Named Entity Results, Walt Whitman

VII: Henry David Thoreau There has been in America no such instance of posthumous reputation as in the case of Thoreau. Poe and Whitman may be claimed as parallels, but not justly. Poe, even during his life, rode often on the very wave of success, until it subsided presently beneath him, always to rise again, had he but made it possible. Whitman gathered almost immediately a small but stanch band of followers, who have held by him with such vehemence and such flagrant imitation as to kWhitman gathered almost immediately a small but stanch band of followers, who have held by him with such vehemence and such flagrant imitation as to keep his name defiantly in evidence, while perhaps enhancing the antagonism of his critics. Thoreau could be egotistical enough, but was always high-minded; all was open and above-board; one could as soon conceive of self-advertising by a deer in the woods or an otter of the brook. He had no organized clique of admirers, nor did he possess even what is called personal charm,--or at least only that piquant attraction which he himself found in wild apples. As a rule, he kept men at a distance,

inspirational mind of his day. Let this foot-note, then, be employed as the text for frank discussion of what was, perhaps, the most unique and picturesque personality developed during the Transcendental period of our American literature. Let us consider the career of one who was born with as little that seemed advantageous in his surroundings as was the case with Abraham Lincoln, or John Brown of Ossawatomie, and who yet developed in the end an individuality as marked as that of Poe or Walt Whitman. In looking back on the intellectual group of New England, eighty years ago, nothing is more noticeable than its birth in a circle already cultivated, at least according to the standard of its period. Emerson, Channing, Bryant, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Holmes, Lowell, even Whittier, were born into what were, for the time and after their own standard, cultivated families. They grew up with the protection and stimulus of parents and teachers; their early biographies offer nothing startli

excels my piano. I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind. They are religious, except me, and address an eclipse, every morning, whom they call their Father. But I fear my story fatigues you. I would like to learn. Could you tell me how to grow, or is it unconveyed, like melody or witchcraft? You speak of Mr. Whitman. I never read his book, but was told that it was disgraceful. I read Miss Prescott's Circumstance, but it followed me in the dark, so I avoided her. Two editors of journals came to my father's house this winter, and asked me for my mind, and when I asked them why they said I was penurious, and they would use it for the world. I could not weigh myself, myself. My size felt small to me. I read your chapters in the Atlantic, and experienced honor for you. I was sure you would not

he nation for generations to come. The geographical headquarters of this particular group was Boston, of which Cambridge and Concord may be regarded for this purpose as suburbs. Such a circle of authors as Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Alcott, Thoreau, Parkman, and others had never before met in America; and now that they have passed away, no such local group anywhere remains: nor has the most marked individual genius elsewhere — such, for instance, as that of Poe or Whitman — been the centre of so conspicuous a combination. The best literary representative of this group of men in bulk was undoubtedly the Atlantic Monthly, to which almost every one of them contributed, and of which they made up the substantial opening strength. With these there was, undoubtedly, a secondary force developed at that period in a remarkable lecture system, which spread itself rapidly over the country, and in which most of the above authors took some part and several took leadi