Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox

Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox Mitchell Santine Gould* Introduction The life and works ofWalt Whitman [1 8 19-1 892], the author oíLeaves ofGrass, pose many challenges forthe serious student ofAmericanhistory. One of the most intractable problems has proven to be his lifelong, conspicuous affiliation with Quakers—with their theology, values, heritage , andtheirmanysocialreforms, as well as withtheirdistinctive dress and speech.1 At various times in his life, Whitman also maintained close friendships with many individual Quakers. On the other hand, as a young man, he decided not to become a member of a Quaker meeting (almost certainly Flushing Meeting, when he taught school at nearby Whitestone, New York, during his early twenties). Over the years, while studying this longstanding problem in Whitman scholarship, I have called this puzzle "Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox."2 In 1888, Whitman, at the end of his life, began to talk to biographer Horace Träubel about those days, in the context of his Elias Hicks essay, "Notes (Such as TheyAre) Founded on Elias Hicks." He was still hesitating on including it in his book November Boughs. I knew the habitats ofHicks so well—my grand-parents knew him personally so well—the shore up there, Jericho, the whole tone ofthe life ofthe time and place—all so familiar to me[.] I have got to lookupon myselfas sort ofchosen to do a job as the Hicksite historian. I have seemed, to myself at least, to be particularly equipped for doing just this thing and doing it as it should be done—have felt that no one else living is exactly so well appointed for it. . . . Now it threatens to go up in smoke! . . . just that sort of [Quaker Meeting for Business] debate is going on in my mind now, whether to send it to the printer or throw it into the stove—a debate not to be put into figures or votes, but real, with a decision pending which I must abide by at last. Tell the printer to give me till Monday—this is Thursday: till then it will be a life or death struggle. For thirty years [since 1 858] I have had it in my plans to write a book about Hicks. . . . Now here I am at last, after all the procrastinations, stranded, with nothing but a few runaway thoughts on the subject to show for my good resolutions. Well—if I can't do all I started offto do I may be able to do some little towards it—give at least some hint, glimpse, odor, of the larger scheme. . . . Then he turned to the subject ofQuaker membership: * Over the years, Mitchell Santine Gould has published numerous historical findings on his website, LeavesofGrass.org, in addition to his scholarly contributions . He has also invoked Whitman's Quaker testimonies on dignity and equality during various political hearings in Oregon on domestic partnership and civil unions. Quaker History Did you know (but I guess you did not) that when I was a young fellow up on the Long Island shore I seriously debated whether I was not by spiritual bent a Quaker?—whether if not one I should become one? But the question went its way again: I put it aside as impossible[;] I was never made to live inside a fence. When Whitman claimed he was never made to live inside a fence, he was referring to the Quaker "hedge." This was described in a typical twentiethcentury Book of Discipline as a singular sort of social barrier: It is in some respects like a hedge about us, which, though it does not make the ground it encloses rich and fruitful, yet it frequently prevents the intrusions by which the labor of the husbandman is injured or destroyed.3 This social barrier—a kind of cultural "force-field," if you will—was deeply-rooted. In 1768, John Roper ofNorwich (England), described it in An Epistle to Parents: Although to the eye ofnatural wisdom the cock ofthe hat, the cut ofa coat, the form ofa cap . . . may appear insignificant . . . yet the spiritual eye can see they are all mercifully designed by infinite Wisdom to build a separation, to form, though by such despicable...