Nor must
I forget, in conclusion, a special, prayerful, thankful God's blessing
to my dear firm friends and personal helpers, men and women, home and
foreign, old and young.
OUT IN THE OPEN AGAIN
_From the Camden Post, April 16, '91_.
Walt Whitman got out in the mid-April sun and warmth of yesterday,
propelled in his wheel chair, the first time after four months of
imprisonment in his sick room. He has had the worst winter yet, mainly
from grippe and gastric troubles, and threaten'd blindness; but keeps
good spirits, and has a new little forthcoming book in the printer's
hands.
AMERICA'S BULK AVERAGE
If I were ask'd _persona_ to specify the one point of America's people
on which I mainly rely, I should say the final average or bulk quality
of the whole.
Happy indeed w'd I consider myself to give a fair reflection and
representation of even a portion of shows, questions, humanity,
events, unfoldings, thoughts, &c. &c., my age in these States.
The great social, political, historic function of my time has been of
course the attempted secession war.
And was there not something grand, and an inside proof of perennial
grandeur, in that war! We talk of our age's and the States'
materialism--and it is too true. But how amid the whole
sordidness--the entire devotion of America, at any price, to pecuniary
success, merchandise--disregarding all but business and profit--this
war for a bare idea and abstraction--a mere, at bottom, heroic dream
and reminiscence--burst forth in its great devouring flame and
conflagration quickly and fiercely spreading and raging, and
enveloping all, defining in two conflicting ideas--first the Union
cause--second _the other_, a strange deadly interrogation point, hard
to define--Can we not now safely confess it?--with magnificent
rays, streaks of noblest heroism, fortitude, perseverance, and even
conscientiousness, through its pervadingly malignant darkness.
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