‘He is an important critter’: Walt Whitman on proofreaders.
What a tribe the tribe of proofreaders is! I think some men, some writers, owe a great part of their reputations to the excellence of their proofreaders–to their vigilance, their counsel. Who can do justice to the [a]cute, keen intellects of men of this stamp–their considerate patience, their far-seemingness?
Very few people know–very few readers of books–literary people–what we owe to proof-readers–the indefatigable proof-reader. I knew one–Henry Clark, a man not of extraordinary appearance–plain–but a man who seemed the deeper, more expansive, the more a fellow looked. He was a Boston man–the reader of the final proofs of the Boston edition [1860] of Leaves of Grass.
He is an important critter–the most important, I often think, in the making of a book. It easy enough to have good material–a plenty of everything–but to put all in its rightful place and order!–oh! that is another thing!
I have a great respect for the decided opinions of good printers, proofreaders–am disposed, every time, to yield to them. Long experience has taught me their wonderful [a]cutness. Accent and all that is always a foggy latitude to me. I never feel certain of myself in it.
…
I have great emotional respect for the background people–for the folks who are not generally included–for the absentees, the forgotten: the shy nobodies who in the end are the best of all.
From Intimate with Walt: Selections from Whitman’s Conversations with Horace Traubel 1888-1982, edited by Gary Schmidgall, The Iowa Whitman Series. The “accent” Whitman was referring to in the third graf there was concerning the word “finale.”
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