Whittier and Whitman: Uncongenial Personalities

WHITTIER AND WHITMAN: UNCONGENIAL PERSONALITIES By Joseph M. Ernest, Jr.* SIXTY-ONE years ago death came to two American poets of Quaker extraction—John Greenleaf Whittier and Walt Whitman. Both were old men; Whittier was eighty-four, Whitman, seventy-two. In addition to their Quaker extraction, there were several points of similarity between them: both sprang from humble families and retained their early sympathy for the working classes; both were relatively uneducated except by their own efforts; both cut, if not their eye teeth, at least their wisdom teeth upon the tough ring of newspaper editorship; both were American patriots and democrats; both were neglected and even actively opposed by conservative citizens in early life but were accepted and honored in their later decades; and both chose to live and die in bachelorhood. Nevertheless, Whittier, the practical politician, active reformer, and revered moral exemplar, found little that was congenial in Whitman, the idealist, whose practical morality is not generally considered worthy of emulation. Whittier apparently became acquainted with Walt Whitman 's work when Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855. Many years later Whitman said that a friend had told him of Whittier's early attempt to read the Leaves, which bogged down when he came to the "indelicate passages" (Whitman's phrase), upon which he threw the book into the fire.1 Whittier was careful afterwards never to mention even the title of Leaves of Grass, and, unless compelled by circumstances, never to mention the name of its author. Whitman tells of an interview between Whittier and a newspaper reporter, during which the poet dexterously avoided any definite expression of opinion regarding the Leaves.2 In 1876 Whittier published Songs of Three Centuries, an anthology of British and American poetry, which contains poems by a great many major and minor writers, but * Assistant Professor of English, Mississippi Southern College. 1 Horace Träubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (Boston, 1906) , I, 127. 2 Ibid. 85 86Bulletin of Friends Historical Association not one line by Whitman.3 In 1887 Whitman wrote a poetic tribute for Whittier's eightieth birthday,4 hoping to elicit in return some expression from the New Englander concerning Leaves of Grass, but Whittier's polite letter of acknowledgment carefully avoided mention of the disturbing book. Upon reading the letter, Whitman handed it to Horace Träubel with the remark, You will be pleased to see how successfully the old man steers clear of trouble .... [It] has been a part of his business to keep me at a distance—to discredit my work .... I know from this or that quoted from Whittier about me—words not so much of censure as of regret—that he got started wrong with the Leaves and never recovered.5 In 1889 Whittier was still waging his campaign of silence. A representative of the Boston Herala] asked him to head a subscription list for a fund to build a house for Whitman. Whittier returned the list unsigned, with the noncommittal answer that though he would give his "mite" to help one in need, he had no desire to head the list.6 Whittier's motive in this campaign of silence is clear. His opinions on a great variety of subjects were eagerly sought by a host of admirers, and he was always careful not to do or say anything, especially in public, that might possibly mislead somebody who had confidence in him. Therefore, since he considered the influence of Whitman morally degrading, he did not wish to give people the impression that he was a supporter of Whitman. 3 Incidentally, Whittier's southern friend Hayne, in reviewing the hook for the Wilmington, North Carolina, Morning Star, March 11, 1876, highly applauded Whittier's omission of the work of "that prurient poetaster." The review is quoted in The Correspondence of Bayard Taylor and Paul Hamilton Hayne, ed. Charles Duffy (Baton Rouge, La., 1945), p. 24. i "As the Greek's Signal Flame," The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, The Collector's Camden Edition, ed. R. M. Bücke et al. (New York, ca. 1902) , II, 320. 5 Träubel, ?, 8. 6 Manuscript letter from Whittier to Mrs. James T. Fields, dated April...