he turned country schoolmaster; and shifting from that, he set up as editor of _The Long Islander_, hiring some help, but himself doing most of the work, including the distribution of his weekly sheet to its patrons. In 1841 he returned to New York, became editor of _The Daily Aurora_, wrote for _The Tattler_, and published stories in _The Democratic Review_. In later years it was his “serious wish to have all these crude and boyish pieces quietly dropp’d in oblivion.” Meanwhile he attended the theatre, continued his observation of the crowds at the Brooklyn ferries and in the streets of New York, and his study of nature on the shores of Long Island, read newspapers, “went over thoroughly the Old and New Testaments, and absorbed ... Shakespeare, Ossian, the best translations [available] of Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, the old German Nibelungen, the ancient Hindoo poems, and one or two other masterpieces, Dante’s among them.” A brief connection with _The Brooklyn Eagle_ was terminated by Whitman’s falling out with the radical faction of the Democrats; whereupon he seized “a good chance to go down to New Orleans on the staff of _The Crescent_, a daily to be started there.” Accompanied by his younger brother, “Jeff,” he crossed the Alleghanies, and took steamer down the Ohio and the Mississippi--“a leisurely journey and working expedition”; then “after a time plodded back northward, up the Mississippi, and around to and by way of the Great Lakes, ... to Niagara Falls and Lower Canada, finally returning through central New York and down the Hudson; travelling altogether probably 8000 miles this trip, to and fro.” In the experiences of his life up to this point lay the materials for his “Leaves of Grass,” which he published at his own expense in 1855, having done part of the typesetting himself. A copy sent to Emerson elicited from him a letter in which the book was characterised as “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.” The next year Whitman brought out a second and amplified edition, printing Emerson’s laudatory letter and his own answer in the Preface, and on the back the quotation, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career,” with Emerson’s name beneath. This act of questionable taste failed to augment the sale of the volume; nor was the edition of 1860 more successful. In 1862, Whitman’s younger brother having been wounded during service in the Union Army, the poet was brought into contact with the army hospitals. He continued his ministrations to the sick and suffering almost uninterruptedly until the hospitals in Washington were closed. “From cot to cot they called him, often in tremulous tones or in whispers; they embraced him, they touched his hand, they gazed at him. To one he gave a few words of cheer, for another he wrote a letter home, ... to another, some special friend, very low, he would give a manly farewell kiss. He did the things for them which no nurse