Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and
America’s First Bohemians. By Justin Martin. Da Capo. $27.99.
Thomas Jefferson: President and
Philosopher. By Jon Meacham. Crown. $19.99.
Enthusiasts for the byways
of American history will enjoy Justin Martin’s exploration of the crowd that
used to hang out at Pfaff’s Saloon in New York City – an establishment that was
the first gathering place of Bohemian-style thinkers and possibly the young
nation’s first gay bar. Henry Clapp Jr., a little-known name today, brought
together a poetic and philosophical group that included Walt Whitman, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain and such lesser lights as Artemus Ward, Fitz Hugh
Ludlow, Fitz-James O’Brien, Adah Menken and Ada Clare. The gatherings in the
late 1850s, as the forces built that would lead to the Civil War, featured
discussions of literature and art, daily living and work, and the meaning of
life – the same sorts of concerns that would engage the Bohemians of a century
later. Pfaff’s was the headquarters of the artists’ own journal, Saturday Press, which published both
Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain! and
Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County. It was a place where Whitman, a homosexual, felt
comfortable, catering as it did to people of all tastes and what were then
considered eccentricities. Martin writes about Pfaff’s and its coterie with
skill and attentiveness, although his style is on the dry side and sometimes
unintentionally humorous, or simply grammatically challenged: “Emerging from
the lake, Ludlow’s hair and beard were thickly caked with salt… No other Mormon
Ludlow had encountered wore their hair in this fashion.” The Pfaff’s story is
the heart of Rebel Souls, but halfway
through the book, the focus changes – because the Civil War begins, which
meant, writes Martin, that “most of these artists would manage to carve out
their own unique places in a nation at war. To do so would require leaving New
York City and the cloistered safety of Pfaff’s, though the group members would
return to their favorite haunt whenever they passed back through Manhattan.”
The book becomes somewhat less interesting as it follows the individual tales
of the Pfaff’s Bohemians, and the book’s title seems a bit of a gaffe, since
“rebel” comes to refer to the Confederates and is never applied to the Pfaff’s
group. The focus on Whitman makes the book somewhat less interesting than it
could be, since Whitman’s work is well-known and the poet has been so often
collected, discussed and analyzed. On the other hand, Whitman did one thing
that other Pfaff’s regulars did not: he lived a long time. Martin chronicles
the early demise of most of the proto-Bohemians in a matter-of-fact way, much
as he details John Wilkes Booth’s approach to and assassination of Abraham
Lincoln. There are many small items of interest in Rebel Souls, but the book never quite catches fire as the portrait
of an era, or of an unusual group, or of the special place that Martin asserts
Pfaff’s to be. It comes across as an extended exploration of a historical
footnote – of interest primarily to readers whose fascination with Whitman
extends to a desire to explore some of his formative interests in the years
before he wrote Leaves of Grass.
The exploration of Thomas
Jefferson by Jon Meacham is more involving in Thomas Jefferson: President and Philosopher, even though this is a
simplification of Meacham’s Thomas
Jefferson: The Art of Power and is intended to attract younger readers
through its ample illustrations. Actually, the book so effectively strips away
many of the details of Jefferson’s life that it makes the third U.S. president
a more compelling figure: Meacham focuses reader attention on the ways in which
Jefferson was absolutely crucial to the establishment of a new nation, and the
quotations he offers from Jefferson’s extensive writings help make this
consummate statesman and intellectual come vibrantly alive: “The tree of
liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and
tyrants.” John Adams was “always an honest man, often a great one, but
sometimes absolutely mad.” “I know well that no man will ever bring out of that
office [of the presidency] the reputation which carries him into it.” It is fascinating
to contrast Jefferson’s approach to the presidency with that of modern
presidents: “Jefferson governed personally. …Making speeches at other
politicians was not the best way to earn their loyalty or their help. Inviting
them to dinner was much more effective.” And it is equally fascinating to note
ways Jefferson acted that would provoke howls of anger and significant political
opposition today: “Nothing in the Constitution gave the president power to sign
treaties such as this one [for the Louisiana Purchase]. …A slower or less
courageous politician might have bungled the purchase; one who was too
idealistic might have lost it by insisting on a constitutional amendment.
Jefferson, however, was neither slow nor weak nor too idealistic.” What Jefferson
was, however, was highly intelligent as well as highly practical, a combination
that served him in good stead in founding the University of Virginia – one of
his enduring legacies. Meacham’s simplified biography gives somewhat short
shrift to Jefferson’s other legacies, especially those unrelated to politics,
but it is, after all, a simplification; and young readers intrigued by elements
at which the book only hints, or to which it gives only passing mention, will
have many other places to go for additional information – inspired, perhaps, by
the “Revolutionary War Times” appendix to Thomas
Jefferson: President and Philosopher, or by another of the several
back-of-the-book items included here, from Jefferson’s family tree to a recipe
he wrote for macaroni.
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