University of Virginia Library

Dating Whitman's Early Notebooks
by
Floyd Stovall

In the Harned Collection of Whitman materials in the Library of Congress there are six manuscript notebooks that contain early drafts of some verses published in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass or notes in prose preliminary to the writing of verse. These notebooks are listed in the 1855 catalog of the Whitman collections in the Library as items 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, and 87. Emory Holloway examined these, among other manuscripts, soon after they were given to the Library by Thomas B. Harned, one of Whitman's literary executors, and published portions of the notebooks, including items 80, 85, 86, and 87, but selected nothing from 83 and 84.[1] Later Clifton J. Furness published several disconnected excerpts from item 84, but as they were taken out of context they provide no clear impression of the notebook.[2] More recently Edward F. Grier has published a detailed analysis of the contents of Notebook 80.[3] I first examined these notebooks in the summer of 1934 and had microfilm copies made of five of them along with some later manuscripts. I still have the two spools containing microfilms of Notebooks 80, 84, and 86, and a later book (No. 91, about 1860-61). The spool containing two other early notebooks which I cannot now identify was lost in one of my major moves, probably when I moved from Texas to North Carolina in 1949. Microfilm readers were unavailable to me in 1934 and for several years afterward, and in the meantime I had become engaged in studies not involving the notebooks. Only recently have I been able to give close attention to them.[4]

In a footnote to his text of Notebook No. 80, Holloway calls it "the earliest Whitman notebook extant." He notes that it contains the date 1847 and three of Whitman's addresses: 71 Prince Street, Brooklyn, 30 Fulton Street (the office of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which Whitman edited from March 1846 to January, 1848), and 106 Myrtle Avenue. The Whitmans built the house on Prince Street and moved into it in the spring of 1847,

and they moved from that place to their new home on Myrtle Avenue in the spring of 1849. On this evidence chiefly he concludes that the entries in the notebook were made during the years 1847-49.[5] He says the first two addresses have been cancelled, but he fails to note that the significant part of the third address — "106 Myrtle" — is also cancelled. If, as I believe, Whitman meant to cancel this address it would seem, by the reasoning used by Holloway, that he must have been still using the notebook when he left Myrtle Avenue in September, 1852. Grier did notice this cancellation and came to the conclusion that certain entries in the book were made as late as 1852. He mentions Esther Shephard's opinion that the book dates from 1854, but he gives little weight to her evidence.[6] But Grier accepts Holloway's opinion that parts of the book were written as early as 1847. Until recently I was inclined to agree, but after closer study of the microfilms I have changed my mind.

Notebook No. 80, as stated on a sheet which is the first pictured in my microfilm, was bound in green board with a brown leather backstrip. Holloway does not mention the binding, but he contributes one interesting detail. The notebook, he said, "locks with a pencil thrust through three improvised leather loops." Whether the pencil was in it when he saw the book he does not say; if it was there when I saw it, I do not remember it. The pencil, if it was there, would have been removed before the microfilm was made. As the microfilm does reveal, these loops were fastened, presumably pasted, to the outside and inside edges of the covers, the middle one to the front cover and the upper and lower ones to the back. Thus, a pencil thrust through these three loops parallel to the backstrip would keep the book closed. The addresses mentioned above are written on the inside cover, or end paper; this is followed by a fly-leaf on the recto of which is written "Joseph Pemberton maker Liverpool" and below that "No. 41, 303" and some words I can't make out. Below a line drawn across the page are the words "Quartier au Sable" and "No. 51, 575." All of this, so far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the main contents of the book. The verso is blank. This fly-leaf is unruled on both sides. At the end of the book there is an end paper like the one at the front but no fly-leaf. All other pages in the book have vertical lines as in an account book, a single line about half an inch from the left edge, a single line about half an inch from the right edge, and a double line about an inch from the right edge. Holloway's footnote says, "Seven pages, apparently containing accounts, have been cut from the front of the book." I suppose he means seven leaves.

The stubs show on the microfilm that the pages were ruled vertically. Other pages in the interior of the book, not noted by Holloway but mentioned by Grier, may have been cut out leaving what on the microfilm look like stubs. On one of these stubs is a double row of zeros, further suggesting that the book had been used for accounts. When the microfilm was made the hinges were so loose that the edges of pages underneath the one microfilmed show and parts of some words can be distinguished.

At the top of page 17 (I follow Grier's numbering) is written in pencil the following: "1847 / April 19th mason commenc'd work on the basement rooms / mason paid in full." The date is in the upper left hand corner of the page and the other two lines are under that. Below the last words a pencil line, very pale, has been drawn horizontally, and another line, less pale, is drawn diagonally from the number down across the entire entry as if to cancel it. On page 63 appears the following entry near the top: "Amount rec'd from Mr. V. A. 1847." The reference is doubtless to Van Anden, owner of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Some pencil lines below these have been erased so well that I cannot make out the words, but I assume they related to the Van Anden entry.

It seems probable that this notebook was in Whitman's possession in 1847 and that the entries under that date were made at the time. Below the entry last mentioned, some tentative lines of verse continued from another page are much brighter and must, I believe, be of a later date. Of later date also are two names and addresses not mentioned by either Holloway or Grier on the inside of the front cover. At the top, above the name "Walt Whitman" and the address "71 Prince st.," is the following: "Talbot, Wilson st. go to corner Division av. & 7th st." Beneath Whitman's last address, "106 Myrtle avenue Brooklyn," is the following: "Mr. Stebbins, 110 Broadway Room 8 over the Metropolitan Bank." I do not know the significance of Stebbins, but the name of Talbot is repeated on the inside of the back cover and is noticed by Grier. Written lengthwise from bottom to top of the page, apparently in ink, is the following: "Talbot Wilson st. between Lee & Division av. two squares east of Bedford av." Grier identifies him as Jesse Talbot, listed in the Brooklyn directory as living at that address. I am sure he is the same Talbot whose name and address were written on the inside of the front cover. Both entries, presumably, were made near the same time, most likely 1854. This is undoubtedly the Jesse Talbot whose oil painting of a scene from Pilgrim's Progress Whitman owned in 1857 when, on June 17, he included it with other merchandise as part payment of a debt he owed James Parton.[7] Also on the inside of the

back cover, written in pencil across the top of the page, is this entry: "Chapman 147 Atlantic st. bet Henry & Clinton." Grier identifies him as Frederic A. Chapman, an artist, who in 1854-55 is listed in the Brooklyn directory as living at that address. I suspect that Whitman went to that address to see Chapman's paintings.[8] Not mentioned by Grier are these addresses on the verso of the last leaf (ruled) before the back cover, written in pencil lengthwise on the page from bottom to top: "or 13 or 25) No. 11 Massachusetts Corporation Jane & Rebecca Horton," and below that: "John I Storms, Big Creek P. O., Shelby County, Tenn." I have found nothing about Jane and Rebecca Horton, but I suspect that John I. Storms was related to George Storms, mentioned in Specimen Days, along with Broadway Jack and a few others, as one of the omnibus drivers Whitman knew.[9] During the 1860's he had some correspondence with George I. Storms, probably the same person, and in the 1870's he exchanged letters with Walt Whitman Storms, although Whitman's letters may not be now extant.[10]

Holloway prints portions of Notebook No. 85. With all the notebooks available for close examination, he expressed the opinion that "the probable date of this book is not far from that of Manuscript Notebook No. 1." His No. 1 is L. C. No. 80, just discussed. Internal evidence in Notebook 85 proves that some of it, and I suspect all of it, was written in 1854. Holloway calls this notebook No. 2. Since it was not among the missing and still is in the Library of Congress I have recently secured a microfilm of it. It contains a good deal of experimental verse, and one portion of this is a brief account of the wreck of the ship San Francisco, and how the captain of a rescue ship "chalked on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you, and held it up and did it." These very words, or most of them, are used in an account of the episode in "Song of Myself," lines 824-28. The wreck occurred in early January, 1854, and the accounts of it that Whitman used were published in the New York Tribune for January 19 and 21. Whitman clipped these stories and bracketed the passage paraphrased in the notebook and in the poem.[11] This does not prove that all parts of the notebook were written after January 21, 1854, but since the quotation

occurs early in the verse portion of the notebook, there seems a strong probability that all, or most, of it was. The first entry in this notebook, in prose, mentions a plan to write a poem "incarnating the mind of an old man" on the theme of "Joy Joy Joy," which may possibly be the germ of the 1860 poem "Poem of Joys," later called "A Song of Joys." The fourth paragraph, beginning "Amelioration is the blood that runs through the body of the universe," is pretty certainly an early conception of the 1856 "Poem of the Sayers of the Words of the Earth," later "A Song of the Rolling Earth." Very likely these notes were made like most of the others in 1854 although the poems they are associated with were not written until later, in any case not published in 1855.

Notebook No. 86 in the Library catalog is all prose and seems to me to be of about the same date as those discussed above, possibly a little earlier. It contains a few ideas used in "Song of Myself," but the only passage that is verbally repeated is the the passage beginning, "I want that tenor, large and fresh as the creation," etc., a prose version of lines 594-610 of "Song of Myself." The reference is unquestionably to Alessandro Bettini, whom Whitman had heard a number of times between June, 1851, and February, 1852, when Bettini left New York never to return.[12] In the third of a series of "Letters from Paumanok," dated August 11, 1851, Whitman pays high tribute to the singing of Bettini, using the phrase "the vast, pure Tenor, — identity of the Creative Power itself."[13] Since the passage in the notebook is much fuller, and closer to the language of the poem, I should judge it to have been written much later than the newspaper passage, if not in 1854 then surely no earlier than 1853.

Notebook No. 83, from which Holloway printed nothing, has no significance for my present subject except that at one place, while discussing how people suffering disaster forget about their valuable possessions, such as money, diamonds, etc., Whitman illustrates his point by reference to actions of passengers on the San Francisco after it was wrecked. Obviously the detail was picked up from newspaper accounts. Notebook 87 is only partially preserved in selections printed by Holloway and in incomplete records in the Library. I do not believe, however, it contained much that would be helpful in establishing the date of composition of verse in other notebooks. It contains no verse.

Notebook No. 84 is such an interesting one that I am surprised that Holloway printed nothing from it. There is not space in this brief article to discuss it in detail, but in appearance it is much like the others. The first four pages and the last page of the book contain notes about Egypt,

reflecting Whitman's interest of 1854 and after.[14] On page 4 I find the following note, which is useful in establishing the date of the book as well as evidence of Whitman's interest in Egypt: "Dr. Abbott tells me that Lepsius told him of finding monuments in Ethiopia with inscriptions and astronomical signs upon them." Whitman made frequent visits to the Egyptian Museum, which was established by Dr. Henry Abbott in New York, probably in 1853, for the first catalog of the collection issued in this country was published that year. A second and larger catalogue was published in 1854. Dr. Bucke says that Whitman visited this Museum "for over two years off and on."[15] I cannot say for certain, but I suspect that these two years included most of the period of Dr. Abbott's residence in New York. Holloway said he left for Cairo, not to return, in 1855.[16]

Two passages in the notebook were incorporated in "Song of the Rolling Earth" published in 1856. On page 16 appears the following passage: "The mirror that Nature holds and hides behind is deep and floating and ethereal and faithful. A man always sends and sees himself in it. . . . bright from it he reflects the fashion of his gods and all his religions and politics and books and public institutions — ignorance or knowledge — kindness or cruelty — grossness or refinement — definitions or chaos — each is unerringly sent back to him or her who casually gazes." The manuscript has many revisions and is evidently not a final draft. A slightly different and perhaps final version in another notebook in the Library of Congress has been printed.[17] On page 17 appears the following note, which is without revision and evidently copied from an earlier draft: "There is a full sized woman of calm and voluptuous beauty . . . . The unspeakable charm of the face of the mother of many children is the charm of her face . . . she is clean and sweet and simple with immortal health . . . . she holds always before her what has the quality of a mirror, and dwells serenely behind it."[18] Another passage, page 44, is related to "A Song of the Rolling

Earth": "The architect that comes among the stonecutters and heaps of cut stone poem describes how the workmen, possessed with an indescribable faith go on age after age in their work — and at last came architects and used each in its place the stones they had cut." Apparently Whitman planned an entire poem on this theme, but it came out as only three lines (123-25) in the poem mentioned: A number of lines, which I need not quote, on page 30 of this notebook were first printed in the poem "Debris," in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. The poem was not thereafter reprinted as a whole. A few other lines meant for this poem occur later in the notebook.

Only one or two passages in this notebook relate at all to "Song of Myself," one to "There was a Child Went Forth," and one to "A Song for Occupations." Three at least relate to "I Sing the Body Electric." One of these contains a passage that helps to date the notebook. On page 28, near the top, appears this entry: "Poem 'The Bridegroom' / ? for recitation / (tremulous with joy Mario's voice quivering) (bring in a Death". The reference to Mario's voice proves that this entry was set down after September 4, 1854, for it was on that night that Giuseppi Mario first sang in New York, together with his more famous wife, Giulia Grisi.[19] There is no more of the poem on the bridegroom until pages 43-44, where there are five or six lines under the title "Bridalnight;" the lines were used in "I Sing the Body Electric" (57-63).

Another reference in Notebook 84, page 54, is equally definite as to its date. The last principal entry on that page is as follows: "poem picture of war (the hospital at Sebastopol) then the opposite — the inferences and results — what war does to develope and strengthen and make more energetic and agile humanity and what it contributes to poetry, oratory, etc." This entry could not have been made before October 25, 1854, the date of the first attack on Sebastopol and the famous charge of the Light Brigade, on that date; perhaps weeks later. The Encylopaedia Britannica records that by the end of November the British army hospitals had eight thousand sick and wounded soldiers.[20] The reference to war's contribution to poetry suggests the possibility that Whitman wrote after he had read Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," which was first published in the London Examiner on December 9, 1854.

The date 1847 in Notebook No. 80, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the date of the composition of the verse and verse-related prose in that notebook. I assume that Whitman found an old notebook, used probably while he was editor of the Eagle, cut out the leaves that had been used, except one, and utilized the remaining leaves for verse and prose notes related to projected poems. In fact I am not at all sure that Holloway was right in calling this Whitman's earliest notebook. Notebook No. 86, Holloway's No. 3, which is all prose, strikes me as being earlier. Moreover, the verse in Notebook 80 seems to be no less finished and mature than that in Notebooks 84 and 85, which are almost certainly the work of 1854. The idea that Whitman could have written in 1847 verse like that in Notebook 80 and waited eight years to publish it is surely incredible. Every evidence in these compositions, the factual references, the style, and the handwriting, contributes to my belief that no significant part of any of these notebooks was written before 1853, and most of the entries in verse date from 1854 and possibly the early part of 1855. If I am correct, many scholars, including myself, have been wrong in accepting Holloway's conjecture that Whitman began to write Leaves of Grass in 1847-49, and Whitman was right in telling Trowbridge and Dr. Bucke that he began in 1854, or not much earlier.

Notes