miles north of New York. The next day Alcott and I heard Beecher
preach; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning, and
we were much interested and provoked. He is apparently the greatest
democrat the world has seen, kings and aristocracy go by the board
at once, as they have long deserved to. A remarkably strong though
coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and much prized by his
friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior, he is
essentially a gentleman. I am still somewhat in a quandary about
him--feel that he is essentially strange to me, at any rate; but I
am surprised by the sight of him. He is very broad, but, as I have
said, not fine.

Seventh December, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six.--That Walt Whitman,
of whom I wrote you, is the most interesting fact to me at present.
I have just read his second edition (which he gave me), and it has
done me more good than any reading for a long time. Perhaps I
remember best the poem of "Walt Whitman an American" and the
"Sundown" poem. There are two or three pieces in the book which are
disagreeable, to say the least, simply sensual.... As for its
sensuality--and it may turn out to be less sensual than it
appears--I do not so much wish that those parts were not written,
as that men and women were so pure that they could read them
without harm.

On the whole, it sounds to me very brave and American, after
whatever deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons, so
called, that have been preached in this land, put together, are
equal to it for preaching. We ought greatly to rejoice in him. He
occasionally suggests something a little more than human. You can't
confound him with the other inhabitants of Brooklyn. How they must
shudder when they read him!

To be sure, I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness
and broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind,
prepared to see wonders--as it were, sets me upon a hill or in the
midst of a plain--stirs me well up, and then--throws in a thousand
of brick. Though rude and sometimes ineffectual, it is a great
primitive poem, an alarum or trumpet-note ringing through the
American camp. Wonderfully like the Orientals, too, considering
that, when I asked him if he had read them, he answered, "No; tell
me