Theodore de banville biography of abraham

Part 1: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=303589



Walt Whitman was a true American vagabond. He was born in Long Island in 1819. Raised second in a family of nine, Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic status. One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette (a leader in the French revolution and general in the American revolutionary war) during a celebration in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825. He was an autodidact who taught himself to read Dante, Homer, and Shakespeare. At eleven he finished formal school, and got a job at a newspaper to help his family make end's meat. Working as a typesetter he occasionally wrote "sentimental bits" for filler material.

A year later Walt took a job at The Long-Island Star in Brooklyn. His parents and family moved to West Hills but he stayed to follow his interests. While there, he became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances, and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry. At age 16 Walt moved to New York, though he had a hard time finding work. There had been a g

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