But the club reports that the swordfish steak, of which it partook as per Mr. Clarke's suggestion, did not appeal so strongly to its taste. Swordfish steak, we feel, is probably a taste acquired by long and diligent4 application. At the first trial it seemed to the club a bit too reptilian5 in flavour. The club will go there again, and will hope to arrive in time to grab one of those tables by the windows, looking out over the docks and the United Fruit Company steamer which is so appropriately named the Banan; but it is the sense of the meeting that swordfish steak is not in its line.
[58]The club retorts to Mr. Clarke by asking him if he knows the downtown chophouse where one may climb sawdusted stairs and sit in a corner beside a framed copy of the New-York Daily Gazette of May 1, 1789, at a little table incised with the initials of former habitués, and hold up toward the light a glass of the clearest and most golden and amberlucent cider known to mankind, and before attacking a platter of cold ham and Boston beans, may feel that smiling sensation of a man about to make gradual and decent advances toward a ripe and ruddy appetite.
Fulton Street has always been renowned6 for its taverns7. The Old Shakespeare Tavern used to be there, as is shown by the tablet at No. 136 commemorating8 the foundation of the Seventh Regiment9. The club has always intended to make more careful exploration of Dutch Street, the little alley10 that runs off Fulton Street on the south side, not far from Broadway. There is an eating place on this byway, and the organization plans to patronize it, in order to have an excuse for giving itself the sub-title of the Dutch Street Club. The more famous eating houses along Fulton Street are known to all: the name of at least one of them has a genial11 Queen Anne sound. And only lately a very seemly coffee house was established not far from Fulton and Nassau. We must confess our pleasure in the fact that this place uses as its motto a footnote from The Spectator—"Whoever wished to find a gentleman commonly asked not where he resided, but which coffee house he frequented."
Among the many things to admire along Fulton [59]Street (not the least of which are Dewey's puzzling perpetually fluent grape-juice bottle, and the shop where the trained ferrets are kept, for chasing out rats, mice, and cockroaches12 from your house, the sign says) we vote for that view of the old houses along the south side of the street, where it widens out toward the East River. This vista13 of tall, leaning chimneys seems to us one of the most agreeable things in New York, and we wonder whether any artist has ever drawn14 it. As our colleague Endymion suggested, it would make a fine subject for Walter Jack15 Duncan. In the eastern end of this strip of fine old masonry16 resides the seafaring tavern we spoke17 of above; formerly18 known as Sweet's, and a great place of resort (we are told) for Brooklynites in the palmy days before the Bridge was opened, when they used to stop there for supper before taking the Fulton Ferry across the perilous19 tideway.
The Fulton Ferry—dingy and deserted20 now—is full of fine memories. The old waiting room, with its ornate carved ceiling and fine, massive gas brackets, peoples itself, in one's imagination, with the lively and busy throngs21 of fifty and sixty years ago. "My life then (1850-60) was curiously22 identified with Fulton Ferry, already becoming the greatest in the world for general importance, volume, variety, rapidity, and picturesqueness23." So said Walt Whitman. It is a curious experience to step aboard one of the boats in the drowsy24 heat of a summer afternoon and take the short voyage over to the Brooklyn slip, underneath25 one of the huge piers26 of the Bridge. A few heavy wagons27 and heat-oppressed horses are almost the only other passengers. [60]Not far away from the ferry, on the Brooklyn side, are the three charmingly named streets—Cranberry28, Orange, and Pineapple—which are also so lastingly29 associated with Walt Whitman's life. It strikes us as odd, incidentally, that Walt, who loved Brooklyn so much, should have written a phrase so capable of humorous interpretation30 as the following: "Human appearances and manners—endless humanity in all its phases—Brooklyn also." This you will find in Walt's Prose Works, which is (we suppose) one of the most neglected of American classics.
Drawing of "Lightning" statue
But Fulton Street, Manhattan—in spite of its two greatest triumphs: Evelyn Longman Batchelder's glorious figure of "Lightning," and the strictly31 legal "three grains of pepsin" which have been a comfort to so many stricken invalids—is a mere32 byway compared to Fulton Street, Brooklyn, whose long bustling33 channel may be followed right out into the Long Island pampas. At the corner of Fulton and Cranberry streets "Leaves of Grass" was set up and printed, Walt Whitman himself setting a good deal of the type. Ninety-eight Cranberry Street, we have always been told, was the address of Andrew and James Rome, the printers. The house at that corner is still numbered 98. The ground floor is occupied by a clothing store, a fruit stand, and a barber shop. The building looks as though it is probably the same one that Walt knew. Opposite it is a sign [61]where the comparatively innocent legend Ben's Pure Lager has been deleted.
The pilgrim on Fulton Street will also want to have a look at the office of the Brooklyn Eagle, that famous paper which has numbered among its employees two such different journalists as Walt Whitman and Edward Bok. There are many interesting considerations to be drawn from the two volumes of Walt's writings for the Eagle, which were collected (under the odd title "The Gathering34 of the Forces") by Cleveland Rodgers and John Black. We have always been struck by the complacent35 na?veté of Walt's judgments36 on literature (written, perhaps, when he was in a hurry to go swimming down at the foot of Fulton Street). Such remarks as the following make us ponder a little sadly. Walt wrote:
We are no admirer of such characters as Doctor Johnson. He was a sour, malicious37, egotistical man. He was a sycophant38 of power and rank, withal; his biographer narrates39 that he "always spoke with rough contempt of popular liberty." His head was educated to the point of plus, but for his heart, might still more unquestionably stand the sign minus. He insulted his equals ... and tyrannized over his inferiors. He fawned40 upon his superiors, and, of course, loved to be fawned upon himself.... Nor were the freaks of this man the mere "eccentricities41 of genius"; they were probably the faults of a vile42, low nature. His soul was a bad one.
The only possible comment on all this is that it is absurd, and that evidently Walt knew very little about the great Doctor. One of the curious things about Walt—and there is no man living who admires him more [62]than we do—is that he requires to be forgiven more generously than any other great writer. There is no one who has ever done more grotesquely43 unpardonable things than he—and yet, such is the virtue44 of his great, saline simplicity45, one always pardons them. As a book reviewer, to judge from the specimens46 rescued from the Eagle files by his latest editors, he was uniquely childish.
Noting the date of Walt's blast on Doctor Johnson (December 7, 1846), it is doubtful whether we can attribute the irresponsibility of his remarks to a desire to go swimming.
The editors of this collection venture the suggestion that the lighter47 pieces included show Walt as "not devoid48 of humour." We fear that Walt's waggishness49 was rather heavily shod. Here is a sample of his light-hearted paragraphing (the italics are his):—
It was in Leon Bazalgette's "Walt Whitman" that we learned of Walt's only really humorous achievement; and even then the humour was unconscious. It seems that during the first days of his life as a journalist in New York, Walt essayed to compromise with Mannahatta by wearing a frock coat, a high hat, and a flower in his lapel. We regret greatly that no photo of Walt in this rig has been preserved, for we would like to have seen the gentle misery51 of his bearing.
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1
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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reptilian
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| adj.（像）爬行动物的；（像）爬虫的；卑躬屈节的；卑鄙的n.两栖动物；卑劣的人 | |
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renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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8
commemorating
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的现在分词 ) | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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14
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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16
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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throngs
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| n.人群( throng的名词复数 )v.成群，挤满( throng的第三人称单数 ) | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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picturesqueness
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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cranberry
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| n.梅果 | |
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lastingly
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| [医]有残留性，持久地，耐久地 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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sycophant
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| n.马屁精 | |
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narrates
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| v.故事( narrate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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40
fawned
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| v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的过去式和过去分词 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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41
eccentricities
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| n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 )；反常；怪癖 | |
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42
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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44
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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45
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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46
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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47
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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48
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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49
waggishness
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50
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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51
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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