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Trapped in a Nightmare: Volume 14 (A Dave Geraint Mystery). by R. M. Chaotic Inertia: Volume 3 (Inspector Geraint Mystery). by R. M.
Table of contents
Those same later years, also, while living in Brooklyn, —'50 I went regularly every week in the mild seasons down to Coney island, at that time a long, bare unfrequented shore, which I had all to myself, and where I loved, after bathing, to race up and down the hard sand, and declaim Homer or Shakspere to the surf and sea gulls by the hour.
But I am getting ahead too rapidly, and must keep more in my traces. From to '28 our family lived in Brooklyn in Front, Cranberry and Johnson streets.
In the latter my father built a nice house for a home, and afterwards another in Tillary street. I yet remember Lafayette's visit. It must have been about or '30 that I went with my father and mother to hear Elias Hicks preach in a ballroom on Brooklyn heights. At about the same time employ'd as a boy in an office, lawyers', father and two sons, Clarke's, Fulton street, near Orange.
I had a nice desk and window-nook to myself; Edward C. For a time I now revel'd in romance-reading of all kinds; first, the "Arabian Nights," all the volumes, an amazing treat. Then, with sorties in very many other directions, took in Walter Scott's novels, one after another, and his poetry, and continue to enjoy novels and poetry to this day. After about two years went to work in a weekly newspaper and printing office, to learn the trade.
The paper was the "Long Island Patriot," owned by S. Clements, who was also postmaster. An old printer in the office, William Hartshorne, a revolutionary character, who had seen Washington, was a special friend of mine, and I had many a talk with him about long past times.
- Tom Corbett, Space Cadet #4.
- White Fang (illustrated);
- The Walt Whitman Archive.
The apprentices, including myself, boarded with his grand-daughter. I used occasionally to go out riding with the boss, who was very kind to us boys; Sundays he took us all to a great old rough, fortress-looking stone church, on Joralemon street, near where the Brooklyn city hall now is— at that time broad fields and country roads everywhere around. My father all these years pursuing his trade as carpenter and builder, with varying fortune. There was a growing family of children—eight of us—my brother Jesse the oldest, myself the second, my dear sisters Mary and Hannah Louisa, my brothers Andrew, George, Thomas Jefferson, and then my youngest brother, Edward, born , and always badly crippled, as I am myself of late years.
I develop'd —4—5 into a healthy, strong youth grew too fast, though, was nearly as big as a man at 15 or Our family at this period moved back to the country, my dear mother very ill for a long time, but recover'd. All these years I was down Long Island more or less every summer, now east, now west, sometimes months'at a stretch. At 16, 17, and so on, was fond of debating societies, and had an active membership with them, off and on, in Brooklyn and one or two country towns on the island. A most omnivorous novel-reader, these and later years, devour'd everything I could get.
Fond of the theatre, also, in New York, went whenever I could—sometimes witnessing fine performances. Then, when little more than eighteen, and for a while afterwards, went to teaching country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties, Long Island, and "boarded round. In '39, '40, I started and publish'd a weekly paper in my native town, Huntington. Then returning to New York city and Brooklyn, work'd on as printer and writer, mostly prose, but an occasional shy at "poetry. Living in Brooklyn or New York city from this time forward, my life, then, and still more the following years, was curiously identified with Fulton ferry, already becoming the greatest of its sort in the world for general importance, volume, variety, rapidity, and picturesqueness.
What oceanic currents, eddies, underneath—the great tides of humanity also, with ever-shifting movements. Indeed, I have always had a passion for ferries; to me they afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living poems. The river and bay scenery, all about New York island, any time of a fine day—the hurrying, splashing sea-tides—the changing panorama of steamers, all sizes, often a string of big ones outward bound to distant ports—the myriads of white-sail'd schooners, sloops, skiffs, and the marvellously beautiful yachts—the majestic sound boats as they rounded the Battery and came along towards 5, afternoon, eastward bound—the prospect off towards Staten island, or down the Narrows, or the other way up the Hudson—what refreshment of spirit such sights and experiences gave me years ago and many a time since.
Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway—that noted avenue of New York's crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case— I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one. I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, it must have been in or '6, in his office, second story of a corner building, Duane or Pearl street.
He was editor and owner or part owner of "the Broadway Journal. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. You needn't think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look'd for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.
Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp'd and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor. The years , '47, and there along, see me still in New York city, working as writer and printer, having my usual good health, and a good time generally.
One phase of those days must by no means go unrecorded—namely, the Broadway omnibuses, with their drivers. The vehicles still I write this paragraph in give a portion of the character of Broadway—the Fifth avenue, Madison avenue, and Twenty-third street lines yet running. But the flush days of the old Broadway stages, characteristic and copious, are over. The Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth avenue, the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all gone.
And the men specially identified with them, and giving vitality and meaning to them—the drivers—a strange, natural, quick-eyed and wondrous race— not only Rabelais and Cervantes would have gloated upon them, but Homer and Shakspere would —how well I remember them, and must here give a word about them.
How many hours, forenoons and afternoons—how many exhilarating night-times I have had—perhaps June or July, in cooler air—riding the whole length of Broadway, listening to some yarn, and the most vivid yarns ever spun, and the rarest mimicry —or perhaps I declaiming some stormy passage from Julius Caesar or Richard, you could roar as loudly as you chose in that heavy, dense, uninterrupted street-bass. Not only for comradeship, and sometimes affection great studies I found them also. I suppose the critics will laugh heartily, but the influence of those Broadway omnibus jaunts and drivers and declamations and escapades undoubtedly enter'd into the gestation of "Leaves of Grass.
Books by Whitman
And certain actors and singers, had a good deal to do with the business. All through these years, off and on, I frequented the old Park, the Bowery, Broadway and Chatham-square theatres, and the Italian operas at Chambers-street, Astor-place or the Battery—many seasons was on the free list, writing for papers even as quite a youth.
The old Park theatre—what names, reminiscences, the words bring back! Placide, Clarke, Mrs. Vernon, Fisher, Clara F. Wood, Mrs. Richardson, Rice—singers, tragedians, 'comedians.
Record of Proceedings
What perfect acting! Fanny Kemble—name to conjure up great mimic scenes withal—perhaps the greatest. I remember well her rendering of Bianca in "Fazio," and Marianna in "the Wife. The lady was just matured, strong, better than merely beautiful, born from the footlights, had had three years' practice in London and through the British towns, and then she came to give America that young maturity and roseate power in all their noon, or rather forenoon, flush. It was my good luck to see her nearly every night she play'd at the old Park—certainly in all her principal characters.
I heard Alboni every time she sang in New York and vicinity—also Grisi, the tenor Mario, and the baritone Badiali, the finest in the world. This musical passion follow'd my theatrical one. As boy or young man I had seen, reading them carefully the day beforehand, quite all Shakspere's acting dramas, play'd wonderfully well.
Austin as Ariel, and Peter Richings as Caliban. It was here too I afterward heard Jenny Lind. The Battery—its past associations—what tales those old trees and walks and sea-walls could tell! In , '49, I was occupied as editor of the "daily Eagle" newspaper, in Brooklyn. The latter year went off on a leisurely journey and working expedition my brother Jeff with me through all the middle States, and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
Lived awhile in New Orleans, and work'd there on the editorial staff of "daily Crescent" newspaper. After a time plodded back northward, up the Mississippi, and around to, and by way of the great lakes, Michigan, Huron, and Erie, to Niagara falls and lower Canada, finally returning through central New York and down the Hudson; traveling altogether probably miles this trip, to and fro. For a little of the first part of that time in printing a daily and weekly paper, "the Freeman. Commenced putting "Leaves of Grass" to press for good, at the job printing office of my friends, the brothers Rome, in Brooklyn, after many MS.
I am now —'7 passing through my 37th year. For, in , startled by news that my brother George, an officer in the 51st New York volunteers, had been seriously wounded first Fredericksburg battle, December 13th, I hurriedly went down to the field of war in Virginia.
The My articles section
But I must go back a little. News of the attack on fort Sumter and the flag at Charleston harbor, S. I had been to the opera in Fourteenth street that night, and after the performance was walking down Broadway toward twelve o'clock, on my way to Brooklyn, when I heard in the distance the loud cries of the newsboys, who came presently tearing and yelling up the street, rushing from side to side even more furiously than usual.
I bought an extra and cross'd to the Metropolitan hotel Niblo's where the great lamps were still brightly blazing, and, with a crowd of others, who gather'd impromptu, read the news, which was evidently authentic. For the benefit of some who had no papers, one of us read the telegram aloud, while all listen'd silently and attentively. No remark was made by any of the crowd, which had increas'd to thirty or forty, but all stood a minute or two, I remember, before they dispers'd.
I can almost see them there now, under the lamps at midnight again. I have said somewhere that the three Presidentiads preceding show'd how the weakness and wickedness of rulers are just as eligible here in America under republican, as in Europe under dynastic influences.
Dreams and Nightmares
But what can I say of that prompt and splendid wrestling with secession slavery, the arch-enemy personified, the instant he unmistakably show'd his face? The volcanic upheaval of the nation, after that firing on the flag at Charleston, proved for certain something which had been previously in great doubt, and at once substantially settled the question of disunion. It was not for what came to the surface merely—though that was important—but what it indicated below, which was of eternal importance. Down in the abysms of New World humanity there had form'd and harden'd a primal hard-pan of national Union will, determin'd and in the majority, refusing to be tamper'd with or argued against, confronting all emergencies, and capable at any time of bursting all surface bonds, and breaking out like an earthquake.
It is, indeed, the best lesson of the century, or of America, and it is a mighty privilege to have been part of it. Two great spectacles, immortal proofs of democracy, unequall'd in all the history of the past, are furnish'd by the secession—war one at the beginning, the other at its close. Those are, the general, voluntary, arm'd upheaval, and the peaceful and harmonious disbanding of the armies in the summer of Even after the bombardment of Sumter, however, the gravity of the revolt, and the power and will of the slave States for a strong and continued military resistance to national authority, were not at all realized at the North, except by a few.
Nine-tenths of the people of the free States look'd upon the rebellion, as started in South Carolina, from a feeling one-half of contempt, and the other half composed of anger and incredulity. It was not thought it would be join'd in by Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia. A great and cautious national official predicted that it would blow over "in sixty days," and folks generally believ'd the prediction. I remember talking about it on a Fulton ferry-boat with the Brooklyn mayor, who said he only "hoped the Southern fire-eaters would commit some overt act of resistance, as they would then be at once so effectually squelch'd, we would never hear of secession again—but he was afraid they never would have the pluck to really do anything.
All this sort of feeling was destin'd to be arrested and revers'd by a terrible shock—the battle of first Bull Run—certainly, as we now know it, one of the most singular fights on record. All battles, and their results, are far more matters of accident than is generally thought; but this was throughout a casualty, a chance.