.

The idea that poverty is good training
school for poetry has been held by great
many, and undoubtedly the poets who
pierced the several crusts of society, begin
ming at the bottom one, had some great adj
vantages over their less lucky brethren who
always had enough to cot and to wear.
new school is fast gaining ground, whose
maxims are that all poets should be we'll
fed, and that the works of the particular
poets who write for future ages" and
all that sort of thing should be forced
down the throat of the present nge,
whether it would or no. Mr.. Robert
Buchanan, himself, we believe, poet, is
the exponent of this new and dangerous doc
trine, and he points his moral with the case of
Walt Whitman. We do not know what Mr..
Whitman has to say Of this doctrine, but in
his heart of hearts he cannot approve it.
The picture which it would bring to his
mind Of bloated poets and public dosed in
platoons with his poetry as it came raw
from his hands, just as old sea
captains administer castor oil and lime
juice to their crews, would be revolving
to him. Blatant, coarse and sensual as his
song is, the ''good, gray poet would much
prefer the modest, kindly offices which in
old TIMES men did for one another to the
style of this drumhead Mr.. Buchanan, who
would 60 about shouting his friends
poverty with the energy Of an intoxi-
Gated tam-tam beaten. To help a
summed fellow creature, be he poet
or pariah, is good Office, and to help Walt
Whitman put his poems in durable bind
ings, where posterity may get them, if it
wants them, can scarcely be considered
criminal in this liberal age Tie chances
against survival are very many, and
Walt Whitman's friends have right to
assist him in the task Of guarding his
poems for the three incubatory centuries he
deems necessary against the grinding teeth
Of the cynical rag mill of time for, as Swift
says in the ''Tale of Tub" Books, like
men, their authors have no more than one
way of coming into the world but there are
ten thousand to go out Of it and return no
more" So far Mr.. Buchanan has a tolerable
cause, but beyond that he plunges into q
quagmire, to use mild expression.
When he beratcs the American people,
calls typical Yankee editors" pudding
heads, scolds American poets for crooks and
''crows," calls Whitman sick eagle and ''the
only remaining prophet" whom America
wants to murder, Mr.. Buchanan is reck-
lessly laundering There is certain
quality in Whitman's writing which is not
overlooked or undercstimated in this
country--namely, his bold belief in
the great destiny Of the United States--but
his uncouthness, his catalogue tediousness,
which is that Of business directory, albeit
in spasms, remove even the least objection
able of his poems from that interest
which would make his work profitable
This is the most hopeful view. When it
is added that the good, gray poet"
has more unfiltered filth and naked
nastiness in his works than would 1T out an
armada of Swinburnes in their most indie
cent moods, even sir. buchanan will admit
| that in a country where women can read it
I would DO hard to circulate his prophet.
Then, as to the prophecy. We heartily
sympathize with the aspirations after de-
| mocracy which penetrate so many OF
the band Of modern English singers
I Mr.. Buchanan. we believe, among the
number-and can dimly understand how
even the incoherent exulting yells of Walt
Whitman may sound like an encouraging
voice to them, so that they absorb the moral
stencil Of the breath for the sake OF the
democracy. In America, however, where
freedom is, there is no such temptation.
The fine enthusiasm OF the Declara-
! ton of Independence had its echo in
our day in the Proclamation OF
Emancipation; but as Americans dine daily
on the roast beef of liberty, they cannot. ex-
cept on such extraordinary occasions,
exhibit the same enthusiasm over the meat
that CLOVIS in the breasts Of the freedom.