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THE LIBRARY
of
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Toronto
THIS FIRST EDITION OF
WALT WHITMAN'S DIARY IN CANADA
IS LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES
WALT WHITMAN'S
DIARY IN CANADA
WALT WHITMAN'S
DIARY IN CANADA
EDITED BY
WILLIAM SLOANE KENNEDY
BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
MCMIV
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
WILLIAM SLOANE KENNEDY
Entered at Stationers' Hall
Published November, 1904
514-27
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
THE transcribing of these out-door notes from the
worn and time-stained fragments of paper (backs of
letters, home-made note-books, etc.), on which they
were originally written, has been so fascinating a task
for me that I feel confident the subject-matter will
interest other lovers of Whitman. I don't know that
they need any other foreword than just the telling
how they came into my hands for publication.
In the autumn of 1900 I wrote to my old friend,
the late Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke (the senior
member of Walt Whitman's literary executors),
suggesting that he join me in bringing out a" Read-
ers' Handbook to Leaves of Grass," in the preparation
of which I had been engaged for a number of years,
by contributing any material he might have that was
available. He responded with enthusiasm to this
proposal for cooperative work. But, alas ! a year
later he had passed into eternity.* By his son, Dr.
Edward Pardee Bucke, however, I was generously
* He fell on the icy floor of a veranda of his residence, struck on the back
of his head, and never regained consciousness. Few knew that this gay-hearted
optimist, with his magnificent physique, had to fight his way through life (after
twenty) without the aid of feet, other than artificial. His feet were amputated
after being frozen in a (finally successful) attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada
Mountains in the whiter of 1856, in company with one of the two original discov-
erers of silver in Nevada. I have the romantic printed account of that daring
feat.
V
EDITOR'S PREFACE
furnished with such manuscripts of Walt Whitman
as seem to have been intended for our purpose, and
from them the following diary and other notes were
selected. The publication of the Readers' Hand-
book is held over for the present.
In his " Specimen Days," Whitman devotes only a
couple of pages to the St. Lawrence and Saguenay
trip, — a condensed abstract of his journal.
The portrait used as a frontispiece to this book is
reproduced from a photograph by Edy Brothers of
London, Ontario, made during the visit to Dr.
Bucke recorded in the diary. It has never before
been published. All the notes in the volume are
by the editor.
W. S. K.
BELMONT, MASS.,
November, 1904.
WALT WHITMAN'S
DIARY IN CANADA
London., Ontario, June 18, 1880.1 Calm
and glorious roll the hours here — the whole
twenty-four. A perfect day (the third in
succession) ; the sun clear ; a faint, fresh,
just palpable air setting in from the south-
west ; temperature pretty warm at mid-
day, but moderate enough mornings and
evenings. Everything growing well, espe-
cially the perennials. Never have I seen
verdure — grass and trees and bushery — to
greater advantage. All the accompaniments
joyous. Cat-birds, thrushes, robins, etc.,
singing. The profuse blossoms of the tiger-
lily (is it the tiger-lily ?) 2 mottling the lawns
1 Whitman left Camden on .June 3 (" on a first-
class sleeper "") for Canada. Passed Niagara June 4,
and has described his impressions of it as seen on this
particular occasion (Specimen Days, p. 160, 1st ed.)
On June 4 he writes, " I am domiciled at the hospi-
table house of my friends Dr. and Mrs. Bucke, in the
ample and charming garden and lawns of the asylum."
2 Probably the Turk's Head lily (Lilium super-
bum).
1 1
WALT WHITMAN'S
and gardens everywhere with their glowing
orange-red. Roses everywhere, too.
A stately show of stars last night: the
Scorpion erecting his head of five stars, with
glittering Antares in the neck, soon stretched
his whole length in the south ; Arcturus
hung overhead ; Vega a little to the east ;
Aquila lower down ; the constellation of the
Sickle well toward setting; and the half-
moon, pensive and silvery, in the southwest.
June and July, Canada. Such a proces-
sion of long-drawn-out, delicious half-lights
nearly every evening, continuing on till
'most 9 o'clock all through the last two
weeks of June and the first two of July !
It was worth coming to Canada to get
these long-stretch'd sunsets in their tem-
per'd shade and lingering, lingering twi-
lights, if nothing more.
[No date.] It is only here in large por-
tions of Canada that wondrous second wind,
the Indian summer, attains its amplitude
and heavenly perfection, — the temperature ;
the sunny haze ; the mellow, rich, delicate,
almost flavored air:
" Enough to live — enough to merely be.11
2
DIARY IN CANADA
June 19. On the train from London to
Sarnia — 60 miles.1 A fine country, many
good farms, plenty of open land, the finest
strips of woods clean of underbrush — some
beautiful clusters of great trees ; plenty
of fields with the stumps standing ; some
bustling towns.
[Same date, Sarnia.] Sunset on the St.
Clair. I am writing this on Front Street,
close by the river, — the St. Clair, — on a
bank. The setting sun, a great blood-red
ball, is just descending on the Michigan
shore, throwing a bright crimson track across
the water to where I stand. The river is
full of row-boats and shells, with their crews
of young fellows, or single ones, out practis-
ing,— a handsome, inspiriting sight. Up
north I see at Point Edward, on Canada
side, the tall elevator in shadow, with tall-
square turret, like some old castle.
As I write, a long shell, with its crew of
four stript to their rowing shirts, sweeps
1 Sarnia (the former home for ten years of the
late Dr. R. M. Bucke, when a practising physician)
is a town of about 7000 inhabitants lying on the St.
Clair River (Canadian side) near Lake Huron, about
55 miles northeast of Detroit.
3
WALT WHITMAN'S
swiftly past, the oars rattling in their row-
locks.
Opposite, a little south, on the Michigan
shore, stretches Port Huron. It is a still,
moist, voluptuous evening, the twilight deep-
ening apace. In the vapors fly bats and
myriads of big insects. A solitary robin is
whistling his call, followed by mellow clucks,
in some trees near. The panting of the
locomotive and measured roll of cars comes
from over shore, and occasionally an abrupt
snort or screech, diffused in space. With all
these utilitarian episodes, it is a lovely, soft,
voluptuous scene, a wondrous half-hour for
sunset, and then the long rose-tinged half-
light with a touch of gray we sometimes
have stretched out in June at day-close.
How musical the cries and voices floating
in from the river 1 Mostly while I have
been here I have noticed those handsome
shells and oar-boats, some of them rowing
superbly.
At nearly nine it is still quite light, [the
atmosphere] tempered with blue film, but
the boats, the river, and the Michigan shores
quite palpable. The rose color still falls
upon everything. A big river steamer is
crawling athwart the stream, hoarsely hiss-
4
DIARY IN CANADA
ing. The moon in its third quarter is just up
behind me. From over in Port Huron
come the just-heard sounds of a brass band,
practising. Many obj ects — half-burnt h ulls,
partially sunk wrecks, slanting or upright
poles — throw their black shadows in strong
relief on the clear glistering water.
[Sarnid], June 20. A FAR-OFF REMI-
NISCENCE. I see to-day in a New York
paper an account of the tearing down of old
St. Ann's Church, Sands and Washington
streets, Brooklyn, to make room for the East
River Bridge landing and roadway. Away
off, nearly 1000 miles distant, it roused the
queerest reminiscences, which I feel to put
down here. St. Ann's was twined with
many memories of youth to me. I think
the church was built about 1824, the time
when I (a little child of six years) was
first taken to live in Brooklyn, and I re-
member it so well then and for long years
afterwards. It was a stately building with its
broad grounds and grass, and the aristocratic
congregation, and the good clergyman, Mr.
Mcllvaine (afterwards bishop of Ohio), 1 and
1 Perhaps the best known and most popular
preacher in Ohio a quarter-century ago. The son
5
WALT WHITMAN'S
the long edifice for Sunday-school (I had
a pupil's desk there), and the fine gardens
and many big willow and elm trees in the
neighborhood. From St. Ann's started,
over 50 years ago, a strange and solemn
military funeral, — of the officers and sailors
killed by the explosion of the steamer Fulton
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I remember
well the impressive services and the dead-
march of the band (moving me even then
to tears), and the led horses and officers'
trappings in the procession, and the black-
draped flags, and the old sailors, and the
salutes over the grave in the ancient cemetery
in Fulton Street just below Tillary (now all
built over by solid blocks of houses and busy
stores).1 I was at school at the time of the
explosion and heard the rumble which jarred
half the city.
Nor was St. Ann's (Episcopal) the only
church bequeathing Old Brooklyn remi-
niscences. Just opposite, within a stone's
throw, on Sands Street, with a high range
of steps, stood the main Methodist church,
of Whitman's friend, John Burroughs, in 1902 mar-
ried a grand-daughter of this Bishop Mcllvaine.
2 The Whitmans then lived in Tillary Street, where
the father had built them a house.
6
DIARY IN CANADA
always drawing full congregations (always
active, singing and praying in earnest), and
the scene of the powerful revivals of those
days (often continued for a week night and
day without intermission). This latter was
the favorite scene of the labors of John N.
Maffit, the famous preacher of his denomi-
nation. It was a famous church for pretty
girls.
The history of those two churches would
be a history of Brooklyn and of a main part
of its families for the earlier half of the
nineteenth century.
Sarnia, June 21. A MOONLIGHT EX-
CURSION UP LAKE HURON. We were to
start at 8 p. M., but after waiting forty min-
utes later for a music band, which to my
secret satisfaction did n't come, we and the
Hiawatha went off without it.
Point Edward on the Canada side and
Fort Gratiot on the Michigan — the crossing-
line for the Grand Trunk Railway, and look-
ing well alive with lights and the sight of
shadowy-moving cars — were quickly passed
between by our steamer, after pressing
through currents of rapids for a mile along
here, very dashy and inspiriting, and we
7
WALT WHITMAN'S
were soon out on the wide sea-room of the
Lake. The far and faint-dim shores, the
cool night-breeze, the plashing of the waters,
and most of all the well-up moon, full and
round and refulgent, were the features of
this pleasant water-ride, which lasted till
midnight.
During the day I had seen the magnifi-
cent steamboat, City of Cleveland, come
from above, and, after making a short stop
at Port Huron opposite, sped on her swift
and stately way down the St. Clair. She
plies between Cleveland and Duluth, and
was on her return from the latter place —
makes the voyage in three (?) days. At a
Sarnia wharf I saw the Asia, a large steam-
boat for Lake Superior trade and passengers ;
understood there were three other boats on
the line. Between Samia and Port Huron
some nice small-sized ferry-boats are con-
stantly plying. I went aboard the Dor-
mer and made an agreeable hour's jaunt to
and fro, one afternoon.
A SARNIA PUBLIC SCHOOL. Stopt im-
promptu at the school in George (?) where
I saw crowds of boys out at recess, and
went in without ceremony among them,
8
DIARY IN CANADA
and so inside for twenty minutes to the
school, at its studies, — music, grammar,
etc. Never saw a healthier, handsomer,
more intelligent or decorous collection of
boys and girls, some 500 altogether. This
twenty minutes' sight, and what it inferred,
are among my best impressions and recol-
lections of Sarnia.
[Sarnia]. Went down to an Indian set-
tlement at Ah-me-je-wah-noong (i. e., the
Rapids) to visit the Indians, the Chippewas.
Not much to see of novelty — in fact noth-
ing at all of aboriginal life or personality ;
but I had a fine drive with the gentleman
that took me — Dr. McLane, the physician
appointed by the government for the tribe.
There is a long stretch, three or four miles,
fronting the St. Clair, south of Sarnia, run-
ning back easterly nearly the same distance,
good lands for farming and rare sites for build-
ing — and this is the " reservation " set apart
for these Chips. There are said to be four
hundred of them, but I could not see evi-
dences of one quarter of that number. There
are three or four neat third-class wooden
dwellings, a church, and council-house, but
the less said about the rest of the edifices
9
WALT WHITMAN'S
the better. " Every prospect pleases," as far
as land, shore, and water are concerned, how-
ever. The Dominion government keeps
entire faith with these people (and all its
Indians, I hear), preserves these reservations
for them to live on, pays them regular
annuities, and, whenever any of their land
is sold, puts the proceeds strictly in their
funds. Here they farm languidly (I saw
some good wheat), fish, etc. ; but the young
men generally go off to hire as laborers and
deck-hands on the water. I saw and con-
versed with Wa-wa-nosh, the interpreter,
son of a former chief. He talks and writes
as well as I do. In a nice cottage near by
lived his mother, who doesn't speak any-
thing but Chippewa. There are no very old
people. I saw one man of thirty in the last
stages of consumption. This beautiful and
ample tract, in its present undeveloped con-
dition, is quite an eyesore to the Sarnians.
[London, Ont.~\, June 24. TENNYSON'S
" DE PROFUNDIS." To day I spent half an
hour (in a recluse summer-house embowered)
leisurely reading Tennyson's new poem " De
Profundis." I should call the piece (to coin
a term) a specimen of the mystical-recherche
10
DIARY IN CANADA
— and a mighty choice specimen. It has
several exquisite little verses, not simple like
rosebuds, but gem-lines like garnets or
sapphires, cut by a lapidary artist. These,
for instance (some one has had a baby) :
" O young life
Breaking with laughter from the dark ! "
« O dear Spirit half-lost
In thine own shadow and this fleshly sign
That thou art thou — who wailest being born."
Then from " The Human Cry " attached :
" We feel we are nothing — for all is Thou and in
Thee;
We feel we are something — that also has come
from Thee."
Some cute friends afterward said it was
altogether vague and could not be grasped.
Very likely ; it sounded to me like organ-
playing, capriccio, which also cannot be
grasped.
Night of Saturday, July 3d. Good night
for stars and heavens ; perfectly still and
cloudless, fresh and cool enough ; evenings
very long ; pleasant twilight till nine o'clock
all through the last half of June and first half
of July. These are my most pleasant hours.
11
WALT WHITMAN'S
The air is pretty cool, but I find it enjoyable,
and like to saunter the well-kept roads.
Went out about 10 on a solitary ramble in
the grounds, slow through the fresh air, over
the gravel walks and velvety grass, with
many pauses, many upward gazings. It was
again an exceptional night for the show and
sentiment of the stars, very still and clear,
not a cloud, and neither warm nor cold.
High overhead the constellation of the
Harp ; south of east the Northern Cross ; in
the Milky Way the Diadem ; and more to
the north Cassiopeia ; bright Arcturus and
silvery Vega dominating aloft. But the
heavens everywhere studded so thickly —
layers on layers of phosphorescence, spangled
with those still orbs, emulous, nestling so
close, with such light and glow everywhere,
flooding the soul.
Sunday evening, July 4. A very enjoy-
able hour or two this evening. They sent
for me to come down in the parlor to hear
my friend M. E. L., a deaf and dumb young
woman, give some recitations (of course by
pantomime, not a word spoken). She gave
first an Indian legend, — the warriors, the
women, the woods, the action of an old chief,
12
DIARY IN CANADA
etc., very expressive. But best of all, and
indeed a wonderful performance, she ren-
dered Christ stilling the tempest (from Luke,
is it ?)
[London], Canada, July 6, '80. HAY-
MAKING, JULY 5, 6, 7. I go out every day
two or three hours for the spectacle. A
sweet, poetic, practical, busy sight. Never
before such fine growths of clover and
timothy everywhere as the present year ; and
I never saw such large fields of rich grass
as on this farm. I ride around in a low easy
basket-wagon drawn by a sagacious pony.
We go at random over the flat just-mown
layers and all around through lanes and
across fields. The smell of the cut herbage,
the whirr of the mower, the trailing swish of
the horse-rakes, the forks of the busy pitchers,
and the loaders on the wagons — I linger
long and long to absorb them all. Soothing,
sane, odorous hours ! Two weeks of such.
It is a great place for birds. No gunning
here, and no dogs or cats allowed. I never
before saw so many robins, nor such big
fellows, nor so tame.1 You look out over
1 The editor of this diary has the same to record
of the robins of southern Wisconsin in the same lati-
13
WALT WHITMAN'S
the lawn any time and can see from four or
five to a score of them hopping about. I
never before heard singing wrens (the com-
mon house wren, I believe), either, to such
advantage — two of them, these times, on
the verandahs of different houses where I
have been staying. Such vigorous, musical,
well-fibred little notes ! (What must the
winter wren be, then ? — they say it is far
ahead of this.)
July 8. I am in the midst of haymaking,
and, though but a looker-on, I enjoy it
greatly, untiringly, day after day. Any
hour I hear the sound of scythes sharpening,
or the distant rattle of horse-mowers, or see
loaded wagons, high-piled, slowly wending
toward the barns ; or, toward sundown,
groups of tan-faced men going from work.
To-day we are indeed at the height of it
here in Ontario.
[No date.~\ A muffled and musical clang
of cow-bells from the grassy wood-edge not
far distant.
tude. They have a larger and fresher look than
Eastern robins.
14
DIARY IN CANADA
July 10-14, Canada. In blossom now:
Delphinium, blue, four feet high, great pro-
fusion ; yellow-red lilies [written down for
him in a lady's handwriting as LiUum auran-
tium and Lilium Buschaniuiri] ; a yellow
coreopsis-like flower [Cosmidium Burridge-
anuni}, same as I saw Sept. '79 ; wild tansy,
weed from 10 to 15 inches high, white blos-
som, out in July (middle) Canada ; straw-
colored hollyhocks, many like roses, others
pure white — beautiful clusters everywhere in
the thick dense hedge-lines ; aromatic white
cedars at evening ; Canadian red honey-
suckles ; the fences, verandahs, gables, cov-
ered with grapevines, ivies, honeysuckles ; a
certain clematis (the Jackmanni) bursting all
over with deep purple blossoms, each with
its four or five great leaves, delicate as some
court lady's dress, but tough and durable —
day after day ; I afterwards saw a large six-
leaved (?) one of pure satin-like white — as
beautiful a flower as I ever beheld.
Canada, July 18, '80. SWALLOW-GAM-
BOLS. I spent a long time to-day watching
the swallows — an hour this forenoon and
another hour afternoon. There is a pleasant,
secluded, close-cropt grassy lawn of a couple
15
WALT WHITMAN'S
of acres or over, flat as a floor and surrounded
by a flowery and bushy hedge, just off the
road adjoining the house, — a favorite spot
of mine. Over this open grassy area im-
mense numbers of swallows have been sail-
ing, darting, circling, and cutting large or
small 8's and s's, close to the ground, for
hours to-day. It is evidently for fun alto-
gether. I never saw anything prettier —
this free swallow-dance. They kept it up,
too, the greater part of the day.
[Here follows Whitman's journal of his
midsummer trip with Dr. R. M. Bucke
down the St. Lawrence and up the Sague-
nay rivers (Montreal, Quebec, Thousand
Islands, Cape Eternity, Trinity Rock, etc.).
The journal is written on the pages of a
thick pocket " heft " (as the Germans call an
extemporized book of stitched leaves), 5 by
SJ4 inches in dimensions, and is labelled
" St. Lawrence and Saguenay Trip, July
and Aug. 1880." It is prefixed by a table
of distances and a skeleton itinerary (which
here follow), has three maps pasted in,
covering the entire route, and contains
various minor memoranda (names, addresses,
16
DIARY IN CANADA
etc.) scattered here and there, usually on
the verso of the sheet.]
DISTANCES.
Miles.
From Philadelphia to London about . 520
London to Toronto 120
Toronto to Kingston 161
Kingston to Montreal 172
Montreal to Quebec 180
Quebec to Tadousac 134
Tadousac to Chicoutimi 101
1388
[Itinerary.]
Started from London 8.40 A. M. July 26 by
R. R. to Toronto ; arrived in T. same
day.
Left Toronto by steamboat Algerian July
27, arrived at Kingston 5 A. M. 28th ;
stopt at Dr. W. G. Metcalf 's ; down at
the Thousand Islands three days —
"Hub Island."
Left Kingston 6 A. M. Aug. 3 ; arrived at
Montreal same evening.
Left Montreal Aug. 5 ; down to Quebec in
steamer Montreal.
2 17
WALT WHITMAN'S
Left Quebec 7 A. M. Aug. 6 in steamer
Saguenay ; down the St. Lawrence ;
splendid scenery.
Night of 6th and 7th up the Saguenay to
Chicoutimi and Ha Ha Bay ; Cape
Eternity and Trinity Rock.
Then down, and, on our return, Aug. 8
early A. M. arrived in Quebec ; staid
two days.
Aug. 10 early A. M. in Montreal ; left [same
day] in Algerian ; had a pleasant voy-
age (two days and nights) to Toronto.
Aug. 12 arrived in Toronto ; 3 hours at
Queen's Hotel; left 11 A. M.
Aug. 12, 13, 14, in Hamilton.
Back home to London Aug. 14.
July 26. Started this morning at 8.40
from London for Toronto, 120 miles by
R. R. I am writing this on the cars, very
comfortable. We are now (10-11 A. M.)
passing through a beautiful country. Rained
hard last night, and showery this morning ;
everything looking bright and green. I am
enjoying the ride (in a big easy R. R. chair
in a roomy car). The atmosphere cool,
moist, just right, and the sky veiled. All
pleasant fertile country, sufficiently diver-
18
DIARY IN CANADA
sified, frequent signs of land not long cleared,
— black stumps (often the fields fenced
with the roots of them), patches of beauti-
ful woods, beech, fine elms, thrifty apple
orchards, the hay and wheat mostly har-
vested, barley begun, oats almost ready ;
some good farms (a little hilly between
Dundas and Hamilton, and the same on
to Toronto). Corn looking well, potatoes
ditto ; but the great show-charm of my ride
is from the unfailing grass and woods.
Hamilton a bustling city.
As we approach Toronto everything looks
doubly beautiful, especially the glimpses of
blue Ontario's waters, sunlit, yet with a
slight haze, through which occasionally a
distant sail.
In Toronto at half-past one. I rode up
on top of the omnibus with the driver. The
city made the impression on me of a lively
dashing place. The lake gives it its
character.
In Toronto, July 27, '80. Long and ele-
gant streets of semi-rural residences, many
of them very costly and beautiful. The
horse-chestnut is the prevalent tree: you
19
WALT WHITMAN'S
see it everywhere. The mountain ash now
with its bunches of red berries.
[Same date.~\ I write this in Toronto, aboard
the steamboat the Algerian, two o'clock p. M.
We are presently off. The boat from Lewis-
ton, New York, has just come in ; the usual
hurry with passengers and freight, and, as
I write, I hear the pilot's bells, the thud of
hawsers unloosened, and feel the boat squirm-
ing slowly from her ties, out into freedom.
We are off, off into Toronto Bay (soon the
wide expanse and cool breezes of Lake
Ontario). As we steam out a mile or so
we get a pretty view of Toronto from the
blue foreground of the waters, — the whole
rising spread of the city, groupings of roofs,
spires, trees, hills in the background. Good-
bye, Toronto, with your memories of a very
lively and agreeable visit. [Entry here of
name of James W. Slocum, of Detroit,
Wagner car conductor, and memorandum
" your James Slocum."]
July 27. A DAY AND NIGHT ON LAKE
ONTARIO. Steamboat middling good-sized
and comfortable, carrying shore freight
and summer passengers. Quite a voyage
[Toronto to Kingston], the whole length of
DIARY IN CANADA
Lake Ontario ; very enjoyable day, clear,
breezy, and cool enough for me to wrap my
blanket around me as I pace the upper deck.
For the first sixty or seventy miles we keep
near the Canadian shore — of course no land
in sight the other side ; stop at Port Hope,
Coburg, etc., and then stretch out toward
the mid- waters of the lake.
I pace the deck or sit till pretty late,
wrapt in my blanket, enjoying all, — the
coolness, darkness, — and then to my berth
awhile.
July 27 [28]. Rose soon after three to
come out on deck and enjoy a magnificent
night-show before dawn. Overhead the
moon at her half, and waning half, with
lustrous Jupiter and Saturn, made a trio-
cluster close together in the purest of skies
— with the groups of the Pleiades and
Hyades following a little to the east. The
lights off on the islands and rocks, the
splashing waters, the many shadowy shores
and passages through them in the crystal
atmosphere, the dawn-streaks of faint red
and yellow in the east, made a good hour
for me. We landed on Kingston wharf just
at sunrise.
21
WALT WHITMAN'S
LAKE ONTARIO. Lake O. is 234 feet
above sea-level (Huron is over 500, and
Superior over 600). The chain of lakes and
river St. Lawrence drain 400,000 square
miles. The rainfall on this vast area averages
annually a depth of thirty inches — so that
the existence and supply of the river, fed by
such inland preceding seas, is a matter of
very simple calculation after all.
July 28. To-day Dr. M [etcalf ] took me
in his steam yacht a long, lively, varied
voyage down among the Lakes of the Thou-
sand Islands. We went swiftly on east of
Kingston, through cuts, channels, lagoons (?) *
and out across lakes ; numbers of islands
always in sight ; often, as we steamed by,
some almost grazing us ; rocks and cedars ;
occasionally a camping party on the shores,
perhaps fishing; a little sea-swell on the
water ; on our return evening deepened,
bringing a miracle of sunset.
I could have gone on thus for days over
the savage-tame beautiful element. We had
some good music (one of Verdi's composi-
tions) from the band of B battery as we
1 These query marks are always Whitman's. If I
use one, it shall be in brackets.
22
DIARY IN CANADA
hauled in shore, anchored, and listened in
the twilight (to the slapping rocking gurgle
of our boat). Late when we reached home.
July 29. This forenoon a long ride
through the streets of Kingston and so out
into the country and the lake-shore road.
Kingston is a military station (B battery),
shows quite a fort, and half a dozen old
martello towers (like big conical-topt pound
cakes). It is a pretty town of fifteen thou-
sand inhabitants.
July 31, Evening, Saturday, Lakes of
the Thousand Islands. I am writing this
at and after sundown in the central portion
("American side," as they call it here) of
the Lakes of the Thousand Islands, twenty-
five miles east of Kingston. The scene is
made up of the most beautiful and ample
waters, — twenty or thirty woody and rocky
islands (varying in size, some large, others
small, others middling), the distant shores of
the New York side, some puffing steamboats
in the open waters, and numerous skiffs and
row-boats, all showing as minute specks in
the amplitude and primal naturalness.
The brooding waters, the cool and delicious
air, the long evening with its transparent
WALT WHITMAN'S
half-lights, the glistening and faintly slap-
ping waves, the circles of swallows gam-
bolling and piping.
[In the back of the Canada diary is the
following, evidently a first draft or memoran-
dum for a letter to some one.]
Aug. 1. I write this in the most beauti-
ful extensive region of lakes and islands one
can probably see on earth. Have been here
several days ; came down, leisurely cruising
around, in a handsome little steam-yacht
which I am living on half the time. The
lakes are very extensive (over 1000 square
miles) and the islands numberless, . . . here
and there dotted with summer villas.
[Same date.~\ Sunday noon. Still among
the Thousand Islands. This is about the
centre of them, stretching twenty-five miles
to the east and the same distance west.
The beauty of the spot all through the day,
the sunlit waters, the fanning breeze, the
rocky and cedar-bronzed islets, the larger
islands with fields and farms, the white-
winged yachts and shooting row-boats, and
over all the blue sky arching copious — make
a sane, calm, eternal picture, to eyes, senses,
and my soul
DIARY IN CANADA
Evening. An unusual show of boats
gaily darting over the waters in every direc-
tion ; not a poor model among them, and
many of exquisite beauty and grace and
speed. It is a precious experience, one of
these long midsummer twilights in these
waters arid this atmosphere. Land of pure
air ! Land of unnumbered lakes ! Land of
the islets and the woods !
Lakes of Thousand Islands, Aug. 2.
Early morning ; a steady southwest wind ;
the fresh peculiar atmosphere of the hour
and place worth coming a thousand miles
to get. O'er the waters the gray rocks and
dark-green cedars of a score of big and little
islands around me ; the added splendor of
sunrise. As I sit, the sound of slapping
water, to me most musical of sounds.
One peculiarity as you go about among
the islands, or stop at them, is the entire
absence of horses and wagons. Plenty of
small boats, however, and always very hand-
some ones. Even the women row and sail
skiffs. Often the men here build their boats
themselves.
Forenoon. A run of three hours (some
thirty miles) through the islands and lakes
25
WALT WHITMAN'S
in the Princess Louise to Kingston. Saw
the whole scene, with its sylvan rocky and
aquatic loveliness, to fine advantage. Such
amplitude — room enough here for the sum-
mer recreation of all North America.
Aug. 4. In Montreal; guest of Dr.
T. S. H.1 Genial host, delightful quarters,
good sleep. Explore the city leisurely, but
quite thoroughly : St. James Street, with its
handsome shops ; Victoria Bridge ; great
French church ; the English Cathedral ; the
old French church of Notre Dame de Bon
Secours ; the handsome, new, peculiarly and
lavishly ornamented church of Notre Dame
de Lourdes ; the French streets of middle
life, with their signs. A city of 150,000
people.
But the principal character of Montreal,
to me, was from a drive along the street
looking down on the river front and the
wharves, where the steamships lay, — twenty
or more of them, — some as handsome and
1 Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, who first brought Whitman's
writings to the notice of Dr. Bucke. He is described
by Dr. B. in Walt Whitman Fellowship Papers,
No. 6, as Mineralogist to the Geological Survey of
Canada.
26
DIARY IN CANADA
large as I ever saw ; beautiful models, trim,
two or three hundred feet long ; some mov-
ing out, one or two coming in ; plenty of
room, and fine dockage, with heavy masonry
banks.
Aug. 5, Forenoon. Three hours on
Mount Royal, the great hill and park back
of Montreal ; spent the forenoon in a leisurely
most pleasant drive on and about the hill ;
many views of the city below ; the waters of
the St. Lawrence in the clear air ; the
Adirondacks fifty miles or more distant ;
the excellent roads, miles of them, up hill
and down ; the plentiful woods, oak, pine,
hickory ; the French signboards — Passez a
droite — as we zigzag around ; the splendid
views, distances, waters, mountains, vistas,
some of them quite unsurpassable ; the con-
tinual surprises of fine trees, in groups or
singly ; the grand rocky natural escarp-
ments ; frequently open spaces, larger or
smaller, with patches of goldenrod or white
yarrow, or along the road the red fire- weed
or Scotch thistle in bloom ; just the great
hill itself, with its rocks and trees unmolested
by any impertinence of ornamentation.
WALT WHITMAN'S
Sunrise, the St. Lawrence near Quebec,
Aug. 5-6. Have just seen sunrise (standing
on the extreme bow of the boat), the great
round dazzling ball straight ahead over the
broad waters, — a rare view. The shores
pleasantly, thickly, dotted with houses, the
river here wide and looking beautiful in
the golden morning's sheen. As we advance
northeast the earth-banks high and sheer,
quite thickly wooded ; thin dawn-mists
quickly resolving ; the youthful, strong,
warm forenoon over the high green bluffs ;
little white houses seen along the banks as
we steam rapidly through the verdure ;
occasionally a pretensive mansion, a mill,
a two-tower'd church (in burnish'd tin). A
pretty shore (miles of it, sitting up high,
well-sprinkled with dwellings of habitans, —
farmers, fishermen, French cottagers, etc.),
verdant everywhere (but no big trees) for
fifty miles before coming to Quebec. These
little rural cluster-towns just back from the
bank-bluffs, so happy and peaceful looking.
I saw them through my glass, everything
quite minutely and fully. In one such town
of perhaps two hundred houses on sloping
ground, the old church with glistening spire
stood in the middle, and quite a large grave-
28
DIARY IN CANADA
yard around it. I could see the white head-
stones almost plainly enough to count them.
Approaching Quebec, rocks and rocky
banks again, the shores lined for many miles
with immense rafts and logs and partially
hewn timber, the hills more broken and
abrupt, the higher shores crowded with many
fine dormer- window'd houses. Sail-ships
appear in clusters with their weather-beaten
spars and furl'd canvas. The river still
ample and grand, the banks bold, plenty of
round turns and promontories, plenty of
gray rock cropping out. Rafts, rafts, of logs
everywhere. The high rocky citadel thrusts
itself out — altogether perhaps (at any rate
as you approach it on the water, the sun two
hours high) as picturesque an appearing city
as there is on earth.
Aug. 6, Quebec. To the east of Quebec
we pass the large fertile island of Orleans —
the fields divided in long lateral strips across
the island and appearing to be closely culti-
vated. In one field I notice them getting
in the hay, a woman assisting, loading and
hauling it. The view and scene continue
broad and beautiful under the forenoon sun ;
around me an expanse of waters stretches
29
WALT W HITMAN'S
fore and aft as far as I can see ; outlines of
mountains in the distance north and south ;
of the farthest ones the bulk and the crest
lines showing through strong but delicate
haze like gray lace.
Aug. 6. [By daylight down the St.
Lawrence.] Night — we are steaming up
the Saguenay.
Ha Ha Bay [?] I am here nearly 1000
miles slightly east of due north from Phila-
delphia, by way of Montreal and Quebec —
in the strangest country. Had a good
night's sleep ; cold, — overcoat, but up before
sunrise, — northern lights every night, as
with overcoat on or wrapt in my blanket,
I plant myself on the forward deck.
[Note at end of diary. ,] Walt Whitman
is at Ha Ha Bay. He says he would like
to spend a month every year of his life there
on the Saguenay River and near Cape
Eternity and Trinity Rock.
Aug. 6 and 7, Ha Ha Bay. Up the
black Saguenay River, a hundred or so miles
— a dash of the grimmest, wildest, savagest
scenery on the planet, I guess ; a strong, deep
(always hundreds of feet, sometimes thou-
sands), dark-water'd river, very dark, with
30
DIARY IN CANADA
high rocky hills, green and gray edged banks
in all directions — no flowers, no fruits
(plenty of delicious wild blueberries and
raspberries up at Chicoutimi, though, and
Ha Ha Bay).
THE PRIESTS. Saw them on every boat
and at every landing. At Tadousac came a
barge and handsome yacht, manned and
evidently owned by them, to bring some
departing passengers of their cloth and take
on others. It looked funny to me at first to
see the movements, ropes and tillers handled
by these swarming black birds, but I soon saw
that they sailed their craft skilfully and well.
[The people are] simple, middling industrious,
merry, devout Catholic, a church everywhere
(priests in their black gowns everywhere,
often groups of handsome young fellows),
life toned low, few luxuries, none of the
modern improvements, no hurry, often big
families of children, nobody " progressive,"
all apparently living and moving entirely
among themselves, taking small interest in
the outside world of politics, changes, news,
fashions ; industrious, yet taking life very
leisurely, with much dancing and music.
31
WALT WHITMAN'S
[Here follows what is evidently a thumb-
nail sketch for the first part of Fancies
at Navesink.~] Again I steam over the
Saguenay. The bronze-black waters, and
the thin lines of white curd, and the dazzling
sun-dash on the stream, the banks of grim-
gray mountains and the rocks — I see the
grim and savage scene.
Made a good breakfast of sea-trout, finish-
ing off with wild raspberries. Hotels here ;
a few fashionables, but they get away soon ;
it is almost cold, except the middle of a few
July and August days.
{Undated fragment.'} The inhabitants
peculiar to our eyes ; many marked charac-
ters, looks, by-plays, costumes, etc., that
would make the fortune of actors who could
reproduce them.
A more or less aquatic character runs
through the people. The two influences of
French and British contribute a curious
by-play.
Contrasts all the while. At this place,
backed by these mountains high and bold,
nestled down the hamlet of St. Pierre, ap-
parently below the level of the bay, and
DIARY IN CANADA
very secluded and cosy. Then two or three
miles further on I saw a larger town high up
on the plateau. At St. Paul's Bay a stronger
cast of scenery, many rugged peaks.
[Aro date.'] On the Saguenay. THE
NOTICEABLE ITEMS ON LAND I the long
boxes of blueberries (we had over a thousand
of them carried on board at Ha Ha Bay
one day I was on the pier) ; the groups of
" boarders " (retaining all their most refined
toggery) ; the vehicles, some " calashes,"
many queer old one-horse top- wagons with
an air of faded gentility. ON THE WATER :
the sail craft and steamers we pass out
in the stream ; the rolling and turning up
of the white-bellied porpoises ; some special
island or rock (often very picturesque in
color or form) ; all the scenes at the piers
as we land to leave or take passengers and
freight, especially many of the natives ; the
changing aspect of the light and the mar-
vellous study from that alone every hour of
the day or night ; the indescribable sunsets
and sunrises (I often see the latter now) ; the
scenes at breakfast and other meal-times (and
what an appetite one gets !) ; the delicious
fish (I mean from the cook's fire, hot).
3 33
WALT WHITMAN'S
I had a good opera glass, and made con-
stant use of it, sweeping every shore.
Northern lights every night.
Quebec from the River, Aug. 8, '80.
Imagine a high rocky hill (the angles each
a mile long), flush and bold to the river,
with plateau on top, the front handsomely
presented to the south and east (we are
steaming up the river) ; on the principal
height, still flush with the stream, a vast
stone fort, the most conspicuous object in
view ; the magnificent St. Lawrence itself ;
many hills and ascents and tall edifices
shown at their best — and steeples ; the
handsome town of Point Levi opposite ; a
long low sea-steamer just hauling out.
Aug. 8, Sunday forenoon. A leisurely
varied drive around the city, stopping a
dozen times and more. I went into the
citadel, talked with the soldiers (over 100
here, Battery A, Canadian militia, the
regulars having long since departed ; a fort
under the old dispensation, strong and
picturesque as Gibraltar). Then to several
Catholic churches and to the Esplanade.
The chime-bells rang out at intervals all
the forenoon, joyfully clanging. It seems
34
DIARY IN CANADA
almost an art here. I never before heard
their peculiar sound to such mellifluous
advantage and pleasure.
The old name of Quebec — Hochelega
[sic], [Hochelaga (ho-shel'-a-gah) is derived
from an aboriginal word meaning beaver-
grounds.]
Aug. 9, Quebec. Forenoon. We have
driven out six or seven miles to the Mont-
morenci Falls, and I am writing this
as I sit high up on the steps, the cascade
immediately before me, the great rocky
chasm at my right and an immense
lumber depot bordering the river, far, far
below, almost under me, to the left. It
makes a pretty and picturesque show, but
not a grand one. The principal fall, 30 or
40 feet wide and 250 high, pours roaring
and white down a slant of dark gray rocks,
and there are six or seven rivulet falls
flanking it.
Since writing the above I have gone down
the steps (some 350) to the foot of the Fall,
which I recommend every visitor to do : the
view is peculiar and fine. The whole scene
grows steadily upon one, and I can imagine
myself, after many visits, forming a finally
35
WALT WHITMAN'S
first-class estimate,1 from what I see here
of Montmorenci over a part of the scaly,
grim, bald-black rock, the water falling
downward like strings of snowy-spiritual
beautiful tresses.
The road out here from the city is a very
good one, lined with moderate-class houses,
copious with women and children. Doors
and windows wide open, exhibiting many
groups to us as we passed. The men appear
to be away : I wonder what they work at ?
Every house for miles is set diagonally with
one of its corners to the road, never its
gable or front. There seems little farming
here, and I see no factories.
Through the forenoon watched the cascade
under the advantages now of partly cloudy
atmosphere and now of the full sunshine.
The tamarack-trees. — The great loaves of
bread, shaped like clumsy butterflies. — Jo
Le Clerc, our driver, lifting his ringer. —
1 This word in the MS. has a query above it, — a
common habit of Whitman, not only in this diary,
but elsewhere, when he felt not wholly satisfied but
that he might be able later to write a better word.
Very frequently, too, in this diary, a second (alterna-
tive) word is written above the first, as if in his
mind the choice were doubtful.
36
DIARY IN CANADA
Hundreds of (to our eyes) funny-looking
one-horse vehicles, — calashes ; antique gigs ;
heavy two-seated covered voitures, always
drawn by one horse ; long narrow strips of
farms [as in France] ; coarse, rank tobacco ;
potatoes, plenty and fine-looking ; big-roofed
one-story houses with projecting eaves ;
entire absence of barns. — The ruins of
Montcalm's country-seat, the strong old
stone walls still standing to the second story ;
indeed, many old stone walls, including those
of the old city, still standing.
Aug. 9 [on the St. Lawrence]. Very
pleasant journey of 180 miles this afternoon
and to-night ; crowds of Catholic priests on
board with their long loose black gowns,
and the broad brims of their hats turned
into a peculiar triangle.
Aug. 10. Again in Montreal. As I
write this I am seated aft in the delicious
river breeze on the steamboat that is to take
me back west some 380 miles from here to
Hamilton. Two hours yet before we start ;
few passengers, as they come east by the
boats, and then generally take the railroad
back. Montreal has the largest show of sail
ships and handsome ocean steamers of any
37
WALT WHITMAN'S
place on the river and lake line, and I am
right in full sight of them.
Going on the river westward from Montreal
is pretty slow and tedious, taking a long
time to get through the canals and many
locks, to Lake St. Francis, where the
steamer emerges to the river again. These
rapids along here — the boats can descend,
but cannot go up them. A great incon-
venience to the navigator, but they are quite
exciting with their whirls and roar and foam,
and very picturesque.
Here, too, are graveyards. In a lovely
little shore-nook, under an apple-tree, green,
grassy, fenced by rails, lapped by the waters,
I saw a grave, — white headstone and foot-
stone ; could almost read the inscription.
Aug. 10, Evening. Wondrously clear,
pleasant, and calm. I think it must have
been unusual ; the river was as smooth as
glass for hours. All the stars shone in it
from below as brightly as above, — the young
moon, and Arcturus, and Aquila, and, after
10, lustrous Jupiter. Nothing could be more
exquisite. I sat away forward by the bow
and watched the show till after 11.
38
DIARY IN CANADA
Aug. 12, 11 A. M. As we take the cars
at Toronto to go west, the first thing I
notice is the change of temperature ; no
more the cool fresh air of the lakes, the St.
Lawrence, and the Saguenay.
Aug. 12, 4^ P.M. I am writing this at
Hamilton, high up on a hill south of the
town.
Aug. 13, P. M. I write this on a singular
strip of beach off Hamilton.
To-day have been driving about for several
hours, — some of the roads high up on the
crest of the mountain ; spent a pleasant hour
in the wine vaults of Mr. Haskins, and an-
other at the vineyard and hospitable house
of Mr. Paine, who treated us to some
delicious native wine.
Aug. 14. I am writing this on the high
balcony of the Asylum at Hamilton (Ontario,
Canada).1 The city is spread in full view
before me. (Is there not an escaped patient ?
I see a great commotion, — Dr. W. and
several attendants, men and women, rushing
1 Dr. Bucke was during the year 1876 medical
superintendent of this asylum. — Free Press, Lon-
don, Ont, Feb. 2, 1902 (obituary).
WALT WHITMAN'S
down the cliff). — A dark, moist, lowering
forenoon ; balmy air though ; wind south-
west.
Aug. 14, 5^2 P.M. Arrived back in Lon-
don a couple of hours ago, all right. Am
writing this in my room, Dr. B.'s house.
Along the way on the journey from Hamil-
ton to London everywhere through the car-
windows I saw locust-trees growing and the
broad yellow faces of sunflowers, the sumach
bushes with their red cones, and the orchard
trees loaded with apples.
The waters, the lakes, and the indescrib-
able grandeur and 1 of the St. Lawrence
are the beauty of Canada through this vast
line of two thousand miles and over. In
its peculiar advantages, sanities, and charms,
I doubt whether the globe for democratic
purposes has its equal.
[A little farther back in his diary Whit-
man has the following equally enthusiastic
paragraphs of generalizations on Canada.
They are labelled thus:
" ? For lecture — for conclusion ? "]
A grand, sane, temperate land, the amplest
1 The blank space, and others below, are re-
produced from the MS.
40
/
\
DIARY IN CANADA
and most beautiful and stream of water,
— a river and necklace of vast lakes, pure,
sweet, eligible, supplied by the chemistry of
millions of square miles of gushing springs
and melted snows. No stream this for side
frontier — stream rather for the great central
current, the glorious mid-artery, of the great
Free Pluribus Unum of America, the solid
Nationality of the present and the future, the
home of an improved grand race of men and
women ; not of some select class only, but
of larger, saner, better masses. I should say
this vast area (from lat. and )
was fitted to be their unsurpassed habitat.
I know nothing finer. The European
democratic tourist, philanthropist, geogra-
pher, or genuine inquirer, will make a fatal
mistake who leaves these shores without
understanding this. — I know nothing finer,
either from the point of view of the soci-
ologist, the traveller, or the artist, than a
month's devotion to even the surface of
Canada, over the line of the great Lakes and
the St. Lawrence, the fertile, populous, and
happy province of Ontario, the [province] of
Quebec, with another month to the hardy
maritime regions of New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, and Newfoundland.
41
WALT WHITMAN'S
[In Whitman's Canadian diary, as I re-
ceived it, I find the following notes on loose
sheets.]
I see, or imagine I see in the future, a
race of two million farm-families, ten million
people — every farm running down to the
water,1 or at least in sight of it — the best
air and drink and sky and scenery of the
globe, the sure foundation-nutriment of
heroic men and women. The summers, the
winters — I have sometimes doubted whether
there could be a great race without the
hardy influence of winters in due propor-
tion.
Total Dominion, 3,500,000 square miles.
Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Bruns-
wick, Prince Edward Island, British Colum-
bia, Manitoba, Hudson Bay, and Northwest
Territories. (Newfoundland not in Domin-
ion.) Area equal to the whole of Europe.
Population, 1880, four to five millions.
Principal timber: white and red pine.
The woods are full of white oak, elm, beech,
ash, maple (bird's-eye, curled, etc.), wal-
nut, cedar, birch, tamarack, sugar orchards
(maple).
1 The St. Lawrence.
42
DIARY IN CANADA
The honey-bee everywhere ; rural ponds
and lakes (often abounding with the great
white sweet-smelling water-lily) ; wild fruits
and berries everywhere ; in the vast flat
grounds the prairie anemone.
The fisheries of Canada are almost un-
paralleled. . . . Then the furs. . . .
If the most significant trait of modern
civilization is benevolence (as a leading
statesman has said), it is doubtful whether
this is anywhere illustrated to a fuller degree
than in the province of Ontario. All the
maimed, insane, idiotic, blind, deaf and dumb,
needy, sick and old, minor criminals, fallen
women, foundlings, have advanced and ample
provision of house and care and oversight,
at least fully equal to anything of the kind
in any of the United States — probably in-
deed superior to them. In Ontario for its
eighty-eight electoral ridings, each one re-
turning a member of parliament, there are
four Insane Asylums, an Idiot Asylum, one
Institution for the Blind, one for the Deaf
and Dumb, one for Foundlings, a Reforma-
tory for Girls, one for Women, and no end
of homes for the old and infirm, for waifs,
and for the sick.
Its school system, founded on the Massa-
43
WALT WHITMAN'S
chusetts plan, is one of the best and most
comprehensive in the world.
Some of the good people of Ontario have
complained in my hearing of faults and
fraudulencies, commissive or emissive, on
the part of the government, but I guess
said people have reason to bless their stars
for the general fairness, economy, wisdom,
and liberality of their officers and adminis-
tration.
Aug. 21, '80 [London, Canada]. I rose
this morning at four and look'd out on the
most pure and refulgent starry show. Right
over my head, like a Tree-Universe spread-
ing with its orb-apples, — Aldebaran leading
the Hyades ; Jupiter of amazing lustre, soft-
ness, and volume ; and, not far behind, heavy
Saturn, — both past the meridian ; the seven
sparkling gems of the Pleiades ; the full
moon, voluptuous and yellow, and full of
radiance, an hour to setting in the west.
Everything so fresh, so still ; the delicious
something there is in early youth, in early
dawn — the spirit, the spring, the feel;
the air and light, precursors of the untried
sun ; love, action, forenoon, noon, life — full-
fibred, latent with them all. And is not
DIARY IN CANADA
that Orion the mighty hunter? Are not
those the three glittering studs in his belt ?
And there to the north Capella and his
kids.
Aug. 29. At Dr. B. 's. The robins on the
grassy lawn (I sometimes see a dozen at a
time, great fat fellows). The little black-
and-yellow bird with his billowy flight [the
goldfinch] ; the flocks of sparrows. [Else-
where in this diary he writes of " the long
clear quaver of the robin, its mellow and
reedy note," although he erased the words
as being unsatisfactory. But I think they
are admirably descriptive of the timbre of the
robin's evening song as well as the song
itself.]
END OF THE DIARY IN CANADA
45
FROM OTHER JOURNALS OF
WALT WHITMAN
FROM OTHER JOURNALS
OF WALT WHITMAN
Wednesday, 4th March, 1863. SCENE UP
TO NOON. CLOSE OF THE 37TH CONGRESS ;
HOUSE. Well, here is the 4th of March,
and two out of the four years of the Lincoln
administration have gone by. And now
there are two to follow. What will happen
during those two years ?
Forenoon, 4sth March. The House now
presents a most animated and characteristic
scene. The ranges of crowded galleries are
in shadow, while the strong day showers its
powerful and steady streams upon the floor.
Did I think and say it looked so much bet-
ter at night ? Well, I think I never saw it
look better than now (11 /^ A. M.).
A member from New York has just been
making a most excited little speech. At
this moment the clerk is calling the ayes
and noes. The members and many distin-
guished and undistinguished visitors are
filling the floor, talking, walking, sauntering
in twos or threes, or gathered together in
* 49
JOURNALS OF
little knots. — The clapping of hands calling
the pages ; the fresh green of the carpets
and desks ; the strong, good-tinted panel
frames of the glass roof; the short, decided
voice of the speaker ; the continual soda-pop-
like burstings of members calling " Mr.
Speaker ! Mr. Speaker ! " the incessant bustle,
motion, surging hubbub of voices, undertoned
but steady.
There is a rather notable absence of
military uniforms on the floor of the house ;
crowded as it is at this moment, I do not,
as I sweep my eyes around, see a single
shoulder-strap.
Interruption : a message from the Senate
of the United States ; it is half-past eleven ;
there are but thirty minutes left for the
87th Congress ; the ladies' gallery in the
House is about half of the whole room
devoted to the public ; a resolution is adopted
giving a boy who was employed by the
House $100 — he has had his ankles crushed,
disabled ; the hands of the clock move on ;
there is great hubbub and confusion, actual
disorder ; bang ! bang ! bang ! the speaker's
hammer is rapidly falling, and he sternly
calls for gentlemen to come to order ; and
still the hands of the clock invisibly move
50
WALT WHITMAN
on ; there are but fifteen minutes left ; voices
of hubbub ; bump, bump, bump, bump,
bump I " Gentlemen will please take their
seats." " Not one step further, gentlemen,
till there is something like order."
Five minutes to twelve ; there is a kind
of hush and abeyance — not the hubbub now
there has been ; some filibustering is at-
tempted on a small scale ; tellers are called
to clear up a disputed vote ; the strong hum
goes on ; the crowd is very great ; the laws
of the door have been relaxed and everybody
appears to have somebody in tow ; the
hands are on 12 ; the speaker rises ; the
clerks, officers, pages, gather in a close
phalanx around the desk, on the steps and
close to them ; the hubbub subsides into the
stillness of death ; the doorkeepers guard all
the doors ; the speaker's address. — The 37th
Congress is adjourned sine die ; the impres-
sion evidently good as he concludes ; there
is hearty applause, and then things are un-
tied ; the doors fly open ; the many-drest
public streams in ; all below there is now
a crawling jam of people, — soldier boys,
hoosiers, gents, etc. etc. etc. A dust arises
from the tread of so many footsteps —
boots with the mud dried on them ; the
51
J OURN ALS OF
last breath of the 37th Congress, full of dim
opaque particles, rises and fills the air of the
most beautiful room in the world ; but the
light strikes down through it ; the crowd
wave their hats.
VICTOR HUGO'S ANNEE TERRIBLE [1870-
71] (as translated to me by Mr. Aubin, Oct.
'72). First the Prologue, the splendid por-
traiture of the People and the Mob. A
whole world, if it is wrong, does not out-
weigh one just man. Distinction between
the People and the Mob — magnificent. It
is not incense that has broken the nose of
the Sphinx: it is the bosom made vulgar
by the belly. — " SEDAN." The close, where
the sword of France representing all the
great heroic characters and all the famous
victories (mentioned by name) is "by the
hand of a bandit" ignominiously surren-
dered.
[The passages in "L'Annee Terrible"
referred to are as follows :
" Un raonde, s'il a tort, ne pese pas un juste,
Tout un ocean fou bat en vain un grand coeur."
Says Hugo : The crowd and the idealist
have rude encounters : Moses, Ezekiel, Dante,
52
WALT WHITMAN
were men grave and severe. The spirit of
redoutable thinkers can be better employed
than in caressing the sphinx —
" Ce grand monstre de pierre accroupe qui medite,
Ayant en lui Tenigme adorable ou maudite ;
L'ouragan n'est pas tendre aux colosses emus ;
C'est ne pas d'encensoirs que le sphinx est camus.
La verite, voila le grand encens austere
Qu'on doit a cette masse ou palpite un mystere,
Et qui porte en son sein qu'un ventre appesantit,
Le droit juste mele de Tinjuste appetit."
At the close of the section called "Aout "
and also headed " Sedan," Hugo is de-
scribing in grandiose imagery the battle of
Sedan, — the vast clouds of smoke, the
thunder-roll of the cannon, the feeling of
honor, of devotion to country, the sublime
moment when, in the passion of battle,
the soldier is ready to consecrate his life
to his country's welfare, when the trumpets
are breathing their thrilling sounds, and
the word is " resist or die 1 " And then
(continues Hugo) is heard this monstrous
and cowardly cry " I wish to live," " Je
veux vivre" (alluding to Napoleon the
Little).
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JOURNALS OF
" Alors la Gaule, alors la France, alors la gloire,
Alors Brennus, Taudace, et Clovis, la victoire,
Les hommes du dernier carre de Waterloo,
Et tous les chefs de guerre, Heristal, Charlemagne,
Napoleon plus grand que Cesar et Pompee
Par la main d'un bandit rendirent leur epee."]
NEW YORK VISIT. Came on to N. Y.
June 13, '78, to 1309 Fifth Ave. 2d door
south of 86th street. — At Mr. Bryant's
funeral [the poet Bryant] at the church in
4th Ave. June 14, '78. — Up the Hudson
River to West Point to Mr. and Mrs.
Bigelow's, Sunday, June 16th.
(Wm. H. Taylor, policeman, 959 Fifth
Ave. ; house south of 85th St.1 — Alonzo
Sprague, 33 years of age — western — been
two years with Frank Aiken, the actor.)
Visit to Watson Gilder's, evening of June
14. Modjeska, Wyatt Eaton, Charles De
Kay.
1 Sprinkled through all Whitman's pocket-book
diaries are names of men to whom he was at-
tracted, e. g., a Pullman-car conductor, a policeman, a
'bus driver, a great poet. His magnetic love always
drew him hungeringly toward manly men.
54
WALT WHITMAN
20-24sth June (inclusive}. Visit at John
Burroughs's, Esopus (Sirfith Caswell).
25th June. Down the bay with Sorosis
party.
July 3, '78. Visited the Tribune news-
paper office; read proof [of a letter they
printed]. Up, up, up, in the elevator some
eight or nine stories, to the top of the tall
tower. Then the most wonderful expanse
and views ! A living map indeed, — all New
York and Brooklyn, and all the waters and
lands adjacent for twenty miles, every direc-
tion. My thoughts of the beauty and am-
plitude of these bay and river surroundings
confirmed. Other thoughts also confirmed,
— that of a fitter name ; for instance, Man-
nahatta, " the place around which there are
hurried and joyous waters, continually " —
(that 's the sense of the old aboriginal word).
— Was treated with much courtesy by
Whitelaw Reid,1 the editor who placed his
cab at my disposal. Had a pleasant evening
drive through the Park [Central Park], it
being on my way home.
1 Perhaps to make up for his long years of
lending the Tribune to insulting attacks on Whit-
man.
55
JOURNALS OF
Oct., Nov., etc., '79. NOTES IN ST. Louis.
In the Mercantile Library on Fourth Street
(where I used to go for an hour daily to read
the New York and Philadelphia papers by
courtesy of Mr. Dyer) they have a very good
photograph from life of Edgar Poe and a
bust of Thomas H. Benton, the best life
likeness. Also a colossal clay figure, very
good, of Mr. Shaw, a rich philanthropist
here, and donor of a handsome park and
botanical garden to the city.
[New York], Sunday, '79. Took a slow
walk forenoon to-day (Easter Sunday: the
chick is breaking the egg) along Fifth
Avenue where it flanks the Park, from
85th to 90th street. I rest my note-book,
to write this, on the roof-shaped coping of
the wall. All round this vast pleasure-
ground has been built a costly, grim, for-
bidding stone fence, some parts of it seven
feet high, others lower, capped with heavy
bevelled rough marble, — in my judgment a
nuisance, the whole thing. There ought to
be no such fence ; the grounds ought to be
open all round (both the spirit of the matter
and the visible fact and convenience are
important and require it).
56
WALT WHITMAN
Perhaps (though I am not sure) the gen-
eral planning, designing, and carrying out
of this Park, from its original state to the
present, are successes and the results good.
But the same ideas, theories (by the same
person, I understand), applied to Prospect
Park, Brooklyn, have in my opinion done
their best to spoil that incomparable hill and
ground, — in some respects the grandest site
for a park in the world. The same error in
Capitol Hill at Washington, — exploiting
the designs of ingrain carpets, with sprawl-
ing and meaningless lines.
Aug. 9, '79. GORGEOUS FLOWERS. As I
walk the suburbs of a town where I am
temporarily staying, great sunflowers bend
their tall and stately discs in full bloom in
silent salute to the day-orb. Many other
gorgeous blossoms. Roses of Sharon are
out, both the white ones and the red. Then
the tawny trumpet-flower, its rich-deep
orange-yellow on copious vines in back yards
and on the gables of old houses. Great balls
of the blue hydrangeas are not uncommon.
I stop long before a tall clump of the Japanese
sunflowers.
57
JOURNALS OF
May 13 to 26, '81. Down in the country,
mostly in the woods, enjoying the early
summer, the bird music, and the pure air.
For interest and occupation I busy myself
three or four hours every day, arranging,
revising, cohering, here and there slightly
rewriting (and sometimes cancelling) a new
edition of L. of G. complete in one volume.
I do the main part of the work out in the
woods. I like to try my pieces by negligent,
free, primitive Nature, — the sky, the sea-
shore, the sunshine, the plentiful grass, or
dead leaves (as now) under my feet, and the
song of some catbird, wren, or russet thrush
within hearing ; like (as now) the half-
shadowed tall-columned trees, with green
leaves and branches in relief against the sky.
Such is the library, the study where (seated
on a big log) I have sifted out and given
some finishing touches to this edition
(J. R. O[sgood] publisher, 1881). I take
a bout at it every day for an hour or two —
sometimes twice a day.
Received back to-day the MS. of the
little piece of "A Summer Invocation,"
which I had sent to H.'s [Harper's] maga-
zine. The editor said he returned it be-
cause his readers wouldn't understand any
58
WALT WHITMAN
meaning to it. (Put in Holland's [Scrib-
ner's].)
THE ENGLISH SPARROWS. March 30, 79,
Sunday forenoon, 10, 11, etc. The window
where I sit (after a good breakfast with
my hospitable friends Mr. and Mrs. J. M.
S[covel] and their family, who have all gone
off to church, leaving me to myself) opens
on a spacious side-yard exhibiting near-at-
hand views of an old extensive Ivy Vine,
with thick-matted, yet-green foliage, nearly
covering the east gable wall of the adjoining
house (fifty feet square, I should guess),
alive at this moment, in its sunny exposure,
with the darting, flirting, twittering, of scores,
hundreds, of English sparrows, busily en-
gaged, with much loquacity, pulling old
nests to pieces and building new ones. I
had before in my walks noticed this grand
Ivy, with its flocks of sparrows ; but now
alone here, comfortable, I note leisurely the
little drama, taking it all in and enjoying it.
(What a noble and verdant vine yet — a
lesson to old age.) What tireless, vehement
noisy tit-bits the birds are ! What a rollick-
ing time 1 Evidently what fun ! Some-
times, at a spirt of wind coming, the whole
59
JOURNALS OF
swarm of them, as if frightened, emerge in-
stantaneously from the recesses of the vast
vine, and slant and radiate off like flashes ;
but it is all affectation, for presently they
return, and operations are renewed and car-
ried on as actively as ever. It is a hurried,
whirling, crossing, chattering, most intense
and interested scene, for an hour. (As
many have said or thought, who knows but
what there are beings of superior spheres,
invisible, looking on the chattering activity
and affectations of man, with the same critical
top-loftical air ? Echo — who knows ?)
Aug. 7, '81. How deeply I was touched
just now reading in the account of the famed
Italian tragedian and manager Modena that
he had succeeded in " founding a school of
acting with Liberty as its keystone and
motto " ! With that inspiration he seems to
have brought forward Salvini and Rossi.
LEAVES OF GRASS FINISHED. Boston,
Oct. 22, '81, 8.30 A. M. I am pencilling this
in the N. E. and N. Y. depot, foot of Sum-
mer street, waiting to start west in the 9
o'clock train. Have been in Boston the last
two months seeing to the " materialization "
60
WALT WHITMAN
of my completed " Leaves of Grass " — first
deciding on the kind of type, size of page,
head-lines, consecutive arrangement of pieces,
etc. ; then the composition, proof-reading,
electrotyping, etc., which all went on smoothly
and with sufficient rapidity. Indeed I quite
enjoyed the work (have felt the last few days
as though I should like to shoulder a similar
job once or twice every year). The printing-
office (Rand and Avery's [corner Franklin and
Federal streets]) is a fine one, and I had the
very genial and competent aid throughout
of Henry H. Clark, principal proof-reader
and book-superintendent of the concern.1
And so I have put those completed poems
in permanent type-form at last. And of the
present prose volume [what volume ? he did
not begin to prepare his first and only prose
volume, Specimen Days, until July, '82 ; see
first page of that work] — are not its items
("ducks and drakes," as the boys term the
little pebble-flats they send at random to
1 Mr. Clark was for many years at the University
Press, Cambridge, and used to tell me how he would
sometimes induce Longfellow to alter a word at his
suggestion, the poet often dropping in from his home
on the same street to oversee the work of getting new
poems into type.
61
JOURNALS OF
skip over the surface of the water and sink
in its depths) — is not the preceding col-
lection mainly an attempt at specimen sam-
ples of the bases and arrieres of those same
poems? often unwitting to myself at the
time.
Sunday Morning, early May, '84. As I
saunter along I mark the profuse pink-and-
white of the wild honeysuckle, the creamy
blossoming of the dog- wood ; everything
most fragrant, early season ; odors of pine
and oak and the flowering grape-vines ; the
difference between shady places and strong
sunshine ; the holy Sabbath morning ; the
myriad living columns of the temple, the
soothing silence, the incense of some moss,
and the earth fragrance after a rain, strangely
touching the soul.
Sunday, Sept. 14, '84, Cape May, N. J.
I am writing this on the beach at Cape May.
Came down this morning on the West Jer-
sey R. R. ; had a good ride along the shore,
then a sail, beating about in a fine breeze for
over an hour ; then a capital good dinner (a
friend I met insisted on my having some
champagne). After dinner I went down
alone and have had two soothing hours close
62
WALT WHITMAN
by the sea-edge, seated on the sand, to the
hoarse music of the surf rolling in.1
Jan. 11, '85. At J. M. S[covel]s Hinds'
army reminiscences as he told them by the
wood fire in S.'s parlor. The scenes of May,
'64, as witnessed at Fredericksburg ; that
whole old town glutted, filled, probably 15 to
20,000 wounded, broken, dead, dying soldiers,
sent northward from Grant's forces on their
terrific promenade from the Rapidan down to
Petersburg, fighting the way, not only day
by day, but mile by mile — sent up from the
battles of " the Wilderness " ; groups, crowds,
or ones or twos, lying in every house, in every
church, uncared for ; the hundreds and hun-
dreds dying ; the other hundreds of corpses
of the dead ; the fearful heat of the weather ;
the many undressed wounds filled with mag-
gots (actually more than one thousand, and
more than two thousand, such cases).
[The following four items marked in red
ink " Specimen Days." There are many such
1 It was on this Jersey shore that, a few months
previously, he had composed his wonderful poem
"With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea," of which he
sent me a proof-slip (as he often did of other poems)
inscribed " Harper's Monthly, March, '84."
63
JOURN A LS OF
in his MSS. evidently intended for a possible
new edition.]
Grisi and Mario arrived in N. Y. Aug. 19,
1854 ; I heard them that winter and in 1855.
The cholera in N. Y. in 1855.
Kossuth in America in 1851 ; I saw him
make his entre'e in N. Y. latter part of 1851,
riding up Broadway.
N. Y. Exposition (Crystal Palace), 6th
Ave., 40th to 42d St. ; opened July 14, 1853
(I go for a year) ; the great heat August
that year — 400 deaths in three or four days
in N. Y.1
[Among Whitman's MSS. I find the fol-
lowing clipping from the Brooklyn Daily
Times, Jan. 20, '85.]
I recollect (doubtless I am now going to
be egotistical about it), the question of the
new Water Works (magnificently outlined
by Me Alpine and duly carried out and im-
proved by Kirkwood, first-class engineers,
both), was still pending, and the works,
though well under way, continued to be
strongly opposed by many. With the con-
sent of the proprietor, I bent the whole
1 For more about this Crystal Palace, see Dr.
R. M. Bucke's Walt Whitman, p. 25.
64
WALT WHITMAN
weight of the paper steadily in favor of the
McAlpine plan as against a flimsy, cheap
and temporary series of works that would
have long since broken down and disgraced
the city.
This, with my course on another matter,
the securing to public use of Washington
Park (old Fort Greene), stoutly championed
by me some thirty-five years ago against
heavy odds during an editorship of the
Brooklyn Eagle, are "feathers in my wings"
that I would wish to preserve.
WALT WHITMAN.
65
PERSONAL MEMORANDA
NOTES AND JOTTINGS
All through young and middle age I
thought my heredity-stamp was mainly de-
cidedly from my mother's side ; but, as I
grow older, and latent traits come out, I see
my father's also. As to loving and dis-
interested parents, no boy or man ever
had more cause to bless and thank them
than I.1
[For Dr. Bucke's Walt Whitman the poet
sent on certain autobiographic materials in
his own autograph. The following para-
graph was not used by Dr. Bucke.]
Like the Whitmans, the Van Velsors
too were farmers on their own land. Though
both families were well-to-do for those times,
the biblical prayer for " neither poverty nor
riches " might have been considered as ful-
filled in either case. The poet's father died
in Brooklyn, New York, July 11, 1855 ; the
" dear dear mother" in Camden, New Jersey,
1 Written on the back of a letter from James M.
Scovel, which is dated Oct. 15, 1883.
66
WALT WHITMAN
May 23, 1873. . . . Though the concrete
and entire foundation of the poet, as person
and writer, doubtless comes from his solid
English fatherhood, the emotional and
liberty-loving, the social, the preponderating
qualities of adhesiveness, immovable gravi-
tation and simplicity, with a certain conser-
vative protestantism and other traits, are
unmistakably from his motherhood, and are
pure Hollandic or Dutch.
[For my work on Whitman (the bulk of
which he read in MS. and approved), he sent
me the following notes on his ancestry. I
used a small portion of these, inserting what
seemed available almost verbatim, but give
them now entire.]
Going back far enough ancestrally, Walt
Whitman undoubtedly comes meandering
from a blended tri-heredity stream of Dutch
(Hollandisk), the original Friends (Quakers),
and the Puritans of Cromwell's time. The
first Whitman immigrant settled in Con-
necticut, 1635, and a son of his went over
to Long Island as farmer at West Hills,
Suffolk County ; and a young descendant
five generations afterward marries a daughter
of Cornelius and Amy Van Velsor (the last
of Quaker training and nee Williams). This
67
JOURNALS OF
daughter was the mother of W. W. Though
developed, and Anglofied, and Americanized,
she was Hollandisk from top to toe, and
W. W. inherits her to the life, emotionally,
full-bloodedness, voice, and physiognomy.
Whitman favors (as the old vernacular
word had it) his mother, nee Louisa Van
Velsor, of Queens County, New York. She
was of ordinary medium size (a little plus\
of splendid physique and health, a hard
worker, had eight children, was beloved by
all who met her ; good-looking to the last ;
lived to be nearly eighty. No tenderer or
more invariable tie was ever between mother
and son than the love between her and
W. W. No one could have seen her and
her father, Major Kale (Cornelius) Van Vel-
sor, either in their prime or in their older
age, without instantly perceiving their plainly
marked Hollandisk physiognomy, color, and
body-build. Walt Whitman has all of it:
he shows it in his old features now, his full
flesh and red color. The Van Velsors
(Walt's mother's family) were pure Low
Dutch of the third or fourth remove from
the original emigrants. Few realize how
this Dutch element has percolated into
our New York, Pennsylvania, and other
68
WALT WHITMAN
regions,1 not so much in ostensible literature
and politics, but deep in the blood and breed
of the race, and to tinge all that is to come.
Like the Quakers, the Dutch are very
practical and materialistic, and are great
money-makers, in the bulk and concrete of
the ostent of life, but are yet terribly tran-
scendental and cloudy, too. More than half
the Hollandisk immigrants to New York
Bay became farmers, and a goodly portion
of the rest became engineers or sailors.
It is curious how deep influences, elements,
and characteristic-trends operate through
races and long periods of time, in practical
events or palpably in long continued strug-
gles of war and peace — and then sprout out
eventually in some marked book, perhaps
poem. Whitman himself is fond of resum-
ing the history and development of the Low
Dutch, and their fierce war against Philip
and Alva, and the building of the dykes, and
the shipping and trade and colonization from
1600 to the present, and the old cities and
towers and soldiery and markets and salt-
air, and flat topography, and human physi-
1 See other details of this in my Reminiscences of
Walt Whitman, p. 89.
69
JOURNALS OF
ognomy and bodily form (not the Jewish
seems to be more strictly perpetuated than
these Hollandisk), and their coming and
planting here in America, and investing
themselves not so much hi outward mani-
festations, but in the blood and deeds of the
race ; and the poet considers his " Leaves of
Grass" to be, in some respects, spinally
understood only by reference to that Hol-
landisk history and personality.
[The following is marked in red ink:
" ? a 1" for Specimen Days."]
There is something in concrete Nature
itself in all its parts that is a quality, an
identity, apart from and superior to any
appreciation of the same through realism or
mysticism (the very thought of which in-
volves abstraction) or through literature or
art. This something belonging to the ob-
jects themselves not only lies beyond all the
expressions of literature and art, but seems
disdainful of them and fades away at their
touch.
[The two next paragraphs are marked,
" 2d vol. Specimen Days."]
After reading the pages of Specimen
70
WALT WHITMAN
Days do you object that they are a great
jumble, everything scattered, disjointed,
bound together without coherence, without
order or system ? My answer would be, So
much the better do they reflect the life they
are intended to stand for.
Though I would not have dared to gather
the various pieces of the following book in a
single volume with a generic name unless I
felt the strong inward thread of spinality
running through all the pieces and giving
them affinity-purpose — I yet realize that
the collection is indeed a melange and its
cohesion and singleness of purpose not so
evident at first glance.
It is said, perhaps rather quizzically, by
my friends that I bring civilization, politics,
the topography of a country, and even the
hydrography, to one final test, — the capa-
bility of producing, favoring, and maintain-
ing a fine crop of children, a magnificent
race of men and women. I must confess
I look with comparative indifference on all
the lauded triumphs of the greatest manu-
facturing, exporting, gold-and-silver-produc-
ing nation in comparison with a race of
really fine physical perfectionists.
71
JOURNALS OF
Col. J. W. F[orney] remarked in the
course of our talk this evening : " If I
were asked to put my finger on the name
of any eminent official in this great city
[Philadelphia] — and I know nine-tenths
of them — as of undoubted honesty and
integrity, I could not do it." (F., who has
been in public life for forty years, and
knows everybody, especially the Phila-
delphians, is not a sour man, either — is
quite lenient, human, tolerant.) [Col. For-
ney died in 1881.]
[NOTES FOR A CANADA LECTURE, NEVER
DELIVERED.] In modern times the new
word Business has been brought to the front
and now dominates individuals and nations
(always of account in all ages, but never
before confessedly leading the rest as in our
19th century) ; Business — not the mere
sordid, prodding, muck-and-money-raking
mania, but an immense and noble attribute
of man, the occupation of nations and in-
dividuals (without which is no happiness),
the progress of the masses, the tie and inter-
change of all the peoples of the earth. Ruth-
less war and arrogant dominion-conquest was
the ideal of the antique and mediaeval hero ;
72
WALT WHITMAN
Business shall be, nay is, the word of the
modern hero.
[1883.] Meeting with Thurlow Weed and
long talk with him.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. Oct. 31, '84.
The political parties are trying — but mostly
in vain — to get up some fervor of excite-
ment on the pending Presidential election.
It comes off next Tuesday. There is no
question at issue of any importance. I can-
not " enthuse " at all. I think of the elec-
tions of '30 and '20. Then there was
something to arouse a fellow. But I like
well the fact of all these national elections
— have written a little poem about it (to
order), — published in a Philadelphia daily,
of 26th instant.1 [The candidates in '84 were
Blaine and Cleveland ; the issues tariff and
Chinese exclusion. Blaine was defeated,
owing to Conkling's defection.]
1 " If I Should Need to Name, O Western World."
Press, October 26 (styled now "Election Day, 1884."
It is only poetic prose. Compare it with Whittier's
nervy lyric " After Election.")
73
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