« You don't want French children to make fun of you, do you? | Main | Living Well: John Dryden. »

December 04, 2010

Wild Walt: "I was simmering, simmering, simmering."

I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil. --Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Inspiration. Jack London thought you could not wait for it. You needed, he felt, to go out and hunt inspiration with a club. Walt Whitman, however, was luckier. He was a relatively young man when Ralph Waldo Emerson was thinking and writing. Emerson set off the young printer and hack writer, hurling him into an exuberant and celebratory realm, where no one had ever been.

WALT126a.jpg

Wild Walt, circa 1860, by Matthew Brady

Posted by JD Hull at December 4, 2010 12:59 AM

Comments

Post a comment




Remember Me?