Reminiscences of Walt Whitman

IN this short volume Harrison S. Morris weaves around his reminiscences of Walt Whitman a rough outline of the poet's life and a valuation of his work. It is the sort of semi-personal biographical essay that has been written so often before, and which is important, if at all, because of the new first hand information it lends to the study of this lyrist of democracy.

Reading Mr. Morris one gets the feeling of sitting at the feet of a clear minded old campaigner who has one or two good stories to tell. The pages turn quickly, the style is pleasantly homely, the interest glows from one point to another. But its worth as a valuation of Whitman's art, in this reviewer's opinion, small.

An old veteran can give to history an occasional genuine first hand touch that is lacking to the general historian, but his comprehension of the greater movements in which he took part is generally slim. And so it seems here that Mr. Morris' interpretation of Whitman is of an elementary nature not to be ranked along side that of younger critics who have been close to their subject only in spirit.

Of contemporary local interest to Boston readers is the comment upon the suppression in Boston by a "smug" society of an early edition of "Leaves of Grass" Speaking of this society Mr. Morris has this to say: "They had probably understood nothing of the text but those passages which they alleged to be objectionable. Thus the guest of Emerson and Sanborn and the finest and purest men and women of Boston and Concord, the friend of Tennyson and Longfellow, and of Mrs. Gilchrist was found unclean by an anonymous group who were unqualified to receive the rich message he brought them."