Thus incited to poetic self-expression, Whitman (adds Mr. Conway) "wrote on
a sheet of paper, in large letters, these words, 'Make the Work,' and fixed
it above his table, where he could always see it whilst writing.
Thenceforth every cloud that flitted over him, every distant sail, every
face and form encountered, wrote a line in his book."

The _Leaves of Grass_ excited no sort of notice until a letter from
Emerson[5] appeared, expressing a deep sense of its power and magnitude. He
termed it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has
yet contributed."

[Footnote 5: Mr. Burroughs (to whom I have recourse for most biographical
facts concerning Whitman) is careful to note, in order that no
misapprehension may arise on the subject, that, up to the time of his
publishing the _Leaves of Grass_, the author had not read either the essays
or the poems of Emerson.]

The edition of about a thousand copies sold off in less than a year.
Towards the end of 1856 a second edition in 16mo appeared, printed in New
York, also of about a thousand copies. Its chief feature was an additional
poem beginning "A Woman waits for me." It excited a considerable storm.
Another edition, of about four to five thousand copies, duodecimo, came out
at Boston in 1860-61, including a number of new pieces. The _Drum Taps_,
consequent upon the war, with their _Sequel_, which comprises the poem on
Lincoln, followed in 1865; and in 1867, as I have already noted, a complete
edition of all the poems, including a supplement named _Songs before
Parting_. The first of all the _Leaves of Grass_, in point of date, was the
long and powerful composition entitled _Walt Whitman_--perhaps the most
typical and memorable of all of his productions, but shut out from the
present selection for reasons given further on. The final edition shows