“How do?” the bartender calls from the far end of the long, hickory bar. As he walks from almost total darkness into the diffused orange haze brought on by twilight filtering through warn glass and faded curtains, the hardened man’s features are softened presenting the stranger with a man whose gruff voice conflicts with the optical gentleness of the scene before him.
“What can I get you?” By now the two gentleman have convened in the center of the bar, buyer and seller continuing the age-old game. The visitor speaks. “Whiskey,” he says; his graying orange-tinged mustache wiggles as he speaks. “Whiskey for me and for all of earth’s downtrodden who are fortunate to be in the general vicinity of these four walls. Drink up brothers, for who knows what tomorrow may bring?” An ever so subtle charge of electricity courses through the handful of gentlemen occupying sparse seats at even sparser tables.
As the bartender lines up five small crystal glasses, one for each patron in the bar, a lone voice emanates from the room’s deep shadows. “I’ve no occasion. Besides, my mother has often pray’d me not to drink, and I promised to obey her” (1117).
The stranger turns to the darkness. “My good man,” he says as he gathers two drinks and the bottle from which the gold elixir came, and walks slowly—but with purpose—to the room’s corner from which the sound came. “I’ll have you know,” he stops before an old table with an even older man as its only occupant. “How solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary—but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over; you will see” (Twain, “Life” 446-47). Even in the dimmed light, the standing man’s gesture to request an audience with the one sitting can be seen. So can the slight tipping of the seated man’s head signifying an agreement has been made. Sitting, the new arrival continues. “The missionary comes after the whiskey—I mean he arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a church and a jail-and behold! civilization is established forever in the land. But whiskey, you see, was the van-leader in this beneficent work. It always is” (Twain “Life” 447).
A wry smile, barely visible underneath clumps of think bushy hair crosses the lips of the room’s original customer. He is older than his new benefactor, but with a longer beard. An aged, weathered, large-brimmed brown hat sits on the table at a place of reverence to the man’s left. “Sam,” he says with affection. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Walt, my good friend. I’m here on business”, says the recognized one. And as Pudd’nhead says, “Prosperity is the best protector of principle” (Twain “Following” 23).
“Business?” questions the second. “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains” (780-81).
“Of course, I owe very much to nature,” Sam says turning the small glass of liquid in his hand. “Behold, the same gust of wind that blows a lady's dress aside, and exposes her ankle, fills your eyes so full of sand that you can't see it. Marvellous [sic] are the works of Nature!” (Widger).
“Yes,” a small chuckle forces its way through the older man’s beard. “Nature seems to sow countless seeds—makes incessant crude attempts—thankful to get now and then, even at rare and long intervals, something approximately good” (1185). “Lo! Nature, (the only complete, actual poem)” (988).
“Poetry,” grumbles Sam under his breath. “Anybody can write the first line of a poem, but is a very difficult task to make the second line rhyme with the first” (Gutenberg). To which Walt responds, “The poetic quality is not marshalled [sic] in rhyme or uniformity or abstract addresses to things nor in melancholy complaints or good precepts, but is the life of these and much else and is in the soul. The profit of rhyme is that it drops seeds of a sweeter and more luxuriant rhyme, and of uniformity that it conveys itself into its own roots in the ground out of sight. The rhyme and uniformity of perfect poems show the free growth of metrical laws and bud from them as unerringly and loosely as lilacs and roses on a bush, and take shapes as compact as the shapes of chestnuts and oranges and melons and pears, and shed the perfume impalpable to form” (11).
Sam sits, looking at a spot somewhere beyond Walt’s bearded face where men see not with their eyes, but with their hearts. He slowly nods his head and picks up the small glass.
“Walt,” the younger man says, “You speak of the soul—interesting thing, a man’s soul.” Sam drinks the glass empty in one quick motion and returns it to its previous location on the table. “One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it—they also believed the world was flat” (Geismar).
The old friend sits, his drink untouched. “Sam,” he says, “Nature shows in her grandest physical works, and as much greater than any mere work of Nature, as the moral and political, the work of man, his mind, his soul, are, in their loftiest sense, greater than the merely physical” (999).
After a pause, Sam speaks. “Well, Walt, I suppose you are correct.” Sam checks his pocket watch and stands. “And, by my watch, I must now leave.” He pockets the watch and asks his friend if he should leave the nearly-full whiskey bottle, to which Walt dismisses him with a waved hand. “Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink—under any circumstances” (Twain “Notebook” 12)
As Sam turns to leave, Walt offers his hand. “Sam,” he says. “I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my spirits” Walt winks at his friend, “are first-rate” (922-23). The two shake, a warm show of mutual respect.
The two separate. Sam returns the bottle to the bar and flips the proprietor a gold coin, more than sufficient to pay for the little alcohol actually consumed. An accompanying creak follows the opened (and then closed) door as Sam disappears into the already fading light. The original occupants sit as they did before, consumed with their inner demons. Only the tender of the bar moves to return the bottle to a safer location.
In the corner Walt remains, the drink unmoved sits aside his old hat. Inside an inner breast pocket he retrieves a small notepad and inside the opposite breast pocket he retrieves a pen. The old man begins writing and simultaneously, as if to no specific person in particular, he begins speaking to the dusty darkness.
“This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,
It seems to me are other men in other lands yearning
and thoughtful,
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany,
Italy, France, Spain,
Or far away, in China, or in Russia or Japan, talking
other dialects,
And it seems to me if I could know those men, I should
become attached to them as I do to men in my old
lands,
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them” (280-81).
Silence answers the poet’s words; the only proof any words were spoken is found in the invisible specks of dust as they oscillate in the darkened room, their movement caused by air originating from the old man’s lungs and traveling forth until the room’s darkness engulfs the vibrations, quieting them forever. Walt carefully closes the small book and returns both the book and the pen to their respective places. With some difficulty he stands and gently picks up the battered hat. Shuffling, he makes his way to the door from which his friend recently left. As if to say goodbye to the human ghosts left behind, creaks from the door and the familiar gentle thud signal his exit into the cool air of a new night.
The story, of course, if fictional; the characters are not. Walt Whitman and Samuel Clemens remain giants in not only 19th century American literature, but also two of the most recognized and most influential writers America ever produced, each masters of their own genre.
The idea for the wordplay comes from a play. Years ago I heard of a theater production called “Copenhagen” in which the central characters, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and Bohr’s wife, Margrethe meet in 1941. The scientists discuss their work on atomic energy in German-occupied Denmark. I thought of a possible conversation between Whitman and Clemens and things they might possibly discuss. The quotes from both writers are indeed disjointed and out of chronological order. However, I tried combining a flavor of each man’s unique writing style to present philosophies and perspectives of each man’s worldview. Each previous quote keys the one that follows as the fictional conversation between Walt Whitman and Samuel Clemens unfolds.
As I researched the various quotes, I found myself swimming in a sea of words. Clemens provides a more folksy style, more direct—words the common man might use to prove his point or express his opinion. Whitman also reaches the common man, however, I believe he purposefully explores a deeper understanding, giving the reader a chance to stop, ponder, expound, and above all, think.
Whitman’s contribution to the popular culture of the time is chronicled in David Reynolds’s book Walt Whitman: Lives and Legacies. According to Reynolds, Whitman’s poetry “was [his] way of transforming images from everyday life so that readers would discover America’s highest potential” (24).
The colorful language used by Clemens, especially in describing whiskey, adds greatly to the body of the dialogue. Reynolds identifies Whitman as an active advocate of the Washingtonian temperance movement of the early 1840s. Reynolds writes, “temperance had a formative influence on [Whitman]. He knew the damage excessive drinking could cause by witnessing his own family—probably his father and certainly his brother Andrew. Whitman himself was only a moderate drinker for most of his life” (25). Whitman’s participation in writing about the movement shows a man who feels his words have meaning and can make a difference in other’s lives.
Whitman shows us in Specimen Days the importance of the common man. In a matter of only a few paragraphs Whitman dedicates significant time and effort to identify specific individuals, both those involved in politics, the arts, as well as the workers in the streets. Whitman writes, “I saw, during those times [when frequenting Broadway], Andrew Jackson, Webster, Clay, Seward, Martin Van Buren…the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of the time” (701). Whitman continues only a few paragraphs later, “One phase of those days must by no means go unrecorded—namely, the Broadway omnibuses, with their drivers” (702), and with equaled affection, “This musical passion follow’d my theatrical one. As boy or young man I had seen, (reading them carefully the day beforehand,) quite all Shakespere’s acting dramas, play’d wonderfully well” (704). To Whitman, Broadway Jack, Balky Bill, the brothers Old Elephant (the elder) and Young Elephant (his junior) and others who drove teams of horses in the streets of New York hold a place of importance equal to the actors Junius Brutus Booth or Tom Hamblin as well as other greats of his day. Whitman knew these people, the great and the small, and could not only relate to them, but embrace their personalities, fusing their souls with his own.
As David Reynolds concludes in his book, “At [Walt Whitman’s] best, he was the democratic poet to an extent never matched, gathering images from virtually every cultural arena and transforming them through his powerful personality into art. By fully absorbing his time, he became a writer for all times” (138).
Though there is no documented proof the before-mentioned assemblage between Whitman and Clemens ever occurred. But if such a meeting between these two literary giants did take place in a darkened bar in the late 19th century—oh—to be a fly on the wall in that room that day.
Works Cited
Geismar, Maxwell. Mark Twain and the Three R’s: Race, Religion, Revolution—And Related Matters. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973. 109.
Project Gutenberg’s Mark Twain’s Speeches, by Mark Twain. Prod. David Widger. 2006. Project Gutenberg. 19 Aug. 2006
Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman: Lives and Legacies. Oxford. Oxford UP, 2005.
Twain, Mark. Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Vol. I, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1903. 23.
---. Life on the Mississippi. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1976. 44-47.
---. Mark Twain’s Notebook. Comp. Albert Bigelow Paine. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935. 12.
Whitman, Walt. Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Collected Prose. Comp. Justin Kaplan. New York: Library Classics of the U.S., 1982.
Widger, David. Dr. Widger’s Filing Cabinet Book Thirty-Nine: Mark Twain Compendium. Ellicottville, New York: Dr. Widger, 1999. 136.
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