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WALT WHITMAN

_Yesterday & Today_

BY

HENRY EDUARD LEGLER




   CHICAGO
   BROTHERS OF THE BOOK
   1916


   COPYRIGHT 1916
   BY THE
   BROTHERS OF THE BOOK


The edition of this book consists of six hundred copies on this
Fabriano hand-made paper, and the type distributed.

This copy is Number 2


   TO DR. MAX HENIUS

   CONSISTENT HATER OF SHAMS
   ARDENT LOVER OF ALL OUTDOORS
   AND GENEROUS GIVER OF SELF
   IN GENUINE FELLOWSHIP

   THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED




_Walt Whitman: Yesterday & Today_




I


On a day about mid-year in 1855, the conventional literary world was
startled into indecorous behavior by the unannounced appearance of a
thin quarto sheaf of poems, in form and in tone unlike anything of
precedent issue. It was called Leaves of Grass, and there were but
twelve poems in the volume. No author's name appeared upon the title
page, the separate poems bore no captions, there was no imprint of
publisher. A steel engraving of a man presumably between thirty and
forty years of age, coatless, shirt flaringly open at the neck, and a
copyright notice identifying Walter Whitman with the publication,
furnished the only clues. Uncouth in size, atrociously printed, and
shockingly frank in the language employed, the volume evoked such a
tirade of rancorous condemnation as perhaps bears no parallel