Show V ka AN aa VY 7 kt k A Z exl 5 1 h ltv 7 ig ivolu y PM 11 y va jy S ahe e 60 0 e 1 own 7 by JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN S WALT WHITMAN the good gray poet coming into his own at last new york city anyway seems to be scrambling hard to overtake his fame the authors club has decided upon a 60 ten foot bronze statue and jo davidson has been commissioned to make it anyone who feels so inclined can contribute to the cost shut not your doors to fo me proud libraries wrote whitman in one of ills his poems libraries have been known to do that and now comes forward the new york public library with an exhibition of Whit mania in aid of the statue project it Is the first time filly any library has honored the poet with a special exhibition the Whit manta consists of books editions of all sorts sorto translations into foreign languages newspapers and magazines to co which he contributed manuscripts paintings busts caricatures books about him and a great variety of other material illustrative of the life and work of new yorks greatest poet the exhibition hibi tion has been assembled and arranged by alfred goldsmith the whitman biographer the editions on view are thus summa summarized here Is shown franklin evans Whit mans first volume a puerile temperance melodrama seven copies 0 the fa failous inous first edition of leaves of grass gras the second edition with tile the well known 1 I greet you at the beginning of a great career from emerson spread upon the Is fully displayed displaced as are the various quaint blind tooled bindings of the third edition accompanying passage to india Is the original manuscript this poem was as he said that which expressed his deepest self the osgood edition of 1891 1812 2 which caused such a furor because of threatened legal prosecution Is shown as well as the rees welsh edition which paid the author the largest royalty checks of his career A rarely seen volume Is memoranda during the war of which less than one hundred copies were printed the edition which whitman himself thought hla his most handsome one was the autographed pocketbook edition of 1889 but ten years after ills his death in 1892 hla his collected works were published de by putnam in ten highly illustrated volumes the deathbed edition was waa hastily bound for whitman just before his death in order that he might make a farewell present ato to his friends the display of edition editions closes with the latest issued a year ayo ago the inclusive edition the committee on sculpture includes prof george S hellman chairman and mrs airs harry payne whitney aymar embury otto ekahn H kahn charles charlea de kay guy egleston and prof E emory mory holloway chairman of the walt whitman memorial com committee mItLee professor hellman has hafl this to say about the selection 0 of mr davidsons model for the memorial no formal competition was held but designs design were su submitted omitted by six sculptors who requested that their works be considered at the recent meeting of the sculpture committee 1414 I 1 M 1 eal mr davidsons design was declared decla rei the most fitting and arrangements arrange menti were begun with him looking to the th c completion of the work mr davidson Dav ldson took as aa hla his theme them Whit mans song of the open road the long brown path beffre me lead ing wherever I 1 choose hla his idea Is to have the statue raised slightly above its surroundings on a sort ol of hillock suggesting an open road on the ground in front of the statue he visualizes a big stone slab upon which would be set in bronze the first stanza of the song of the open road when completed the statue will be in bronze and of heroic size probably ten feet or more in height here are lines from the song of the open road which show that mr davidsons idea tor for a statue Is a happy one afoot and lighthearted light hearted I 1 take to the open road healthy tree free the world before me the long brown path before me leading wherever I 1 choose henceforth I 1 ask not good fortune I 1 myself am good fortune henceforth I 1 whimper no more postpone no more need cothlin nothing g done with indoor complaints libraries querulous criticisms strong and content I 1 travel the open road from this hour hopr I 1 ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines going where I 1 list my own master total and absolute listening to others considering well what they say pausing searching receiving contemplating gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me I 1 inhale great great draughts of m space pace the east and the west are mine and the north and the south mouth are mine Ca CiL merado I 1 give you my handl hand I 1 give you my love more precious than money I 1 give you myself before preaching or law will you tou give me yourself will you come travel with me shelf shall we sma by each other as long as we live avet foreigners insist that it was walt whitman who put us on the literary map and keeps us there however that may be john burroughs probably expressed the american viewpoint of a generation ago pretty closely when i he wrote this who goes there hankering gross mystical nude hankering like the great elk in the forest at springtime aroas sm as nature la in gross across mystical as an boehme or and so tar far as the conceal ments and disguises of the conventional man and the usual adornments of polite verse verge are concerned a as s nude an adam in indeed it was the nudity of walt wait Whit mans verse both in re a hect to its subject matter and his modo mode of treatment of it that so astonished when it did not repel his read ers era he boldly stripped away every thing conventional and artificial fron from man clothed othea clo cl them c custom us tomi institutions etc to and treated d him a as he la is prie in airily in and of himself and in hlf his relation to the universe and with equal boldness he ped away what whal were t to h him 1 m the artificial adjuncts ol of poetry or rhyme b y me measure and all the stock language langu ago and forms of the schools and planted himself upon a I 1 spontaneous rhythm of lai language guage and t the he inherently poetto poetic in the common and universal walt whitman 1810 1819 1892 was born on long island and was educated in the public schools of new york and brooklyn on his fathers side he was english and on his mo mothers theis side holland dutch his maternal grandmother was waa a lie he learned printing and carpentering and also taught school he began ills his writing in 1841 with conventional stories next he was editor of the brooklyn eagle after a leisurely tour of middle west and southern states he joined the staff of the new orleans crescent A little later he established in brooklyn the freeman a short lived organ of the pree free sollers collera from 1851 to 1854 ho he was busied with building and selling houses and in 1855 appeared leaves of grass for which he set most moat of the type himself leading citizens preachers lecturers and the general public combined in denouncing him as aa a revolutionary abandoned voluptuary unredeemed pagan freethinker free tree thinker literary charlatan and so BO on As aa late at 1881 the massachusetts authorities ties objected to tta its sale on the ground that it wits was immoral from 1802 to 1865 whitman was a volunteer war nurse in the army hospitals of washington it Is said that he be visited and administered to sick and wounded union and confederate out of these experiences came drum taps 1805 1865 and other volumes ills his labors as a nurse brought on a serious illness from which he never reCOVer recovered pd in he was given a clerkship in the interior department but was discharged by the secretary who objected to the adamie Adam lc passages in leaves of grass lie he was ziven a new place under the attorney general and held it until a stroke of paralysis in 1873 compelled his retirement ti he went to camden N X J where he lived till his death march 26 I 1 1892 walt whitman anticipating abusive criticism said eald he was willing to wait to be understood by the growth odthe of the taste of himself Is the 14 loaf volt Valt oscr overl |