Sizing-Up the Soul with a Beastly Stare

It is amazing to consider how much earth shattering literature was generated in America between a handful of writers who all knew each other extremely well, visited each other often, and for all extents and purposes were neighbors. Such a thing hasn't happened since and was considerably rare in any happenings before. You might have to go all the way back to the Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley relationships to find anything remotely similar.

Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, & Hawthorne -- all knew each other. (Later on we add brothers William James, the psychologist and Henry James, the novelist into this mix.) With the exception of Whitman, they were all neighbors. Thoreau used to look after little Louise May Alcott from time to time; he house sat for Emerson when he traveled. This group went to weddings together, funerals together, and they advocated for each other's publications.

Whitman was the lone outsider and although his relationship with the Concord transcendentalists would smooth out over time, he earned the rebuke of Emerson early in their relationship by quoting from a private letter Emerson wrote him in the newspaper, and by using an actual quote from that letter on the spine of Leaves of Grass (2nd Edition) without Emerson's permission. A gutsy move and the critics hounded him for it and it nearly cost Whitman any sort of relationship with the Concord writers.

Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau met one time in November of 1856. Amos Bronson Alcott, who I blogged about below, took Thoreau to Whitman in hopes of introducing the two men. Oh to have been a fly on that wall as these two men locked eyes!

Listen to how Bronson Alcott describes the meeting between Whitman and Thoreau in his journal entry:

"I hoped to put him [Walt Whitman] in communication direct with Thoreau, and tried my hand a little after we came down stairs and sat in the parlor below; but each seemed planted fast in reserves, surveying the other curiously, — like two beasts, each wondering what the other would do, whether to snap or run; and it came to no more than cold compliments between them."

Wow, what a description. Alcott's journals don't usually contain much embellishment or over-description, but this particular passage stands out. The meeting must have had quite an impact on Alcott to have described it in such a way. He goes on in the journal entry to wonder if perhaps Walt had met his match, or his equal in the young Thoreau.

Two men in a locked stare, each sizing the other up, neither willing to divulge too much information and so it came to "no more than cold compliments between them." One wonders what each thought of the other. They exchanged not only looks, but books. Walt gave Henry a copy of his 2^nd edition Leaves of Grass.

Three short weeks later, Thoreau had read the entire thing and in this letter to a Unitarian pastor he says:

“That Walt Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most interesting fact to me at the present. I have just read his 2nd edition (which he gave me) and it has done me more good than any reading for a long time… there are 2 or 3 pieces in the book which are disagreeable to say the least, simply sensual. He does not celebrate love at all. It is as if the beasts spoke….

I do not believe that all the sermons so called that have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for preaching… We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He occasionally suggests something a little more than human. Since I have seen him, I find that I am not disturbed by any brag or egoism in his book. He may turn out the least braggart of all, having a better right to be confident.”

Seems as though the old gray poet had quite the effect on Thoreau… six years later Thoreau would die of tuberculosis at the age of 44. We can only speculate what more he would have said about Whitman.

So how exactly did Walt feel about Henry? It would take almost twenty years, but Whitman eventually visited Alcott and Emerson in Concord. In his Specimen Days journal, Whitman would recount visiting Thoreau’s grave and walking the shores of Walden Pond. Whitman, like so many other travelers over time, would place a small stone of remembrance at the cabin site where Thoreau lived during the writing of Walden.

Stones of Remembrance @ Thoreau's Cabin Site
Is one of these stones Whitman's?

 

I think the respect was mutual. And the locked stare between these two alpha male authors was quite real… each sizing up the other, both prepared to acknowledge the human propensity to live as animal and as eternal soul.