Walt Whitman in Thomas Hardy’s “Desperate Remedies” (1871)

"Edward Springrove the elder", the father of the Edward Springrove who eventually marries Cytherea Graye in Thomas Hardy's "Desperate Remedies" (1871), is introduced with a comparison to a contemporary of Hardy's from the United States: "Like Walt Whitman he felt as his years increased— / 'I foresee too much; it means more than I thought.'" The line is from Whitman's "So Long!", which first appeared as the final poem in the 1860 edition of "Leaves of Grass". I was surprised to see a reference to a Whitman poem in an English novel published so soon after its publication; I did not know that Whitman's work had crossed the Atlantic so quickly. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 February 2024)