WALT

WHITMAN.

I. HIS PERSONALITY.

THOSE who regard Whitman as being the most representative Bard of Democracy, of its innermost ideas, of its moving forces, of its hopes and destiny, must find an interest in tracing the early influences which helped to mould the poet's body and character. The modern scientific doctrine of the effect of environment is enforced and enlarged by Whitman himself; for he sees not only in social circumstances, in political constitutions, and in daily human contact, but in the earth and sky, the rivers and trees, silent influences which pass into man's being and affect his whole future. As Wordsworth found "beauty born of murmuring sound" passing into Lucy's face, so does Whitman discover "persons, substances, beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands" all contributing their elements to form the spiritual life of man. How natural, therefore, that we should turn to Whitman's early life to discover what were those agencies which stamped his nature with their seal.

On his father's side Whitman was of good English stock, possessed of what he terms "the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be." 1 Dr. Bucke tells us that the earliest lineal ancestor of Whitman he is able to trace was born in England about 1560. This person's son sailed from England in 1635, and lived at Milford, Connecticut, whence his son, some time before 1660, passed over to Long Island. At West Hills, in Long Island, the poet's great-grandfather, grandfather, and father lived; and he himself was born there on the 31st May, 1819. Dr. Bucke describes the Whitmans as "a solid, tall, strong-framed, long-lived race of men, moderate of speech, friendly, fond of their land and of horses and cattle, sluggish in their passions, but fearful when once started." 3 Several of them were soldiers under Washington in the Revolutionary War. The poet's father had learnt, as a youth, the carpenter's trade, was a quiet, serious man, fond of children and animals, a good citizen, parent, and neighbour. Idid his work so well that some of his frames are said to be still standing as good as ever. The large, quiet personality of his father is traceable throughout Whitman's work; and the hereditary interest in the carpentry is found in the "Song of the Broad Axe."

He

Whitman's mother was Louisa Van Velsor, of Dutch descent, a woman healthy in body and mind, of cheer

1 "Song of Myself."

Walt Whitman, by R. M. Bucke, M.D. (M'Kay, Philadelphia), p. 13.

3 Toid.

ful temper, marked spiritual nature, and generous heart. She had been a handsome girl, fond of life in the open air, a daring and spirited rider; so Whitman could boast of himself that he was

"Well-begotten, and raised by a perfect mother."

His great-grandmother, on the paternal side, lived to a great age, and when left a widow, managed her own farm lands, and herself directed the labour of her slaves, for there were slaves in the colony then. Of his two grandmothers, one was a Quakeress of beautiful character, who probably furnished the poet with that fine picture of a beautiful, aged woman in Leaves of Grass:

"Behold a woman!

She looks out from her Quaker cap; her face is

Clearer and more beautiful than the sky,

She sits in an arm-chair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse;

The sun just shines on her old white head.

Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen ;

Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.

The melodious character of the earth,

The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does not wish to go,

The justified mother of men." 1

The old homestead in which Whitman was born is

1 "From Noon to Starry Night." Leaves of Grass, P. 355.

thus described by Mr. John Burroughs: "The Whitmans, at the beginning of the present century, lived in a long storey-and-a-half farmhouse, hugely timbered, which is still standing. A great smoke-canopied kitchen, with vast hearth and chimney, formed 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 Indian pudding and milk. In the house, and in food and furniture, all was rude but substantial. No carpets or stoves were known, and no coffee and tea, and sugar only for the 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 laboured 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."1 Whitman tells us that "all along the island and its shores" he spent "intervals, many years, all seasons, sometimes riding, sometimes boating, but generally afoot (I was always then a good walker), absorbing fields, shores, marine incidents, characters, the bay-men, farmers, pilots,always had a plentiful acquaintance 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." (Written in 1882.) While living in Brooklyn from 1836 to 1850, he tells us, he loved to go to a bare, unfrequented shore, bathe and race up and down the hard sand, declaiming Shakspere and Homer to the surf and sea-gulls by the hour.2

The elements which entered into Whitman's life and built up his manhood are now revealed to us, and we see why he exclaims, " Muscle and pluck forever!" Country life, honest labour, simple tastes and rural joys, out-of-door living, the sea with its infinite suggestiveness and perpetual grandeur, the tramp by the shore or through the woods, life in the saddle and on the water, perfect health, the steeping of every sense in the voluptuous beauty of earth-all these things enabled Whitman to be the poet of the body. And the strong ties of home, the deep human sympathies,

Quoted in Whitman's Specimen Days and Collects, p. 11 (Glasgow, 1883).

2 Ibid, p. 14.