I Alone Would Expect to Be

Your God

t he Cussed ness i n Ca l a mus

by Mitchell Santine Gould

Curator, LeavesofGrass.Org

The way is suspicious—the result slow, uncertain,

may-be destructive;
You would have to give up all else—I alone would

expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting... [ 1 ]

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 Int roduc t ion

Knowing that Walt Whitman characterized himself as "the tenderest
lover," [ 2 ] do you think it was so easy to have him become one's lover?
Do you think the friendship of him would have been unalloyed
satisfaction? Do you suppose he was trusty and faithful? [ 3 ]

This paper provides a fresh re-examination of the rather bleak rules of
engagement for Calamus love, centering upon the revealing and
definitive playbook — or articles of domestic warfare, whichever you
prefer —, set forth in the original Calamus poems of 1860.

[1] Cussedness

Edward Carpenter got it right in 1906: the relevant element in Walt
Whitman's character, he suggested, was less a matter of "tenderness"
than "cussedness." Cussedness (that is, "cursedness") was "a great
tragic element in his nature [which] possibly prevented him ever being
quite what is called 'happy in love affairs.'" [ 4 ]

In Walt's lifelong search for love, time after time, he wants it so badly

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 that he destroys it. This is the meaning of "cussedness," as manifest in
Whitman's poems, his letters, and his oral history (With Walt Whitman
in Camden), as well as in the testimony of those such as Carpenter and
Emerson who knew him well. The best way to sort out what happened
is to trace the boy-loses-boy story depicted in the cluster from its start
to its finish.

[2 ] P erfec t uneq uals

At the moment of first encounter, Walt addresses his newest conquest
as "lover and perfect equal" for both the first and last time. [ 5 ] Long
before the young man knows what hit him, however, he will actually
merely be playing the role of sidekick, or, in Walt's bordello French, the
role of élevé. [ 6 ] It is Walt the poet, not Walt the man, who speaks the
words "lover and perfect equal."

Granted, Walt's Quaker testimony on equality thoroughly informs
Leaves of Grass. He sincerely believes that the measure of real Liberty
depends upon "lovers," and "the continuance of Equality" demands the
inclusion of "comrades." [ 7  ] But he finds it impossible to put this ideal
into practice in his own love relationships. Each one is
progressively poisoned by his instinctual drive to dominate

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 — a grave flaw in his personality which he never learns to
quell.

[3] Th e c ost of c h ari sm a

Is it possible, at the most fundamental level, that Walt Whitman labors
under the "cu'ss" of his own charisma? Wouldn't the vicious cycle which
characterizes his long string of wrecked love pursuits have sputtered
out at an early age, had he not possessed the most "perfect or
enamored body?" [ 8 ] After all, so few among us know what it is like to
receive the "frequent and swift flash of eyes offering... love,"  [ 9 ] or to
have a chorus of voices calling one's name "from flowerbeds, vines, or
tangled underbrush." [ 1 0 ] For most of us, how can we appreciate how
difficult it would be to remain chaste or faithful, when seduced like that
at every turn?

On the other hand, there is reason for caution with this line of
reasoning, if only because Walt was still prowling for men deep into his
latter days, after his legendary physique was wrecked by both age and
decades of strokes.

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 [4] The curse of the chase

In any event, the record shows that Walt Whitman's "cu'ss" is to
endlessly pursue thrills in the department of love. Bored soon by the
mundane realities of a settled relationship, he escapes to the
excitement of the chase. He pursues men recklessly, like a
mountaineer. As if impatient with merely loafing in the tall grass,
instead he scales cold, exhausting — and invariably barren — peaks.
The experience leaves him with the bitterest envy for successful gay
marriages. [ 1 1  ] His obsession with collecting and cultivating a stable of
"lovers, continual lovers" furnishes only a vacuous, unreliable sense of
"repayment." [ 1 2 ]

[5] Shut t lec oc k

A Whitman affair typically begins with radically simple (likely,
suppressed) quiet times, in which the pair wordlessly hold hands on the
deck of a Brooklyn ferryboat or in a rough saloon. [ 1 3 ] The tryst has
barely commenced, but Walt is already exerting control over the
relationship, by unilaterally protracting the romantic foreplay. He
enjoys the painful suspense of dallying. In this stage, Walt flirts
expertly, because, in his quest for love, his finely-honed capacity for

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 human empathy is subverted to manipulate. His partner becomes
increasingly eager, but Walt keeps himself busy with the other men in
his stable. His idea of a contact sport? It's to keep life interesting by
shuffling appointments within his harem. His letter to Ed Cattell
reveals the game in full play:

Do not call to see me any more at the Stafford family, & do

not call there at all any more — Dont ask me why — I will

explain to you when we meet... There is nothing in it that I think I

do wrong, not am ashamed of, but I wish it kept entirely between you

and me... keep the whole thing and the present letter entirely to

yourself... As to Harry you know how I love him. Ed, you too have my

unalterable love, & always shall have. I want you to come up here

& see me. [ 14 ]

[6] Vulc anism - 1

In the prelude stage of courtship, Walt and his lover enter a comedy of
suppressed mutual attraction. Although they spend a great deal of
blissful time together, a same-sex romance seems unthinkable, not to
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 mention unmentionable. [ 1 5 ] Stifled whispers of body language and
behavior, however, act as constant hints of the desired consummation. [
1 6 ]

Thus, ironically, even homophobia can be enlisted by the old "cuss." In
his hands it is practically a tool to be turned to his ends. As his lover
wrestles with conflicted desires, Walt uses the new conquest's
ambivalence about same-sex love to build floodgates for passion. Walt
strives to orchestrate a volcanic outburst following a long struggle with
self-suppression. [ 1 7  ]

[7] Camp W hi t man

Sometimes the next step in courtship is to outfit his élevé with the
school uniform: a gift of macho, working-class clothing, such as a
coachman's gloves or a strong blue shirt. [ 1 8 ] This tactic only proves
successful if the youth agrees to enter the novitiate. Sometimes,
however, the ploy fails because Walt's peculiar brand of gaydar  [ 1 9 ] is
fallible. Not all of the young men who delight in his friendship are
interested in romance. Even among those who are, the attrition from
this rigorous boot camp is high because in this repressive society, "The
way is suspicious—the result slow, uncertain, may-be destructive."  [ 20 ]
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 And some of them who are amenable to a one-night stand do not have
the kind of passionate "blood" that circulates in his veins. If his recruit
fails to seriously commit to the tabooed or "silent" love he is seeking,
what's the use of going through the elaborate drill? [ 21  ] By 1860, Walt
learns to discharge such misfits, in order to more efficiently move on to
other recruits.

[8] N onc halanc e

However, if the camerado is really in love, then there comes a moment,
perhaps in the deep woods or on a deserted island, when the floodgate
opens. This is the bliss-bliss moment, the great romantic payoff. [ 22 ]

On the other hand, sealing the covenant of a love affair enables Walt to
get close enough to take charge. Walt has "many things to absorb, to
engraft, to develop, [to] teach," his boy, and time's a-wastin'. [ 23 ] Soon
enough, he and his conscript are flaunting the taboo against public
displays of affection "in the public room, or on the crossing of the
street, or on the ship's deck" [ 24 ]

The street-theatrical effect Walt is striving for is nonchalance, a
recurring virtue treated with quirky reverence in Leaves of Grass.
When he hints that Fred and Walt are "those two natural and
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 nonchalant persons," [ 25 ] he anticipates Gandhi's admonition for us all to
become the world we want to see. Nonchalance, in Whitmanese,
translates to a state of being so endlessly powerful, so unshakably
certain, that it can afford to be casual.

Walt is clearly the "commander, swift, brave, immortal" of this
revolutionary but laid-back army of two, and his relaxed lover is his
artilleryman. [ 26 ] They fulfill their forays against social convention by
"eating, drinking, sleeping, loving... statutes mocking, [and] feebleness
chasing." [ 27  ]

[9] Waywardness - 1

However, the very first lesson of this spiritual boot camp is to expect
the drill sergeant to be very unreliable. In another context, Whitman
ordains himself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, going wherever
(and whenever) he pleases, his own master, total and absolute; gently,
but with undeniable will, divesting himself of the holds that would hold
him. In "Song of the Open Road," he uses these terms to describe his
reformist advocacy of same-sex love. However, the same phrase
ironically describes his "wayward, fanciful ways," to use Emerson's
term. [ 28 ] Likewise, Edward Carpenter resents "that queer brusque
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 manner of his which so often offended his friends — just coldly saying
'Ta-ta,' and going off as if he didn't care he never saw us again!"  [ 29 ] In
an 1856 letter to Mrs Tyndale, Walt acknowledges his lack of
consideration in keeping appointments. "I am so non-polite-so
habitually wanting in my responses and ceremonies.-That is me-much
that is bad, harsh, an undutiful person, a thriftless debtor, is me." [ 30 ]

[10] Waywardness – 2

Note in passing that a public confession of sins is part of the socialist
way of life, a cultural innovation of the phalanxes known as "mutual
criticism." [ 31  ] As a Fourierist, Mrs. Tyndale views it the duty of
comrades to give audience to these self-criticisms; furthermore, Walt's
avowed affinity with the wolf, hog, and snake simultaneously appears
in print in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;

I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,

Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,

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 Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,

Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;

The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,

The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not
wanting,

Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these

wanting.

[11] Waywardness - 3

The constant tone of the Fred Vaughan letters, written after their
breakup — but while they still pine for each other — is a sustained
pleading for Walt to deliver proof sheets from the third edition of
Leaves of Grass as promised; to make good on unambiguous,
straightforward agreements to meet; and even to simply reply to
letters. [ 32 ] Fred's letters are all written in the awareness that Walt's
pursuit of others, combined with his essential laziness, makes time
management difficult: wayward, vain, cheating looks, adulterous
wishes, refusals, postponements, meanness, and laziness — none of
these wanting, indeed.
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 [12 ] Alpha b et

The biggest cause of our failure to understand the source of Walt's love
disasters has been our inability to fully accept the gravity of Walt's
unequivocal confessions. We have generally been misled by the
piercing wail of victimization which saturates the "Calamus" cluster.
One must turn to totally separate parts of Leaves of Grass — such as
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," above — to see why Walt had only himself
to blame. However, even in "Calamus," there is a hint that in his "sullen
and suffering hours," he is "ashamed but it is useless." His understands
that his instinctive conflation of love with dominance is simply too
hard-wired to be excised. When it comes to the matter of comradeship,
he is what he is — a hopelessly alpha male, also known as a jerk. [ 33 ]

[13] Gi ve up all else

Courting Walt Whitman is therefore a "novitiate... long and exhausting"
because it is a maddening exercise in betrayals and broken promises.
To be a whimsical tyrant is the proper province of a God, not a man;
accordingly, in the best tradition of the Ten Commandments, the
covenant one signs with Walt Whitman states quite clearly that one
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 must "give up all else — I alone would expect to be your God, sole and
exclusive." [ 34 ] Thus even when Walt appears to be one's slave, as
mentioned below, he is in reality still the "teacher of atheletes"  [ 35 ] For
instance, while he lavishes his own money on his comrades in a truly
generous and compassionate way, money also controls. It always
comes with strings attached.

[14] Hom e alone

At first the friend and lover is flattered, but gradually he begins to feel
cheated, even smothered. Even if he is content, in principle, to accept
extracurricular sexual pursuits, there is only so much time in the day
(or, for that matter, the night). If nothing else, Walt's flirtations with
other men mean that the main squeeze will be left alone. It's
frustrating and humiliating to be constantly challenged "to make
appointments" to find some of Walt's time, as shown in Fred Vaughan's
letters, especially when these are routinely dishonored.

[15] Groveling

But while Walt relishes toying with his boy, in his heart he is deeply

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 empathetic and passionately devoted to justice. This suppressed part
hates to see the other man suffer and raises an internalized civil war.
In Calamus 6, we see him “cu'ss” himself for being compelled to repeat
these dramas.

. . . sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself,

. . . those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs,

. . . many an oath and promise broken,

. . . my wilful and savage soul's volition . . . [ 36 ]

Walt overcompensates for his sins by apologizing, pandering, and
bribing. [ 37  ] It is this contradictory aspect of the relationship which
utterly confounds and distracts the lover, obscuring the abusive
dynamics for so long. Unfortunately for the comrade, these periodic
episodes of groveling only obscure, protect, and prolong the real
master-slave game until Walt kisses you with his good-by kiss and
opens the gate for your egress hence. [ 38 ]

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 [16] Justified fear

This brings us at last to Walt's extravagant, pathological fear that his
lovers don't love him [ 39 ] There is an unspoken assumption in Whitman
scholarship that this is in good measure pure melodrama or bombast
(both of which are, admittedly, Whitman staples). However, I now
believe that Walt's fears are justified. In every relationship (except,
perhaps, his last and best marriage, to Horace Traubel), his own
relentless campaign to dominate leads inevitably to a lover's natural
outrage and an eventual breakup.

[17] V ulc ani sm - 2

Trust a psychoanalyst to guess that the storms which periodically
devastated Walt's homelife were the result of a tendency to perversely
enjoy such dramas. The proposition simply can't be proved, and would
bring little of value to the table anyway. It far more straightforward to
accept the sound and fury as the direct consequence of a lover's need to
defend himself from the growing assault on his own sovereignty. On
Walt's side, the great heat may be proportionate to a high degree of
denial about the evil of his manipulative ways, but in any event, it
represents the trump card he reserves when all other methods of
coercion fail — perhaps with the exception of his familiar freezing
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 silences. Charley Shivley, the foremost authority on Walt's love life,
mentions this other aspect of the sexual volcano:

While Harry was a troublesome lad, Whitman was no less excitable.

English admirers heard from Harry's mother that "she had seen
him more angry than anyone she knew... He would suddenly erupt like a

volcano, after which he would be very quiet." [ 40 ]

[18] Gimmie shelt er

It should by now be clear that Walt's reprehensible control ploys
include: the giving and taking of a gold ring as a carrot and stick;
keeping his lover guessing about whether he will show up as promised;
stubborn delays in answering letters; the obvious romantic infidelities;
incendiary outbursts and icy silences; and his attempts — sometimes,
admittedly, thwarted — to unilaterally decide when to break off a
relationship.

The endless gotchas slowly drive the love object crazy, and into the
arms of a safer refuge, even if his real love remains with Walt. Fred's

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 letters indicate that he is habituated to broken promises, but while he
never stops loving Walt, he had pre-empted Walt's inevitable move to
escort Fred outside of the gate of Walt's heart by "contenting" himself
without Walt — in fact, contenting himself in the tepid but safe shelter
of Robert Cooper's home. [ 41  ]

Conc lusion

Throughout this paper, I have shown why both Walt and his lovers
vented their frustrations with “husky pantings through clenched teeth”
or “sounded and resounded words—chattering words, echoes, dead
words,” [ 42 ] and why they were invariably driven apart. We do not have
space here to fully explore the other side of the story, but it is equally
vital, perhaps even more vital, to appreciate that side.

In a few words, the other side is this: despite all the "hungry wishes,
told to the skies only" and the "cries, laughter, defiances,"  [ 43 ] in the
end, Walt's promise to permanently infuse his spirit into his loved ones
was a promise he kept. [ 44 ]

Late into his dark, boozy, closeted life, Fred sent Walt a heartbreaking
prose-poem, in the confessional style of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” It
is worthy of being inserted into the pages of Leaves of Grass. It reads,
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 in part:

— between the ever plying ferryboats, the tugs, the Harlem

boats, and mingled with the splash of the paddle wheels — the
murmur of the sailors at dinner. — the lazy flap of the sails,

the screech of the steam whistles of the tugs, the laugh and wrangle
of the boys in swimming — comes a remembrance of thee dear Walt —

With WmsBgh & Brooklyn — with the ferries and the

vessels with the Lumber piles and the docks. From among all out of
all. Connected with all and yet distinct from all arrises thee Dear
Walt. Walt — my life has turned out a poor miserable failure. I
am not a drunkard nor a teetotaler — I am neither honest nor

dishonest. I have my family in Brooklyn and am supporting them. —

I never stole, robbed, cheate, nor defrauded any person out of
anything, and yet I feels that I have not been honest to myself —

my family nor my friends. [ 45 ]

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 Somewhat earlier in the same letter, Fred describes the strong
persistence of Walt's love in his life.

Many and many a mile have I road on a Locomotive while in charge

of a Freight-train and had you by my side in conversation —
which to me was a really a presence as in years gone by on the box of
Broadway stage — or asleep and lounge on the deck of a Fulton

Ferry Boat — [ 46 ]

Likewise, Peter Doyle:

I have Walt's raglan here [goes to closet—puts it on]. I now and then

put it on, lay down, think I am in the old times. Then

he is with me again. It's the only thing I kept amongst many old
things. When I get it on and stretched out of the old sofa I am very
well contented. It is like Aladdin's lamp. I do not ever for a minute

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 lose the old man. He is always near by. When I am in trouble —
in a crisis — I ask myself, “What would Walt have done under these

circumstances? And whatever I decide Walt would have done that I do. [ 47 ]

Do not fail to mark the fundamental affinities between Walt's psychic
presence beside his lovers and the era's prevailing atmosphere of
spiritualism. The letters of Fred Vaughan and Peter Doyle, just cited,
are utterly in keeping with the spirit, if you will, of the "thick cloud" of
ghost-lovers portrayed in Calamus 4.

This brings us to the final paradox regarding the lamentable
cussedness in Calamus, perhaps the greatest of them all, as expressed
in “Calamus 39.”

SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for

fear I effuse unreturned love;
But now I think there is no unreturned love—the
pay is certain, one way or another,

Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe,

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 or written one of my poems, if I had not freely
given myself to comrades, to love.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Walt's
dysfunctional love affairs created an unbroken trail of tears for himself
and his lovers. And yet, he swore, without them he could not have
"perceived the universe." Without understanding this paradox, we take
him at his word.

1  Calamus 3.

2 Calamus 1 0.

3 Calamus 1 2

4 Edward Carpenter. Days w ith Walt Whitman: With Some Notes on His Life and Work. 1 906, 47 .

5 Calamus 41 .

6 Calamus 42.

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 7  Calamus 5.

8 "Poem of The Heart of The Son of Manhattan Island," 1 856.

9 Calamus 1 8.

1 0 “Song of My self.”

1 1  Calamus 28.

1 2 Calamus 1 8.

1 3 Calamus 29.

1 4 WW to Ed Cattell. January  24, 1 87 7 . Cited in: Charley  Shiv ely . Calamus Lovers (San Francisco:

Gay  Sunshine Press, 1 987 ), 1 44.

1 5 Calamus 29.

1 6 Note also that prior to the discov ery  of a "magic bullet" for v enereal disease in the twentieth

century , all romantic affairs were conducted in the shadow of sy philis, "the bad disorder." It
was rampant, dev astating, and incurable. This deadly  specter hung ov er all relationships, as
shown by  Peter Doy le's suicidal episode. (Shiv ely , 1 02)

1 7  Calamus 36. Significantly , Walt's v ulcanism metaphor appears after his meetings with that

fellow lov er of men, Emerson. Richardson writes, "The image of a v olcano was a suggestiv e one
for Emerson... he kept a print of [V esuv ius] hanging in his front hall in Concord for the rest of
his life." [Robert D. Richardson. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. (Berkeley : U Cal Press, 1 995,

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 1 223.)

1 8 Shiv ley , 67 .

1 9 Calamus 41 .

20 Calamus 3.

21  Calamus 42.

22 Calamus 3.

23 Calamus 42.

24 Calamus 9 and 1 0.

25 Calamus 1 9.

26 Calamus 31 .

27  Calamus 26.

28 Emerson also adds a third term, Carpenter v aguely  recalls, one not quite so strong as the word

"v iolent." Carpenter, 1 66. I suggest the word would hav e been "domineering."

29 Carpenter, 42.

30 "Selected Letters of Walt Whitman" edited by  Edwin Hav iland Miller. (Iowa City : U Iowa,

1 990), 24.
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 31  George Wallingford Noy es. John Humphrey Noyes, The Putney Community. (Oneida, NY :
1 931 , Chapter 1 2.

32 Shiv ley , Chapter 2.

33 Calamus 9.

34 Calamus 3.

35 Song of My self.

36 Calamus 6.

37  Study  Shiv ley 's book in its entireity .

38 Song of My self.

39 Calamus 1 0 and 39.

40 Shiv ley , 1 43.

41  Calamus 9. Shiv ely , Chapter 2.

42 Calamus 6.

43 Calamus 6.

44 Calamus 37 , 45.

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 45 Shilv ey , 49.

46 Shiv ley , 48.

47  Shiv ley , 1 1 8.

48 Calamus 39.

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