7.45 P.M. W. cleaning his pen. Working about the table when I entered. Was cordial as usual: more than ordinarily vivacious. Had
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Begin page 64] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
spent "a very good day"— "exceedingly good." Then said: "I'm having some good luck: may it last!" No visitors. "I'm not sorry they don't come: I can't entertain them: yet this jail sentence I'm serving is no joke." Said Ed had been "chief cook and bottle-washer" all day: "we've sort of lived in princely style today." Mrs. Davis had been absent. "We have been alone: you know the lawsuit, don't you? You knew she was after Bill Duckett for his board, didn't you?" W. looked at me. I knew nothing of it. He shook his head. "Yes: and what a scamp he is, too—the young scoundrel, indeed!" Upon which W. entered upon a vehement recapitulation of the story. "Mary has been much exercised by it all: was in the city yesterday: the case was not called: she was for giving it up; was tired, disgusted, frightened: she had a lawyer, a young lawyer, here in Camden: what a rascal he was, too: a two-faced villain. She found that he was a distant relative of Bill's—a friend: was playing her face right along: using her for Bill's advantage. Then Mary hunted up another lawyer—Waln was his name: Philadelphia: a German I guess: he seems to have been perfectly upright, fair, frank, with her. When she spoke to him in her disgust yesterday he said: "You won't do anything of the kind: won't retreat an inch: I will get the money: the case is too good a one to be abandoned." W. expressed his gratification. "So they persisted: the case was up today: she got a verdict."
W. paused. Then, laughing, said: "I suppose the delicate point now will be to get the money!" I asked W. what defense Bill put up. He replied indignantly: "You never would believe it: never: he went on the stand, took the oath, and deliberately swore then—think of it!—that I invited him here, that he was my guest!—the young scamp that he is! Why, that is downright perjury, outrageous lying: why, he lays himself open there to criminal action." Then he had never given such an invitation? "I should say not: on the contrary I resented his presence here from the start. Mary has lived with me now for some years: three or four years: we have never even had any misunderstanding: no words: yet the nearest we ever came to quarrel was just about Bill: this young rascal who's now trying to evade his obligations. You know, my friends tell me I am very slow to get mad: very slow: I rarely get mad but when I do I'm the devil." He laughed heartily. "I have never seen you mad, Walt." He said: "You needn't want to." After closing his eyes as if in thought: "It is
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Begin page 65] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
astounding: and on Mary, too, who is so good to 'em all—all the boys! Mary stood it long after I warned her that it would not do. Bill lived at the corner with an aunt: he wanted to leave: asked to come here. We talked together about it: agreed that it would not do—that we did not want him. By and by the boy's grandmother died: on her deathbed she pleaded with Mary to receive, trust, care for, the boy. That brought the question up again: I left the matter with Mary entirely for her to do with as she thought best."
Bill then came, with W. voting against it. "But Mary respected the death-wish: the situation grew worse and worse: I had my carriage then: Bill rode about with me: drove sometimes." Did he formally engage Bill? "Never: neither formally nor informally: he went as much because he wanted to go as because I wanted him: he was often with me: we went to Gloucester together: one trip was to New York: went up on a Thursday, came back Saturday: then to Sea Isle City once: I stayed there at the hotel two or three days—so on: we were quite thick then: thick: when I had money it was as freely Bill's as my own: I paid him well for all he did for me." Here W. paused a moment. Then continued warmly: "And now let me tell you, Horace, that makes it all the worse: this young jackanapes has an income: one of the big trusts in the city—the Fidelity—has an estate which his father left him: he draws a sort of quarterly dividend: think of it: and then to victimize Mary so damnably: make her wait, then only pay her half! Horace, it's sad, sad: I say it: I ought to know: poor boy! poor boy! I pity him: I would receive him today if he needed me: would help him: I am sure I would be the first to help him. I liked Bill: he had good points: is bright—very bright." Time wore on. "Bill showed no signs of improving: on the contrary took every advantage of us: of Mary, of me: he paid probably fifty dollars in all: then stopped: not another cent."
It got so before long that W. "did not like to have Bill around": W. in fact "told Mary so." "A number of things happened here: not directly traced to Bill but attached to him without a doubt: serious offences: very serious. I argued with Mary: more than that, argued with Bill: told him he must not stay. Bill would swear by all that was holy that he would by and by make all this right: would almost literally get down on his knees: then I would weaken." W. asked: "Does it interest you? I want you to know about it." Proceeded: "It
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Begin page 66] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
is the disposition of old people to overlook, to weaken, to yield, to spare themselves severity: so I gave in. Nevertheless, Bill was finally got to go: he became unendurable. I showed him all the confidence I could: I was favorably inclined towards him. Do you know, Horace, it has come to me as a conviction out of long experience that there seem to be some men, some natures, that must develop, must display, the bad, just as the snake gives its poison, just as the tiger exercises its ferocity."
W. was always breaking in upon his own narrative with "poor boy! poor boy!" The picture of Bill standing in court and perjuring himself was what "most nettled" W. "I asked Mary how it happened that my name was brought into the case: she said, 'only as Bill brought it in': the counsel were very respectful: very little was said." W. said Bucke had always declared that Duckett was "a moral imbecile." W. was not willing to "repeat the Doctor's classification." But: "It is wonderful how keen the Doctor is on all that: no one would suspect, seeing him—quiet, lowtoned, modest, seemingly crude, almost rustic—that he had one of the sharpest, most penetrating, minds in the world for touching the keynote of character. I have in fact found Doctor to be of all the men I know the most marked in that respect."
W. got on a new track. "Do you know much about the transportation men?—the railroad men, the boatmen? It seems to me that of all modern men the transportation men most nearly parallel the ancients in ease, poise, simplicity, average nature, robust instinct, firsthandedness: are next the very a b c of real life." Pointed out the letter carriers. "Those we find in the cities: New York, Washington, Philadelphia, here: simple, honest, bright, satisfying." They had "so many of the positive virtues." "I am," he continued, "au fait always with wharfmen, deckhands, train workers." I said it wasn't one section of it but the whole working class which could come under this head: W. acquiesced. "I suppose that's true: no one has more respect for them than I do: I wish them all the luck: freedom: all that: but somehow I've come closer to the transportation men."
W. spoke of Freiligrath. "A noble man indeed: you know, I suppose, that he wrote about me, criticized me, translated me?" Was Leaves of Grass likely to take any hold on Germany? W. doubtful. "It is like predicting the weather fifty years hence: one knows there
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Begin page 67] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
will be weather, but what that weather will be it's safest not to worry over—safest not to attempt to forecast." Laughed over "the real good fellows in Philadelphia. They are like the real good fellows everywhere: they seem in a crust: a thick impenetrable crust: a crust of tradition, custom, all that: and when you get through said crust there is something, something—but!" "But as for whether Leaves of Grass will ever penetrate the Continental countries, and to what effect, whether deeply, I should not dare think about, much less foretell."
No letter from Bucke today. Century for February received. W. read Walter Scott piece in Scribner's. "It will please you," he said: "I read it with zest: everything about Scott attracts me: he was one man among many men: Scott, Cooper: I go back to them, some things in Homer, Aeschylus: then the Bible: Byron: Epictetus: they are my daily food: a few others, maybe, added."
W. said: "I have found you another of William's rare letters." He asked me to read it. I looked it over. "It's pretty long," I said. He repeated the phrase after me: "It's pretty long: so it is." Then asked me: "It's not too long for me to listen to: is it too long for you to read?" I said no. Then I went at it.
W. said: "William would talk alive with a dagger in his heart: it's
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Begin page 71] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
impossible to minimize him: he's always all of him to the fore: I can't conceive of anything that would dethrone his buoyant cheer." And he added: "Other men are more famous than William but no man is greater than he is: it often occurs that the noisy reputations go far ahead: but they lose out in the end: the genuine article finally wins." I asked: "Don't you think history may sometimes permanently obscure its superior people?" He added: "I have asked myself the same question: there is more than a probability on your side." As I was about leaving, while he held my hand, I said: "That secret that you were to divulge: you haven't told it to me: is it still too soon?" He became serious. "No—it's never too soon: but I'm still not in the mood to talk."