1.30 P.M. Stopped in on my way to catch train. To Primos. W. just finished writing his "day's postals." Bucke, Kennedy, O'Connor, Heyde. Said: "No: I don't feel wholly well: I am passing through a dull, sluggish mood, during which I'll not be able to do any work of consequence." Color good. "I have just had a few visitors," he said: "Tom, Mrs. Harned—with them, Mr. Moorhouse: Moorhouse looks a good deal like Gosse, don't you think?" I had not met him. W. then: "I don't know that he talks like Gosse—indeed, know that he does not: but in looks, manner, there is a great resemblance." He asked me about Boulanger. "The papers are full of him: he seems to be making a great noise: what it's all about—that I don't know." But he gave me a more interesting piece of news. "Did you see the baseball boys are home from their tour around the world? How I'd like to meet them—talk with them: maybe ask them some questions." I said: "Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!" He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well—it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere—belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."
W. was a little worried about the title page. "Myrick seems to have done his worst—his very worst—here: I confess that after the other work I have had from him I am greatly surprised at this." He was irritated and disturbed. "It is spread, sprawled, splashed, all over the page." I said: "But you must not forget your own gospel—that the good things don't come because we expect them but as surprises and because they should." This seemed to restore all his good humor. "That's so: I'm glad you stopped me right where I was: what you say I say should not be lost sight of." Then he added: "Well—tell him to try some more: tell Myrick to reshape the page, bringing the dissevered elements together: he may have an inspiration on the second try: we'll have to persevere till we get what we want." He produced a Burroughs letter. "See this," he said: "It's an old stager." A yellowed single sheet of paper without an envelope "which has floated up and down on the tides of this room for six years or so," he said. He took another tack with this letter. He didn't ask me to read it to him. He read it to me.
"There's something about John," said W., "which I greatly like: his total lack of effusion: he never slops over: I have every reason for believing his love for me to be fundamental: yet he is calm, composed, equable, in his tempered fraternities. I am afraid of the 'enthusiastikers,' as a German friend of mine in Washington called them: I shrink from them: I have spoken to you about Mrs. Moulton—good woman as she is: it is her defect—to gush: nothing so inevitably knocks me out. Some day you'll be saying things about me: say them—God bless you! But whatever you say or don't say I want you to testify for me that I was never an enthusiastiker: whatever I was I never was that: make that clear: say it so that it can't be misunderstood. John knows it: he observes the mandates of reticence in himself, he respects them in others."
I strolled up Second Street last night into the retail shopping district. The Saturday crowds were very interesting. W. asked me about it all. "I am an outdoors man serving an indoor sentence." Again: "A little breeze blows into the room and carries me away with it God knows where." He said: "Tell me about things—don't tell me theories. I have theories of my own." He also spoke of perfumes— "rose odors, the flavor of the strawberry"; "they are a great comfort: they give me dream-hours as I sit here alone." I said: "You will be an outdoor man to the end: being accidentally or incidentally tied up here makes no change in your temperament." He said: "That is so: I am conscious of it every minute: I am always grateful for the whiffs of fresh air you bring to me out of your very active experience: you are getting about for both of us these days."
W. has not yet found the lost photos. "They are about here somewhere: I know it: you see the confusion has been worse confounded since they cleaned up: I must manage to find the pictures within a day or two or provide something in their place." The work corner of his room is now as bad as ever. Things are weltered all
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about. Not a week since the sweeping up. W. himself said: "Our quarters would not satisfy an old maid, but we are clean in our persons." W. said: "Here's some jimcrack I've laid aside for you: I was for putting it into the fire when your protesting face appeared to me: it seems to be disconnected stuff—yet connected, too: there are figures in it for your records, too, if that is what you want: look them over." There were some sheets of manuscript pinned together and a little stained envelope with an enclosure. He had tied them together with a string. I looked them over. "I have sometimes autobiographized for the papers at their request: have done it time and again: these are some autobiographical notes." On the first sheet W. had written: "for Sunday paper of May 29. Send proof to 328 Mickle at Camden." He had headed the stuff: "A poet's 68th year." I started to read. He said: "As long as you're going to stop and read it now read it to me as well as to yourself." This I did. He interrupted me a few times only.
I said to W.: "There seems to be break in the dates here: did you notice it?" He: "Yes: there must be a sheet missing: I jostled about a little looking for it: it didn't turn up." I continued reading.
"'Jan. 12 '87—Cold—ground covered with snow. Good sleighing all about here. Went out a couple of hours midday yesterday, with horse and wagon; went to Brown Bros, bankers, Chestnut St. Phila., to cash the New Year's present £81:6:6 ($393.61) sent over to me so kindly by Pall Mall Gazette people, England; went to bank to deposit money and checks. Am very feeble, especially in walking power: don't go out doors to walk at all; pretty fair appetite; sit here in the little front room, well bundled up this weather; read and write rather aimlessly. How considerate, gentle and generous my British friends are! [I said: "Walt, sometimes your references to your British friends are so peculiar they and others get an idea that you have no friends on this side of the water at all." He asked: "Could they be induced to imply that?" "I have had people so construe it: yet you have had quite as powerful and devoted friends here as there." He assented: "So I have: I must not, do not, forget it!"] I said: "I wish I had more extended records of this sort, Walt: they'd be very important data to me." He said: "You'll find many of them in the two big diaries I have kept for so long: these"—tapping two fat books lying one on top of the other on the table. "That New York jamboree was about the biggest you ever got into, wasn't it?" "The biggest with me as the first person—yes." "Did you enjoy being starred in that way?" "Up to a certain point—perhaps:
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it's pleasant to feel yourself to be among friends: yet I am the sort of man who, however stubborn, is yet never oversure of himself: I am still only on the edge of the world—the margin of its margin, so to speak: I haven't solidified myself: a little push and I would be over again: I do not feel that I have achieved what might be called a standing: far from that." I quoted John Swinton: "You have at last got foundations under your feet." W. was doubtful. "John may see them: I do not feel them." I turned my attention to the last of the things he had given me. The little old envelope. He watched me. He had written these words on the outside: "Mother's last lines." I took out the little sheet and read what was on it in trembling letters. I could not say anything. I put it back, holding it irresolutely in my hand: "Yes: I wished you to take it: it is safer in your hands than in mine." He was very grave. I still said nothing. "I was afraid you would ask me something about it," he said chokingly. I kissed him good night and left. This was his mother's message:
"farewell my beloved sons farewell i have lived
beyond all comfort in this world dont mourn for
me my beloved sons and daughters farewell my dear
beloved Walter"