Witty Whitman

Step1:
Taking a look at Whitman's journals, his cursive handwriting was difficult to read (seemed like he was jotting down the stream of ideas for his poems), which caused difficulty for me to understand what the journals were really about. However, I was not meant to be judgmental about his handwriting, but it would be much more helpful to the audience if his handwriting were to be clearer...

Through his notebook, I noticed that on page 925, there's written "Two characters as of a dialogue..." and "lesson for President elect". He also mentioned "the Jew the Christ". The presence of religion in his notebook made me wonder if his notes were about the separation between different religions in the nation. That his inner voice was to scream out the liberty of freedom of religion, as he wrote "lesson for President elect" on the page above. On other page, he wrote "Have more throne there stood so low? Does the Queen of England represent a thousand years? And the Queen of Spain a thousand years? And you". The significance of this quote was that he mentioned the two most powerful nations of Europe at the time and they also had great influence on the US. For what he meant about "a thousand years" I could not figure out. The quote "Welcome the star- welcome the trial - let the waves. Why now I shall see what the old ship is made of. Any body can sail with a fair wind, a smooth sea" and he also mentioned "The ship of Libertad" which represented his ideas of liberty. The last few pages included his sketches of an unidentified man who resembled Abraham Lincoln as there was one sketch of him with the hat on. This could link to the admiration of Whitman towards Abraham Lincoln and I think that Whitman wanted to become someone as great as Lincoln. 

Step2:
It was very surprising to know that the journals were about the dream of having a talk with Abraham Lincoln. I can relate this to him as I also sometimes find myself day-dreaming talking to my "favorite idols". I know this and that are different things but dreaming about having a talk with the person whom one admires very much is a very normal thing. In my opinion I would not think that Whitman would be the type of person who would look up to other people because he appeared to be so great himself. His dream about having a conversation with the person he admired, the one who would understand his longing for liberty just as much as himself, represented the worry that he had towards the future of America.