king people. He
frequently knocked off work to write his poems. In his life Whitman was
never one of the restless, striving sort. In this respect he was not
typical of his countrymen. All his urgency and strenuousness he reserved
for his book. He seems always to have been a sort of visitor in life,
noting, observing, absorbing, keeping aloof from all ties that would hold
him, and making the most of the hour and the place in which he happened to
be. He was in no sense a typical literary man. During his life in New York
and Brooklyn, we see him moving entirely outside the fashionable circles,
the learned circles, the literary circles, the money-getting circles. He
belongs to no set or club. He is seen more with the laboring
classes,--drivers, boatmen, mechanics, printers,--and I suspect may often
be found with publicans and sinners. He is fond of the ferries and of the
omnibuses. He is a frequenter of the theatre and of the Italian opera.
Alboni makes a deep and lasting impression upon him. It is probably to her
that he writes these lines:--

"Here take this gift,
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, general,
One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress
and freedom of the race,
Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;
But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to
any."

Elsewhere he refers to Alboni by name and speaks of her as

"The lustrous orb, Venus contralto, the blooming mother,
Sister of loftiest gods."

Some of his poems were written at the opera. The great singers evidently
gave him clews and suggestions that were applicable to his own art.

His study was out of doors. He wrote on the street, on the ferry, at the
seaside, in the fields, at the opera,--always from living impulses arising
at the moment, and always with his eye upon the fact. He says he has read
his "Leaves" to himself in the open air, and tried them by the realities
of life and nature about him. Were they as real and alive as they?--this
was the only question with him.

At home in his father's family in Brooklyn we see him gentle, patient,
conciliatory, much looked up to by all. Neighbors seek his advice. He is
cool, deliberate, impartial. A marked trait is his indifference to money
matters; his people are often troubled because he lets opportunities to
make money pass by. When his "Leaves" appear, his family are puzzled, do
not know what to