Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III WORKMAN AND POET (1850-1860) It is still to be hoped that documents of some sort exist which will throw light upon Whitman's life between his return from New Orleans and the first appearance of Leaves of Grass in 1855. During these years he wrote much, and yet we have virtually nothing that will indicate the nature of the marvellous change that was taking place in him. He had many friends, but apparently none who cared for literature, or who were sufficiently acute to appreciate the transformation that was being wrought before their eyes. And in his own reminiscences, full as they are, there is little that bears closely upon the matter. At thirty- one he was a Jsomewhat indolent newspaper writer, with an undeveloped style — the sign of a mind that had not yet come to self-knowledge. At thirty-six he had written a series of extraordinary poems, original both in form and in substance. And yet the genesis of this novel form and substance remains practically unknown, — such are the miracles that nature works. But nature does not leap, and we must endeavour as best we can to bridge the gap and understand the change. Returning from his short trip to the South in 1848, Whitman rejoined his family, then living in Brooklyn. There was the father, and his sons Walt and George D 33 and Jeff, all able-bodied men, besides the disabled Edward, the mother, the daughter Hannah and, a little later, Mattie, Jeff's wife. It was a patriarchal household of the old type, the men labouring outside the house, and the women doing the simple domestic tasks without assistance. Into this life Whitman settled himself without delay and without friction. The clan was in comfortable circumstances, and it was merely necessary that he should contribute his share to the living expenses, — a s...