“Leaves of Grass is the book, and Walt Whitman is the poet, beyond any hitherto known"
WHITMAN, WALT. Autograph manuscript signed on Leaves of Grass and Whitman’s mission in the world, beginning “Your Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe …”
Camden, May 25, 1889
One page. At the head of the manuscript Whitman writes, “lines for you to bring in appropriately in your speech—toast.” At the foot he adds, “Herbert, I send the above ¶ for you to work in your speech if you think it proper. I think a great deal of that point of my ‘mission’ & I hope you will weave it in. Walt Whitman.”
Very good condition.
In this outstanding manuscript Whitman describes his historical “mission,” his place in American literature, and the role of the great poet in fostering relations among the the people of the world. Whitman sent these words to his English friend, the artist Herbert Gilchrist, to deliver at Whitman’s 70th birthday banquet on May 30, 1889. Whitman, then ailing and not slated to speak at the event, takes this opportunity to speak through Gilchrist. He writes,
“Your Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe have given you emphatic warnings against ‘entangling alliances’ with any European people, or any foreign people.
“But there is a power and faculty in the human race – adhesiveness is the phrenological term. – the magnetic friendship and good will of the common humanity of all nations – that they would have certainly encouraged – that they and all good publicists would ever encourage.
“Of this faculty Leaves of Grass is the book, and Walt Whitman is the poet, beyond any hitherto known: he scatters it not only through all the states of this immense and variform Union, but all the lands and races of the globe. America to him stands really greater in that than in all its wealth, products and even intellect. By him, poetry is to be its main exemplar and teacher.”
Whitman believed in the power of poetry—especially his—to shape history and human relations. Whitman discussed the idea of adhesiveness in Leaves of Grass, writing, “I announce adhesiveness, I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’’d, I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.” In this manuscript he calls it “the magnetic friendship and good will of the common humanity of all nations.”
For Whitman, “Leaves of Grass is the book, and Walt Whitman is the poet” of adhesiveness. He declares, “America to him stands really greater in that than in all its wealth, products and even intellect. By him, poetry is to be its main exemplar and teacher.”
Whitman’s seventieth birthday was celebrated with a large testimonial dinner in Camden, New Jersey, on May 31, 1889. The poet, in poor health, did not attend the dinner, but he did appear for the remarks afterwards and ended up staying for over two hours. His old friend Herbert Gilchrist, sitting at the poet’s right hand, incorporated Whitman’s words in his long speech, summing up the poet’s place in the world.
This is a splendid manuscript in which Walt Whitman looks back on his life’s work and looks forward to the role Leaves of Grass will play in uniting the people of the world.
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