But it was not always in joy that he wrote. Other friends have told how they have noted him turning aside from the street into some door or alleyway to take out a slip of paper and write, with the tears running fast across his face.[457] Whether in tears or in ecstasy, it is certain that he composed his poems under the stress of actual feeling; and of emotions which shook his whole being and thrilled its heavy, slow-vibrating chords to music. FOOTNOTES: [418] _Wound-Dresser_, 61. [419] Trowbridge, _op. cit._ [420] _L. of G._, 183. [421] _Ib._, 193. [422] _Ib._, 284. [423] _Ib._, 370. [424] _L. of G._, 371. [425] _Ib._, 228. [426] _Ib._, 220. [427] _L. of G._, 222. [428] _Cf._ "I, too ... also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any, Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering, (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last), the field the world, For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul, Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, I above all promote brave soldiers."--_L. of G._, 9, 10. [429] _L. of G._, 276, 278. [430] Camden, iii., 160, 161. [431] Facsimile in Williamson's _Catalogue_. [432] _In re_, 383; _Comp. Prose_, 411-13. [433] _Comp. Prose_, 59. [434] Calamus, 25. [435] Bucke, 42. [436] _Wound-Dresser_, 139. [437] _L. of G._, 255; _Comp. Prose_, 305. [438] _L. of G._, 263; _cf._ (1865); _cf._ Calamus, 35 n. [439] _L. of G._, 339. [440] _Cf._ W. N. Guthrie's _W. W. as Religious and Moral Teacher_ (1897), 80 n.; Symonds, 26. [441] Bucke, 40-42, 73. [442] MSS. Traubel; for a further attack see Burroughs (2), 123. [443] Included in Bucke. [444] Potter, _op. cit._; Bucke, 19. [445] Camden, viii., 188-91, etc. [446] _Ib._ [447] _Ib._ [448] Johnston, 130-40; _cf._ Camden, viii., 220. [449] Potter. [450] Camden, viii., 175. [451] _Ib._, 184. [452] Potter; _Rossetti Papers_, 492. [453] Calamus, 22. [454] Camden, viii. [455] See Calamus. [456] Bucke, 32; Miss Price gives date as 1866; the new ed. appeared late in 1867. [457] Bucke, 171. CHAPTER XIV FRIENDS AND FAME In October, 1867, the new volume appeared; it was intended to replace the former final edition of 1860, and in itself was now regarded as final. Whitman wrote home to his mother that at last he had finished his re-arrangings and corrections, for good.[458] But he was mistaken; for because the book was a whole, every page which he added to it in succeeding years entailed a new revision of the rest. Each new note affects the old sequence, which thus requires to be ordered anew. The book might be handsomer, he says; but he notes that he has omitted some excessive phrases, and even dropped a passage or two which had not stood the test of time; and now he feels that the volume proves itself to any fair-minded person. Beyond these alterations, the book contains little that is new.