Show t P whit lamm po vt I 1 4 V 40 I 1 4 48 f J ga y S 1 l i i AW ajl y the 1 CO mh ay 76 ili Y OM ayn 7 cy y JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN 13 WALT WHITMAN the good gray poet coln coining 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 ten foot bronze statue and jo doldson Da ldson kidson has been commissioned to make it ft anyone who feels so Inelli inclined zed can contribute to the cost shut not your doors to me proud libraries 1 wrote whitman in one of his poems libraries have been known lo 10 that mai and ADO now comes forward the new kew york public library with an exhibition of 0 WhIt maula in aid of the statue project it Is the first time any library has honored the poet with a special exhibition the Whit manla consists of books editions of all sorts translations into foreign languages newspapers and magazines to which I 1 he contributed manuscripts paintings busts caricatures books about him and a great variety of other material illustrative of tile the life and work of new yorks greatest poet the exhibition hibi tion has been assembled and aad arranged by alfred goldsmith the whitman biographer the editions on view tire are thus summarized here Is shown franklin evans Whit mans first volume a puerile temperance melodrama seven copies of the famous first edition of leaves of grass the second edition with the well known 1 I greet you at the beginning of a great career from emerson spread upon the Is fully displayed 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 be said that which expressed his deepest self the osgood edition of 0 1831 2 which caused such a furor because of threatened legal prosecution Is shown as well as tile 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 his most handsome one was the autographed pocketbook edition of 1889 but ten years after his bis death in 1892 his collected works were published do de by put nam in ten highly illustrated volumes the deathbed edition was hastily bound for whitman just before hla his death in order that he might make a fd rewell present to his friends the display of editions closes with the latest issued a year ago the inclusive edition the committee on sculpture includes prof george georga S hellman Uell man chairman and mrs harry payne whitney aymar ambury Kin bury otto n H kalin kaba charles de kay guy Egi egleston eston and prof emory holloway olloway II chairman of the walt whitman memorial lat committee professor hellman has this to say about the selection of mr davidsons model for the memorial no formal compeLi competition tion was held 11 but designs were submitted by st bit x sculptors who requested that their works be considered at the recent meeting of tile llo sculpture committee ff ra mr davidsons design was declared the most fitting and arrangements were w ere begun with him looking to the completion of the work mr davidson Dav ldson took as his theme Whit mans song of the open road the long brown path before me leading wherever I 1 choose ills idea Is to have the statue raised slightly above its surroundings on a sort or at hillock block 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 bo be in bronze and of heroic size probably ten feet or more in height nere here are lines from the song of the open road which show that mr davidsons idea for a statue Is a happy one afoot and lighthearted light hearted I 1 take to the tb open road healthy free the world before me the long lone brown path before me leading wherever I 1 henceforth I 1 ask not good fortune I 1 myself am good fortune henceforth I 1 whimper no more postpone no more need nothing done with indor inder ind or er complaints libraries libra querulous criticisms strong and content I 1 travel the open road prom from this hour 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 Pauel nc searching receiving contemplating gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold bold me I 1 inhale great great draughts of space the th east and the west are mine and the north and the south are mine Ca marado I 1 give you my hand I 1 rive give you my love more precious than money I 1 I 1 give you myself before preaching or law will you give elve me yourself will you come coma travel with me met shall we stick by each other as a long lone as we live foreigners insist that it was walt whitman who put us on the literary map and keeps us there however that may be john burrough Burro hs probably expressed the american viewpoint of a generation ago pretty closely when lie wrote this who goes there hankering g gross 88 mystical nude han hankering kerin g ilk like 0 t the he great elk in the forest at springtime KOM j as an nature la IS gross mystical as aa boehrns blohma or and so BO far an aa the conceal ments an and disguises of the conventional man and the usual adornments adornment of polite verse vcrne are concerned as aa nude as aa adam in indeed it wait wa the nudity of walt Whit mans verse versa both in respect to its subject matter and his all mode or of treatment ot of it that so aston lobed when it did not repel hla his read erg era he H boldly stripped away everything conventional and artificial from man clothes cl othea customs institution e etc to and treated him as an he la is primarily r in and of himself and in his hi relation to the universe and with equal boldness he stripped away what were we to him the artificial adjuncts ot of poetry rhyme measure and all the stock language langu ago and forms forma of the schools and planted himself upon a spontaneous rhythm of language and the the inherently poetto la in the common and universal walt whitman 1892 was born on long island and was educated in the public schools ot of new york and brooklyn on his bis fathers side he was wag english and on his bis mothers side holland dutch nis ills maternal grandmother was a ile he learned printing and carpentering and also taught school he began his writing in 1841 with conventional stories next neit he was editor of the brooklyn eagle after a leisurely tour of middle west ind 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 tree free sollers from 1851 to 1854 he was busted busied with building and selling houses and in 1855 appeared leaves of grass tor for which he be set most of the type himself leading citizens preachers lecturers and the general public combined in denouncing him as a revolutionary abandoned voluptuary unredeemed pagan freethinker free thinker literary charlatan and so on As late at 1881 the massachusetts authorities ties objected to rd its sale on the ground th that a t 1 it t wa was 8 immoral F from rom to 1805 whitman was a volunteer war nurse in the army hospitals of washington it Is said that lie he visited and administered to sick and wounded union and confederate out of those these experiences came drum taps and other volumes ills labors as a nurse brought on a serious illness from which ho he never reco recovered vered in he was given a clerkship in the interior department but was discharged by the secretary who objected to the adamic Adam lc passages in leaves of grass he was given a new place under the attorney general and held it until a stroke of paralysis in 1873 compelled ills his retirement ti ile he went to camden N J where he lived till his death march 28 26 1892 walt W whitman hitman anticipating abusive criticism said he be was willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of himself Is tile long wall over |