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Unpublished Henry James on WhitmanAuthor(s): William WhiteSource: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 20, No. 79, (Aug., 1969), pp. 321-322Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/513181Accessed: 23/07/2008 16:21

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NOTES

UNPUBLISHED HENRY JAMES ON WHITMAN

NEAR the end of Walt Whitman's life, a group of Englishmen in Bolton, who humorously called themselves 'Bolton College', sent one of their members, Dr. John Johnston, to visit the poet whose works they had read and discussed. Dr. Johnston also talked to a ferry pilot who had known Whitman and to others, including John Burroughs, in West Hills and Huntington, Long Island; and the next year (189I), J. W. Wallace, another 'Bolton College' member, visited Whitman in Camden and reported to the group in England. Gay Wilson Allen calls their published reports (1917) 'one of the most interesting of the early books on Whitman's life' (The Solitary Singer (I955), p. 537).

Dr. Johnston's first report was privately printed in Bolton in I890; when a second edition was published, entitled Diary Notes of a Visit to Walt Whitman and Some of his Friends, in I890 (Manchester, I898), the author sent a copy to Henry James, then in Rye, Sussex East, England.

On the letterhead of Lamb House, Rye, James replied:

November 9th I898.

My dear Sir, It was very kind of you to send me your Visit to W. W., which I have read with

interest & pleasure. I am not sure that I find his talk in any record-I speak of others than yours as well-that I have seen of it, particularly bears reverberation -it must mostly have been addressed to hearers of an excessive simplicity, &, excellent for the purpose, rather fails to 'keep' so long after. But he was evidently a delightful old being & I envy you so personal a recollection of him. Believe me yours very truly

Henry James Dr. John Johnston.

The envelope is addressed to John Johnston Esq. M. D. I Manchester Road I Bolton., and has Dr. Johnston's notation in the upper left corner: Henry James I re 'Visit to W. W.' (The letter and envelope are now in the collection of Mr. Charles E. Feinberg, Detroit, who has kindly given permission for this publication.)

Although James's youthful attack on Whitman's Drum-Taps in the Nation of 15 November I865-'It has been a melancholy task to read this book; and it is a still more melancholy one to write about it'-is too well known, James was thoroughly ashamed of it later. For, a few years after the letter to Dr. Johnston, James wrote to a friend, calling the review 'the little atrocity I mentioned remembering to have perpetrated (on W.W.)

21

321

in the gross impudence of youth', and saying that 'nothing would induce me to reveal the whereabouts of my disgrace, which I only recollect as deep and damning'. (See Gay Wilson Allen, op. cit., pp. 578-9.)

In view of these comments by James, in I865 and in 1903, and what we know from Edith Wharton about James's reading and reciting Whitman, it is of interest to publish for the first time this I898 letter by the novelist on his attitude toward the older poet.

WILLIAM WHITE

MORE LIGHT ON THE SECRET AGENT

BEHIND Conrad's novel The Secret Agent there is, as Dr. Norman Sherry has shown in his recent article,I the true story of Martial Bourdin, the original of the pathetic Stevie. There can no longer be any doubt that Conrad was far more familiar than he pretended with the writings of the London anarchists and their associates. Of particular interest is Dr. Sherry's fixing, as the original of Verloc, of H. B. Samuels, who edited The Anarchist and actually was Bourdin's brother-in-law.

Verloc is in the inner councils of the anarchists and is forced to become an agent provocateur. But he is also a police agent and the behind-the- scenes activities of a police department are an essential part of the novel. Samuels seems also to have been used by the police, but Conrad must have needed more information on this subject than was furnished him by the pamphlets of David Nicoll. He tells us something of his other 'not very recondite' sources,z and these, as will appear, are illuminating; however, he nowhere confesses that he reread with the closest attention the contem- porary newspaper accounts. Yet it is almost certain that he did, and that his reading helped a pattern to emerge.

For proof of this we may turn to the two interviews which Conrad's nameless Assistant Commissioner of Police has with the Home Secretary, Sir Ethelred. On both occasions the Minister's private secretary 'Toodles' has something to say about his Bill for the Nationalization of Fisheries, and on the second a good deal of play is made with this, the Assistant Commis- sioner drawing some parallels between the nasty Mr. Vladimir and the dogfish.3 The episode has the painfully (and deliberately) laboured play- fulness which runs in the life-blood of the novel, which has more than one

I Norman Sherry, 'The Greenwich Bomb Outrage and The Secret Agent', R.E.S., N.S. xix (I967), 412-28. Several points to be made here begin from Dr. Sherry's findings, familiarity with which, a lengthier summary being out of place here, is assumed.

2 Conrad, The Secret Agent (London, I921), Preface, p. xvii. The novel is hereafter cited as S.A.

3 Ibid., pp. 242-3.

in the gross impudence of youth', and saying that 'nothing would induce me to reveal the whereabouts of my disgrace, which I only recollect as deep and damning'. (See Gay Wilson Allen, op. cit., pp. 578-9.)

In view of these comments by James, in I865 and in 1903, and what we know from Edith Wharton about James's reading and reciting Whitman, it is of interest to publish for the first time this I898 letter by the novelist on his attitude toward the older poet.

WILLIAM WHITE

MORE LIGHT ON THE SECRET AGENT

BEHIND Conrad's novel The Secret Agent there is, as Dr. Norman Sherry has shown in his recent article,I the true story of Martial Bourdin, the original of the pathetic Stevie. There can no longer be any doubt that Conrad was far more familiar than he pretended with the writings of the London anarchists and their associates. Of particular interest is Dr. Sherry's fixing, as the original of Verloc, of H. B. Samuels, who edited The Anarchist and actually was Bourdin's brother-in-law.

Verloc is in the inner councils of the anarchists and is forced to become an agent provocateur. But he is also a police agent and the behind-the- scenes activities of a police department are an essential part of the novel. Samuels seems also to have been used by the police, but Conrad must have needed more information on this subject than was furnished him by the pamphlets of David Nicoll. He tells us something of his other 'not very recondite' sources,z and these, as will appear, are illuminating; however, he nowhere confesses that he reread with the closest attention the contem- porary newspaper accounts. Yet it is almost certain that he did, and that his reading helped a pattern to emerge.

For proof of this we may turn to the two interviews which Conrad's nameless Assistant Commissioner of Police has with the Home Secretary, Sir Ethelred. On both occasions the Minister's private secretary 'Toodles' has something to say about his Bill for the Nationalization of Fisheries, and on the second a good deal of play is made with this, the Assistant Commis- sioner drawing some parallels between the nasty Mr. Vladimir and the dogfish.3 The episode has the painfully (and deliberately) laboured play- fulness which runs in the life-blood of the novel, which has more than one

I Norman Sherry, 'The Greenwich Bomb Outrage and The Secret Agent', R.E.S., N.S. xix (I967), 412-28. Several points to be made here begin from Dr. Sherry's findings, familiarity with which, a lengthier summary being out of place here, is assumed.

2 Conrad, The Secret Agent (London, I921), Preface, p. xvii. The novel is hereafter cited as S.A.

3 Ibid., pp. 242-3.

322 322 NOTES NOTES

Article Contentsp.321p.322

Issue Table of ContentsReview of English Studies, Vol. 20, No. 79, Aug., 1969Front Matter [pp.1-8]Kalenderes Enlumyned Ben They. Part II [pp.257-283]'Salsette and Elephanta': An Unpublished Poem by Clough [pp.284-305]NotesSpenser's Rhyme or Churchyard's Reason: Evidence of Churchyard's First Pension [pp.306-309]William Collins and Cackham Manor [pp.310-314]T. L. Peacock's Later Years: The Evidence of Unpublished Letters [pp.315-319]A Date for G. M. Hopkins's 'What Being in Rank-Old Nature...' [pp.319-320]Unpublished Henry James on Whitman [pp.321-322]More Light on The Secret Agent [pp.322-327]

Reviewsuntitled [pp.328-329]untitled [pp.329-330]untitled [pp.331-333]untitled [pp.333-335]untitled [pp.335-338]untitled [pp.338-340]untitled [pp.340-342]untitled [pp.342-344]untitled [pp.344-345]untitled [pp.346-347]untitled [pp.347-351]untitled [pp.351-353]untitled [pp.353-356]untitled [pp.357-358]untitled [pp.358-361]untitled [pp.362-364]untitled [pp.364-366]untitled [pp.366-368]untitled [pp.368-369]untitled [pp.369-371]untitled [pp.371-373]untitled [pp.373-375]untitled [pp.375-377]untitled [pp.378-379]untitled [pp.379-381]untitled [pp.381-383]untitled [pp.383-385]

Short Noticesuntitled [p.385]untitled [p.386]untitled [pp.386-387]untitled [pp.387-388]untitled [p.388]untitled [p.389]untitled [pp.389-390]untitled [p.390]

Summary of Periodical Literature [pp.391-394]List of Publications Received [pp.395-400]Back Matter