Thoreau and Whitman: The Record of a Pilgrimage

Abstract

ON afternoon of November 9, 1856, two visitors from Massachusetts presented themselves at front door of the middle tenement of single block of three private dwellings . . . far out on Myrtle Avenue, in very suburbs of city of Brooklyn.' Behind that door lived the savage sovereign of flesh,2 as one of callers was to set him down in his journal following day, man who year ago had excited or scandalized few (a very few) readers with his Leaves of Grass, book which even some of those who praised it boggled at calling poetry. Of callers, one who no doubt wielded knocker was Amos Bronson Alcott, who thought of himself as combined Socrates and Boswell of Transcendentalist movement. Hanging back slightly, one should imagine was stubborn-minded protege of Mr. Emerson, Henry David Thoreau-his disciple, as malicious liked to point out, even to barn-roof slope of shoulders and thin, drooping nose. As stage-managed by Alcott, opening of door would bring together two great Transcendental rebels, both of whom had been prophesied by Mr. Emerson, both of whom had appeared, almost instantaneously it seemed now, as if Waldo had actually conjured them into being. It was historic occasion, as impresario Alcott was intensely aware, this bringing together of two great hopes in Transcendental line of succession. The keynote of whole episode was sounded at very beginning: Mr. Whitman was not at home. It was Walt's mother, a stately sensible matron, who answered door, discoursed to two while about virtues of her boy, and invited gentlemen to call again early next morning.