Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-17
e no torso in its place by his grace or

be no torso in its place by his grace or
leave.
There was modest, resolute pride in all
this, sincerity could not but respect;
nor was the subject alluded to again. The
fact that the book never had other than q
languid circulation NAV have come from the
agility of the police, or it may have been
that it was ahead of its time, that the Whit
man taste had to be formed. I thought of
the weary years through which Wordsworth
waited for recognition, and how poor Car
lyle hawked "Sartor Resartus" around
London only to find the reluctant, eleemo-
synary hospitality of some second-class
magazine. Yet Wordsworth is now with
the sovereigns in their spheres, and 'Sartor
Resartus" is sold by the thousands every
year.
How Henry George Had to Wait.
I had known also of similar experience.
That estimable gentleman, my dear and
honored friend Henry George, had written
in those years book which he felt, as
Whitman and CARLYLE before him, to be a
solemn message to mankind. Composed
under depressing circumstances in Califor-
mia, he had managed by heroic sacrifices to
put it into type. Now if only some one
would read his book! Henry George was
then unknown beyond the threshold of his
Pacific home. was going TO England, and
took dozen copies to peddle for him. 1
tried an oid-fashioned bookseller at the
Havmarket. who had exalted people for
customers-a royal highness, Lord Beacons-
field and the like. In few days
called only to see the books
on the shelves, and the bookseller
debating with his conscience as to whether
ha % ho Poi1
plead guilty to the condonement of con-
spiracy for overturning society. All that
was left was to take the volumes and ask
the ever willing Smalley, of the Tribune,
to name some advanced thinkers of the
''crank" species at whom I might throw
them and have the rubbish well out of the
way. This book was Poverty and Pro-
gress." In short time its sale in London
had reached to $4,000 a year. 1t gave its
author worldwide fame as one of the
foremost men of the time.
Whitman was 10 farther from the spirit
of the age than Henry George, and the
party which came around him was as devout
in its allegiance, although much smaller
than that which now follows that eminent
and intrepid man. 1 know of no writer,
except it may be Carlyle, in prose who has
affected literary style more deeply than
w
the cogency of thought, the precise, unmis-
taxable sense of meaning which we see
manifest and growing in current literature,
is largely due to Whitman. His influence is
rather with those who write than read.
From the thinking world has come his ap-
probation, even as those on the mountains
see the sun long before its glory floods the
valley.
whitp,au,s T5terarv Strepptb
No poet since Byron ever went more
directly to his theme. No arrow ever left
his bow without going home. Poe had this
enough to use it. As in "Helen, Thy
Beauty Is to Me-" how surely the arrow
goes home. I should say, however, that
even above Bvron-above all English
writers since Goldsmith and DRYDEN, the
faculty of clear, definite thought rests with
Whitman. You are never lost in his pages.
You never pause over a word, nor listen for
the echo of double meaning. The refine
ment refined of Tennyson-the mysticism
of Browning-the lush and over-ripened
euphony of Swinburne-there is nothing of
this in the American. The sea is the sea
the sun is the sun-and you 20 with him to
stream and meadow and waterfall, and dis
the consultations, and sit by the
freside over the singing kettle, and read of
DID Kissabone, the sailor, who lived until
he was 80, and died watching the brig cir
cumveut the winds.
In this simplicity, this sinewy strength
will be found some of the reasons for the
steady growth of Whitman's power and
Eame. Others will be found in the fact that
more than any other poet he identified him.
.elf with the Civil War. 1 recall 10 writ
ngs which contain so much OF the war as
the thousand lines he has given to it in
verse; not TO speak of much that is valuable
m prose. "Calamus" and the BODY electric,
he "Sea-Drift" and birds of Passage
much of this we should be loath to spare
Still it could be spared, while the loss to
American literature Of the war passages
would be irreparable.
High Water Mark in America.
The "Song of the Banner at Davbreak" and
President Lincoln's Funeral Hymn reach
he high water mark OF American poetic
,enius; are as precious, at least to the writer
If these lines, as Wordsworth's ode to 'Im-
which, in his humble opinion, is
he highest reach of poetic genius that has
oeen attained since Shakespeare. You have
he soul of war-its majesty, its Titanic |
grandeur "War!-be it weeks, months or
Tears, an armed race is advancing to vel |
'ome it" No anger, no turbulence, no
toward the South, no be- |
ittling the mighty lesson that the ages will |
ind in that gigantic struggle by obtruding !
he wrath and vanity of the strife. Rather |
enderness to the vanquished foe, as in these
ines:
fy enemy is dead man divine as myself is |
dead.
look where he lies, white-faced and still in |
the coffin, and draw near
Send down and touch lightly with nv Inns |
the white face in the coffin.
Whitman never troubles himself about |
he mere policies of the war, not even with |
There is no allusion. not |
wen in the Lincoln poems, to tine breaking |
# the shackles, or setting the negroes free, |
10 swelling the current note of Lincoln |
.dulation. Nor does the freedman appear |
n any part Of the poets noble vision of the |
estored Union. IT was Union war, the |
var of men, the war of the private soldier. |
There are few tributes to heaven directed |
lines on Grant as "man of the |
mighty days and equal to the DAYS" the ex- |
option. The soldier is the theme.
brave, brave were the soldiers (hish-named |
today who lived through the fight;
'ut the bravest pressed to the 'front.' and |
fell unnamed, unknown.
JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG.
ITO Be Concluded Nert Sunday
His Fame As Widespread.