Jicticu, JTact, anb JTmic}} Scries Edited by Arthur Stedman AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Jiction, Jact, aixtn Jancg Qtvm. MERRY TALES. By Mark Twain. THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND HIS EASTERN NEIGHBORS. By Poultney Bigelow. PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE. By Poultney Bigelow. SELECTED POEMS. By Walt Whitman. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA: THE STORY OF A LIFE. By Walt Whitman. DON FINIMONDONE: CALABRIAN SKETCHES. By Elisabeth Cavazza. THE MASTER OF SILENCE: A ROMANCE. By Irving Bacheller. WRITINGS OF COLUMBUS. Edited by Paul Leicester Ford. Other Volumes to be Annoimced. — » » • Bound in Illuminated Cloth, each, 75 Cents. ^*^ For Sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid, on re- ceipt of price, by the Publishers, OHAS, L, WEBSTEE & 00., NEW YOEK. WALT WHITMAN'S HOUSE, CAMDEN, N. J. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA OR THE STORY OF A LIFE WALT WHITMAN SELECTED FROM HIS PROSE WRITINGS ^m Work CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO 1892 T5 3.3 3 / .As- Copyright, 1875, 1882. 1888, and 1891, WALT WHITMAN. Copyright, 1892, CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. i^All rights reserved,) /Z-V^dji' PRESS OF Jenkins & McCowan, NEW YORK. EDITOR'S NOTE Walt Whitman's death finally came as a surprise to his friends. Only two months before it took place Mr. John Burroughs had written to a correspondent, *' I have repeatedly said that he would outlive us all ;" and this was the belief of those who had observed the good, gray poet's recovery from so many serious attacks of illness. When I visited Camden, with the purpose of gaining his consent to eclectic editions of his poems and prose, the task seemed hopeless. The publication of a volume of selections from Leaves of Grass had often been urged upon Mr. Whitman, but he never could bring himself to permit it. I should be ungrateful, indeed, were I not to acknowledge here the hearty cooperation afford- ed me by Mr. Horace L. Traubel, of Camden, in achiev- ing this object. It is well known that he has been for some years the poet's chief friend and assistant in the latter's literary affairs, besides organizing and conduct- ing arrangements for the invalid's personal comfort. I found that Mr. Traubel himself had in mind a vol- ume of prose selections similar to the one now pub- vi editor's note lished, but he cordially entered into my plans, and presented me with his intended title, Autobiographia. As in the case of Selected PoemSy the plan of this book was approved by Mr. Whitman, but, as in that case also, death prevented his examining the completed work. The sole responsibility for these selections, therefore, rests with the editor, whose purpose has been to give a consecutive account of the poet's life in his own characteristic language. Specimen Days, of course, forms the basis of the book, and I have added in their proper order passages from the author's later volumes, N'ove7nber Boughs and Good Bye my Fa7icy. By this means a very fair view of his life is afforded. It has not seemed necessary to in- dicate the frequent omissions from Specimeji Days. These passages have been cut out as not directly bear- ing on the story of his career, or as duplicating similar experiences beyond the limits of this volume. Me77ioranda Durmg the War, including all of the author's hospital diary here given, was published as a separate volume in 1875, ^-^^^ afterward as a portion of Specime7i Days (1883). The nature-notes and much of the travel-notes first appeared in The Critic and the New York Tribu7ie, which journals, with the old Galaxy (published by William C. and Frank P. Church) ac- cepted almost every poem and article offered them by Walt Whitman. EDITOR'S NOTE Vll The poet's prose style, for the most part, is conver- sational and loosely written or elaborately involved. In the opening paragraph of Specimen Days the author hints at his lack of strength to revise what follows, and criticism may therefore be deprecated. That he could write effective prose, when willing to take pains, and when not writing by theory, can be seen by the following extract from the preface to Two Rivulets (1876) : " As I write these lines, it is again early sum- mer — again my birthday — now my fifty-sixth. Amid the outside beauty and freshness, the sunlight and verdure of the delightful season, O how different the moral atmosphere amid which I now revise this Volume, from the jocund influences surrounding the growth and advent of Leaves of Grass. I occupy myself, arranging these pages for publication, still envelopt in thoughts of the death two years since of my dear Mother, the most perfect and magnetic character, the rarest combination of practical, moral and spiritual, and the least selfish, of all and any I have ever known — and by me O so much the more deeply loved — and also under the phys- ical aflfiiction of a tedious attack of paralysis, obstinately lingering and keeping its hold upon me, and quite sus- pending all bodily activity and comfort." Thanks are due Mr. Harrison S. Morris for friendly advice and assistance in the preparation of these Auto- biographia. 111. 111. Good-bye, Walt ! Good-bye, from all you loved of earth — Rock, tree, dumb creature, man and woman — To you, their comrade human. The last assault Ends now ; and now in some great world has birth A minstrel, whose strong soul finds broader wings, More brave imaginings. Stars crown the hilltop where your dust shall lie, Even as we say good-bye. Good-bye, old Walt J E. C. S. Sent, with an ivy wreath, to his funeral, March 30, 1892, AUTOBIOGRAPHIA A HAPPY HOUR'S COMMAND Down in the Woods, July 2d, 1SS2, — If I do it at all I must delay no longer. Incongruous and full of skips and jumps as is that huddle of diary-jottings, war- memoranda of i862-'65, Nature-notes of i877-'8i, with Western and Canadian observations afterwards, all bundled up and tied by a big string, the resolution and indeed mandate comes to me this day, this hour, — (and what a day ! what an hour just passing ! the luxury of riant grass and blowing breeze, with all the shows of sun and sky and perfect temperature, never before so filling me body and soul) — to go home, untie the bun- dle, reel out diary-scraps and memoranda, just as they are, large or small, one after another, into print-pages,* *The pages from 11 to 31 are nearly verbatim an ofF-hand letter of mine in January, 1882, to an insisting friend. Following, I give some gloomy ex- periences. The war of attempted seccession has, of course, been the distin- guishing event of my time. I commenced at the close of 1862, and contin- ued steadily through '63, '64, and '65, to visit the sick and wounded of the army, both on the field and in the hospitals in and around Washington city. From the first I kept little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to re- fresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially want- ed, &c. In these I brief'd cases, persons, sights, occurrencesin camp, by the bedside, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Some were scratched II 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA and let the melange's lackings and wants of connection take care of themselves. It will illustrate one phase of humanity anyhow; how few of life's days and hours (and they not by relative value or proportion, but by chance) are ever noted. Probably another point too, how we give long preparations for some object, plan- ning and delving and fashioning, and then, when the actual hour for doing arrives, find ourselves still quite unprepared, and tumble the thing together, letting hurry and crudeness tell the story better than fine work. At any rate I obey my happy hour's command, which seems curiously imperative. May-be, if I don't do any- thing else, I shall send out the most wayward, spon- taneous, fragmentary book ever printed. down from narratives I heard and itemized while watching, or waiting, or tending somebody amid those scenes. I have dozens of such little note-books left, forming a special history of those years, for myself alone, full of associa- tions never to be possibly said or sung. I wish I could convey to the reader the associations that attach to these soil'd and creas'd livraisons, each com- posed of a sheet or two of paper, folded small to carry in the pocket, and fasten'd with a pin. I leave them just as I threw them by after the war, blotch'd here and there with more than one blood-stain, hurriedly written, sometimes at the clinique, not seldom amid the excitement of uncertainty, or defeat, or of action, or getting ready for it, or a march. Most of the pages from 53 to 103 are verbatim copies of thos'e lurid and blood-smutch'd little note-books. Very different are most of the memoranda that follow. Some time aftei the war ended I had a paralytic stroke, which prostrated me for several years. In 1876 I began to get over the worst of it. From this date, portions of several seasons, especially summers, I spent at a secluded haunt down in Camden county. New Jersey — Timber creek, quite a little river (it enters from the great Delaware, twelve miles away) — with primitive solitudes, winding stream, recluse and woody banks, sweet-feeding springs, and all the charms that birds, grass, wild-flowers, rabbits and squirrels, old oaks, walnut trees, &c., can bring. Through these times, and on these spots, the diary from page 104 onward was mostly written. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I3 ANSWER TO AN INSISTING FRIEND You ask for items, details of my early life — of geneal- ogy and parentage, particularly of the women of my ancestry, and of its far back Netherlands stock on the maternal side — of the region where I was born and raised, and my father and mother before me, and theirs before them — with a word about Brooklyn and New York cities, the times I lived there as lad and young man. You say you want to get at these details mainly as the go-befores and embryons of ** Leaves of Grass." Very good; you shall have at least some specimens of them all. I have often thought of the meaning of such things — that one can only encompass and complete matters of that kind by exploring behind, perhaps very far behind, themselves directly, and so into their gene- sis, antecedents, and cumulative stages. Then as luck would have it, I lately whiled away the tedium of a week's half-sickness and confinement, by collating these very items for another (yet unfulfill'd, probably abandon'd,) purpose; and if you will be satisfied with them, authentic in date-occurrence and fact simply, and told my own way, garrulous-like, here they are. I shall npt hesitate to make extracts, for I catch at any- thing to save labor; but those will be the best versions of what I want to convey. GENEALOGY— VAN VELSOR AND WHITMAN The later years of the last century found the Van Velsor family, my mother's side, living on their own farm at Cold Spring, Long Island, New York State, 14 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA near the eastern edge of Queens county, about a mile from the harbor.* My father's side — probably the fifth generation from the first English arrivals in New Eng- land — were at the same time farmers on their own land — (and a fine domain it was, 500 acres, all good soil, gently sloping east and south, about one-tenth woods, plenty of grand old trees,) two or three miles off, at West Hills, Suffolk county. The Whitman name in the Eastern States, and so branching West and South, starts undoubtedly from one John Whitman, born 1602, in Old England, where he grew up, married, and his eldest son was born in 1629. He came over in the '*True Love" in 1640 to America, and lived in Wey- mouth, Mass., which place became the mother-hive of the New-Englanders of the name : he died in 1692. His brother, Rev. Zechariah Whitman, also came over in the ** True Love," either at that time or soon after, and lived at Milford, Conn. A son of this Zechariah, named Joseph, migrated to Huntington, Long Island, and permanently settled there. Savage's "Genealog- ical Dictionary" (vol. iv, p. 524) gets the Whitman family establish'd at Huntington, per this Joseph, be- fore 1664. It is quit^ certain that from that beginning, and from Joseph, the West Hill Whitmans, and all others in Suffolk county, have since radiated, myself among the number. John and Zechariah both went to England and back again divers times ; they had large families, and several of their children were born * Long Island was settled first on the west end by the Dutch, from Holland, then on the east end by the English — the dividing line of the two nationalities being a little west of Huntington, where my father's folkslived, and where I was born. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 5 in the old country. We hear of the father of John and Zechariah, Abijah Whitman, who goes over into the 1500's, but we know little about him, except that he also was for some time in America. These old pedigree-reminiscences come up to me vividly from a visit I made not long since (in my 63d year) to West Hills, and to the burial grounds of my ancestry, both sides. I extract from notes of that visit, written there and then : THE OLD WHITMAN AND VAN VELSOR CEME- TERIES July 2gy 1 88 I. — After more than forty years' absence, (except a brief visit, to take my father there once more, two years before he died,) went down Long Island on a week's jaunt to the place where I was born, thirty miles from New York city. Rode around the old fa- miliar spots, viewing and pondering and dwelling long upon them, everything coming back to me. Went to the old Whitman homestead on the upland and took a view eastward, inclining south, over the broad and beautiful farm lands of my grandfather (1780,) and my father. There was the new house (18 10,) the big oak a hundred and fifty or two hundred years old ; there the well, the sloping kitchen-garden, and a little way off even the well-kept remains of the dwelling of my great-grandfather (i75o-'6o) still standing, with its mighty timbers and low ceilings. Near by, a stately grove of tall, vigorous black-walnuts, beautiful. Apollo- like, the sons or grandsons, no doubt, of black-walnuts during or before 1776. On the other side of the road spread the famous apple orchard, over twenty acres. l6 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA the trees planted by hands long mouldering in the grave (my uncle Jesse's,) but quite many of them evi- dently capable of throwing out their annual blossoms and fruit yet. I now write these lines seated on an old grave (doubt- less of a century since at least) on the burial hill of the Whitmans of many generations. Fifty and more graves are quite plainly traceable, and as many more decay'd out of all form — depress'd mounds, crumbled and broken stones, cover'd with moss — the gray and sterile hill, the clumps of chestnuts outside, the silence, just varied by the soughing wind. There is always the deepest eloquence of sermon or poem in any of these ancient graveyards of which Long Island has so many; so what must this one have been to me ? My whole family history, with its succession of links, from the first settlement down to date, told here — three cen- turies concentrate on this sterile acre. The next day, July 30, I devoted to the maternal lo- cality, and if possible was still more penetrated and impress'd. I write this paragraph on the burial hill of the Van Velsors, near Cold Spring, the most signifi- cant depository of the dead that could be imagined, without the slightest help from art, but far ahead of it, soil sterile, a mostly bare plateau-flat of half an acre, the top of a hill, brush and well grown trees and dense woods bordering all around, very primitive, secluded, no visitors, no road (you cannot drive here, you have to bring the dead on foot, and follow on foot.) Two or three-score graves quite plain ; as many more almost rubb'd out. My grandfather Cornelius and my grand- mother Amy (Naomi) and numerous relatives nearer AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1/ or remoter, on my mother's side, lie buried here. The scene as I stood or sat, the delicate and wild odor of the woods, a slightly drizzling rain, the emotional at- mosphere of the place, and the inferr'd reminiscences, were fitting accompaniments. THE MATERNAL HOMESTEAD I went down from this ancient grave place eighty or ninety rods to the site of the Van Velsor homestead, where my mother was born (1795,) and where every spot had been familiar to me as a child and youth (i825-'4o.) Then stood there a long rambling, dark-gray, shingle- sided house, with sheds, pens, a great barn, and much open road-space. Now of all those not a vestige left; all had been pull'd down, erased, and the plow and har- row pass'd over foundations, road-spaces and every- thing, for many summers; fenced in at present, and grain and clover growing like any other fine fields. Only a big hole from the cellar, with some little heaps of broken stone, green with grass and weeds, identified the place. Even the copious old brook and spring seem'd to have mostly dwindled away. The whole scene, with what it arous'd, memories of my young days there half a century ago, the vast kitchen and ample fireplace and the sitting-room adjoining, the plain furniture, the meals, the house full of merry peo- ple, my grandmother Amy's sweet old face in its Quaker cap, my grandfather "the Major," jovial, red, stout, with sonorous voice and characteristic physiog- nomy, with the actual sights themselves, made the most pronounc'd half-day's experience of my whole jaynt. 15 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA For there with all those wooded, hilly, healthy sur- roundings, my dearest mother, Louisa Van Velsor, grew up — (her mother, Amy Williams, of the Friends' or Quakers' denomination — the Williams family, seven sisters and one brother — the father and brother sailors, both of whom met their deaths at sea.) The Van Vel- sor people were noted for fine horses, which the men bred and train'd from blooded stock. My mother, as a young woman, was a daily and daring rider. As to the head of the family himself, the old race of the Netherlands, so deeply grafted on Manhattan island and in Kings and Queens counties, never yielded a more mark'd and full Americanized specimen than Major Cornelius Van Velsor. TWO OLD FAMILY INTERIORS Of the domestic and inside life of the middle of Long Island, at and just before that time, here are two samples: ** The Whitmans, at the beginning of the present cen- tury, lived in a long story-and-a-half farm-house, hugely timber'd, which is still standing. A great smoke-canopied kitchen, with vast hearth and chimney, form'd one end of the house. The existence of slavery in New York at that time, and the possession by the family of some twelve or fifteen slaves, house and field servants, gave things quite a patriarchal look. The very young darkies could be seen, a swarm of them, toward sundown, in this kitchen, squatted in a circle on the floor, eating their supper of In- dian pudding and milk. In the house, and in food and fur- niture, all was rude, but substantial. No carpets or stoves were known, and no coffee, and tea or sugar only for the AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I9 women. Rousing wood fires gave both warmth and light on winter nights. Pork, poultry, beef, and all the ordinary vegetables and grains were plentiful. Cider was the men's common drink, and used at meals. The clothes were mainly homespun. Journeys were made by both men and women on horseback. Both sexes labor'd with their own hands — the men on the farm — the women in the house and around it. Books were scarce. The annual copy of the almanac was a treat, and was pored over through the long winter evenings. I must not forget to mention that both these families were near enough to the sea to behold it from the high places, and to hear in still hours the roar of the surf; the latter, after a storm, giving a peculiar sound at night. Then all hands, male and female, went down frequently on beach and bathing parties, and the men on practical expeditions for cutting salt hay, and for clamming and fishing." — John Bin-roughs'' s Notes. ** The ancestors of Walt Whitman, on both the paternal and maternal sides, kept a good table, sustain'd the hospi- talities, decorums, and an excellent social reputation in the country, and they were often of mark'd individuality. If space permitted, I should consider some of the men worthy special description; and still more some of the women. His great-grandmother on the paternal side, for instance, was a large swarthy woman, who lived to a very old age. She smoked tobacco, rode on horseback like a man, man- aged the most vicious horse, and, becoming a widow in later life, went forth every day over her farm-lands, fre- quently in the saddle, directing the labor of her slaves, with language in which, on exciting occasions, oaths were not spared. The two immediate grandmothers were, in the best sense, superior women. The maternal one (Amy Williams before marriage) was a Friend, or Quakeress, of sweet, sensible character, housewifely proclivities, and 20 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA deeply intuitive and spiritual. The other, CHannah Brush,) was an equally noble, perhaps stronger character, lived to be very old, had quite a family of sons, was a natural lady, was early in life a school-mistress, and had great solidity of mind. W. W. himself makes much of the women of his ancestry." — The sa?/ie. Out from these arrieres of persons and scenes, I was born May 31, 1819. And nov^ to dwell awhile on the locality itself — as the successive growth-stages of my infancy, childhood, youth and manhood were all pass'd on Long Island, which I sometimes feel as if I had incorporated. I roam'd, as boy and man, and have lived in nearly all parts, from Brooklyn to Mon- tauk point. PAUMANOK, AND MY LIFE ON IT AS CHILD AND YOUNG MAN Worth fully and particularly investigating indeed this Paumanok, (to give the spot its aboriginal name,*) stretching east through Kings, Queens and Suffolk counties, 120 miles altogether — on the north Long Island sound, a beautiful, varied and picturesque series * " Paumanok, (or Paumanake, or Paumanack, the Indian name of Long Island,) over a hundred miles long; shaped like a fish — plenty of sea shore, sandy, stormy, uninviting, the horizon boundless, the air too strong for inva- lids, the bays a wonderful resort for aquatic birds, the south-side meadows cover'd with salt hay, the soil of the island generally tough,but good for the locust-tree, the apple orchard, and the blackberry, and with numberless springs of the sweetest water in the world. Years ago, among the bay-men — a strong, wild race, now extinct, or rather entirely changed — a native of Long Island was called a PaU7izanacker, or Creole- Fatimanacker.''' — jfohn Bur- roughs. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 21 of inlets, '* necks " and sea-like expansions, for a hun- dred miles to Orient point. On the ocean side the great south bay dotted with countless hummocks, mostly small, some quite large, occasionally long bars of sand out two hundred rods to a mile-and-a-half from the shore. While now and then, as at Rockaway and far east along the Hamptons, the beach makes right on the island, the sea dashing up without inter- vention. Several light-houses on the shores east; a long history of wrecks tragedies, some even of late years. As a youngster, I was in the atmosphere and traditions of many of these wrecks — of one or two almost an observer. Off Hempstead beach, for exam- ple, was the loss of the ship ** Mexico " in 1840, (allud- ed to in "the Sleepers" in L. of G.) And at Hamp- ton, some years later, the destruction of the brig " Elizabeth," a fearful affair, in one of the worst win- ter gales, where Margaret Fuller went down, with her husband and child. Inside the outer bars or beach this south bay is everywhere comparatively shallow; of cold winters all thick ice on the surface. As a boy I often went forth with a chum or two, on those frozen fields, w4th hand- sled, axe and eel-spear, after messes of eels. We would cut holes in the ice, sometimes striking quite an eel- bonanza, and filling our baskets with great, fat, sweet, white-meated fellows. The scenes, the ice, drawing the hand-sled, cutting holes, spearing the eels, &c., were of course just such fun as is dearest to boyhood. The shores of this bay, winter and summer, and my doings there in early life, are woven all through L. of G. One sport I was very fond of was to go on a bay- 22 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA party in summer to gather sea-gull's eggs. (The gulls lay two or three eggs, more than half the size of hen's eggs, right on the sand, and leave the sun's heat to hatch them.) The eastern end of Long Island, the Peconic bay region, I knew quite well too — sail'd more than once around Shelter island, and down to Montauk — spent many an hour on Turtle hill by the old light-house, on the extreme point, looking out over the ceaseless roll of the Atlantic. I used to like to go down there and fra- ternize with the blue-fishers, or the annual squads of sea-bass takers. Sometimes, along Montauk peninsula, (it is some 15 miles long, and good grazing,) met the strange, unkempt, half-barbarous herdsmen, at that time living there entirely aloof from society or civiliza- tion, in charge, on those rich pasturages, of vast droves of horses, kine or sheep, own'd by famers of the east- ern towns. Sometimes, too, the few remaining Indi- ans, or half-breeds, at that period left on Montauk peninsula, but now I believe altogether extinct. More in the middle of the island were the spreading Hempstead plains, then (i83o-'4o) quite prairie-like, open, uninhabited, rather sterile, cover'd with kill-calf and huckleberry bushes, yet plenty of fair pasture for the cattle, mostly milch-cows, who fed there by hun- dreds, even thousands, and at evening, (the plains too were own'd by the towns, and this was the use of them in common,) might be seen taking their way home, branching off regularly in the right places. I have of- ten been out on the edges of these plains toward sun- down, and can yet recall in fancy the interminable cow-processions, and hear the music of the tin or cop- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 23 per bells clanking far or near, and breathe the cool of the sweet and slightly aromatic evening air, and note the sunset. Through the same region of the island, but further east, extended wide central tracts of pine and scrub- oak (charcoal was largely made here,) monotonous and sterile. But many a good day or half-day did I have, wandering through those solitary cross-roads, inhaling the peculiar and wild aroma. Here, and all along the island and its shores, I spent intervals many years, all seasons, sometimes riding, sometimes boating, but generally afoot, (I was always then a good walker,) ab- sorbing fields, shores, marine incidents, characters, the bay-men, farmers, pilots — always had a plentiful ac- quaintance with the latter, and with fishermen — went every summer on sailing trips — always liked the bare sea-beach, south side, and have some of my happiest hours on it to this day. As I write, the whole experience comes back to me after the lapse of forty and more years — the soothing rustle of the waves, and the saline smell — boyhood's times, the clam-digging, barefoot, and with trousers roll'd up — hauling down the creek — the perfume of the sedge-meadows — the hay-boat, and the chowder and fishing excursions; — or, of later years, little voy- ages down and out New York bay, in the pilot boats. Those same later years, also, while living in Brooklyn, (i836-'5o) I went regularly every week in the mild sea- sons down to Coney island, at that time a long, bare, unfrequented shore, which I had all to myself, and where I loved, after bathing, to race up and down the hard sand, and declaim Homer or Shakspere to the 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA surf and sea-gulls by the hour. But I am getting ahead too rapidly, and must keep more in my traces. MY FIRST READING— LAFAYETTE From 1824 to '28 our family lived in Brooklyn in Front, Cranberry and Johnson streets. In the latter my father built a nice house for a home, and afterwards another in Tillary street. We occupied them, one af- ter the other, but they were mortgaged, and we lost them. I yet remember Lafayette's visit. Most of these years I went to the public schools. It must have been about 1829 or '30 that I went with my father and mother to hear Elias Hicks preach in a ball-room on Brooklyn heights. At about the same time employed as a boy in an office, lawyers', father and two sons, Clarke's, Fulton street, near Orange. I had a nice desk and window-nook to myself; Edward C. kindly help'd me at my handwriting and composition, and, (the signal event of my life up to that time,) subscribed for me to a big circulating library. For a time I now revel'd in romance-reading of all kinds; first, the '* Arabian Nights," all the volumes, an amazing treat. Then, with sorties in very many other directions, took in Walter Scott's novels, one after another, and his poetry, (and continue to enjoy novels and poetry to this day.) OLD BROOKLYN DAYS (ANOTHER ACCOUNT) It must have been in 1822 or '3 that I first came to live in Brooklyn. Lived first in Front street, not far from what was then call'd ''the New Ferry," wending AUTOBIOGRAPIIIA 25 the river from the foot of Catharine (or Main) street to New York city. I was a little child (was born in 1819,) but tramp'd freely about the neighborhood and town, even then; was often on the aforesaid New Ferry; remember how I was petted and deadheaded by the gatekeepers and deckhands (all such fellows are kind to little children,) and remember the horses that seem'd to me so queer as they trudg'd around in the central houses of the boats, making the water-power. (For it was just on the eve of the steam-engine, which was soon after in- troduced on the ferries.) Edward Copeland (afterward Mayor) had a grocery store then at the corner of Front and Catharine streets. Presently we Whitmans all moved up to Tillary street, near Adams, where my father, who was a car- penter, built a house for himself and us all. It was from here I "assisted " the personal coming of Lafay- ette in 1-824-5 in Brooklyn. He came over the Old Ferry, as the now Fulton Ferry (partly navigated quite up to that day by *' horse boats," though the first steamer had begun to be used hereabouts) was then call'd, and was receiv'd at the foot of Fulton street. It was on that occasion that the corner-stone of the Apprentices' Libraiy, at the corner of Cranberry and Henry streets — since pull'd down — was laid by Lafay- ette's own hands. Numerous children arrived on the grounds, of whom I was one, and were assisted by several gentlemen to safe spots to view the ceremony. Among others, Lafayette, also helping children, took me up — I was five years old — press'd me a moment to his breast, gave me a kiss and set me down in a safe 26 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA spot. Lafayette was at that time between sixty-five and seventy years of age, with a manly figure, and a kind face. PRINTING OFFICE After about two years went to work in a weekly news- paper and printing office, to learn the trade. The paper was the '* Long Island Patriot," owned by S. E. Clements, who was also postmaster. An old printer in the office, William Hartshorne, a revolutionary charac- ter, who had seen Washington, was a special friend of mine, and I had many a talk with him about long past times. The apprentices, including myself, boarded with his grand-daughter. I used occasionally to go out riding with the boss, who was very kind to us boys; Sundays he took us all to a great old rough, fortress- looking stone church, on Joralemon street, near where the Brooklyn city hall now is — (at that time broad fields and country roads everywhere around.) After- ward I work'd on the '* Long Island Star," Alden Spooner's paper. My father all these years pursuing his trade as carpenter and builder, with varying fortune. There was a growing family of children — eight of us — my brother Jesse the oldest, myself the second, my dear sisters Mary and Hannah Louisa, my brothers An- drew, George, Thomas Jefferson, and then my young- est brother, Edward, born 1835, and always badly crip- pled, as I am myself of late years. GROWTH— HEALTH— WORK I develop'd (1833-4-5) into a healthy, strong youth (grew too fast, though, was nearly as big as a man at AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 2/ 15 or 16.) Our family at this period moved back to the country, my dear mother very ill for a long time, but recover'd. All these years I was down Long Island more or less every summer, now east, now west, some- times months at a stretch. At 16, 17, and so on, was fond of debating societies, and had an active member- ship with them, off and on, in Brooklyn and one or two country towns on the island. A most omnivorous novel-reader, these and later years, devour'd everything I could get. Fond of the theatre, also, in New York, went whenever I could — sometimes witnessing fine per- formances. 1836-7, work'd as compositor in printing offices in New York city. Then, when little more than eighteen, and for a while afterward, went to teaching country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties. Long Island, and "boarded round." (This latter I consider one of my best experiences and deepest lessons in hu- man nature behind the scenes, and in the masses.) In '39, '40, I started and publish'd a weekly paper in my native town, Huntington. Then returning to New York city and Brooklyn, w^ork'd on as printer and writer, mostly prose, but an occasional shy at ** poetry." MY PASSION FOR FERRIES Living in Brooklyn or New York city from this time forward, my life, then, and still more the following years, was curiously identified with Fulton ferry, already becoming the greatest of its sort in the world for gen- eral importance, volume, variety, rapidity, and pictu- resqueness. Almost daily, later, ('50 to '60,) I cross'd 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA on the boats, often up in the pilot-houses where I could get a full sweep, absorbing shows, accompani- ments, surroundings. What oceanic currents, eddies, underneath — the great tides of humanity also, with ever-shifting movements. Indeed, I have always had a passion for ferries; to me they afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living poems. The river and bay scenery, all about New York island, any time of a fine day — the hurrying, splashing sea-tides — the chang- ing panorama of steamers, all sizes, often a string of big ones outward bound to distant ports — the myriads of white-sail'd schooners, sloops, skiffs, and the mar- velously beautiful yachts — the majestic sound boats as they rounded the Battery and came along towards 5, afternoon, eastward bound — the prospect off toward Staten Island, or down the Narrows, or the other way up the Hudson — what refreshment of spirit such sights and experiences gave me years ago (and many a time since.) My old pilot friends, the Balsirs, Johnny Cole, Ira Smith, William White, and my young ferry friend, Tom Gere — how well I remember them all. BROADWAY SIGHTS Besides Fulton ferry, oflf and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway — that noted avenue of New York's crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew Jackson, Webster, Clay, Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, Bry- ant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of AUTOBIOGRAPIIIA 29 the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case — (I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, (it must have been in 1845 or '6,) in his ofhce, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl street.) He was editor and owner or part owner of "the Broadway Journal." The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish'd. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear'd well in person, dress. &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but sub- dued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my rem- iniscences, here on the west side, just below Houston street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January day) a bent, feeble but stout- built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap on his head, led and assisted, al- most carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck'd in a gorgeous sleigh, envelop'd in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You needn't think all the best animals are brought up nowadays ; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look'd for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or four- 30 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA teen, stopp'd and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and ser- vants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much atten- tion, I can almost see now. It w^as John Jacob Astor. The years 1846, '47, and there along, see me still in New York city, working as writer and printer, having my usual ^ood health, and a good time generally. OMNIBUS JAUNTS AND DRIVERS One phase of those days must by no means go unre- corded — namely, the Broadway omnibuses, with their drivers. The vehicles still (I write this paragraph in 1 881) give a portion of the character of Broadway — the Fifth avenue, Madison avenue, and Twenty-third street lines yet running. But the flush days of the old Broadway stages, characteristic and copious, are over. The Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broad- way, the Fourth avenue, the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all gone. And the men specially identified with them, and giving vitality and meaning to them — the drivers — a strange, natural, quick-eyed, and wondrous race — (not only Rabelais and Cervantes would have gloated upon them, but Homer and Shakspere would) — how well I remem- ber them, and rriust here give a word about them. How many hours, forenoons and afternoons — how many ex- hilarating night-times I have had — perhaps June or July, in cooler air — riding the whole length of Broad- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 3 1 way, listening to some yarn, (and the most vivid yarns ever spun, and the rarest mimicry) — or perhaps I de- claiming some stormy passage from Julius Caesar or Richard, (you could roar as loudly as you chose in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted street-bass.) Yes, I knew all the drivers then, Broadway Jack, Dressmaker, Balky Bill, George Storms, Old Elephant, his brother Young Elephant (who came afterward,) Tippy, Pop Rice, Big Frank, Yellow Joe, Pete Callahan, Patsy Dee, and dozens more; for there were hundreds. They had immense qualities, largely animal — eating, drink- ing, women — great personal pride, in their way — per- haps a few slouches here and there, but I should have trusted the general run of them, in their simple good- will and honor, under all circumstances. Not only for comradeship, and sometimes affection — great studies I found them also. (I suppose the critics will laugh heartily, but the influence of those Broadway omni- bus jaunts and drivers and declamations and escapades undoubtedly enter'd into the gestation of *' Leaves of Grass.") OLD ACTORS, SINGERS, SHOWS, ETC., IN NEW YORK Flitting 7neiition — {with much left out) Seems to me I ought acknowledge my debt to act- ors, singers, public speakers, conventions, and the Stage in New York, my youthful days, from 1835 onward — say to '60 or '61 — and to plays and operas generally. (Which nudges a pretty big disquisition: of course it should be all elaborated and penetrated more deeply — 32 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA but I will here give only some flitting mentionings of my youth.; Seems to m.e now, when I look back, the Italian contralto Marietta Alboni fshe is living yet, in Paris, 1 891, in good condition, good voice yet, consid- ering) with the then prominent histrions Booth, Edvrin Forrest, and Fanny Kemble and the Italian singer Bet- tini, have had the deepest and most lasting effect upon me. I should like well if Madame Alboni and the old composer Verdi, Tand Bettini the tenor, if he is living) could know how much noble pleasure and happiness they gave me, and how deeply I always remember them and thank them to this day. For theatricals in litera- ture and doubtless upon me personally, including opera, have been of course serious factors. TThe experts and musicians of my present friends claim that the new Wagner and his pieces belong far more truly to me, and I to them. Very likely. But I was fed and bred under the Italian dispensation, and absorb'd it, and doubtless show it.) As a young fellow, when possible I always studied a play or libretto quite carefully over, by myself, ('some- times twice through,) before seeing it on the stage ; read it the day or two days before. Tried both ways — not reading some beforehand ; but I found I gain'd most by getting that sort of mastery first, if the piece had depth. rSurface effects and glitter were much less thought of, I am sure, those times.; There were many fine old plays, neither tragedies nor comedies — the names of them quite unknown in to-day's current au- diences. "All is not Gold that Glitters," in which Charlotte Gush man had a superbly enacted part, was of that kind. G. G., who revel'd in them, was great AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 33 in such pieces; I think better than in the heavy popu- lar roles. We had some fine music those days. We had the English opera of " Cinderella " (with Henry Placide as the pompous old father) an unsurpassable bit of com- edy and music. We had " Bombastes Furioso." Must have been in 1844 (or '5) I saw Charles Kean and Mrs. Kean (Ellen Tree) — saw them in the Park, in Shak- spere's "King John." He, of course, was the chief character. She play'd Queen Constance. Tom Hamblin was Faulco7ibridge, and probably the best ever on the stage. It was an immense show-piece, too; lots of grand set scenes and fine armor-suits and all kinds of appointments imported from London (where it had been first render'd.) The large brass bands — ^the three or four hundred " supes " — the interviews between the French and English armies — the talk with Hubert (and the hot irons) the delicious acting of Prince Arthur (Mrs. Richardson, I think) — -and all the fine blare and court pomp — I remember to this hour. The death-scene of the King in the orchard of Swinstead Abbey, was very effective. Kean rush'd in, gray-pale and yellow, and threw himself on a lounge in the open. His pangs were horribly realistic. (He must have taken lessons in some hospital.) Fanny Kemble play'd to wonderful efifect in such pieces as " Fazio, or the Italian Wife." The turning- point was jealousy. It was a rapid-running, yet heavy- timber'd, tremendous wrenching, passionate play. Such old pieces always seem'd to me built like an ancient ship of the line, solid and lock'd from keel up — oak and metal and knots. One of the finest characters was a 34 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA great court lady, Aldahella, enacted by Mrs. Sharpe. O how it all entranced us, and knock'd us about, as the scenes swept on like a cyclone ! Saw Hackett at the old Park many times, and re- member him well. His renderings were first-rate in everything. He inaugurated the true " Rip Van Win- kle," and look'd and acted and dialogued it to perfec- tion (he was of Dutch breed, and brought up among old Holland descendants in Kings and Queens coun- ties. Long Island.) The play and the acting of it have been adjusted to please popular audiences since; but there was in that original performance certainly some- thing of a far higher order, more art, more reality, more resemblance, a bit of fine pathos, a lofty brogue, beyond anything afterward. One of my big treats was the rendering at the old Park of Shakspere's ** Tempest" in musical version. There was a very fine instrumental band, not numerous, but with a capital leader. Mrs. Austin was the ArieU and Peter Richings the Caliban; both excellent. The drunken song of the latter has probably been never equal'd. The perfect actor Clarke (old Clarke) was Prospero. Yes; there were in New York and Brooklyn some fine non-technical singing performances, concerts, such as the Hutchinson band, three brothers, and the sister, the red-cheek'd New England carnation, sweet Abby; sometimes plaintive and balladic — sometimes anti- slavery, anti-calomel, and comic. There were concerts by Templeton, Russell, Dempster, the old AUeghanian band, and many others. Then we had lots of " negro minstrels," with capital character songs and voices. 1 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 35 often saw Rice, the original " Jim Crow," at the old Park Theatre, filling up the gap in some short bill — and the wild chants and dances were admirable — probably ahead of anything since. Every theatre had some su- perior voice, and it was common to give a favorite song between the acts. " The Sea " at the bijou Olympic, (Broadway near Grand,) was always welcome from a lit- tle Englishman named Edwin, a good balladist. At the Bowery the loves of " Sweet William," ''When on the Downs the fleet was moor'd," always bro't an encore, and sometimes a treble. I remember Jenny Lind and heard her (1850 I think) several times. She had the most brilliant, captivating, popular musical style and expression of any one known; (the canary, and several other sweet birds are wondrous fine — but there is something in song that goes deeper — isn't there ?) And who remembers the renown'd New York ** Tab- ernacle " of those days " before the war " ? It was on the east side of Broadway, near Pearl street — was a great turtle-shaped hall, and you had to walk back from the street entrance, thro' a long wide corridor to get to it — was very strong — had an immense gallery — altogether held three or four thousand people. Here the huge annual conventions of the windy and cyclonic '* reformatory societies" of those times were held — es- pecially the tumultuous Anti-Slavery ones. I remember hearing Wendell Phillips, Emerson, Cassius Clay, John P. Hale, Beecher, Fred Douglass, the Burleighs, Garri- son, and others. Sometimes the Hutchinsons would sing — very fine. Sometimes there were angry rows. A 36 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA chap named Isaiah Rhynders, a fierce poHtician of those days, with a band of robust supporters, would at- tempt to contradict the speakers and break up the meetings. But the Anti-Slavery, and Quaker, and Tem- perance, and Missionary and other conventions and speakers were tough, tough, and always maintained their ground, and carried out their programs fully. I went frequently to these meetings, May after May— learn'd much from them — was sure to be on hand when J. P. Hale or Cash Clay made speeches. If it is worth while I might add that there was a small but well-appointed amateur-theatre up Broadway, with the usual stage, orchestra, pit, boxes, &c., and that I was myself a member for some time, and acted parts in it several times — ** second parts " as they were call'd. Perhaps it too was a lesson, or help'd that way; at any rate it was full of fun and enjoyment. THE OLD BOWERY AND BOOTH For the elderly New Yorker of to-day, perhaps, noth- ing were more likely to start up memories of his early manhood than the mention of the Bowery and the elder Booth. At the date given \circa 1838], the more stylish and select theatre (prices, 50 cents pit, $1 boxes) was ** The Park," a large and well-appointed house on Park Row, opposite the present post-ofiice. English opera and the old comedies were often given in capital style; the principal foreign stars appear'd here, with Italian opera at wide intervals. The Park held a large part in my boyhood's and young manhood s life. Here I heard the English actor, Anderson, in "Charles de AUTOBIOGRAPIIIA 37 Moor," and in the fine part of Gisippus. Here I heard Fanny Kemble, Charlotte Cushman, the Seguins, Daddy Rice, Hackettas Fahtaff, Nivirod Wildfire, Rip Van WinJde, and in his Yankee characters. It was here (some years later than the date in the headline) I also heard Mario many times, and at his best. In such parts as Gc7i7iaro, in " Lucretia Borgia," he was inimitable — the sweetest of voices, a pure tenor, of considerable compass and respectable power. His wife, Grisi, was with him, no longer first-class or young — a fine Nor- mciy though, to the last. But getting back more specifically to the date and theme I started from — the heavy tragedy business pre- vail'd more decidedly at the Bowery Theatre, where Booth and Forrest w^ere frequently to be heard. Though Booth pere, then in his prime, ranging in age from 40 to 44 years (he was born in 1796,) was the loyal child and continuer of the traditions of orthodox English play-acting, he stood out " himself alone " in many re- spects beyond any of his kind on record, and with ef- fects and ways that broke through all rules and all tra- ditions. He has been well described as an actor '' whose instant and tremendous concentration of pas- sion in his delineations overwhelm'd his audience, and wrought into it such enthusiasm that it partook of the fever of inspiration surging through his own veins." He seems to have been of beautiful private character, very honorable, affectionate, good-natured, no arro- gance, glad to give the other actors the best chances. He knew all stage points thoroughly, and curiously ignored the mere dignities. I once talk'd w^ith a man who had seen him do the Second Actor in the mock 38 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA play to Charles Kean's Hainlet in Baltimore. He was a marvellous linguist. He play'd Shylock once in Lon- don, giving the dialogue in Hebrew, and in New Or- leans, Oreste (Racine's ** Andromaque ") in French. One trait of his habits, I have heard, was strict vege- tarianism. He was exceptionally kind to brute crea- tion. Every once in a while he would make a break for solitude or wild freedom, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for days. (He illustrated Plato's rule, that to the forming an artist of the very highest rank a dash of insanity, or what the world calls insanity, is in- dispensable.) He was a small-sized man — yet sharp observers noticed that however crowded the stage might be in certain scenes, Booth never seem'd overtopt or hidden. He was singularly spontaneous and fluctuat- ing; in the same part each rendering differ'd from any and all others. He had no stereotyped positions and made no arbitrary requirements on his fellow - per- formers. As is well known to old play-goers. Booth's most ef- fective part was Richard III. Either that, or lago, or Shylock, or Pescara in *' The Apostate," was sure to draw a crowded house. (Remember, heavy pieces were much more in demand those days than now.) He was also unapproachably grand in Sir Giles Overreach, in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and the principal character in **The Iron Chest." Recalling from that period the occasion of either Forrest or Booth, any good night at the old Bowery, pack'd from ceiling to pit with its audience mainly of alert, well dress'd, full-blooded young and middle- aged men, the best average of American-born mechan- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 39 ics — the emotional nature of the whole mass arous'd by the power and magnetism of as mighty mimes as ever trod the stage — the whole crowded auditorium, and what seeth'd in it, and flush'd from its faces and eyes, to me as much a part of the show as any — burst- ing forth in one of those long-kept-up tempests of hand- clapping peculiar to the Bowery— no dainty kid-glove business, but electric force and muscle from perhaps 2,000 full-sinew'd men — (the inimitable and chromatic tempest of one of those ovations to Edwin Forrest, welcoming him back after an absence, comes up to me this moment) — Such sounds and scenes as here re- sumed will surely afford to many old New Yorkers some fruitful recollections. I can yet remember (for I always scann'd an audience as rigidly as a play) the faces of the leading authors, poets, editors, of those times — Fenimore Cooper, Bry- ant, Paulding, Irving, Charles King, Watson Webb, N. P. Willis, Hoffman, Halleck, Mumford, Morris, Leggett, L. G. Clarke, R. A. Locke and others, occa- sionally peering from the first tier boxes; and even the great National Eminences, Presidents Adams, Jackson, Van Buren and Tyler, all made short visits there on their Eastern tours. I happen'd to see what has been reckon'd by experts one of the most marvelous pieces of histrionism ever known. It must have been about 1834 or '35. A favor- ite comedian and actress at the Bowery, Thomas Flynn and his wife, were to have a joint benefit, and securing Booth for Richard, advertised the fact many days be- fore-hand. The house fill'd early from top to bottom. There was some uneasiness behind the scenes, for the 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA afternoon arrived, and Booth had not come from down in Maryland, where he lived. However, a few minutes before ringing-up time he made his appearance in lively condition. After a one-act farce was over, as contrast and pre- lude, the curtain rising for the tragedy, I can, from my good seat in the pit, pretty well front, see again Booth's quiet entrance from the side, as, with head bent, he slowly and in silence, (amid the tempest of boisterous hand-clapping,) walks down the stage to the footlights with that peculiar and abstracted gesture, musingly kicking his sword, which he holds off from him by its sash. Though fifty years have pass'd since then, I can hear the clank, and feel the perfect following hush of perhaps 3,000 people waiting. (I never saw an actor who could make more of the said hush or wait, and hold the audience in an indescribable, half-delicious, half-irritating suspense.) And so throughout the entire play, all parts, voice, atmosphere, magnetism, from " Now is the winter of our discontent," to the closing death fight with Richmond, were of the finest and grandest. The latter character was play'd by a stalwart young fellow named Ingersoll. Indeed, all the renderings were wonderfully good. But the great spell cast upon the mass of hearers came from Booth. Especially was the dream scene very impress- ive. A shudder went through every nervous system in the audience; it certainly did through mine. Without question Booth was royal heir and legiti- mate representative of the Garrick-Kemble-Siddons dramatic traditions; but he vitalized and gave an un- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 4I luimable race to those traditions witli his own electric personal idiosyncrasy. (As in all art-utterance it was the subtle and powerful something special to the individital that really conquer'd.) And so let us turn off the gas. Out in the brilliancy of the footlights — filling the attention of perhaps a crowded audience, and making many a breath and pulse swell and rise — O so much passion and imparted life ! — over and over again, the season through — walk- ing, gesticulating, singing, reciting his or her part. But then sooner or later inevitably wending to the flies or exit door — vanishing to sight and ear — and never ma- terializing on this earth's stage again ! THROUGH EIGHT YEARS In 1848, '49, I was occupied as editor of the ''daily Eagle " newspaper, in Brooklyn. The latter year went off on a leisurely journey and working expedition (my brother Jeff with me) through all the middle States, and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Lived awhile in New Orleans, and work'd there on the edi- torial staff of ** daily Crescent" newspaper. After a time plodded back northward, up the Mississippi, and around to, and by way of the great lakes, Michigan, Huron, and Erie, to Niagara falls and lower Canada, finally returning through central New York and down the Hudson; traveling altogether probably 8,000 miles this trip, to and fro. '51, '53, occupied in house-build- ing in Brooklyn. (For a little of the first part of that time in printing a daily and weekly paper, "the Free- man.") '55, lost my dear father this year by death. 42 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Commenced putting ** Leaves of Grass" to press for good, at the job printing office of my friends, the brothers Rome, in Brooklyn, after many MS. doings and undoings — (I had great trouble in leaving out the stock ** poetical" touches, but succeeded at last.) I am now (18^6- y) passing through my 37th year. STARTING NEWSPAPERS (ANOTHER ACCOUNT) Remiiiisceiices — {Fj^oui the ''Cavide7i Cotcrzer.'') — As I sat taking my evening sail across the Delaware in the staunch ferryboat *' Beverly," a night or two ago, I was join'd by two young reporter friends. " I have a mes- sage for you," said one of them; "the C. folks told me to say they would like a piece sign'd by your name, to go in their first number. Can 3^ou do it for them ?" *' I guess so," said I; ''what might it be about.^" " Well, an3ahing on newspapers,or perhaps what you've done yourself, starting them." And off the boys went for we had reach'd the Philadelphia side. The hour was fine and mild, the bright half-moon shining; Ve- nus, with excess of splendor, just setting in the west, and the great Scorpion rearing its length more than half up in the southeast. As I cross'd leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night-scene, my young friend's words brought up quite a string of reminiscences. I commenced when I was but a boy of eleven or twelve writing sentimental bits for the old " Long Isl- and Patriot," in Brooklyn; this was about 1832. Soon after, I had a piece or two in George P. Morris's then celebrated and fashionable ** Mirror," of New York city. I remember with what half-suppress'd excitement AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 43 I used to watch for the big, fat, red-faced, slow-mov- ing, very old English carrier who distributed the "Mir- ror" in Brooklyn; and when I got one, opening and cutting the leaves with trembling fingers. How it made my heart double-beat to see ;;// piece on the pretty white paper, in nice type. My first real venture was the " Long Islander," in my own beautiful town of Huntington, in 1839. 1 was about twenty years old. I had been teaching country school for two or three years in various parts of Suffolk and Queens counties, but liked printing; had been at it while a lad, learn'd the trade of compositor, and was encouraged to start a paper in the region where I was born. I went to New York, bought a press and types, hired some little help, but did most of the work my- self, including the press-work. Everything seem'd turning out well; (only my own restlessness prevented me gradually establishing a permanent property there.) I bought a good horse, and every week went all round the country serving my papers, devoting one day and night to it. I never had happier jaunts — going over to south side, to Babylon, down the south road, across to Smithtown and Comae, and back home. The ex- periences of those jaunts, the dear old-fashion'd farm- ers and their wives, the stops by the hay-fields, the hospitality, nice dinners, occasional evenings, the girls, the rides through the brush, come up in miy mem- ory to this day. I next went to the "Aurora" daily in New York city — a sort of free lance. Also wrote regularly for the "Tattler," an evening paper. With these and a little outside work I was occupied off and on, until I went 44 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA to edit the *' Brooklyn Eagle," where for two years I had one of the pleasantest sits of my life — a good own- er, good pay, and easy work and hours. The troubles in the Democratic party broke forth about those times (1848-49) and I split off with the radicals, which led to rows with the boss and " the party," and I lost my place. Being now out of a job, I was offer'd impromptu, (it happen'd between the acts one night in the lobby of the old Broadway theatre near Pearl street, New York city,) a good chance to go down to New Orleans on the staff of the ''Crescent," a daily to be started there with plenty of capital behind it. One of the owners, who was north buying material, met me walking in the lobby, and though that was our first acquaintance, af- ter fifteen minutes' talk (and a drink) we made a form- al bargain, and he paid me two hundred dollars down to bind the contract and bear my expenses to New Or- leans. I started two days afterwards; had a good leisurely time, as the paper wasn't to be out in three weeks. I enjoy'd my journey and Louisiana life much. Returning to Brooklyn a year or two afterwards, I started the ''Freeman," first as a weekly, then daily. Pretty soon the secession v^ar broke out, and I, too, got drawn in the current southward, and spent the fol- lowing three years there. Besides starting them as aforementioned, I have had to do, one time or another, during my life, with a long list of papers, at divers places, sometimes under queer circumstances. During the war, the hospitals at Washington, among other means of amusement, print- ed a little sheet among themselves, surrounded by AUTOBTOGRAPHIA 45 wounds and death, the ** Armory Square Gazette," to which I contributed. The same long afterward, casu- ally, to a paper — I think it was call'd the **Jimplecute" — out in Colorado where 1 stopp'd at the time. When I was in Quebec province, in Canada, in 1880, I went into the queerest little old French printing office near Tadousac. It was far more primitive and ancient than my Camden friend William Kurtz's place up on Feder- al street. I remember, as a youngster, several charac- teristic old printers of a kind hard to be seen these days. FIRST GLIMPSE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN I shall not easily forget the first time I ever saw Abraham Lincoln. It must have been about the i8th or 19th of February, 1861. It was rather a pleasant afternoon, in New York city, as he arrived there from the West, to remain a few hours, and then pass on to Washington, to prepare for his inauguration. I saw him in Broadway, near the site of the present Post- office. He came down, I think from Canal street, to stop at the Astor House. The broad spaces, sidewalks, and street in the neighborhood, and for some distance, were crowded with solid masses of people, many thou- sands. The omnibuses and other vehicles had all been turn'd off, leaving an unusual hush in that busy part of the city. Presently two or three shabby hack ba- rouches made their way with some difficulty through the crowd, and drew up at the Astor House entrance. A tall figure step'd out of the centre of these barouches, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk, look'd up at the gran- 46 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA ite walls and looming architecture of the grand old hotel — then, after a relieving stretch of arms and legs, turn'd round for over a minute to slowly and good- humoredly scan the appearance of the vast and silent crowds. There were no speeches — no compliments — no welcome — as far as I could hear, not a word said. Still much anxiety was conceal'd in that quiet. Cau- tious persons had fear'd some mark'd insult or indig- nity to the President-elect — for he possess'd no personal popularity at all in New York city, and very little po- litical. But it was evidently tacitly agreed that if the few political supporters of Mr. Lincoln present would entirely abstain from any demonstration on their side, the immense majority, who were anything but sup- porters, would abstain on their side also. The result was a sulky, unbroken silence, such as certainly never before characterized so great a New York crowd. Almost in the same neighborhood I distinctly re- member'd seeing Lafayette on his visit to America in 1825. I had also personally seen and heard, various years afterward, how Andrew Jackson, Clay, Webster, Hungarian Kossuth, Filibuster Walker, the Prince of Wales on his visit, and other celebres, native and for- eign, had been welcom'd there — all that indescribable human roar and magnetism, unlike any other sound in the universe — the glad exulting thunder-shouts of countless unloos'd throats of men ! But on this occa- sion, not a voice — not a sound. From the top of an omnibus, (driven up one side, close by, and block'd by the curbstone and the crowds,) I had, I say, a capital view of it all, and especially of Mr. Lincoln, his look and gait — his perfect composure and coolness — his un- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 47 usual and uncouth height, his dress of complete black, stovepipe hat push'd back on the head, dark-brown complexion, seam'd and wrinkled yet canny-looking face, black, bushy head of hair, disproportionately long neck, and his hands held .behind as he stood ob- serving the people. He look'd with curiosity upon that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces return'd the look with similar curiosity. In both there was a dash of comedy, almost farce, such as Shakspere puts in his blackest tragedies. The crowd that hemm'd around consisted I should think of thirty to forty thousand men, not a single one his personal friend — while I have no doubt, (so frenzied were the ferments of the time,) many an assassin's knife and pistol lurk'd in hip or breast- pocket there, ready, soon as break and riot came. But no break or riot came. The tall figure gave another relieving stretch or two of arms and legs ; then with moderate pace, and accompanied by a few un- known looking persons, ascended the portico-steps of the Astor House, disappear'd through its broad en- trance — and the dumb-show ended. SOURCES OF CHARACTER— RESULTS— 1860 To sum up the foregoing from the outset (and, of course, far, far more unrecorded,) I estimate three leading sources and formative stamps to my own char- acter, now solidified for good or bad, and its subse- quent literary and other outgrowth — the maternal na- tivity-stock brought hither from far-away Netherlands, for one, (doubtless the best) — the subterranean tenacity and central bony structure (obstinacy, wilfulness) which 48 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I get from my paternal English elements, for another — and the combination of my Long Island birth-spot, sea-shores, childhood's scenes, absorptions, with teem- ing Brooklyn and New York — with, I suppose, my experiences afterward in the secession outbreak, for the third. For, in 1862, startled by news that my brother George, an officer in the 51st New York volunteers, had been seriously wounded (first Fredericksburg bat- tle, December 13th,) I hurriedly went down to the field of war in Virginia. But I must go back a little. OPENING OF THE SECESSION WAR News of the attack on fort Sumter and the flag at Charleston harbor, S. C, was received in New York city late at night (13th April, 1861,) and was immedi- ately sent out in extras of the newspapers. I had been to the opera in Fourteenth street that night, and after the performance was walking down Broadway toward twelve o'clock, on my way to Brooklyn, when I heard in the distance the loud cries of the newsboys, who came presently tearing and yelling up the street, rush- ing from side to side even more furiously than usual. I bought an extra and cross'd to the Metropolitan Ho- tel (Niblo's) where the great lamps were still brightly blazing, and, with a crowd of others, who gather'd im- promptu, read the news, which was evidently authentic. For the benefit of some who had no papers, one of us read the telegram aloud, while all listen'd silently and attentively. No remark was made by any of the crowd, which had increas'd to thirty or forty, but all stood a AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 49 minute or two, I remember, before they dispers'd. I can almost see them there now, under the lamps at midnight again. CONTEMPTUOUS FEELING Even after the bombardment of Sumter, however, the gravity of the revolt, and the power and will of the slave States for a strong and continued military resist- ance to national authority, were not at all realized at the North, except by a few. Nine-tenths of the peo- ple of the free States look'd upon the rebellion, as started in South Carolina, from a feeling one-half of contempt, and the other half composed of anger and incredulity. It was not thought it would be join'd in by Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia. A great and cautious national official predicted that it would blow over ** in sixty days," and folks generally believ'd the prediction. I remember talking about it on a Fulton ferryboat with the Brooklyn mayor, who said he only ** hoped the Southern fire-eaters would commit some overt act of resistance, as they would then be at once so effectually squelch'd, we would never hear of seces- sion again — but he was afraid they never would have the pluck to really do anything." I remember, too, that a couple of companies of the Thirteenth Brooklyn, who rendezvou'd at the city armory, and started thence as thirty days' men, were all provided with pieces of rope, conspicuously tied to their musket-barrels, with which to bring back each man a prisoner from the audacious South, to be led in a noose, on our men's early and triumphant return ! 50 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA BATTLE OF BULL RUN, JULY, 1861 All this sort of feeling was destin'd to be arrested and revers'd by a terrible shock — the battle of first Bull Run — certainly, as we now know it, one of the most singular fights on record. (All battles, and their re- sults, are far more matters of accident than is generally thought ; but this was throughout a casualty, a chance. Each side supposed it had won, till the last moment. One had, in point of fact, just the same right to be routed as the other. By a fiction, or series of fictions, the national forces at the last moment exploded in a panic and fled from the field.) The defeated troops commenced pouring into Washington over the Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 226. — day drizzling all through with rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle (20th, 2ist,) had been parch'd and hot to an ex- treme — the dust, the grime and smoke, in layers, sweated in, follow'd by other layers again sweated in, absorb'd by those excited souls — their clothes all sat- urated with the clay-powder filUng the air — stirr'd up everywhere on the dry roads and trodden fields by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, &c. — all the men with this coating of murk and sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the Long Bridge — a hor- rible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffled, humiliated, panic-struck. Where are the vaunts, and the proud boasts with which you went forth ? Where are your banners, and your bands of music, and your ropes to bring back your prisoners? Well, there isn't a band playing — and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and lank to its staff. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 51 Meantime, in Washington, among the great persons and their entourage, a mixture of awful consternation, uncertainty, rage, shame, helplessness, and stupefying disappointment. The worst is not only imminent, but already here. In a few hours — perhaps before the next meal — the secesh generals, with their victorious hordes, will be upon us. The dream of humanity, the vaunted Union we thought so strong, so impregnable — lo ! it seems already smash'd like a china plate. One bitter, bitter hour — perhaps proud America will never again know such an hour. She must pack and fly — no time to spare. Those white palaces — the dome- crown'd capitol there on the hill, so stately over the trees — shall they be left — or destroy 'd first ? For it is certain that the talk among certain of the magnates and officers and clerks and officials everywhere, for twenty- four hours in and around Washington after Bull Run, was loud and undisguised for yielding out and out, and substituting the southern rule, and Lincoln promptly abdicating and departing. If the secesh officers and forces had immediately followed, and by a bold Napo- leonic movement had enter'd Washington the first day, (or even the second,) they could have had things their own way, and a powerful faction north to back them. One of our returning colonels express'd in pub- lic that night, amid a swarm of officers and gentlemen in a crowded room, the opinion that it was useless to fight, that the southerners had made their title clear, and that the best course for the national government to pursue was to desist from any further attempt at stopping them, and admit them again to the lead, on the best terms they were willing to grant. Not a voice 52 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA was rais'd against this judgment, amid that large crowd of officers and gentlemen. (The fact is, the hour was one of the three or four of those crises we had then and afterward, during the fluctuations of four years, when human eyes appear'd at least just as likely to see the last breath of the Union as to see it con- tinue.) THE STUPOR PASSES— SOMETHING ELSE BEGINS But the hour, the day, the night pass'd, and what- ever returns, an hour, a day, a night like that can never again return. The President, recovering him- self, begins that very night — sternly, rapidly sets about the task of reorganizing his forces, and placing him- self in positions for future and surer work. If there were nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough to send him with his wreath to the memory of all future time, that he en- dured that hour, that day, bitterer than gall — indeed a crucifixion day — that it did not conquer him — that he unflinchingly stemm'd it, and resolv'd to lift himself and the Union out of it. Then the great New York papers at once appear'd, (commencing that evening, and following it up the next morning, and incessantly through many days afterwards,) with leaders that rang out over the land with the loudest, most reverberating ring of clearest bugles, full of encouragement, hope, inspiration, un- faltering defiance. Those magnificent editorials ! they never flagg'd for a fortnight. The *' Herald " com- menced them — I remember the articles well. The AUTOBIOGRAPIIIA 53 "Tribune" was equally cogent and inspiriting — and the ''Times," "Evening Post," and other principal papers, were not a whit behind. They came in good time, for they were needed. For in the humiliation of Bull Run, the popular feeling north, from its extreme of superciliousness, recoil'd to the depth of gloom and apprehension. (Of all the days of the war, there are two especially I can never forget. Those were the day following the news, in New York and Brooklyn, of that first Bull Run defeat, and the day of Abraham Lincoln's death. I was home in Brooklyn on both occasions. The day of the murder we heard the news very early in the morning. Mother prepared breakfast — and other meals afterward — as usual; but not a mouthful was eat- en all day by either of us. We each drank half a cup of coffee; that was all. Little was said. We got every newspaper morning and evening, and the frequent extras of that period, and pass'd them silently to each other.) DOWN AT THE FRONT Falmouth, Va., opposite Fredericksburg , December 21, 1862. — Begin my visits among camp hospitals in the army of the Potomac. Spend a good part of the day in a large brick mansion on the banks of the Rap- pahannock, used as a hospital since the battle — seems to have receiv'd only the worst cases. Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, &c., a full load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each cover'd with its brown wool- 54 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA en blanket. In the door-yard, towards the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel-staves or broken boards, stuck in the dirt. (Most of these bodies were subsequently taken up and transported north to their friends.) The large man- sion is quite crowded upstairs and down, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, un- clean and bloody. Some of the wounded are rebel soldiers and officers; prisoners. One, a Mississippian, a captain, hit badly in leg, I talk'd with some time: he ask'd me for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward in Washington, with his leg amputated, doing well.) I went through the rooms, downstairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few let- ters to folks home, mothers, &c. Also talk'd to three or four, who seem'd most susceptible to it, and need- ing it. AFTER FIRST FREDERICKSBURG December 2j to ji. — The results of the late battle are exhibited everywhere about here in thousands of cases, (hundreds die every day,) in the camp, brigade, and division hospitals. These are merely tents, and some- times very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blankets are spread on layers of pine or hemlock twigs, or small leaves. No cots; sel- dom even a mattress. It is pretty cold. The ground is frozen hard, and there is occasional snow. I go around from one case to another. I do not see that I AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 55 do much good to these wounded and dying; but I can- not leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate, stop with him and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it. Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men, &c. Sometimes . at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes. These are curious shows, full of characters and groups. I soon get acquinted anywhere in camp, with officers or men, and am always well used. Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best. As to ra- tions, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is, mainly salt pork and hard tack. Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter-tents. A few have built themselves huts of logs and mud, with fire-places. BACK TO WASHINGTON January, *6j. — Left camp at Falmouth, with some wounded, a few days since, and came here by Aquia creek railroad, and so on government steamer up the Potomac. Many wounded were with us on the cars and boat. The cars were just common platform ones. The railroad journey of ten or twelve miles was made mostly before sunrise. The soldiers guarding the road came out from their tents or shebangs of bushes with rumpled hair and half-awake look. Those on duty were w^alking their posts, some on banks over us, oth- ers down far below the level of the track. I saw large 56 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA cavalry camps off the road. At Aquia creek landing were numbers of wounded going north. While I wait- ed some three hours, 1 went around among them. Several wanted word sent home to parents, brothers, wives, &c., which I did for them, (by mail the next day from Washington.) On the boat I had my hands full. One poor fellow died going up. I am now remaining in and around Washington, daily visiting the hospitals. Am much in Patent-office, Eighth street, H street, Armory-square, and others. Am now able to do a little good, having money, (as almoner of others home,) and getting experience. To-day, Sunday afternoon and till nine in the evening, visited Campbell hospital; attended specially to one case in ward i, very sick with pleurisy and typhoid fever, young man, farmer's son, D. F. Russell, com- pany E, 6oth New York, downhearted and feeble; a long time before he would take any interest; wrote a letter home to his mother, in Malone, Franklin coun- ty, N. Y., at his request; gave him some fruit and one or two other gifts; envelop'd and directed his letter, &c. Then went thoroughly through ward 6, observ'd every case in the ward, without, I think, missing one, gave perhaps from twenty to thirty persons, each one some little gift, such as oranges, apples, sweet crack- ers, figs, &c. Thursday, Jajt. 2i. — Devoted the main part of the day to Armory-square hospital ; went pretty thorough- ly through wards F, G, H, and I; some fifty cases in each ward. In ward F supplied the men throughout with writing paper and stamp'd envelope each; distrib- uted in small portions, to proper subjects, a large jar AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 5/ of first-rate preserv'd berries, which had been donated to me by a lady — her own cooking. ' Found several cases I thought good subjects for small sums of money, which I furnish'd. (The wcanded men often come up broke, and it helps their spirits to have even the small sum I give them.) My paper and envelopes all gone, but distributed a good lot of amusing reading matter; also, as I thought judicious, tobacco, oranges, apples, &c. Interesting cases in ward I; Charles Miller, bed 19, company D, 53d Pennsylvania, is only sixteen years of age, very bright, courageous boy, left leg amputated below the knee; next bed to him, another young lad very sick; gave each appropriate gifts. In the bed above, also, amputation of the left leg; gave him a lit- tle jar of raspberries; bed I, this ward, gave a small sum; also to a soldier on crutches, sitting on his bed near. ... (I am more and more surprised at the very great proportion of youngsters from fifteen to twenty- one in the army. I afterwards found a still greater proportion among the southerners.) Evening, same day, went to see D. F. R., before al- luded to; found him remarkably changed for the bet- ter; up and dress'd — quite a triumph; he afterwards got well, and went back to his regiment. Distributed in the wards a quantity of note-paper, and forty or fif- ty stamp'd envelopes, of which I had recruited my stock, and the men were much in need. HOSPITAL SCENES AND PERSONS Letter Writmg. — When eligible, I encourage the men to write, and myself, when called upon, write all 58 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA sorts of letters for them, (including love letters, very tender ones.) Almost as I reel off these memoranda, I write for a new patient to his wife. M. de F., of the 17th Connecticut, company H, has just come up (Feb- ruary 17th) from Windmill point, and is received in ward H, Armory-square. He is an intelligent looking man, has a foreign accent, black-eyed and hair'd, a Hebraic appearance. Wants a telegraphic message sent to his wife. New Canaan, Conn. I agree to send the message — but to make things sure I also sit down and write the wife a letter, and despatch it to the post- office immediately, as he fears she will come on, and he does not wish her to, as he will surely get well. Saturday, J amcary jot h, — Afternoon, visited Camp- bell hospital. Scene of cleaning up the ward, and giv- ing the men all clean clothes — through the ward (6) the patients dressing or being dress'd — the naked up- per half of the bodies — the good-humor and fun — the shirts, drawers, sheets of beds, &c., and the general fixing up for Sunday. Gave J. L. 50 cents. Wed7iesday, February 4th. — Visited Armory-square hospital, went pretty thoroughly through wards E and D. Supplied paper and envelopes to all who wish'd — as usual, found plenty of men who needed those arti- cles. Wrote letters. Saw and talk'd with two or three members of the Brooklyn 14th regt. A poor fel- low in ward D, with a fearful wound in a fearful con- dition, was having some loose splinters of bone taken from the neighborhood of the wound. The operation was long, and one of great pain — yet, after it was well commenced, the soldier bore it in silence. He sat up, propp'd — was much wasted — had lain a long time quiet AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 59 in 'one position (not for days only but weeks,) a blood- less, brown-skinn'd face, with eyes full of determina- tion — belong'd to a New York regiment. There was an unusual cluster of surgeons, medical cadets, nurses, &c., around his bed — I thought the whole thing was done with tenderness, and done well. In one case, the wife sat by the side of her husband, his sickness ty- phoid fever, pretty bad. In another, by the side of her son, a mother — she told me she had seven children, and this was the youngest. (A fine, kind, healthy, gentle mother, good-looking, not very old, with a cap on her head, and dress'd like home — what a charm it gave to the whole ward.) I liked the woman nurse in ward E — I noticed how she sat a long time by a poor fellow who just had, that morning, in addition to his other sickness, bad hemorrhage — she gently assisted him, reliev'd him of the blood, holding a cloth to his mouth, as he coughed it up — he was so weak he could only just turn his head over on the pillow. One young New York man, with a bright, handsome face, had been lying several months from a most dis- agreeable wound, received at Bull Run. A bullet had shot him right through the bladder, hitting him front, low in the belly, and coming out back. He had suf- fer'd much — the water came out of the wound, by slow but steady quantities, for many weeks — so that he lay almost constantly in a sort of puddle — and there were other disagreeable circumstances. He v/as of good heart, however. At present comparatively com- fortable, had a bad throat, was delighted with a stick of horehound candy I gave him, with one or two other trifles. 6o AUTOBIOGRAPHIA PATENT-OFFICE HOSPITAL February 2j. — I must not let the great hospital at the Patent-office pass away without some mention. A few weeks ago the vast area of the second story of that noblest of Washington buildings was crowded close with rows of sick, badly wounded and dying soldiers. They were placed in three very large apartments. I went there many times. It was a strange, solemn, and, with all its features of suffering and death, a sort of fascinating sight. I go sometimes at night to soothe and relieve particular cases. Two of the immense apartments are fill'd with high and ponderous glass cases, crowded with models in miniature of every kind of utensil, machine or invention, it ever enter'd into the mind of man to conceive; and with curiosities and foreign presents. Between these cases are lateral openings, perhaps eight feet wide and quite deep, and in these were placed the sick, besides a great long double row of them up and down through the middle of the hall. Many of them were very bad cases, wounds and amputations. Then there was a gallery running above the hall in which there were beds also. It was, indeed, a curious scene, especially at night when lit up. The glass cases, the beds, the forms ly- ing there, the gallery above, and the marble pavement under foot — the suffering, and the fortitude to bear it in various degrees — occasionally, from some, the groan that could not be repress'd — sometimes ^ poor fellow dying, with emaciated face and glassy eye, the nurse by his side, the doctor also there, but no friend, no relative — such were the sights but lately in the Patent- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 6l office. (The wounded have since been removed from there, and it is now vacant' again.) AN ARMY HOSPITAL WARD Let me specialize a visit I made to the collection of barrack-like one-story edifices, Campbell hospital, out on the flats, at the end of the then horse railway route, on Seventh street. There is a long building appropri- ated to each ward. Let us go into ward 6. It contains to-day, I should judge, eighty or a hundred patients, half sick, half wounded. The edifice is nothing but boards, well whitewash'd inside, and the usual slender- framed iron bedsteads, narrow and plain. You walk down the central passage, with a row on either side, their feet towards you, and their heads to the wall. There are fires in large stoves, and the prevailing white of the walls is reliev'd by some ornaments, stars, cir- cles, &c., made of evergreens. The view of the whole edifice and occupants can be taken at once, for there is no partition. You may hear groans or other sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three of the cots, but in the main there is quiet — almost a painful ab- sence of demonstration; but the pallid face, the dull'd eye, and the moisture on the lip, are demonstration enough. Most of these sick or hurt are evidently young fellows from the country, farmers' sons, and such like. Look at the fine large frames, the bright and broad countenances, and the many yet lingering proofs of strong constitution and physique. Look at the patient and mute manner of our American wounded as they lie in such a sad collection; representatives from all New England, and from New York, and New 62 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Jersey, and Pennsylvania — indeed from all the States and all the cities — largely from the west. Most of them are entirely without friends or acquaintances here — no familiar face, and hardly a word of judicious sympathy or cheer, through their sometimes long and tedious sickness, or the pangs of aggravated wounds. A SECESH BRAVE The grand soldiers are not comprised in those of one side, any more than the other. Here is a sample of an unknown southerner, a lad of seventeen. At the War department, a few days ago, I witness'd a presentation of captured flags to the Secretary. Among others a soldier named Gant, of the 104th Ohio volunteers, pre- sented a rebel battle-flag, which one of the officers stated to me was borne to the mouth of our cannon and planted there by a boy but seventeen years of age, who actually endeavor'd to stop the muzzle of the gun with fence-rails. He was kill'd in the effort, and the flag- staff was sever'd by a shot from one of our men. THE WOUNDED FROM CHANCELLORSVILLE May, '6j. — As I write this, the wounded have begun to arrive from Hooker's command from bloody Chan- cellorsville. I was down among the first arrivals. The men in charge told me the bad cases were yet to come. If that is so I pity them, for these are bad enough. You ought to see the scene of the wounded arriving at the landing here at the foot of Sixth street, at night. Two boat loads came about j yi last night. A little after 8 it rain'd a long and violent shower. The pale, helpless soldiers had been debark'd, and lay AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 63 around on the wharf and neighborhood anywhere. The rain was, probably, grateful to them; at any rate they were exposed to it. The few torches light up the spectacle. All around — on the wharf, on the ground, out on side places — the men are lying on blankets, old quilts, &c., with bloody rags bound round heads, arms, and legs. The attendants are few, and at night few outsiders also — only a few hard-work'd transportation men and drivers. (The wounded are getting to be common, and people grow callous.) The men, what- ever their condition, lie there, and patiently wait till their turn comes to be taken up. Near by, the ambu- lances are now arriving in clusters, and one after an- other is call'd to back up and take its load. Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings. A few groans that cannot be suppressed, and occasionally a scream of pain as they lift a man into the ambulance. To-day, as I write, hundreds more are expected, and to-morrow and the next day more, and so on for many days. Quite often they arrive at the rate of i ,000 a day. MY PREPARATIONS FOR VISITS In my visits to the hospitals I found it was in the simple matter of personal presence, and emanating ordinary cheer and magnetism, that I succeeded and help'd more than by medical nursing, or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else. During the war I possess'd the perfection of physical health. My habit, when practicable, was to prepare for starting out on one of those daily or nightly tours of from a couple to four or five hours, by fortifying myself with previous 64 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA rest, the bath, clean clothes, a good meal, and as cheerful an appearance as possible. A NEW YORK SOLDIER This afternoon, July 22d, I have spent a long time with Oscar F. Wilber, company G, 154th New York, low with chronic diarrhoea, and a bad wound also. He asked me to read him a chapter in the New Testa- ment. I complied, and ask'd him what I should read. He said, '* Make your own choice." 1 open'd at the close of one of the first books of the evangelists, and read the chapters describing the latter hours of Christ, and the scenes at the crucifixion. The poor, wasted young man ask'd me to read the following chapter also, how Christ rose again. I read very slowly, for Oscar was feeble. It pleased him very much, yet the tears were in his eyes. He ask'd me if I enjoy 'd relig- ion. I said, *' Perhaps not, my dear, in fhe way you mean, and yet, may-be, it is the same thing." He said, ''It is my chief reliance." He talk'd of death, and said he did not fear it. I said, **Why, Oscar, don't you think you will get well ? " He said, " I may, but it is not probable." He spoke calmly of his condi- tion. The wound was very bad, it discharg'd much. Then the diarrhoea had prostrated him, and I felt that he was even then the same as dying. He behaved very manly and affectionate. The kiss I gave him as I was about leaving he return'd fourfold. He gave me his mother's address, Mrs. Sally D. Wilber, Allegany post-office, Cattaraugus county, N. Y. I had several such interviews with him. He died a few days after the one just described. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 65 HOME-MADE MUSIC August 8th, — To-night, as I was trying to keep cool, sitting by a wounded soldier in Armory-square, I was attracted by some pleasant singing in an adjoining ward. As my soldier was asleep, I left him, and enter- ing the ward where the music was, I walk'd half-way down and took a seat by the cot of a young Brooklyn friend, S. R., badly wounded in the hand at Chancel- lorsville, and who has suffer'd much, but at that mo- ment in the evening was wide awake and comparatively easy. He had turn'd over on his left side to get a bet- ter view of the singers, but the mosquito-curtains of the adjoining cots obstructed the sight. I stept round and loop'd them all up, so that he had a clear show,and then sat down again by him, and look'd and listened. The principal singer was a young lady-nurse of one of the wards, accompanying on a melodeon, and join'd by the lady-nurses of other wards. They sat there, making a charming group, with their handsome, healthy faces, and standing up a little behind them were some ten or fifteen of the convalescent soldiers, young men, nurses, &c., with books in their hands, singing. Of course it was not such a performance as the great solo- ists at the New York opera house take a hand in, yet I am not sure but I receiv'd as much pleasure under the circum- stances, sitting there, as I have had from the best Ital- ian compositions, express'd by world-famous perform- ers. The men lying up and down the hospital, in their cots, (some badly wounded — some never to rise thence,) the cots themselves, with their drapery of white curtains, and the shadows down the lower and 66 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA upper parts of the ward; then the silence of the men, and the attitudes they took — the whole was a sight to look around upon again and again. And there sweetly- rose those voices up to the high, whitewash'd wooden roof, and pleasantly the roof sent it all back again. They sang very well, mostly quaint old songs and de- clamatory hymns, to fitting tunes. Here, for in- stance: My days are swiftly gliding by, and I a pilgrim stranger, Would not detain them as they fly, those hours of toil and danger; For O we stand on Jordan's strand, our friends are passing over, And just before, the shining shore we may almost discover. We'll gird our loins my brethren dear, our distant home discerning, Our absent Lord has left us word, let every lamp be burn- ing; For O we stand on Jordan's strand, our friends are passing over, And just before, the shining shore we may almost discover. ABRAHAM LINCOLN August I2th. — I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season, but has quarters at a healthy location some three miles north of the city, the Soldiers' home, a United States military establish- ment. I saw him this morning about Zyi coming in to business, riding on Vermont avenue, near L street. He always has a company of twenty-five or thirty cav- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 6^ airy, with sabres drawn and held upright over their shoulders. They say this guard was against his per- sonal wish, but he let his counselors have their way. The party makes no great show in uniform or horses. Mr. Lincoln on the saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going gray horse, is dress'd in plain black, some- what rusty and dusty, wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, &c., as the commonest man. A lieutenant, with yellow straps, rides at his left, and following behind, two by two, come the cav- alry men, in their yellow-striped jackets. They are gen- erally going at a slow trot, as that is the pace set them by the one they wait upon. The sabres and accoutre- ments clank, and the entirely unornamental cortege as it trots towards Lafayette square arouses no sensation, only some curious stranger stops and gazes. I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes, always to me with a deep la- tent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabres. Often 1 notice as he goes out evenings — and sometimes in the morning, when he returns early — he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window he does not alight, but sits in his vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to attend him. Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or twelve, accompanies him, rid- ing at his right on a pony. Earlier in the summer I occasionally saw the President and his wife, toward 68 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA the latter part of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a pleasure ride through the city. Mrs. Lincoln was dress'd in complete black, with a long crape veil. The equipage is of the plainest kind, only two horses, and they nothing extra. They pass'd me once very close, and I saw the President in the face fully, as they were moving slowly, and his look, though abstracted, hap- pen 'd to be directed steadily in my eye. He bow'd and smiled, but far beneath his smile I noticed well the ex- pression I have alluded to. None of the artists or pic- tures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed. DEATH OF A WISCONSIN OFFICER Another characteristic scene of that dark and bloody 1863, from notes of my visit to Armory-square hospi- tal, one hot but pleasant summer day. In ward H we approach the cot of a young lieutenant of one of the Wisconsin regiments. Tread the bare floor lightly here, for the pain and panting of death are in this cot. I saw the lieutenant when he was first brought here from Chancellorsville, and have been with him occa;- sionally from day to day and night to night. He had been getting along pretty wxll till night before last, when a sudden hemorrhage that could not be stopt came upon him, and to-day it still continues at inter- vals. Notice that water-pail by the side of the bed, with a quantity of blood and bloody pieces of muslin, nearly full ; that tells the story. The poor young man is struggling painfully for breath, his great dark eyes AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 69 with a glaze already upon them, and the choking faint but audible in his throat. An attendant sits by him, and will not leave him till the last ; yet little or noth- ing can be done. He will die here in an hour or two, without the presence of kith or kin. Meantime the ordinary chat and business of the ward a little way off goes on indifferently. Some of the inmates are laugh- ing and joking, others are playing checkers or cards, others are reading, &c. I have noticed through most of the hospitals that as long as there is any chance for a man, no matter how bad he may be, the surgeon and nurses work hard, sometimes with curious tenacity, for his life, doing everything, and keeping somebody by him to execute the doctor's orders, and minister to him every minute night and day. See that screen there. As you ad- vance through the dusk of early candle-light, a nurse will step forth on tip-toe, and silently but imperiously forbid you to make any noise, or perhaps to come near at all. Some soldier's life is flickering there, sus- pended between recovery and death. Perhaps at this moment the exhausted frame has just fallen into a light sleep that a step might shake. You must retire. The neighboring patients must move in their stocking feet. I have been several times struck with such mark'd ef- forts — everything bent to save a life from the very grip of the destroyer. But when that grip is once firmly fix'd, leaving no hope or chance at all, the surgeon abandons the patient. If it is a case where stim- ulus is any relief, the nurse gives milk-punch or brandy, or whatever is wanted, ad libitum. There is no fuss made. Not a bit of sentimentalism or whining have I JO AUTOBIOGRAPHIA seen about a single death-bed in hospital or on the field, but generally impassive indifference. All is over, as far as any efforts can avail ; it is useless to expend emotions or labors. While there is a prospect they strive hard — at least most surgeons do ; but death cer- tain and evident, they yield the field. HOSPITALS ENSEMBLE Aug., Sep., and Oct., '6j. — I am in the habit of go- ing to all, and to Fairfax seminary, Alexandria, and over Long bridge to the great Convalescent camp. The journals publish a regular directory of them — a long list. As a specimen of almost any one of the larger of these hospitals, fancy to yourself a space of three to twenty acres of ground, on which are group'd ten or twelve very large wooden barracks, with, per- haps, a dozen or twenty, and sometimes more than that number, small buildings, capable altogether of accommodating from five hundred to a thousand or fifteen hundred persons. Sometimes these wooden barracks or wards, each of them perhaps from a hun- dred to a hundred and fifty feet long, are rang'd in a straight row, evenly fronting the street ; others are plann'd so as to form an immense V ; and others again are ranged around a hollow square. They make alto- gether a huge cluster, with the additional tents, extra wards for contagious diseases, guard-houses, sutler^s stores, chaplain's house ; in the middle will probably be an edifice devoted to the offices of the surgeon in charge and the ward surgeons, principal attaches, clerks, &c. The wards are either letter'd alphabeti- cally, ward G, ward K, or else numerically, i, 2, 3, &c. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA /I Each has its ward surgeon and corps of nurses. Of course, there is, in the aggregate, quite a muster of employes, and over all the surgeon in charge. Here in Washington, when these army hospitals are all fill'd, (as they have been already several times,) they contain a population more numerous in itself than the whole of the Washington of ten or fifteen years ago. Within sight of the capitol, as I write, are some thirty or forty such collections, at times holding from fifty to seventy thousand men. Looking from any eminence and study- ing the topography in my rambles, I use them as land- marks. Through the rich August verdure of the trees, see that white group of buildings off yonder in the out- skirts ; then another cluster half a mile to the left of the first ; then another a mile to the right, and another a mile beyond, and still another between us and the first. Indeed, we can hardly look in any direction but these clusters are dotting the landscape and environs. That little town, as you might suppose it, ofl there on the brow of the hill, is indeed a town, but of wounds, sickness, and death. It is Finley hospital, northeast of the city, on Kendall green, as it used to be call'd. That other is Campbell hospital. Both are large estab- lishments. I have known these two alone to have from two thousand to twenty-five hundred inmates. Then there is Carver hospital, larger still, a wall'd and mili- tary city regularly laid out, and guarded by squads of sentries. Again, off east, Lincoln hospital, a still larger one ; and half a mile further Emory hospital. Still sweeping the eye around down the river toward Alexandria, we see, to the right, the locality where the Convalescent camp stands, with its five, eight, or some- 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA times ten thousand inmates. Even all these are but a portion. The Harewood, Mount Pleasant, Armory- square, Judiciary hospitals, are some of the rest, and all large collections. SPIRITUAL CHARACTERS AMONG THE SOLDIERS Every now and then, in hospital or camp, there are beings I meet — specimens of unworldliness, disinterest- edness, and animal purity and heroism — perhaps some unconscious Indianian, or from Ohio or Tennessee — on whose birth the calmness of heaven seems to have descended, and whose gradual growing up, whatever the circumstances of work-life or change, or hardship, or small or no education that attended it, the power of a strange spiritual sweetness, fibre and inward health, has also attended. Something veil'd and abstracted is often a part of the manners of these beings. I have met them, I say, not seldom in the army, in camp, and in the hospitals. The Western regiments contain many of them. They are often young men, obeying the events and occasions about them, marching, sol- diering, fighting, foraging, cooking, working on farms or at some trade before the war — unaware of their own nature, (as to that, who is aware of his own nature?) their companions only understanding that they are dif- ferent from the rest, more silent, ''something odd about them," and apt to go off and meditate and muse in solitude. DOWN AT THE FRONT CuLPEPER, Va., Feb. '64.— Here I am pretty well down toward the extreme front. Three or four days ago General S., who is now in chief command, (I be- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 73 lieve Meade is absent, sick,) moved a strong force southward from camp as if intending business. They went to the Rapidan ; there has since been some manoeuvring and a little fighting, but nothing of con- sequence. The telegraphic accounts given Monday morning last, make entirely too much of it, I should say. What General S. intended we here know not, but we trust in that competent commander. We were somewhat excited, (but not so very much either,) on Sunday, during the day and night, as orders were sent out to pack up and harness, and be ready to evacuate, to fall back towards Washington. But I was very sleepy and went to bed. Some tremendous shouts arousing me during the night, I went forth and found it was from the men above mention'd, who were re- turning. I talk'd with some of the men; as usual T found them full of gayety, endurance, and many fine lit- tle outshows, the signs of the most excellent good man- liness of the world. It was a curious sight to see those shadowy columns moving through the night. 1 stood unobserv'd in the darkness and watch'd them long. The mud was very deep. The men had their usual burdens, overcoats, knapsacks, guns and blankets. Along and along they filed by me, with often a laugh, a song, a cheerful word, but never once a murmur. It may have been odd, but I never before so realized the majesty and reality of the American people en masse. It fell upon me like a great awe. The strong ranks moved neither fast nor slow. They had march'd seven or eight miles already through the slipping unctuous mud. The brave First corps stopt here. The equally brave Third corps moved on to Brandy station. The 74 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA famous Brooklyn 14th are here, guarding the town. You see their red legs actively moving everywhere. Then they have a theatre of their own here. They give musical performances, nearly everything done capi- tally. Of course the audience is a jam. It is good sport to attend one of these entertainments of the 14th. I like to look around at the soldiers, and the general collection in front of the curtain, more than the scene on the stage. PAYING THE BOUNTIES One of the things to note here now is the arrival of the paymaster with his strong box, and the payment of bounties to veterans re-enlisting. Major H. is here to- day, with a small mountain of greenbacks, rejoicing the hearts of the 2d division of the First corps. In the midst of a rickety shanty, behind a little table, sit the major and clerk Eldridge, with the rolls before them, and much moneys. A re-enlisted man gets in cash about $200 down, (and heavy instalments following, as the pay-days arrive, one after another.) The show of the men crowding around is quite exhilarating; I like to stand and look. They feel elated, their pockets full, and the ensuing furlough, the visit home. It is a scene of sparkling eyes and flush'd cheeks. The soldier has many gloomy and harsh experiences, and this makes up for some of them. Major H. is order'd to pay first all the re-enlisted men of the First corps their bounties and back pay, and then the rest. You hear the pecul- iar sound of the rustling of the new and crisp green- backs by the hour, through the nimble fingers of the major e.nd my friend clerk E. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 75 SUMMER OF 1864 I am back again in Washington, on my regular daily and nightly rounds. Of course there are many special- ties. Dotting a ward here and there are always cases of poor fellows, long-suffering under obstinate wounds, or weak and dishearten'd from typhoid fever, or the like; mark'd cases, needing special and sympathetic nourishment. These I sit down and either talk to, or silently cheer them up. They always like it hugely, (and so do I.) Each case has its peculiarities, and needs some new adaptation. I have learnt to thus conform — learnt a good deal of hospital wisdom. Some of the poor young chaps, away from home for the first time in their lives, hunger and thirst for affec- tion; this is sometimes the only thing that will reach their condition. The men like to have a pencil, and something to write in. 1 have given them cheap pock- et-diaries, and almanacs for 1864, interleav'd with blank paper. For reading I generally have some old pictorial magazines or story papers — they are always acceptable. Also the morning or evening papers of the day. The best books I do not give, but lend to read through the wards, and then take them to others, and so on; they are very punctual about returning the books. In these wards, or on the field, as I thus con- tinue to go round, I have come to adapt myself to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, how- ever solemn, every one justified and made real under its circumstances — not only visits and cheering talk and little gifts — not only washing and dressing wounds, (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling any 76 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA one shall do this but me) — but passages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, &c. (I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.) In camp and everywhere, I was in the habit of reading or giving recitations to the men. They were very fond of it, and liked declamatory poetical pieces. We would gather in a large group by ourselves, after supper, and spend the time in such readings, or in talking, and occasionally by an amusing game called the game of twenty questions. DEATH OF A HERO I wonder if I could ever convey to another — to you, for instance, reader dear — the tender and terrible real- ities of such cases, (many, many happen'd,) as the one I am now going to mention. Stewart C. Glover, com- pany E, 5th Wisconsin — was wounded May 5, in one of those fierce tussles of the Wilderness — died May 21 — aged about 20. He was a small and beardless young man — a splendid soldier — in fact almost an ideal Amer- ican, of his age. He had serv'd nearly three years, and would have been entitled to his discharge in a few days. He was in Hancock's corps. The fighting had about ceas'd for the day, and the general commanding the brigade rode by and call'd for volunteers to bring in the wounded. Glover responded among the first — went out gayly — but while in the act of bearing in a wounded sergeant to our lines, was shot in the knee by a rebel sharpshooter; consequence, amputation and death. He had resided with his father, John Glover, an aged and feeble man, in Batavia, Genesee county. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA T^ N. Y., but was at school in Wisconsin, after the war broke out, and there enhsted — soon took to soldier- Hfe, liked it, was very manly, was belov'd by officers and comrades. He kept a little diary, like so many of the soldiers. On the day of his death he wrote the following in it, to-day the doctor says I must die — all is over with me — ah, so you7tg to die. On another blank leaf he pencill'd to his brother, dear brother Tho77tas, I have been brave but wicked — pray for me. HOSPITAL SCENES— INCIDENTS It is Sunday afternoon, middle of summer, hot and oppressive, and very silent through the ward. I am taking care of a critical case, now lying in a half leth- argy. Near where I sit is a suflering rebel, from the 8th Louisiana; his name is Irving. He has been here a long time, badly wounded, and lately had his leg am- putated; it is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick soldier-boy, laid down with his clothes on, sleeping, looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cavalry boy. 1 step softly over and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the ist Maine cavalry, and his folks live in Skowhegan. Ice Cream Treat. — One hot day toward the middle of June, I gave the inmates of Carver hospital a gen- eral ice cream treat, purchasing a large quantity, and, under convoy of the doctor or head nurse, going around personally through the wards to see to its dis- tribution. An Incident. — In one of the fights before Atlanta, a rebel soldier, of large size, evidently a young man, was 78 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA mortally wounded top of the head, so that the brains partially exuded. He lived three days, lying on his back on the spot where he first dropt. He dug with his heel in the ground during that time a hole big- enough to put in a couple of ordinary knapsacks. He just lay there in the open air, and with little intermis- sion kept his heel going night and day. Some of our soldiers then moved him to a house, but he died in a few minutes. A7iother. — After the battles at Columbia, Tennessee, where we repuls'd about a score of vehement rebel charges, they left a great many wounded on the ground, mostly within our range. Whenever any of these wounded attempted to move away by any means, generally by crawling off, our men without exception brought them down by a bullet. They let none crawl away, no matter what his condition. DESERTERS Oct. 24. — Saw a large squad of our own deserters, (over 300) surrounded with a cordon of arm'd guards, marching along Pennsylvania avenue. The most mot- ley collection I ever saw, all sorts of rig, all sorts of hats and caps, many fine-looking young fellows, some of them shame-faced, some sickly, most of them dirty, shirts very dirty and long worn, &c. They tramp'd along without order, a huge huddling mass, not in ranks. I saw some of the spectators laughing, but I felt like anything else but laughing. These deserters are far more numerous than would be thought. Al- most every day I see squads of them, sometimes two or three at a time, with a small guard; sometimes ten AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 79 or twelve, under a larger one. (I hear that desertions from the army now in the field have often averaged 10,000 a month. One of the commonest sights in Washington is a squad of deserters.) GIFTS— MONEY— DISCRIMINATION As a very large proportion of the wounded came up from the front without a cent of money in their pockets, I soon discovered that it was about the best thing 1 could do to raise their spirits, and show them that somebody cared for them, and practically felt a fatherly or brotherly interest in them, to give them small sums in such cases, using tact and discretion about it. I am regularly supplied with funds for this purpose by good women and men in Boston, Salem, Providence, Brook- lyn, and New York. I provide myself with a quantity of bright new ten-cent and five-cent bills, and, when I think it incumbent, I give 25 or 30 cents, or perhaps 50 cents, and occasionally a still larger sum to some particular case. As I have started this subject, I take opportunity to ventilate the financial question. My supplies, altogether voluntary, mostly confidential, often seeming quite Providential, were numerous and varied. For instance, there were two distant and wealthy ladies, sisters, who sent regularly, for two years, quite heavy sums, enjoining that their names should be kept secret. The same delicacy was indeed a fre- quent condition. From several I had carte blanche. Many were entire strangers. From these sources, dur- ing from two to three years, in the manner described, in the hospitals, I bestowed, as almoner for others, many, many thousands of dollars. I learn'd one thing 8o AUTOBIOGRAPHIA conclusively — that beneath all the ostensible greed and heartlessness of our times there is no end to the gener- ous benevolence of men and women in the United States, when once sure of their object. Another thing became clear to me — while cash is not amiss to bring up the rear, tact and magnetic sym.pathy and unction are, and ever will be, sovereign still. ITEMS FROM MY NOTE BOOKS Some of the half-eras'd, and not over-legible when made, memoranda of things wanted by one patient or another, will convey quite a fair idea. D. S. G., bed 52, wants a good book; has a sore, weak throat; would like some horehound candy; is from New Jersey, 28th regiment. C. H. L., 145th Pennsylvania, lies in bed 6, with jaundice and erysipelas; also wounded; stom- ach easily nauseated; bring him some oranges, also a little tart jelly; hearty, full-blooded young fellow — (he got better in a few days, and is now home on a fur- lough.) J. H. G., bed 24, wants an undershirt, drawers, and socks; has not had a change for quite a while; is evidently a neat, clean boy from New England — (I sup- plied him; also with a comb, tooth-brush, and some soap and towels; I noticed afterward he was the clean- est of the whole ward.) Mrs. G., lady-nurse, ward F, wants a bottle of brandy — has two patients imperatively requiring stimulus — low with wounds and exhaustion. (I supplied her with a bottle of first-rate brandy from the Christian commission rooms.) ARMY SURGEONS— AID DEFICIENCIES I must bear my most emphatic testimony to the zeal, manliness, and professional spirit and capacity, gener- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 8l ally prevailing among the surgeons, many of them young men, in the hospitals and the army. I will not say much about the exceptions, for they are few; (but I have met some of those few, and very incompetent and airish they were.) I never ceas'd to find the best men, and the hardest and most disinterested workers, among the surgeons in the hospitals. They are full of genius, too. I have seen many hundreds of them and this is my testimony. There are, however, serious deficiencies, wastes, sad want of system, in the com- missions, contributions, and in all the voluntary, and a great part of the governmental nursing, edibles, medicines, stores, &c. (I do not say surgical attend- ance, because the surgeons cannot do miore than hu- man endurance permits.) Whatever puffing accounts there may be in the papers of the North, this is the actual fact. No thorough previous preparation, no system, no foresight, no genius. Always plenty of stores, no doubt, but never where they are needed, and never the proper application. Of all harrowing experiences, none is greater than that of the days fol- lowing a heavy battle. Scores, hundreds of the noblest men on earth, uncomplaining, lie helpless, mangled, faint, alone, and so bleed to death, or die from ex- haustion, either actually untouch'd at all, or merely the laying of them down and leaving them, when there ought to be means provided to save them. BOYS IN THE ARMY As I walk'd home about sunset, I saw in Fourteenth street a very young soldier, thinly clad, standing near the house I was about to enter. I stopt a moment in 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA front of the door and call'd him to me. I knew that an old Tennessee regiment, and also an Indiana regi- ment, were temporarily stopping in new barracks, near Fourteenth street. This boy I found belonged to the Tennessee regiment. But I could hardly believe he carried a musket. He was but 15 years old, yet had been twelve months a soldier, and had borne his part in several battles, even historic ones. I ask'd him if he did not suffer from the cold, and if he had no overcoat. No, he did not suffer from cold, and had no overcoat, but could draw one whenever he wish'd. His father was dead, and his mother living in some part of East Tennessee; all the men were from that part of the country. The next forenoon I saw the Tennessee and Indiana regiments marching down the Avenue. My boy was with the former, stepping along with the rest. There were many other boys no older. I stood and watch'd them as they tramp'd along with slow, strong, heavy, regular steps. There did not appear to be a man over 30 years of age, and a large proportion were from 15 to perhaps 22 or 23. They had all the look of veterans, worn, stain'd, impassive, and a certain unbent, lounging gait, carrying in addition to their regular arms and knapsacks, frequently a frying-pan, broom, &c. They were all of pleasant physiognomy; no refinement, nor blanch'd with intellect, but as my eye pick'd them, moving along, rank by rank, there did not seem to be a single repulsive, brutal or markedly stupid face among them. FEMALE NURSES FOR SOLDIERS There are many women in one position or another, among the hospitals, mostly as nurses here in Wash- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 83 ington, and among the military stations; quite a num- ber of them young ladies acting as volunteers. They are a help in certain ways, and deserve to be mention'd with respect. Then it remains to be distinctly said that few or no young ladies, under the irresistible conven- tions of society, answer the practical requirements of nurses for soldiers. Middle-aged or healthy and good condition'd elderly women, mothers of children, are always best. Many of the wounded must be handled. A hundred things which cannot be gainsay'd, must occur and must be done. The presence of a good mid- dle-aged or elderly woman, the magnetic touch of hands, the expressive features of the mother, the silent soothing of her presence, her words, her knowledge and privileges arrived at only through having had children, are precious and final qualifications. It is a natural faculty that is required ; it is not merely having a genteel young woman at a table in a ward. One of the finest nurses I met was a red-faced illiterate old Irish woman; I have seen her take the poor wasted naked boys so tenderly up in her arms. There are plenty of excellent clean old black women that would make tip-top nurses. SOUTHERN ESCAPEES Feb. 2j, 'dj. — I saw a large procession of young men from the rebel army, (deserters they are call'd, but the usual meaning of the word does not apply to them,) passing the Avenue to-day. There were nearly 200, come up yesterday by boat from James river. I stood and watch'd them as they shuffled along, in a slow, tired, worn sort of way; a large proportion of light- 84 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA hair'd, blonde, light gray -eyed young men among them. Their costumes had a dirt-stain'd uniformity; most had been originally gray; some had articles of our uniform, pants on one, vest or coat on another; I think they were mostly Georgia and North Carolina boys. They excited little or no attention. As I stood quite close to them, several good looking enough youths, (but O what a tale of misery their appearance told,) nodded or just spoke to me, without doubt divining pity and fatherliness out of my face, for my heart was full enough of it. Several of the couples trudg'd along with their arms about each other, some probably brothers, as if they were afraid they might somehow get separated. They nearly all look'd what one might call simple, yet intelligent, too. Some had pieces of old carpet, some blankets, and others old bags around their shoulders. Some of them here and there had fine faces, still it was a procession of misery. The two hun- dred had with them about half a dozen arm'd guards. Along this week I saw some such procession, more or less in numbers, every day, as they were brought up by the boat. The government does what it can for them, and sends them north and west. THE CAPITOL BY GAS-LIGHT To-night I have been wandering awhile in the capi- tol, which is all lit up. The illuminated rotunda looks fine. I like to stand aside and look a long, long while, up at the dome; it comforts me somehow. The House and Senate were both in session till very late. I look'd in upon them, but only a few moments; they were hard at work on tax appropriation bills. I wander'd through AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 85 the long and rich corridors and apartments under the Senate; an old habit of mine, former winters, and now more satisfaction than ever. Not many persons down there, occasionally a flitting figure in the distance. THE INAUGURATION March 4. — The President very quietly rode down to the capitol in his own carriage, by himself, on a sharp trot, about noon, either because he wish'd to be on hand to sign bills, or to get rid of marching in line with the absurd procession, the muslin temple of liber- ty, and pasteboard monitor. I saw him on his return, at 3 o'clock, after the performance was over. He was in his plain two-horse barouche, and look'd very much worn and tired; the lines, indeed, of vast respon- sibilities, intricate questions, and demands of life and death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark brown face; yet all the old goodness, tenderness, sadness, and can- ny shrewdness, underneath the furrows. (I never see that man without feeling that he is one to become personally attach'd to, for his combination of purest, heartiest tenderness, and native western form of man- liness.) By his side sat his little boy, of ten years. There were no soldiers, only a lot of civilians on horse- back, with huge yellow scarfs over their shoulders, riding around the carriage. (At the inauguration four years ago, he rode down and back again surrounded by a dense mass of arm'd cavalry-men eight deep, with drawn sabres; and there were sharp-shooters station'd at every corner on the route.) I ought to make men- tion of the closing levee of Saturday night last. Never before was such a compact jam in front of the White 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA House — all the grounds fill'd, and away out to the spacious sidewalks. I was there, as I took a notion to go — was in the rush inside with the crowd — surged along the passage-ways, the blue and other rooms, and through the great east room. Crowds of country people, some very funny. Fijie music from the Marine band, off in a side place. I saw Mr. Lincoln, drest all in black, with white kid gloves and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty bound, shaking hands, looking very disconsolate, and as if he would give any- thing to be som.ewhere else. INAUGURATION BALL March 6. — I have been up to look at the dance and supper-rooms, for the inauguration ball at the Patent office; and I could not help thinking, what a different scene they presented to my view a while since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violins' sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd of the badly hurt was great, and much for nurse to do, and much for surgeon.) A YANKEE ANTIQUE March ^7, 186^. — Sergeant Calvin F. Harlowe, com- pany C, 29th Massachusetts, 3d brigade, ist division. Ninth corps — a mark'd sample of heroism and death. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 8/ (some may say bravado, but I say heroism, of grandest, oldest order) — in the late attack by the rebel troops, and temporary capture by them, of Fort Stedman, at night. The fort was surprised at dead of night. Sud- denly awaken'd from their sleep, and rushing from their tents, Harlowe, with others, found himself in the hands of the secesh — they demanded his surrender — he answer'd. Never while I live. (Of course it was use- less. The others surrender 'd; the odds were too great.) Again he was ask'd to yield, this time by a rebel cap- tain. Though surrounded, and quite calm, he again refused, call'd sternly to his comrades to fight on, and himself attempted to do so. The rebel captain then shot him — but at the same instant he shot the captain. Both fell together mortally wounded. Harlowe died almost instantly. The rebels were driven out in a very short time. The body was buried next day, but soon taken up and sent home, (Plymouth county, Mass.) Harlowe was only 22 years of age — was a tall, slim,, dark-hair'd, blue-eyed young man — had come out orig- inally with the 29th; and that is the way he met his death, after four years' campaign. He was in the Seven Days fight before Richmond, in second Bull Run, Antietam, first Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Jack- son, Wilderness, and the campaigns following — was as good a soldier as ever wore the blue, and every old officer in the regiment will bear that testimony. Though so young, and in a common rank, he had a spirit as resolute and brave as any hero in the books, ancient or modem — It was too great to say the words "I surrender" — and so he died. (When I think of such things, knowing them well, all the vast and com- 88 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA plicated events of the war, on which history dwells and makes its volumes, fall aside, and for the moment at any rate I see nothing but young Calvin Harlowe's fig- ure in the night, disdaining to surrender.) WOUNDS AND DISEASES The war is over, but the hospitals are fuller than ever, from former and current cases. A large majority of the wounds are in the arms and legs. But there is every kind of wound, in every part of the body. I should say of the sick, from my observation, that the prevailing maladies are typhoid fever and the camp fevers generally, diarrhoea, catarrhal affections and bronchitis, rheumatism and pneumonia. These forms of sickness lead ; all the rest follow. There are twice as many sick as there are wounded. The deaths range from seven to ten per cent, of those under treatment.* DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN April i6, 'dj. — I find in my notes of the time, this passage on the death of Abraham Lincoln: He leaves for America s history and biography, so far, not only its most dramatic reminiscence — he leaves, in my opinion, the greatest, best, most characteristic, artistic, moral personality. Not but that he had faults, and show'd them in the Presidency; but honesty, goodness, shrewdness, conscience, and (a new virtue, unknown * In the U. S. Surgeon-General's office since, there is a formal record and treatment of 253,142 cases of wounds by government surgeons. What must have been the number unofficial, indirect — to say nothing of the Southern armies ? % AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 89 to other lands, and hardly yet really known here, but the foundation and tie of all, as the future will grandly develop,) Unionism, in its truest and amplest sense, form'd the hard-pan of his character. These he seal'd with his life. The tragic splendor of his death, purg- ing, illuminating all, throws round his form, his head, an aureole that will remain and will grow brighter through time, while history lives, and love of country lasts. By many has this Union been help'd; but if one name, one man, must be pick'd out, he, most of all, is the conservator of it, to the future. He was assassin- ated — but the Union is not assassinated — ga ira I One falls, and another falls. The soldier drops, sinks like a wave — but the ranks of the ocean eternally press on. Death does its work, obliterates a hundred, a thousand — President, general, captain, private — but the Nation is immortal. SHERMAN'S ARMY'S JUBILATION— ITS SUDDEN STOPPAGE When Sherman's armies, (long after they left At- lanta,) were marching through South and North Caro- lina — after leaving Savannah, the news of Lee's capitu- lation having been receiv'd — the men never mov'd a mile without from some part of the line sending up continued, inspiriting shouts. At intervals all day long sounded out the wild music of those peculiar army cries. They would be commenc'd by one regi- ment or brigade, immediately taken up by others, and at length whole corps and armies would join in these wild triumphant choruses. It was one of the char- acteristic expressions of the western troops, and became 90 AUTOBTOGRAPHIA a habit, serving as a relief and outlet to the men— a vent for their feelings of victory, returning peace, &c. Morning, noon, and afternoon, spontaneous, for occa- sion or without occasion, these huge, strange cries, differing from any other, echoing through the open air for many a mile, expressing youth, joy, wildness, irre- pressible strength, and the ideas of advance and con- quest, sounded along the swamps and uplands of the South, floating to the skies. (** There never were men that kept in better spirits in danger or defeat — what then could they do in victory ? " — said one of the 15th corps to me, afterwards.) This exuberance continued till the armies arrived at Raleigh. There the news of the President's murder was received. Then no more shouts or yells, for a week. All the marching was comparatively muffled. It was very significant — hardly a loud word or laugh in many of the regiments. A hush and silence pervaded all. NO GOOD PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN' Probably the reader has seen physiognomies (often old farmers, sea-captains, and such) that, behind their homeliness, or even ugliness, held superior points so subtle, yet so palpable, making the real life of their faces almost as impossible to depict as a wild perfume or fruit-taste, or a passionate tone of the living voice — and such was Lincoln's face, the peculiar color, the lines of it, the eyes, mouth, expression. Of technical beauty it had nothing — but to the eye of a great artist it furnished a rare study, a feast and fascination. The current portraits are all failures — most of them carica- tures. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 9I RELEAS'D UNION PRISONERS FROM SOUTH The releas'd prisoners of war are now coming up from the southern prisons. I have seen a number of them. The sight is worse than any sight of battle- fields, or any collection of wounded, even the bloodiest. There was, (as a sample,) one large boat load, of sev- eral hundreds, brought about the 25th, to Annapolis; and out of the whole number only three individuals were able to walk from the boat. The rest were carried ashore and laid down in one place or another. Can those be men — those little livid brown, ash-streak'd, monkey-looking dwarfs ? — are they really not mum- mied, dwindled corpses ? They lay there, most of them, quite still, but with a horrible look in their eyes and skinny lips (often with not enough flesh on the lips to cover their teeth.) Probably no more appalling sight was ever seen on this earth. (There are deeds, crimes, that may be forgiven; but this is not among them. It steeps its perpetrators in blackest, escape- less, endless damnation. Over 50,000 have been com- pell'd to die the death of starvation — reader, did you ever try to realize what starvation actually is ? — in those prisons — and in a land of plenty.) An indescrib- able meanness, tyranny, aggravating course of insults, almost incredible — was evidently the rule of treatment through all the southern military prisons. The dead there, are not to be pitied as much as some of the liv- ing that come from there — if they can be call'd living — many of them are mentally imbecile, and will never recuperate. 92 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA THE ARMIES RETURNING May 7. — Sunday. — To-day as I was walking a mile or two south of Alexandria, I fell in with several large squads of the returning Western army, {Sherman s inen as they call'd themselves) about a thousand in all, the largest portion of them half sick, some convalescents, on their way to a hospital camp. These fragmentary excerpts, with the unmistakable Western physiognomy and idioms, crawling along slowl}^ — after a great cam- paign, blown this way, as it were, out of their latitude — I mark'd with curiosity, and talk'd with off and on for over an hour. Here and there was one very sick; but all were able to walk, except some of the last, who had given out, and were seated on the ground, faint and despondent. These I tried to cheer, told them the camp they were to reach was only a little way further over the hill, and so got them up and started, accompa- nying some of the worst a little way, and helping them, or putting them under the support of stronger com- rades. May 21. — Saw General Sheridan and his cavalry to- day; a strong, attractive sight; the men were mostly young, (a few middle-aged,) superb-looking fellows, brown, spare, keen, with well-worn clothing, many with pieces of water-proof cloth around their shoulders, hanging down. They dash'd along pretty fast, in wide close ranks, all spatter'd with mud; no holiday soldiers; brigade after brigade. I could have watch'd for a week. Sheridan stood on a balcony, under a big tree, coolly smoking a cigar. His looks and manner im- press'd me favorably. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 93 May 22. — Have been taking a walk along Pennsyl- vania avenue and Seventh street north. The city is full of soldiers, running around loose. Officers every- where, of all grades. All have the weather-beaten look of practical service. It is a sight I never tire of. All the armies are now here (or portions of them,) for to- morrow's review. You see them swarming like bees everywhere. THE GRAND REVIEW For two days now the broad spaces of Pennsylvania avenue along to Treasury hill, and so by detour around to the President's house, and so up to Georgetown, and across the aqueduct bridge, have been alive with a mag- nificent sight, the returning armies. In their wide ranks stretching clear across the Avenue, I watch them march or ride along, at a brisk pace, through two whole days — infantry, cavalry, artillery — some 200,000 men. Some days afterwards one or two other corps; and then, still afterwards, a good part of Sherman's immense army, brought up from Charleston, Savan- nah, &c. TWO BROTHERS, ONE SOUTH, ONE NORTH May 28-g, — I staid to-night a long time by the bed- side of a new patient, a young Baltimorean, aged about 19 years, W. S. P., (2d Maryland, southern,) very fee- ble, right leg amputated, can't sleep hardly at all — has taken a great deal of morphine, which, as usual, is costing more than it comes to. Evidently very intelli- gent and well bred — very affectionate — held on to my hand, and put it by his face, not willing to let me leave. As I was lingering, soothing him in his pain, he 94 AUTOBTOGRAPHIA says to me suddenly, ** I hardly think you know who I am — I don't wish to impose upon you — I am a rebel soldier." I said I did not know that, but it made no difference. Visiting him daily for about two weeks after that, while he lived, (death had mark'd him, and he was quite alone,) I loved him much, always kiss'd him, and he did me. In an adjoining ward I found his brother, an officer of rank, a Union soldier, a brave and religious man, (Col. Clifton K. Prentiss, Sixth Maryland infantry. Sixth corps, wounded in one of the engagements at Petersburg, April 2 — linger 'd, suffer'd much, died in Brooklyn, Aug. 20, '65.) It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong Union- ist, the other Secesh; both fought on their respective sides, both badly wounded, and both brought together here after a separation of four years. Each died for his cause. CALHOUN'S REAL MONUMENT In one of the hospital tents for special cases, as I sat to-day tending a new amputation, I heard a couple of neighboring soldiers talking to each other from their cots. One down with fever, but improving, had come up belated from Charleston not long before. The oth- er is what we now call an "old veteran," (/. e., he was a Connecticut youth, of probably less than the age of twenty-five years, the four last of which he had spent in active service in the war in all parts of the country.) The two were chatting of one thing and another. The fever soldier spoke of John C. Calhoun's monument, which he had seen, and was describing it. The veter- an said: "I have seen Calhoun's monument. That AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 95 you saw is not the real monument. But I have seen it. It is the desolated, ruined south; nearly the whole generation of young men between seventeen and thirty destroyed or maim'd; all the old families used up — the rich impoverish'd, the plantations cover'd with weeds, the slaves unloos'd and become the masters, and the name of southerner blacken'd with every shame — all that is Calhoun's real monument." HOSPITALS CLOSING October J. — There are two army hospitals now re- maining. I went to the largest of these (Douglas) and spent the afternoon and evening. There are many sad cases, old wounds, incurable sickness, and some of the wounded from the March and April battles be- fore Richmond. Few realize how sharp and bloody those closing battles were. Our men exposed them- selves more than usual; press'd ahead without urging. Then the southerners fought with extra desperation. Both sides knew that with the successful chasing of the rebel cabal from Richmond, and the occupation of that city by the national troops, the game was up. The dead and wounded were unusually many. Of the wounded the last lingering driblets have been brought to hospital here. I find many rebel wounded here, and have been extra busy to-day 'tending to the worst cases of tluim with the rest. Oct.y Nov. and Dec, 'dj — Simdays. — Every Sunday of these months visited Harewood hospital out in the woods, pleasant and recluse, some two and a half or three miles north of tlic capitol. The situation is healthy, with broken ground, grassy slopes and patch- 96 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA es of oak woods, the trees large and fine. It was one of the most extensive of the hospitals, now reduced to four or five partially occupied wards, the numerous others being vacant. In November, this became the last military hospital kept up by the government, all the others being closed. Cases of the worst and most incurable wounds, obstinate illness, and of poor fellows who have no homes to go to, are found here. The roads. — A great recreation, the past three years, has been in taking long walks out from Washington, five, seven, perhaps ten miles and back ; generally with my friend Peter Doyle, who is as fond of it as I am. Fine moonlight nights, over the perfect military roads, hard and smooth — or Sundays — we had these delight- ful walks, never to be forgotten. The roads connect- ing Washington and the numerous forts around the city, made one useful result, at any rate, out of the war. TYPICAL SOLDIERS Even the typical soldiers I have been personally in- timate with, — it seems to me if I were to make a list of them it would be like a city directory. Some few only have I mention'd in the foregoing pages — most are dead — a few yet living. There is Reuben Farwell. of Michigan, (little ' Mitch ; ') Benton H. Wilson, color- bearer, 185th New York ; Wm. Stansberry ; Manvill Winterstein, Ohio ; Bethuel Smith ; Capt. Simms, of 51st New York, (kill'd at Petersburg mine explosion,) Capt. Sam. Pooley and Lieut. Fred. McReady, same reg't. Also, same reg't., my brother, George W. Whit- man — in active service all through, four years, re- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 97 enlisting twice — was promoted, step by step, (several times immediately after battles,) lieutenant, captain, major and lieut. colonel — was in the actions at Roan- oke, Newbern, 2d Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mount- ain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Jackson, the bloody conflicts of the Wilderness, and at Spot- sylvania, Cold Harbor, and afterwards around Peters- burg ; at one of these latter was taken prisoner, and pass'd four or five months in secesh military prisons, narrowly escaping with life, from a severe fever, from starvation and half-nakedness in the winter. (What a history that 51st New York had ! Went out early — march'd, fought everywhere — was in storms at sea, nearly wreck'd — storm'd forts — tramp'd hither and yon in Virginia, night and day, summer of '62 — afterwards Kentucky and Mississippi — re-enlisted — was in all the engagements and campaigns, as above.) 1 strengthen and comfort myself much with the certainty that the capacity for just such regiments, (hundreds, thousands of them) is inexhaustible in the United States, and that there isn't a county nor a township in the republic — nor a street in any city — but could turn out, and, on occasion, would turn out, lots of just such typical sol- diers, whenever wanted. ''CONVULSIVENESS" As I have look'd over the proof-sheets of the pre- ceding pages, I have once or twice fear'd that my diary would prove, at best, but a batch of convulsively writ- ten reminiscences. Well, be it so. They are but parts of the actual distraction, heat, smoke and excitement of those times. The war itself, with the temper of so- 98 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA ciety preceding it, can indeed be best described by that very word convulsiveness. THREE YEARS SUMM'D UP During those three years in hospital, camp or field, I made over six hundred visits or tours, and went, as I estimate, counting all, among from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night ; for with dear or critical cases I generally watch'd all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch'd there several nights in succession, Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction, (with all their feverish ex- citements and physical deprivations and lamentable sights,) and, of course, the most profound lesson of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I compre- hended all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and slighted none. It arous'd and brought out and decided undream'd-of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fervent views of the true ensemble and extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Penn- sylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indi- ana, Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and South, without exception. I was with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found, during those lurid years 1862-63, far more Un- ion southerners, especially Tennesseeans, than is sup- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 99 posed. I was with many rebel officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what I could for them. THE MILLION DEAD, TOO, SUMM'D UP The dead in this war — there they lie, strewing the fields and woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south — Virginia, the Peninsula — Malvern hill and Fair Oaks — the banks of the Chickahominy — the terraces of Fredericksburg — Antietam bridge — the grisly ra- vines of Manassas — the bloody promenade of the Wil- derness — the varieties of th^ sir ay ed desid, (the estimate of the War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill'd in battle and never buried at all, 5,000 drown'd — 15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities — 2,000 graves cover'd by sand and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away by caving-in of banks, &c.,) — Gettysburg, the West, Southwest — Vicksburg — Chattanooga — the trenches of Petersburg — the numberless battles, camps, hospitals everywhere — the crop reap'd by the the mighty reapers, typhoid, dysentery, inflammations — and blackest and loathsomest of all, tlie dead and living burial-pits, the prison-pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle Isle, &c., (not Dante's pictured hell and all its woes, its degradations, filthy torments, ex- cell'd those prisons) — the dead, the dead, the dead — 100 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA oicr dead — or South or North, ours all, (all, all, all, fi- nally dear to me) — or East or West — Atlantic coast or Mississippi valley — somewhere they crawl'd to die, alone, in bushes, low gullies, or on the sides of hills — (there, in secluded spots, their skeletons, bleach'd bones, tufts of hair, buttons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found yet) — our young men once so hand- some and so joyous, taken from us — the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend — the clusters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee — the single graves left in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated) — the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engage- ments, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburg) — some lie at the bottom of the sea — the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the States — the infinite dead — (the land entire saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes' exhalation in Nature's chemis- try distill'd, and shall be so forever, in every future grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows, and every breath we draw) — not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil — thousands, aye tens of thousands, of Southerners, crumble to-day in Northern earth. And everywhere among these countless graves — ev- erywhere in the many soldier Cemeteries of the Nation, (there are now, I believe, over seventy of them) — as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositories of slain. Northern and Southern, after the great battles — not only where the scathing trail passed those years, but AUTOBIOGRAPHIA lOI radiating since in all the peaceful quarters of the land — we see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in masses, to thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word Unknown. (In some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. At Salisbury, N. C, for instance, the known are only 85, while the unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A national monument has been put up here, by order of Congress, to mark the spot — but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemorate that spot 7) THE REAL WAR WILL NEVER GET IN THE BOOKS And so good-bye to the war. I know not how it may have been, or may be, to others — to me the main inter- est I found, (and still, on recollection, find,) in the rank and file of the armies, both sides, and in those speci- mens amid the hospitals, and even the dead on the field. To me the points illustrating the latent person- al character and eligibilities of these States, in the two or three millions of American young and middle-aged men. North and South, embodied in those armies — and especially the one-third or one-fourth of their number, stricken by wounds or disease at some time in the course of the contest — were of more signifi- cance even than the political interests involved. (As so much of a race depends on how it faces death, and how it stands personal anguish and sickness. As, in the glints of emotions under emergencies, and the in- direct traits and asides in Plutarch, we get far pro- founder clues to the antique world than all its more formal history.) I02 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors, (not the official surface-courteous- ness of the Generals, not the few great battles) of the Secession war; and it is best they should not-^the real war will never get in the books. In the mushy influ- ences of current times, too, the fervid atmosphere and typical events of those years are in danger of being to- tally forgotten. I have at night watch'd by the side of a sick man in the hospital, one who could not live many hours. I have seen his eyes flash and burn as he raised himself and recurr'd to the cruelties on his sur- render'd brother, and mutilations of the corpse after- ward. Such was the war. It was not a quadrille in a ball- room. Its interior history will not only never be writ- ten — its practicality, minutiae of deeds and passions, will never be even suggested. The actual soldier of i862-'65. North and South, with all his ways, his in- credible dauntlessness, habits, practices, tastes, lan- guage, his fierce friendship, his appetite, rankness, his superb strength and animality, lawless gait, and a hun- dred unnamed lights and shades of camp, I say, will never be written — perhaps must not and should not be. The preceding notes may furnish a few stray glimpses into that life, and into those lurid interiors, never to be fully convey'd to the future. The hospital part of the drama from '6i to '65, deserves indeed to be recorded. Of that many-threaded drama, with its sudden and strange surprises, its confounding of prophecies, its moments of despair, the dread of for- eign interference, the interminable campaigns, the AUTOBIOGRAPHIA IO3 bloody battles, the mighty and cumbrous and green armies, the drafts and bounties — the immense money expenditure, like a heavy-pouring constant rain — with, over the whole land, the last three years of the strug- gle, an unending, universal mourning-wail of women, parents, orphans — the marrow of the tragedy concen- trated in those Army Hospitals — (it seem'd sometimes as if the whole interest of the land. North and South, was one vast central hospital, and all the rest of the affair but flanges) — those forming the untold and un- written history of the war — infinitely greater (like life's) than the few scraps and distortions that are ever told or written. Think how much, and of importance, will be — how much, civic and military, has already been — buried in the grave, in eternal darkness. AN INTERREGNUM PARAGRAPH Several years now elapse before I resume my diary. I continued at Washington working in the Attorney- General's department through '66 and '67, and some time afterward. In February '73 I was stricken down by paralysis, gave up my desk, and migrated to Cam- den, New Jersey, where I lived during '74 and '75, quite unwell — but after that began to grow better; commenc'd going for weeks at a time, even for months, down in the country, to a charmingly recluse and rural spot along Timber creek, twelve or thirteen miles from where it enters the Delaware river. Domicil'd at the farm-house of my friends, the Staffords, near by, I lived half the time along this creek and its adjacent fields and lanes. And it is to my life here that I, per- haps, owe partial recovery (a sort of second wind, or 104 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA semi-renewal of the lease of life) from the prostration of 1874-75. If the notes of that outdoor life could only prove as glowing to you, reader dear, as the ex- perience itself was to me. Doubtless in the course of the following, the fact of invalidism will crop out, (I call myself a half - Paralytic these days, and rever- ently bless the Lord it is no worse,) between some of the lines — but I get my share of fun and healthy hours, and shall try to indicate them. (The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.) NEW THEMES ENTERED UPON iSyd, 'yy. — I find the woods in mid-May and early June my best places for composition.* Seated on logs or stumps there, or resting on rails, nearly all the fol- lowing memoranda have been jotted down. Wherever I go, indeed, winter or summer, city or country, alone at home or traveling, I must take notes — (the ruling passion strong in age and disablement, and even the approach of — but I must not say it yet.) Then under- neath the following excerpta — crossing the fs and dot- *Without apology for the abrupt change of field and atmosphere — after what I have put in the preceding pages— temporary episodes, thank heaven! — I restore my book to the bracing and bouyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor Nature, the only permant reliance for sanity of book or human life. Who knows, (I have it in my fancy, my ambition,) but the pages now en- suing may carry ray of sun, or smell of grass or corn, or call of bird or gleam of stars by night,or snow-flakes falling fresh and mystic, to denizen of heated city house, or tired workman or workwoman? — or may -be in sick-room or pris- on — to serve as cooling breeze, or Nature's aroma, to some fever'd mouth or latent pulse. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA IO5 ting the i's of certain moderate movements of late years — I am fain to fancy the foundations of quite a lesson learn'd. After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or per- manently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night. We will begin from these convic- tions. Literature flies so high and is so hotly spiced, that our notes may seem hardly more than breaths of common air, or draughts of water to drink. But that is part of our lesson. Dear, soothing, healthy, restoration-hours — after three confining years of paralysis — after the long strain of the war, and its wounds and death. ENTERING A LONG FARM-LANE As every man has his hobby-liking, mine is for a real farm-lane fenced by old chestnut-rails gray-green with dabs of moss and lichen, copious weeds and briers growing in spots athwart the heaps of stray-pick'd stones at the fence bases — irregular paths worn be- tween, and horse and cow tracks — all characteristic accompaniments marking and scenting the neighbor- hood in their seasons — apple-tree blossoms in forward April — pigs, poultry, a field of August buckwheat, and in another the long flapping tassels of maize — and so to the pond, the expansion of the creek, the secluded- beautiful, with young and old trees, and such recesses and vistas. I06 AUTOBIOGRAPIIIA TO THE SPRING AND BROOK So, still sauntering on, to the spring under the wil- lows — musical as soft clinking glasses — pouring a size- able stream, thick as my neck, pure and clear, out from its vent where the bank arches over like a great brown shaggy eyebrow or mouth-roof — gurgling, gurg- ling ceaselessly — meaning, saying something, of course (if one could only translate it) — always gurgling there, the whole year through — never giving out — oceans of mint, blackberries in summer — choice of light and shade — just the place for my July sun-baths and water- baths too — but mainly the inimitable soft sound-gurgles of it, as I sit there hot afternoons. How they and all grow into me, day after day — everything in keeping — the wild, just-palpable perfume, and the dapple of leaf- shadows, and all the natural-medicinal, elemental- moral influences of the spot. Babble on, O brook, with that utterance of thine ! I too will express what I have gather'd in my days and progress, native, subterranean, past — and now thee. Spin and wind thy wa}^-— I with thee, a little while, at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest reckest not me, (yet why be so certain ? who can tell ?) — but I will learn from thee, and dwell on thee — receive, copy, print from thee. AN EARLY SUMMER REVEILLE Away then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long. Away, from curtain, carpet, sofa, book — from ''society" — from city house, street, and mod- ern improvements and luxuries — away to the primitive winding, aforementioned wooded creek, with its un- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA lO/ trimm'd bushes and turfy banks — away from ligatures, tight boots, buttons, and the whole cast-iron civilizee life — from entourage of artificial store, machine, studio, office, parlor — from tailordom and fashion's clothes — from any clothes, perhaps, for the nonce, the summer heats advancing, there in those watery, shaded soli- tudes. Away, thou soul, (let me pick thee out singly, reader dear, and talk in perfect freedom, negligently, confidentially,) for one day and night at least, return- ing to the naked source-life of us all — to the breast of the great silent savage all-acceptive Mother. Alas ! how many of us are so sodden — how many have wan- der'd so far away, that return is almost impossible. But to my jottings, taking them as they come, from the heap, without particular selection. There is little consecutiveness in dates. They run any time within nearly five or six years. Each was carelessly pencilled in the open air, at the time and place. The printers will learn this to some vexation perhaps, as much of their copy is from those hastily-written first notes. BIRDS MIGRATING AT MIDNIGHT Did you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless armies, changing their early or late sum- mer habitat ? It is something not to be forgotten. A friend called me up just after 12 last night to mark the peculiar noise of unusually immense flocks migrating north (rather late this year.) In the silence, shadow and delicious odor of the hour, (the natural perfume belonging to the night alone,) I thought it rare music. I08 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA You could hear the characteristic motion — once or twice '-the rush of mighty wings," but oftener a vel- vety rustle, long drawn out — sometimes quite near with continual calls and chirps, and some song-notes. It all lasted from 12 till after 3. Once in a while the species was plainly distinguishable; I could make out the bobolink, tanager, Wilson's thrush, white-crown'd sparrow, and occasionally from high in the air came the notes of the plover. SUMMER SIGHTS AND INDOLENCIES June loth. — As I write, 5>^ p. m., here by the creek, nothing can exceed the quiet splendor and freshness around me. We had a heavy shower, with brief thun- der and lightning, in the middle of the day; and since, overhead, one of those not uncommon yet indescrib- able skies (in quality, not details or forms) of limpid blue, with rolling silver-fringed clouds, and a pure-daz- zling sun. For underlay, trees in fulness of tender fo- liage — liquid, reedy, long-drawn notes of birds — based by the fretful mewing of a querulous cat-bird, and the pleasant chippering-shriek of two kingfishers. I have been watching the latter the last half hour, on their regular evening frolic over and in the stream; evi- dently a spree of the liveliest kind. They pursue each other, whirling and wheeling around, with many a joc- und downward dip, splashing the spray in jets of dia- monds — and then off they swoop, with slanting wings and graceful flight, sometimes so near me I can plainly see their dark-gray feather-bodies and milk-white necks. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA IO9 SUNDOWN PERFUME-QUAIL-NOTES-THE HER- MIT-THRUSH June igtk, 4 to 6%, p. M. — Sitting alone by the creek — solitude here, but the scene bright and vivid enough — the sun shining, and quite a fresh wind blowing (some heavy showers last night,) the grass and trees looking their best — the clear-obscure of different greens, shadows, half-shadows, and the dappling glimpses of the water, through recesses — the wild flag- eolet-note of a quail near by — the just-heard fretting of some hylas down there in the pond — crows cawing in the distance — a drove of young hogs rooting in soft ground near the oak under which 1 sit — some come sniffing near me, and then scamper away, with grunts. And still the clear notes of the quail — the quiver of leaf-shadows over the paper as I write — the sky aloft, with white clouds, and the sun well declining to the west — the swift darting of many sand-swallows coming and going, their holes in a neighboring marl-bank — the odor of the cedar and oak, so palpable, as evening ap- proaches — perfume, color, the bronze-and-gold of near- ly ripen'd wheat — clover-fields, with honey-scent — the well-up maize, with long and rustling leaves — the great patches of thriving potatoes, dusky green, fleck'd alj over with white blossoms — the old, warty, venerable oak above me — and ever, mix'd with the dual notes of the quail, the soughing of the wind through some near-by pines. As I rise for return, I linger long to a delicious song- epilogue (is it the hermit-thrush?) from some bushy re- cess off there in the swamp, repeated leisurely and pen- I lO AUTOBIOGRAPHIA sively over and over again. This, to the circle-gam- bols of the swallows flying by dozens in concentric rings in the last rays of sunset, like flashes of some airy wheel. A JULY AFTERNOON BY THE POND The fervent heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air — the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great heart-shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and the pictu- resque beeches and shade and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking the warm, indolent, half-voluptuous silence; an occasional wasp, hornet, honey-bee or bumble (they hover near my hands or face, yet annoy me not, nor I them, as they appear to examine, find nothing, and away they go) — the vast space of the sky overhead so clear, and the buzzard up there saiHng his slow whirl in majestic spirals and discs; just over the surface of the pond, two large slate-color'd dragon-flies, with wings of lace, circ- ling and darting and occasionally balancing themselves quite still, their wings quivering all the time, (are they not showing off for my amusement?) — the pond itself, with the sword-shaped calamus; the water snakes — oc- casionally a flitting blackbird, with red dabs on his shoulders, as he darts slantingly by— the sounds that bring out the solitude, warmth, light and shade — the quawk of some pond duck— (the crickets and grasshop- pers are mute in the noon heat, but I hear the song of the first cicadas;) — then at some distance the rattle and whirr of a reaping machine as the horses draw it on a rapid walk through a rye field on the opposite side of AUTOBIOGR APHIA 1 1 1 the creek — (what was the yellow or light-brown bird, large as a young hen, with short neck and long- stretch'd legs I just saw, in flapping and awkward flight over there through the trees ?) — the prevailing, delicate, yet palpable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to my nostrils; and over ah, encircling all, to my sight and soul, the free space of the sky, transparent and blue — and hovering there in the west, a mass of white-gray fleecy clouds the sailors call ''shoals of mackerel " — the sky, with silver swirls like locks of toss'd hair, spreading, expanding — a vast voiceless, formless simulacrum — yet may-be the most real reality and formulator of everything — who knows ? LOCUSTS AND KATYDIDS Attg. 22. — Reedy monotones of locust, or sounds of katydid — I hear the latter at night, and the other both day and night. I thought the morning and evening warble of birds delightful; but I find I can listen to these strange insects with just as much pleasure. A single locust is now heard near noon from a tree two hundred feet off,as I write — a long whirring, continued, quite loud noise graded in distinct whirls, or swinging circles, increasing in strength and rapidity up to a cer- tain point, and then a fluttering, quietly tapering fall. Each strain is continued from one to two minutes. The locust-song is very appropriate to the scene — gushes, has meaning, is masculine, is like some fine old wine, not sweet, but far better than sweet. Hut the katydid — how shall I describe its piquant utterances ? One sings from a willow-tree just outside my open bedroom window, twenty yards distant; every 1 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA clear night for a fortnight past has sooth'd me to sleep. I rode through a piece of woods for a hundred rods the other evening, and heard the katydids by myriads — very curious for once; but 1 like better my single neigh- bor on the tree. THE SKY— DAYS AND NIGHTS— HAPPINESS Oct. 20. — A clear, crispy day — dry and breezy air, full of oxygen. Out of the sane, silent, beauteous miracles that envelop and fuse me — trees, water, grass, sunlight, and early frost — the one I am looking at most to-day is the sky. It has that delicate, transparent blue, peculiar to autumn, and the only clouds are little or larger white ones, giving their still and spiritual motion to the great concave. All through the earlier day (say from 7 to ii) it keeps a pure, yet vivid blue. But as noon approaches the color gets lighter, quite gray for two or three hours — then still paler for a spell, till sun-down — which last I watch dazzling through the interstices of a knoll of big trees — darts of fire and a gorgeous show of light-yellow, liver-color and red, with a vast silver glaze askant on the water — the transparent shadows, shafts, sparkle, and vivid colors beyond all the paintings ever made. I don't know what or how, but it seems to me mostly owing to these skies, (every now and then I think, while I have of course seen them every day of my life, I never really saw the skies before,) I have had this autumn some wondrously contented hours — may I not say perfectly happy ones? As I've read, Byron just before his death told a friend that he had known but three happy hours during his whole existence. ^ Then AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 1 3 there is the old German legend of the king's bell, to the same point. While I was out there by the wood, that beautiful sunset through the trees, I thought of Byron's and the bell story, and the notion started in me that I was having a happy hour. (Though perhaps my best moments I never jot down; when they come I cannot afford to break the charm by inditing memoranda. I just abandon myself to the mood, and let it float on, carrying me in its placid extasy.) What is happiness, anyhow ? Is this one of its hours, or the like of it ? — so impalpable — a mere breath, an evanescent tinge ? I am not sure — so let me give my- self the benefit of the doubt. Hast Thou, pellucid, in Thy azure depths, medicine for case like mine ? (Ah, the physical shatter and troubled spirit of me the last three years.) And dost Thou subtly mystically now drip it through the air invisibly upon me ? Night of Oct. 28. — The heavens unusually transpar- ent — the stars out by myriads — the great path of the Milky Way, with its branch, only seen of very clear nights — Jupiter, setting in the west, looks like a huge hap-hazard splash, and has a little star for companion. Clothed in his white garments. Into the round and clear arena slowly entered the brahmin, Holding a little child by the hand. Like the moon with the planet Jupiter in a cloudless night- sky. Old Hindu Poem. Early i7i November. — At its farther end the lane al- ready described opens into a broad grassy upland field of over twenty acres, slightly sloping to the south. Here 1 am accustom'd to walk for sky views and effects, 114 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA either morning or sundown. To-day from this field my soul is calm'd and expanded beyond description, the whole forenoon by the clear blue arching over all, cloudless, nothing particular, only sky and daylight. Their soothing accompaniments, autumn leaves, the cool dry air, the faint aroma — crows cawing in the dis- tance — two great buzzards wheeling gracefully and slowly far up there — the occasional murmur of the wind, sometimes quite gently, then threatening through the trees — a gang of farm-laborers loading corn-stalks in a field in sight, and the patient horses waiting. NOVEMBER 8, '76 The forenoon leaden and cloudy, not cold or wet, but indicating both. As I hobble down here and sit by the silent pond, how different from the excitement amid which, in the cities, millions of people are now waiting news of yesterday's Presidential election, or re- ceiving and discussing the result — in this secluded place uncared-^or, unknown. CROWS AND CROWS Nov. 14. — As I sit here by the creek, resting after my walk, a warm languor bathes me from the sun. No sound but a cawing of crows, and no motion but their black flying figures from overhead, reflected in the mir- ror of the pond below. Indeed a principal feature of the scene to-day is these crows, their incessant cawing, far or near, and their countless flocks and processions moving from place to place, and at times almost dark ening the air with their myriads. As I sit a moment writing this by the bank, I see the black, clear-cut re-i \ \ AUTOBIOGR APHIA 1 1 5 flection of them far below, flying through the watery looking-glass, by ones, twos, or long strings. All last night I heard the noises from their great roost in a neighboring wood. A WINTER DAY ON THE SEA-BEACH One bright December mid-day lately I spent down on the New Jersey sea-shore, reaching it by a little more than an hour's railroad trip over the old Camden and Atlantic. I had started betimes, fortified by nice strong coffee and a good breakfast (cook'd by the hands I iove, my dear sister Lou's — how much better it makes the victuals taste, and then assimilate, strengthen you, perhaps make the whole day comfortable afterwards.) Five or six miles at the last, our track enter'd a broad region of salt grass meadows, intersected by lagoons, and cut up everywhere by watery runs. The sedgy perfume, delightful to my nostrils, reminded me of '* the mash " and south bay of my native island. I could have journey 'd contentedly till night through these flat and odorous sea-prairies. From half-past I I till 2 I was nearly all the time along the beach, or in sight of the ocean, listening to its hoarse murmur, and inhaling the bracing and welcome breezes. First, a rapid five-mile drive over the hard sand — our carriage wheels hardly made dents in it. Then after dinner (as there were nearly two hours to spare) I walk'd off in another direction, (hardly met or saw a person,) and taking possession of what appear'd to have been the reception-room of an old bath-house range, had a broad expanse of view all to myself — quaint, refreshing, unimpeded — a dry area of sedge and Indian grass ini- Il6 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA mediately before and around me — space, simple, unor- namented space. Distant vessels, and the far-off, just visible trailing smoke of an inward bound steamer; more plainly, ships, brigs, schooners, in sight, most of them with every sail set to the firm and steady wind. The attractions, fascinations there are in sea and shore ! How one dwells on their simplicity, even va- cuity ! What is it in us, arous'd by those indirections and directions ? That spread of waves and gray-white beach, salt, monotonous, senseless — such an entire ab- sence of art, books, talk, elegance — so indescribably comforting, even this winter day — grim, yet so delicate- looking, so spiritual — striking emotional, impalpable depths, subtler than all the poems, paintings, music, I have ever read, seen, heard. (Yet let me be fair, per- haps it is because I have read those poems and heard that music.) SEA-SHORE FANCIES Even as a boy, I had the fancy, the wish, to write a piece, perhaps a poem, about the sea-shore — that sug- gesting, dividing line, contact, junction, the solid maii- rying the liquid — that curious, lurking something, (as doubtless every objective form finally becomes to the subjective spirit,) which means far more than its mere first sight, grand as that is — blending the real and ideal, and each made portion of the other. Hours, days, in my Long Island youth and early manhood, I haunted the shores of Rockaway or Coney Island, or away east to the Hamptons or Montauk. Once, at the latter place, (by the old lighthouse, nothing but sea- tossings in sight in every direction as far as the eye AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I 1/ could reach,) I remember well, I felt that I must one day write a book expressing this liquid, mystic theme. Afterward, I recollect, how it came to me that instead of any special lyrical or epical or literary attempt, the sea-shore should be an invisible influe7ice, a pervading gauge and tally for me, in my composition. (Let me give a hint here to young writers. I am not sure but I have unwittingly follow'd out the same rule with other powers besides sea and shores — avoiding them, in the way of any dead set at poetizing them, as too big for formal handling — quite satisfied if I could indirectly show that we have met and fused, even if only once, but enough — that we have really absorb'd each other and understand each other.) There is a dream, a picture, that for years at inter- vals, (sometimes quite long ones, but surely again, in time,) has come noiselessly up before me, and I really believe, fiction as it is, has enter'd largely into my practical life — certainly into my writings, and shaped and color'd them. It is nothing more or less than a stretch of interminable white-brown sand, hard and smooth and broad, with the ocean perpetually, grand- ly, rolling in upon it, with slow-measured sweep, with rustle and hiss and foam, and many a thump as of low bass drums. This scene, this picture, I say, has risen before me at times for years. Sometimes I wake at night and can hear and see it plainly. A TWO HOURS' ICE-SAIL Feb. J, 'yy. — From 4 to 6 v. i\i. crossing the Dela- ware, (back again eit my Camden home,) unable to Il8 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA make our landing, through the ice; our boat stanch and strong and skilfully piloted, but old and sulky, and poorly minding her helm. {Power, so important in poetry and war, is also first point of all in a winter steamboat, with long stretches of ice-packs to tackle.) For over two hours we bump'd and beat about, the invis- ible ebb, sluggish but irresistible, often carrying us long distances against our will. In the first tinge of dusk, as I look'd around, I thought there could not be pre- sented a more chilling, arctic, grim-extended, depress- ing scene. Everything was yet plainly visible; for miles north and south, ice, ice, ice, mostly broken, but some big cakes, and no clear water in sight. The shores, piers, surfaces, roofs, shipping, mantled with snow. A faint winter vapor hung a fitting accompani- ment around and over the endless whitish spread, and gave it just a tinge of steel and brown. Feb. 6. — As I cross home in the 6 P. M. boat again, the transparent shadows are filled everywhere with leisurely falling, slightly slanting, curiously sparse but very large, flakes of ~snow. On the shores, near and far, the glow of just-lit gas-clusters at intervals. The ice, sometimes in hummocks, sometimes floating fields, through which our boat goes crunching. The light permeated by that peculiar evening haze, right after sunset, which sometimes renders quite distant objects so distinctly. SPRING OVERTURES— RECREATIONS Feb. Z(9.— The first chirping, almost singing, of a bird to-day. Then I noticed a couple of honey-bees I AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 19 spirting and humming about the open window in the sun. Feb. II. — In the soft rose and pale gold of the de- clining light, this beautiful evening, I heard the first hum and preparation of awakening spring — very faint — whether in the earth or roots, or starting of insects, I know not — but it was audible, as I lean'd on a rail (I am down in my country quarters awhile,) and look'd long at the western horizon. Turning to the east, Sirius, as the shadows deepen'd, came forth in dazzling splendor. And great Orion; and a little to the north- east the big Dipper, standing on end. Feb. 20. — A solitary and pleasant sundown hour at the pond, exercising arms, chest, my whole body, by a tough oak sapling thick as my wrist, twelve feet high — pulling and pushing, inspiring the good air. After I wrestle with the tree awhile, I can feel its young sap and virtue welling up out of the ground and tingling through me from crown to toe, like health's wine. Then for addition and variety I launch forth in my vocalism; shout declamatory pieces, sentiments, sor- row, anger, &c., from the stock poets or plays — or in- flate my lungs and sing the wild tunes and refrains I heard of the blacks down south, or patriotic songs I learn 'd in the army. I make the echoes ring, 1 tell you ! As the twilight fell, in a pause of these ebulli- tions, an owl somewhere the other side of the creek sounded too-00-00-00-00, soft and pensive (and I fancied a little sarcastic) repeated four or five times. Either to applaud the negro songs — or perhaps an ironical comment on the sorrow, anger, or style of the stock poets. I20 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA THE GATES OPENING April 6. — Palpable spring indeed, or the indications of it. I am sitting in bright sunshine, at the edge of the creek, the surface just rippled by the wind. All is solitude, morning freshness, negligence. For compan- ions my two kingfishers sailing, winding, darting, dip- ping, sometimes capriciously separate, then flying to- gether. I hear their guttural twittering again and again; for awhile nothing but that peculiar sound. As noon approaches other birds warm up. The reedy notes of the robin, and a musical passage of two parts, one a clear delicious gurgle, with several other birds I cannot place. To which is join'd, (yes, I just hear it,) one low purr at intervals from some impatient hylas at the pond-edge. The sibilant murmur of a pretty stiff breeze now and then through the trees. Then a poor little dead leaf, long frost-bound, whirls from some- where up aloft in one wild escaped freedom-spree in space and sunlight, and then dashes down to the wa- ters, which hold it closely and soon drown it out of sight. The bushes and trees are yet bare, but the beeches have their wrinkled yellow leaves of last sea- son's foliage largely left, frequent cedars and pines yet green, and the grass not without proofs of coming ful- ness. And over all a wonderfully fine dome of clear blue, the play of light coming and going, and great fleeces of white clouds swimming so silently. FULL-STARR'D NIGHTS May 21. — Back in Camden. Again commencing one of those unusually transparent, full-starr'd, blue-black nights, as if to show that however lush and pompous AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 121 the day may be, there is something left in the not-day that can outvie it. The rarest, finest sample of long- drawn-out clear-obscure, from sundown to 9 o'clock. I went down to the Delaware, and cross'd and cross'd. Venus like blazing silver well up in the west. The large pale thin crescent of the new moon, half an hour high, sinking languidly under a bar-sinister of cloud, and then emerging. Arcturus right overhead. A faint fragrant sea-odor wafted up from the south. The gloaming, the temper'd coolness, with every feature of the scene, indescribably soothing and tonic — one of those hours that give hints to the soul, impossible to put in a statement. (Ah, where would be any food for spirituality without night and the stars ?) The vacant spaciousness of the air, and the veil'd blue of the heav- ens, seem'd miracles enough. As the night advanc'd it changed its spirit and gar- ments to ampler stateliness. I was almost conscious of a definite presence, Nature silently near. The great constellation of the Water-Serpent stretch'd its coils over more than half the heavens. The Swan with out- spread wings was flying down the Milky Way. The northern Crown, the Eagle, Lyra, all up there in their places. From the whole dome shot down points of light, rapport with me, through the clear blue-black. All the usual sense of motion, all animal life, seem'd discarded, seem'd a fiction; a curious power, like the placid rest of Egyptian gods, took possession, none the less potent for being impalpable. Earlier I had seen many bats, balancing in the luminous twilight, darting their black forms hither and yon over the riv- er; but now they altogether disappear'd. The exening 122 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA star and the moon had gone. Alertness and peace lay calmly couching together through the fluid universal shadows. A SUN-BATH— NAKEDNESS Sunday, Aug. 2y. — Another day quite free from mark'd prostration and pain. It seems indeed as if peace and nutriment from heaven subtly filter into me as I slowly hobble down these country lanes and across fields, in the good air — as I sit here in solitude with Nature — open, voiceless, mystic, far removed, yet pal- pable, eloquent Nature. I merge myself in the scene, in the perfect day. Hovering over the clear brook- water, I am sooth'd by its soft gurgle in one place, and the hoarser murmurs of its three-foot fall in another. Come, ye disconsolate, in whom any latent eligibility is left — come get the sure virtues of creek-shore, and wood and field. Two months (July and August, '^^,) have I absorb'd them, and they begin to make a new man of me. Every day, seclusion — every day at least two or three hours of freedom, bathing, no talk, no bonds, no dress, no books, no nianiiers. Shall I tell you, reader, to what I attribute my al- ready much-restored health ? That 1 have been almost two years, off and on, without drugs and medicines, and daily in the open air. Last summer I found a particularly secluded little dell off one side by my creek, originally a large dug-out marl-pit, now aban- don'd, fill'd with bushes, trees, grass, a group of wil- lows, a straggling bank, and a spring of delicious water running right through the middle of it, with two or three little cascades. Here I retreated every hot day, and follow it up this summer. Here I realize th^ AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I23 meaning of that old fellow who said he was seldom less alone than when alone. Never before did I get so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me. By old habit, I pencill'd down from time to time, almost automatically, moods, sights, hours, tints and outlines, on the spot. Let me specially record the sat- isfaction of this current forenoon, so serene and primi- tive, so conventionally exceptional, natural. An hour or so after breakfast I wended my way down to the recesses of the aforesaid dell, which I and certain thrushes, cat-birds, &c., had all to ourselves. A light south-west wind was blowing through the tree- tops. It was just the place and time for my Adamic air-bath and flesh-brushing from head to foot. So hanging clothes on a rail near by, keeping old broad- brim straw on head and easy shoes on feet, haven't I had a good time the last two hours ! First with the stiff-elastic bristles rasping arms, breast, sides, till they turn'd scarlet — then partially bathing in the clear waters of the running brook — taking everything very leisurely, with many rests and pauses — stepping about barefooted every few minutes now and then in some neighboring black ooze for unctuous mud-bath to my feet — a brief second and third rinsing in the crystal running waters — rubbing with the fragrant towel — slow negligent promenades on the turf up and down in the sun, varied with occasional rests, and further frictions of the bristle-brush — sometimes carrying my portable chair with me from place to place, as my range is quite extensive here, nearly a hundred rods, feeling quite se- cure from intrusion, (and that indeed I am not at all nervous about, if it accidentally happens.) 124 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA As I walk'd slowly over the grass, the sun shone out enough to show the shadow moving with me. Some- how I seem'd to get identity with each and everything around me, in its condition. Nature was naked, and I was also. It was too lazy, soothing, and joyous- equable to speculate about. Yet I might have thought somehow in this vein: Perhaps the inner never lost rapport we hold with earth, light, air, trees, &c., is not to be realized through eyes and mind only, but through the w^hole corporeal body, which I will not have blinded or bandaged any more than the eyes. Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature I — ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once more I Is not nakedness then indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophisti- cation, your fear, your respectability, that is indecent. There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free exhila- rating extasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many thousands there are !) has not really known what purity is— nor w^hat faith or art or health really is. (Probably the whole curriculum of first-class philosophy, beauty, heroism, form, illustrated by the old Hellenic race — the highest height and deep- est depth known to civilization in those departments — came from their natural and religious ideaof Nakedness.) Many such hours, from time to time, the last two summers — I attribute my partial rehabilitation largely to them. Some good people may think it a feeble or half-crack'd way of spending one's time and thinking. May-be it is. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I25 THE OAKS AND I Sept. J, '77. — I write this, 11 A. M., shelter'd under a dense oak by the bank, where I have taken refuge from a sudden rain. I came down here, (we had sulky drizzles all the morning, but an hour ago a lull,) for the before-mention'd daily and simple exercise I am fond of — to pull on that young hickory sapling out there — to sway and yield to its tough-limber upright stem — haply to get into my old sinews some of its elas- tic fibre and clear sap. I stand on the turf and take these health-pulls moderately and at intervals for near- ly an hour, inhaling great draughts of fresh air. Wan- dering by the creek, I have three or four naturally fa- vorable spots where I rest — besides a chair I lug with me and use for more deliberate occasions. At other spots convenient I have selected, besides the hickory just named, strong and limber boughs of beech or hol- ly, in easy-reaching distance, for my natural gymnasia, for arms, chest, trunk-muscles. I can soon feel the sap and sinew rising through me, like mercury to heat. I hold on boughs or slender trees caressingly there in the sun and shade, wrestle with their innocent stalwart- ness — and knoiu\\\^ virtue thereof passes from them in- to me. (Or may-be we interchange — may-be the trees are more aware of it all than I ever thought.) But now pleasantly imprisonVl here under the big oak — the rain dripping, and the sky cover'd with lead- en clouds — nothing but the pond on one side, and the other a spread of grass, spotted with the milky blos- soms of the wild (^arrot — the soniul of an axe wielded at some distant w()(jd-j)ile— yet in this dull s(X!ne, (as 126 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA most folks would call it,) why am I so (almost) happy here and alone? Why would any intrusion, even from people I like, spoil the charm ? But am I alone ? Doutless there comes a time — perhaps it has come to me — when one feels through his whole being, and pro- nouncedly the emotional part, that identity between himself subjectively and Nature objectively which Schelling and Fichte are so fond of pressing. How it is I know not, but I often realize a presence here — in clear moods I am certain of it, and neither chemistry nor reasoning nor esthetics will give the least explana- tion. All the past two summers it has been strength- ening and nourishing my sick body and soul, as never before. Thanks, invisible physician, for thy silent delicious medicine, thy day and night, thy waters and thy airs, the banks, the grass, the trees, and e'en the weeds ! A QUINTETTE While I have been kept by the rain under the shelter of my great oak, (perfectly dry and comfortable, to the rattle of the drops all around,) I have pencill'd off the mood of the hour in a little quintette, which I will give you: At vacancy with Nature, Acceptive and at ease, Distilling the present hour, Whatever, wherever it is, And over the past, oblivion. Can you get hold of it, reader dear? and how do you like it anyhow ? AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 12/ THE FIRST FROST— MEMS Where I was stopping I saw the first palpable frost, on my sunrise walk, October 6; all over the yet-green spread a light blue-gray veil, giving a new show to the entire landscape. I had but little time to notice it, for the sun rose cloudless and mellow-warm, and as I returned along the lane it had turned to glittering patches of wet. As I walk I notice the bursting pods of wild cotton, (Indian hemp they call it here,) with flossy-silky contents, and dark red-brown seeds — a startled rabbit — I pull a handful of the balsamic life- everlasting and stuff it down in my trowsers-pocket for scent. FEBRUARY DAYS February 7, iS'jS. — Glistening sun to-day, with slight haze, warm enough, and yet tart, as I sit here in the open air, down in my country retreat, under an old cedar. For two hours I have been idly wandering around the woods and pond, lugging my chair, picking out choice spots to sit awhile — then up and slowly on again. All is peace here. Of course, none of the summer noises or vitality: to-day hardly even the win- ter ones. I amuse myself by exercising my voice in recitations, and in ringing the changes on all the vo- cal and alphabetical sounds. Not even an echo; only the cawing of a solitary crow, flying at some distance. The pond is one bright, flat spread, without a ripple — a vast Claude Lorraine glass, in which 1 study the sky, the light, the leafless trees, and an occasional crow, with flapping wings, flying overhead. The brown fields have a few white patches of snow left. 128 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Feb. g. — After an hour's ramble, now retreating, rest- ing, sitting close by the pond, in a warm nook, writing this, shelter'd from the breeze, just before noon. The emotional aspects and influences of Nature ! I, too, like the rest, feel these modern tendencies (from all the prevailing intellections, literature and poems,) to turn everything to pathos, ennui, morbidity, dissatisfaction, death. Yet how clear it is to me that those are not the born results, influences of Nature at all, but of one's own distorted, sick or silly soul. Here, amid this wild, free scene, how healthy, how joyous, how clean and vigorous and sweet ! Mid-after 110011. — One of my nooks is south of the barn, and here I am sitting now, on a log, still basking in the sun, shielded from the wind. Near me are the cattle, feeding on corn-stalks. Occasionally a cow or the young bull (how handsome and bold he is !) scratches and munches the far end of the log on which I sit. The fresh milky odor is quite perceptible, also the perfume of hay from the barn. The perpetual rus- tle of dry corn-stalks, the low sough of the wind round the barn gables, the grunting of pigs, the distant whis- tle of a locomotive, and occasional crowing of chanti- cleers, are the sounds. Feb. ig. — Cold and sharp last night — clear and not much wind — the full moon shining, and a fine spread of constellations and little and big stars — Sirius very bright, rising early, preceded by many-orb'd Orion, glittering, vast, sworded, and chasing with his dog. The earth hard frozen, and a stiff glare of ice over the pond. Attracted by the calm splendor of the night, I attempted a short walk, but was driven back by the AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 29 cold. Too severe for me also at 9 o'clock, when I came out this morning, so 1 turn'd back again. But now, near noon, I have walk'd down the lane, basking all the way in the sun (this farm has a pleasant southerly exposure,) and here I am, seated under the lee of a bank, close by the water. There are blue-birds already flying about, and I hear much chirping and twittering and two or three real songs, sustain'd quite awhile, in the mid-day brilliance and warmth. (There ! that is a true carol, coming out boldly and repeatedly, as if the singer meant it.) Then as the noon strengthens, the reedy trill of the robin — to my ear the most cheering of bird-notes. At intervals, like bars and breaks (out of the lov/ murmur that in any scene, however quiet, is never entirely absent to a delicate ear,) the occasional crunch and cracking of the ice-glare congeal'd over the creek, as it gives way to the sunbeams — sometimes with low sigh — sometimes with indignant, obstinate tug and snort. (Robert Burns says in one of his letters: " There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more — I do not know if 1 should call it pleasure — but something which exalts me — something which enraptures me — than to walk in the shclter'd side of a wood in a cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season of devotion." Some of his most characteristic poems were comprised in such scenes and seasons.) A MEADOW LARK MarcJi 16. — r^ine, clear, daz/liiii; morning, the sun an hour high, the air just tart enough. What a slam[) 130 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA in advance my whole day receives from the song of that meadow lark perch'd on a fence-stake twenty rods distant ! Two or three liquid-simple notes, repeated at intervals, full of careless happiness and hope. With its peculiar shimmering-slow progress and rapid-noiseless action of the wings, it flies on a ways, lights on another stake, and so on to another, shimmering and singing many minutes. SUNDOWN LIGHTS May 6, $ P. M. — This is the hour for strange effects in light and shade— enough to make a colorist go de- lirious — long spokes of molten silver sent horizontally through the trees (now in their brightest tenderest green,) each leaf and branch of endless foliage a lit-up miracle, then lying all prone on the youthful-ripe, in- terminable grass, and giving the blades not only ag- gregate but individual splendor, in ways unknown to any other hour. I have particular spots where I get these effects in their perfection. One broad splash lies on the water, with many a rippling twinkle, offset by the rapidly deepening black-green murky-transparent shadows behind, and at intervals all along the banks. These, with great shafts of horizontal fire thrown among the trees and along the grass as the sun lowers, give effects more and more peculiar, more and more su- perb, unearthly, rich and dazzling. THOUGHTS UNDER AN OAK— A DREAM Jmie 2. — This is the fourth day of a dark northeast storm, wind and rain. Day before yesterday was my birthday. I have nov/ enter'd on my 6oth year. Every AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I3I day of the storm, protected by overshoes and a water- proof blanket, I regularly come down to the pond, and ensconce myself under the lee of the great oak; I am here now writing these lines. The dark smoke-cclor'd clouds roll in furious silence athwart the sky; the soft green leaves dangle all round me; the wind steadily keeps up its hoarse, soothing music over my head — Nature's mighty whisper. Seated here in solitude I have been musing over my life — connecting events, dates, as links of a chain, neither sadly nor cheerily, but somehow, to-day here under the oak, in the rain, in an unusually matter-of-fact spirit. But my great oak — sturdy, vital, green — five feet thick at the butt. I sit a great deal near or under him. Then the tulip tree near by — the Apollo of the woods — tall and graceful, yet robust and sinewy, inimitable in hang of foliage and throwing-out of limb; as if the beauteous, vital, leafy creature could walk, if it only would. (I had a sort of dream-trance the other day, in which I saw my favorite trees step out and promenade up, down and around, very curiously — with a whisper from one, leaning down as he pass'd me, We do ail this on tiie present occasion, exceptionally , jitst for youi) CLOVER AND HAY PERFUME July jd, 4th, ^tli. — Clear, hot, favorable weather — has been a good summer — the growth of clover and grass now generally movv'd. The familiar delicious ])crfume fills the barns and lanes. As you go along you see the ficlfls of grayish white; slightly tinged with yellow, the loosely stackVl grain, the slow-moving wagons passing, and farmers in the fields with stcnit 132 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA boys pitching and loading the sheaves. The corn is about beginning to tassel. All over the middle and southern states the spear-shaped battalia, multitudi- nous, curving, flaunting — long, glossy, dark-green plumes for the great horseman, earth. I hear the cheery notes of my old acquaintance Tommy quail; but too late for the whip-poor-will, (though 1 heard one solitary lingerer night before last.) I watch the broad majestic flight of a turkey-buzzard, sometimes high up, sometimes low enough to see the lines of his form, even his spread quills, in relief against the sky. Once or twice lately I have seen an eagle here at early candle-light flying low. AN UNKNOWN June 7j. — To-day I noticed a new large bird, size of a nearly grown hen — a haughty, white-bodied dark- wing'd hawk — I suppose a hawk from his bill and gen- eral look — only he had a clear, loud, quite musical, sort of bell-like call, which he repeated again and again, at intervals, from a lofty dead tree-top, overhanging the water. Sat there a long time, and I on the oppo- site bank watching him. Then he darted down, skim- ming pretty close to the stream — rose slowly, a magnif- icent sight, and sail'd with steady wide-spread wings, no flapping at all, up and down the pond two or three times, near me, in circles in clear sight, as if for my delectation. Once he came quite close over my head; I saw plainly his hook'd bill and hard restless eyes. BIRD-WHISTLING How much music (wild, simple, savage, doubtless, but so tart-sweet,) there is in mere whistling. It is AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 33 four-fifths of the utterance of birds. There are all sorts and styles. For the last half-hour, now, while I have been sitting here, some feather'd fellow away off in the bushes has been repeating over and over again what I may call a kind of throbbing whistle. And nowabird about the robin size has just appear 'd, all mulberry red, flitting among the bushes — head, wings, body, deep red, not very bright — no song, as I have heard. 4 d clock: There is a real concert going on around me — a dozen different birds pitching in with a will. There have been occasional rains, and the growths all show its vivifying influences. As I finish this, seated on a log close by the pond-edge, much chirping and trilling in the distance, and a feather'd recluse in the woods near by is singing deliciously — not many notes, but full of music of almost human sympathy — continuing for a long, long while. HORSE-MINT Aug. 22. — Not a human being, and hardly the evi- dence of one, in sight. After my brief semi-daily bath, I sit here for a bit, the brook musically brawling, to the chromatic tones of a fretful cat-bird somewhere off in the bushes. On my walk hither two hours since, through fields and the old lane, I stopt to view, now the sky, now the mile-off woods on the hill, and now the apple orchards. What a contrast from New York's or Philadelphia's streets ! Everywhere great patches of dingy- blossom'd horse- mint wafting a spicy odor through the air, (especially evenings.) Everywhere the flowering bonesct, and the rose-bloom of the wild bean. 134 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA THREE OF US July 14. — My two kingfishers still haunt the pond. In the bright sun and breeze and perfect temperature of to-day, noon, I am sitting here by one of the gurg- ling brooks, dipping a French water-pen in the limpid crystal, and using it to write these lines, again watch- ing the feather'd twain, as they fly and sport athwart the water, so close, almost touching into its surface. In- deed there seem to be three of us. For nearly an hour I indolently look and join them while they dart and turn and take their airy gambols, sometimes far up the creek disappearing for a few moments, and then surely returning again, and performing most of their flight within sight of me, as if they knew I appreciated and absorb'd their vitality, spirituality, faithfulness, and the rapid, vanishing, delicate lines of moving yet quiet electricity they draw for me across the spread of the grass, the trees, and the blue sky. While the brook babbles, babbles, and the shadows of the boughs dap- ple in the sunshine around me, and the cool west by- nor'-west wind faintly soughs in the thick bushes and tree tops. Among the objects of beauty and interest now begin- ning to appear quite plentifully in this secluded spot, I notice the humming-bird, the dragon-fly with its wings of slate-color'd gauze, and many varieties of beautiful and plain butterflies, idly flapping among the plants and wild posies. The mullein has shot up out of its nest of broad leaves, to a tall stalk towering sometimes five or six feet high, now studded with knobs of golden blossoms. The milk -weed, (I see a great gorgeous AUTOBIOGFAPHIA 1 35 creature of gamboge and black lighting on one as I write,) is in flower, with its delicate red fringe; and there are profuse clusters of a feathery blossom waving in the wind on taper stems. I see lots of these and much else in every direction, as I saunter or sit. For the last half hour a bird has persistently kept up a simple, sweet, melodious song, from the bushes. (I have a positive conviction that some of these birds sing, and others fly and flirt about here, for m}^ especial benefit.) DEATH OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT New York City. — Came on from West Philadelphia, June 13, in the 2 p. m. train to Jersey city, and so across and to my friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. J., and their large house, large family (and large hearts,) amid which I feel at home, at peace — away up on Fifth avenue, near Eighty-sixth street, quiet, breezy, over- looking the dense woody fringe of the park — plenty of space and sky, birds chirping, and air comparatively fresh and odorless. Two hours before starting, saw the announcement of William Cullen Bryant's funeral, and felt a strong desire to attend. I had known Mr. Bryant over thirty years ago, and he had been mark- edly kind to me. Ofl and on, along that time for years as they pass'd, we met and chatted together. I thought him very sociable in his way, and a man to become attach'd to. We were both walkers, and when I work'd in Brooklyn he several times came over, mid- dle of afternoons, and we took rambles miles long, till dark, out towards Bedford or Flatbush, in company. On these occasi(;ns he gave me clear accounts of scenes 136 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA in Europe — the cities, looks, architecture, art, especially Italy — where he had travel'd a good deal. Jii7ie 14. — The Funeral. — And so the good, stainless, noble old citizen and poet lies in the closed coffin there — and this is his funeral. A solemn, impressive, sim- ple scene, to spirit and senses. The remarkable gath- ering of gray heads, celebrities — the finely render 'd anthem, and other music — the church, dim even now at approaching noon, in its light from the mellow- stain'd windows — ^the pronounc'd eulogy on the bard who loved Nature so fondly, and sung so well her shows and seasons — ending with these appropriate well-known lines: I gazed upon the glorious sky, And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant that in flowery June, When brooks send up a joyous tune, And groves a cheerful sound. The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich green mountain turf should break. JAUNT UP THE HUDSON jM7ie 20th. — On the ''Mary Powell," en joy'd every- thing beyond precedent. The delicious tender sum- mer day, just warm enough — the constantly changing but ever beautiful panorama on both sides of the river — (went up near a hundred miles) — the high straight walls of the stony Palisades— beautiful Yonkers, and beautiful Irvington — the never-ending hills, mostly in rounded lines, swathed with verdure, — the distant turns. AUTOBIOGR APHI A I 37 like great shoulders in blue veils — the frequent gray and brown of the tall-rising rocks— the river itself, now narrowing, now expanding — the white sails of the many sloops, yachts, &c., some near, some in the distance — the rapid succession of handsome villages and cities, (our boat is a swift traveler, and makes few stops) — the Race — picturesque West Point, and indeed all along — the costly and often turreted mansions forever showing in some cheery light color, through the woods — make up the scene. HAPPINESS AND RASPBERRIES June 21. — Here I am, on the west bank of the Hud- son, 80 miles north of New York, near Esopus, at the handsome, roomy, honeysuckle-and-rose-embower'd cottage of John Burroughs. The place, the perfect June days and nights, (leaning toward crisp and cool,) the hospitality of J. and Mrs. B., the air, the fruit, (especially my favorite dish, currants and raspberries, mixed, sugar'd, fresh and ripe from the bushes — I pick 'em myself) — the room I occupy at night, the perfect bed, the window giving an ample view of the Hudson and the opposite shores, so wonderful toward sunset, and the rolling music of the RR. trains, far over there — the peaceful rest — the early Venus-heralded dawn — the noiseless splash of sunrise, the light and warmth indescribably glorious, in which, (soon as the sun is well up,) I have a capital rul)bing and rasping with the flesh-brush — with an extra scour on the back by Al. J., who is here with us — all inspiriting my invalid frame with new life, for the day. Then, after some whiffs of morning air, the delicious coru-c of Mrs. li., with the 138 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA cream, strawberries, and many substantials, for break- fast. A SPECIMEN TRAMP FAMILY June 22. — This afternoon we went out (J. B., Al. and I) on quite a drive around the country. The scenery, the perpetual stone fences, (some venerable old fel- lows, dark-spotted with lichens) — the many fine locust- trees — the runs of brawling water, often over descents of rock — these, and lots else. It is lucky the roads are first-rate here, (as they are,) for it is up or down hill everywhere, and sometimes steep enough. B. has a tip-top horse, strong, young, and both gentle and fast. There is a great deal of waste land and hills on the river edge of Ulster county, with a wonderful luxuri- ance of wild flowers and bushes — and it seems to me I never saw more vitality of trees — eloquent hemlocks, plenty of locusts and fine maples, and the balm of Gilead, giving out aroma. In the fields and along the road-sides unusual crops of the tall-stemm'd wild daisy, white as milk and yellow as gold. We pass'd quite a num.ber of tramps, singly or in couples — one squad, a family in a rickety one-horse wagon, with some baskets evidently their work and trade — the man seated on a low board, in front, driv- ing — the gauntish woman by his side, with a baby well bundled in her arms, its little red feet and lowxr legs sticking out right towards us as we pass'd — and in the wagon behind, we saw two (or three) crouching little children. It was a queer, taking, rather sad picture. If I had been alone on foot, I should have stopp'd and held confab. But on our return nearly two hours afterward, AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 39 we found them a ways further along the same road, in a lonesome open spot, haul'd aside, unhitch'd, and evi- dently going to camp for the night. The freed horse was not far ofif, quietly cropping the grass. The man was busy at the wagon, the boy had gather'd some dry wood, and was making a fire — and as we went a little further we met the woman afoot. I could not see her face, in its great sun-bonnet, but somehow her figure and gait told misery, terror, destitution. She had the rag-bundled, half-starv'd infant still in her arms, and in her hands held two or three baskets, which she had evidently taken to the next house for sale. A little barefoot five-year old girl-child, with fine eyes, trotted behind her, clutching her gown. We stopp'd, asking about the baskets, which we bought. As we paid the money, she kept her face hidden in the recesses of her bonnet. Then as we started, and stopp'd again, Al., (whose sympathies were evidently arous'd,) went back to the camping group to get another basket. He caught a look of her face, and talk'd with her a little. Eyes, voice and manner were those of a corpse, animated by electricity. She was quite young — the man she was traveling with, middle-aged. Poor woman — what story was it, out of her fortunes, to account for that inexpressibly scared way, those glassy eyes, and that hollow voice ? MANHATTAN FROM THE HAY June 2j. — Returned to New York last night. Out to-day on the waters for a sail in the wide bay, south- east of Staten island — a rough, tossing ride, and a free sight — the l(mg stretch of Sandy Hook, the highhinds I40 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA of Navesink, and the many vessels outward and inward bound. We came up through the midst of all, in the full sun. I especially enjoy'd the last hour or two. A moderate sea-breeze had set in; yet over the city, and the waters adjacent, was a thin haze, concealing noth- ing, only adding to the beauty. From my point of view, as I write amid the soft breeze, with a sea-tem- perature, surely nothing on earth of its kind can go beyond this show. To the left the North river with its far vista — nearer, three or four w^ar-ships, anchor'd peacefully — the Jersey side, the banks of Weehawken, the Palisades, and the gradually receding blue, lost in the distance — to the right the East river — the mast- hemm'd shores — the grand obelisk-like towers of the bridge, one on either side, in haze, yet plainly defin'd, giant brothers twain, throwing free graceful interlink- ing loops high across the tumbled tumultuous current below^ — (the tide is just changing to its ebb) — the broad water-spread everywhere crowded — no, not crowded, but thick as stars in the sky — with all sorts and sizes of sail and steam vessels, plying ferry-boats, arriving and departing coasters, great ocean Dons, iron-black, modern, magnificent in size and power, fill'd with their incalculable value of human life and precious merchandise — with here and there, above all, those daring, careening things of grace and wonder, those white and shaded swift-darting fish-birds, (I wonder if shore or sea elsewhere can outvie them,) ever with their slanting spars, and fierce, pure, hawk- like beauty and motion — first-class New York sloop or schooner yachts, sailing, this fine day, the free sea in a good wind. And rising out of the midst, tall-topt. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I4I ship-hemm'd, modern, American, yet strangely orien- tal, V-shaped Manhattan, with its compact mass, its spires, its cloud-touching edifices group'd at the centre — the green of the trees, and all the white, brown and gray of the architecture well blended, as I see it, under a miracle of limpid sky, delicious light of heaven above, and June haze on the surface below. HOURS FOR THE SOUL July 22(1, i8y8. — Living down in the country again. A wonderful conjunction of all that goes to make those sometime miracle-hours after sunset — so near and yet so far. Perfect, or nearly perfect days, I no- tice, are not so very uncommon; but the combinations that make perfect nights are few, even in a life time. We have one of those perfections to-night. Sunset left things pretty clear; the larger stars were visible soon as the shades allow'd. A while after 8, three or four great black clouds suddenly rose, seemingly from different points, and sweeping with broad swirls of wind but no thunder, underspread the orbs from view everywhere, and indicated a violent heat-storm. But without storm, clouds, blackness and all, sped and vanish'd as suddenly as they had risen; and from a lit- tle after 9 till 1 1 the atmosphere and the whole show abvove were in that state of exceptional clearness and glory just alluded to. In the northwest turned the (xrcat Dipper with its pointers round the Cynosure. A little south of east the constellation of the Scorpion was fully up, with red Antares glowing in its neck: while dominating, majestic Ju])itcr swam, an hour and a half risen, in the east — (no moon till after 11.) A 142 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA large part of the sky seem'd just laid in great splashes of phosphorus. You could look deeper in, farther through, than usual; the orbs thick as heads of wheat in a held. Not that there was any special brilliancy either — nothing near as sharp as I have seen of keen winter nights, but a curious general luminousness throughout to sight, sense, and soul. The latter had much to do with it. (I am convinced there are hours of Nature, especially of the atmosphere, mornings and evenings, address'd to the soul. Night transcends, for that purpose, what the proudest day can do.) Now, indeed, if never before, the heavens declared the glory of God. It was to the full the sky of the Bible, of Arabia, of the prophets, and of the oldest poems. There, in abstraction and stillness, (I had gone off by myself to absorb the scene, to have the spell un- broken,) the copiousness, the removedness, vitality, loose-clear-crowdedness, of that stellar concave spread- ing overhead, softly absorb'd into me, rising so free, in- terminably high, stretching east, west, north, south — and I, though but a point in the center below, embod- ying all. STRAW-COLOR'D AND OTHER PSYCHES Aug. 4. — A pretty sight ! Where I sit in the shade — a warm day, the sun shining from cloudless skies, the forenoon well advanc'd — I look over a ten-acre field of luxuriant clover-hay, (the second crop) — the livid-ripe red blossoms and dabs of August brown thickly spotting the prevailing dark-green. Over all flutter myriads of light-yellow butterflies, mostly skim- ming along the surface, dipping and oscillating, giving AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I43 a curious animation to the scene. The beautiful, spir- itual insects ! straw-color'd Psyches ! Occasionally one of them leaves his mates, and mounts, perhaps spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the air, fluttering up, up, till literally out of sight. In the lane as I came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, where more than a hundred had collected, holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or butterfly good-time, wind- ing and circling, down and across, but always keeping within the limits. The little creatures have come out all of a sudden the last few days, and are now very plentiful. As I sit outdoors, or walk, I hardly look around without somewhere seeing two (always two) fluttering through the air in amorous dalliance. Then their inimitable color, their fragility, peculiar motion — and that strange, frequent way of one leaving the crowd and mounting up, up in the free ether, and ap- parently never returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-wings everywhere mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot gracefully bending on their tall and taper stems — while for sounds, the distant guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet somehow musically to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat-thunder in the north — and ever the low-rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of the maples and willows. A NIGHT REMEMBRANCE Aiii^. 2^, g-io A. M. — I sit by the edge of the pond, everything quiet, the broad, polish'd surface spread before me — tlic l)lue of the heavens and the white clouds reflected {xo\\\ it — and flittinii^ across, now and 144 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA then, the reflection of some flying bird. Last night I was down here with a friend till after midnight; every- thing a miracle of splendor — the glory of the stars, and the completely rounded moon — the passing clouds, silver and luminous-tawny — now and then masses of vapory illuminated scud — and silently by my side my dear friend. The shades of the trees, and patches of moonlight on the grass — the softly blowing breeze, and just-palpable odor of the neighboring ripening corn — the indolent and spiritual night, inexpressibly rich, tender, suggestive — something altogether to filter through one's soul, and nourish and feed and soothe the memory long afterwards. DELAWARE RIVER— DAYS AND NIGHTS April ^, iSyg. — With the return of spring to the skies, airs, waters of the Delaware, return the sea-gulls. I never tire of watching their broad and easy flight, in spirals, or as they oscillate with slow unflapping wings, or look down with curved beak, or dipping to the water after food. The crows, plenty enough all through the winter, have vanish'd with the ice. Not one of them now to be seen. The steamboats have again come forth — bustling up, handsome, freshly painted, for summer work — the Columbia, the Edwin Forrest, (the Republic not yet out,) the Reybold, the Nelly White, the Twilight, the Ariel, the Warner, the Perry, the Taggart, the Jersey Blue — even the bulky old Trenton — not forgetting those saucy little bull-pups of the current, the steamtugs. But let me bunch and catalogue the affair — the river itself, all the way from the sea — Cape Island on one AUTOBIOCxRAPHIA I45 side and Henlopen light on the other — up the broad bay north, and so to Philadelphia, and on further to Trenton; — the sights I am most familiar with, (as I live a good part of the time in Camden, I view matters from that outlook) — the great arrogant, black, full- freighted ocean steamers, inward or outward bound — the ample width here between the two cities, inter- sected by Windmill island — an occasional man-of-war, sometimes a foreigner, at anchor, with her guns and port-holes, and the boats, and the brown-faced sailors, and the regular oar-strokes, and the gay crowds of "visiting day" — the frequent large and handsome three-masted schooners, (a favorite style of marine build, hereabout of late years,) some of them new and very jaunty, with their white-gray sails and yellow pine spars — the sloops dashing along in a fair wind — (I see one now, coming up, under broad canvas, her gaff- topsail shining in the sun, high and picturesque — what a thing of beauty amid the sky and waters!) — the crowded wharf-slips along the city — the flags of differ- ent nationalities, the sturdy English cross on its ground of blood, the French tricolor, the banner of the great North German empire, and the Italian and the Spanish colors — sometimes, of an afternoon, the whole scene enliven 'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily re- turning from a race down at Gloucester; — the neat, rakish, revenue steamer " Hamilton " in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting aft — and, turn- ing the eyes north, the long ribands of fleecy-white steam, or dingy-black smoke, stretching far, fan- shaped, slanting diagonally across from the Kensington or Richmond shores, in the west-by-south-west wind. 146 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA SCENES ON FERRY AND RIVER— LAST WINTER'S NIGHTS Then the Camden ferry. What exhilaration, change, people, business, by day. What soothing, silent, won- drous hours, at night, crossing on the boat, most all to myself — pacing the deck, alone, forward or aft. What communion with the waters, the air, the exquisite chiaroscuro — the sky and stars, that speak no word, nothing to the intellect, yet so eloquent, so communi- cative to the soul. And the ferry men — little they know how much they have been to me, day and night — how many spells of listlessness, ennui, debility, they and their hardy w^ays have dispell'd. And the pilots — captains Hand, Walton, and Giberson by day, and captain Olive at night; Eugene Crosby, with his strong young arm so often supporting, circling, convoying me over the gaps of the bridge, through impediments, safely aboard. Indeed, all my ferry friends — captain Frazee the superintendent, Lindell, Hiskey, Fred Ranch, Price, Watson, and a dozen more. And the ferry itself, with its queer scenes — sometimes children suddenly born in the waiting-houses (an actual fact — and more than once) — sometimes a masquerade party, going over at night, with a band of music, dancing and whirling like mad on the broad deck, in their fan- tastic dresses; sometimes the astronomer, Mr. Whitall, (who posts me up in points about the stars by a living lesson there and then, and answering every question) — sometimes a prolific family group, eight, nine, ten, even twelve ! (Yesterday, as I cross'd, a mother, father, and eight children, waiting in the ferry-house, bound westward somewhere.) AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I47 I have mention'd the crows. I always watch them from the boats. They play quite a part in the winter scenes on the river, by day. Their black splatches are seen in relief against the snow and ice everywhere at that season — sometimes flying and flapping — some- times on little or larger cakes, sailing up or down the stream. One day the river was mostly clear— only a single long ridge of broken ice making a narrow stripe by itself, running along down the current for over a mile, quite rapidly. On this white stripe the crows were congregated, hundreds of them — a funny proces- sion — (''half mourning" was the comment of some one.) Then the reception room, for passengers waiting — life illustrated thoroughly. Take a March picture I jotted there two or three weeks since. Afternoon, about 2>}2 o'clock, it begins to snow. There has been a matinee performance at the theater — from 4X to 5 comes a stream of homeward bound ladies. I never knew the spacious room to present a gayer, more lively scene — handsome, well-drest Jersey women and girls, scores of them, streaming in for nearly an hour — the bright eyes and glowing faces, coming in from the air — a sprinkling of snow on bonnets or dresses as they enter — the five or ten minutes' waiting — the chatting and laughing — (women can have capital times among them- selves, with plenty of wit, lunches, jovial abandon) — Lizzie, the plcasant-niaiuutr'd waiting-room woman — for sound, the bc*ll-taps and steam-signals of the de- j)arting boats with their rhythmic break and undertone — the domestic pictures, mothers with bevies of daugh- ters, (a charming sightj — children, countrymen — the 148 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA railroad men in their blue clothes and caps — all the various characters of city and country represented or suggested. Then outside some belated passenger frantically running, jumping after the boat. Towards 6 o'clock the human stream gradually thickening — now a pressure of vehicles, drays, piled railroad crates — now a drove of cattle, making quite an excitement, the drovers with heavy sticks, belaboring the steaming sides of the frighten'd brutes. Inside the reception room, business bargains, flirting, love-m.aking, eclair- cisse77ients, proposals — pleasant, sober-faced Phil com- ing in with his burden of afternoon papers — or Jo, or Charley (who jump'd in the dock last week, and saved a stout lady from drowning,) to replenish the stove, after clearing it with long crow-bar poker. Besides all this ''comedy human," the river affords nutriment of a higher order. Here are 'some of my memoranda of the past winter, just as pencill'd down on the spot. A January Night. — Fine trips across the wide Dela- ware to-night. Tide pretty high, and a strong ebb. River, a little after 8, full of ice, mostly broken, but some large cakes making our strong-timber'd steamboat hum and quiver as she strikes them. In the clear moonlight they spread, strange, unearthly, silvery, faintly glistening, as far as I can see. Bumping, trembling, sometimes hissing like a thousand snakes, the tide-procession, as we wend with or through it, affording a grand undertone, in keeping with the scene. Overhead, the splendor indescribable; yet something haughty, almost supercilious, in the night. Never did I realize more latent sentiment, almost passio7i, in AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I49 those silent interminable stars up there. One can understand, such a night, why, from the days of the Pharaohs or Job, the dome of heaven, sprinkled with planets, has supplied the subtlest, deepest criticism on human pride, glory, ambition. A7iother Winter Night. — I don't know anything more Jillmg than to be on the wide firm deck of a powerful boat, a clear, cool, extra-moonlight night, crushing proudly and resistlessly through this thick, marbly, glistening ice. The whole river is now spread with it — some immense cakes. There is such weirdness about the scene — partly the quality of the light, with its tinge of blue, the lunar twilight— only the large stars holding their own in the radiance of the moon. Temperature sharp, comfortable for motion, dry, full of oxygen. But the sense of power — the steady, scornful, imperious urge of our strong new engine, as she ploughs her way through the big and little cakes. Night of March 18, 'jg. — One of the calm, pleasant- ly cool, exquisitely clear and cloudless, early spring nights — the atmosphere again that rare vitreous blue- black, welcom'd by astronomers. Just at 8, evening, the scene overhead of certainly solemnest beauty, nev- er surpass'd. Venus nearly down in the west, of a size and lustre as if trying to outshow herself, before depart- ing. Teeming, maternal orb — I take you again to my- self. I am reminded of that spring preceding Abraham Lincoln's murder, when I, restlessly haunting the Po- tomac banks, around Washington city, watch'd you, off there, aloof, moody as myself: As we walk'd up and down in ihe dark blue so mystic. As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, I 50 AUTOBIOGR APHIA As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night, As you droop from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the other stars all looked on,) As we wander'd together the solemn night. UP THE HUDSON TO ULSTER COUNTY April i»j.— Off to New York on a little tour and vis- it. Leaving the hospitable, home-like quarters of my valued friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Johnston — took the 4 p. M. boat, bound up the Hudson, 100 miles or so. Sunset and evening fine. Especially enjoy'd the hour after we passed Cozzens's landing — the night lit by the crescent moon and Venus, now swimming in tender glory, and now hid by the high rocks and hills of the western shore, which we hugg'd close. (Where I spend the next ten days is in Ulster county and its neighbor- hood, with frequent morning and evening drives, ob- servations of the river, and short rambles.) April 24. — Noon. — A little more and the sun would be oppressive. The bees are out gathering their bread from willows and other trees. I watch them returning, darting through the air or lighting on the hives, their thighs covered with the yellow forage. A solitary rob- in sings near. I sit in my shirtsleeves and gaze from an open bay-window on the indolent scene — the thin haze, the Fishkill hills in the distance — ofif on the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or three little shad- boats. Over on the railroad opposite, long freight trains, sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty, forty, fifty cars in a string, panting and rumbling along in full view, but the sound soften'd by distance. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 151 AT J. B.'s— TURF-FIRES— SPRING DAY SONGS April 26. — At sunrise, the pure clear sound of the meadow lark. An hour later, some notes, few and sim- ple, yet delicious and perfect, from the bush-sparrow — towards noon the reedy trill of the robin. To-day is the fairest, sweetest yet — penetrating warmth — a love- ly veil in the air, partly heat-vapor and partly from the turf-fires everywhere in patches on the farms. A group of soft maples near by silently bursts out in crim- son tips, buzzing all day with busy bees. The white sails of sloops and schooners glide up or down the riv- er; and long trains of cars, with ponderous roll, or faint bell notes, almost constantly on the opposite shore. The earliest wildflowers in the woods and fields, spicy arbutus, blue liverwort, frail anemone, and the pretty white blossoms of the bloodroot. I launch out in slow rambles, discovering them. As I go along the roads I like to see the farmers' fires in patches, burning the dry brush, turf, debris. How the smoke crawls along, flat to the ground, slanting, slowly ris- ing, reaching away, and at last dissipating. I like its acrid smell — whiffs just reaching me — welcomer than French perfume. The birds are plenty; of any sort, or of two or three sorts, curiously, not a sign, till suddenly some warm, gushing, sunny April (or even March) day — lo ! there they are, from twig to twig, or fence to fence, flirting, singing, some mating, preparing to build. Hut most o{\\\^vi\ en passa7it — a fortnight, a UKjnth in these parts, and then away. As in all ])hases. Nature keeps up her vital, copious, eternal procession. Still, [)lenty of the 1 52 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA birds hang around all or most of the season — now their love -time, and era of nest-building. I find flying over the river, crows, gulls and hawks. I hear the afternoon shriek of the latter, darting about, preparing to nest. The oriole will soon be heard here, and the twanging meoeow of the cat-bird; also the king-bird, cuckoo and the warblers. All along, there are three peculiarly characteristic spring songs — the meadow-lark's, so sweet, so alert and remonstrating (as if he said, *' don't you see ? " or, '* can't you understand ? ") — the cheery, mellow, human tones of the robin — (I have been try- ing for years to get a brief term, or phrase, that would identify and describe that robin-call) — and the amor- ous whistle of the high-hole. Insects are out plenti- fully at midday. April 2g. — As w^e drove lingering along the road we heard, just after sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd w^ithout a word, and listen'd long. The delicious notes — a sweet, artless, voluntary, simple anthem, as from the flute-stops of some organ, w^afted through the twilight— echoing well to us from the per- pendicular high rock, where, in some thick young trees' recesses at the base, sat the bird — fill'd our senses, our souls. MEETING A HERMIT I found in one of my rambles up the hills a real hermit, living in a lonesome spot, hard to get at, rocky, the view fine, with a little patch of land two rods square. A man of youngish middle age, city born and raised, had been to school, had travel'd in Europe and California. I first met him once or twice on the road, and pass'd the time of day, with some AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 53 small talk; then, the third time, he ask'd me to go along a bit and rest in his hut (an almost unprecedent- ed compliment, as I heard from others afterwards.) He was of Quaker stock, I think; talk'd with ease and moderate freedom, but did not unbosom his life, or story, or tragedy, or whatever it was. WALTER DUMONT AND HIS MEDAL As I saunter'd along the high road yesterday, I stopp'd to watch a man near by, ploughing a rough stony field with a yoke of oxen. Usually there is much geeing and hawing, excitement, and continual noise and expletives, about a job of this kind. But I noticed how different, how easy and wordless, yet firm and sufficient, the work of this young ploughman. His name was Walter Dumont, a farmer, and son of a farmer, working for their living. Three years ago, when the steamer ** Sunnyside " was wreck'd of a bit- ter icy night on the west bank here, Walter went out in his boat — was the first man on hand with assistance — made a way through the ice to shore, connected a line, perform'd work of first-class readiness, daring, danger, and saved numerous lives. Some weeks after, one evening when he was up at Esopus, among the usual loafing crowd at the country store and post- office, there arrived the gift of an unexpected official gold medal for the (juiet hero. Tlie im])romptu prc-- sentation was made to him on the spot, but lie blush'd. hesitated as he took it and had nothing to say. TWO CITY AREAS, CERTAIN HOURS Nkw York, May 24, 'yg. — l^crhaps no (juarters of this city (I have return'd again for awhile,) make more 1 54 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA brilliant, animated, crowded, spectacular human pre- sentations these fine May afternoons than the two I am now going to describe from personal observation. First: that area comprising Fourteenth street (especially the short range between Broadway and Fifth avenue) with Union square, its adjacencies, and so retrostretch- ing down Broadway for half a mile. All the walks here are wide, and the spaces ample and free — now flooded with liquid gold from the last two hours of powerful sunshine. The whole area at 5 o'clock, the days of my observations, must have contain'd from thirty to forty thousand finely-dress'd people, all in motion, plenty of them good - looking, many beautiful women, often youths and children, the latter in groups with their nurses — the trottoirs everywhere close-spread, thick- tangled, (yet no collision, no trouble,) with masses of bright color, action, and tasty toilets; (surely the wom- en dress better than ever before, and the men do too.) As if New York would show these afternoons what it can do in its humanity, its choicest physique and phys- iognomy, and its countless prodigality of locomotion, dry goods, glitter, magnetism, and happiness. Second: also from 5 to 7 P. M. the stretch of Fifth avenue, all the way from the Central Park exits at Fif- ty-ninth street, down to Fourteenth, especially along the high grade by Fortieth street, and down the hill. A Mississippi of horses and rich vehicles, not by dozens and scores, but hundreds and thousands — the broad avenue filled and cramm'd with them — a moving, spark- ling, hurrying crush, for more than two miles. (I won- der they don't get block'd, but I believe they never do.) Altogether it is to me the marvel sight of New York. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 55 I like to get in one of the Fifth avenue stages and ride up, stemming the swift-moving procession. I doubt if London or Paris or any city in the world can show such a carriage carnival as I have seen here five or six times these beautiful May afternoons. CENTRAL PARK— A FINE AFTERNOON, 4 TO 6 Ten thousand vehicles careering through the Park this perfect afternoon. Such a show ! and I have seen all— watch'd it narrowly, and at my leisure. Private barouches, cabs and coupes, some fine horseflesh — lap- dogs, footmen, fashions, foreigners, cockades on hats, crests on panels — the full oceanic tide of New York's wealth and "gentility." It was an impressive, rich, in- terminable circus on a grand scale, full of action and color in the beauty of the day, under the clear sun and moderate breeze. Family groups, couples, single drivers — of course dresses generally elegant — much "style," (yet perhaps little or nothing, even in that direction, that fully justified itself.) Through the win- dows of two or three of the richest carriages I saw faces almost corpse-like, so ashy and listless. Indeed the whole afTair exhibited less of sterling America, either in spirit or countenance, than I bad counted on from such a select mass-spectacle. 1 suppose, as a proof of limitless wealth, leisure, and the aforesaid "gentility," it was tremendous. Yet what I saw those hours (I took two other occasions, two other afternoons to watch the same scene,) confirms a tliought that haunts me every additional glimpse I get of our top-loftical general or rather exceptional j)hases of wealth and fashion in this country — namely, that they are ill at ease, much too 156 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA conscious, cased in too many cerements, and far from happy — that there is nothing in them which we who are poor and plain need at all envy, and that instead of the perennial smell of the grass and woods and shores, their typical redolence is of soaps and essences, very rare may be, but suggesting the barber shop — some- thing that turns stale and musty in a few hours any- how. Perhaps the show on the horseback road was pretti- est. Many groups (threes a favorite number,) some couples, some singly— many ladies — frequently horses or parties dashing along on a full run — fine riding the rule — a few really first-class animals. As the afternoon waned, the wheel'd carriages grew less, but the saddle- riders seemed to increase. They linger'd long — and I saw some charming forms and faces. DEPARTING OF THE BIG STEAMERS May zj. — A three hours' bay-trip from 12 to 3 this afternoon, accompanying ** the City of Brussels " down as far as the Narrows, in behoof of some Europe-bound friends, to give them a good send off. Our spirited little tug, the * * Seth Low, " kept close to the great black "Brussels," sometimes one side, sometimes the other, always up to her, or even pressing ahead, (like the blooded pony accompanying the royal elephant.) The whole affair, from the first, was an animated, quick-passing, characteristic New York scene; the large, good-looking, well-dress'd crowd on the wharf-end — men and women come to see their friends depart, and bid them God-speed — the ship's sides swarming with passengers — groups of bronze-faced sailors, with uni- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 57 form'd officers at their posts— the quiet directions, as she quickly unfastens and moves out, prompt to a min- ute — the emotional faces, adieus and fluttering hand- kerchiefs, and many smiles and some tears on the wharf — the answering faces, smiles, tears and fluttering handkerchiefs, from the ship — (what can be subtler and finer than this play of faces on such occasions in these responding crowds ?— what go more to one's heart ?) — the proud, steady, noiseless cleaving of the grand oceaner down the bay — we speeding by her side a few miles, and then turning, wheeling, amid a babel of wild hurrahs, shouted partings, ear-splitting steam whistles, kissing of hands and waving of handkerchiefs. This departing of the big steamers, noons or after- noons — there is no better medicine when one is listless or vapory. I am fond of going down Wednesdays and Saturdays — their more special days — to watch them and the crowds on the wharves, the arriving passengers, the general bustle and activity, the eager looks from the faces, the clear-toned voices, (a travel'd foreigner, a musician, told me the other day, she thinks an Ameri- can crowd has the finest voices in the world,) the whole look of the great, shapely black ships themselves, and their groups and lined sides— in the setting of our bay with the blue sky overhead. Two days after the above 1 saw the "Britannic," the ** Donau," the " Helve- tia " and the "Schiedam" steam out, and all off for Europe — a magnificent sight. MATURE SUMMER DAYS AND NKWITS /lui^r^ y, — Eorcnoon — as 1 sit uikIct the willow shade, (liave retreated down in the country again J a little 1 58 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA bird is leisurely dousing and flirting himself amid the brook almost within reach of me. He evidently fears me not — takes me for some concomitant of the neigh- boring earthy banks, free bushery and wild weeds. 6 p. M. — The last three days have been perfect ones for the season, (four nights ago copious rains, with ve- hement thunder and lightning.) I write this sitting by the creek watching my two kingfishers at their sun- down sport. The strong, beautiful, joyous creatures ! Their wings glisten in the slanted sunbeams as they circle and circle around, occasionally dipping and dash- ing the water, and making long stretches up and down the creek. Wherever I go over fields, through lanes, in by-places, blooms the white -flowering wild-carrot, its delicate pat of snow-flakes crowning its slender stem, gracefully oscillating in the breeze. EXPOSITION BUILDING— NEW CITY HALL Philadelphia, Aug. 26. — Last night and to-night of unsurpass'd clearness, after two days' rain ; moon splendor and star splendor. Being out toward the great Exposition building. West Philadelphia, I saw it lit up, and thought I would go in. There was a ball, democratic but nice ; plenty of young couples waltzing and quadrilling — music by a good string-band. To the sight and hearing of these — to moderate strolls up and down the roomy spaces — to getting off aside, rest- ing in an arm-chair and looking up a long while at the grand high roof with its graceful and multitudinous work of iron rods, angles, gray colors, plays of light and shade, receding into dim outlines — to absorbing (in the intervals of the string band,) some capital volun- AUTOBIOGR APHIA I 59 taries and rolling caprices from the big organ at the other end of the building — to sighting a shadow'd figure or group or couple of lovers every now and then passing some near or farther aisle — I abandon'd myself for over an hour. Returning home, riding down Market street in an open summer car, something detain'd us between Fif- teenth and Broad, and I got out to view better the new, three-fifths-built marble edifice, the City Hall, of mag- nificent proportions — a majestic and lovely show there in the moonlight — flooded all over, facades, myriad silver-white lines and carv'd heads and mouldings, with the soft dazzle — silent, weird, beautiful — well, I know that never when linish'd will that magnificent pile im- press one as it impress'd me those fifteen minutes. SWALLOWS ON THE RIVER Sept. J. — Cloudy and wet, and wind due east ; air without palpable fog, but very heavy with moisture — welcome for a change. Forenoon, crossing the Dela- ware, I noticed unusual numbers of swallows in flight, circling, darting, graceful beyond description, close to the water. Thick, around the bows of the ferry-boat as she lay tied in her slip, they flew ; and as we went out I watch'd beyond the pier-heads, and across the broad stream, their swift-winding loop-ribands of mo- tion, down close to it, cuttiniL; and intersecting. Though 1 had seen swallows all my life, seem'd as though J never before realized their peculiar beauty and charac- ter in the landscape. (Some time ago, for an hour, in a huge old country barn, watching these birds ilying, recall'd the 22d book of the Odyssey, where Ulysses l6o AUTOBIOGRAPHIA slays the suitors, bringing things to eclaircissemeiit, and Minerva, swallow-bodied, darts up through the spaces of the hall, sits high on a beam, looks com- placently on the show of slaughter, and feels in her element, exulting, joyous.) BEGIN A LONG JAUNT WEST The following three or four months (Sept. to Dec. '79) I made quite a western journey, fetching up at Denver, Colorado, and penetrating the Rocky Moun- tain region enough to get a good notion of it all. Left West Philadelphia after 9 o'clock one night, middle of September, in a comfortable sleeper. Oblivious of the two or three hundred miles across Pennsylvania ; at Pittsburgh in the morning to breakfast. Pretty good view of the city and Birmingham — fog and damp, smoke, coke-furnaces, flames, discolor'd wooden houses, and vast collections of coal-barges. Presently a bit of fine region, W^est Virginia, the Panhandle, and crossing the river, the Ohio. By day through the lat- ter State — then Indiana — and so rock'd to slumber for a second night, flying like lightning through Illinois. MISSOURI STATE We should have made the run of 960 miles from Philadelphia to St. Louis in thirty-six hours, but we had a collision and bad locomotive smash about two- thirds of the way, which set us back. So merely stop- ping over night that time in St. Louis, I sped on west- ward. As I cross'd Missouri State the whole distance by the St. Louis and Kansas City Northern Railroad, a fine early autumn day, I thought my eyes had never AUTOBIOGRAPHIA l6l looked on scenes of greater pastoral beauty. For over two hundred miles successive rolling prairies, agricul- turally perfect view'd by Pennsylvania and New Jersey eyes, and dotted here and there with fine timber. Yet fine as the land is, it isn't the finest portion ; (there is a bed of impervious clay and hard-pan beneath this section that holds water too firmly, " drowns the land in wet weather, and bakes it in dry," as a cynical farmer told me.) South are some richer tracts, though per- haps the beauty-spots of the State are the northwest- ern counties. Altogether, I am clear, (now, and from what I have seen and learn'd since,) that Missouri, in climate, soil, relative situation, wheat, grass, mines, railroads and every important materialistic respect, stands in the front rank of the Union. Of Missouri averaged politically and socially I have heard all sorts of talk, some pretty severe — but I should have no fear myself of getting along safely and comfortably any- where among the Missourians. They raise a good deal of tobacco. You see at this time quantities of the light greenish-gray leaves pulled and hanging out to dry on temporary frameworks or rows of sticks. Looks much like the mullein familiar to eastern eyes. LAWRENCE AND TOPEKA, KANSAS We thought of stopping in Kansas City, but when we got there we found a train ready and a crowd of hospitable Kansians to take us on to Lawrence, to which I proceeded. I shall not soon forget my good days in L., in company with Judge Usher and his sons, (especially John and Linton,) true westerners of the noblest type. Nor the similar days in Topeka. Nor l62 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA the brotherly kindness of my RR. friends there, and the city and State officials. Lawrence and Topeka are large, bustling, half-rural, handsome cities. I took two or three long drives about the latter, drawn by a spirited team over smooth roads. ON TO DENVER— A FRONTIER INCIDENT The jaunt of five or six hundred miles from Topeka to Denver took me through a variety of country, but all unmistakably prolific, western, American, and on the largest scale. For a long distance we follow the line of the Kansas river, (I like better the old name, Kaw,) a stretch of very rich, dark soil, famed for its wheat, and call'd the Golden Belt — then plains and plains, hour after hour — Ellsworth county, the centre of the State — where I must stop a moment to tell a characteristic story of early days — scene the very spot where I am passing — time 1868. In a scrimmage at some public gathering in the town, A. had shot B. quite badly, but had not kill'd him. The sober men of Ellsworth conferr'd with one another and decided that A. deserv'd punishment. As they wished to set a good example and establish their reputation the reverse of a Lynching town, they open an informal court and bring both men before them for deliberate trial. Soon as this trial begins the wounded man is led forward to give his testimony. Seeing his enemy in durance and unarm'd, B. walks suddenly up in a fury and shoots A. through the head — shoots him dead. The court is in- stantly adjourn'd, and its unanimous members, with- out a word of debate, walk the murderer B. out, wound- ed as he is, and hano- him. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 163 In due time we reach Denver, which city I fall in love with from the first, and have that feeling con- firm'd, the longer I stay there. One of my pleasantest days was a jaunt, via Platte canon, to Leadville. AN HOUR ON KENOSHA SUMMIT Jottings from the Rocky Mountains, mostly pencill'd during a day's trip over the South Park RR., return- ing from Leadville, and especially the hour we were detain'd, (much to my satisfaction,) at Kenosha sum- mit. As afternoon advances, novelties, far-reaching splendors, accumulate under the bright sun in this pure air. But I had better commence with the day. The confronting of Platte canon just at dawn, after a ten miles' ride in early darkness on the rail from Denver — the seasonable stoppage at the entrance of the canon, and good breakfast of egg, trout, and nice griddle-cakes — then as we travel on, and get well in the gorge, all the wonders, beauty, savage power of the scene — the wild stream of water, from sources of snows, brawling continually in sight one side — the dazzling sun, and the morning lights on the rocks — such turns and grades in the track, squirming around corners, or up and down hills — far glimpses of a hun- dred peaks, titanic necklaces, stretching north and south — the huge riglitly-namcd Dome-rock— and as we dash along, others similar, simple, monolithic, ele- phantine. AN EGOTISTICAL ''FIND" "I have founfl the law of my own ])ocms," was the unspoken but more-and-nKn-e decided fcchng that V' 164 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA came to me as I pass'd, hour after hour, amid all this grim yet joyous elemental abandon — this plenitude of material, entire absence of art, untrammel'd play of primitive Nature — the chasm, the gorge, the crystal mountain stream, repeated scores, hundreds of miles — the broad handling and absolute uncrampedness — the fantastic forms, bathed in transparent browns, faint reds and grays, towering sometimes a thousand, some- times two or three thousand feet high — at their tops now and then huge masses pois'd, and mixing with the clouds, with only their outlines, hazed in misty lilac, visible. ('*In Nature's grandest shows," says an old Dutch writer, an ecclesiastic, ''amid the ocean's depth, if so might be, or countless worlds rolling above at night, a man thinks of them, weighs all, not for themselves or the abstract, but with reference to his own personality, and how they may affect him or color his destinies.") NEW SENSES— NEW JOYS We follow the stream of amber and bronze brawling along its bed, with its frequent cascades and snow- white foam. Through the caiion we fly — mountains not only each side, but seemingly, till we get near, right in front of us— every rood a new view flashing, and each flash defying description— on the almost per- pendicular sides, clinging pines, cedars, spruces, crim- son sumach bushes, spots of wild grass — but domina- ting all, those towering rocks, rocks, rocks, bathed in delicate vari-colors, with the clear sky of autumn over- head. New senses, new joys, seem develop'd. Talk as you like, a typical Rocky Mountain caiion, or a lim- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 165 itless sea-like stretch of the great Kansas or Colorado plains, under favoring circumstances, tallies, perhaps expresses, certainly awakes, those grandest and subt- lest element-emotions in the human soul, that all the marble temples and sculptures from Phidias to Thor- waldsen — all paintings, poems, reminiscences, or even music, probably never can. DENVER IMPRESSIONS Through the long-lingering half-light of the most superb of evenings we return'd to Denver, where I staid several days leisurely exploring, receiving impres- sions, with which I may as well taper off this memo- randum, itemizing what I saw there. The best was the men, three-fourths of them large, able, calm, alert, American. And cash ! why they create it here. Out in the smelting works, (the biggest and most improv'd ones, for the precious metals, in the world,) I saw long rows of vats, pans, cover'd by bubbling-boiling water, and fill'd with pure silver, four or five inches thick, many thousand dollars' worth in a pan. The foreman who was showing me shovel'd it carelessly up with a little wooden shovel, as one might toss beans. Then large silver bricks, worth §2,000 a brick, dozens of piles, twenty in a pile. In one place in the mountains, at a mining camp, I had a few days before seen rough bullion on the ground in the open air, like the confec- tioner's pyramids at some swell dinner in New York. (Such a sweet morsel to roll over with a poor author's pen and ink — and apj)r()priate to slip in here — that the silver product of Colorado and Utah, with the gold product of California, New Mexico, Nevada and Da- l66 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA kota, foots up an addition to the world's coin of con- siderably over a hundred millions every year.) A city, this Denver, well-laid out — Laramie street, and 15th and i6th and Champa streets, with others, particularly fine — some with tall storehouses of stone or iron, and windows of plate-glass — all the streets with little canals of mountain water running along the sides — plenty of people, ** business," modernness — yet not without a certain racy wild smack, all its own. A place of fast horses, (many mares with their colts,) and I saw lots of big greyhounds for antelope hunting. Now and then groups of miners, some just come in, some starting out, very picturesque. I TURN SOUTH— AND THEN EAST AGAIN Leave Denver at 8 a. m. by the Rio Grande RR. go- ing south. Mountains constantly in sight in the ap- parently near distance, veil'd slightly, but still clear and very grand — their cones, colors, sides, distinct against the sky — hundreds, it seem'd thousands, inter- minable necklaces of them, their tops and slopes hazed more or less slightly in that blue-gray, under the au- tumn sun, for over a hundred miles — the most spiritual show of objective Nature I ever beheld, or ever thought possible. Occasionally the light strengthens, making a contrast of yellow-tinged silver on one side, with dark and shaded gray on the other. I took a long look at Pike's peak, and was a little disappointed. (I suppose I had expected something stunning.) Our view over plains to the left stretches amply, with cor- rals here and there, the frequent cactus and wild sage, and herds of cattle feeding. Thus about 120 miles to AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 167 Pueblo. At that town we board the comfortable and well-equipt Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RR., now striking east. THE ARKANSAS RIVER The Arkansas river plays quite a part in the whole of this region — I see it, or its high-cut rocky northern shore, for miles, and cross and recross it frequently, as it winds and squirms like a snake. The plains vary here even more than usual — sometimes a long sterile stretch of scores of miles — then green, fertile and grassy, an equal length. Some very large herds of sheep. (One wants new words in writing about these plains, and all the inland American West — the terms, far, large, vast, &c., are insufficient.) A SILENT LITTLE FOLLOWER— THE COREOPSIS Here I must say a word about a little follower, pres- ent even now before my eyes, I have been accom- panied on my whole journey from Barnegat to Pike's Peak by a pleasant floricultural friend, or rather mil- lions of friends — nothing more or less than a hardy little yellow five-petal'd September and October wild- flower, growing I think everywhere in the middle and northern United States. I had seen it on the Hudson and over Long Island, and along the banks of the Del- aware and through New Jersey, (as years ago up the Connecticut, and one fall by Lake Champlain.) This trip it follow'd me regularly, with its slender stem and eyes of gold, from Cape May to the Kaw valley, and so through the canons and to tliese plains. In Missouri 1 saw immense fu;lds all bright with it. Toward western l68 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Illinois I woke up one morning in the sleeper and the first thing when I drew the curtain of my berth and look'd out was its pretty countenance and bending neck. Sept. 2^th. — Early morning — still going east after we leave Sterling, Kansas, where I stopp'd a day and night. The sun up about half an hour; nothing can be fresher or more beautiful than this time, this region. I see quite a field of my yellow flower in bloom. At intervals dots of nice two-story houses, as we ride swiftly by. Over the immense area, flat as a floor, vis- ible for twenty miles in every direction in the clear air, a prevalence of autumn-drab and reddish-tawny herb- age — sparse stacks of hay and enclosures, breaking the landscape — as we rumble by, flocks of prairie-hens starting up. Between Sterling and Florence a fine country. (Remembrances to E. L., my old-young sol- dier friend of war times, and his wife and boy at S.) THE SPANISH PEAKS— EVENING ON THE PLAINS Between Pueblo and Bent's fort, southward, in a clear afternoon sun-spell I catch exceptionally good glimpses of the Spanish peaks. We are on south- eastern Colorado — pass immense herds of cattle as our first-class locomotive rushes us along — two or three times crossing the Arkansas, which we follow many miles, and of which river I get fine views, sometimes for quite a distance, its stony, upright, not very high, palisade banks, and then its muddy flats. We pass Fort Lyon — lots of adobie houses — limitless pasturage, appropriately fleck'd with those herds of cattle — in due time the declining sun in the west — a sky of limpid AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 169 pearl over all — and so evening on the great plains. A calm, pensive, boundless landscape — the perpendicular rocks of the north Arkansas, hued in twilight — a thin line of violet on the southwestern horizon — the palpable coolness and slight aroma — a belated cow-boy with some unruly member of his herd — an emigrant wagon toiling yet a little further, the horses slow and tired — two men, apparently father and son, jogging along on foot — and around all the indescribable chiaroscuro and sentiment, (profounder than anything at sea,) athwart these endless wilds. AMERICA'S CHARACTERISTIC LANDSCAPE Speaking generally as to the capacity and sure future destiny of that plain and prairie area (larger than any European kingdom) it is the inexhaustible land of wheat, maize, wool, flax, coal, iron, beef and pork, butter and cheese, apples and grapes — land of ten million virgin farms— to the eye at present wild and unproductive— yet experts say that upon it when ir- rigated may easily be grown enough wheat to feed the world. Then as to scenery (giving my own thought and feeling,) while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara falls, the upper Yellowstone and the like, afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the Prairies and Plains, while less stunning at first sight, last Uniger, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America's char- acteristic landsca[)e. Indeed tliroui^ii the whole of this journey, with all its shows and varieties, what most impress'd me, and will longest remain with me, are these same prairies. I/O AUTOBIOGRAPHIA Day after day, and night after night, to my eyes, to all my senses — the esthetic one most of all — they silently and broadly unfolded. Even their simplest statistics are sublime. EARTH'S MOST IMPORTANT STREAM The valley of the Mississippi river and its tributaries, (this stream and its adjuncts involve a big part of the question,) comprehends more than twelve hundred thousand square miles, the greater part prairies. It is by far the most important stream on the globe, and would seem to have been marked out by design, slow- flowing from north to south, through a dozen climates, all fitted for man's healthy occupancy, its outlet un- frozen all the year, and its line forming a safe, cheap continental avenue for commerce and passage from the north temperate to the torrid zone. Not even the mighty Amazon (though larger in volume) on its line of east and west — not the Nile in Africa, nor the Dan- ube in Europe, nor the three great rivers of China, compare with it. Only the Mediterranean sea has play'd some such part in history, and all through the past, as the Mississippi is destined to play in the future. By its demesnes, water'd and welded by its branches, the Missouri, the Ohio, the Arkansas, the Red, the Yazoo, the St. Francis and others, it already compacts twenty- five millions of people, not merely the most peaceful and money-making, but the most restless and warlike on earth. Its valley, or reach, is rapidly concentrat- ing the political power of the American Union. One almost thinks it is the Union— or soon will be. Take AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I/I it out, with its radiations, and what would be left? From the car windows through Indiana, Illinois, Mis- souri, or stopping some days along the Topeka and Santa Feroad, in southern Kansas, and indeed wherev- er I went, hundreds and thousands of miles through this region, my eyes feasted on primitive and rich meadows, some of them partially inhabited, but far, immensely far more untouch'd, unbroken — and much of it more lov^ely and fertile in its unplough'd innocence than the fair and valuable fields of New York's, Penn- sylvania's, Maryland's or Virginia's richest farms. THE WOMEN OF THE WEST Ka7isas City . — I am not so well satisfied with what I see of the women of the prairie cities. I am writing this where I sit leisurely in a store in Main street, Kan- sas city, a streaming crowd on the sidewalks flowing by. The ladies (and the same in Denver) are all fash- ionably drest, and have the look of ''gentility" in face, manner and action, but they do not have, either in physique or the mentality appropriate to them, any high native originality of spirit or body, (as the men certainly have, appropriate to them.) They are " in- tellectual "and fashionable, but dyspeptic-looking and generally doll-Hke; their ambition evidently is to copy their eastern sisters. Something far different and in advance must appear, to tally and complete the superb masculinity of the West, and maintain and continue it. From Kansas city I went on to St. Louis, where I re- main'd nearly three months, with my brother T. J. W., and my dear nieces. 1/2 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA ST. LOUIS MEMORANDA Oct,/N'ov., a7id Dec, 'yg. — The points of St. Louis are its position, its absolute wealth, (the long accumu- lations of time and trade, solid riches, probably a high- er average thereof than any city,) the unrivall'd ampli- tude of its well-laid out environage of broad plateaus, for future expansion — and the great State of which it is the head. It fuses northern and southern qualities, perhaps native and foreign ones, to perfection, rendez- vous the whole stretch of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and its American electricity goes well with its German phlegm. Fourth, Fifth and Third streets are store-streets, showy, modern, metropolitan, with hur- rying crowds, vehicles, horse-cars, hubbub, plenty of people, rich goods, plate-glass windows, iron fronts often five or six stories high. You can purchase any- thing in St. Louis (in most of the big western cities for the matter of that) just as readily and cheaply as in the Atlantic marts. Often in going about the town you see reminders of old, even decay'd civilization. The water of the west, in some places, is not good, but they make it up here by plenty of very fair wine, and inexhaustible quantities of the best beer in the world. There are immense estabhshments for slaugh- tering beef and pork — and I saw flocks of sheep, 5,000 in a flock. (In Kansas city I had visited a pack- ing establishment that kills and packs an average of 2,500 hogs a day the whole year round, for export. Another in Atchison, Kansas, same extent; others nearly equal elsewhere. And just as big ones here.) AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1/3 NIGHTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI Oct. 2gtJi, jot/i, and J I St. — Wonderfully fine, with the full harvest moon, dazzling and silvery. I have haunted the river every night lately, where I could get a look at the bridge by moonlight. It is indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I never tire of It. The river at present is very low; I noticed to-day it had much more of a blue-clear look than usual. I hear the slight ripples, the air is fresh and cool, and the view, up or down, wonderfully clear, in the moon- light. I am out pretty late: it is so fascinating, dreamy. The cool night-air, all the influences, the silence, with those far-off eternal stars, do me good. I have been quite ill of late. And so, well-near the centre of our national demesne, these night views of the Mississippi. UPON OUR OVv^N LAND " Always, after supper, take a walk half a mile long," says an old proverb, dryly adding, **and if convenient let it be upon your own land." I wonder does any other nation but ours afford opportunity for such a jaunt as this? Indeed has any previous period af- forded it? No one I discover, begins to know the real geographic, democratic, indissoluble American Union in the present, or suspect it in the future, until he ex- plores these Central States, and dwells awhile observ- antly on their prairies, or amid their busy towns, and the mighty father of waters. A ride of two or three thousand miles, "on one's own land," with hardly a disconnection, could certainly be had in* no other place than the United vStates, and at no period ])cf()re this. 174 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA If you want to see what the railroad is, and how civil- ization and progress date from it — how it is the con- queror of crude nature, which it turns to man's use, both on small scales and on the largest — come hither to inland America. I return'd home, east, Jan. 5, 1880, having travers'd, to and fro and across, 10,000 miles and more. I soon resumed my seclusions down in the woods, or by the creek, or gaddings about cities. BEETHOVEN'S SEPTETTE Feb, II, '80. — At a good concert to-night in the foyer of the opera house, Philadelphia — the band a small but first-rate one. Never did music more sink into and soothe and fill me — never so prove its soul-rousing power, its impossibility of statement. Especially in the rendering of one of Beethoven's master septettes by the well-chosen and perfectly-combined instruments (violins, viola, clarionet, horn, 'cello and contrabass,) was I carried away, seeing, absorbing many wonders. Dainty abandon, sometimes as if Nature laughing on a hillside in the sunshine; serious and firm monotonies, as of winds; a horn sounding through the tangle of the forest, and the dying echoes ; soothing floating of waves, but presently rising in surges, angrily lashing, muttering, heavy; piercing peals of laughter, for inter- stices; now and then weird, as Nature herself is in cer- tain moods — but mainly spontaneous, easy, careless — often the sentiment of the postures of naked children playing or sleeping. It did me good even to watch the violinists drawing their bows so masterly — every motion a study. I allow'd myself, as I sometimes do, to wan- AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I75 der out of myself. The conceit came to me of a copi- ous grove of singing birds, and in their midst a simple harmonic duo, two human souls, steadily asserting their own pensiveness, joyousness. A HINT OF WILD NATURE Feb. ij.—As I was crossing the Delaware to-day saw a large flock of wild geese, right overhead, not very high up, ranged in V-shape, in relief against the noon clouds of light smoke-color. Had a capital though momentary view of them, and then of their course on and on southeast, till gradually fading— (my eyesight yet first rate for the open air and its distances, but I use glasses for reading.) Queer thoughts melted mto me the two or three minutes, or less, seeing these creatures cleaving the sky— the spacious, airy realm- even the prevailing smoke-gray color everywhere, (no sun shining)— the waters below— the rapid flight of the birds, appearing just for a minute— flashing to me such a hint of the whole spread of Nature, with her eternal unsophisticated freshness, her never-visited recesses of sea, sky, shore— and then disappearing in the distance. LOAFING IN THE WOODS Marc/i S.~l write this down in the country ao-ain but in a new spot, seated on a log in the woods, warm' sunny, midday. Have been loaflng here deep amon<^ the trees, shafts of tall pines, oak. hickory, with a thick undergrowth of laurels and grapevines-the ground cover'd everywhere by debris, dead leaves, breakage, moss— everything solitary, ancient, grim. Paths (siPch as they are) leading hither and yon— (how made I know 176 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA not, for nobody seems to come here, nor man nor cattle-kind.) Temperature to-day about 60, the wind through the pine-tops; I sit and listen to its hoarse sighing above (and to the stillness) long and long, varied by aimless rambles in the old roads and paths, and by exercise-pulls at the young saplings, to keep my joints from getting stiff. Blue-birds, robins, meadow- larks begin to appear. Next day, gth. — A snowstorm in the morning, and continuing most of the day. But I took a walk over two hours, the same woods and paths, amid the falling flakes. No wind, yet the musical low murmur through the pines, quite pronounced, curious, like waterfalls, now still'd, now pouring again. All the senses, sight, sound, smell, delicately gratified. Every snowflake lay where it fell on the evergreens, holly-trees, laurels, &c., the multitudinous leaves and branches piled, bulging- white, defined by edge-lines of emerald — the tall straight columns of the plentiful bronze-topt pines — a slight resinous odor blending with that of the snow. (For there is a scent to everything, even the snow, if you can only detect it — no two places, hardly any two hours, anywhere, exactly alike. How different the odor of noon from midnight, or winter from summer, or a windy spell from a still one.) A CONTRALTO VOICE May g, Simday. — Visit this evening to my friends the J.'s — good supper, to which I did justice — lively chat with Mrs. J. and I. and J. As I sat out front on the walk afterward, in the evening air, the church-choir and organ on the corner opposite gave Luther's hymn. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 77 Emfeste berg, very finely. The air was borne by a rich contralto. For nearly half an hour there in the dark, (there was a good string of English stanzas,) came the music, firm and unhurried, with long pauses. The full silver star-beams of Lyra rose silently over the church's dim roof-ridge. Vari-color'd lights from the stain'd glass windows broke through the tree-shadows. And under all— under the Northern Crown up there, and in the fresh breeze below, and the chiaroscuro of the night, that liquid-full contralto. SEEING NIAGARA TO ADVANTAGE June 4, 'So. — For really seizing a great picture or book, or piece of music, or architecture, or grand scenery— or perhaps for the first time even the common sunshine, or landscape, or may-be even the mystery of identity, most curious m3^stery of all— there comes some lucky five minutes of a man's life, set amid a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, and bringing in a brief flash the culmination of years of reading and travel and thought. The present case about two o'clock this afternoon, gave me Niagara, its superb severity of action and color and majestic grouping, in one short, inde- scribable siiow. We were very slowly crossing the Sus- pension bridge— not a full stop anywhere, but next to it— the day clear, sunny, still— and I out on the plat- form. The falls were in ])lain view about a mile off, i)ut very distinct, and no n^ar — hardly a murmur. The river tumbling green and white, far below me; the dark high banks, the plentiful umbrage, many bronze cedars, in sliadow; and temp(!ring and arciiing all the immense materiahty, a clear sky overhead, with a few while 178 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA clouds, limpid, spiritual, silent. Brief, and as quiet as brief, that picture — a remembrance always afterwards. Such are the things, indeed, I lay away with my life's rare and blessed bits of hours, reminiscent, past — the wild sea-storm I once saw one winter day, off Fire island — the elder Booth in Richard, that famous night forty years ago in the old Bowery — or Alboni in the chil- dren's scene in " Norma " — or night-views, I remember, on the field, after battles in Virginia — or the peculiar sentiment of moonlight and stars over the great Plains, western Kansas — or scooting up New York bay, with a stiff breeze and a good yacht, off Navesink. With these, I say, I henceforth place that view, that afternoon, that combination complete, that five minutes' perfect absorption of Niagara — not the great majestic gem alone by itself, but set complete in all its varied, full, indispensable surroundings. JAUNTING TO CANADA To go back a little, I left Philadelphia, 9th and Green streets, at 8 o'clock, p. M., June 3, on a first- class sleeper, by the Lehigh Valley (North Pennsyl- vania) route, through Bethlehem, Wilkesbarre,Waverly, and so (by Erie) on through Corning to Hornellsville, where we arrived at 8, morning, and had a bounteous breakfast. I must say I never put in such a good night on any railroad track — smooth, firm, the minimum of jolting, and all the .swiftness compatible with safety. So without change to Buffalo, and thence to Clifton, where we arrived early afternoon; then on to London, Ontario, Canada, in four more— less than twenty-two hours altogether. I am domiciled at the hospitable AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 179 house of my friends Dr. and Mrs. Bucke, in the ample and charming garden and lawns of the asylum. SUNDAY WITH THE INSANE Jtme 6. — Went over to the religious services (Episco- pal) main Insane asylum, held in a lofty, good-sized hall, third story. Plain boards, whitewash, plenty of cheap chairs, no ornament or color, yet all scrupulously clean and sweet. Some three hundred persons present, mostly patients. Everything, the prayers, a short ser- mon, the firm, orotund voice of the minister, and most of all, beyond any portraying or suggesting, that audi- ence, deeply impress'd me. I was furnish'd with an arm-chair near the pulpit, and sat facing the motley, yet perfectly well-behaved and orderly congregation. The quaint dresses and bonnets of some of the women, several very old and gray, here and there like the heads in old pictures. O the looks that came from those faces ! There were two or three I shall probably never forget. Nothing at all markedly repulsive or hideous — strange enough I did not see one such. Our com- mon humanity, mine and yours, everywhere: "The same old blood — the same red, running blood;" yet behind most, an inferr'd arricre of such storms, such wrecks, such mysteries, fires, lov^e, wrong, greed for wealth, religious problems, crosses — mirror'd from those crazed faces (yet now temporarily so calm, like still waters,) all the woes and sad happenings of life and death — now from everyone the devotional element radiating— was it not, indeed, f/ic peace of (uxf tliat passcf/i all u)idc7'sta)ii{i)i!r, strange as it may sound? I can only say that I took Icjng and searching eye-sweeps 1 80 AUTOBIOGR APHI A as I sat there, and it seem'd so, rousing unprecedented thoughts, problems unanswerable. A very fair choir, and melodeon accompaniment. They sang " Lead, kindly light," after the sermon. Many join'd in the beautiful hymn, to which the minister read the intro- ductory text, ** III the daytime also He led tJie7n with a cloudy and all the night with a light of fire,'' Then the words: Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on. The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead thou me on. Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me. I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that thou Should'st lead me on; I lov'd to choose and see my path; but now Lead thou me on. I loved the garish day, and spite of fears " Pride ruled my will; remember not past years. A couple of days after, I went to the ''Refractory building," under special charge of Dr. Beemer, and through the wards pretty thoroughly, both the men's and women's. I have since made many other visits of the kind through the asylum, and around among the detach'd cottages. As far as I could see, this is among the most advanced, perfected, and kindly and ration- ally carried on, of all its kind in America. It is a town in itself, with many buildings and a thousand inhabitants. I learn that Canada, and especially this ample and populous province, Ontario, has the very best and plentiest benevolent institutions in all departments. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA l8l A WEEK'S VISIT TO BOSTON May 7, 'c?7. — Seems as if all the ways and means of American travel to-day had been settled, not only with reference to speed and directness, but for the comfort of women, children, invalids, and old fellows like me. I went on by a through train that runs daily from Washington to the Yankee metropolis without change. You get in a sleeping-car soon after dark in Philadel- phia, and after ruminating an hour or two, have your bed made up if you like, draw the curtains, and go to sleep in it — fly on through Jersey to New York— hear in your half-slumbers a dull jolting and bumping sound or two — are unconsciously toted from Jersey city by a midnight steamer around the Battery and under the big bridge to the track of the New Haven road — re- sume your flight eastward, and early the next morning you wake up in Boston. All of which was my experi- ence. I wanted to go to the Revere house. A tall un- known gentleman, (a fellow-passenger on his way to Newport he told me, I had just chatted a few moments before with him,) assisted me out through the depot crowd, procured a hack, put me in it with my traveling bag, saying smilingly and quietly, " Now I want you to let this be ;//j/ ride," paid the driver, and before I could remonstrate bow'd himself off. The occasion of my jaunt, I suppose I had better say here, was for a public reading of *' the death of Abra- ham Lincoln " essay,* on the sixteenth anniversary of * This lecture was read by Mr. Whitman for a number of years successive- ly on the same anniversary, sometimes before a few friends, sometimes in pub- lic. Besides the occasion here noted, it was delivered before large audiences at New York in 1879 ^^d 1887, and at Philadelphia in 1880 and 1890. — A. S. 1 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA that tragedy; which reading duly came off, night of April 15. Then I linger'd a week in Boston — felt pret- ty well (the mood propitious, my paralysis lull'd)^ went around everywhere, and saw all that was to be seen, especially human beings. Boston's immense material growth — -commerce, finance, commission stores, the plethora of goods, the crowded streets and sidewalks — made of course the first surprising show. In my trip out West, last year, I thought the wand of future prosperity, future empire, must soon surely be wielded by St. Louis, Chicago, beautiful Denver, per- haps San Francisco; but I see the said wand stretch'd out just as decidedly m Boston, with just as much cer- tainty of staying; evidences of copious capital — indeed no centre of the New World ahead of it, (half the big railroads in the West are built with Yankees' money, and they take the dividends.) Old Boston with its zigzag streets and multitudinous angles, (crush up a sheet of letter-paper in your hand, throw it down, stamp it fiat, and that is a map of old Boston) — new Boston with its miles upon miles of large and costly houses — Beacon street. Commonwealth avenue, and a hundred others. But the best new departures and ex- pansions of Boston, and of all the cities of New Eng- land, are in another direction. THE BOSTON OF TO-DAY In the letters we get from Dr. Schliemann (interest- ing but fishy) about his excavations there in the far-off Homeric area, I notice cities, ruins, &c., as he digs them out of their graves, are certain to be in layers — AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 83 that is to say, upon the foundation of an old concern, very far down indeed, is always another city or set of ruins, and upon that another superadded — and some- times upon that still another — each representing either a long or rapid stage of growth and develop- ment, different from its predecessor, but unerringly growing out of and resting on it. In the moral, emo- tional, heroic, and human growths, (the main of a race in my opinion,) something of this kind has certainly taken place in Boston. The New England metropolis of to-day may be described as sunny, (there is some- thing else that makes warmth, mastering even winds and meteorologies, though those are not to be sneez'd at,) joyous, receptive, full of ardor, sparkle, a certain element of yearning, magnificently tolerant, yet not to be fool'd ; fond of good eating and drinking — costly in costume as its purse can buy; and all through its best average of houses, streets, people, that subtle some- thing (generally thought to be climate, but it is not — it is something indefinable in the race, the turn of its development) which effuses behind the whirl of animation, study, business, a happy and joyous public spirit, as distinguish'd from a sluggish and saturnine one. Makes me think of the glints we get (as in Symonds's books) of the jolly old Greek cities. Indeed there is a good deal of the Hellenic in B., and the people are getting handsomer too — padded out, with freer motions, and with color in their faces. I never saw (although this is not Greek) so vc\'AX\y foic-lookuig gray haiYd luojiieii. At my lecture I caught myself pausing more tlian once to look at them, plentiful everywhere through the audience — healthy and wifely 184 AUTOBTOGRAPHIA and motherly, and wonderfully charming and beauti- ful — I think such as no time or land but ours could show. MY TRIBUTE TO FOUR POETS April 16. — A short but pleasant visit to Longfellow. I am not one of the calling kind, but as the author of ** Evangeline " kindly took the trouble to come and see me three years ago in Camden, where I was ill, I felt not only the impulse of my own pleasure on that oc- casion, but a duty. He was the only particular emi- nence I called on in Boston, and I shall not soon forget his lit-up face and glowing warmth and cour- tesy, in the modes of what is called the old school. And now just here I feel the impulse to interpolate something about the mighty four who stamp this first American century with its birth-marks of poetic litera- ture. In a late magazine one of my reviewers, who ought to know better, speaks of my '' attitude of con- tempt and scorn and intolerance " toward the leading poets — of my ''deriding" them, and preaching their "uselessness." If anybody cares to know what I think — and have long thought and avow'd — about them, I am entirely willing to propound. I can't imagine any better luck befalling these States for a poetical begin- ning and initiation than has come from Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. Emerson, to me, stands unmistakably at the head, but for the others I am at a loss where to give any precedence. Each illus- trious, each rounded, each distinctive. Emerson for his sweet, vital-tasting melody, rhym'd philosophy, and poems as amber-clear as the honey of the wild bee AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 85 he loves to sing. Longfellow for rich color, graceful forms and incidents— all that makes life beautiful and love refined — competing with the singers of Europe on their own ground, and, with one exception, better and finer work than that of any of them. Bryant pulsing the first interior verse-throbs of a mighty world — bard of the river and the wood, ever conveying a taste of open air, with scents as from hayfields, grapes, birch- borders— always lurkingly fond of threnodies — begin- ning and ending his long career with chants of death, with here and there through all, poems, or passages of poems, touching the highest universal truths, enthu- siasms, duties — morals as grim and eternal, if not as stormy and fateful,' as anything in Eschylus. While in Whittier, with his special themes — (his outcropping love of heroism and war, for all his Quakerdom, his verses at times like the measur'd step of Cromwell's old veterans) — in Whittier lives the zeal, the moral energy, that founded New England — the splendid rec- titude and ardor of Luther, Milton, George Fox — I must not, dare not, say the wilfulness and narrowness — though doul)tlcss the world needs now, and always will need, almost above all, just such narrowness and wilfulness. Sinu/iiy, April //. — An hour and a half, late this af- ternoon, in silence and half light, in the great nave of Memorial hall, Cambridge, the walls thickly cover'd with mural tablets, bearing the names of students and graduates of the university who fell in the secession war. April 2j. — It was well I got away in fair order, for if I had staid another week I should have been killed with kindness, and with eating and drinking. 1 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA BIRDS— AND A CAUTION May 14. — Home again; down temporarily in the Jersey woods. Between 8 and 9 A. M. a full concert of birds, from different quarters, in keeping with the fresh scent, the peace, the naturalness all around me. I am lately noticing the russet-back, size of the robin or a trifle less, light breast and shoulders, with irregu- lar dark stripes — tail long — sits hunch'd up by the hour these days, top of a tall bush, or some tree, sing- ing blithely. I often get near and listen, as he seems tame; I like to watch the working of his bill and throat, the quaint sidle of his body, and flex of his long tail. I hear the woodpecker, and night and early morning the shuttle of the whip-poor-will —noons, the gurgle of thrush delicious, and 7iieo-o-ow of the cat- bird. Many I cannot name; but I do not very partic- ularly seek information. (You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft; a certain free margin, and even vagueness— perhaps ignorance, credulity — helps your enjoyment of these things, and of the sen- timent of feather'd, wooded, river, or marine Nature generally. I repeat it — don't want to know too exact- ly, or the reasons why. My own notes have been written off-hand in the latitude of middle New Jersey. Though they describe what I saw — what appear'd to me — I dare say the expert ornithologist, botanist, or entomologist will detect more than one slip in them.) MY NATIVE SAND AND SALT ONCE MORE Jicly 2j, '81. — Far Rockaway, L. /. — A good day here, on a jaunt, amid the sand and salt, a steady AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 187 breeze setting in trom the sea, the sun shining, the sedge-odor, the noise of the surf, a mixture of hissing and booming, the milk-white crests curHng over. 1 had a leisurely bath and naked ramble as of old, on the warm-gray shore-sands, my companions off in a boat in deeper water — (I shouting to them Jupiter's menaces against the gods, from Pope's Homer.) July 28 — to Long Braiich. — 8X A. M., on the steamer ** Plymouth Rock," foot of 23d street, New York, for Long Branch. Another fine day, fine sights, the shores, the shipping and bay — everything comforting to the body and spirit of me. (1 find the human and objective atmosphere of New York city and Brooklyn more affiliative to me than any other.) An hour later — Still on the steamer, now sniffing the salt very plain- ly — the long pulsating swash as our boat steams sea- ward — the hills of Navesink and many passing vessels — the air the best part of all. At Long Branch the bulk of the day, stopt at a good hotel, took all very leisurely, had an excellent dinner, and then drove for over two hours about the place, especially Ocean ave- nue, the finest drive one can imagine, seven or eight miles right along the beach. In all directions costly villas, palaces, millionaires — (but few among them I opine like my friend George W. Childs, whose per- sonal integrity, generosity, unafTected simplicity, go beyond all worldly wealth.) HOT WEATHER NEW YORK August. — In the big city awhile. Even the height of the dog-days, there is a good deal of fun about New York, if you only avoid fluster, and take all the buoy- l88 AUTOBTOGRAPHIA ant wholesomeness that offers. More comfort, too, than most folks think. A middle-aged man, with plenty of money in his pocket, tells me that he has been off for a month to all the swell places, has dis- burs'd a small fortune, has been hot and out of kilter everywhere, and has return'd home and lived in New York city the last two weeks quite contented and hap- py. People forget when it is hot here, it is generally hotter still in other places. New York is so situated, with the great ozonic brine on both sides, it comprises the most favorable health-chances in the world. (If only the suffocating crowding of some of its tenement houses could be broken up.) I find 1 never sufficiently realized how beautiful are the upper two-thirds of Manhattan island. I am stopping at Mott Haven, and have been familiar now for ten days with the region above One-Hundredth street, and along the Harlem river and Washington heights. Am dwelling a few days with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. J., and a merry housefull of young ladies. Am putting the last touches on the printer's copy of my new volume of ''Leaves of Grass" — the completed book at last. Work at it two or three hours, and then go down and loaf along the Harlem river; have just had a good spell of this recreation. The sun sufficiently veil'd, a soft south breeze, the river full of small or large shells (light taper boats) darting up and down, some singly, now and then long ones with six or eight young fel- lows practicing — very inspiriting sights. Two fine yachts lie anchored off the shore. I linger long, enjoy- ing the sundown, the glow, the streak'd sky, the heights, distances, shadows. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 1 89 Aug. 10. — As I haltingly ramble an hour or two this forenoon by the more secluded parts of the shore, or sit under an old cedar half way up the hill, the city near in view, many young parties gather to bathe or swim, squads of boys, generally twos or threes, some larger ones, along the sand-bottom, or off an old pier close by. A peculiar and pretty carnival — at its height a hundred lads or young men, very democratic, but all decent behaving. The laughter, voices, calls, re- sponses — the springing and diving of the bathers from the great string-piece of the decay 'd pier, where climb or stand long ranks of them, naked, rose-color'd, with movements, postures ahead of any sculpture. To all this, the sun, so bright, the dark-green shadow of the hills the other side, the amber-rolling waves, changing as the tide comes in to a transparent tea-color — the fre- quent splash of the playful boys, sousing — the glittering drops sparkling, and the good western breeze blowing. SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES— MEMORIES Atig. 16. — "Chalk a big mark for to-day," was one of the sayings of an old sportsman-friend of mine, when he had had unusually good luck — come home thoroughly tired, but with satisfactory results of fish or birds. Well, to-day might warrant such a mark for me. Everything propitious from the start. An hour's fresh stimulation, coming down ten miles of Manhattan island by railroad and 8 o'clock stage. Then an excel- lent breakfast at Pfaff's restaurant, 24th street. Our host himself, an old friend of mine, ([uickly appcar'd on the scene to welcome me and bring up the news, and, first opening a big fat bottle of the best wine in igO AUTOBIOGRAPHIA the cellar, talk about ante-bellum times, '59 and '60, and the jovial suppers at his then Broadway place, near Bleecker street. Ah, the friends and names and fre- quenters, those times, that place. Most are dead — Ada Clare, Wilkins, Daisy Sheppard, O'Brien, Henry Clapp, Stanley, Mullin, Wood, Brougham, Arnold — all gone. And there Pfaff and I, sitting opposite each other at the little table, gave a remembrance to them in a style they would have themselves fully confirm'd, namely, big, brimming, fill'd-up champagne-glasses, drain'd in abstracted silence, very leisurely, to the last drop. (Pfaff is a generous German restaurateur, silent, stout, jolly, and I should say the best selecter of cham- pagne in America.) A DISCOVERY OF OLD AGE Perhaps the best is always cumulative. One's eating and drinking one wants fresh, and for the nonce, right off, and have done with it — but I would not give a straw for that person or poem, or friend, or city, or work of art, that was not more grateful the second time than the first — and more still the third. Nay, I do not believe any grandest eligibility ever comes forth at first. In my own experience, (persons, poems, places, characters,) I discover the best hardly ever at first, (no absolute rule about it, however,) sometimes suddenly bursting forth, or stealthily opening to me, perhaps after years of unwitting familiarity, unapprecia- tion, usage. A VISIT, AT THE LAST, TO R. W. EMERSON Concord, Mass, — Out here on a visit — elastic, mellow, Indian-summery weather. Came to-day from Boston, AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I9I (a pleasant ride of 40 minutes by steam, through Somer- ville, Belmont, Waltham, Stony Brook, and other lively towns,) convoy'd by my friend F. B. Sanborn, and to his ample house, and the kindness and hospital- ity of Mrs. S. and their fine family. Am writing this under the shade of some old hickories and elms, just after 4 p. M., on the porch, within a stone's throw of the Concord river. Off against me, across stream, on a meadow and side-hill, haymakers are gathering and wagoning-in probably their second or third crop. The spread of emerald-green and brown, the knolls, the score or two of little haycocks dotting the meadow, the loaded-up wagons, the patient horses, the slow- strong action of the men and pitchforks — all in the just-waning afternoon, with patches of yellow sun- sheen, mottled by long shadows — a cricket shrilly chirp- ing, herald of the dusk — a boat with two figures noise- lessly gliding along the little river, passing under the stone bridge-arch — the slight settling haze of aerial moisture, the sky and the peacefulness expanding in all directions and overhead — fill and soothe me. Sanie cvenijig. — Never had I a better piece of luck befall me: a long and blessed evening with Emerson, in a way I couldn't have wished better or difi'erent. For nearly two hours he has been placidly sitting where I could see his face in the best light, near me. Mrs. S.'s back-parl(jr well fill'd with people, neighbors, many fresh and charming faces, women, mostly young, but some old. My friend A. B. Alcott wwiX liis daughter Louisa were there early. A good deal of talk, tlic sub- ject Henry Thr)r(^au — som(! new glints of his life and fortunes, with letters to and fn^n him — (jne of the best 192 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA by Margaret Fuller, others by Horace Greeley, Chan- ning, &c. — one from Thoreau himself, most quaint and interesting. (No doubt I seem'd very stupid to the room-full of company, taking hardly any part in the conversation; but I had **my own pail to milk in," as the Swiss proverb puts it.) My seat and the relative arrangement were such that, without being rude, or anything of the kind, I could just look squarely at E., which I did a good part of the two hours. On enter- ing, he had spoken very briefly and politely to several of the company, then settled himself in his chair, a trifle push'd back, and, though a listener and appar- ently an alert one, remain'd silent through the whole talk and discussion. A lady friend quietly took a seat next him, to give special attention. A good color in his face, eyes clear, with the well-known expression of sweetness, and the old clear-peering aspect quite the same. Next Day,. — Several hours at E.'s house, and dinner there. An old familiar house, (he has been in it thirty- five years,) with surroundings, furnishment, roominess, and plain elegance and fullness, signifying democratic ease, sufficient opulence, and an admirable old-fash- ioned simplicity — modern luxury, with its mere sumptu- ousness and affectation, either touch'd lightly upon or ignored altogether. Dinner the same. Of course the best of the occasion (Sunday, September 18, '81) was the sight of E. himself. As just said, a healthy color in the cheeks, and good light in the eyes, cheery ex- pression, and just the amount of talking that best suited, namely, a word or short phrase only where needed, and almost always with a smile. Besides AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I93 Emerson himself, Mrs. E., with their daughter Ellen, the son Edward and his wife, with my friend F. S. and Mrs. S., and others, relatives and intimates. Mrs. Emerson, resuming the subject of the evening before, (I sat next to her,) gave me further and fuller informa- tion about Thoreau, who, years ago, during Mr. E.'s absence in Europe, had lived for sometime in the fam- ily, by invitation. OTHER CONCORD NOTATIONS Though the evening at Mr. and Mrs. Sanborn's, and the memorable family dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Emer- son's, have most pleasantly and permanently fill'd my memory, I must not slight other notations of Concord. I went to the old Manse, walk'd through the ancient garden, enter'd the rooms, noted the quaintness, the unkempt grass and bushes, the little panes in the win- dows, the low ceilings, the spicy smell, the creepers embowering the light. Went to the Concord battle ground, which is close by, scann'd French's statue, •'the Minute Man," read Emerson's poetic inscription on the base, linger'd a long while on the bridge, and stopp'd by the grave of the unnamed British soldiers buried there the day after the fight in April '75. Then riding on, (thanks to my friend Miss M. and her spirited white ponies, she driving them,) a half hour at Haw- thorne's and Thoreau's graves. I got out and went up of course on foot, and stood a long while and pondcr'd. They lie close together in a pleasant wooded spot well up the cemetery hill, " Sleepy Hollow." The Hat sur- face of the first was densely cover'd by myrtle, with a l:)order of arbor-vitae, and the other had a brown head- 194 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA stone, moderately elaborate, with inscriptions. By Henry's side lies his brother John, of whom much was expected, but he died young. Then to Walden pond, that beautiful embower'd sheet of water, and spent over an hour there. On the spot in the woods where Thoreau had his solitary house is now quite a cairn of stones, to mark the place; I too carried one and de- posited on the heap. As we drove back, saw the "School of Philosophy," but it was shut up, and I would not have it open'd for me. Near by stopp'd at the house of W. T. Harris, the Hegelian, who came out, and we had a pleasant chat while I sat in the wagon. I shall not soon forget those Concord drives, and especially that charming Sunday forenoon one with my friend Miss M., and the white ponies. BOSTON COMMON— MORE OF EMERSON Oct, 10-13. — I spend a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights — every mid- day from 11.30 to about i — and almost every sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially the old elms along Tremont and Beacon streets, and have come to a sociable-silent understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air, (yet crispy-cool enough,) as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks. Up and down this breadth by Beacon street, between these same old elms, I walk'd for two hours, of a bright sharp Febru- ary mid-day twenty-one years ago, with Emerson, then in his prime, keen, physically and morally magnetic, arm'd at every point, and when he chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual. During those two hours he was the talker and I the listener. It was AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I95 an argument-statement, reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing home, (like an army corps in order, artil- lery, cavalry, infantry,) of all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems, "Children of Adam." More precious than gold to me that dissertation — it afforded me, ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson ; each point of E.'s statement was unanswerable, no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put — and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. " What have you to say then to such things?" said E., pausing in conclusion. ''Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more set- tled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exem- plify it," was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never waver'd or was touch'd with qualms, (as I confess I had been two or three times be- fore.) AN OSSIANIC NIGHT— DEAREST FRIENDS jYov., *Si. — Again back in Camden. As I cross the Delaware in long trips to-night, between 9 and 1 1, the scene overhead is a peculiar one — swift sheets of flitting vapor-gauze, follow'd by dense clouds throwing an inky pall on everything. Then a spell of that transparent steel- gray black sky I have noticed und(*r similar cir( iim- stances, on which the moon would i)cam for a few moments with c^alm lustre, throwing down a broad dazzle of highway on the waters ; then the misls caiccr- ing again. All silently, yet driven as if by the furies 196 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA they sweep along, sometimes quite thin, sometimes thicker — a real Ossianic night — amid the whirl, absent or dead friends, the old, the past, somehow tenderly suggested — while the Gael-strains chant themselves from the mists — [" Be thy soul blest, O Carril ! in the midst of thy eddying winds. O that thou wouldst come to my hall when I am alone by night ! And thou dost come, my friend. I hear often thy light hand on my harp, when it hangs on the distant wall, and the feeble sound touches my ear. Why dost thou not speak to me in my grief, and tell me when I shall be-* hold my friends ? But thou passest away in thy mur- muring blast ; the wind whistles through the gray hairs of Ossian."] How or why I know not, just at the moment, but I too muse and think of my best friends in their distant homes — of William O'Connor, of Maurice Bucke, of John Burroughs, and of Mrs. Gilchrist — friends of my soul — stanchest friends of my other soul, my poems. AT PRESENT WRITING— PERSONAL A letter to a Ge7^nian friend — extract May ji. '82. — ** From to-day I enter upon my 64th year. The paralysis that first affected me nearly ten years ago, has since remain'd, with varying course — seems to have settled quietly down, and will probably continue. I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my spirits are first-rate. I go around in pub- lic almost every day — now and then take long trips, by railroad or boat, hundreds of miles — live largely in the open air — am sunburnt and stout, (weigh 190)— keep up my activity and interest in life, people, progress, AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I97 and the questions of the day. About two-thirds of the time I am quite comfortable. What mentality I ev^er had remains entirely unaffected; though physically I am a half paralytic, and likely to be so, long as I live. But the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish'd — I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate relatives — and of enemies I really make no account." FINAL CONFESSIONS— LITERARY TESTS So draw near their end these garrulous notes. There have doubtless occurr'd some repetitions, technical errors in the consecutiveness of dates, in the minutiae of botanical, astronomical, &c., exactness, and perhaps elsewhere; — for in gathering up, writing, peremptorily dispatching copy, this hot weather, (last of July and through August, '82,) and delaying not the printers, I have had to hurry along, no time to spare. But in the deepest veracity of all men — in reflections of objects, scenes. Nature's outpourings, to my senses and recep- tivity, as they seem'd to me — in the work of giving those who care for it, some authentic glints, specimen- days of my life — and in the bona fide spirit and relations, from author to reader, on all the subjects design'd, and as far as they go, I feel to make unmitigated claims. The synr)psis of my early life, Long Island, New York city, and so forth, and the diary-jottings in the Seces- sion war, tell their own story. I\Iy plan in starting what constitutes most of the middle of the book, was originally for hints and data (A a Nalure-pocni that should carry one's experiences a few hours, conimenc- 198 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA ingat noon-flush, and so through the after-part of the day — I suppose led to such idea by own life's afternoon having arrived. But I soon found I could move at more ease by giving the narrative at first hand. (Then there is a humiliating lesson one learns, in serene hours, of a fine day or night. Nature seems to look on all fixed-up poetry and art as something almost imperti- nent.) Thus I went on, years following, various seasons and areas, spinning forth my thought beneath the night and stars, (or as I was confined to my room by half-sick- ness,) or at midday looking out upon the sea, or far north steaming over the Saguenay's black breast, jot- ting all down in the loosest sort of chronological order, and here printing from my impromptu notes, hardly even the seasons group'd together, or anything correct- ed — so afraid of dropping what smack of outdoors or sun or starlight might cling to the lines, I dared not try to meddle with or smooth them. Every now and then, (not often, but for a foil,) I carried a book in my pocket — or perhaps tore out from some broken or cheap edition a bunch of loose leaves; most always had some- thing of the sort ready, but only took it out when the mood demanded. In that way, utterly out of reach of literary conventions, I re-read many authors. I cannot divest my appetite of literature, yet I find myself eventually tiying it all by Nature — -first premises many call it, but really the crowning results of all, laws, tallies and proofs. (Has it never occurr'd to any one how the last deciding tests applicable to a book are entirely outside of technical and grammatical ones, and that any truly first-class production has little or AUTOBIOGRAPHIA I99 nothing to do with the rules and calibres of ordinary critics ? or the bloodless chalk of Allibone's Dictionary ? I have fancied the ocean and the daylight, the mount- ain and the forest, putting their spirit in a judgment on our books. I have fancied some disembodied human soul giving its verdict.) NATURE AND DEMOCRACY— MORALITY Democracy most of all affiliates with the open air, is sunny and hardy and sane only with Nature — just as much as Art is. Something is required to temper both — to check them, restrain them from excess, morbidity. I have wanted, before departure, to bear special testi- mony to a very old lesson and requisite. American Democracy, in its myriad personalities, in factories, work-shops, stores, offices — through the dense streets and houses of cities, and all their manifold sophis- ticated life — must either be fibred, vitalized, by regu- ular contact with out-door light and air and growths, farm-scenes, animals, fields, trees, birds, sun-warmth and free skies, or it will morbidly dwindle and pale. We cannot have grand races of mechanics, work peo- ple, and commonalty, (the only specific purpose of America,) on any less terms. I conceive of no flourish- ing and heroic elements of Democracy in the Ihiited States, or of Democracy maintaining itself at all, with- out the Nature-element forming a main part — to he its health-element and beauty-element — to really underlie the whole politics, sanity, religior. and art of the New World. Finally, the morality. " Virtue." said Marcus Aure- lius, " what is it, only a living and enthusiastic syni- 200 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA pathy with Nature ? " Perhaps indeed the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same — to bring people back from V their persistent strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless average, divine, original concrete. ADDITIONAL NOTE, 1887, TO ENGLISH EDITION *' SPECIMEN DAYS " As I write these lines I still continue living in Cam- den, New Jersey, America. Coming this way from Washington city, on my road to the sea-shore (and a temporary rest, as I supposed) in the early summer of 1873, I broke down disabled, and have dwelt here, as my central residence, all the time since — almost 14 years. In the preceding pages I have described how, during those years, I partially recuperated (in 1876) from my worst paralysis by going down to Timber Creek, living close to Nature, and domiciling with my dear friends, George and Susan Stafford. From 1877 or '8 to '83 or '4 I was well enough to travel around, considerably — journey'd westward to Kansas, leisurely exploring the Prairies, and on to Denver and the Rocky Mountains; another time north to Canada, where I spent most of. the summer with my friend Dr. Bucke, and jaunted along the great lakes, and the St. Lawrence and Saguenay rivers; another time to Boston, to properly print the final edition of my poems (I was there over two months, and had a ** good time.") I have so brought out the completed " Leaves of Grass " during this period; also "Specimen Days," of which the foregoing is a transcript; collected and re-edited AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 20I the "Democratic Vistas" cluster — commemorated Abraham Lincoln's death, on the successive anniversa- ries of Its occurrence, by delivering my lecture on it ten or twelve times; and " put in," through many a month and season, the aimless and resultless ways of most human lives. Thus the last 14 years have pass'd. At present (end- days of March, 1887— I am nigh entering my 69th year) I find myself continuing on here, quite dilapi- dated and even wreck'd bodily from the paralysis, &c. —but in good heart (to use a Long Island country phrase,) and with about the same mentality as ever. The worst of it is, I have been growing feebler quite rapidly for a year, and now can't walk around— hardly from one room to the next. I am forced to stay in- doors and in my big chair nearly all the time. We have had a sharp, dreary winter too, and it has pinch'd me. I am alone most of the time: every week, indeed almost everyday, write some — reminiscences, essays, sketches, for the magazines; and read, or rather I should say dawdle over books and papers a good deal— spend half the day at that. Nor can I finisli this note without putting on record —wafting over sea from hence— my deepest thanks to certain friends and helpers in the P^ritish islands, as well as in America. Dear, even in the abstract, is such nattering unction always no doubt to the soul ! Nigher still, if pcjssible, I myself have been, and am to-day in- debted to such helj) for my very sustenance, rlothino-, shelter, and continuity. And 1 would not !;(» to the grave without briefly, but jjlamly, as 1 here rlo. ac- knowledging— may : not say even glorying in il ^^ 202 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA TO BE PRESENT ONLY At the Co7npli7ne7itary Dinner, Cajnden, New Jersey , May ji, zc?c?p.— Walt Whitman said: My friends, though announced to give an address, there is no such intention. Following the impulse ot the spirit, (for I am at least half of Quaker stock) I have obey'd the command to come and look at you, for a miinute, and show myself, face to face; which is proba- bly the best I can do. But I have felt no command to make a speech; and shall not therefore attempt any. All I have felt the imperative conviction to say I have already printed In my books of poems or prose; to which I refer any who may be curious. And so, hail and farewell. Deeply acknowledging this deep com- pliment, with my best respects and love to you per- sonally — to Camden — to New-Jersey, and to all rep- resented here — ^you must excuse me from any word further. SOME PERSONAL AND OLD AGE JOTTINGS (1891) About myself at present. I will soon enter upon my 73d year, if I live — have pass'd an active life, as coun- try school-teacher, gardener, printer, carpenter, au- thor and journalist, domicil'd in nearly all the United States and principal cities. North and South — went to the front (moving about and occupied as army nurse and missionary) during the Secession war, 1861 to '65, and in the Virginia hospitals and after the battles of that time, tending the Northern and Southern wound- ed alike — work'd down South and in Washington city AUTOBIOGRAPHIA 203 arduously three years — contracted the paralysis which I have suffer'd ever since — and now live in a little cot- tage of my own, near the Delaware in New Jersey. My chief book, unrhym'd and unmetrical (it has taken thirty years, peace and war, "a horning") has its aim as once said, "to utter the same old human critter — but now in Democratic American modern and scien- tific conditions." Then I have publish'd two prose works ''Specimen Days," and a late one " November Boughs." (A little volume "Good-bye my Fancy " is soon to be out, wh' will finish the matter.) I do not propose here to enter the much-fought field of the literary criticism of any of those works. But for a few portraiture or descriptive bits. To-day in the upper of a little w^ooden house of two stories near the Delaware river, east shore, sixty miles up from the sea, is a rather large 2o-by-2o low ceiling'd room something like a big old ship's cabin. The fioor, three quarters of it with an ingrain carpet, is half cover'd by a deep litter of books, papers, magazines, thrown-down letters and circulars, rejected manuscripts, memoranda, bits of light or strong twine, a bui.dle to be " ex- prcss'd," and two or three venerable scrap books. In the room stanrl two large tables (one of ancient St. Domingo mahogany with immense leax'cs) cover'd by a jumble of more papers, a \arie(l and copious array of writing materials, sexeral glass and (Miina \essels or jars, some with cologne-water, others with real hone\-. granulated sugar, a large bnneli of beantifiil fresh yel- low chrysanthemums, some letters and eiuc-lopt pct oi- not, are transfusi-d with the wild, uncanny, slii\eriii- eharaeliTof all the old myths of tlu; North, a slran^'e pnnj^'ent eliill, so to speak, as if the breath that '^avr 1 hem voi(M» weri' blown across leagues of iceber*,^ and ^dacier." — ^7/ /raf/o Tinirs. ''When Mr. Sharp K'aves tlu^ North with its wild stories of love and lighting' and death, and carries us away with him in Popular New Books. the ' Sospiri di Roma ' to the warmth and the splendor of tht South, he equally shows the creative faculty. He is a true lover of Earth with her soothing touch and soft caress; he lies in her arms, he hears her whispered secret, and through the real discovers the spiritual.'' — Philadelphia Record. "" The poems combine a gracefulness of rhj'thm and a subtle sweetness."' — Baltimore American. Travel, Biography, and Essays. The German Emperor and His Eastern !N"eigli- bors. — By Poultxey Bi&elow. Cable despatclies state that Mr. Bigelow has been expelled from Russia for writing this volume. Interesting personal notes of his old playmate's boyhood and education are given, to- gether with a description of the Emperor's army, his course and policy since accession, and the condition of affairs on the Russian and Roumanian frontiers. 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Mr. Garner's articles, published in the leading periodicals and journals touching upon this subject, have been widely read and favorably commented upon by scientific men both here and abroad. "The Speech of Monkeys " embodies his researches up to the present time. It is divided into two parts, the first being a record of ex- periments with monkeys and other animals, and the second part a treatise on the theory of speech. The work is written so as to bring the subject within reach of the casual reader without impairing its scientific value. Small 8-o, with Frontispiece, Cloth, $1.00. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 PreservatlonTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111