Sources of Walt Whitman's Manuscript Notes on Physique

Abstract

A FTER WALT WHITMAN'S death, his literary property was divided in equal shares among his three literary executors: Richard M. Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel. Included in the material which went to Harned were two packages of unpublished manuscripts. One of these consisted of notes on oratory; the other, of notes on physique.'1' Examination of the former persuaded Harned that they were very valuable for the light they cast on Whitman's development during the years before he adopted the plan of reaching the people through the medium of printed book.2 Accordingly, he prepared paper which consisted mainly of the texts of these manuscript notes, and presented it at the Third Annual Meeting of the Whitman Fellowship.3 This paper, entitled Walt Whitman and Oratory, excited so much interest at the time that Harned decided to make a similar use of Whitman's manuscript notes on physique.4 Harned's second paper, entitled Walt Whitman and Physique, was read to the Whitman Fellowship two years after his first.5 We have no record of the manner in which it was received. But we do have the curious fact that Harned's earlier and important essay which dealt with Whitman's interest in oratory was published only once-some six years after its presentation to the Fellowship meeting;6 whereas his Walt Whitman and Physique was pub.