Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-17
ABSENCE OF FIG LEAVES
Cost Him the Clerkship That Gave
Him a Very Scant Living.
WRATH OF A CABINET OFFICER.
Patient foil in the Hospitals and His
Poetry of the War.
THE EFFECT OF HIS LITERARY STYLE
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.I
Paper No. I.

Paper No. i.
Among nv earliest indiseretions wa
Walt Whitman. So at least was summs-
rily Informed one day by the famous Shell
ton Mackenzie, Doctor of Civil Law, literary
editor and miscellaneous magnate on For.
ney's Press. q considerable and shining
figure in his time, with large place in
criticism and current affairs, and memorable
to me always for many friendly words and
deeds. 1 had written something in an
ambitious vein, and decorated the theRs
with lines from book I had tumbled over
IN literary wanderings--a thin book, with
solid, square type, wide margins, the 'front.'
ispieee figure in shirt sleeves, brawny,
spry, nonchalant, one hand on the thigh,
the other in the pocket; deep eyes, SORROW
full face and lips of expectation.
Out of this book had dug something-I
have long forgotten what-which seemed to
beautify my composition. Mackenzie gave
me due monition. No gentleman ever read
such book. No gentleman ever referred
to it in the presence of ladies. 1t was un-
speakable. And if had ambition, as the
good Mackenzie pointed out in his emphatic,
paternal way, I must never have it known
that had kept company with such writer.
Emerson's Opinion of Leaves of Grass.
Whitman was the author of the lines, and
my quoting them among my earliest indis-
cretions. I accepted the admonitions Of
Mackenzie, and for long time literary re-
lations with Whitman were maintained un-
der furtive conditions The wise, prudent
Mackenzie spoke from his own conserva-
tism, which was likewise the literary judg-
ment of the hour. Whitman was not re-
spectacle. Mackenzie also had high, an
tique notions as to what was proper in ones
literary sympathies. He had lived when
George the Third was King. He had been
the friend of Moore and Southey, had
supped with Sir Walter Scott. Deep in his
heart he saw much that might be mended in
Tennyson, as well as in Thackeray and Bull
wer and others of the new writers" Whit
man had come upon him-somehow-noo one
knew whence or wherefore-how did he
come?
"One book last summer" wrote Emerson
to CARLYLE, Game out in New York; a nom
descript monster which yet had terrible
eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisput-
ably American, which thought to send
you But the book throve 80 badly with
the few to whom 1 showed it, and wanted
good morals SO much, that I never did
Yet, believe now again, shall! 1t IS
called Leaves of Grass, was written and
printed by a journeyman printer in Brook
tyn, New York, named Walter Whitman,
and after you have looked into it, If you
think, as you may, that it is only an
auctioneer's inventory of warehouse, you
can light yonr pipe with it.
The Criticism as to Morality.
Yet, somehow, there were things in
Whitman that 1 found in no other book ,un-
less 1 went back among the Hebrew pro-
phets. The wanting in ''good morals" never
occurred to me. Then, IS now, when l look
at Whitman with maturer eyes, when 7
see him accepted and ruling as one of the
influences of the nineteenth century, was
never in sympathy with those who deemed
him an immoral writer. He was an exem-
plification of nature. should as soon think
of finding immortality in his writing as in
the antique statues of Louvre. in the pad
docks of the Derby, or the Geological Gar
dens In Byron, yes! In dozen other
writers, sin exultant and in rose-tinted hues;
the immortality that would awaken by
meckery or inyective the delicate sense OF
right and wrong, which underlies the de-
votion we call loVe-this with too much
abundance. But Whitman, as read him,
the sense of shame in those not prone to
shame.
We we're long time coming to this recog-
milton. 1 am not sure that we have reached
il in America, but it will come, as it did in
England wears ago The most original
writer of our day, generation since won
across the sea what had been denied az
home.
/ saw Whitman in war times and later
with an experience akin to that of some
Athenian who had known Socrates, and
perhaps followed the grand pug-nosed old
loafer from place to place to hear him talk.
If ever the loafer may come to his own, and
we amend our Christian legends, Saint So
crates will be his patron.
First Impression of whitman
Even as had fancied the shaggy-powed
Socrates. floating about Athens, the eye Of
he police upon him with their own thoughts
Is TO his means of support, there was the
suggestion of q parallel in Whitman. He
nad a conspicuous, massive figure, invari-
sbly in frowsy, picturesque raiment. You
ran against him in out of the way places
riding on the front of horse cars in CONVEX
,ation with the driver, giving pennies to
Jagged groups of negro children; sailing
lown Pennsylvania avenue, with that
wonderful hat, that collar that was never
outtoned, like some slow old three decker
IF 81. or trailing out toward the camps in
suburban Washington with packages under
lis arms or in his coat pockets, presumably
'or the hospital
There was something of rude, envisbls
;plendor in his superb, rugged health-the
1ody dominant with wholesome conditions;
Iomething also of the Horace Greeley in his
oersonality-the same shambling, ,go-as-you-
please gait, Whitman rather the stuTdier Of
he two; nothing of the inspired childhood;
phenomenal touch of genius, as in the
amous journalist. You were apt to find
lin silent, civil, not communicative, but
cordial when you could reach him. He had
10 apparent companionships, apparently
lone with his teeming soul. A sincere,
.bsorbed man, whom you never saw in what
vas called society, or at the rude homely
outs of war days; nor at dinners-rather
Gentleman of the pavement, even as Socrates
must have been, when he loafed about
Athens and said such living, wonderful
hings.
Walt Whitman Was = Martyr.
Whitman was in those days Hkewisea
martyr and his suferings were. much talked
bout in our independent circles, although
hey seemed to sit bitterly upon the shaggy,
ounging wayfarer. The secretary of some
hing or other, and BY some odd twinge Of
ortune in the Lincoln Cabinet, had been
old of Whitman's book, ''the nondescript
aonster which had terrible eyes, and
uffalo strength" This secretary, as I we'll
emember him. was Of the dumb species,