Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/416

 WHITMAN

^VIilTMAN

ror, ami in 1836 founded the Long Islander in Huntington, a weekly pajwr, which he liiniself printed for about a year ; the paper was still ex- tant in ll»0:j. He subseiiuently tauglit school in tiie summer and in the winter was connected as printer and writer with the Aurora and Tattler in New York city, and with other papers, and was editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 18-45- 47. The following year he spent in walking tours botli in the United States and in Canada ; was a member of the staflf of the Crescent, New Orleans. La., 1848-49; visited the southern and western states with his brother. 1849-51 ; returned to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he opened a small book store and printing-office, and founded the Free- iiuin, publishing it first as a weekly and after- ward as a daily, and engaged in carpentering and building. He abandoned the latter occu- pation to devote himself to the producing of his Leaves of Grass, which he himself assisted in set- ting up and printing and which was published in 1855. Of this first edition only about a dozen copies were issued, besides a number of presenta- tion copies, several of which were returned to the author with expressions of the severest vitu- peration. His work, however, received favor- able criticism from the North American Review and from Ralph Waldo Emerson. A second edition appeared in 1856, and a third in Boston, Mass., in 1860. A wide diversity of opinion was immediately created, and the poet became an object of ridicule and of encomiums, both in Euroi)e and America. The so-called " Whitman Cult " had its origin at this time and acquired an ever-widening coterie. Upon hearing that his brother, Col. George W. Whitman, had been wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, W^alt Whitman hastened to Virginia and reinained as a voluntary aid and nurse in the army hospitals, 186"2-65. He was appointed clerk in the depart- ment of the interior, W^ashington, D.C., in Feb- ruary, 18G5. but was soon after dismissed by his chief, the Hon. James Harlan, on account of the latter's condemnation of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Tliis resulted in a pamphlet written in defence of the poet by William Douglas O'Connor, and published in 1866 as " The Good Gray Poet : A Vindication." In 1865-66 appeared Walt ^^llit- nuin's I>rumta2)s, containing the famous burial liymn of President Lincoln. O Captain! My Cap- tain .' and Ulien Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloomed. Mr. Wliitman was transferred to the attorney-general's department, where he served until 1873, and subsequently lived with his brother's family in Camden, N..J., suffering from paralysis, his general health being greatly im- paired from his liosjiital service in the war. lie was again able to engage in literary work in 1875, and contributed to the yortli American lic-

^'iea', the Century and other publications, and after 1879 lectured in many cities on the death of Abraham Lincoln. In 1884 he removed to a small house on Mickle street in Camden, where lie spent the remainder of his life. He received a considerable income from the sale of his books, and subscriptions from friends both in England and America, in 1890 being the recipient of $1000 realized by Robert G. IngersoU's oration "Wreathe the Living Brows" delivered in Philadelphia, Pa. Whitman is placed by his biographer, Richard Maurice Bucke, among the seers, whose " spiritual eyes have been opened," and who " have created all the great modern re- ligions . . . and, tlirough religion and literature, modern civilization. Not that they have con- tributed any large numerical proportion of the books which have been written, but that they have produced the few books which have in- spired the larger number of all that have been written in modern times. . . . Of this new race, . . . Whitman stands among the foremost mem- bers. W^e cannot condemn him unless we con- demn his bretliren also. It is true that they were condemned each in his own day. It is also true that they all triumphed at last ; and so also undoubtedly will he." In addition to the separ- ate American editions of Leaves of Grass already mentioned, are those of 1876, 1882, 1892, 1894, 1897, and 1898. His other publications include : Democratic Vistas, prose essays (1871 ; London, 1888); Passage to India (1871) ; After all, not to Create Only (1871) ; As a Strong Bird on Pin- ions Free, and Other Poems (18'72); Two Rivulets (1873) ; Specimen Days and Collect (1883), con- taining his Memoranda during the War (1875) ; November Boughs (1887 ; 2d ed., 1888) ; Sands at Seventy (1888) ; Complete Poems and Prose (1888); Good Bye, My Fancy (1891); Selected Poems (1892) ; Complete Prose Works (1892 and 1898) ; and Atitobiograj^hia {IS02). The follow- ing were posthumously published : Calamus, let- ters (1897) ; The Wound Dresser, letters (1898) ; Walt Whitman at Home, by himself (1898) ; Notes and Fragments, edited by Richard Maurice Bucke (1899) ; and The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, edited by his literary executors R. M. Bucke, T. B. Harned and H. L. Traubel (London, 10 vols., 1902), the first three volumes containing his " Life," and the tentli volume his complete bibliography. See also; "Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person" (1867) and " Study of W'alt Wliitman " (1896), both by John Burroughs; " W^alt Whitman" by R. M. Bucke (1883); "The New Spirit" by Ellis Havelock (1890); "In re Walt Whitman" by his literary executors (1893); Robert Louis Stevenson's "Fa- miliar Studies of Men and Books " (1894) ; Thomas Donaldson's "Walt Whitman, the Man" (1896) j