Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-31
THE WHITMAN CENTENNIAL


YESTERDAY - Memorial Day " was
l. true Walt Whitman day. The ferries
thronged with cheerful people, the laughing,
eager throng at the Camden terminal, piling
aboard trolley ears for holiday outing
the clang and thud of marching bands, the
flags and flowers and genial human hustle,
pervaded now and then by that note OF tribute
to the final mystery-surely all this was
just such a scene as Walt loved to watch
and ponder. And going on pilgrimage with
two English editors to Mickle street and
Harleigh Cemetery, it was not strange that
our thoughts were largely with the man
whose hundredth birthday we bear in mind
today.
DY JUST so far lit seems to me) as we
ID find it painful to read Walt Whitman.
by Just so far we may reckon our divergence
from the right path of human happiness
If it perturbs us to read his jottings of
specimen days. along Timber creek, wres-
Ting with his twelve foot oak sapling to gain
strength. sluicing in clear water and securing
his naked limbs with his favorite flesh brush,
Eliminating in blest solitude among the tints
of sunset. the odor of mint leaves and the
moving airs Of the summer meadow-if this
gives us a twinge, then it is probably be-
cause we have divorced ourselves from the
primitive joyfulness of the open air. If we
find his trumpetings of physical candor
shameful or unsavory, perhaps it is because
we have not schooled our thoughts to honest
cleanliness (Though Anne Gilchrist's gen
tie comment must not be forgotten: Perhaps
Walt Whitman has forgotten the truth that
our instincts are beautiful facts of nature,
as we'll as our bodies; and that we have
strong instinct of silence about some
things If we find him lacking in humor
or think some Of his catalogues tedious
there are catalogues and shortage of humor
even in some books considered sacred. And
Whitman, if not a humorist himself, has
been (as Mr.. Chesterton would say) the
cause of humor in others. How adorably
he has lent himself to parody! But this by
the way. The point is, Whitman is true
teacher: first the thrashing, then the ten
derness. No one ever found him exhilarat-
ing on the first reading. But he is hound
of heaven. He will hunt you down and find
you out. Expurgate him for yourself, if you
wish. He cannot be inclosed in a formula.
He asks you to draw up your own formula
as you read him. Rest assured, William
Blake would not have found him obscure.
''If you want me again. look for me under
your bootsoles.' Is not that the very accent
of Blake? -... ~ S..
THERE is marvellous drama in Camden
l. for the seeing eye. The first scene is
Mickle street, that dingy. smoke swept lane
of mean houses, The visitors from oversee
stood almost aghast when they saw the
pathetic vista. For years they had dwelt
on whitman's magnificent messages of pride
and confidence: ~
See projected through time,
For me audience interminable.
Perhaps they had conjured to mind clean
little cottage such as an English suburb
might offer: dainty patch Of wallfowers
under the front door, a shining brass knocker.
a sideboard of mahogany with an etching Of
Walt on the wall. No wonder, then, that
the deathplace of the poet with audience
iuterminabe" came as a shock.
And yet one wonders, Is not that faded
box, with its flag hanging from the second
story and little Louis Skymer's boyish sign
in the window-Rabbits for sale cheap-
and the backyard Uttered with hutchcs aud
the old nose. broken carved bust of Walt
chucked away in a corner-is it not IN way
strangely appropriate? Would not Walt al
most have preferred it to be so, with its
| humble LONELINESS, so instinct with bu :
manity, rather than neatly tidied mauso
leum? II Walt had believed that a man
must live in a colonial cot on the Main Line
| in order to write great poetry he would not
have been Walt.
The great matter is TO reveal ana out
pour the lGodlike suggestions pressing for
| birth in the soul
| And then 1t must be remembered that Walt
| didn't live much on Mickle street until he
| became a confirmed invalid, and his pack OF
| listeners kept him talking SO hard he didn't
know where be was. He lived on the ferries
| up and down Chestnut street, or (for that
| matter) in the constellation Orion
| THE second scene Of the Camden drama
| Lis at Hsrleigh Cemetery, Here, among
that sweet city Of the dead, in little del
! where The rhododsndrons yield their irs'