work begins), onward.  Symonds had written to him repeatedly, it seems, concerning the “passional relations of men with men,” as Whitman expressed it.  “He is always driving at me about that:  is that what Calamus means?—­because of me or in spite of me, is that what it means?  I have said no, but no does not satisfy him. [There is, however, no record from Symonds’s side of any letter by Whitman to Symonds in this sense up to this date.] But read this letter—­read the whole of it:  it is very shrewd, very cute, in deadliest earnest:  it drives me hard, almost compels me—­it is urgent, persistent:  he sort of stands in the road and says ‘I won’t move till you answer my question.’  You see, this is an old letter—­sixteen years old—­and he is still asking the question:  he refers to it in one of his latest notes.  He is surely a wonderful man—­a rare, cleaned-up man—­a white-souled, heroic character....  You will be writing something about Calamus some day,” said W. [to Traubel], “and this letter, and what I say, may help to clear your ideas.  Calamus needs clear ideas; it may be easily, innocently distorted from its natural, its motive, body of doctrine.”

The letter, dated Feb. 7, 1872, of some length, is then reproduced.  It tells how much Leaves of Grass, and especially the Calamus section, had helped the writer.  “What the love of man for man has been in the past,” Symonds wrote, “I think I know.  What it is here now, I know also—­alas!  What you say it can and should be I dimly discern in your Poems.  But this hardly satisfies me—­so desirous am I of learning what you teach.  Some day, perhaps,—­in some form, I know not what, but in your own chosen form,—­you will tell me more about the Love of Friends.  Till then I wait.”

“Said W:  ’Well, what do you think of that?  Do you think that could be answered?’ ’I don’t see why you call that letter driving you hard.  It’s quiet enough—­it only asks questions, and asks the questions mildly enough,’ ’I suppose you are right—­“drive” is not exactly the word:  yet you know how I hate to be catechised.  Symonds is right, no doubt, to ask the questions:  I am just as much right if I do not answer them:  just as much right if I do answer them.  I often say to myself about Calamus—­perhaps it means more or less than what I thought myself—­means different:  perhaps I don’t know what it all means—­perhaps never did know.  My first instinct about all that Symonds writes is violently reactionary—­is strong and brutal for no, no, no.  Then the thought intervenes that I maybe do not know all my own meanings:  I say to myself:  “You, too, go away, come back, study your own book—­as alien or stranger, study your own book, see what it amounts to.”  Some time or other I will have to write to him definitely about Calamus—­give him my word for it what I meant or mean it to mean.’”

Again, a month later (May 24, 1888), Whitman speaks to Traubel of a “beautiful