The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-04-27


sity-society of ''The waItwhitmani-
acs--Profsssor Dowden's Views on the
Character and Influence of Whitman.
Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, April Some eighteen
years ago, when was an undergraduate
of Trinity college, Dublin university,
one of the most agreeable literary soci-
cites to which it was then considered
fashionable to belong, was known as the
Mermaid club, the title of which was
borrowed from the famous gathering
which included such wits as Shakes
peare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher
and other world renowned worthless of
the Eizabethan era.
Foremost among the scholars and
thinkers, not only of the society, but of
/ the university, stood Edward Dowden,
university professor of English htera-
ture, man with mind of the strongest
and finest fiber and character of such
force and elevation as to challenge the
reverence Of the widest undergraduates
and the most sincere respect of his col
lCdSS tklO lcllOWS anu plOlC5C-
ors.
The Mermaid club met once in two
weeks at the college rooms or private
residence of some member in rotation,
and during term we held one or two
meetings at the house of Mr.. Dowden.
Upon one of the latter occasions 1 hap
pened to see upon the library table a
paper covered volume of Walt Whit
mans LEAVES of Grass" book which
for some time had been attracting con-
siderable attention among university
men and in literary circles of the Irish
capital.
Mr.. Dowden, whose word was law
upon such matters, had recently deliv-
cred lecture upon Walt Whitman, and
young men who remembered Longfel-
lows advice about ''ever seeking some
thing new" profeSsed enthusiasm on the
subject of this new evangel. Disciples
of the western teacher were known as
"Waltwhitmaniacs," and on the well
established principle that martyrs blood
is the seed of the church, our organize
ton prospered through suffering. We
met contempt with scorn and greeted
criticism with the retort that Father
Walt" was above criticism.
The fact of the matter is that many
of us did not understand what Whit
man was driving at" and the small
movement with which we were asso-
ciated may have been merely revolt
against the safety of superintendent
in a literature which was being domi-
mated by Tennyson and debauched by
Swinburne. As we had vague ideas
that Victor Hugo's romanticism had
broken through the traditions of French
classical drama, SO we believed that
Whitman's realism furnished q new
link in the chain of worldwide poetic
development. At all events the unin-
telligible Is always magnificent to youth
full and aspiring ''souls," and according
ly we had faith in Whitman for the
same reason that other good Christians
believe in the thirtynine articles.
Anxious then for Mr.. Dowdens opin-
ion, ventured to say, upon the occasion
mentioned, "Mr. Dowden, do you regard
Walt Whitman as an educated man?'
"Wel," he said, "Walt has probably
not had what is called the advantage of
a university education His father did
not spend as much money in having him
taught to write bad Latin and worse
Greek verses as our fathers have spent
upon us, but there are great many i'm
portant things in the world beside clas-
steal languages and the higher mathe-
mates, and Walt Whitman knows more
about such things than you or do. In
the largest, widest sense he is thor
oughly well educated man, and, as the
exponent of world embracing democ-
rscy, he opens our hearts and minds to
greater possibilities for the whole hu-
man race than any writer is capable of
doing who works within the prescribed
literary formulas.
"The ideas upon which much of our
poetry rests have been few in number,
practically exclusive, and now worn
almost threadbare. Whitman adds enor-
mously to the number and magnitude of
poetical subjects. He has gone into the
coal mine, the canal boat, miserable
dens in tenement houses and on the back
streets of great cities; into jails, aims
houses, churches, hospitals and work
shops and moving freely among all
classes Of the worlds tolers he has OBJ
served the dignity and worth and noble
possibilities of human character, even
under sordid and frequently tragic con-
ditions.
He has felt keenly this misery of the
human race, and TO the best of his ability
has offered remedies, but his most eff
fective one is his constant and strong
expression of hopefulness IN the destiny
of the race, as indicated by confidence
in the progress of America, In the power
of human reason and effort to remove
prevailing distress, and implicit belief in
the wisdom of the scheme upon which
this universe was conceived and devel-
oped.
In other words. he is democrat in
the old sense. He believes that the sup
preston of the people must give place
to freedom for their fullest develop
ment; and he is an optimist who trusts
TO natural forces for millennium which
has been conceived in America. and
which can only be realized on the lines
laid down under the favorable condi-
tons which have prevailed in that coun-
try for the first time in the worlds his
tory. Such opinions are If the gravest
import to a community whose best
poetry is penetrated with the sadness Of
existence and the futility of human