WALT WHITMAN THE MAN WAI/T WHITMAN, 1889 AGED 70. Frontispiece WALT WHITMAN THE MAN BY THOMAS DONALDSON \\ " What about my hundred pages that I am getting out about you?" THOMAS DONALDSON. " Go or, Tom, go on and God be with you." WALT WHITMAN. At a birthday dinner at his house at Camden, N. J., 1, 1891. ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES NEW YORK FRANCIS P. HARPER 1896 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY THOMAS DONALDSON. All rights reserved. TO COLONEL JOSEPH M. BENNETT OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. AS A SOUVENIR OF A LONG AND AGREEABLE FRIENDSHIP PREFACE. THE object of this book is to give the public an insight into the life and habits of Mr. Whitman, as I saw it and them. Whitman, the author, has been done and doubly done, and the end is not yet. Whitman, the man, seems to have been considered as merely secondary. In some phases, there was more in the man than in his works. For many years I took notes of familiar chats and interviews which marked my relations with Mr. Whitman. I had, from boyhood, formed the habit of keep ing such notes of the utterances of public men, until it grew into the habit of put ting upon paper almost all the incidents of daily life. I had long known Mr. Whitman. From 1876 until 1892 the intimacy was con- 6 PREFACE. stant. Now and then, as in one or two instances cited, I shall use these early notes to show how the opinion of the man, so early formed, was more than con firmed in after years. I knew him when he was capable of evil, had he desired to be, or do evil, and in all that period I found him to be a man of honor ; just, brave, and simple, in all worldly thought and action. He loved humanity, while holding himself aloof from close contact with it. Suffer ing appealed to him. Sickness invoked his aid. He regarded poverty as a dis pensation of nature, and never turned the cold shoulder to its appeals. He did not claim that the world owed him a living, but only asked that it permit him to make one for himself. To this end in health, he worked, and, when out of health, he worked. Mr. Whitman seldom sought the society of noted men and women. He welcomed such as called upon him, but visited few. I would call him an entirely reserved man. Comradeship, in its usual acceptance, had no charm for him. He PREFACE. 7 did not smoke, and had no convivial, or club habits. He did not like or use stimulants except as medicine and even eschewed tea and coffee. He was not a rollicking man, nor a drinking man. He was never sensational, and was not "loud" in manner or actions. His dig nity was inborn and easily worn. He was, in fact, not well fitted for general social life. He could not be a "good fellow" in the general sense of that term, for it was not in him. No one dared to slap him on the back and say " Hello, Walt!" He was emphatically a thinking man, a delver in thought. His effort was to reach conclusions through reflection and observation, and then to give them written expression as he was not an orator or a speaker. His views as to comradeship are expressed in an extract from one of his notebooks. "Write a poem : embodying the idea : I wander along in life, hardly ever meeting with comrades. My life has not been occupied and drawn out by love for comrades, for I have not met them. Therefore, I have 8 PREFACE. put by passionate love of comrades in my poems." One usually expects too much in private chat with persons who have national or international literary reputations. Such people are always to be on dress parade to visitors at least, the visitors assume that they should be and great thoughts are expected with each speech. During the many years I saw Mr. Whitman and was near him, he never seemed on dress parade to me. While we had many seri ous conversations, I do not recall very many great thoughts in talk from him. Whitman with the pen was one man Whitman in private life was another man. Emphatically, he was not a good or a fluent talker. Men who write well seldom are. His mind moved slowly ; impressions were quickly made in his mind, but his speech and ideas came slowly. He seemed frequently as if mentally groping. While a distinct personality, there was nothing offensive in Mr. Whitman s man ners or habits. He was benevolent by nature. In charity or otherwise he PREFACE. 9 wanted to give more than he had or could afford. He would send his photograph or a book to friends whom he liked, or to those who did him a service. Sometimes he would send to, or give me, a package of manuscripts. He knew my purpose of making a bit of a book about him, and seemed by such gifts to me to indicate what he thought might be of value to me in such work. He knew that I would not bother the public with my views of his work solely, but would rather present the man Whitman in his everyday man ner, and this has been my aim. THOMAS DONALDSON. PHILADELPHIA, PA., February 29, 1896. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. MR. WHITMAN IN WASHINGTON, 1862-73, . 17 II. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN, 1873-92, . . 23 III. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN (continued), . 53 IV. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN (continued), . 70 V. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN (concluded), . 88 VI. WALT WHITMAN AS A LECTURER, . . 103 VII. WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS, HOPES, EXPECTED LITERARY RESULTS, AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS, . . . .111 VIII. WALT WHITMAN S SERVICES TO THE UNION IN THE WAR OP THE REBELLION, 1862-65, 141 IX. MR. WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 1885, 172 X. MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS AND CORRE SPONDENTS, 1872-92, .... 194 XI. MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND BURIAL, 1891-92, . . . .249 11 ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES. FACING PAGE POBTRAIT OF WALT WHITMAN, 1889 (hitherto un published), Title FACSIMILE OF POSTAL CARD FROM WALT WHIT MAN, 46 FACSIMILE OF SUBJECT FOR A POEM, . . 73 FACSIMILE OF POEM "GOING SOMEWHERE," IN WHITMAN S AUTOGRAPH, .... 74 FACSIMILE OF NOTE OF MR. WHITMAN ON WHIT- TIER, 85 FACSIMILE OF A COMPLETED POEM OF MR. WHIT MAN S " THE DISMANTLED SHIP," SHOWING CORRECTIONS, 103 FACSIMILE OF " THE HOSPITAL GAZETTE," JAN UARY 13, 1864, 141 FACSIMILE OF SECRETARY CHASES OPINION OF WALT WHITMAN GIVEN IN MR. WHIT MAN S AUTOGRAPH 156 13 14 ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES. FACING PAGE FACSIMILE OF ENVELOPE ADDRESSED TO HIM SELF IN MH. WHITMAN S AUTOGRAPH, . 159 FACSIMILE OF AN ARMY PASS OF MR. WHITMAN S, 160 MR. WHITMAN IN HIS BUGGY, OCTOBER, 1886, . 172 FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM ALFRED TENNYSON TO MR. WHITMAN, 194 MR. WHITMAN S GREAT ARMCHAIR, . . . 249 WALT WHITMAN, 1819-92. Walt (Walter) Whitman, born on a farm, West Hills, near Huntington, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, May 31, 1819. He was the son of Walter W. Whitman, a carpenter, and Louisa Van Velsor, his wife, and was the second child of a family of nine children, two girls and seven boys. Walt Whitman died at Camden, N. J., Saturday, March 26, 1892, aged about seventy-three years. Buried at Harleigh Cemetery, near Camden. School-teacher, printer, publisher, house-builder, clerk, editor, soldiers nurse, writer, author, and poet. Schoolboy in Brooklyn, N. Y. , 1824- 28. Clerk in lawyer s office, Brooklyn, 1830-32. Edu cated in the public schools of Brooklyn. Worked in printing offices from 1834 to 1835. Family returned to the country in 1835. Worked in a printing office in New York City, 1836-37. Taught school on Long Island, 1837-38. Started and published a weekly paper at Huntington, Long Island, 1839-40. Returned to Brooklyn in 1840. Worked as a printer and wrote poetry and prose from 1840 to 1848. Began to roam over the West and South in 1848. On editorial staff of Daily Crescent, New Orleans, 1848. Returned to Brooklyn in 1848. Editor Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, 1848- 49. In 1850-62 wrote editorials, magazine articles, 15 16 WALT WHITMAN, 1819-92. ." and 1 , poetjy,; n<i built and sold houses in Brooklyn (his Kitliei~Vat3 ft carpenter and builder), and printed (in .; .IB&O)- a. daily. and -weekly paper called the Freeman. Incuecll iandi tfdi j.ed t " Leaves of Grass" in Brooklyn in 1855. (A Fremont Republican in 1856.) Went to Washington en route to the battlefield of Fredericks- burg, December 14, 1862, to aid his wounded brother, Colonel George W. Whitman, Lieutenant-colonel Fifty- first New York Volunteer Infantry. Washington and vicinity in field, camp, and City Hospitals, and on the battlefields of the War of the Eebellion, from Decem ber, 1862, to July, 1865. Clerk in several Government offices at Washington, and doing literary work and publishing his books, 1865-73. Visited Denver and the West, 1879. Resident of Camden, N. J., from 1873 to 1892, where he followed the calling of a poet, author, and publisher. WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. CHAPTER I. MR. WHITMAN IN WASHINGTON, 1862-73. As a Nurse to Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion Clerk in the Indian Office In the Offices of the Solicitor of Treasury and Attorney General Removal from Office Queer Morality of Some Active in his Removal His Associates while in Washing ton Anecdote of a Snorer Secretary Chase Refuses Him a Position in the Treasury Department Leaves Washington, 1873. NO man tells the public the whole story of his life. He may say that he does, but he does not. Only mur derers who seek fame through villainy tell the story of their lives, and usually much more. I have never known a man, out side of a convicted murderer, who had the courage to tell all of his life. Women may, in time, do it, but not now. Mr. Whitman never told the public the story of his life. I do not now propose to tell it for him. 18 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. His life as I knew it was for two peri ods : First, in Washington from 1862 to 1873, and in Camden, New Jersey, from the summer of 1873 to his death, March 26, 1892. My almost entire personal reminis cence of him given in this volume is while he resided in Camden. Mr. Whitman resided in Washington from December, 1862, to the summer of 1873. He was in and about the hospitals and battlefields from 1862 to 1866 as a nurse and an aid to the surgeons. He did duty as a clerk in Washington during 1865, and to 1873 in the Indian office of the Interior Department, and in the office of the Solicitor of the Treasury and the office of the Attorney General. He resigned from the last in 1873, after his first stroke of paralysis and after the death of his mother. Then he came to Camden to live, where he resided some nineteen years, and until his death. In the mean time in Washington, aside from his war and clerical labors, he did literary work, and published some volumes. Mr. Whitman was dropped from the MR. WHITMAN IN WASHINGTON. 19 Interior Department as a clerk because of the assumed immorality of " Leaves of Grass." Subsequent to this removal and being refused office again in Wash ington, it was developed that persons most active in these deeds against Mr. Whitman were of queer personal moral ity. One used the public coals, carpets, and employees in his house for his pri vate use ; and it was reported that another made a convenience of a person employed in his household. Mr. Whit man gave a quiet chuckle when these things were recalled, and said nothing. The discharge of Mr. Whitman from the Interior Department on June 30, 1865, was thus noted abroad : Before the end of the war Whitman received a clerkship in the Department of the Interior at Washington. Soon after this appointment, the Chief Secretary, Mr. James Harlan, discharged him "because he was the author of an indecent book. " Mr. Harlan, it appears, had used his liberty as chief of this State office to inspect his clerk s desk and found in it an annotated copy of Leaves of Grass." That happened in the summer of 1865. Waft Whitman, A Study, p. xxxi. John Addington Symonds, 1893. 20 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. While in Washington Mr. Whitman was closely associated with John Bur roughs, William D. O Connor, and C. W. Eldredge, a coterie of able and appre ciative men. These men were close in friendship and were temperate in habits and thought. Mrs. O Connor nursed Mr. Whitman through his first stroke of paralysis. While Mr. Whitman lived in Wash ington he boarded in 1866, fora time, at the house of Mr. Fletcher, I think, who was Chief of the Passport Bureau of the State Department, and a delicate, ner vous, slightly built man. Mr. Whitman was then robust, and almost a giant. In the house were several other boarders, and two or three of them were dreadful snorers. Mr. Whitman particularly dis liked snorers, and expostulated with them many times, but to no purpose. Worn out and sleepless, one night, Whit man got out of bed, went down to the street, procured a round bowlder of nearly fifty pounds weight, carried it into the house, up to and opposite the room of the snorers. He then raised it high, and MR. WHITMAN IN WASHINGTON. 21 let it drop on the floor. The snorers and everybody else awakened ! The land lord, in great anger, rushed at Whitman, and threatened to throw him into the street. Mr. Whitman looked down at him with a soft smile, and then went solemnly downstairs to his room. Never a word spake he ! I obtained from him, from time to time, bits of his life and experiences in Wash ington, during the War and afterward. He was reluctant to speak of his official life in Washington. His letters from that city to friends in the North, appeal ing for aid to assist wounded and sick Union soldiers at the front, are most pathetic. The answers were frank, kindly, and in aid of his work. I was present when a friend spoke of his official life at Washington, and discussed the men or officials who dismissed him. We were sitting on chairs beneath the large tree in front of his Mickle Street house when the chat occurred. Mr. Whitman usually sat facing the east, and with one foot against the tree. The chairs were ordinary wooden ones. Mr. Whitman 22 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. told us of how he tried to get employ ment in the Treasury Department, under Secretary Chase as he did in other De partments. John T. Trowbridge inter viewed Mr. Chase in 1863 and asked him to give Mr. Whitman employment. Mr. Chase emphatically refused. Mr. Whit man s minute of the affair, in his auto graph, is given in facsimile. As is noted, Mr. Whitman s Washing ton life ended in 1873, and I do not think that he visited that city again but once. CHAPTER II. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN, 1873-92. Mr. Whitman no Idler Author s Edition of " Leaves of Grass " Moves to Mickle Street Sources of Income Help from Home and Abroad The English Circular Regarding his Con dition and his Books Letter to W. M. Rossetti Publishing Connection with Rees Welsh and David McKay Mr. Whit man s Physical Peculiarities and Afflictions His Affection for Children His Rides on the Horse Cars Love of Nature- Simplicity of Manners Person and Dress Two Minutes or Notes of his Visits to me. MANY persons got and have the im pression that Mr. Whitman, while in Camden from 1873 to 1892 (or elsewhere prior to 1873), the time of his death, was a mere dawdler, or literary adventurer, living on charity. In 1873-74-75 he was so ill that he could hardly work. He had a small sum of money on hand, saved from his salary while a clerk in Washing ton. He did not do much in the way of work, except now and then a newspaper or magazine article, and to revise his " Leaves of Grass," and get out what he 24 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. called his " Author s Edition." (Still he earned what he ate.) This work he sold from 1875. His brother aided him and he lived with him until 1884. After this he went to the Mickle Street house. In 1880 his book had an unusual sale, which continued until 1888. He was, in the mean time, thanks to Julius Cham- bers, employed at a monthly salary on the New York Herald. He worked whenever, he was able. His lectures real ized him large sums of money. The North American Review, the Century, the McClure Syndicate, and other publi cations, paid him liberally for his articles. From 1882 to his death the sale of his books gave him an income sufficient to live on. There were two subscriptions raised for him in England, one of which gave him some money. Gentlemen, old friends, also at times sent him presents of money. After 1882 there was a settled determination in the United States that Mr. Whitman should not want for the essentials of a good livelihood, and this was faithfully seen to. His English friends were at all times anxious to aid MR. WHITMAN IN C AMD EN. 25 him with money, and often did so. Mr. Whitman s wants had only to be men tioned and the purses of George W. Childs, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Horace Howard Furness, George H. Boker, and a dozen more in Philadelphia and New York, were at once opened. He never was in any danger from lack of comfort in food and clothes, when his wants were made known. In personal friends of character and wealth Mr. Whitman was over-rich. Distinctly and emphatic ally he was not a mendicant, a beggar, a loafer, or a useless mouth. He was at work always, even when work to him was mental and physical torture. Mr. Whitman s pecuniary condition, it seemed, was carefully kept by him from his Camden friends until about the time he accepted the grave in Harleigh Ceme tery, and began preparations to erect a tornb. Then it began to dawn on some of them that Mr. Whitman had a way of keeping things to himself. It did seem singular that certain of Mr. Whitman s friends should tax themselves and some other young men for his monthly ex- 26 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. penses, after June, 1888, while lie had several thousands of dollars in bank ! Mr. Whitman asked as to the expense of the nurse and other matters, and was answered: "Oh! that s taken care of." He did not know for some time, if at all, that this expense was divided among some young men, some of whom were not particularly able to pay it. It was a mis take to keep this from him. I do not believe that he would have permitted such a tax. Mr. Whitman never asked his English friends for pecuniary aid, but did ask them, as he did others, to buy his books. May 20, 1876, Wm. Michael Eossetti is sued a circular headed Walt Whitman. On June 1, 1876, he issued another of like form as the first. These circulars were the result of published newspaper statements in England, that Mr. Whit man was living in poverty at Camden. He was written to and Mr. Rossetti is sued the circulars based upon the facts. Some subscriptions to his works were re ceived from England not on this list. Mr. Whitman received from this source MR. WHITMAN IN C AMD EN. 27 about one thousand dollars. The charac ter and standing of the list of subscribers have seldom been excelled for a similar purpose : WALT WHITMAN. Many of the persons to whom this Circular is sent will be aware that in March last, in the Athe- nceum and Daily News more especially, statements were printed regarding Mr. Whitman s circum stances in life. The annexed extract, from a letter written by himself on the 17th of March, shows the precise facts of that matter, and the precise thing which he would wish to be done, viz.: that all persons who would like to possess his books, and thereby to contribute to his literary income, should come forward and order the books. The object of this Circular (which has been nec essarily delayed some little while by interchange of letters to and from America) is to invite you to do this. The editions and prices are shown below; no other editions are procurable from the author. The books, it is understood, will be sent from America carriage free. A list of purchasers, as already notified to me, is also given over-page. Mr. Whitman s address is stated in his letter. The purchase-money can be sent direct to him; any checks, orders, or drafts, being made payable by Messrs. Brown Brothers, Bankers, Philadel- 28 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. phia (corner of Chestnut and Strawberry Streets), on Mr. Whitman s indorsement: or Post-Office International Money-Orders could be used. Or, if preferred, the amounts can be forwarded to me, and I will remit them to Mr. Whitman. I should receive with much pleasure any reply to this Circular; also any list (names and ad dresses) of persons whom you may know likely to be interested in the matter, to whom I would thereupon send other copies of the Circular. WM. MICHAEL ROSSETTI. 56 Euston Square, London, N. W., 1st June, 1876. LIST OF BOOKS. 1. "Leaves of Grass," one vol., with two por traits and autograph (contains all Whitman s poetry as yet published, save what is comprised in No. 2). Price 1 (five dollars). 2. " Two Rivulets," one vol., with photograph portrait and autograph (contains some poetry and all the prose previously published ; also thirteen new poems, and the Memoranda during the War, and other new prose. Price 1 (five dollars). 3." Memoranda during the War," one vol. (same as in No. 2, but separately printed). Price six shillings ($1.50). LIST OF PURCHASERS. W. T. Arnold, Professor Atkinson, Professor Armstrong, Miss Blind, W. Brockie, Eustace Bal- MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 29 four, A. G. B., G. H. Boughton, Eev. T. E. Brown, F. Madox Brown, G. L. Cathcart, A. G. Dew-Smith, Mrs. Deschamps, J. D., Professor Dowden, Edward Dannreuther, Benjamin Eyre, F. S. Ellis, George Fraser, G. W. Foote, E. W. Gosse, Mrs. Gilchrist, P. E. G., R Hannah, I. Hueffer, G. G. Hake, Lady Hardy, Lord Hough- ton, J. H. Ingram, J. Leicester- Warren, G. H. Lewes, Harold Littledale, Veriion Lushington, Godfrey Lushington, Miss Moncrieff, P. B. Mars- ton, J. H. McCarthy, Mrs. Mathews, N. MacColl, Hon. Roden Noel, J. T. Nettleship, D. G. Rossetti, W. M. Rossetti, C. W. Reynell, C. W. S., Miss T. 0. Simpson, A. C. Swinburne, W. B. Scott, J. A. Symonds, Bram. Stoker, George Saiiitsbury, Dr. Todhunter, George Wallis, R. R. Whitehead, T. D. Westness, R. Spence Watson, Alfred Webb. CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, U. S. AMERICA, 431 Stevens Street, March 17, 1876. Cor. West. W. M. ROSSETTI: Dear Friend: Yours of the 28th February re ceived, and indeed welcomed and appreciated. I am jogging along still about the same in physical condition still certainly no worse, and I some times lately suspect rather better, or at any rate more adjusted to the situation Even begin to think of making some move, some change of base, 30 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. etc.: the doctors have been advising it for over two years, but I haven t felt able to do it yet. My paralysis does not lift I cannot walk any distance I still have this baffling, obstinate, apparently chronic affection of the stomachic apparatus and liver ; yet (as told in former letters) I get out of doors a little every day write and read in modera tionappetite sufficiently good (eat only very plain food, but always did that) digestion tolerable and spirits unflagging. As said above, I have told you most of this before, but suppose you might like to know it all again, up to date. Of course, and pretty darkly coloring the whole, are bad spells, prostrations, some pretty grave ones, intervals and I have resigned myself to the certainty of permanent incapacitation from solid work; but things may continue at least in this half-and-half way for months even years. My books are out, the new edition; a set of which, immediately on receiving your letter of 28th, I have sent you (by mail, March 15), and I suppose you have before this received them. My dear friend, your offers of help, and those of my other British friends, I think I fully appre ciate, in the right spirit, welcome and acceptive leaving the matter altogether in your and their hands and to your and their convenience, discre tion, leisure, and nicety. Though poor now, even to penury, I have not so far been deprived of any physical thing I need or wish whatever, and I feel confident I shall not in the future. During my em- MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 31 ployment of seven years or more in Washington after the War (1865-72) I regularly saved a great part of my wages ; and, though the sum has now become about exhausted by my expenses of the last three years, there are already beginning at present welcome dribbles hitherward from the sales of my new edition, which I just job and sell, myself (as the book-agents here for three years in New York have successively, deliberately, badly cheated me), and shall continue to dispose of the books myself . And that is the way I should prefer to glean my support . In that way I cheer fully accept all the aid my friends find it conven ient to proffer. . . . To repeat a little, and without undertaking details, understand, dear friend, for yourself and all, that I heartily and most affectionately thank my British friends, and that I accept their sympa thetic generosity in the same spirit in which I believe (nay, know) it is offered that though poor / am not in want that I maintain good heart and cheer ; and that by far the most satisfac tion to me (and I think it can be done, and believe it will be) will be to live, as long as possible, on the sales, by myself, of my own works, and perhaps if practicable, by further writings for the press. WALT WHITMAN. . . . . I am prohibited from writing too much, and I must make this candid statement of the situation serve for all my dear friends over there. 32 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Mr. Whitman, in a way, was for years his own publisher. In the later years at Camden, some of his friends tried to per suade him to issue a popular edition of his works. His last and the present pub lisher, David McKay of Philadelphia, and myself soon settled that when we were asked. Few persons would have bought any of them, and the reduction in price would have ended the value of the bound copies he had on hand. Mr. McKay, an able and enterprising young publisher, was much respected by Mr. Whitman, and retained his confi dence to the last. Mr. Whitman was fortunate in falling into his competent hands. Mr. Whitman was always a poor man except in brains, even when in full vigor ; and as a fact, and a most curious one, he did not attain pecuniary ease until after he had become an invalid, and then through his own exertions. When in entire health it was difficult for him to make a living. When not in good health it was comparatively easy for him to do it when he applied himself to work. Had he MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 33 been located for life in one spot and there pursued his theme, he would have secured a fortune, but he was a born roaraer. He roamed over much of the United States. Had he the means, all parts of the earth would have been known to him."* In old age, when lameness and physical inca pacity forced him to settle down in one place to anchor his best literary effort was shown. His imagination could, and did, convert the narrow walls of the Mickle Street house, in Camden, into boundaries of nations, seas, oceans, mountain chains, landscapes, vistas of Eden, forests, cities, palaces, hovels, homes of the rich, and art galleries, so that Mr. Whitman was thus of the great world, while out of it. When he pictured from memory or imagi- * Referring to these wanderings in a letter which he empowered me to publish (dated August 19, 1890), Whitman says: "My life, young manhood, mid-age, times south, have been jolly bodily, and doubtless open to criticism." After this sentence there follow details concerning his domestic circumstances, which prove that, although he never married, his youth and manhood were not passed without episodes of passion and perma nent attachment. Walt Whitman, A Study. John Addington Symonds, 1893. 34 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. nation, he had the peculiar faculty of giving to whatever he depicted a form and local coloring positive realism, a gift possessed by few, and marking its owner a child of the universe, in touch witli nature, and a visible exponent of its beau ties. Mr. Whitman, by reason of this gift, was never lonely, never weary of life, and was a fit comrade for himself. What a blessed possession ! an empire within one s self. Still with his poverty he aided relatives, and as a fact had the care, and paid the expenses every other month for years, of an invalid brother, Edward Whitman. His brother George paid during the alter nate months. Mr. Whitman also pro vided for this brother in his will. He bore all this burden without a murmur, although at times he was dreadfully poor. Mr. Whitman, when in full health, was physically slow of movement, and walked with a peculiarly heavy drag. I saw him many times at Washington, in the sixties. At that time he used no cane, and his walk was almost lazy, swaggery, and his MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 35 response to questions was very deliberate. Usually, in winter, he placed his hands in the outside diagonal pockets of his over coat. His inner coat was worn open. His vest showed his shirtbosom low, and in it, about six inches below the collar, was conspicuous a large, pearl button- stud, almost an inch in diameter. The first time I ever saw him he wore such a button, and one was in his shirt front as he lay in his coffin. His breast was al ways partially exposed. The cuffs of his shirt, and the deep rolling Byron collar, were alike sewed to the garment and turned over, or rolled back, well up. After his paralysis, and in Camden, he walked even more slowly than in Wash ington, and with difficulty, using a cane, and sometimes two of them. But, as he walked, he saw everything about him. He would chat with any person who accosted him, uniformly asked questions of anybody and everybody whom he thought able to give him knowledge of things in sight that interested him. He would call dogs to him, and in a fashion have a conference with them. 36 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN, After his second stroke, he delighted in having his bare back rubbed with a brush, after sponging. Still, in all of the time from his second stroke and until his death, I venture that not more than three persons other than physicians ever saw his back uncovered. He was as modest as a woman in the matter of exposure of any portion of his body. His clothes were always kept brushed ; his hair well brushed. His teeth were worn, but nicely kept. His hands were large (as were his feet), and strongly marked with freckles. His finger nails were filed each day and kept thoroughly clean. He was a most cleanly man. Each day he took a warm bath. He usually retired at 9 P. M., and arose very early. He kept a candle by his bedside in an old-fashioned brass candlestick. This he lighted and read by, when awakened at night. Five to six hours of sleep sufficed him, so he was awake at odd hours of the night. He liked milk and liquid foods, and was a very small eater of meat or other solids. Tobacco he did not use, and whisky only as a medicine. He loved the odor of MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 37 cologne, and used it to bathe his face and hands with. He was as delighted as a child with a toy when a friend sent him this perfume. I can now see his dull eyes glisten and his red cheeks glow and color when I would bring him a bottle. While in conversation, I could never per ceive any grossness in his manner or in his expressed thought. Undue, or over attention, when visiting, annoyed him exceedingly, and he seldom returned to a house where he was made too much of. He did not want to be considered a lion, and would not be lionized. He was al ways deferential to women and children. Children were to him earth s brightest flowers. Scores of times I have sat at one window of his front room or parlor, he at the other, and seen and heard the school children as they climbed up the cellar door, look into the room and call out : "How are you to-day, Mr. Whitman?" He would answer cheerily: "All right, my dear ; is that you Johnny, or Sally ? " as the case might be. And when he was in his last sickness, scores of little children would, from day to day, peek in the win- 38 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. dows, or look in the door and ask Mrs. Davis or the nurse, "How s Mr. Walt to-day?" It always has seemed to me, through life, that children are gifted with an almost supernatural intelligence in dis covering who are their friends ; and I have made up my mind that a man who loves children, and they him, cannot be a totally bad man. Children constantly, in season, brought him flowers. When he died there were many sad-eyed children in Camden and other cities. While Mr. Whitman had a profound respect for women, and peculiar views respecting them, he considered them, as a class, vastly abler than men, and more intense personages, so that when wicked or vicious, one of them excelled a hun dred men. He stated to me several times that a friend of his, in charge of a large asylum for the insane, told him that when the devil was to the fore in a woman, in addition to hysteria or insanity, one such was more difficult to handle or control than twelve hundred men. Children always attracted him, women seldom. I do not think that he person- MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 39 ally cared much for them, as a rule. He was respectful and considerate toward them, but not fulsome in adoration. As Mr. Whitman walked the streets of Camden or Philadelphia or other cities, he was public property. Persons who knew him, or only even by sight recog nized him, would hail him : " How are you, Walt?" or "How goes it, Mr. Whitman ? " His answer uniformly was, " How d you do ? How de do ? " and he would pass along, unless accosted by some intimate friend, when he would stop and chat a while. To callers who were his friends he would say, " Come in, come in ! Howdy! Howdy!" From 1873 to 1889 horse cars were run on Market Street, the principal east and west thoroughfare in Philadelphia. When the weather permitted, Mr. Whit man was accustomed to come over from Camden and ride the length of Market Street and back on one of these cars. The drivers, who were, as a rule, permitted to use a high chair or stool for a seat, uniformly surrendered it to Mr. Whitman. With his back to the car, his feet on the 40 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. fender, and cane in hand, he would enjoy this ride of eight miles or more, watching the passersby, but seldom speaking during the ride. Sometimes I passed up or down on another car, and he would invariably hail me. Some of the drivers, noticing this, asked me who he was. A "poet" was a new trade to many of them. So, finally, Mr. Whitman became known on the line as "Whitman, the Camden poet. All the drivers liked him, but thought him " odd." His life was sweetened and made happy by his love of nature, and so he became an " out of door" ranger. The ocean shore, woods, mountains, hills, plains, river banks, streets of crowded cities, ferry boats, horse cars, all animate or in animate nature were his friends. Sunsets and sunrises to his soul were almost equal to food for his body. The sun and he were friends. For several years he used to go to the Stafford farm below Camden, and along a creek s bank, half nude, lie in the sand and bask in the sun s rays. He tried to put on paper nature as he saw it and believed that it is. He believed he MR WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 41 was doing it correctly. The problem now is, Will mankind recognize the picture ? He was young in his habit, thought, and manners, and remained so until his death. He was careful and considerate of the feelings and rights of others. He wanted to be " let alone," and he let other people alone. He was a good judge of character, and would have made a capital man of business, barring the exercise of any dis honesty in trade. When talking to or with him, he would approve a question by "so!" or "perhaps!" He was a good listener, both in time and absorp tion. He almost equaled James Gr. Elaine in the latter. Mr. Elaine put per sons before him through a process of mental absorption of their ideas, akin to the practical operation of a squeezer with a lemon. The skin, however, as with the squeezer, was left. On July 20, 1882, I made a personal minute of Mr. Whitman, expecting to use it in another form than in this book. I reproduce it here : Walt Whitman, the poet, I know quite well. I have known him for many years. At sixty-two 42 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. he is a large man, over six feet in height, and weighing 180 pounds ; a large head with a full beard of gray, his hair white, long, and flowing; his eye blue-gray and listless ; his complexion rosy, like a child s ; his mouth and teeth good ; his figure that of an athlete. His nose rather hooked; his feet large, his hands the same, and covered with freckles and crispy red-gray hairs. He wears gray clothes, a gray slouched hat, with broad brim and conical body. His collar is very wide and deep and not buttoned, and his shirt front always open six inches, with a huge stud of pearl. His wrist bands are long and hang down. His manner of speech is slow and unassuming, and he is always natural and easy, his voice low and musical, his laugh a short jerky one. He has lived at Cam den, New Jersey, since 73. He has a habit when at home of coming over to Philadelphia, each day, toward evening, across the Delaware on a ferry boat, and riding on the Market Street cars up to Thirty-second, and then out Baring to the Cen tennial Building. Rain or shine he rides outside of the car. All the drivers know him if not by name, and they give him their stools on the front platform to sit on. He is always saluted by pass ing drivers, to which he responds with a wave of the hand. He is one of the most curious men I ever knew. His name of the " Good Gray Poet," comes from his gray clothes and beard, and was first applied to him by William Douglas O Connor of Washington. Children, when they know him, MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 43 are fond of him. His paralysis of the right side makes him use a cane. I used frequently to ride with him on the street cars, and hear his cheery talk. This I have done a hundred times. He supports himself with his pen and through the sale of his book, and by the help of a few friends. He has an edition known as the Author s Edi tion " of his works in two volumes, which he sends out with his autograph and photograph for ten dollars. I once called his attention to a copy of the first edition of his book, 1855, in the store of a friend for twelve dollars. It contained a small photograph of "Walt" with his hat on. Mr. Whitman said it was worth more; that in Lon don they sold for fifteen dollars. He is an odd stick. The mythical finds strong expression in him. One day in 1878, at Camden, he was at the funeral of a handsome child whom he had known in life. She was a relative. She was covered with flowers, and as she lay in her coffin was a pretty and restful sight. Mr. Whitman, observing a little girl peering over the side of the coffin, taking her hand in his, and looking with his great gray blue eyes into those of the wondering child, said: "You don t understand this, my dear, do you ?" The child lisped out: " No, sir." " Neither do I," said Walt as he turned away. In the winter of 1880-81, which was a very cold one, Mr. Whitman was busy hunting out car- drivers in Philadelphia who had no overcoats, were worthy men, and had families dependent upon 44 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. them. To these he gave coats. The money for them was supplied by philanthropic and humane George W. Childs, and was one of his unheralded charities. Mr. Whitman told me one day that he drank no strong drink, but sometimes drank wine, and was careful as to his eating. Sometimes he was not the Good Gray Poet in dress. Along in the summer of 1882 he procured and wore a suit of dark blue flannel all blue even a blue hat, but always a slouch one. I met him on Ninth Street in Philadelphia on July 24, 1882, a very hot day. He said that the recent efforts to keep his books from the mails had given him some trouble. In February, 1882, some Boston Brahmanshad complained to the Attorney General of the State, that Whitman s book or works, as published by Field, Osgood & Co., were immoral. The Attorney General wrote to the firm, who thereafter discontinued their publica tion. (Rees Welsh & Co., of Philadelphia, pub lished them in September, 1882.) This, of course, attracted much public attention. Mr. Whitman said that they had applied at Washington to have an order issued forbidding his book transportation in the mails. Robert G. Ingersoll had been his best friend, and had done the most to prevent, and probably was the person who did prevent this injustice. Rees Welsh told me, late in 1882, in speaking of Mr. Whitman, that he had just finished selling an edition of three thousand copies of Whitman s condensed book. He said MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 45 that Mr. Whitman told him some days before that while out West, a few years since, he was so poor that he almost starved to death. And that out West, or in any other place, he never had any money of consequence. Mr. Welsh showed me a splendid picture of Whitman sitting in a rustic chair with his hat on, a half-face, and holding his right arm out at full length, with a butterfly on it. I advised Mr. Welsh to put this picture in for a frontispiece for the next edition of Whitman s poems, "Leaves of Grass." Mr. Welsh, an exceedingly able and clever man, it was believed had been trying, by working underneath, to get the Philadelphia Soci ety for the Suppression of Vice to try to prosecute him for this Whitman s publication. It would help its sale. The Boston fools, he said, had already made for him more than two thousand dollars. I met Mr. Whitman on a Tuesday in August, 1882, on the boat crossing the river to Camden. He said that he had reserved another trip to Colorado for the last, and that the poetry and sentiment of that region had not as yet been touched. After this I got him tickets there and back, but he did not use them. He was very fond of children, and used to talk with great sense to my little boy Elaine. He was very sick during the week from October 22 to November 5, 1882, and thus missed the festivities of the Philadelphia Bi-Centennial. 46 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Mr. Whitman had an off-hand way of dropping in" on friends; never too often ; just enough. He was not com pany, and not a guest. He just dropped in, filled a niche comfortably, and dropped out as he came, without noise, leaving a desire to have him come again. In these visits he never tried to impress you with what or how much he knew. If a theme came up in which he was interested, he gave his views, not as a crusher, not as an avalanche, but quietly, convincingly. He never aired his knowledge, never blurted out his dictionary. He used few and simple words in conversation ; and none of the complex or compound expressions found in his writings. His mariner was simplicity itself. He seemed to be at tracted to and by talented people. There was a family with three daughters (neigh bors, in fact, tenants of mine), whose beauty was only equaled by their brains and good sense. Two of these young ladies became actresses of character and capacity. They followed and still follow the stage for a living, with honor to the profession, and are happily married, and MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 47 are yet living with the husbands they began with a most unusual thing in these loose marital times. Mr. Whitman was always welcome at their home, and one of the first to discover and appreciate their talent. He lauded their efforts, and urged them onward and upward. The head of the family was a quiet, dignified, kindly, easy-going gentleman, while the mother was possessed of push and ability of a high order. Mr. Whitman always spoke of her as the chief of the family, and argued that, necessarily, the girls must be talented. To the close of his life he had a warm heart for these good people, and rather intimated, as he chronicled their successes and watched their upward progress, that he was as proud of them as if they were his own, taking some credit for crying "hurrah!" when they first went upon the stage. His kindly interest in these most worthy ladies was indicative of his nature. Mr. Whitman had a quaint way of call ing people whom he liked by their first names, for instance, B,. W. Gilder was " Watson," but this was only to his inti- 48 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. mates. One day he showed me, with evi dent satisfaction, a letter he had received from Edwin Booth, thanking him for the reference to his father in an article on the stage and actors in a current magazine. As I have written, his person was curi ously attractive ; his dress singular, and his walk marked. And so there was something about the man, even before he spoke, that attracted you to him. This attraction, when they knew him, was ap preciated by children, who were glad to see him, wanted to chat with him, and always, in our house, regretted his de parture. When he would walk or drive up to see us, the children, upon seeing him, would call out, " Here comes Mr. Whitman," and run to the door and to the porch to bring him in. It was never "Walt." He came in with a quiet, hearty, "How are you all? Well? That s a blessing. Now, wait until I sit me down, so ! There s the hat and the coat. The cane I will keep. Now, we are all fixed. Come along now and buss me;" and the children would give him a hearty kiss. He knew the cat and ME. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 49 the dog by name, and was particular to know the servants and the people about the house. Ellen Jones and Bridget Harwood and Charles Charlton were as carefully inquired about as were the people of the house themselves ; our old friends Judge Wm. Haydon and Erastus Brainard were always asked for. His manners were easy ; his conversation, in the manner of ifc, keyed to his person ality. He could laugh a hearty, round laugh, but usually it was a quiet chuckle, with his face agleam. While Mr. Whitman was at all times neat in his person, at table he was dainty and observably nice. He used his knife as a divider and his fork to eat food with. He was not a sword swal- lower. He used his napkin before drink ing from a glass or cup. When he sat at our table he always retained his cane, and at times would sit back on his chair and, laying his hands one over the other on its crook, would listen, or chat, for a time. At such times he seemed very con tented. He had none of the offensive table manners usual to many old men 50 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. who consider the privileges of years as a badge to warrant bad manners. One day at our table he detailed at length how he had himself set up, printed, and gotten out his first edition of " Leaves of Grass," in 1855, and that, at the time, he was engaged in building small houses, and making money at it. I asked him how much he made out of the book. He gave a quiet chuckle and replied : " Made ? Well, if I remember correctly, those per sons to whom I sent them returned them, all but four or five, and the rest I pre vailed on friends and relatives, who could not refuse, to take away by hand. Oh, as a money matter, the book was a dread ful failure !" I frequently made notes of Mr. Whit man s visits to me. I give two of them : PHILADELPHIA, PA, , November 19, 1885. Walt Whitman spent the day with us. He came at one o clock and went home at five. He is getting very lame. He climbed upstairs to my den at the top of the house with the aid of his stick and wandered about. While sitting in my room he took up a copy of Jane Grey Swisshelm s book " Half a Century." Turning to a reference to her MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 51 hospital experience about Washington, he read a page, and said, "What a cantankerous old viper she was," and laid the book down. I read him Mr. Whittier s letter about the horse and buggy. His eyes filled as he said, "What a lovely man! and yet it was reported that he threw my book into the fire after reading it." As he came down stairs, he said, "Be careful ; if I fall it will be a matter of moment, as I now weigh 206 pounds." At dinner I mentioned that I thought Mr. , of a Philadelphia newspaper, bore the reputation of having the meanest disposition of any public or professional man in Philadelphia, and mentioned the oft-expressed wonder of many that Mr. kept such a man about him. Mr. Whitman said, "Your Uncle [meaning himself], who does not say much about anybody, thinks the same way; Mr. probably keeps him as a foil." At the table Mr. Whitman ate freely, and at dessert took a banana. Sipping a glass of sherry, he said, " A banana and sherry, to me, after dinner, is perfec tion ; it is the culmination of all good things, and now I am supremely happy." PHILADELPHIA, PA., Christmas, Saturday, December 25, 1886. Walt Whitman took dinner with us to-day. He was in good form and full of quiet talk. Speaking of the recent spasm in England and Scotland as to his being in a starving condition, he said, "Well, I may be ; but it is a pleasant kind of starving." He mentioned that in times past some 52 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. rogues abroad had gotten up and cribbed some small subscriptions made for him. After dinner he began a chat about actors ; much of it, however, he had talked before to me. One incident was new. In speaking of the mannerisms of actors, their methods of speaking, etc., he said that some years ago James E. Murdock, the actor, told him of having seen Edmund Kean act, and of Kean apparently using the letter " b" in pronunciation frequently where " m " should have been used. A very marked peculiarity, caused by a snappy sort of articulation, common to both of the Keans. I (Thomas Donaldson) heard Charles Kean in 1866, and can vouch for the Kean snappy method of speech. Mr. Whitman gave the following illustration of Kean s method of reading: " You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house ; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live." Edmund Kean read it : " You take my life, When you do take the beans whereby I live." Punch, in speaking of this, said that " Mr. Kean was an antiquarian, and found out that Shylock lived upon beans." CHAPTER III. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN (continued). Mr. Whitman and Henry Irving Visits Mr. Whitman s Reti cence even to Close Friends He Seldom Showed Grief Dinner Given Him, 1890 Speech of Julian Hawthorne Mr. Whitman s Modeaty His Tastes Refusal of Association Hall for his Lecture on Elias Hicks His Prominence in Literature His Poverty-Help from George W. Childs-The House in Mickle Street The Vile Odor Surrounding it from the Southwest My Artist Friend s Estimate. ONE day in April, 1884, some foreign gentlemen were to visit my house, at Philadelphia. I invited Mr. Whitman. He came half an hour in advance of the other guests, and was comfortably seated in the parlor when they arrived. He sat on a sofa on the west side of the room. I went to the hall door and received Henry Irving, Joseph Hatton, and Bram Stoker. After removing hats and wraps, Mr. Irving, unattended, went into the parlor. I was detained for some minutes in the hall with the other gentlemen, but soon was relieved by a member of my 53 54 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. family, and went into the parlor. Mr. Whitman was sitting as I had .left him, with his hands crossed upon the top of his cane. Mr. Irving was on the east side of the room, leaning upon the mantel and closely observing a picture. At once it occurred to me that the two had not spoken. I believe that it is "bad form " in England for guests to speak to one another, under a host s roof, unless intro duced. I presume the close and mixed condition of society there makes this so essential. I hurriedly said, "Mr. Irv ing, this is Mr. Walt Whitman." "Bless us !" he replied, as he hurriedly walked across the room to Mr. Whitman, "I am delighted to see you ! " and they had a chat of half an hour. I give Mr. Hatton s account of the meeting : On Irving s second visit to Philadelphia (1884) we called upon him [Mr. Donaldson] and inspected some of his miscellaneous treasures. They cov ered a wide range of interest antiquarian, geo logical, historical, artistic, and literary. A white- haired, picturesque-looking old gentleman was there to meet us. * How like Tennyson ! ex claimed Irving. The interesting visitor was Walt MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 55 Whitman. He expressed great satisfaction on being told that he was well known in England, and, in an amused way, he stood up, that Irving might judge if he was as tall as Tennyson. It is a milder face and less rugged in its lines than the face of the great English poet ; but in other re spects, suggests the author of In Memoriam. " * Mr. Whitman was greatly pleased with Mr. Irving, and remarked to me how little of the actor there was in his manner or talk. Frequently, after this, Mr. Whit man expressed to me his admiration for Mr. Irving, now Sir Henry Irving, for his gentle and unaffected manners and his evident intellectual power and heart. I never saw any indications of mean ness in Mr. Whitman. He was poor, and needed to watch the outgo of his pennies as other men did dollars. For two or three years before his death his personal expenses and for food were not fifty cents a day. When he had turkey, he ate it thankfully ; when he had only bread and tea, he was thankful. During our ac quaintance in Camden and Philadelphia he never proclaimed that he was poor. * " Impressions of America," pages 211, 212. 56 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. He never asked anyone to aid him. He was a proud man. Being an invalid, he felt his helplessness, and so attentions were doubly dear to him. He had known poverty in its grossest form while living in Camden. A small purse was raised for him in England about the time of his lowest ebb of poverty in that place. It did not reach him. It was appropriated, I think, by one of its custodians. When he was eating off a drygoods box for a table and drinking milk warmed over a coal oil lamp and a few crackers with it, he would ask you to dine with the dignity of a prince, and never apologized for, or mentioned, the food. I presume that I possessed his confidence as much, if not more, than any other man during the last ten years of his life. I spent an evening with live of his close friends, in Camden, one night in December, 1891, when Mr. Whitman was supposed to be dying, and was astounded to find that not one of them knew very much about him. In conversation, I threw out several feelers, and discovered that they were ignorant of him and his life ; and when I proposed ME. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 57 a query to them indicating my knowl edge, some of them called out " What ! " This convinced me that Mr. Whitman had few friends in whom he placed entire confidence. Mr. Whitman seldom openly showed the emotion of grief. It happened that I was with him when the death of Win. D. O Connor of Washington, of the Life Saving Service Bureau, his earnest friend and intelligent defender, was mentioned. Mr. Whitman said nothing for some minutes, but sat with his head down. When he looked up, his usually flat and colorless eyes put on a far-away look, and he stared some time without speaking. After a time, in a deep voice he answered, "And such a friend!" When Anne Gllchrist s death in England, December, 1885, was announced, he sat quiet, and finally, in a deeper tone than usual, he answered, " A sincere and loving friend." No tears, no broken voice, but rather an exultation that such good people had gone to well-earned rewards, alone indicated his loss. I have seen his eyes fill with tears of joy, but do not recall one in grief. 58 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. I attended a dinner given to Mr. Whit man at Camden, in 1890, May 31 (the day of the Johnstown flood), in honor of his seventieth birthday. Julian Haw thorne was one of the speakers. He eulogized Mr. Whitman, who was wheeled into the room in his chair, and said that he liked him best for the fact of his friendship for and personal love of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Hawthorne had been misinformed. As a fact, Mr. Whit man never talked to Mr. Lincoln in his life, or Mr. Lincoln to him. Mr. Lin coln, one day in 1864, while looking out of a window at the White House and being told that a passer-by was Walt Whitman, said "Well, lie looks like a man." Mr. Whitman was no sham. He never banked on the men whom he had known. His capital was himself and his work. Mr. Whitman, in all of his intercourse with me, never seemed particularly secre tive ; still he was shrewd. He never gave me the impression that he was trying to hide anything. He spoke slowly very slowly at times, but this was not affecta- MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 59 tion ; it was merely that he was formulat ing his ideas into speech. At other times, when on subjects he had thought over, he spoke rather quickly and with free dom. He thought slowly, but impres sions were quickly made. His mind worked on a clear perceptive basis, but deductions resulted slowly. Because he thought a thing and announced it, he did not believe it a crime in others not to think as he did or to believe as he did. He was sensitive, but riot egotistically so. Unfair criticism of his work caused him but little, if any, mental trouble. Unfair and unjust criticism of himself cut him and hurt his pride. Mr. Whitman, in his home, in my house at my table, or anywhere else, never by word, sign, or act, gave me an impression that he considered himself a great man, or as trying to be one, or as posing as one, or that he was exceptional among men. He acted naturally, as other men act, and distinctly and emphatically refused to be flattered. Still he moved in his own orbit and preserved at all times his dis tinct personality. Like other earnest 60 WALT WHITMAN. THE MAN. men and workers, he sometimes intimated that he thought he could be useful to others by the use of his pen. He had a love of humor. I never heard him attempt to tell a story, but he was fond of hearing others tell them. He chuckled and smiled at a good humor ous story. No one ever attempted to tell a vulgar one in his presence. Mr. Whitman was an appreciative lover of the drama and of music. In early life he was a constant theater- and opera-goer. Any place in the house did him so long as he could see and hear. He was as fre quently in the gallery with the gods as with the boys in the pit, or the upper crust in the boxes, stalls, or orchestra seats. Here he studied life. After 1873 he seldom went to the theater. His lameness prevented his sit ting in the cramped seats. I recall his chat about a visit to see Law rence Barrett do "Francesca di Rimini," a drama by Hon. George H. Boker, at the Chestnut Street Opera House, Phila delphia, in the eighties. I asked Mr. Whitman which portion pleased him MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 61 most. He quickly replied : Outside of Mr. Barrett s acting, that of Mr. James and Miss Wainwright. The lovers were soft and sweet in manner ; their language beautiful and touching ; and they looked and acted like real lovers. Ah, after all, there is nothing so attractive as the theater!" There was a person in Camden, prior to 1892, who at one time had large pre tensions to portraiture. Having been well over the Republic, he had met many public men. He became friendly to Mr. Whitman, and finally copied him in dress and manner even as to his beard. This artist sometimes became thirsty, and was not careful as to places he visited to quench his thirst. Several times he met friends in odd places and was overcome. When on the street in this condition he would be mistaken for Mr. Whitman : and presently it was noised about that Mr. Whitman was fearfully addicted to drink. Some of his friends heard of it and made an investigation. The artist was reasoned with. He presently doffed the hat and clothes, cut his beard, and thus 62 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. his resemblance to Mr. Whitman ceased. I spoke to him (Mr. Whitman) about it, and he laughed heartily over the incident, saying: "My! it was a close shave for my reputation ! " Mr. Whitman used to laugh at the refusal to him of Association Hall in Philadelphia for his lecture on Elias Hicks. The authorities (The Young Men s Christian Association) were told that Elias Hicks was not orthodox, and so refused the hall to Mr. Whitman for the lecture. "My, my ! " he would say, "It wouldn t have hurt the hall one bit," and then he would chuckle. Mr. Whitman had a love for riding on ferry boats, street cars, and omnibuses. His love of nature fostered this, besides, while in motion on them, things about came into view and he thus saw a con stant panorama. He liked change. He haunted the Delaware River front about Camden for years. He had a pass on the ferry boats, thanks to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and on. their several roads to Atlantic City. Of moonlight nights, I used to go down to the Market MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 63 Street ferry, and wait for the boat on which Mr. Whitman would be riding. Of course there was no engagement as to time, but when I had leisure of a moon light night I knew where to find him. When he would come aboard of the boat he would call out cheerily to the boat- hands, all of whom he knew by name, " Howdy, boys, Howdy ! " As a curious fact, lame as he was, he preferred stand ing by the boat rail or leaning over it to sitting down. When he reached the Philadelphia side of the river the hill at Market Street would require twenty min utes to climb. He did this for exercise. When we would part he would say "Good night! good night! It has been a good meeting." He would take up portraits of persons and study them intently. One day I called his attention to the apparent ex cess of or unusual sensuality shown in the face of George Eliot, by a woodcut portrait of her, in profile. " Yes," he answered, "I suppose that that was a large element of her attractiveness. A most intense woman." 64 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Mr. Whitman was not vain as to por traits of himself. He seemed to like best the photograph showing him sitting in a chair with a butterfly on his hand. The Gutekunst portrait of him about 1880 is the best portrait I have ever seen of him. Harpers, in the Weekly, published a print of a portrait of him by J. W. Alex ander. Mr. Whitman remarked to me, in which I fully concurred, that it was a queer-looking thing. " Sharp and peaked face like an old fox on the watch for something. I don t believe I look like that." And he most certainly did not. It was a poor portrait, as it indicated nothing of Mr. Whitman s character. Many persons, observing Mr. Whit man s slow manner of walking, hearing his leisurely way of speaking and his slow manner, got the impression that he was posing. Not so, by any means. His oracular way of talking at times was his way, as natural to him as was his head. He seldom let out ex tempore thought on any essential topic. He knew its danger. To interviewers who were pumping him for future or newspaper use, he was most MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 65 careful in speech. He knew he would not get an opportunity to revise his utter ances, and did not want to be crippled by the interjection of the interviewer s per sonal impressions into his talk. Mr. Whitman, some way or another, kept the run of all articles published as to himself, but seldom spoke of them. One day, in a casual way, I called his attention to a reference to himself in the "Life of George Eliot," by J. W. Cross. It had been out but a few days. George Eliot used a couplet from Whitman, at the head of one of her chapters in the book, and noted that Mr. Lewes did not like it, or objected; whether to the use of the couplet or its substance one could only conjecture. At least this was my impression of it. Mr. Whitman said to me, in this connection, " Yes, I saw it. I wonder what she meant?" Sometimes he received vile and abusive letters from religious or other fanatics, denouncing him and his work. These he read and carefully laid away. I noticed one labeled in his handwriting: SANS CULOTTISM. 66 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Mr. Whitman, as is noted, was ex tremely poor in Camden after his brother moved away, and up to about 1884. His change of luck began about then. He had previously, to use a sailor s phrase, been scudding under bare poles. But he had several runs of luck after 1884. Private contributions were sent to him, amount ing to many hundreds of dollars. Mr. George W. Childs gave him the nine hundred or twelve hundred dollars which he first paid down on his house in Camden. Colonel M. Richards Muckle told me that first and last Mr. Childs gave Mr. Whitman about three thousand dol lars. Now as to this house, 328 Mickle Street : It was a coop at best, and a much better located and more comfort able house could have been bought in Camden for less money than he paid for it. I think that the fact that there was a tree in front of it, that it was convenient to the ferries, and that lilacs grew in the back yard, determined Mr. Whitman to buy it. I offered him, rent free, a house and twenty city lots in Philadelphia, dur ing his lifetime, where he could have had MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 67 flowers, a horse, good air, and comfort ; but he preferred Camden. The Mickle Street house, a frame one of six rooms, was cramped and full of cracks. It contained no furnace, and his bedroom ceiling could be easily touched with the hand. He enjoyed it, nevertheless. It was situ ated in a commercial part of Camden, and was the last place one would expect a poet to select for a home. He said it was a restful place, but that when he wanted almost entire seclusion and abso lute rest, he spent the day in Philadel phia ! Sly old dog ! The street cars did not run in Camden on Sundays in his time. In addition to a noisy location, it was aggravated on Sundays by the proximity of a church, with a frightfully vigorous choir a most rasping, nerve un settling band of singers. As if this were not enough, there was certainly the vilest odor, at times (depending on the direc tion of the wind, if from the southwest), from toward the river that human nose ever encountered. It came from a guano factory on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River. Mr. Whitman laugh- 68 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. ingly said, when I remonstrated with him for residing amid such an odor, that I must only visit him when the wind was nor , nor east, east, or sou east, and then there would be no odor. I took a friend to call on Mr. Whitman one even ing. The wind shifted while we were sitting talking under the tree on the sidewalk. Mr. Whitman had worn a hole in the bark of the tree with his right foot. My friend, an artist, not over favorable to Mr. Whitman s scheme of poetry, and possessing a sensitive nose, looked amazed. He gazed at me as the odor enveloped him. He got up, walked to a window of the house, put his head in, sniffed, walked back, sat down, looked at Mr. Whitman, rose up, and abruptly said, " Excuse us : we must go. I have a positive engagement at 8.30." We hurried away. Once a block away my friend grabbed me. " If ever you do such a thing to me again, I will brain you! That man s poetry is called i rot ten. The air about him, even, is de cayed. Did you ever smell anything like it? And the old fiend sat there and ME. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 69 chatted as though, the balm of a thou sand flowers encircled him. I wonder if my clothing is permeated." I explained to him, that the odor was from a fertiliz ing factory on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River, and that its sudden contact with us was due to a change in the direction of the wind. U A11 right; but what kind of poetry can be expected from such surroundings? Advise your friend to move, and at once ! His poetry is diseased from residing where he does ; and he will probably die of blood poison ing if he continues to live there." CHAPTER IV. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN (continued). Awe as to the Whitman House Curiosity of Some Neighbors-* His House Habits His Lack of Order and Neatness in His House His Desultory Manner of Work His Politics Lack of Egotism Another Friend Taken to Visit Mr. Whitman Mr. Whitman s Numerous Visitors Visit of Mr. Bram Stoker Mr. Whitman s Large Correspondence His Reverence for Wm. Cullen Bryant His Terror of Amateur Poets and Poetry- Cautious as to Interviews His Alleged Views as to the Crema tion of Baron de Palm. was a certain awe and much -L curiosity in the neighborhood as to Mr. Whitman s house. Mr. Whitman was a poet a poet who followed the business for a living. The neighbors never saw a wagon drive up and haul the result away, as at other factories. What could he do with what he made ? Again, he received such large mails, and so many visitors called long-haired men, short- haired women, all manners and conditions of humanity, freaks, cripples, fat men, and thin men. The Whitman house 70 MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 71 was to some a conglomerate dime museum. I never recall so many fat women in one locality as I do in Mr. Whitman s neigh borhood in Camden. They were appar ently always on the alert. They saw to it that whatever went into the Whitman house, he, she, or it, had an eye escort in and an eye escort out. Prom behind curtains, shutters, blinds, door-angles, and walls, you could see "eyes" upon you. Opposite, as I slid into Mr. Whitman s house one day, sat a bundle of dirt and bread with sugar on it, on watch. As I hurried in, I heard it yell: " Hurry, mam ; a fat man at Whitman s door ! " And presently a female watcher, of two hundred and fifty pounds, pattered to the door, wiping her wet arms on a check apron. She was at the family wash ! I heard her say, as she retreated: "Jimmie, watch if he comes out." This confirmed the sus picion I had long had, that some in the vicinity held that persons entered, but did not leave the Whitman house, and that they mysteriously disappeared; whether into the stove, into sausage V2 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. after the blood being sucked, or what, I never heard ; but there was an apparent question as to all of this in the minds of many of Mr. Whitman s neighbors. At any rate he and his house were closely watched by some curious people who had never lived near a poet before. In addition, Mr. Whitman and Mrs. Davis minded their own business. That Cam- den should contain two such persons, in one street, was enough to create wonder. Now, with all of the above, many in Camden may not have understood or ap preciated Mr. Whitman s poetry, but I know that they did the man. The people there treated him with kindness and affection, and Mr. Whitman appreciated it. So far as personal attention and con sideration could go, Camden was the best of places for Mr. Whitman to reside, as it contains a most generous, kindly, and appreciative people. I used to see a spotted coach-dog and a cat about his house. They both seemed to have an understanding with him ; at all events, they were all on good terms. The dog and cat would sit at his MR. WHITMAN S MANNER OF JOTTING DOWN SUBJECTS FOR POEMS. Face page 73 MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 73 feet and peer into his face by the hour. Sometimes he would throw a ball of cord or cotton twine on the floor and the cat would roll it back to him. This he and she would do for hours at a time. He would sit three and four hours with this cat and the ball of twine for his compan ion, and not speak a word. Then, of a sudden, he would pick up a pen (one was always at hand on the window-sill) and write for a time on a tablet which lay upon his knee. He sometimes wrote on scraps of paper, on the inside of envel opes addressed to him, on the backs or on unwritten portions of letters received by him, and on paper received around packages ; in fact, on anything that would carry ink. His manuscript was like Jo seph s coat, of many colors. Sometimes he used half a dozen kinds of paper on which to complete one poem a verse or two on each, and then he would pin them together. His poems he worked over and over again. He would roll a completed poem, or a book, or an article, up, wrap it about with a piece of twine, and throw it in the corner of his room. In his bedroom 74 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. were packages of manuscript in baskets, in bundles, or in piles. Some of them were mixed up with the lot of short, cut- pine wood, which he kept to fire up his sheet-iron stove. He used the crook on his cane to hook out what he wanted from the pile on the floor. Usually, before sending a poem or a manuscript to a paper, or away, he had it set up in type and sent it to the publisher printed. I asked him who did this work for him. He laughed and answered, " Oh, an old fellow of my acquaintance." I often wondered if he did not go to a case somewhere in Cam- den and set them up himself. In most cases he used a pen a huge Gillott or Falcon, but sometimes a pencil. Mr. Whitman worked in a desultory manner. For days he would not write. He received and read many newspapers and current miscellany, including maga zines. He cut slips from newspapers or periodicals, put them away, and used them in many cases for subjects. He would pin them to bits of paper and make notes on them. He read very few books. I asked him why. He replied, ?s s CtJ PQ o 3 *f ^ iS 1 "* rt ? C - .2 ^ < ^ V-< -o^: o s fe Soi ^ > ** W = ; 2 Is? S| ? ! I MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 75 "A man who wants to have original ideas, wants to let other people s alone." Sometimes poets sent Mm copies of their books. Many of these he gave away, with his autograph. I carried an offer to him for a poem of three verses, on "The Mill," for a monthly industrial publica tion. He was to receive twenty-five dollars for it. He told me, when I asked him to hurry it up, as the people wanted it, that he had tried, and tried again, but that it wouldn t come. "You know, in writing poetry, the machine won t always work. Mine won t in this case, and usu ally I have to wait until it does." The poem was never written. He always seemed to me to be thoroughly honest in whatever he did. When taken with fresh spells of sick ness, he would think his work closed. He practically closed his book or books, sev eral times. Still, when better from the at tacks, he would re-open and add to them. In politics Mr. Whitman, in my time, rather inclined to be a Democrat. He had been a Republican, and was a Free- Trader. Most literary people are Free- ?6 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Traders. Theory is practice to most of them, and that is why so many of the purely literary people die poor. He admired General Grant, General Sheridan, and Admiral Farragut. He was disin clined to talk much of the War at any time. He had an affectionate regard for the South and its people. He had lived among them and had been hospitably treated. In summing up the War and its results, he seemed to skip all of its incidents, and ignored the reconstruction period. His idea was that as the people of the pres ent time would soon pass away, and with them much of existing prejudice, while national unity for self-protection was an absolute necessity mere opinions and prejudices of existing politicians were of but little moment as against the engulfing logic of necessity and time. The constant wars of words between poli ticians were to him the wriggle of worms as they went on the hook of oblivion. He looked upon the early Northern Abo litionists as generally firebrands and inciters to insurrection, and full brothers in this to the Southern fire-eaters. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 77 The certain, mighty future of the Re public, in his eyes, caused temporary political excitements to seem as specks in the rim of the wheel. He believed in moral suasion in governing men, but in the present conglomerate condition of our population, thought and believed that force, and that of the promptest kind, was a valuable aid to moral suasion. He loved humanity, and believed he could help it in its upward and progress ive march toward a better condition, mentally, morally, and physically. I think the bettering of the moral condi tion of mankind was always uppermost in his mind. He could not see why a man who labored with his hands might not be educated, as well as one who worked with his head. His egotism, if he had any, was never visible to me in his speech or personal acts. I never met a man of such stand ing who possessed as little personal egotism, or rather who made it less mani fest in contact with him ; and yet he impressed others, and even persons of much observation and ability, as a seeth- 78 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. ing mass of egotism. I recall that a visitor to Mr. Whitman, with me as sponsor, abused me roundly after a visit to him for in any way aiding, abetting, or giving countenance to such an " egotis tical old humbug." Another, whom I escorted in person to Camden, sat in the quasi-dark of Mr. Whitman s small parlor in an easy-chair, and apparently listened* while I drew Mr. Whitman out on various topics. I never heard him talk as well. My friend sat in a dark corner of the room, apparently a wrapt listener. About ten o clock I arose and said to my friend, " Well, we had better go. Mr. Whitman is tired, and this is his hour for retiring." " Certainly," said my friend, "what a charming evening I have passed ! Mr. Whitman, may I have the honor of call ing again?" " Certainly," replied the "good gray"; "certainly, come when you like." We retired in good order. As we were going down Mickle Street toward the ferry for Philadelphia my friend gave a yawn and said : "I find that when I nap early in the evening I cannot sleep well at night ! " " You old MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 79 villain!" I answered, "and you were asleep all of the time at Mr. Whit man s?" "I was, most certainly. The poet s voice lulled me into blessed repose two minutes after he began to talk. Really he is a remarkable man. I have had doctor after doctor try to give me early sleep, but they all failed. Count me in when any aid is required for Mr. Whit man. He is truly a remarkable man should be Doctor Whitman." His visitors at Camden were sometimes numerous and of all sorts and kinds. His latch string was always out. Even when he was bedridden Mrs. Davis wel comed guests or callers and gave them civil answers. A visit to Mr. Whitman at his house, or meeting him at other places, was to many persons a decided disappointment. They did not find what they expected to find a giant, uncouth, vigorous, terrible, who would now and then open wide his capacious and bar baric mouth and emit "yawps." Their ideas of Mr. Whitman were in most cases formed from adverse criticisms and de scriptions. They found , instead of a freak 80 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. fit for a dime museum coming from resi dence in a hole in the ground in the cellar, and terrible in his wrath, a quiet, dignified, and lovable man, soft of speech and sweet in manner, and an everyday man in his thoughts and ideas, and without even self-assertion. Their disappointment in some cases was great, and they did not hesitate to speak it out, and sometimes in Mr. Whitman s presence. He would chuckle and laugh in a quiet way and reply, " Bless us ! Bless us ! " Persons frequently had a strong aver sion to meeting Mr. Whitman a sen tence, or a line, in some of his work had prejudiced them against him. I asked an old friend, a cultivated gentleman, to permit me to present him to Mr. Whit man. " Not to-day, thank you ! That s the gentleman who invited his soul to loaf." It was most difficult to get Mr. Whit man to give an opinion of a visitor or caller. I do not recall that he did so to me more than a dozen times in all of our intercourse. He was particularly pleased when less important persons came to see MR WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 81 him. I recall the great pleasure he expressed respecting a visit from Mr. Tyars and Mr. Alexander, I think, of Henry Irving s Lyceum Company in 1883 or 1884. Mr. Whitman was pleased with their appearance and manner, and espe cially that they had read and appreciated his books while at home in England. Mr. Whitman looked with favor upon many besides the very well known and distinguished. I also recall a visit I made to Mr. Whitman accompanied by Brain Stoker, A. M., of London, in 1885. It was a cold, raw day, but Mr. Whitman lighted the sheet-iron stove and made us comfortable. Mr. Stoker, a man of intel ligence and cultivation, having had the advantage of association with the most cultivated in all walks of contemporary English intellectual life, was at his best. Mr. Whitman was captivated. Mr. Stoker had previously met Mr. Whitman at my house in Philadelphia in 1884. We re mained an hour, and then left in spite of his protest. Many days after this visit he referred to it by saying : " And friend Stoker; where is he now?" I replied. 82 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. "In Chicago." "Well, well; what a broth of a boy he is ! My gracious, he knows enough for four or five ordinary men ; and what tact ! Henry Irving knows a good thing when he tries it, eh ? Stoker is an adroit lad, and many think that he made Mr. Irving s path, in a business way, a smooth one over here." I replied, " Indeed!" " I should say so," was his answer. "See that he comes over again to see me before he leaves the country. He s like a breath of good, healthy, breezy sea air." He had a large correspondence at times from and with sensible people. He did not inspire giddy young women to write him letters, going into gush, over him or his work. In fact, he received few such. However, many thoughtful women wrote him. Scores of books, pamphlets, and magazines were sent him, and papers as well. He had a positive reverence for William Cullen Bryant, whom he always called "Mr. Bryant." Mr. Bryant had several times tendered him very friendly services. For Mr. Emerson and John G. Whittier MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 83 his respect and admiration were un bounded. He seemed to avoid the names of politicians or soldiers in his talks. He was seldom, when with one or two persons, personally reminiscent unless pressed. At an evening company or in social circles for chat or instruction he would read poetry, preferably not his own, talk, read a paper, or become reminiscent as to others. As I have said, he never sought men s society be cause they were great or lauded above their fellows, and this probably accounted for his lack of personal knowledge of the leading contemporary public men. Mr. Whitman had a terror of amateur poetry. Beginners in poetry sometimes visited, and many times wrote and sub mitted to him samples, for opinions. He positively declined to give them. I was much interested in an account given me by a friend, then moving on poetical lines, of a visit he made to Whitman in 1885. He carried with him a letter of introduc tion from a leading newspaper editor, which alone, outside of his personal 84 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. merits, would secure him attention. My friend had his pockets crammed with his own poetry, descriptive of nature. He was just from college, where he had acquired local credit as editor of the college paper and as a writer of good verses. Mr. W hit man was cordial and gave him an inter view of an hour and a half. It was the day of General U. S. Grant s funeral, in New York City. Mr. Whitman dilated at length on General Grant s greatness and of his services to the Republic, meanwhile keeping a weather eye on my friend. Mr. Whitman also read a letter he had just received from a young lady in London, giving details of a visit to Mr. Tennyson, to whom she had a letter of introduction from Mr. Whitman. My friend, as the time for retiring drew near, became anxious. Mr. Whitman seemed, by intuition, to have discovered that he was a versifier. Presently the gentleman remarked: "And Mr. Whit man, do you read poetry ? " The " good gray" at once took the cue, and promptly and vigorously answered : " No, sir ; only that of Emerson, Tenny- MR. WHITMAN S MANNER OF MAKING NOTES Facing page 85 MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 85 son, and Burns, and the classics ; only these and nothing more. Most positively no!" My friend has always since been thankful that he did not proffer his manuscripts to Mr. Whitman before ask ing the question, and particularly thank ful that he never referred to them at all. He retired in good order, after a pleasant interview, convinced of the poet s shrewd ness. Mr. Whitman was cautious as to in terviewers. He had had an amusing ex perience with a newspaper reporter in the matter of the cremation of Baron de Palm in December, 1876. The baron s body was the first to be cremated at the crematory at Washington, Pa., and the proprietors were working every possible string to advertise their new industry. The press throughout the country was utilized to an unusual extent. On the morning of December 6, 1876, Mr. Whitman was handed a copy of a leading Philadelphia paper containing an account of the burn ing of the baron s body, and an opinion as to the same by himself ! He was highly amused. He had not before heard 86 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. of the burning, and had never given a mortal an opinion on the subject : A POET REGARDS IT WITH TREMBLING. Walt Whitman talked of the cremation of Baron de Palm at his pleasant home in Camden. " I don t know what to think about this thing; God s acre won t be watered with tears or bloom ing in flowers any more if the grim old furnace stands there and the white ashes are blown by the winds. Why do these fellows want to disturb us? You have lived long enough, my boy, to see pretty nearly all your most cherished beliefs swept away by these reckless thinkers. Not that I would have the world kept in ignorance, or bound to a baneful practice by sympathy for the soulless forms that have life only in our memories. Knowledge is good, if it does knock cherished de lusions, and we had better burn our dead, if pre serving the corpse underground is going to wither us all. No, I don t believe in it, and I don t want to see the practice become general. It makes a fellow tremble," said the good gray poet, "to think of the iron-hearted progress of the age. If, as I have read somewhere, these old moldering bodies are raising the devil with the living, I sup pose sanitary considerations will bring about burning. But I would rather my dead were car ried away out of the pathway of living people, who should never be let near the graves unless to trim up the flowers once in a while* The body MR. WHITMAN IN GAMDEN. 87 with life in it is a beautiful thing. I don t think we do right, St. Paul and the rest of us, in deriding its warmth of appetite and the passions that attend upon the flesh. And when the life is gone out of it I rather respect the old shell for all it has been, as well as for all it has contained." Along with the arrival of the paper containing the above, came a note from the reporter who had written and fur nished the paper with the Whitman inter view : DECEMBER 6, 1876. DEAR MR. WHITMAN : You will see by the , which I send you, that I took a liberty with your name last evening. I hope you will not be angry with me. I had interviews with bishops and doctors to get, and I had no time to get over to see you till it was too late. So I wrote something, getting in one or two things you had said to me in previous con versations. It won t outrage you, I hope. If it does, visit your displeasure upon yours, faithfully, On the back of the above is indorsed, " Altitudinous and Himalayan gall." CHAPTER V. MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN (concluded). Dinner on His Seventy-second Birthday " The Greatest Man in the World" His Illness in 1888 Attempt to Have Him Make His Will Help from His Friends His Canadian Nurse, Eddie Wilkins Wilkins Account of Hie Habits. ON his seventy-second birthday, May 31, 1891, Mr. Whitman gave his friends his own house to hold a dinner in. It was a curious and interesting gathering five women and twenty-seven men. The cross or head table was set in the little parlor, and the extending one out to and in the small room behind the parlor. It was a fairly good dinner and well served. The rooms were as hot as a bake-oven, so that we had to have the hall door leading to the street open. Mrs. Davis was in great fear that everything would not go right. The waiters were Germans. The accounts given in the press and in some publications I have read seem to have no MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 89 local color. Mr. Whitman was ill, but came downstairs in his own hobbling way and was seated as host. We began about 7 P. M., and were done at 10. Mr. Whitman was tired and wanted to retire early. There was much hand-shaking and good private chat. It was a most unusual collection of people (myself being left oat), and a rather singular collection, physiologically considered. There were some very bright men present. The women, with one exception, I did not know. The published accounts of this dinner give a color of supreme egotism in Mr. Whitman which was not correct. Of course, he was proud of the event, and delighted to meet his friends, but he did not gush and never once lost his head. Dr. R. M. Bucke sat near me, and once or twice called my attention to the fact of Mr. Whitman s self-possession, and of his talk being as clear as ever, or when at his best. One of the material incidents occur ring at this dinner is not noted. It was near its end. After many letters regret ting absence and necessity for declining, Mr. Whitman was called upon to speak 90 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, who was toast- master. Mr. Whitman remained seated during the entire dinner. Then a general symposium took place, Mr. Whitman leading. JS"ear the end of the dinner a gentleman sitting near me arose and began to speak. He said in part : " I passed a man in Philadelphia to-night as I was coming over here to dinner and told him ^ that I was going to dine with the greatest man in the world. " The company looked up suddenly, and Mr. Whitman said : " Oh ! oh ! don t plaster it on too thickly; please don t." The gentleman con tinued: "I will tell you why I think him the greatest man in the world because he taught me to know myself." " Ah ! " said Mr. Whitman, with a sigh of relief. He neither wanted nor cared for flattery. The gentleman in conclusion read: u Captain, Oh! My Captain." While an able and an intelligent man, he is not an elocutionist, but has a strong voice. Hardly had the first sentence escaped him before an enormous dog, attracted by his speech, came in the hall doorway from the street, entered the MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 91 doorway of the back parlor, put Ms nose up in the air, and uttered a series of the most undogly howls I have ever listened to. It was so funny that we laughed until the tears ran down our cheeks. The dog continued to howl until the gen tleman had finished, and then left as abruptly as he came. Whether it was the poetry or the method of reading it which caused the dog s uneasiness we never concluded. A singular fact was that during this dinner there were no loungers about the front of the house. No boys looking in the windows, yelling or throwing mud or stones no curiosity gazers. Respect for Mr. Whitman possibly prevented this. Mr. Whitman was very ill in June, 1888. It was thought by his physicians that he would die early in that month. Dr. R. M. Bucke unexpectedly came from Canada to see him. Mr. Whitman had a stroke of paralysis on the 6th or 7th of June, and they sent for me. Dr. Bucke came to my house in Philadelphia on the morning of Sunday, June 9, 1888. He had been with Mr. Whitman all the night 92 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. before and had found him, as he thought, in a comatose condition. He was sorely troubled by the fact that Mr. Whitman had made no will ; at least, no tidings of one had been had, and that his papers and manuscripts would be scattered. Thinking that he was very low and having no idea of Mr. Whit man s pecuniary con dition, Dr. Bucke gave me his views of how Mr. Whitman must be cared for in the future. Mrs. Davis was worn out, and a permanent nurse must be provided for him and until his death. (He lived four years after this.) I agreed, while I knew that Mr. Whitman had money, and said that I would pay my share. Eventu ally the expense of this nurse and other incidentals was borne by a monthly tax on some young admirers of Mr. Whitman. I only wish I had their names to insert here. Mr. Whitman, I am sure, never knew of this. Mr. Horace L. Traubel was one of, and perhaps the person who collected this relief. Dr. Bucke asked me to meet him about noon at the house of Mr. Thomas B. Harned at Camden, a friend, and a substantial one, to Mr. Whit- MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 93 man. I was there at 1 P. M. I found that Mr. Harned was also chiefly con cerned that Mr. Whitman had made no will directing the disposition of his liter ary works or remains. Neither one of them seemed to have any idea that Mr. Whitman had any considerable sum of money in bank. Mr. Harned s plan was, that we three should be his literary executors, and on this idea we were to interview Mr. Whitman at the supposed point of death, and ask what he wanted to do in the matter of a will. We pro ceeded to his house on Mickle Street, and were shown in by Mrs. Davis. We walked upstairs to Mr. Whitman s room and sat down by his bed. Before we went up, however, I met Dr. William Osier, the famous Philadelphia physician, who had just left Mr. Whit man. He said that he was in a bad way, but he might weather the storm. Dr. Osier frequently came professionally to see Mr. Whitman, and at a great loss of valuable time. I think Dr. Weir Mitchell suggested it. He never charged for such service. Dr. Osier expressed amazement 94 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Sit Mr. Whitman s vitality under the circumstances. We three sat near Mr. Whitman s bed. He was dressed and lying in a semi-con scious state outside the cover on the bed. Dr. Bucke called him and then touched him. It was with difficulty that he was aroused. Finally he opened his eyes and looked about. Catching Mr. Harned s face first, he then looked at me. Waiting a bit and as if coming back from a dream, he said, with a quiet look of humor, " Ah, the two Toms," and then to Dr. Bucke, " and you, Maurice." He laid back and rested and after a while continued, " And how are you all this bright morning?" Who could help but smile even in the face of a dying man at this ? We had come to probably bid him farewell. He inquired as to our healths. Dr. Bucke went to business at once and said, " Walt, have you any will?" "No." " Don t you want to make one?" " Have you one writ?" "No; we have none writ." " Well, show it to me when it is ready, but there is no hurry," and he laid back with a quiet smile. As I took a side MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 95 glance at him, I thought I could detect a sly wink as his eye caught mine. We retired in good order to the parlor below. I insisted that Mr. Whitman was not going to die, and that the humor of the scene above had struck him and would aid in prolonging his life. The others laughed at this. TTie sole motive of the two gen tlemen was for Mr. Whitman s good, and to prevent the scattering of the results of his literary labors. I am not sure that any will was prepared at this time by Mr. Harned. A few days after this, Mr. Whitman asked Mr. Harned if a woman could be an executor of an estate (he wanted his brother s wife, Louisa W. Whitman, to close his estate), and also to give him the form of the attesting clause to a will under New Jersey law. Mr. Harned did this. Mr. Whitman wrote out his own will after this and provided for Mrs. Davis as he wanted to do, and, I believe, made his sister-in-law, Mrs. George Whitman, executrix. This will was replaced by the one made December 29, 1891, and with, a codicil of January 1, 1892. If Mr. Whitman was physically 96 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. competent to make a will unaided Decem ber 29, 1891, his physicians were not at that time aware of it. The next day after this visit I wrote to several of Mr. Whitman s friends in Phil adelphia, as to the need of a nurse and as to Mr. Whitman s illness, and during the next few days received letters from Mr. George W. Childs, Horace Howard Ftir- ness, and George H. Boker, inclosing sub stantial checks for Mr. Whitman, to the order of Mr. Thomas B. Harned. The letter of Mr. Boker was : 1720 WALNUT STREET, July 12, 1888. MY DEAR MR. D.: I inclose you something for dear old Walt, and may God smooth his way to his rest. Life for many a day must have lost its charms for him and reconciled him to the taking of the last step. On reading your note, I almost involuntarily exclaimed : " Oh ! let him pass ; he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world, Stretch him out longer." Yours very sincerely, GEORGE H. BOKER. Mr. Whitman afterward often laughed with me over the attempted will -making MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 97 of June, 1888. If there was anything in the world he disliked, it was attempts to control or to patronize him. I know, however, that he fully understood the motives of Dr. Bucke and Mr. Earned in the matter of this proposed will. It was not for mere personal self -adulation or notoriety. The nurse provided for Mr. Whitman after our meeting of June 9, 1888, Eddie Wilkins, a fine manly Canadian of twenty- two, proved a most excellent one, and Mr. Whitman became fond of him. Mr. Wilkins frequently came over from Camden to my house with messages and business matters from Mr. Whitman. He left Mr. Whitman in October, 1889, and was succeeded as nurse by Warren Fritzinger, a young man of twenty-five and a son of Mrs. Mary O. Davis, his housekeeper and friend. Mr. Fritzinger, " Warry," remained with Mr. Whitman from October, 1889, until his death, a faithful and earnest man. The last visit Mr. Wilkins made to me was on October 16, 1889. I made a note of his conversation : 98 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. PHILADELPHIA, October 16, 1889. Eddie Wilkins, the Canadian nurse or attendant of Walt Whitman, came over from Camden to see me to-day with a message from Mr. Whitman. He brought to me a letter and a package of por traits (of Mr. W.) along with a copy of the new edition of the " Leaves of Grass," and manuscripts. The letter was an acknowledgment of $50 from Henry Irving and $25 from Bram Stoker of Lon don, merely an unsolicited and friendly present of money from two admirers. His acknowledgment to Mr. Irving was as follows : "Re cd. of Henry Irving $50. Accept thanks, and acknowledgment. WALT WHITMAN." And a duplicate of this to Bram Stoker, for $25. Eddie informed me that he was to leave Mr. Whitman on Monday next and return to Canada to study to be a surgeon. He said : " As you know, I have been with Mr. Whitman more than a year, and am really sorry to leave him. He is the most singular man I ever knew. When I was first employed, he would chat ten minutes or so at a time with me. Now we pass about twenty words a day. He calls me by knocking on the floor with his cane, I usually being in the room below. He is a singularly modest man. He permits no one to enter the retiring room with him, and never permits any person to see him unrobed. I rub his arm and leg every day, which gives him relief, and ME. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 99 he enjoys it. He seldom uses profane Ian* guage, but one day upon my mentioning the name of a woman whom I had met, he became furious, denounced this woman as a viper, a sneak, and a hell cat. It was the only time I ever saw him angry. I do not think that he has a very exalted opinion of women in general. He eats about what any other person does, but is very fond of a bit of sherry and a banana. He uses no whisky or tobacco, only when ill he some times takes a little whisky. He rises about eight, eats his breakfast, and reads the daily papers. He seldom reads a book, but chiefly the mag azines and current monthlies. Every day I find him reading his Bible. He lays in bed much of the time, his hands clasped over his breast, with his eyes closed. He usually receives visitors while lying down. He tires of them soon, and after they retire complains that they ask too many foolish questions, and taffy him too much about his works. This is especially true of one, a Methodist preacher who is a very frequent caller and gives Mr. Whitman much sweetness. I find that while he likes and dislikes very strongly, he seldom expresses an opinion against anyone. He is a man of great tact, and in my opinion, one of great ability. I see no vanity in him, and do not think he has an undue quantity. His shrewd ness is great. He keeps his business to himself, and talks but little even to his intimates. I think he talks freer to you than anyone who comes to see him. I want to give you an idea of his 100 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. shrewdness. One day in May last, a young and spruce fellow called at the house and introduced himself as Lieutenant Minton of the United States Navy. Mr. Whitman was cordial, and Mr. Min ton frank. He said that he had just returned from China ; had been stationed there several years. Mr. Whitman s admirers in the American Navy out there had read and reread his works. They had raised a little fund of $230, and asked him to bring- it to Mr. Whitman at Camden. Mr. W. gave one of his Ah s, and Mr. Minton continued, * I placed it in the Trust Company on Federal Street in this town for you this p. M., in tending to mail you the check provided I did not have the pleasure of an interview, so here is the check, and by the way, Mr. Whitman, handing him the check, I have been at a small expense, say five dollars, in attending to this matter ; can you let me have it now, as I must catch the New York train in twenty minutes? Certainly, said Mr. Whitman, * as soon as I get the check cashed. Here, Eddie, turning to me, go to the Trust Company and see if this is good. If so, fetch me the money. Mr. Minton said, I will go along with you, and came downstairs with me. I heard Mr. Whitman chuckling and laughing as we went out. Mr. Minton excused himself when near the bank, went into a tavern to get some thing he had left, and never came out the front door. I saw him scaling the back fence. The Bank knew nothing of the man Minton or the When I told Mr. Whitman he smiled and MR. WHITMAN IN CAMDEN. 101 said, My, my, Eddie, think of that smooth tongued fellow trying to do a poor old devil like me out of five dollars ! Well, well, well ! times must be very hard out in the world when the sharpers have to chase such poor game as I am. " I never heard him speak of religion or talk of the future. His common expression in speaking of men or women who have moral faults is, * It s the critter s way, and he (or she) can t help it, or The critter s bad and he can t help it. He receives about two letters a day, arid frequently a large number of requests for autographs. I usually confiscate the stamps inclosed, and he don t answer. <l He writes frequently to Dr. Bucke, and to his sister. His sister-in-law, Mrs. Colonel Whitman, comes to see him every week. He is very fond of her. You know, of course, that he pays the board [alternate weeks] of an imbecile brother [in a Sanitarium]. This is a pretty heavy tax on him. He has money in bank ; how much I can t say. I have carried his bankbook to and fro several times, but have never opened it. During this year he has received several large sums, one of $250 from the birthday dinner [May 31, of this year] which affair he thought little of, saying to me that it was too much gush and taffy and the one from you of seventy-five dollars. During the year he drew out one hundred dollars only. Oh, he is careful about money, and knows its value. His personal expenses are almost nothing per day. He likes cologne, and I buy it for him fre- Iti2 ; WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. quently, to use about his person. You know he is very cleanly in his person, but untidy about his room. He considers it almost a sin to sweep it. He makes a great row when it is done. He is certainly a curious man. He never calls me at night, seldom during the day, and I remain with him not more than two minutes each time. He is very independent and wants to and does help him self. He is stubborn and self-willed as to this, and does as he pleases. You can only get along with him by letting him have his own way. He is in bad physical condition, much worse than when I came to him. In fact another stroke of paralysis will end him, as he has already had two. I hardly think he will live out the year. I dislike to leave him, but my worldly future depends on other work than nursing." A POSM IN MR. WHITMAN S AUTOGRAPH. SHOWING CORRECTIONS AND INSERTIONS. CHAPTER VI. WALT WHITMAN AS A LECTURER. Mr. Whitman as a Lecturer from 1878 to 1886 Not a Success as an Orator His Lecture on Abraham Lincoln at Philadelphia, April, 1886 His Appearance and Reception Large Pecuniary Result His Acknowledgment of the Efforts of Friends to Make it a Success Robert G. Ingersoll s Lecture for Mr. Whitman s Benefit at Philadelphia, October,1890 The Receipts Therefrom. MR. WHITMAN lectured once or twice each year, from about 1878 to 1886, sometimes in New York, Phila delphia, or Gamden Abraham Lincoln was his favorite theme. These lectures netted him in some instances large sums of money. He was not a success as a lecturer, in the matter of oratory. One of the events of Mr. Whitman s later life was the lecture he delivered on Abraham Lincoln in Philadelphia, April 15, 1886. I called to see him as to its arrangement, arid made a minute of my visit and of the lecture. 104 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. CAMDEN, N. J., March 2, 1886. This evening I called on Walt Whitman to pro pose that he lecture on Abraham Lincoln, about the 14th of April, at the Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia. He delivered the lecture at Morton Hall, Camden, last night. He agreed, and I am to try to arrange it. His stove pipe, as usual, slipped out of the fire board, and it was amusing to see us two put it back again. He spoke of Oscar Wilde s visit to him some four years ago. I mentioned that Dr. Huston of Philadelphia, on Saturday evening last, at an assembly at Mrs. Heavens in Chestnut Street, told of a visit he had made to the Wilde family in Dub lin, twenty or twenty-five years ago, and of the odd things they did. After the main dinner was eaten and the dishes removed, a quantity of crumbs of bread were left on the cloth. It is usual to have a servant remove these, but in the Wilde house, at a signal from Dr. Wilde, two huge storks entered, ate up the crumbs, and solemnly marched out. The lecture spoken of above, on Mr. Lincoln, came off April 15, 1886, at 4 p. M., at the Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia. Mr. John F. Zimmerman, of Zimmerman and Samuel F. Nixon, managers, and Mr. Dion Boucicault gave the house. Mr. Simon Hassler furnished WALT WHITMAN AS A LECTURER. 105 and led the orchestra. Mr. Whitman came to the rear door of the theater in his buggy, with Bill Duckett, about 3.30 p. M. He limped in behind the stage, and was seated. Mr. James P. Deuel, the stage manager of the house, was arranging the stage with his men, who all looked curiously at Mr. Whitman. Meanwhile I asked him what he would take for the receipts of the lecture. He said, " Fifty dollars." "Nonsense!" I replied. " Will you take three hundred dollars ? " "Yes, sir," he answered sharply. "Will you take four hundred dollars?" 4 What ! " " Will you take live hundred dollars?" "Hold on," he called out; "don t guy me!" I closed by saying: "I will give you a .check for five hun dred and fifty dollars for your receipts." He looked sharply at me and in a mo ment said, "Five hundred and fifty dol lars? Well, what a good effort I must make ! " He was more than surprised. Rev. Dr. Win. H. Furness, the sweetest and loveliest of men, almost eighty-five, came behind the scenes and began a chat with Mr. Whitman about old times, and 106 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. pro- and anti-slavery days. Mr. Whit man said, " Well, I always looked upon the radical abolitionist as a sort of a rev olutionist." Before Mr. Furness could reply, Mr. Deuel, the stage manager, at 4 P. M. gave the call for the curtain, and Mr. Whitman was raised up, and I es corted him to the right wing for entrance. He was in his usual gray dress, with open collar, and cane. The house was well filled. Mr. Whit man walked out unattended and sat down in an armchair by a table, on which were a lamp and a bouquet of flowers. About him were many palms and rare plants. It was a pretty picture. He read his lecture from notes, clearly and distinctly. He was applauded vigorously when he appeared and when he retired. He occupied fifty minutes. After the lecture quite an informal reception was given him behind the scenes. About half-past five he drove away, as pleased as a boy. About three o clock and prior to the lecture, Mr. Joseph Jermon, the treasurer of the theater, brought me a large and handsome fan of wood, ivory, and os- WALT WHITMAN AS A LECTURER. 107 trich feathers. It had on it in ink auto graphs of Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, Emerson, Lowell, Hans C. Andersen, Dickens, Longfellow, and other immor tals. How I did hunger for that fan ! It was the property of Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore of Philadelphia. She wished Mr. Whitman s autograph. I took it to him and he signed it. I reluctantly handed it back to Mr. Jerrnon for its accomplished and charitable owner. Mr. Whitman realized from this lec ture $692. Mr. T. Willliams sent Mr. Whitman, . $304.00 Sent by T. D., . ... 375.00 Afterward sent to Mr. Whitman, . . 13.00 In all, 692.00 Of course the subscriptions were large. The door receipts were, $ 78.25 Mr. George W. Childs gave, . . . 100.00 Mr. Dion Boucicault, 50.00 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, 100.00 George H. Boker, 50.00 Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore, .... 50.00 Mr. H. H. Furness, 50.00 J. B. Lippincott&Co., 25.00 108 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. David McKay, $10.00 C. C. Bryant, 10.00 E. S. Stuart, 10.00 W. W. Justice, 10.00 E. T. Steel, 5.00 Frank Thomson, 10.00 P. A. B. Widener, 10.00 William M. Singerly, 10.00 W. L. Elkins, 10.00 J. M. Scovel, 5.00 Ascheron a Society, 45.00 The remainder of the total sum was from ticket sales by persons or for admis sion at the door. Mr. Whitman was greatly pleased. A few days before h e had received six hundred dollars from Eng land. I think that this was more money than he had ever received at one time in his life before. On the 4th of May he sent me this postal card : 328 MICKLE STREET, CAMDEN, N. J., May 4, 1886. I have been going for two weeks to write special letters of thanks to you and T. W. [Talcott Wil liams of the Philadelphia Press] for your kindness WALT WHITMAN AS A LECTURER. 109 and labor in my lecture and raising by it $679 for me. I appreciate it all, and indeed thank you. It is the biggest stroke of pure kindness and concrete help I have ever received. But all formal letters must just fizzle down to this card, whose duplicate I send to T. W. (Signed) WALT WHITMAN. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll lectured at Philadelphia for Mr. Whitman s bene fit in Horticultural Hall, October 21, 1890, and on Mr. Whitman s poetry. The title of the lecture was Liberty in Lit erature." This lecture grew out of a sug gestion made by, and credit is due for the same to, Mr. J. H. Johnston of New York an old and valued friend of Mr. Whitman s. Mr. Johnston came to Cam- den and arranged for the lecture. It netted Mr. Whitman some eight hun dred and seventy dollars. There was some friction before the lecture about the use of a hall by Colonel Ingersoll. Some hide-bound creed zealots raised a bit of smoke about Colonel Ingersoll be ing permitted to use the hall. They did not have charity enough to see the worthy 110 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. object of the lecture, above the personal views held by the lecturer. The hall was crowded ; Mr. Whitman was present and received an ovation. He was grateful to Colonel Ingersoll and Mr. Johnston for this help. CHAPTER VII. WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS, HOPES, EXPECTED LITERARY RESULTS, AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS. Mr. Whitman s Literary Aims Lack of Popularity of His Work His Literary Hopes Possessed a Happy Nature Moral Man, with Mankind s Best Life at Heart His Peaceful Ways in Life and Near Its End His Religious Views Not a Mysterious Man Above the Masses His Object in His Work Persecu tion by Certain Literary Persons Various Views as to Him and His Work Left No SuccessorPossible Only Once Per haps in a Century Two Whitmans His Method of Writing Poetry The Something Back ! Meaning of His Work Mr. Symonds View of It Mr. Whitman and Omar Khayyam. MR. WHITMAN never intimated to me, in any way, that he ever thought whether he would have a per manent place in literature. He had done his work ; if it benefited man, it would be remembered. If it proved useful, it would be kept alive. If not why care ? His literary work gave him bread a scant supply at times, and latterly furnished a crippled and worn man with employment in 112 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. but, above all, it furnished him an outlet for opinions and views held which might be of service to some in the battle of life. He was a brave man, and his prose and poetical works all breathe the spirit of hope, and are a plea for labor, with head or hands. In his cosmogony there is no place for the idler in nature. The useful, along with the ornamental in life, was his aim and belief. Crippled and nearly helpless, he worked to the year of his death. He did not believe in the doctrine of chance ; but did in results, from thought and labor. He was grateful and filled with reverence; he was attentive to the lowly and loved the unfortunate. Mr. Whitman always insisted to me that he was, by his work, making a plea for the people of all lands and of all races. As he called it, " Govern ment and legislation would eventually be based upon an understanding of their solidarity." I suppose he meant the common good of man was and should be the effort of government ; and what was good for one people in law, government, or economics, was good for another ; and WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 113 that his work, " Leaves of Grass," and all, was an attempt to make such an ex planation of life, daily need, economics, necessities, and rules of morality, as should be accepted by all in fact a rallying point from which to encourage men into action, upon the belief held that station and progress were the com mon heritage of the earnest, honest worker of all ranks. Of course I had, and have, my own views of all of this, but I never argued them with him. All originators or advocates of theories that I have met were and are, as a rule, dreadfully in earnest. Mr. Whitman was entirely so. One point he seemed never to consider, daring the statement of his aims, hopes, and expectations that, to the ordinary people of the English-speaking race, his works are about as intelligible as the Greek Testament ; and that it will be some generations, if at all, before a people will be produced who will read Whitman as they now do and will, for centuries, read the graceful and tuneful poets, Shakspeare, or the Bible. If Mr. Whit-. 114 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. man has any popularity among the masses as a poet or writer, his book sales fail to show it. A popular edition of his works would be a failure as to circulation, and but few of the class intended to be reached would buy or read his works. You never hear him quoted in general con versation by verse or sentence. Mr. Whit man was not in any sense and is not the poet of the. people. Certain of our peo ple, and those who loved the Union, ad mired and respected him for his devoted care in nursing Union soldiers, and con stantly recalled this. Thus his name was frequently before the country ; even Con gress had an eye to this. If his literary work is to live otherwise than as a book for thinkers and expounders, or as a curiosity, the present public opinion of him must essentially change. He always insisted to me that his poetic efforts came largely unsought, and that, just as they came, he put them down ; that, being a student of man, of history, and of the universe, loving man and nature, he had views some of them crude, of course, which in part evolved themselves, WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 115 and which he believed good for man kind ; and such as they were, he gave them to the world. His precepts are to affect the masses by being amplified and expounded to them by students, writers, and orators, and this will be the chief future value of his works in their relation to man kind. The purely scholarly man may or may not look upon his works as curiosities. The thoughtful man will find in them much to instruct him, but the masses do not read him. Mr. Whitman said of this last fact : "Time makes strong men weak, and sometimes those whom we con sider weak, strong." I know, in his last years, that he was more interested in getting out of the world respectably and without noise or undue notoriety, than he was in the matter of earthly fame. He had a long and lingering illness, with frightful pain, but it was borne like a stoic, and Death s battle was well won. Still, with all of his misfortunes and physical disabilities, Mr. Whitman to the last extracted much 116 WALT WHITMAN, TEE MAN. sunshine from life, and shed its rays about those with whom he came in con tact. His was essentially a happy nature. He never intruded his miseries or woes even on his intimates. Mr. Whitman always seemed to me to be at peace with the world, and the spirit of this peacefulness he tried to put in his work. Now and then, as I. have written, he spoke angrily as to certain persons named ; but, as a rule, he was just the reverse of critical as to other people. I never heard him pass an adverse per sonal criticism on a living writer. I mean by word of mouth. I never heard a lascivious expression from him, and but few oaths. I never heard him mention women in a bad sense, and I never heard him utter a word of scandal. If outward expressions and personal actions indicate a man s views of morality, and his own morality as well, then was Walt Whit man, from 1876 to 1892, a pure man. His life, from 1876 to his death, to my personal knowledge, was as pure as a man s life could be, situated as he was. At times, in the period named, he was WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 117 hungry, and cold, and neglected, but his dignity and manhood were preserved. As outdoor life and its comforts passed from him, and he was restricted to in doors, I used to watch for signs of emo tion or regrets. I never observed one. His actions seemed to say, "Well, that s done; what next?" His practice was to submit cheerfully to the inevitable. I believe that he thought deeply on it, as outdoor life was denied him, and it grieved him inwardly, but it was, to him, all in life ; and his outward cheerfulness seemed to increase rather than diminish. Adversity made him more lovable and aroused his good angels to new efforts. He disliked being a trouble to anyone. His religious views have been vari ously stated. I never could discover a trace, even, of creed superstition in him. His imagination was active and aided by his study of the Greeks and Italians, but nowhere, or in any conversations, did I find a trace of superstition in the matter of a physical hereafter a physical hell or a belief in the super natural. Christ was no mystery to him. 118 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. His divinity he never questioned in the matter of his life works ; considering divinity as all that s best for mankind. The Bible he read for its language, grammar, sublime thoughts, moral pre cepts, and beautiful imagery. Its incon gruities, in the light of present science and discovery, he did not mention, but passed over as things to be omitted in speech. The present good and standard morality of the Bible were enough for him, without considering its mere fables or graphic illustrations, which never could have been possibilities. He always saw the good in the Bible, and was for its actualities. It amused him to hear or read learned or other men trying to prove the impossibility of the Bible being true, while neglecting its splendid con ceded precepts and teachings. He was never a scoffer at the efforts of others or at their views. His mental largeness covered the errors of ignorance, culti vated or otherwise, with a mantle of kindly inattention. I tried several times to get Mr. Whit man to formulate for me his religious WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 119 creed. Creeds did not trouble or interest him personally, in the least. He had none, in the sense of the usual definition, He believed in a supreme power, being, or control. He did not care for creeds, because he could find no particular divine or supreme authority for them. All, in his view, were God s children. If so, then why should creed wars be tween them be essential ? Why assert that souls could alone be saved because preferring a certain creed ? As to doubt ful things he simply did not know, and he said that he had never met anyone who did know. Mr. Whitman was always for liberty and never for license. His charity was as large as his nature, and he had an excuse for all of the fallen. Mr. Whit man impressed me, by his conversation on life, immortality, and such topics, as one who, in common with others who had investigated and reflected on the subject, as being reluctant to even attempt to formulate a description of Deity or to describe in detail its or his attributes. Mr. Whitman s religion was duty. His 120 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. religion, in the eyes of some, was merely non-belief in creeds on doubtful questions. The truth was that he con sidered life too short to quibble over im material . questions of creed. I never heard him say that he believed in a per sonal immortality, but he did hint at a future. In the years I knew him I never heard him say a thing, or knew him to do an act or deed which might not have been done by the most rigorous moralist or the highest possible type of those pro fessing Christianity. He was in faith, if anything, a Unitarian. One day in April, 1890, he gave me his Bible and on its title page wrote : THOMAS DONALDSON, With everlasting life wishes. WALT WHITMAN. There was nothing mysterious about Mr. Whitman, and he never attempted to make you think so. He was just what he was ; nothing more, nothing less. He expected the world to weigh him and his work for what they are, and not for what WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 121 some curiosity hunters in literature think they are. I do not believe he ever cared a rap for what anyone thought he was. He was very sensitive as to the opinion of elevated and good men and women, but cared nothing for that of the masses, whose life was his constant thought ; not that he was above them in station or abil ity, but from the knowledge that the mass, as a rule, resist men who knuckle to or attempt to patronize them. His pedestal was set not on their exact level, but put an inch or so above them. He well knew that if he cringed to the masses, he would be looked upon by them as merely one of their number. This is why he is not and never can be, in our day, a popular poet. The crowd at Mr. Whitman s funeral bore no testimony to his popularity as an author. It was an ideal day. The cemetery had been but recently opened. Important ceremonies were expected. Nature was smiling and beautiful. The newspapers had been full of the expected event for some days, and Robert G. In- gersoll was to deliver an address. Such was and is the popularity of Colonel 122 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Ingersoll that were he advertised to make an address in a ten-acre lot, he would fill it. And, in addition, it was all free, which is always a great induce ment to the public. His work and his object in giving it to the world are frequently misunderstood. To some it seemed the height of the ridiculous to see a full-grown man, in an out-of-the-way place, writing, from time to time, messages to the world, or formu lating precepts, or "bearing testimony in writing," as some called it, to a world that never read them. Newspapers were reluctant to publish them, and Mr. Whitman s medium of circulating his views to the world was through very limited editions, which he himself usu ally paid for, or which failed to circulate at all. There was a semi-persecution of Mr. Whitman by certain educated per sons, which aroused an antagonism in another class of educated people, and thus created a sympathy for Mr. Whit man against those who decried him. His defenders became his friends. If Mr. Whitman thought, as has been WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 123 suggested, that he was producing a book of essentials as to life and its conduct, to supplant all others (save, of course, the Bible), he missed it. If his scheme was to assimilate all book expression, every written method of conveying ideas and forms of ideas, to the sys tem developed in his book, or works, he missed it again. If he aimed to stand alone in literature, he succeeded, and surely does. No man of this cen tury, in letters, has been so differ ently judged. By many he is looked upon as the poet of license, and as an authority for rioting in morals. Many, very many, cultured, intelligent persons, do not possess, let alone read, his works. He is unread ; is a mystery ; is read and scoffed at ; is read and adopted ; is read and laughed at ; is read, is cheered, and is declared immortal. To one who knew the man, was about and with him, watched him, listened to his precepts, saw his blameless life, knew his charity, all the above seems a mystery. Still he is now a factor, in whatever light you look at him. Will he be, in the future ? 124 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Any man or woman who would now attempt to follow Mr. Whitman in literary work, and issue a volume on his literary basis, would be set down at once as an educated idiot ! Mr. Whitman left no successor, left no apostle, or emitter of Whitmanic lore. He was a peculiar product, possible only once, perhaps, in a century, and alone. A duplicate would be unnecessary, and an imitation of Mr. Whitman would be base metal, at sight. What he was, he was ; what he is, he is. His work in any view did mankind, as a whole, no harm, and has aroused the hopes and aspirations and bettered the condition of many persons, and will con tinue to. His personality, which was also influential, was as marked as his work, and altogether the world gained much by his having lived. As I have noted, Mr. Whitman, neither in his person, habits, nor sj>eech, indicated the authorship of " Leaves of Grass." There were two Whitmans : one, the lovable citizen ; the other, a character out of the usual, when he began to grind his literary mill. He WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 125 seldom talked as he wrote. His conver sation was usually of the ordinary, com monplace kind, and such as is gone over, day by day, by ordinary people. I do not believe, and this is strengthened by the fact that he so intimated it, in relation to a minor poem, that, when Mr. Whitman started a theme in verse, or prose, that he had the remotest idea when he would make port, or how he would land. He said to me, "I just let her come, until the fountain is dry." That is, when the subject ceased to en large itself. He made a poem in sec tions, in bits, at all and odd times ; and when the idea struck him as being fully drawn out, he fitted the links together, rejecting much that he had written. To limit his space, by saying, " I want a three- or four- verse poem," meant to limit his ideas. His breadth of mind and grasp of entities could not be lim ited by the number of verses. Mr. Whitman was a man of deep and constant thought. He thus desired to be alone. He held mental dialogues with himself, and argued, pro and con, many 126 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. questions, and evolved conclusions there from. He read less of books than any man of literary pursuits I ever knew, or heard of. I think that he always did his best in his literary effort, and felt that he did so ; not that the construction might not be improved by working over, but the ideas as first stated were used and were satisfactory to him. He had an inner motive, for back of all the practical in the man, and in his work, and back of the work itself, there is an attempt to convey a belief in a something, an un de finable something; not a "dude, utterly too too," but an idea. Mr. Whitman would frequently, in argument, shake his head, " Yes ; but as to Bacon and Shaks- peare, admitting Shakspeare wrote the plays, there is something else something back of all this." (He mentioned that he met and knew close friends of Delia Bacon, the aider and abettor of the Baconian Shakspeare theory a sort of an adventuress.) Exactly, Mr. Whitman groped at times for this very "something back." His works and his conversation, when pressed, showed it; but like all WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 127 other human characters, he never found it, and has never expressed it. Thus far, the concentrated brain power of all the past or present time, as expressed in the art preservative, has failed to find or make plain the very thing Mr. Whitman as well failed in and could not make plain. Mr. Whitman is dreadfully differed about as a poet. A poem, as I understand it, is a means of conveying an idea. Ideas are more easily conveyed, or impressed and received, when clothed in euphonious and pleasant language. Mr. Whitman did not usually employ such methods. It would have been best for his fame if he had, and his words would have reached more people. Language, with him, was to convey thought ; not merely to be a jingle of soft and harmonious phrases. He did not fish for sweet and soft words, with rhyming terminals to his sentences ; because, with him, sub stance and not form was chiefly in view. The mysteries of life, unsolved in crea tion, life and death, can be talked about, and this Mr. Whitman has well done ; but they cannot be solved by the human 128 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. mind. The mystery remains, Whitman or no Whitman. It would seem that his idea is, and his work means, "The world is an oyster any man of courage can open, as it is made for all. It s a free battle. The best equipped and the bravest will lead. To-morrow is just before you. So go in, my lad. Science, art, knowledge, are all aids to the fighter ; so utilize all brain, body, Nature and her resources. They are yours ; they are any man s or woman s who will .use them." So he was and is called the poet of democracy, believing in self-help, self-government, self-reliance not only the democracy of the aggregate, but of the individual. All are kings, emperors, rulers, each and every one ! In his democracy the unit is one ; the unit is all, and as one is so is all. His aim is to show mankind that many things re garded as occult in life were not so, and to open, so far as he could, the book of life and nature. He aims to assist man kind to live a life on a higher plane than now, by stimulating ambition, arousing the sense of inquiry and encouraging WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 129 action. His chief hope is to aid man to rely upon himself and to cast aside fears and doubt, and walk forth to the battle of life a self-reliant knight, determined to subdue nature and the elements to his own use and that of his fellows ; and to be happy and contented. He invokes the possibilities to the use of man, and incites human ambition to always battle , for the best in morals, habits, daily life and actions. He is an apostle of Hope, as well as an apostle of content with the knowable. In showing the mysteries of nature, as things to be uncovered, he wrote plainly and, perhaps, too openly, of things known, and common in life, but which the world holds best concealed by a mantle of reticence and non-men tion. This drew and does draw wrath upon him. Expressing no opinion as to his method, one thing I am sure of Mr. Whitman possessed in a masterly degree true poetic genius. I would call his works not poems, but "A Collection of Thoughts." " Leaves of Grass " is generic as a title, but really meant and means a name broad enough 130 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. to take in all that he might write, con nected or disconnected matter. " Blades of Grass," in the sense of variety, as a title, might have been a better selection. The largest view of the works of Mr. Whitman is given by John Addington Symonds in " Walt Whitman : A Study," 1893, p. 12. He thus sums them up: It is useless to extract a coherent scheme of thought from his voluminous writings. He tells us himself that he is full of contradictions, that his precepts will do as much harm as good, that he desires to " tally the broad-cast doings of the day and the night." But though he may not be reducible to system, we can trace an order in his ideas. First comes religion, or the concept of the universe; then personality, or the sense of self and sex; then love, diverging into the amative and comradely emotions ; then democracy, or the theory of human equality and brotherhood. The world, man as an essential part of the world, man as of prime importance to himself alone, love and liberty as necessary to his happiness ; these are the constituents of Whitman s creed. Mr. Whitman s pride of opinion in his work never blinded his judgment to proper criticism. Had he been asked, he WALT WHITMAN S LITEEART AIMS. 131 would have openly and unhesitatingly criticised his own literary efforts and blue-penciled them, from an outside view, as if he were merely an editor. Mr. Whitman as a rule received so little honest praise that he may have be come hungry for the bit he did receive, and sometimes too gladly told of it or spread it about. He accepted all, as the great river takes in streams. He was a creative man. He did not sit in judg ment on his praisers. He took their slush and gush as well as their honest thoughts as to him. He was a builder, not a destructionist. While personally not vain or egotistical, he took delight in the fact that his work was admired by the thoughtful men who praised it. Per sonal zeal for his work was a commenda tion to him, only in a measure. He liked men because they were men. The personal and critical tributes Mr. Whitman met as to his work would have unhorsed almost any other man. He accepted them, and pushed on in the same channels. He always forged ahead on the old lines. His friends often expressed 132 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. more feeling than he did against libel, slander, and calumny. He bore it meekly and went right on. He knew that his purpose was honest, his motive was the bettering of the condition of mankind ; to kindle hope in the breast of the strug gling, cheer the weary, and give courage to the fallen. He may have expressed it all crudely, but the truth was behind it all ; chunks of wisdom and blocks of good intentions are embraced in his work. The future delver will find therein meat and bread for his thought. He soon heard of articles as to himself or his work. One day I called Mr. Whit man s attention, soon after it appeared, to Robert Louis Stevenson s article on him in " Familiar Studies of Men and Books." He promptly replied : " I wonder what he is up to. He seems to be trying to damn with faint praise open up a new line of criticism or is holding something back." Years afterward John Addington Sy- monds, in " Walt Whitman : A Study," 1893, pp. 9 and 10, gives the explanation. My friend Mr. R. L. Stevenson once published a constrained and measured study of Walt Whit- WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 133 man, which struck some of those who read it as frigidly appreciative. He subsequently told me that he had first opened upon the keynote of a glowing panegyric, but felt the pompous absurdity of its exaggeration. He began again , subduing the whole tone of the composition. When the essay was finished in this second style, he became con scious that it misrepresented his own enthusiasm for the teacher who at a critical moment of his youthful life had helped him to discover the right line of conduct. Mr. Whitman was an anomaly among men. His person, his habits, manners, methods, and the result of his labor were unique. He was brave, non-complaining, and patient. He had done his work, and was ready to go. He had years of sick ness and a long and frightful season of suffering before death -who can say that sudden death is not preferable in every view to such a death as his was f In pain, helplessness, and a half dazed condition, at times for months, he longed for death. He waited for it with hungriness. Any thing but life under such conditions. No visions of a coming celestial splendor made his waking moments pleasant. No hope of recovery, or of anything but an 134 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. increase of pain, opened to him as life continued. Each day that he lived brought assurance of increased misery. The body was fading; the vital parts seemed reluctant to die even in their own exhaustion. The soul, the mind, the man were there, and at times in full vigor, while the case was wrecked. Grandly and clearly his mentality stood above the slowly straining and wasting body, almost until the vision of perpetual earthly night set in. Why may there not be a to-morrow of death for such minds ! Sometimes authors mark passages in the works of fellow authors and thus indi cate their own opinions. Mr. Whitman occasionally did this, and, generally, by way of approval. One day, in 1890, he gave me a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the astronomer- poet of Persia. The book, a plain cloth-covered one, is the edition of Bernard Quaritch, Picca dilly, London, 1872. It was the first translation of Omar he had ever seen. In it he had inserted or pinned many news paper slips relating to the poet, and marked many passages with a blue pencil. WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 135 Omar s philosophy of the universe and of life finds much similarity in Mr. Whit man s -a coincidence, of course. I pre sume in the marked passages given Mr. Whitman found congenial ideas and may have recognized in them parallels in his own work. In the life of Omar and preceding the Rubaiyat, he marked with a very heavy line this sentence: " Omar s Epicurean Audacity of Thought and Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his own Time and Country. In the life where the reviewer speaks of the dislike of Omar and his method of poetry by the Sufis, who had a class of rhyming poets as adherents and who catered in their poetic compositions to a people "as quick of Doubt as of Belief," Mr. Whitman marked in heavy under line "A people delighting in a cloudy composition of both [>". e., Bodily sense and Intellectual], in which they would float luxuriously between Heaven and Earth, and this World and the Next, on the wings of a poetical expression, that might serve indifferently for either." 136 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Also Omar " having failed (however mis takenly) of finding any Providence but Destiny, and any World but This." Here Mr. Whitman marks " He set about mak ing the most of it, preferring rather to soothe the Soul through the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be," and "he [Omar] very likely takes a humorous or perverse pleasure in exalting the gratifi cation of Sense above that of the Intel lect." This he marked in heavy line: "For whatever Reason, however, Omar, as be- fore said, has never been popular in his own Country." Mr. Whitman and Omar are exactly alike in this particular, at least. This also was strongly marked : "The Reviewer, to whom I owe the Particulars of Omar s Life, concludes his Review by comparing him with Lucretius, both as to natural Temper and Genius." In the Rubaiyat, Mr. Whitman has marked and bracketed the following : WALT WHITMAN S LITERACY AIMS. 137 XII. A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a loaf of bread and Thou Beside me Singing * * * * (Enjoyment.) XVII. Think, in this batter d Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his destin d Hour, and went his way. (To the body.) XIX. I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled ; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. xx. And this reviving Herb whose tender green Fledges the River Lip on which we lean Ah, lean upon it lightly, for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen ! (Beauty.) The xxvii. verse, page 8, of the Ru- baiyat, seems to especially fit Mr. Whit man s experience. The poet, after noting the long and patient discussion of the 138 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. two worlds (here and the hereafter) writes : Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about : but evermore Came out by the same door where in I went. XXVIII. With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand wrought to make it grow ; And this was all the Harvest that I reap d "I came like Water, and like Wind I go." The ten following verses seem to em brace in a measure Mr. Whitman s ideas of the subjects treated : XXXI. Up from Earth s center through the Seventh gate I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And many a Knot unraveled by the Road ; But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate. XXXII. There was the Door to which I found no Key ; There was the Veil through which I could not see. Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was and then no more of Thee and Me. WALT WHITMAN S LITERARY AIMS. 139 XXXIII. Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn In flowing Purple, or their Lord forlorn. Nor rolling Heaven, with all his signs reveal d And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn. XLVIII. A moment s Halt a momentary taste Of Being from the Well amid the Waste And Lo ! the phantom Caravan has reached The Nothing it set out from * * * * (The journey of life.) LXVI. I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that after-life to spell ; And by and by my soul return d to me, And answered: "I Myself am Heav n and Hell." LXVII. Heav n but the Vision of fulfilled Desire, And Hell the shadow of a soul on fire, Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, So late emerg d from, shall so soon expire. LXVIII. We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow shapes that come and go Round with this Sun illumin d lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the show. 140 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. LXIX. Impotent Pieces of the Game he Plays Upon the Chequer-board of Nights and Days : Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays. LXXII. And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder groveling coop d we live and die, Lift not your hands to It for help, for It As impotently rolls as you or I. LXXXI. Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev n with paradise devise the snake: For all the Sins wherewith the Face of Man Is blackened Man s forgiveness give and take! Mr. Whitman s hearty and exquisite love of nature and the beautiful crops out through all of his work. In the Rubaiyat he double-marked verse xcvi. Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the Eose ! That Youth s sweet-scented Manuscript should close ! The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Oh, whence, and whither flown again! who knows? * 1 & ^A W^ : -tf va cj,- > Jd Ji tKft *u ?-.^ c * 1*3 VI **.! = ^ > _. r ^ g--^.H-0-..-V-f:f - a !; iS?i-g .ja-.a .s>2;i : :g l^l^g fl^f : fl*1?lf =ri j&Sj^yljw-] CHAPTER VIII. WALT WHITMAN S SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION, 1862-1865. He Decides to Become a War Nurse And to Embody His Observa tions in a Book Starts to Kaise Money to Help Him in His Work Letters in Reference to Same Applies for a Clerkship in the Treasury Quotations from tl Specimen Days "Pension Bill Introduced in Congress The Report in Pull. A FTER, Mr. Whitman went to Wash- J-JL. ington in 1862, to see his wounded brother, he wrote letters to newspapers, and most readable ones they were. Then it was that the idea struck him, seeing the misery about, to become a visitor, nurse, or attendant in the hospitals about that city and to do literary work at the same time. His object in jotting down his war memoranda in hospitals, camps, and on the battlefields was to make a book, after a while, because he knew that his best efforts, if published contemporane ously with the War, would be forgotten 141 142 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. and lost in the mass of current war litera ture, or newspaper accounts. He was more than wise in holding back the publication of these war data until long after the war, as public interest in wars is usually greatest from thirty to fifty years after ( they have ceased. Inquiry has been made as to the source of the income used by Mr. Whitman to maintain himself while nursing and aiding the soldiers in the hospitals in and about Washington, in 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865. He made some money writing for news papers and magazines also by selling a few of his books. His personal wants were few. His daily expenses for food were also small. In 1863, Mr. Whitman wrote North to a friend, suggesting that a little money would aid his work. He wrote this to Mr. James Redpath at Bos ton, a tried and true friend. After Mr. Redpath had received a letter from Mr. Whitman in February, 1863, in further ance of aiding him to obtain money to spend with the wounded or sick soldiers in hospitals about Washington, he wrote to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and solicited his SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 143 aid and that of his friends for Mr. Whit man s plans. Mr. Red path a Better of March 10, 1863, from Maiden, Mass., explains itself : WALTER WHITMAN, ESQ. , WASHINGTON. DEAR EVANGELIST : The inclosed note may interest you [Mr. Emerson s of February 23, 1863], and therefore I send it. I wrote to Mr. Emerson to get him to interest some of his friends (he has several rich ones who give away large sums to various good causes) in your Christian Commis sion Agency. I trust that the result will be what I hoped. Yours Very Truly, JAMES REDPATH. Remember me to Mr. and Mrs. O C. [O Connor] and Mr. Eldredge. Mr. Emerson s letter, referred to and inclosed to Mr. Whitman, as above, is as follows : CONCORD, 23d February, 1863. MY DEAR SIR : On my return, a few days since, from a long Western journey, I found your note respecting Mr. Whitman. The bad feature of the affair to me is that it requires prompt action, which I cannot use. I go to-day to Montreal to be gone a week, and I have found quite tyrannical necessities at home for my attention. Not to do 144 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. nothing I have just written a note to Mr. F. N. Knapp at Washington, who, I am told, ought to know what you tell me, and may know how to employ Mr. Whitman s beneficial agency in some official way in the hospitals. As soon as I return home, I shall make some trial whether I can find any direct friends and abettors for him and his beneficiaries, the soldiers. I hear gladly all that you say of him. Respectfully, MR. REDPATH. R. W. EMERSON. Mr. Emerson, on his return from Canada, wrote to or saw several friends as to Mr. Whitman, and gave Mr. Red- path a letter to show other persons, in dorsing Mr. Whitman. Mr. Redpath, May 5, 1863, wrote to Mr. Whitman from Boston : FRIEND WALTER: I did not answer your last letter because I could not reply to the ques tions it put. I have heard since that Emerson tried to have something done about you, but failed. Believing that he would write to you, I didn t. Did you see the paragraph I wrote in The Commonwealth about you? If not, I ll send another copy. JAMES REDPATH. SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 145 This letter shows that Mr. Emerson at this time attempted to obtain money to aid Mr. Whitman in his soldier work. Mr. Whitman, during the summer of 1863, wrote a letter to Mr. Redpath relating to his sick and wounded work, which Mr. Redpath handed to Dr. L. B. Russell, of 34 Mt. Vernon St., Boston (probably along with the letter from Mr. Emerson). Dr. Russell, September 21, 1863, wrote Mr. Whitman, care of Major Hapgood, Paymaster, U. S. A., corner 15th and F streets, Washington, D. C. (Mr. Whitman, for many months, re ceived his Washington mail at Major Hapgood s.) MY DEAR SIR : I have been much interested in a letter from you to Mr. Redpath, written some weeks ago, which I have lately seen, and am very glad to send you the inclosed check to be used for the benefit of our noble " boys 1 in the hospitals, in your discretion. I have seen much of the hos pitals myself, and I know how much good your friendly sympathy must do them, and also that even a slight pecuniary aid is sometimes very acceptable to them in their forlorn condition. Of the inclosed check ten dollars of the amount is contributed by my sister, Mrs. G. W. Briggs of 146 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Salem, to whom I read your letter, and ten dollars by my friend Edward Atkinson. The balance I give to the " boys " with great pleasure, and I will very gladly give more hereafter, when I hear from you of the receipt of this and find that more is needed. As your letter is not of a very late date, I do not feel certain your address may be the same as at the time you wrote. Please inform me how this is, as I hope to be able to send you more from other friends. I hope you will continue in your good work, as I am sure from your letter and from what my friend, Mr. Emerson, says of his own acquaintance with you, that your visits must give great comfort to our suffering men. I am, with much regard, Very Truly Yours, L. B. EUSSELL. This seems to have been the first money Mr. Whitman received from Boston or anywhere else in aid of his work. It Avas a fortunate circumstance for him that Mr. Redpath handed Dr. Russell the let- . ter. Dr. Russell s letter shows that Mr. Emerson was also aiding. Dr. Russell s interest in the matter led to a series of remittances and letters from September 14, 1863, and during 1864, and he interested SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 147 many other persons. Mr. Whitman wrote Dr. Russell on receipt of the letter of September 14, 1863. The letter following shows the manner of Dr. Russell s aid : BOSTON, October 1, 1863. MR. WHITMAN : It was with exceeding interest that Mr. Curtis and I listened to the letter you lately wrote to Dr. Russell, which came to us through my sister, Miss Stevenson. Its effect was to make us desire to aid you in the good work you are engaged in, caring for the sick and wounded soldiers. We inclose thirty dollars and feel very glad to have the opportunity to minister to their comfort. Mr. Curtis would send it anonymously, but I think it is pleasant to know where one has excited an interest, and in asking you to acknowledge its receipt, my wish is most to be sure that it has reached its destination. With regard, I am, MARGARET S. CURTIS. Dr. Russell, in a letter of October 4, 1863, to Mr. Whitman, writes : The hospitals are too cold, too regardless of human feeling; treating our brave volunteers too much like mere professional fighters, not enough like thinking, suffering men. The difficulty of getting discharges and furloughs, even in cases 148 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. clearly demanding such indulgence, is very great and seems to increase rather than diminish. I wish some more humane rules could be estab lished. I have tried to prevail upon those in authority to ameliorate the system but without I effect. I have received twenty dollars more to be for warded to you, ten dollars each from my friends (Henry Lewis of Boston, and -Benjamin H. Sils- bee of Salem), but I retain it for a few days, hop ing to add more to it. I have sent your letter to our friend, Miss Hannah E. Stevenson (whom you may remember as an ardent worker in one of the Georgetown Hospitals), who will send it to some of her friends. She informs me that her sister, Mrs. Charles P. Curtis, has written to you. She was much interested. It will give me great pleasure to hear from you again. L. B. EUSSELL. Dr. Russell, October 4, 1863, the date of the ,above letter to Mr. Whitman, wrote to Mr. Redpath : DEAR SIR : Not having seen you since I received the letter of Walt Whitman from you, I write to say that I read it with great interest. This week I sent him a check for fifty dollars, of which my sister contributed ten and another friend ten dollars. I have received a letter from Mr. Whitman, acknowledging receipt of it. I SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 149 have confidence that he is doing- great good and shall send him more hereafter. I have received twenty dollars more for him and expect other contributions. I sent the letter to our friend, Miss Hannah E. Stevenson, and her sister, Mrs. C. P. Curtis, has sent a letter and contributions to Mr. Whitman. Nobody can read the letter without tears and open hand. I thank you for sending it to me. L. B. RUSSELL. Mr. Redpath inclosed this letter of Dr. Russell s to Mr. Whitman, from Boston, on October 8, 1863 : To Walt Whitman, Nurse and Philosopher. DEAR SIR : I don t answer your letter by words, as you asked for cash ; and to get cash, being minus the article myself, required time. I put the train in motion and am glad to find that it has reached you. I am preparing to keep it going. I met R. W. Emerson after I got your letter and tackled him. He had but little to give, but he gave that and a letter, which I used first among the female philanthropists and then with Dr. Russell. I sent you five dollars, from Phillips three dol lars, Emerson one dollar. Did you get it ? I will send you Emerson s letter, if you would like it. I got another from him this A. M., acknowledging Dr. Russell s letter (which I inclose). It contains a fine compliment to the doctor, which I wish to show him in order to stimulate him. 150 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Thanking- you for the opportunity you gave me to help the soldiers, and regretting that I can do so little, I remain, your friend. JAMES REDPATH. On October 6, 1863, Miss Hannah E. Stevenson wrote Mr. Whitman : SIR : I took from Dr. Russell your letter to Mr. Redpath, to stir some warm hearts to aid you in your blessed work among our sick and wounded boys. My sister, Mrs. Charles P. Curtis, has already written you. Her husband s tears and JJ her own, your touching words coined into gold or greenbacks. I inclose you to-day thirty dollars, the result of an application to my friends, the Misses Wigglesworth. Respectfully, HANNAH E. STEVENSON, 80 Temple Street. Miss Mary Wigglesworth s note to Miss Stevenson was inclosed to Mr. Whitman : Thank you, dear Hannah, for your kindness in sending the letters. Mr. Whitman s letter is particularly interesting. Jane, Anne, and I send a little mite in aid of the cause. Very Affectionately, MARY WIGGLESWORTH, Monday. 1 Park Street. SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 151 The faithful Eedpath wrote Mr. Whit man, October 14, 1863 : Glad to know you are now in good running trim. I will do all I can here in one direction to keep you supplied with funds. JAMES REDPATH. Dr. Russell writes Mr. Whitman from Boston, November 8, 1863. DEAR SIR : I received the other day from a " Breckinridge Democrat," now converted, the inclosed sum of twenty dollars, after he had read your letter. L. B. RUSSELL. On April 22, 1864, Mr. Whitman re ceived the following letter : MR. WHITMAN: I have been very much interested in your hospital work, of which I have heard through my brother, Dr. Russell of Boston. I inclose seventy- five dollars, which I have collected among a few friends in Salem, and which I hope may be of some little service to our brave boys, who surely should not suffer while we have the power to help them. You have our warmest sympathy in your generous work, and though sad to witness so much suffer ing, it is indeed a privilege to be able to do some thing to alleviate it. I hope to be able to send you an addition to 152 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. this contribution, and thought of waiting for a larger sum, but I see that you are having numbers of sick sent in to Washington daily, so you will be in immediate want of money. Very Gratefully Your Friend, MRS. GEORGE W. BRIGGS, April 21. Salem, Mass. From this correspondence it can be seen that the pecuniary aid (outside of his newspaper work) received by Mr. Whitman was largely from Boston and other places in Massachusetts, and was ob tained by James Redpath, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dr. L. B. Russell, Mrs. C. P. Curtis, Miss Hannah E. Stevenson, and Mrs. George W. Briggs of Salem. The attention of the Misses Wigglesworth was called to Mr. Whitman by Miss Stevenson. He also received considerable money from New York City, Brooklyn, and Provi dence. It is not probable that Mr. Whitman received from all contributions in this hospital work in 1863, 1864, and 1865, all told, to exceed seven thousand dollars. The rest he supplied by his own labor. He never begged for any money for the SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 153 soldiers. He stated his case and thank fully received any contributions. Dr. L. B. Russell was a visitor at Washington in 1863 and after. He met Mr. Whitman and saw and appreciated his work ; hence his continuous interest. In the fall of 1863, as Mr. Whitman s resources were very slim, he determined to apply for a clerkship in the Treasury Department at Washington. The hours of work were short and his spare time could be given to the hospitals, and in addition, after decently clothing his body and providing it with food, he could spend the money he would receive from his labor for the soldiers. It was not to store up money that he wanted a clerk ship, but to be able to expend more ; especially as his "soldier work" was a constant drain upon a few patriotic men and women in the North, who might at any time cease their contributions. Someone, probably the always loyal and constant James Redpath, in the fall of 1863, wrote for him to Ralph Waldo Emerson, asking him to write to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, to 154 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. give Mr. Whitman a clerkship. Mr. Emerson s letter to Mr. Chase must have been a personal one ; no copy of it is at hand. This letter was written with Mr. Whitman s knowledge and he probably had it in his possession, as he mentions it so frankly in the minute given in fac simile. Mr. John T. Trowbridge, the author, is the Mr. Trowbridge referred to. His call on Mr. Chase was made December 10, 1863. Mr. Whitman s minute, made in Washington, is dated the day after. This effort of Mr. Emer son and Mr. Trowbridge seems to have concluded Mr. Whitman s effort in the direction of a Treasury clerkship, while Mr. Chase was Secretary of the Treasury. Still, in 1872, we find Mr. Whitman a clerk in the office of the Solicitor of the Treasury. Of Mr. Whitman s hospital services in and around Washington from 1862 to 1865, this can be said : The testimony of Dr. Bliss as to these services is of much value. They were earnest, vigorous, and productive of much good. He wrote and answered letters for sick and SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 155 wounded soldiers to or from their parents or friends, and in case of death, in many instances, notified their relations or friends. He sat by the sick and wounded, fanned them, talked or read to them, and aided the surgeons in dressing their wounds. He prepared envelopes addressed to himself and with stamps, and gave them to the soldiers whom he desired to hear from after they left Washington. Hundreds of these envelopes were used by the men in writ ing to him. They were almost uniformly like the facsimile given. Mr. Whitman early saw that a little money would be of more service to many of the wounded or sick soldiers than delicacies ; besides, with a bit of money, they could buy what they wanted. As to this and the money he received for that purpose, he is in full evidence in writing. GIFTS, MONEY, DISCRIMINATION. (1864.) As a very large proportion of the wounded came up from the front without a cent of money in their pockets, I soon discovered that it was MR. WHITMAN S MINUTE OF THE TROWBRIDGE INTERVIEW WITH SECRETARY CHASE IN DECEMBER, 1863. Page SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 157 about the best thing I could do to raise their spirits, and show them that somebody cared for them, and practically felt a fatherly or brotherly interest in them, to give them small sums in such cases, using tact and discretion about it. I am regularly supplied with funds for this purpose by good men and women in Boston, Salem, Provi dence, Brooklyn, and New York. I provide my self with a quantity of bright new ten -cent and five-cent bills, and, when I think it incumbent, I give twenty-five or thirty cents, or perhaps fifty cents, and occasionally a still larger sum to some particular case. As I have started on this subject, I take opportunity to ventilate the financial ques tion. My supplies altogether voluntary, mostly confidential, often seeming quite providential were numerous and varied. For instance, there were two distant and wealthy ladies, sisters, who sent regularly, for two years, quite heavy sums, enjoining that their names should be kept secret. The same delicacy was indeed a frequent condition. From several I had carte blanche. Many were quite strangers. From these sources, during from two to three years, in the manner described, in the hospitals, I bestowed, as almoner for others, many, many thousands of dollars. I learned one thing conclusively that beneath all the ostensible greed and heartlessness of our times there is no end to the generous benevolence of men and women in the United States, when once sure of their object. Another thing became clear to me while cash is not amiss to bring up the rear, tact 158 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. and magnetic sympathy and unction are, and ever will be sovereign still. Specimen Days and Col lect, p. 57. THREE YEARS SUMM D UP. During those three years in hospital, camp, or field, I made over six hundred visits or tours, and went, as I estimate, counting all, among from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree in time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night ; for with dear or critical cases I generally watch d all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch d there several nights in suc cession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction (with all their feverish excitements and physical deprivations and lamen table sights), and, of course, the most profound les son of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended all, whoever came in my way, Northern or Southern, and slighted none. It arous d and brought out and decid d undream d of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fer vent views of the true ensemble and extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Penn sylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and * 5 i z < o o s ^ w < w ^ u PH S5 01 a o c 8 S ^ Q 3 a a Q w P8B SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 159 South, without exception. I was with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found, during those lurid years 1862, 1863, far more Union Southerners, especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I had and tried to cheer them the same as any, I was among the army teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighbor hood, and did what I could for them. Specimen Days and Collect., pp. 78 and 79. Mr. Whitman lived a plain and practi cal life in Washington in 1863, 1864, 1865, or while receiving and disbursing the money in question. That he applied it (and much of his own money) in excess of a bare living, to the purpose for which it was subscribed, is borne out by the fact that he was so miserably poor when out of Government employment. His pay as clerk and copyist in the Departments at Washington he used for living purposes until 1873, when he went to Camden, and there he spent what he had saved and remained poor, and frightfully poor at 160 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. times, until, by sale of bis books from 1876 to 1885, and certain efforts of his friends, he got on his feet. He notes his preparation for visits to the hospitals in this way : In my visits to the hospitals I found it was in the simple matter of personal presence, and ema nating ordinary cheer and magnetism, that I suc ceeded and helped more than by medical nursing, or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else. During the War I possessed the perfection of physical health. My habit, when practicable, was to prepare for starting out on one of those daily or nightly tours of from a couple to four or five hours, by fortifying myself with previous rest, the bath, clean clothes, a good meal, and as cheeerful an appearance as possible. Specimen Days and Collect., p. 38. As to his methods when visiting the sick or wounded soldiers, he best states them : SUMMER OF 1864. I am back again in Washington, on my regu lar daily and nightly rounds. Of course there are many specialties. Dotting a ward here and there are always cases of poor fellows, long-suffering under obstinate wounds, or weak and dishearten d from typhoid fever, or the like; mark d cases, SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 161 needing special and sympathetic nourishment. These I sit down and either talk to, or silently cheer them up. They always like it hugely (and so do I). Each case has its peculiarities and needs some new adaptation. I have learnt to thus conform learnt a good deal of hospital wisdom. Some of the poor young chaps, away from home for the first time in their lives, hunger and thirst for affection ; this is sometimes the only thing that will reach their condition. The men like to have a pencil and something to write in. I have given them cheap pocket-diaries, and almanacs for 1864, interleav d with blank paper. For reading I gen erally have some old pictorial magazines or story papers they are always acceptable. Also the morning or evening papers of the day. The best books I do not give, but lend to read through the wards, and then take them to others, and so on ; they are very punctual about returning the books. In these wards, or on the field, as I thus continue to go round, I have come to adapt myself to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, however solemn, everyone justified and made real under its circumstances not only visits and cheer ing talk and little gifts not only washing and dressing wounds (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling anyone should do this but ine), but passages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doc trine, etc. (I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.) In camp and everywhere, I was in the 162 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. habit of reading or giving recitations to the men. They were very fond of it, and liked declamatory poetical pieces. We would gather in a large group by ourselves, after supper, and spend the time in such readings, or in talking, and occasionally by an amusing game called the game of twenty questions. Specimen Days and Collect., pp. 51-52. The proposition to pension Mr. Whit man for his services as an Army nurse, by Congress, in 1887, was chiefly pre vented by Mr. Whitman. His pecuniary condition had changed and for the better. He was not a dependent and did not want to be so considered. Therefore, the bill, although reported favorably to the House of Representatives, was not pressed. It was introduced by the Hon. Henry B. Lovering of Lynn, Mass., representing the 6th Massachusetts Dis trict in the 49th Congress. It and the Report are given in full. [The certificate of Dr. D. W. Bliss, who was surgeon in charge of Armory Square Hospital, Washington, D. C., where Mr. Whitman was an almost con stant nurse and visitor, is very valuable SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 163 as to his services. This was first pub lished in Mr. Lovering s Report.] 49TH CONGRESS, 2o SESSION. H. R. 10707. REPORT No. 3856. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. JANUARY 17, 1887. Read twice, referred to the Committee on Invalid Pensions, and ordered to be printed. FEBRUARY 1, 1887. Committed to the Commit tee of the Whole House and ordered to be printed. Mr. LOVERING introduced the following bill : A BILL Granting a pension to Walt Whitman. 1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 2 Representatives of the United States of 3 America in Congress assembled, That the 4 Secretary of the Interior be, and he hereby is, 5 authorized and directed to place on the pension- 6 roll the name of Walt Whitman, and pay him 7 a pension of twenty-five dollars a month. 164 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. 49TH CONGRESS, 2n SESSION. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. REPORT No. 8856. WALT WHITMAN. FEBRUARY 1, 1887. Committed to the Com mittee of the Whole House and ordered to be printed. Mr. LOVERING, from the Committee on Invalid Pensions, submitted the following REPORT : [To accompany bill H. R. 10707.] The Committee on Invalid Pensions, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 10707) for the relief of Walt Whitman, beg leave to submit the fol lowing report : Walt Whitman dedicated himself during the period of the civil war to the unceasing care, as a volunteer nurse, of our sick and wounded soldiers. The almost devotional ministrations of the * * Good Gray Poet" are well known to the citizens of Washington and of the nation. Beginning his services in 1862, at the front, whither he had gone to attend a brother who had been wounded, he stayed on after Fredericksburg through the depth of winter, in the flimsy tents SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 165 and in the impromptu hospitals, where thousands lay wounded, helpless, dying. Returning to Washington with the convalescent wounded, and at the time having no definite plans, but interested in the good work, he contin ued his visits to the hospitals and stayed on, and on, gradually falling into the labor and occupa tion of nursing. Any place he could be of most good or render most service seemed most satisfac tory to him. Says the Philadelphia Progress, November 11, 1882 : -7 It is not generally known that Walt Whitman s frequent spells of paralysis and sickness the last fifteen years are legacies from his overstrained labors in the secession war. Never was there a grander and more perfect physique than he threw into that contest in 1862 with all the ardor of his nature, and continued till 1865, not as a destroyer of life, but as its savior, as volunteer Army nurse and missionary day and night, through the whole of three uninterrupted years, always tending the Southern wounded just the same as the Northern, i William Douglas O Connor, in a letter dated Washington, December 2, 1865, said : He has been a constant voluntary nurse night and day at the hospitals from the beginning of the war to the present time ; a brother and friend through life to the neglected and the forgotten, the poor, the degraded, the criminal, the outcast. His is the strongest and truest compassion I have ever known. Of all men I know, his life is most in the life of 166 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. the nation. I remember when the first draft was ordered, at a time when he was already perform ing an arduous and perilous duty as a volunteer attendant upon the wounded in the field a duty which cost him the only illness he ever had in his life, and a very severe and dangerous illness it was, the result of poison absorbed in his devotion to the worst cases of hospital gangrene, and when it would have been the easiest thing in the world to evade duty, for only then, forty-two or forty- three years old he looked a hale sixty, and no enrolling officer would have paused for an instant before his gray hair. I remember, I say, how anxious and careful he was to get his name put on the enrollment lists that he might stand his chance for martial service ; this, too, at a time when so many gentlemen were skulking, dodging, agonizing for substitutes, and practicing every i conceivable device to escape military duty. John Swinton, in a letter to the New York Herald, April 1, 1876, says : I knew him in his splendid prime, when his familiar figure was daily seen on Broadway. Rich in good works and in saddening trials, he has remained the same genuine man in whom the well-springs of poetry gave perpetual freshness to the passing years. His paralysis was the result of his exhausting labors among our sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals near Washington during the war. I saw something of these labors when I was visiting the hospitals. I can testify, as countless others can, that for at least three years the Good Gray Poet " spent a large portion of his time, day and night, in the hospitals as nurse and comforter of those who had been maimed or otherwise pros- SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 167 trated in the service of their country. I first heard of him among- the sufferers on the Peninsula after a battle there. Subsequently I saw him time and again in the Washington hospitals. His devotion surpassed the devotion of woman. It would take a volume to tell of his kindness, tenderness, and thoughtfulness. Never shall I forget one night when I accompanied him on his rounds through a hospital filled with those wounded young Americans whose heroism he has sung in deathless numbers. When he appeared, passing along, there was a smile of affection and welcome on every face, however wan, and his presence seemed to light up the place as it might be lit by the presence of the Son of Love. From cot to cot they called him, often in tremu lous tones or in whispers ; they embraced him, they touched his hand, they gazed at him. To one he gave a few words of cheer, for another he wrote a letter home, to others he gave an orange, a few comfits, a cigar, pipe, or tobacco, a sheet of paper, or a postage-stamp ; all of which and many other things were in his capacious haver sack. From another he would receive a dying message for mother, wife, or sweetheart ; for another he would promise to go an errand ; to another, some special friend, very low, he would give a manly farewell kiss. He seemed to leave a* benediction at every cot as he passed along. The lights had gleamed for hours in this hospital that night before he left it, and as he took his way toward the door you could hear the voice of many a stricken hero calling, "Walt ! Walt ! Walt ! come again ; come again." His basket arid store, filled with all sorts of odds and ends for the men, had been emptied. He had really little to give, but it seemed to me as though he gave more than other men. 168 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. The following is an extract written by a lady to Richard Maurice Bucke, M. D. : I remember calling on him (Whitman) in Washington, during the war, with Mr. T. He occupied a little room in the third or fourth story of a house where he could get the cheapest rent. He was just eating his breakfast. It was about 10 A. M. ; he sat beside the fire toasting a slice of bread on a jack-knife, with a cup of tea without milk, a little sugar in a brown paper, and butter in some more brown paper. He was making his meal for the next eight hours ; he was using all his means and time and energies for the sick and wounded in the hospitals. Dr. R. M. Bucke, in his work on Whitman, says : A surgeon who, throughout the war, had charge of one of the largest Army hospitals in Washing ton told him that he watched for many months Walt Whitman s ministerings to the sick and wounded, and was satisfied that he saved many lives. I do not believe this statement exaggerated. I believe, knowing him as I do, and having some knowledge of medicine, that the man did possess an extraordinary power, by which he must in many cases have been able to turn the scale in favor of life when, without him, the result would have been death. Dr. D. W. Bliss, now of Washington, D. C., a celebrated physician and surgeon, who had charge of the Armory Square Hospital in that city during the war, in a letter dated January 27, 1887, says : SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 169 From my personal knowledge of Mr. Whitman s labors in Armory Square and other hospitals, I am of opinion that no one person who assisted in the hospitals during- the war accomplished so much good to the soldier and for the Government as Mr. Whitman. Numberless extracts could be made showing the same tireless devotion and the noble, unaffected, self-sacrificing, patriotic nature and work of this man through the long weary years of the civil conflict, alike to the sick and wounded of the South as well as of the North. His was a mission to be performed at the expense of personal com forts, at the risk of health or life, if need be ; in fact, at any cost. He, who at that period boasted that never had medicine passed his lips, had no thought or fear of ever breaking down, so engrossed was he in carrying out his chosen work. But, like many another, in his strongest moment he was weakest ; for the risks he took in dressing sickening fetid wounds, many times brought in crawling with corruption, eventually broke him down. The surgeons called his disease hospital malaria. But his splendid physique, his peculiarly sensitive and sympathetic nature, was sapped by labor, watchings, dreads, deaths, and anxieties of three long years, before it finally succumbed to disease. This was in the hot summer of 1864. He never recovered from it. He went North a short time, and gaining strength he returned, apparently better, to his hospital work, which he continued 170 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. till the close of the war, but never again the strong, athletic man he was. Constantly ailing, his disease culminated or merged into paralysis, the first stroke occurring in February [January] 1873. During that year and 1874 and 1875 his life hung upon a thread, since which time he has been alternately sick or partially well. He is now a permanent paralytic, and with the greatest difficulty gets from one room to another, in his humble little dwelling on Mickle Street, Camden, N. J. He is sixty-eight years old and poor, and were it not for small contributions from time to time, from friends who sympathize with him in his poverty, age and helplessness, would actually suffer for the bare necessaries of life. Your committee have been informed that for many years his income from all sources has not exceeded an average of two hundred dollars, which to a per son in his helpless condition goes but a short way even in supplying the roughest and commonest of food and care. His wants are not many, for he lives simply from necessity and choice, but in old age and in constantly failing health, he needs that comfort and attendance which he has not the means to procure. Considering the unremunerated service of this man, for three years, during which he not only nursed freely the sick and wounded on the battlefield, and in the hospitals of camp and city, without sparing himself, but he also spent of his scanty means above his bare support in furnishing SERVICES TO THE UNION CAUSE. 171 little delicacies and articles not on the hospital bills of fare ; that while engaged in this work his strong constitution was undermined and broke down ; that ever since he has been a constant sufferer, your committee therefore are of opinion that he is fairly entitled to the gratitude of the country in this the hour of his age and dependence. They therefore report back the accompanying bill and recommend its passage. CHAPTER IX. MR. WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY, 1885. His Infirmities Increasing The Idea of a Horse and Buggy Occurs A Letter Sent Out Prompt Kesponse of Those Addressed A Number of Characteristic Keplies The Horse and Buggy Are Presented Mr. Whitman s Gratification The Pleasure He Took in It and Good that It Did Him. MR. WHITMAN S infirmities in creasing, and his outdoor locomo tion being prevented thereby, in August, 1885, it occurred to a friend that a horse and buggy would be a comfort to him. A letter was prepared and sent out to thirty-five gentlemen and one lady. Three of the persons addressed were absent. Thirty-two answered promptly, enclosing ten dollars each, making a total of three hundred and twenty dol lars raised for the purpose. Some of the letters inclosing the money were inter esting. 172 . w it a s WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 173 FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK, August 29, 1885. MY DEAR : In re W. W., of course ! ! ! You are a dear good fellow for the thought and I am obliged to you for letting me in the crowd. Gee ! Whoa ! WM. J. FLORENCE. MVDEAKMH.: August 29, 1885. I am greatly obliged to you for letting me know about Walt Whitman s "horse and buggy." I am up here in the country, where it is somewhat difficult to lay hold of checks, etc., but I will mail you my ten dollars early in the week. If there is any deficit I shall be glad to help still more. By the way, that English subscription galls me. If he needs anything cannot the money be raised at home ? I had no idea he was straitened. I started that New York lecture scheme some time ago (going to Europe, though, before it was deliv ered), and would at any time be glad to make an humble subscription in any movement started. Sincerely, . E. W. GILDER. Mr. Gilder was at a summer outing place when the above was written. HARTFORD, CONN., September 3, 1885. DEAR : Here is the ten dollars for a Whitman horse. It ought to buy a pretty good one as horses go. 174 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Try to get a horse with a mane and tail. This looks better. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. ELMIRA, August 26, 1885. DEAR MR. : (Ten dollars inclosed.) I comply instantly, with thanks for letting me in. I have a great veneration for the old man, and would be glad to help pay his turnout s board, year after year, and buy another when it fails. Truly Yours, S. L. CLEMENS. BELMONT, MASS., September 4, 1885. DEAR SIR : Please find inclosed a check for ten dollars. I have heard through Mr. Bartlett of Boston, that a movement is on foot by which Walt Whitman s friends are permitted to join in a plan for his comfort. It gives me the greatest possible pride and satis faction to be of the number. Very Truly Yours, L. N. FAIRCHILD. OFFICE " SPIRIT OF THE TIMES," NEW YORK, September 5, 1885. DEAR MR. : I send the ten dollars with genuine pleasure. You ll have great happiness in the surprise of the veteran when he receives the present. Yours Most Truly, E. A. BUCK. WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 175 John G-. Whittier, in a personal letter from Danvers, June 5, 1885, among other things wrote : DEAR FRIEND : I am sorry to hear of the phys ical disabilities of the man who tenderly nursed the wounded Union soldiers and as tenderly sung the dirge of their great captain. I have no doubt, in his lameness, that a kind, sober-paced roadster would be more serviceable to him than the untamed, rough-jolting Pegasus he has been ac customed to ride without check or snaffle. I inclose my mite, for the object named in thy note, with all good wishes. I need not say perhaps that I have been pained by some portions of W. W. s writings, which for his own sake, and that of his readers, I wish could be omitted. Thy Friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER. BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., September 4, 1885. DEAR SIR: I shall be happy to contribute my ten dollars toward the kindly object you mention. Will a check on the Hamilton Bank of Boston answer the purpose ? If so, I will send it when ever notified. Yours Very Truly, O. W. HOLMES. 176 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., September 8, 1885. MY DEAR SIR: It gives me pleasure to inclose the check for ten dollars which I promised as my cheerful contribution to the kind project for the benefit of Mr. Walt Whitman. Very Truly Yours, O. W. HOLMES. PHILADELPHIA, MY DEAR : . September 8, 1885. Your letter has just been received here. It gives me great pleasure to inclose ten dollars. After a fellow has his bread and butter paid for there is nothing better for his money. Faithfully, EDWARD T. STEEL. LONDON, CANADA, MY DEAR MR. : September 7, 1885. I inclose P. O. order for twenty dollars ten dollars from myself and ten dollars from Dr. Beemer (Walt will know who he is). I like your little scheme very much, and am very glad (as is also Dr. Beemer) that you have given me and him a chance to be in it. I hope to be in Philadelphia and Camden some time next month. Will have a drive with horse if all be well, and will look you up. Yours, R. M. BUOKE. WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 177 NEWPORT, R. I., September 9, 1885. Box 555. DEAR SIR: Absence from home has prevented an earlier reply to your favor of August 31, regarding 1 the horse and buggy for W. Whitman. I hasten to acknowledge it and to say that I will gladly subscribe, How shall I send the amount? If by check, to whose order ? Excuse haste. Truly Yours, EDWIN BOOTH. PHILADELPHIA, September 10, 1885. MY DEAR SIR: Inclosed please find the ten dollars for the horse and trap. With hopes of its enjoyment by the old man, I am, Yours, WILLIAM M. SINGERLY. PHILADELPHIA, September 10, 1885. Here s the cash and mum s the word. Yours, A. K. McCLURE. PHILADELPHIA, September 15, 1885. DEAR MR. : I inclose check to your order for ten dollars, on account of the Whitman gift. I hope you will bear in mind the stipulation that if there is any 178 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. deficiency I am to have the privilege of helping to make it up. Yours Very Truly, TALCOTT WILLIAMS. PHILADELPHIA, September 15, 1885. MY DEAR : Of course I am glad to give the inclosed sum for any object in which you are interested, and this object is so good I am glad to give it for the object s sake. Sincerely Yours, WAYNE MACVEAGH. PHILADELPHIA, September 15, 1885. DEAR SIR : Mr. Childs received your polite note of 8th inst. , on his return from Long Branch. He desires me to hand you the twenty dollars inclosed (ten dollars from Mr. Childs, and ten dollars from Mr. A. J. Drexel), which he takes pleasure in contributing to purchase the horse and buggy for Mr. Walt Whitman, for whom he is always glad to do anything. Mr. Childs thinks the idea a good one, and is glad it occurred to you. Yours Respectfully, FRANK SMITH. WALLINGFORD P. O., DELAWARE Co., PA., September 10, 1885. DEAR SIR : I thank you sincerely for the WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 179 opportunity of showing my regard for Walt Whitman. I inclose my check for ten dollars and remain, Gratefully Yours, HORACE HOWARD FURNESS. Another from Mr. Furness of date of September 21, 1885 : DEAR MR. : I am personally grateful to you for the privilege of aiding in the gift to " the good gray poet." How admirably you managed it ! Pray always count me in whenever there is anything to be done for the ease and comfort of Walt Whitman. Are you not out of pocket yourself for the print ing of this "Account of Disbursements" ? And won t you let me go shares ? Faithfully Yours, HORACE HOWARD FURNESS. September 21, 1885. PHILADELPHIA, September 12, 1885. DEAR MR. : Yours received. The scheme of a horse and buggy for Walt Whitman is right. Here is my check for ten dollars. Yours, CHAS. EMORY SMITH. 180 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. NEW YORK, September 12, 1885. MY DEAR : I deem it a pleasure to join with you and others in the reminder to the grand old man, that the pleasure he has afforded us is not forgotten by his admiring friends. Sincerely, S. B. ELKINS. LONDON, CANADA, September 12, 1885. DEAR SIR : Your letter of the 3d followed me up here, where I have been some time, much broken up with nervous exhaustion from over work, to which this wretched hand writing testifies. I send you with pleasure the sum you mention for dear old Walt s equipage. Hoping it will help him on, and glad to be allowed to chip in, I am, Very Truly Yours, WM. D. O CONNOR. 1720 WALNUT STREET, September 14, 1885. MY DEAR MR. : Of course I shall be glad to subscribe to any thing that will add to the comfort of dear old Walt. Put me down, and send me word when you want the money. While we are on this subject, could we not get one hundred men to subscribe ten dollars a year each, for a fund to be given for Walt during his life, and to be continued for one year after his death, the last subscription to be used, with addi- WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 181 tions, perhaps, to erect a decent tomb for our dear old poet ? What do you say to making the effort ? I was a subscriber to such a fund for Wm. Wood, the actor, and for Mr. Sully, the artist, and God only knows how much good it did those worthy old men after they were past helping themselves. Besides, as your observation must have taught you, pensioners never die ; and we would like to assure to Whitman a physical as well as a lit erary immortality. Yours Very Sincerely, GEO. H. BOKER. Another from Mr. Boker : 1720 WALNUT STREET, September 21, 1885. MY DEAR MR. : I congratulate you on having arranged the affair of the "turn-out" so admirably. If you are able to do everything in this manner, I shall be happy to place myself, my family, and my fortunes under your wise guardianship. There was an English whip " who said that he had but one ambition, i. e., " to stand upon the side walk and see himself drive by in a four-in-hand ! " I am sure that it will equal the Englishman s im possible pleasure to me, when I first see noble old Walt roll by in his phaeton. With my love to him, I am, Very Sincerely Yours, GEO. H. BOKER. 182 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. One of the gentlemen invited to sub scribe was absent from Philadelphia until September 30, 1885. To show his interest in the matter, he wrote the following : PHILADELPHIA, September 30, 1885. MY DEAR SIR : On my return home after an absence of three weeks I find your letter in refer ence to the horse and buggy for Walt Whitman. I should be delighted to be counted in for so laudable an object, and if not too late will be glad to forward you the amount. Very Truly Yours, FRANK THOMSON. I dropped in at Mr. Whitman s house in Camden in a usual manner at about four o clock on Tuesday, September 15, 1885. Mr. Whitman was reclining on an old lounge in the parlor. I sat by him on a chair and we chatted about his health and the weather. Presently I heard the gift buggy come up to the door. It was driven by Master Elaine Donald son, a lad of nine, and a man was with him. Mr. Whitman went to the window and, seeing the boy and buggy, said, as I recall it, " Bless me! what a nice turn- WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 183 out ! and there s Elaine. Well, well, how the lad does seem to fit it ! How comfortable it does look!" I replied : u Yes; that does seem comfortable. It belongs to you." "Eh?" "It belongs? to you ; " and then I handed him a letter containing the names of the contributors and an envelope with $135.40 in it, the unexpended balance. He looked at the paper, read it, looked at me, then out of the window, and finally the tears began to trickle down his cheeks. I left shortly after. I was told that for an hour before sunset of that day a buggy was seen speeding at a fearful rate about the edges of Camden, and driven by a venerable man, who did not seem disposed to cease riding. Finally, about dark, this modern "Jehu " was prevailed upon to quit the buggy and come into the house. Mr. Whitman s pleasure at this gift was so real, unaffected, and earnest, that all who contributed were paid tenfold. I think he prayed for each and all of them, for he was a devout, if not a creed man. Mr. Whitman said, after he received the horse and buggy: "I have before now 184 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. been made to feel in many touching ways how kind and thoughtful my loving friends are, but this present is so handsome and valuable and came so opportunely, and was so thoroughly a surprise, that I can hardly realize it. My paralysis has made me so lame lately that I had to give up my walks. It seems that this phaeton was made for me in Columbus, Ohio, and it is as easy and convenient as it can be. It is very low in the bed, has gig lamps and deep cushions. Oh ! I shall have a famous time this fall." Mr. Whitman wrote an acknowledg ment to the gentlemen composing the Columbus (O.) Buggy Company Mr. Geo. M. Peters, C. D. Firestone, and O. G. Peters, all of Columbus, O. for their kindness in the matter of the buggy. 328 MICKLE STREET, CAMDEN, N. J., October 13, 1885. Thank the Columbus Buggy Co., and their workmen, for the beautiful looking and practically perfect buggy furnished me. I get out in it every day, my only exercise, and I find it the easiest riding vehicle I ever sat in. Thank them for a most opportune kindness and generosity to me. WALT WHITMAN. WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 185 After all subscriptions were in, the gentleman in charge sent out to each subscriber a copy of the following : PEIVATE. Statement of Receipts and Disbursements of fund for Buggy and Horse, for Walt Whitman. 326 NORTH FORTIETH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA., September 17, 1885. The names are printed as the subscriptions were received. No person was permitted to give more than ten dollars. SUBSCRIBERS. Wm. J. Florence, New York City ; R. W. Gilder, New York City ; Talcott Williams, Phila delphia, Pa.; T. H. Bartlett, Boston, Mass.; Edwin S. Stuart, Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chas. Dud ley Warner, Hartford, Conn.; S. L. Clemens, Hartford, Conn.; W. W. Justice, Philadelphia, Pa.; L. N. Fairchild, Belmont, Mass.; E. A. Buck, Spirit of the Times, New York City ; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Beverly Farms, Mass. ; Edward T. Steel, Philadelphia, Pa.; Dr. R. M. Bucke, London, Canada ; Dr. Beemer, London, Canada ; John Boyle O Reilly, Boston, Mass. ; Wm. M. Singerly, Philadelphia, Pa.; Alex. K. McClure, Philadelphia, Pa. ; John G. Whittier, Danvers, Mass. ; Edwin Booth, Boston, Mass. ; 186 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Horace Howard Furness, Philadelphia, Pa. ; Mrs. S. A. Bigelow, Boston, Mass. ; John Harkness Irena, Ontario, Canada ; Chas. Emory Smith, Philadelphia, Pa. ; S. B. Elkins, New York ; George H. Boker, Philadelphia, Pa. ; Lawrence Barrett, Boston, Mass. ; Win. D. O Connor, Wash ington, D. C. ; Wayne MacVeagh, Philadelphia, Pa.; G-eo. W. Childs, Philadelphia, Pa.; A J. Drexel, Philadelphia, Pa. ; C. H. T. Collis, New York City ; Thomas Donaldson, Philadelphia, Pa. Eeceipts, $320 00 DISBURSEMENTS. For one Buggy Phaeton, built for Mr. Whitman by Columbus (Ohio) Buggy Co., Value, $275. Buggy alterations and expressage to Philadelphia and unpacking, . . $74 60 This buggy was virtually given by the Columbus (Ohio) Buggy Co., viz., for $60. Horse, and delivery, . . . . 68 00 Worth $100. A sorrel pony, Frank, used by ladies and children in a phaeton at the sea-shore during 1885. Harness a splendid set, less than half price, 22 50 Whip, Lap-Robe, Blanket, Halter, etc., keep six days, delivering, etc., to Mr. J. Lewis, 19 50 $184 60 WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 187 Given to Mr. Whitman, cash, September 16, 1885, to feed the horse, etc., . $135 40 Total, .... $320 00 Balance, . . . $ 00 00 The outfit was delivered by a messenger, at his house at Camden, Tuesday, September 15, 1885, at 4 o clock P. M., together with a list of the donors. Mr. Whitman s pleasure can be imagined. Camden (in New Jersey) is so rigid a commun ity that the horse-cars are not permitted to run on Sunday (private carriages and buggies are as yet), so that Mr. Whitman has been virtually a prisoner from Saturdays until Mondays. The buggy and horse will permit him to go about and see his friends on Sundays. If each subscriber feels a tithe of the pleasure in giving that Mr. Whitman showed in receiving and has in using, this to him great comfort, they are each and every one very happy. Very Respectfully, An amusing incident occurred in con nection with Mr. Whitman s horse and buggy, on Tuesday, September 21, 1885. Some one by mistake carried off the har ness. A great deal of fun was poked at 188 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Mr. Whitman on account of this. It was returned a few days afterward. The Philadelphia News of September 21, 1885, contained the following: WALT WHITMAN S HARNESS GONE. THE HORSE CLOTHING OP THE GOOD GRAY POET STOLEN FROM THE STABLE. Somebody has stolen Walt Whitman s harness that poet Whittier and the rest of the literati of the country so generously presented to him last week with the rest of the turnout. The good gray poet is thinking seriously of shaving off his snowy beard to track the foul-hearted wretch. He is much grieved over the tardiness of the police in not capturing the thief. This morning, shortly after Mr. Whitman rode across on the ferry, the following lines were picked up by a News re porter : " I anger, I madden, I hump my amiability, O ! the enormity, the enormous enormity of his badness. My harness, who hath deftly extracted it ? My sad, unbridled steed. Slow police, slumbering locust men, I damn thee. Poor, traceless charger. Uncollared horse, uncollared thief. WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY, 189 Poor unbitted equine ; much bitted singer. I moan, I sing my own meanness in husky tones. My carriage is bent with grief, I tire with weari ness. Ten times a villain he who crept and creeping stole the straps. Ye indigo set, ye fallen stars of peace, less hubbub. Stirrup." The above was said to have been writ ten by John Paul Bocock or Erastus Brainerd. A friend of Mr. Whitman s wrote the following poem on the supposed loss of harness. It was published in the Phila delphia Press of September 23, 1885. A CAMDEN LYRIC. A Poet s Presumed Lament on the Theft of his " Harness," Sep tember 21, 1885. Not by Walt Whitman. No more our steed we ll drive apace, Our harness it has left us, Through Camden town afoot we ll trudge, Because a thief bereft us. Farewell, oh ! contemplated joys ! O er roads both smooth and stony, O er quiet drives down moonlit lanes Behind the sorrel pony. 190 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. My age precludes, his size prevents, For riding he s too puggy ; Come back, oh, gentle Jersey thief, And get the horse and buggy. When Peter asks thee of thy crimes, You answer not with clearness, Shrieking fiends with shame will yell : "He stole a poet s harness." Then back from heaven s gilded walls, With mighty force you ll "go it," While hades will grasp with greedy maw The thief who robbed the poet. October 9, 1885, he wrote to a friend in Philadelphia : 328 MICKLE STREET, CAMDEN, October 9, 1885. DEAR T. D. : Yours received with L. B. s check and the ferry pass.* Many and best thanks. I will come over and see you all soon. I am in good spirits and somewhat better, but fearfully lame and disabled yet. Go out with the horse and buggy each afternoon. *The reference to ferry pass above was an annual pass from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company over the Camden and Philadelphia ferry for Mr. Whitman and his horse and buggy, sent by Mr. E. T. Postlethwaite. WHITMAN S HOUSE AND BUGGY. 191 In 1886 he wrote to the same friend : CAMDEN, N. J., September 15, 1886. As I sit here by the open window, this cloudy warm forenoon, I feel that I would just like to write a line (quite purposeless, no doubt), sending my love and thanks to you and yours. Do you know this is the anniversary day of my receiving the present, through you, of the horse and wagon ? And much good has it done to me. I remain in health much as usual of late. Shall come over and spend a couple of hours with you soon. Shall send you a postal, day before. WALT WHITMAN. Shall get the tintype of horse and wagon, etc. , for you first opportunity. One day after Mr. Whitman had owned "Frank," the pony, about two months, I was in Camden and the pony and buggy were driven to Mr. Whitman s door. The pony showed the effects of Mr. Whitman s fast driving and had a shake to his forelegs or rather a tremble, that gave the impression that he was getting ready to lie down. It was a clear case of vigorous driving. I looked at the pony and then at Mr. Whitman, who was slowly pushing himself along in 1.92 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. a trembling manner with his cane, and remarked, 4t Ah, even the pony trembles and shakes at the approach of the great poet." " Yes, yes, indeed," he replied, "and please notice at the same time that the great poet trembles and shakes as he approaches the pony ! Mutual ad miration society, eh ? " Some weeks after this I was again in Camden, and while on the main street, saw a cloud of dust rising from a fast approaching vehicle. In a moment a splendid bay horse, attached to a buggy, came in view. He was coming at a mile in three minutes gait ; and, to my amaze ment, in the buggy was Walt Whitman, holding on to the lines with one hand for dear life. When he observed me, he drew up with difficulty and called out, "Hello, Tom; aint he splendid?" My breath was about gone. I managed to speak, "Mr. Whitman, in the name of common sense, what s come over you ? Where s Frank?" (the sorrel pony we had presented him). " Sold ; I sold him. He was groggy in the knees and too slow. Did you want a pair of cripples to drive WHITMAN S HORSE AND BUGGY. 193 out Frank and myself? This horse is a goer and delights me with his motion." " Certainly, but he will dump you in a ditch some day, and that will end you." " All right," was his cheery speech, as he drove away. " He won t have to do it but once, and that s an end of things." He had with him Bill Ducket, who at times assisted him on the lines. The horse and buggy were sold in 1888 by Mr. Whitman after he had become too infirm to move about unaided. They had been a source of infinite joy and comfort to him and aided him to pass three years of an invalid s life in comparative ease. Scores of times he expressed his grati tude for the gift, as it gave him touches of life and air and scenery otherwise im possible. CHAPTER X. MB. WHITMAN S FRIENDS AND CORRE SPONDENTS, 1872-92. Mr. Whitman s Catholicity in Friendship Names of Some of His Friends Modest Jamaica Ruin and Milk Punch As the Stage and Car Drivers Friend and Nurse His Experience in New York Hospitals His Account of Pfaff s Cafe, or Restaurant, 1850 to 1869, " Bohemia" His Correspondents Great Men and Authors Who Were Affected Favorably by His Works- Letters from E. C. Stedman and Richard Watson Gilder Two of His Poems in Pro verbal Translations by Wm. Charles Bona parte Wyse Letters from and to Alfred Tennyson Letter from a Young Lady, Describing a Visit to Tennyson in 1885 Letters from Frederick Locker [Lampson] Letters from Mrs. Elisa Seaman Leggett. MR. WHITMAN had personal friends in almost all portions of the United States. His English friends were legion. Friends who held on to him with hooks of steel. The Rossettis and Edwin Dow- den and what friends they were ! A partial list of them is given on pages 28 and 29. Mr. Whitman was catholic in his friend ships. If the person suited him, his rank and station were incidents. Stage driver, 194 KAC-SIMII.E OF A I,ETTBR BY TENNYSON TO MR. WHITMAN. /U*. if t fatUtA - M* ft toft W ft** i fr tit, To face page 194 t fyrM. f]. *. - I i V. *,. ^ * . ^ . ; ~a ** <? ME. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 195 car driver, millionaire, or impecunious scholar, or the reverse, it made no differ ence to him. It was the man within the case that attracted him. He lived such a long time that he had an army of friends. When death opened the rank another succeeded and filled the gap. When Mr. Whitman grew old and worn he became an exception to the fact that age, as a rule, unless possessed of wealth and something to give, is seldom attractive. He had no wealth. He had, in a material sense, nothing to give, and so no leeching and expectant relatives or others hung about him, hungry for his death. Even when he became crippled and stricken, many of the stanchest friends he had came to him. He never solicited them : some persons attached themselves to him as a fad ; others be cause he was a noted man ; some because he was persecuted ; others because they wished to be known as a poet s friend and to know a poet ; many because they knew his worth. Essentially a modest man in respect to making acquaintances, he sought no man. 196 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. George W. Childs of Philadelphia he re vered, both for his manhood and goodness of heart, and because Mr. Childs sought an old and worn man out. He said of him, in his note on a trip on the steamer Plymouth Rock to Long Branch, July 28, 1881 (Specimen Days and Collect., p. 186) : " In all directions costly villas, palaces, millionaires ; but few among them, I opine, like my friend George W. Childs, whose personal integrity, generosity, un affected simplicity, go beyond all worldly wealth." Mr. Childs, when Mr. Whitman came to Camden to live, in 1873, a physical wreck, sought him out, and to the day of Mr. Whitman s death was his sincere friend. I know this, for sometimes I was the almoner for Mr. Childs. Mr. Whitman was once or twice so greatly impressed with men s acts that he avoided the man himself, so that his idol might not be found to have any stains upon it. The case of Mr. Lincoln is an apt illustration. Mr. Whitman used to see him at a dis tance, watch for him, go to his receptions, ME. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 197 and stand off and admire him. When Mr. Lincoln made a public address Mr. Whitman was, when possible, in the audience and close up to the speaker. Yet, when he took Mr. Lincoln by the hand, he gave it a grasp and spoke no words beyond "Howdy?" and he never conversed with Mr. Lincoln. A conversa tion between the two, authentically re ported, would be of value. He considered Mr. Lincoln the greatest civic product of the Anglo-Saxon race in the century. Of his early friends in Camden, one in particular deserves more than a passing notice. When Mr. Whitman went to Camden to live, in 1873, Colonel James M. Scovel at once proffered him atten tions which were gratefully received, and he remained his steadfast friend to the end. Colonel Scovel s purse and house were then at Mr. Whitman s disposal, and when he badly needed friends, I know that Mr. Whitman fully and grate fully accepted Colonel Scovel s friendship and courtesies. Mr. Whitman had some very disinter ested friends in New York City. One of 198 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. the oldest, truest, and most faithful was James Redpath, and what a friend he was to Mr. Whitman !-- -Mr. Redpath in Boston or New York, as editor of the North American Review or otherwise, was always true ; Mr. J. H. Johnston, a valued one ; R. W. Gilder, of the Century, a tried and a true one ; Colonel Robert Gf. Ingersoll, a friend with all of his splendid nature ; E. C. Stedman, the poet, and Moncure D. Conway, the author. Mr. Julius Chambers, of the New York Herald, was a substantial friend and carried Mr. Whitman on the weekly pay-roll of the Herald for a long time. Mr. Whitelaw Reid, of the Trib une, befriended him, and generously. Mr. Charles A. Dana, of the Sun, was an old friend and admirer and whom Mr. Whitman considered the highest type of the American. The Critic, New York, accepted and published much of his work. The Church brothers, Colonel William C. and Frank P., editors of the Galaxy, were his constant friends and publishers. I only mention a few of the many to whom Mr. Whitman called attention. MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 199 Mr. Whitman appreciated attentions and remembrances. He often received presents from friends. He was gratified, no matter what the object. The value was the last thing he considered. He reciprocated with books, portraits, autographs, and manuscripts. I recall the pride with which he showed me an old-fashioned jug containing Jamaica rum. He kept this in his bed room and handled it as affectionately as if it were a child. He used to reach for it and say: "Come here, my fellow- poet." " What," I asked one day ; "is that your source of inspiration?" "No, no ; it s a jug of Jamaica rum Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet, sent me from the West Indies a time ago. I use it with care and taste it with venera tion. You don t know it, perhaps, but I am an expert in milk punches. Have one? No? Well, then, the more for your uncle. Making milk punch is not a lost art, but one now seldom correctly practiced. Rum makes the best of all milk punches. I use one sometimes once a week ; sometimes once a day." 200 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. In Philadelphia, Mr. George W. Childs, Mr. George H. Boker, Horace Howard Furness, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore, Dr. Daniel Brinton, and many more, were his con stant friends. I do not mention his Camden friends, because pages would not hold them, but I, in common with all of Mr. Whitman s friends residing outside of Camden, hold them and their ministerings for him sacred. I think, as I have stated, that Mr. Whitman was sometimes disappointing as a guest. In certain latitudes he soon ceased to be a fad. He was too ponder ous, too heavy. He did not respond quickly enough to certain mental views of his host or his host s friends. He got into action too slowly. His gun did not shoot quick enough. The trigger of his mind was not set on a hair spring, and, besides, he did not talk oracularly to the limited few. He spoke best with his pen and after mature thought. As I have written, he was not a ready society talker. At a gathering he was recognized as a MR, WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 201 dignitary, of course, but not as an all- around hand at a talk, song, or recitation. To the few whom he liked and who liked him he always was the best of guests and most charming of friends. This staid man had lived in "Bohemia." I have frequently in the past twenty years met some of the Bohemians of New York City and Brooklyn who were active in newspaper, legal, dramatic, or literary work in Mr. Whitman s metropolitan days. They all accorded him a distinct personality one not to be seen again. I often heard him speak of his early Brooklyn and New York friends. I had him describe to me many times events and incidents of Pfaff s restaurant or cafe in a cellar on Broadway near Bleecker Street, west side, where the " Bohemians" were wont to resort in the fifties and sixties. Mr. Whitman, in the , fifties and up to 1862, was a frequent visitor to Pfaff s, and during the hours when the brightest lights of Bohemia were guests. His Bohemia, with his en- joyment of life and nature, was all the time; and while, from his slow speech arid 202 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. a lack of expression of humor or wit, he must have seemed a dull companion at Pfaff s, he enjoyed the company and as sociation greatly. He soon became a fig ure at Pfaff s, and was asked for and remarked upon. His free-and-easy ap pearance, his open shirt and swaggery walk, naturally attracted people to him. Mr. Whitman, for many years prior to 1862, had been a noticeable figure in New York or Brooklyn as an outside stage or omnibus rider, and always, no matter what kind of weather, by the driver s side (omni buses did not leave Broadway, New York, until about 1881); so he was a familiar fig ure, and was pointed out as the author of Leaves of Grass." Mr. Whitman s love of nature and out-of-door life, and the mov ing panorama on a crowded thoroughfare, would naturally suggest to him an outside seat with a stage driver. I chatted with him about this odd fancy. " I suppose," he replied, "my liking for and associa tion with stage drivers, car drivers (Pete Doyle, my friend, was a car driver), and boat hands attracted and attracts atten tion and produces inquiries. Stage driv- MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 203 ers were, as a rule, strong men mentally as well as physically. Some were edu cated, some not ; but those who were competent to drive a stage for a length of time on such a street as Broadway, New York, for instance, were men of character and individuality. It took much skill to tool a bus or stage on Broadway. Usually they were intelligent and up with current gossip and news, and were rugged types. Persons who sat by them on the box chatted with them, gave them money, cigars, clothes, theater and opera tickets, and favored them in many ways. They became familiar with public men, and were local historians. Many of them had learned to think, and could express them selves with vigor and ability. I liked an open-air life, and while I rode with these men and listened to their talk, I could reflect, observe, and- absorb. I rode with them in all weathers, fair or foul, and this made them like me. When they were injured or sick, I used to go to see them at their homes or in the hospitals. I found them generous, frank, and friendly. Some of them used to keep an 204 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. extra cushion to put on my seat when I got on top. Others would do me some little kindness. The passengers on the buses, or stages they were called, used to push their fare up through a round hole in the front of the stage top. The driver would take it and hand back the change, if any was required; but in later days the stage company put the change in small paper envelopes. When the bell would ring I used to reach around and collect the fare. The passengers rang the bell. Oh, I was famous for this ! The driver was much aided by this collecting, espe cially in wet or cold weather. I obtained much knowledge from these men, and learned to have a sympathy for them. Sometimes they were injured. As soon as I missed one I inquired for him, and, when injured, I went at once to him. In those days there were not many public hospitals in New York City or Brooklyn. In New York one of the chief hospitals was the New York Hospital. I used to go there frequently to see my injured stage-driver friends, and was always well received. The house doctors or surgeons MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 205 were, as a rule, young men, and were kindly and sympathetic. I soon got in with them. We used to chat at odd times. They used to let me sit beside my injured friends on the beds or cots, and gave me information at all times. I would travel about at times with some of these young surgeons, and take them to Pfaff s or some other convenient place for mild refreshment. They were a jolly set, and used to try to pump me as to why I liked stage drivers. I suppose the real reason was that the poor devils had such a hard life of it in all weathers that my heart went out to them, and besides I learned much from them. They were poorly paid and hard workers. I knew about all of their names on the Broadway stages in 1859-62. You will find that I give some of their names on p. 18 of Specimen Days and Collect. Jacob Sharp, afterward the famous Jake Sharp of Tammany surface-road fame, was a Broadway stage owner. I suppose that I learned to nurse suffering humanity and not to be afraid of blood, wounds, or manifestations of pain by nursing the 206 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. sick or injured stage drivers. Yes, I can recall the names of some of the doctors about the New York Hospital. One was Flint, one McDonald may be Dunlap. I am not sure as to this one. Doc was the usual name for them. There were a good many different ones in the years I used to go there. They were learning their trade then. There was also a sprightly young doctor about there, a sort of a wheel horse he was always in demand. St. John or St. James Roosa ; the other doctors used to say, l Where s the saint ? He was an awfully clever and a handy man. I guess that they are all dead now. Some of them reached eminence and were useful to their fellow-men. This out-of- door life of mine kind of advertised me at least I became a familiar figure, but I never had any such intention or purpose. I enjoyed it and never thought of any thing else in connection with it " Pfaff s I visited for years (sometimes I took one of the stage drivers along with me), and after skipping 1862 to 1864-65, and then to 1881, I visited it once again in August, 1881. It was not the old ME. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 207 Pfaff s. It was a new one on Twenty- fourth Street Pfaff, the prince of hosts, was there, however, and opened a bottle of rare wine as a welcome on my in coming.* * Mr. Whitman thus notes his last visit to Pfaff s : "August 16, 1881. Chalk a big mark for to-day, was one of the sayings of an old sportsman friend of mine, when he had had unusually good luck come home thoroughly tired, but with satisfactory results of fish or birds. Well, to-day might warrant such a mark for me. Everything propitious from the start. An hour s fresh stimulation, coming down ten miles of Manhattan Island by railroad and eight o clock stage. Then an ex cellent breakfast at Pfaff s restaurant, Twenty-fourth Street. Our host himself, an old friend of mine, quickly appear d on the scene to welcome me and bring up the news, and, first opening a big fat bottle of the best wine in the cellar, talk about ante-bellum times, 59 and 60, and the jovial suppers at his then Broadway place, near Bleecker Street. Ah, the friends and names and frequenters, those times, that place ! Most are dead. . . And there Pfaff and I, sitting opposite each other at the little table, gave a remembrance to them in a style they would have themselves fully confirm d, namely, big, brimming, filled- up champagne-glasses, drain d in abstracted silence, very leisurely, to the last drop. (Pfaff is a generous German restaurateur; silent, stout, jolly, and I should say the best selector of cham pagne in America.)" Specimen Days and Collect., p. 188. 208 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. " At the old Pfaff s the food was well cooked, German method, and cheap ; the ale (beer was but coming in then) good, and other liquid refreshments healthy. There was no formality Bohemia sat around in groups. It is difficult at this distance to recall all who dwelt in Bo hemia at Pfaff s during the years I knew it. In fact, a portion of that i Bo hemia did not recognize another portion of visitors as * Bohemians. . Ifc took hard work and merit to have full membership. The top lights recognized themselves, and made a bit of an inside clique or cabal. I can recall John Swinton, Stoddard, R. H. Wilkins, Fitzjames O Brien, Henry Clapp, Oakey Hall, Stanley, Mullin, Wood, John Brougham, and Arnold among the leaders. Ada Clare and Daisy Sheppard were among the women of Bohemia. I was very friendly with Ada Clare. She was brilliant, bright, and handsome. She went on the stage, I think, and then melted out of sight. Pf aft 3 s ; Bohemia was never re ported, and more the sorrow. What ~.vit, humor, repartee, word wars, and some times bad blood ! The Count Joannes ME. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 209 George Jones, the actor used to come there ; and an able man he was, barring the Count. Many actors afterward stars, but then in the great stock companies of the New York theaters, were frequent vis itors. I can recall it all now, and, through a vista of cigar and pipe smoke and dim gaslight, see the scores of kindly faces peering at me, some in love, some in ques tion, but all friendly enough ; for, while * Bohemia might differ as to a man s work or its results, she usually, once he was in, accepted the man, idiosyncrasies and all. Bohemia comes but once in one s life. Let s treasure even its memory." Many of the Pfaff Bohemians gave Mr. Whitman hearty friendship in the years that followed sixty. Wm. Sloane Kennedy of Boston, John Boyle O Reilly, John Burroughs, and dear old Dr. Maurice Bucke of Canada, Wm. O Connor, but why mention more ? Offense may follow (although none is intended) the calling out of a few only of the many friends of Mr. Whitman in America. Henry Irving, now Sir Henry, whose generosity knows no latitude, 210 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN-. considered it a duty, when he thought the old poet might be in need, to drop me a substantial reminder for him ; and Bram Stoker, born Abraham, and who should still be Abraham, because of man hood and breadth of humanity, sent a mite along with his chief. At times many earnest persons became suddenly aroused to the opinion, and acted on it, that Walt Whitman was in need. They would call upon Mr. Childs, Mr. Furness, or George H. Boker, who would reply: u Go to Mr. Donaldson, he usually in forms us when anything is needed for Mr. Whitman." Thus several well in tending good people were disposed of in the ten years prior to Mr, Whitman s death. And in fact, I stood between them and several well-meaning persons in this matter. Several times I called on Mr. George W. Childs, Mr. Horace Howard Furness, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Hon. George H. Boker, and others, and never in vain. Always prompt and ready answers were received. No person but one who has approached Mr. George W. Childs for such purposes, can understand MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 211 the nobleness of his nature and the in comparable manliness of his charity. No other city in the Union contained such a citizen, and his loss has never been made up in Philadelphia. Mr. Whitman was shrewd and carefully watched and weighed men s motives. He quickly noted the disinterested friend from the notoriety hunter, who made up to him for the purpose of being known as Whitman s friend." Many times, in chat, he would indicate such to me, and chuckle in his quiet way, " Well, well; they think your uncle is old and feeble and that his wit does not perceive. Maybe not, maybe not ; but that fellow s a job-lot." He cordially avoided effemi nate men or mannish women. There was latterly one devoted friend of Mr. Whitman s who would have prob ably annoyed other men by his excess of friendly care. Still, he was earnest and sincere, and true at every turn of the lane in Mr. Whitman s last ten years of life. He was quick in manner, but it was the man s habit, and the quickness was kindness and always well meant. I do 212 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. not know whether he is living or not. He resided on Arch Street, Philadelphia. I know that Mr. Whitman appreciated him and his lovely family. I recall one day (I had never met this gentleman) that I went to the box window of the Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia, to get tickets for a performance My friend, Mr. John F. Zimmerman, the proprietor, happened to be in the office He called me in. While inside, a gentleman came rapidly to the window and said he wanted seats for the performance of "Francesca de Rimini," by Lawrence Barrett, then on. He paid for the seats, remarking, " I wan ted them well down, as they are for Walt "Whitman, who wants to see the performance" " Who?" said Mr. Zimmerman, "Walt Whitman ? You take back the money, please. He does not have to pay in my theater. Here is Mr. Donaldson, a friend of his." I walked out and met the gentleman, then sixty or more years of age, a loyal and earnest friend, and who was always assisting Mr. Whitman, and honestly seeing to his comfort. He MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 213 gave Mr. Whitman the large brass lamp which stood in the bit of a parlor in Mickle Street, but I never saw it lighted. - One of Mr. Whitman s stanchest friends and admirers was Edmund Clar ence Stedman, whose name is the syno nym for elegance, purity of mind, and thorough cultivation, and the possession of the grace of harmonious and eupho nious poetic diction. Mr. Whitman, the 4 Poet of Nature," by his work so strong and emphatic made this gentle and pure nature a positive admirer. If Mr Whitman was out of tune with nature and self-rejected in the lists in poetic tilting, how can such respect and admira tion as that of Mr. Stedman be accounted for? Or is Mr. Stedman gifted with others in seeing the gold through the foil ? Considering the letter that follows, Mr. Whitman would have had fair ground to stand on had he chosen to climb even a little way up the side of Mount Ego : NEW YORK CITY, June 8, 1875. MY DEA.R WHITMAN : During ray wanderings in the tropics, with my nervous system feeling like a mixed-up mess of 214 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. broken fiddle strings, I ve often thought of you and wondered if all poets have got to pay such tribute to mortality. I am not given to autograph collecting, but Linton has sent me a proof copy of his admirable engraving of your head and shoulders, and I would very much like to have one of your MSS. to place beside it. Haven t you got one scrap of paper, which you can spare, con taining a few lines of your own work? And, if so, won t you give it me ? I am one of those American writers who always look upon you as a noble, original, and characteristic poet ; and perhaps, in your retirement, it may not seem un gracious or officious for me to tell you so. When I was a boy, I read extracts from your first book, in a Putnam s Magazine review, the "Little Captain" and the "Crushed Fireman." They greatly impressed me, and I have read all you have written since. Swinburne, in his letters to me, always speaks carefully and understandingly of you. I hope that your body will be soon as healthy as your dis position always was and is, and wish that any part of myself were as healthy as either. Believe me, Truly yours, EDMUND C. STEDMAN. In out-of-the-way and interesting parts of Europe one frequently falls in with ardent admirers of Mr. Whitman. Friends MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 215 abroad, meeting such, would write Mr. Whitman, and thus some interesting acquaintances by correspondence were formed. Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, while abroad in 1879, wrote Mr. Whit man as to an ardent admirer of his found in Avignon, France, and inclosed auto graph translations of some of Mr. Whit man s verses by this admirer. SHANKLIN, ISLE OF WIGHT, ENGLAND, October 1, 1879. MY DEAR MR. WHITMAN : Last spring I happened upon a nest of poets at Avignon Provengal poets successors of the old troubadours among them Wm. Charles Bona parte Wyse, a descendant of Lucien Bonaparte and the son of an Irishman. He went to the south of France from Ireland, some twenty-five years ago, and was so charmed with the poets there that he learned the Provengal language and became one of them. He spends a part of every year there. He is a gentleman, a scholar, and a poet ; also a good judge of poetry. Well, he is one of your warmest friends and appreciators, and has sent by me all sorts of messages to you. As I am not to return till spring, I send them by mail. Last April we dined with him at the inn of La Cheve- lure d Or, at the ancient, ruined, and almost 216 WALT WHITMAN; THE MAN. deserted city of Les Baux on the top of a moun tain near Aries. This inn, by the way, was named by Mr. Wyse after a magnificent head of golden hair found in an old tomb at Les Baux, which he has made the subject of a Provencal poem and which was in the possession of the landlord. At this dinner Mr. Wyse proposed and we all drank, standing, the health of Walt Whitman. I have just received a letter from my friend in which he says : "I inclose you my promised Provengal trans lation of two of the sweetest bits of Manahatta s poet. I have not attempted his poetic prose, which is not to be imitated, but have had the audacity to compress, Procrustes-wise, his touch ing lines into the stocks of my verse. Do, I beg of you, do me the great favor to present them to him, in my name, when next you see him. Insig nificant as is the attention, it is at any rate a straw which will show which way the wind blows. If ever I go to America, I assure you that one of my first visits will be to this most sympathetic of poets, for whose large and lofty nature my admiration is merged into love." No one has written to me about the lecture. How did it succeed ? Yours very truly, EICHARD W. GILDER. MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 217 LA RECOUNCILIACIOUN. (Imitadod oupouUoamerican, Walt Whitman.) Mot que doumino tout ! mot mai ben que 1 azur ! Que coungourto, quent ur De sab6 que la guerro e soun rouge carnage Vai s envoula, s en fan, coume un esclat d aurage ; Que la nine et la Mort (aquen paren divin !) La von, a belli man, incessamen, seus fin, Noste mounde councha per 1 aurage? Car noste enemi s mort, noun mens divin que sien, E, tendre e pensatieii, Garde ount lou paure jais, blanquineu come un ile, Ounte jais blanquineu dins soun cercuei tranquile, L approuche, e me recourbe, e jougne doucamen Mi bouco rouginello au carage seren Au carage tant blanc e tranquile ! Leaves of Grass, p. 295, Washington, 1872. (Literal Translation.) Word which dominates all! word more beautiful than the blue ! What pleasure ! what luck ! To know that War and his red carnage Is about to fly off, (as it ought to be,) like a burst of storm. 218 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. That Night and Death (that divine pair!) Wash, with nimble hands, incessantly, without end, Our world stained by the storm. For mine enemy s dead, no less divine than myself, And tenderly and pensively, I look where the poor fellow lies, white as a lily, Where he lies white, quiet in his coffin ; I approach him, and I bend down, and I join gently My ruddy mouth to the calm face- To the face, so white and serene ! RECONCILIATION. Word over all, beautiful as the sky, Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night in cessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil d world ; For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead. I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin I draw near, Bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, p. 250, MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 219 LA Musico. (Imitado cT6u poutto american. Wait Whitman.) Un matin de Dimenche, eii passant doucamen Lou pourt au de la gleiso, ausere urousamen Lou bram solemne e suan d uiio ourgueno ; Au calabrun, ausere, en un bos souloumbrous, D un tendre roussignon lou refrin melicous, E moun amo de pas ero pleno ! . . . Cor de ma ben-amado ! Oh, t ausere pereu A traves toun pougnet, cantant encantdreu Toun pougnet depausa sout ma testo ; Toun dous pouls, dins la niue, quand touto ero seren, Coume de campaneto, ausere claramen Souto moun aurihoun fasent f esto ! Leaves of Grass, p. 119, Washington, 1872. Music. One Sunday morning, whilst passing quietly The portal of the church, I heard by lucky chance The solemn and calm sound of an organ ; In the twilight of evening, I heard in a somber wood The honeyed refrain of a tender nightingale, And my soul was full of peace. . . . Heart of my well-beloved ! Oh, I heard also thee Across thy wrist, singing enchantingly 220 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Thy wrist, posed beneath my head ! Thy sweet pulse, in the night, when all was serene, Like little bells I heard clearly Ringing joyously beneath mine ear ! I HEARD YOU, SOLEMN-SWEET PIPES OF THE ORGAN. I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I pass d the church, Winds of autumn, as I walk d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch d sighs up above so mournful. I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing. Heart of my love I you too I heard murmuring low through one of the wrists around my head, Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last night under my ear. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, p. 94. WILLIAM C. BONAPARTE WYSE. MANOR OF ST. JOHN S, WATERFORD, Auguet 11, 1879. While there was always, and will be, much discussion as to Mr. Whitman s work and its aims, one of the curious features about it all is the character and kind of men his work has affected, and favorably. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Tho- MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 221 reau, Alfred Tennyson, Frederick Locker, John Addington Symonds, Dante Ga briel Rossetti, Wm. Michael Eossetti, Edward Dowden, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Robert Louis Stevenson, alone are friends enough for one author to have. How many other authors would the men named above agree upon 1 Mr. Whitman s Leaves of Grass" was well before the public in 1862 and 1863, when Mr. Emerson showed his special friendship for him, and this was seven or eight years after Mr. Emerson s letter of congratulations to Mr. Whitman on his first edition of "Leaves of Grass." Mr. Whitman visited Mr. Emerson shortly before his death and considered him, and with reasons, a friend. Considering the character of his friends, male and female, at home and abroad, Mr. Whitman would have been pardoned had he shown vanity, as to his work and himself. As I have more than once written I never observed any vanity in him ; not even a shadow of it, unless it was during the last three or four years of his life, when he became somewhat oracu- 222 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. lar at times, and after disease had racked his frame and may have aft ected his nerves, and so at times his brain. He was never to me an "important" man. There are some such in the world self-proclaimed or so called. My intercourse with these so-called important" personages, and it has been considerable, forces me to know that they are largely humbugs in all essentials. "Ah, he is an important man ! " Perhaps ! Inspect him, and you will ninety times out of a hundred find him almost all label. Mr. Whitman never claimed to be im portant not at all. He wanted to be useful, and he was. He did some things unusual, some things great, many things mediocre. Mediocrity manages the run ning gear of the world. The men who are always great, and do not do common things, or let down, are few and rare. In a long and active life I have met but few such. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll is one who never lets down and always sits erect on his one distinct and concededly great saddle. In whatever he does he is always above the average. MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 223 Mr. Whitman could have been ex cused for a show of vanity when one considers the following correspondence with Alfred Tennyson and Frederick Locker [Lampson]. Mr. Whitman wrote Alfred Tennyson a letter before 1871. No copy is at hand. Mr. Tennyson seems not to have an swered this. Mr. Tennyson wrote to Mr. Whitman in 1871. This letter is addressed to Mr. W T alt Whitman, Washington, U. S. A., and is indorsed in Mr. Whitman s hand writing, "1st letter, Tennyson, July 12, 1871." ALDWORTH, BLACKDOWN, HASLEMERE, SURREY, ENGLAND, July 12, 1871. MY DEAR SIR, Mr. Cyril Flower wrote to me some time ago to inform me that he had brought your books with him from America, a gift from you, and that they were lying in my London cham bers ; Whereupon I wrote back to him, begging him to bring them himself to me at my country house, and I have been accordingly, always expect ing to see him, but he never came, being detained by law business in town. I have now just called at my London lodgings, and found them on the table. I had previously met with several of your 224 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. works and read them with interest and had made up my mind that you had a large and lovable nature. I discovered great "go" in your writ ings and am not surprised at the hold they have taken on your fellow countrymen. Wishing you all success and prosperity, and with all thanks for your kind gift which I should have acknowledged earlier, had I received it sooner I remain Ever yours, very truly, A TENNYSON I trust that if you visit England, you will grant me the pleasure of receiving and entertain ing you under my own roof. Mr. Whitman, from Washington, wrote Mr. Tennyson a second letter. Copy of it is indorsed by Mr. Whitman, " second letter to Tennyson, April 27, 1872." Sent Tennyson, with copy of Leaves of Grass, and Democratic Vistas. " APRIL 27, 1872, MY DEAR MR. TENNYSON : This morning s paper has a vague sort of an item about your coming to America, or wanting to come, to view the working of our institutions, etc. Is there anything in it? I hope so, for I want more and more to meet you and be with you. Then I should like to give my explanations and comments of America and her shows, affairs, MR. WHITMAN S FKIENDS. 225 persons, doings, off-hand, as you witness them, and became puzzled, perhaps, dismayed by them. America is at present a vast seething mass of varied material human and other, of the richest, best, worst, and plentiest kind. Wealthy invent ive, no limit to food, land, money, work, opportu nity, smart and industrious citizens, but (though real and permanently politically organized by birth and acceptance) without fusion or definite heroic identity in form and purpose or organiza tion, which can only come by native schools of great ideas, religion, poets, literature, and will surely come, even through the measureless crud ity of the States in those fields so far, and to-day. The Lesson of Buckle s books on civilization al ways seemed to me to be that the preceding main basis and continual sine qua non of civilization is the eligibility to, and certainty of boundless products for feeding, clothing, and sheltering everybody, infinite comfort, personal and inter communication and plenty, with mental and ecclesiastical freedom, and that then all the rest, moral and esthetic, will take care of itself. Well, the United States have secured the requisite bases, and must now proceed to build upon them. I send you by same mail with this, a more neatly printed copy of my "Leaves"; also "Dem. Vistas." Your letter of last fall reached me at the time. [Not found.] Have you forgotten that you put a promise in it, to send me your picture when " you 226 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. could lay hands on a good one?" [In letter of September 22, 1871.] I have been in Brooklyn and New York most of the past winter and current spring, visiting my aged dear mother, near eighty. Am now back here at work. Am well and hearty. I have received two letters from you, July 12 and September 22, of last year [1872]. This is the second letter I have written to you. My address is : Solicitor s Office, Treasury, Washington, D. C., United States. Write soon, my friend. Don t forget the picture. WALT WHITMAN. Mr. Tennyson sent Mr. Whitman his photograph, with autograph, in June, 1872. Mr. Whitman wrote Mr. Tennyson from Camden, N. J., May 24, 1873: DEAR MR. TENNYSON : It is long time since my last to you. I have, however, mailed you once or twice pieces of mine in print which I suppose you received. January, 1873, I was taken down with illness; some three months afterward was recovering at Washington, when called here by the death of my mother, and from that time becoming worse, I have given up work, and remained here since. I had paralysis from cerebral anaemia. I do not fail in flesh, color, spirits, appetite, and sleep MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 227 pretty good ; am up and dressed every day, and go out a little, but very lame yet. I received your last letter (of June, 1872) and the good photograph, which I have looked at many times, and sometimes almost fancied you in person silently sitting nigh. To-day, a cloudy and drizzly Sunday, I have taken it in my head, sitting here alone, to follow the inner mood and write (a tinge of Quaker blood and breed in me) though really without anything to say, only just to write to you. It is pleasant here, right on the banks of the noble Delaware opposite Philadelphia. The doc tors say I shall yet come round, and I think so, too. Truly your friend, W. W. In answer to the above, Mr. Tennyson wrote Mr. Whitman from Aldworth, Blackdown, Haslemere, England, of no date. The envelope bears the post-mark: " Haslemere, July 8, 1874. " DEAR MR. WALT WHITMAN : I am grieved to hear that you have been so unwell and can only trust that your physician is a true prophet, and that you will recover and be as well as ever. I have myself known a case of cerebral anaemia in a young lady living near me She lost her mind and no one who saw her be lieved she could live; but under the superintend- 228 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. ence of a good doctor she has perfectly recovered and looks plumper and fresher than ever she did before. This is the first letter I have written for weeks, and I am afraid I write rather obscurely, for my hand and arm have been crippled with rheuma tism (I hope it is not gout), and I am not yet perfectly recovered. I was beholden to you for your Democratic Vistas, and if I did not answer and acknowledge them I regret to have done so ; but if you knew how great the mass of my correspondence is, and how much I dislike letter-writing, I doubt not, you would forgive me easily. When- I next hear of or from you may the news be that you are fully re-established in your old vigor and body : Meanwhile believe me Yours ever A TENNYSON Mr. Whitman next wrote to Mr. Ten nyson from Camden, July 24, 1875 : MY DEAR MR. TENNYSON : Since I last wrote you, (your kind response was duly received) I have been laid up here nearly all the time, and still continue so, quite shattered, but, somehow with good spirits ; not well enough to go out in the world and go to work, but not sick enough to give up either, or lose my interest in affairs, life, literature, etc. I keep up and dressed, and go out a little nearly every day. MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 229 I have been reading- your " Queen Mary," and think you have excelled yourself in it. I did not know until I read it, how much eligibility to passion, character, and art arousings was still left to me in my sickness and old age. Though I am democrat enough to realize the deep criticism of Jefferson (?) on Walter Scott s writings (and many of the finest plays, poems, and romances) that they fail to give at all the life of the great mass of the people then and there. I shall print a new volume before long and will send you a copy. I send you a paper about same mail as this. Soon as convenient write me a few lines. (Put in letter your exact P. O. address.) If you have leisure, tell me about yourself. I shall never see you and talk to you, so I hope you will write to make it up. Your friend WALT WHITMAN. Mr. Tennyson answered this from Has- lemere, August 16, 1875 : MY DEAR WALT WHITMAN : (Somehow the Mr. does not come well before Walt Whitman.) I am glad to hear from you again, and to learn that at any rate you are no worse than when you last wrote, and that though your health be shattered, your good spirits nourish up like a plant from broken ground; glad also that you find something to approve of in work so wholly unlike your own as my Queen Mary. 230 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. I am this morning starting with my wife and sons on a tour to the Continent. She has been very unwell for two years, obliged always to lie down and incapable of any work, in consequence of overwork the case of so many in this age, you among others ; and we are now going into a land of fuller sunshine in hope that it may benefit her. I am in an extreme hurry, packing up, and after these few words must bid you good-by, not with out expressing my hope however, that you will ultimately recover all your pristine vigor. I shall be charmed to receive your book Ever yours A TENNYSON Mr. Whitman answered the above Sep tember 14, 1876. (Copy not at hand.) On August 9, 1878, Mr. Whitman again wrote Mr. Tennyson : AUGUST 9, 1878. MY DEAR TENNYSON : The last letter I sent you was September 14, 1876, (nearly two years ago), to which I have received no response. I also sent you my two volumes; new edition, having received your sub scription of five pounds (with an intimation from Robert Buchanan that no books were expected in return, but I preferred to send them). I am still in the land of the living, much better and robuster the last two years, and especially MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 231 the last six months, (though a partial paralytic yet). I find the experiences of invalidism and the losing of corporeal ties not without their advan tages, at least, if one reserve enough physique to, as it were, confront the invalidism. But all this summer I have been, and am well enough to be out on the water or down in the fields or woods of the country more than half the time and am quite 4 hefty " (as we say here) and sunburnt. Best regards and love to you, dear friend. Write me first leisure and opportunity. Haven t you a son lately married I have heard about ? Pray, tell me something about him and the re spected lady, your wife, whom you mentioned in your last as prostrated with illness, and yourself, most of all. WALT WHITMAN. Mr. Tennyson answered the above on August 29, 1878, but strange to say it did not reach Mr. Whitman until October 17, 1878. Mr. Tennyson, in directing the envelope, omitted "Camden," and merely sent it to " Mr. Walt Whitman, 431 Stevens Street, New Jersey, U. S. Amer ica." The letter was returned to Hasle- mere, England, for better direction and remailed by Mr. Tennyson. On Octo ber 4, 1878, Mr. Tennyson wrote on the flap of the original envelope : 232 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. DEAR W. W. : I foolishly left out " Camden " on my direction, as you see. I am sorry, for you would think I had forgotten you. The letter was as follows : ALDWORTH, HASLEMERE, SURREY, August 29, 1878. MY DEAR WALT WHITMAN : I am not over-fond of letter writing rather hate it indeed, and am so overburdened with correspondence that I neglect half of it. Never theless let me hope that I answered your last of September 14, 76, and that it miscarried. I am very glad to hear that you are so improved in health, that you move about the fields aad woods freely and have enjoyment of your life. As to myself, I am pretty well for my time of life, sixty-nine on the sixth of this month, but somewhat troubled about my eyes, for I am not only the shortest-sighted man in England, but have a great black island floating in each eye, and these blacknesses increase with increasing years. However, my oculist informs me that I shall not go blind, and bids me as much as possible spare my eyes, neither reading nor writing too much. My wife is still an invalid and forced to lie on the sofa all day but still I trust somewhat stronger than when I last wrote to you. My younger son Lionel (whom you inquire about), was married to the daughter of F. Locker MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 233 (the author of London Lyrics) in February. The wedding was celebrated in our grand old histori cal abbey of Westminster. There was a great attendance of literati, etc of all which I read an account in one of your New York papers. Every third word a lie. Treubner writes to me this morning, stating that you wished to see a parody of yourself, which appeared among other parodies of modern authors in a paper called The London. I have it not or I would send it to you. Good-by good friend, I think I have answered all your questions. Yours ever A TENNYSON This may have been the last letter re ceived by Mr. Whitman from Tennyson. However, the Camden (N. J.) Post, February 1, 1887, notes that Mr. Whit man was out riding the day before, and that he received a warm letter from Alfred Tennyson, commencing " Dear old man." Mr. Whitman said that the letters herein were not all. That there were one or two others which he would find in time. In 1885 Mr. Whitman gave a note of introduction to a young American lady of Philadelphia to Mr. Tennyson (Miss Mary Whitall Smith). 234 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. She writes to Mr. Whitman from London of her visit to Tennyson. The apology for introducing the lady s name is the beauty and simplicity of the letter. LONDON, July 25, 1885. DEAR MR. WHITMAN : Before any more days pass I must write and tell thee of our visit to Tennyson, which took place day before yesterday. We sent him thy letter from Lord Mount Tem ple s, where we were staying. His son Hallam wrote to us from the Isle of Wight, asking us to come Wednesday morning. So, Wednesday, about half past eleven, papa and Alys and I alighted at his front door, where a huge, curly dog overwhelmed us with caresses. Tennyson was not in, but Lady Tennyson received us and talked with us until he came. We were walking in the old-fashioned flower garden when we met him, and almost the first thing he said was a deep remark. 1 He said that he was walking out one evening looking at the stars, so absorbed that he fell into a puddle ; but he noticed after ward that the star was in the puddle also ! There upon we all tried to think of something witty in reply. Something about poet s feet tangled among stars would have been appropriate, but as none of us thought of that reply till afterward, we had to let the opportunity slip. We walked with him and with his son all about the garden for about MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 235 an hour. He showed us a tree planted by Gam- betta, and talked to me about Turgeineff, and asked all about thee. As we were going away, he told me to give thee his love. His home is a large, rambling, old- fashioned house full of interesting pictures and engravings. It has a look of being lived in, and all the arrangements were "casual," as English people say. Hats and walking-sticks were lying about in chairs and dogs raced in and out at their pleasure. Tennyson s den " is up at the top of a narrow, winding stair a large, sunny room, lined with books and having a lovely view of Freshwater Bay, framed in the dark green branches of the cedars of Lebanon. They insisted upon our stay ing to lunch, but made us promise not to put anything in any newspaper about it. Tennyson seems to have a horror of notoriety, and he told us a great many stories of the annoy ances to which he had been subjected from curious, inquisitive, and gossiping visitors. The chief impression that his conversation made upon me was of a keen and eager mind (he has a wonderful memory for facts) and a keen sense of humor. He tells a funny story as well as anyone I ever heard. We came away soon after lunch, having had a most interesting visit, for which we all felt very grateful to thee. . . , Alys looks forward to going to see thee when she comes home in September, and to showing thee 236 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. the photograph of himself which Tennyson gave her, with his autograph beneath. With much love, I am, thy friend, MARY WHITALL SMITH. Mr. Whitman had some correspondence .with Frederick Locker [Lampson] of Lon don, the poet. Mr. Locker s daughter married Tennyson s second son. Mr. Locker wrote Mr. Whitman from 25 CHESHAM STREET, S. W., BELGRAVE SQUARE, LONDON, April 7, 1880. DEAR MR. WHITMAN: Thank you very much for the " Two Rivulets," which came sparkling, and dancing, and babbling into my house this morning. I have long been acquainted with your writings, and have taken a great interest in them. I wish you had given me a line to say what you were doing, and how you were. I trust the world uses you fairly well, but I do not think it is a world that is much to boast about. Mr. Tennyson has been in London for the last six weeks, and now he has gone to his home in the Isle of Wight. I have often heard him speak of you, and about you, in a way that would be gratifying to you, as "Walt Whitman, the Poet," and "Walt Whitman, the man," and I ME. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 237 like your portrait. It reminds me a little of that of Isaac Walton. I am, very sincerely yours, FREDERICK LOCKER. Mr. Locker addressed Mr. Whitman a postal card, October 13, 1880, from London : I have just received your card, dated 28th Sep tember, and I am very glad to hear that you have had so pleasant a summer, and that you are in better health. Long may you remain so, say I. Did you receive a letter I sent you some weeks ago, asking you to write four or six lines in an MS. poem by Walter Scott ? Not hearing from you, I fear you have not received it. If you have not received it, may I send it to you again, when I will explain my wishes ? It will only occupy you for five minutes. I spent a very pleasant hour yesterday with Lowell [J. E.]. We smoked the pipe of good-fellowship. Tennyson is in Sus sex, quite well. I shall send him your card. Yours, F. LOCKER. Mr. Locker again wrote Mr. Whitman from 25 Ghesham Street, London, 31st January, 1881 : 238 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. MY GOOD FRIEND : It was a kind thought of yours, sending me your article from the North American Review. I forwarded Alfred [Tennyson] his copy to the Isle of Wight, where he is living at present. He will be in London before Easter. You may know about when that will be, though you may not take great keep of the ancient festival. Alfred [Ten nyson] will be much pleased with what you say about him in your article, yet, perhaps, he may not be quite pleased. It is very difficult to discourse on a poet, and to entirely please him. I am sure he will be interested, as I am, in your article. Poets of eminence, and writers of discernment, tell me that the real representative poet of Amer ica came into view when you first put pen to paper. Certainly, nearly all your poets, delightful as they are, are founded on European models, in sub ject and form, but I presume what you mean strikes deeper than that. I will not trouble you with more of my views of this subject. I hope you are as well and happy as you can hope to be on this best of all possible worlds. We are losing Carlyle. As I write he is either moribund or dead. Farewell. F. LOCKER. The character of the letters received by Mr. Whitman from correspondents as a rule on perusal, conveys and gives the im- MB. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 239 pression of the concession of a superior mind in the person to whom addressed. The three letters following from a lady correspondent at Detroit, Mich., Mrs. Elisa Seaman Leggett, are instructive and graphic. 169 EAST ELIZABETH STREET, DETROIT, October 9, 1880. MR. W. WHITMAN. Dear Friend : Do you know it seems very much out of tune to say Mr. to Walt Whitman ? and the good old Quaker dignity of addressing one by name alone, I like. I hope you are in good health this lovely day of October. I feel lonely in October since William Cullen Bryant died. Always in this month I used to write to him, just that I might be ahead in my congratula tions upon his birthday. I remember the sweet October days in Boslyn, when he and his wife would come over to Hillside, on some soft, dreamy afternoon in the Indian summer; perhaps with a small basket with nice lunch in it and a book, " The Berkshire Jubilee," and he would climb up the hill and get into the woods, always stopping upon the brow of the hill back of the barn, just under a famous great butternut tree, and, turning, take a look upon the harbor and far away Long Island Sound, the Red Mill hid among the willows, the lake under the close Harbor hill, and the busy village. Bryant always loved just this view of the 240 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. bay. Well, I won t talk now of Bryant, although, when I used to write him from here, I would say : "The month of October I give to memories of Roslyn." And where are you now to-day ? We felt sorry not to have you come to us. All the summer the chair stood for you on our piazza. It stands there yet, with its broad arms waiting for you. All summer the old willows swayed and rippled, and spoke the "various language." All summer thousands of sparrows came home at early twilight and talked ever so much, and scolded some, and nestled in the great ivy on the east wall of our home, and Walt Whitman came not to sit beside us. Well, we all felt sorry. When I say all, I mean three generations, a goodly company of old and young, down to the babe of a few days old. It may be the baby felt sorry. If it don t now, it will when it learns of our disappointment, for its mother did. My son sent me your picture last week from New York, the one sitting on the rocks, by Sarony. I don t know when it was taken, but it looks younger than the one he sent me three years ago the one with the large necktie. Did you get the story I wrote you about your Leaves of Grass " ? When the book came back to me, the picture had been taken out. I meant to have asked you, while talking of Roslyn, if you were ever there ? Oh ! it is so charming in autumn. My husband has just bought me the " Prayer of Columbus, " by Walt Whitman. I had never read MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 241 it before. Why he thought I would be especially interested was this : I believe it would be good to have a universal holyday, and I like to talk about Columbus to my children, and like to stimulate them to feel that the advent of Columbus to the New World would be a grand day to select not his birthday, but the day on which he fell on his knees and thanked God for the longed-for real itythe truth his soul had believed in. One child says : Mother, don t you think that the landing of The Pilgrim Fathers was more noble, more than the birth of America as a Nation ? " I answer: "The thought of Columbus was for the world; the thought of the others, freedom for a theory. Columbus opened the flood-gates and be hold! now the growing Brotherhood of Man." On the 14th day of this month I shall pass the day with my family and a few friends, to read and talk about Columbus and about the far away holyday. I have four children in Heidelberg (Germany). The eldest grandson writes : " Grandma, in 1892, it will be the 400th anniver sary of Columbus and of America. Shall we start then ? " I say: "No, dear. I m going to have a little tea party here this year, on the 14th day of October, just to celebrate in advance, for when one gets to be sixty-five, we don t count twelve years to wait. One wants to go to work and start a point." I always remember just a small event that has occurred in my, life. When we came into Detroit, fifteen years ago, there was no place in 242 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. the streets for a drink of water no old-fashioned pumps, and no new-fashioned fountains. I knew three editors of daily papers. I said : " It is no wonder that dogs go mad in Detroit. They must run down to the river before they can get a drink. And it s no wonder that the beer saloons nourish, for not even a little boy or poor laboring man can get a cup of cold water." So I talked in season and out to everybody, thinking I might touch the hem of some garment, and virtue would go out from it. So, after a year or more, one morning, there came a nice editorial, advocating fountains, such as they had in Philadelphia: and the City Fathers were moved, and now we have all we want. So now I am going to talk to everybody about Columbus day, and who knows but that some day the world will clasp hands and sing songs of jubilee in concert, and honor itself by a recognition of the event. I am yours truly, ELISA SEAMAN LEGGETT. DETROIT, June 22, 1881. DEAR FRIEND : Let me thank you for papers sent, which gave me great pleasure. I wonder if you know anything about Sojourner Truth, an old col d woman, known to be 100 years of age. She remembers the soldiers of our Revo lutionary War, going to see them and their wounded legs; tells incidents, when she was a " pretty big girl," of the events of the Revolution. MR. WHITMAN S FEIENDS. 243 Her father s mother was a squaw. Sojourner was a slave in New York State, on the Hudson, until she was forty years. After her freedom she be came a seeker for the truth ; hence she gave up her slave name of Isabella and took the one she has, saying she would be a sojourner on the earth, seeking for truth." She is a majestic, tall, thin person, with an eye f every at times, at others, tender and pitiful. She can neither read or write, but she has a powerful voice and, like her eye, at times, sweet, and filled with human love. Soon after her emancipation, she heard of Matthias. Do you remember him, in New York ? You were a little boy then, but he represented himself as Christ, and a follower of his called himself John the Baptist. There was a " Kingdom of Heaven " established up the North River, with many disci ples. Sojourner s imagination was fired by this, and she thought she had found the truth, lived among them and discovered great sins and corruption. A sudden death came in the " Kingdom " and Matthias was arrested. Sojourner knew him to be innocent, took care of him in prison, testified as to his innocence, a long story, but she got him clear. Then she got on Long Island, and after a while joined the Adventists at Northamp ton, Mass. , saw their mistakes, and threw herself into a servant of truth, meant to help the Lord. She worked in the anti-slavery cause; was inti mate with Garrison, Phillips, G-erritt Smith, and Lucretia Mott; was well known and honored in 244 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. the houses of all these; worked in the woman s cause, and was a hard worker in the war; went to Washington and saw President Lincoln, had a good talk with him, told him she had come to help him." He said: "Go and teach your race the meaning of liberty." Stayed there a year working. Then she went to a water cure to study the laws of health. She has lectured in all of our Northern States and many of the Middle ones ; in every good cause, and on temperance, in our po litical campaigns she has been most efficient; she spent one winter with Theodore Til ton, and knew the Beechers well, old Lyrnan Beecher and Mrs. Stowe as well; she has been upon the plat form with our best men and women, and knew them intimately, Theodore Parker and all who worked in reform causes ; she will not have the Bible read to her except by children; and says: " If it was the Word of God he will make it plain to her." She talks with God as though he was beside her, and asks him many questions, some times advises a little. She don t see anything useful in the new translation of the New Testa ment ; says that the history belongs to past ages. We have outgrown the history, but the truths that Christ gave can t die. Thinks there ought to be Scriptures written of what God has done ever since the times of the early creation and Moses Scriptures telling of railroads, and telephones and the Atlantic cable. She sees God in a steam en gine and electricity. Well, I have told you all MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 245 this, just to tell you of an anecdote connected with yourself. In 1864 she visited me in Detroit. I used to read your "Leaves of Grass" to my children. It has formed a large part of their edu cation. Once with my back to the door entering the parlor, in a large chair, my children before me on the sofa, I noticed while I read they looked up. I said: "Pay attention, or I can t read to you." So they were quiet, and I continued. Presently I was surprised to hear Sojourner, in a loud voice, exclaim, * l Who wrote that ? " I turned, and there in the doorway she stood, her tall figure, with a white turban on her head, her figure and every feature full of expression. Im mediately, she added: "Never mind the man s name. It was God who wrote it. He chose the man to give his message." After that I often read it to her. Her great brain accepts the highest truths. She is here now. I took her last week to hear a lecture upon Raphael s School of Athens. The teacher talked of the old philoso phers, Plato, Socrates, and others. Sojourner gave great attention, occasionally uttering, when, something was explained: "Eh, who said it.? Tis God, tis God! How good, how simple!" I wonder if you care for all this. She is still marvelous. Mr. Iver and his son, Percy, the lit tle fellow that loves you so well, are both painting her portrait. If I can get a photo, I will send you one. Last year Sojourner went to Kansas and 246 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. worked faithfully among the refugees, and lec tures yet. Her concern now is to emancipate the minds of people from the old superstitions of re ligious teaching and that the Kingdom of God is in the hearts of his children, and telling the people to save their labor about sending missionaries to the heathen, but to take care of the heathen in our own country. Her voice is still powerful. I am, with sincere good will, your friend, ELISA SEAMAN LEGGETT. DETROIT, December 19, 1882. MY DEAR FRIEND : I feel so drawn to send you a Christmas greeting. I hear from Percy that you are in better health than you were during the summer. I hope you may constantly improve. I read a medical article once, which said: " If a person has had poor health through middle life and has struggled on so as to reach his sixty-sec ond year, the probability is that he will live through the next twenty years in very comforta ble condition." I trust this may prove a truth in your life. I don t know if I think it a fine wish, to hope for length of days for those we love or not, but somehow it seems as though the later days of an earnest soul are the ripest fruit of all the seasons well-conditioned. So I look upon the life of a person in healthy mind, from the time we call middle age to the years of eighty or more, as the most helpful to humanity and of ten- est the most serene and richest to the person him- MR. WHITMAN S FRIENDS. 247 self. So let me wish you a good long life, full of comfort, full of gifts to the world. Did you re ceive an invitation to the wedding of my daugh ter, Blanche, on the 14th of June last ? I said to her: "Choose who you like to come;" and she said: "Oh, I would be so glad to have Walt Whitman ! He seems so much like one of our family." I send you her picture, that you may think of the child who feels like a sister to you. This was our baby, and she has left her home for one in Chicago. We were never before separated. It is a trial. So often I think of the days of my youth, amid the calm content of Quaker society, so beautiful. The home where often four genera tions in one family lived, a bit of the farm given to a child at his coming of age, and the marriage of youths scarcely separating families. Until I came to Michigan, thirty years ago, all my sur roundings were among Friends, twelve years at Roslyn and Friends meeting at Wesbury. Did you ever attend a silent meeting ? If not, do go some day to Philadelphia and feel its solemnity. The last I was at was at Eace Street. The early hour was silent ; then George Truman said a few words that seemed to fall like seed in the prepared soil. A cat came into the meeting and took its place beside the speaker. It all seemed right. Everything seemed so harmonious, that the quiet movements of any domestic animal would have created no surprise. Tears came into my chil dren s eyes. After meeting I asked them why ? 248 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. They could not tell, only it was " so sweet, so solemn." I will tell you a story about Percy s mother, when she was a little child, seven years old. A baby had been born while she was at school. It was dead. I took it into a quiet room, made it look pretty, and put a few flowers about it. It looked not much different from a doll. I had often wondered if a child had naturally a fear of death, of being alone with the dead. When Minnie came home, I said: "Would you like to look at the pretty baby ? " She touched the hand and face and kissed the face, and wanted to hold it in her arms. I laid it in her lap, and said : " Be careful." There was an instinct that forbade her to hold it up, and she did not want to give it up. I said: " Would you like to stay and keep it a while?" "Yes." Then I left her alone and stood outside, thinking she might lift it. In a few minutes she called, and asked me "to take it." I asked, "Why?" "Oh, it was so still, it made her feel so strange ! She did not want to be alone, if mamma would stay." Then I won dered if it was the silence, so powerful is it, in its messages. So I feel the silences in the meetings of Friends. I can t tell why, there is a solemnity that finds its way through the soul. I am my friend with kindest regards, Yours truly, ELISA S. LEGGETT. SOME PERSONAL AND OLD-AGE JOTTINGS 1891. Mr. Whitman in a letter in 1891, in his J2d year, thus de scribes his great arm rocking chair : "Toward the windows (of his bedroom) is a huge arm chair, a Christmas present from Thomas Donaldson s young daughter (Mary E.) and son (Elaine), Philadelphia, timber d as by some stout ship s spars, yellow polished, ample, with rattan woven seat and back, and over the latter a great wide wolf skin of hairy black and silver, spread to guard against cold and draught. A time-worn look and scent of Oak attach both to the chair and the person occupying it." This chair was given to Thomas Donaldson by Mr. Whitman in his will. To face page 249 CHAPTER XI. MB. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND BUEIAL, 1891-92. His Housekeeping in Camden Mrs. Davis and Her Friendship for Mr. Whitman The Tablet and Pencil Friend Mr. Whitman s Physicians Minute of My Visit, December 20, 1891 His Death The Funeral and Assemblage Concluding Remarks. "TTTHEN it was apparent that his VV brother, George Whitman, with whom he resided from 1873, was to remove from Camden, Mr. Whitman had to look about him for a home. He was afraid of becoming a burden on people, and as he had now a bit of money in sight he resolved to get a house of his own. He consulted a few friends, and among them George W. Childs. Mr. Childs furnished him funds with which to make a first payment on the house, 328 Mickle Street, Camden, to which he moved in 1884, and where he died March 26, 1892. It was most fortunate for him 249 250 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. that he resided in a house of his own and with friends during the last four years of his life. His first attempt at housekeeping on Mickle Street, Camden, was a failure. The people who occupied his house with him, although his friends, were not fitted to manage it. This connection was dis solved, after much inconvenience had resulted to Mr. Whitman, and in 1885 Mrs. Mary O. Davis came to him as his housekeeper and remained with him until his death. She more than any other living person was his confidante, and deserved to be so. When she came to Mickle Street to live with Mr. Whitman, she found, as I can testify, dirt to be supreme. Mr. Whitman was cooking a bite over a small coal oil stove, at the risk of his life. His table was a large dry goods box, and the house was almost devoid of furniture. His first friends and joint house occupants removed their fur niture when they left his house. His bedroom was the only completely fur nished room in the Mickle Street house when Mrs. Davis entered it. She was his MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 251 loyal friend and nurse. She stood by him in life, and closed his eyes in death. She j had an affection for Mr. Whitman which made care of him a pleasure. The night Mr. Whitman died I called at the Mickle Street house, Carnden, and found her ex hausted and in bed, crying like a child. Her positive friendship for Mr. Whitman incurred the displeasure of some of the later friends of Mr. Whitman. Why this was so, I cannot write. Mr. Whitman, in his bad physical condition, for five years previous to his death, was compelled to receive close attentions from persons some of whom he did not otherwise particularly care for. This he confided to one or two of his friends and to Mrs. Davis ; still necessity forced him to submit. Mrs. Davis, perhaps, in, or by some acts, indi cated her knowledge of this fact. Some of these new friends, in their earnest zeal to do Mr. Whitman service, did annoy him, but it was honestly meant. With knowledge of Mr. Whitman s views as to them she may have angered some of the later friends of Mr. Whitman. Some times women are not as tactful in such 252 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. matters as men. Mr. Whitman s friends she never angered. Friends to Mr. Whit man she considered a different class. Be this as it was, "Mary" was Mr. Whit man s constant call while ill, and as the shadow of death crossed over him, faith ful Mary Davis was by him. Great men, or those before the public, have legions of attracted friends, worship, ers, or followers. Mr. Whitman had many such. He had a few all-weather friends. These he held on to with bands of iron. Perhaps it will be best to make the above a little plainer. During the last three or four years of Mr. Whitman s life he was very despond ent, physically, and sometimes mentally. There were two or three gentlemen in Camden, and a couple of ladies, who were attentive to him, and he was quite dependent on one of the gentlemen. It would seem that Mr. Whitman was never quite able to make this gentleman, a well- meaning and sincere man, understand that he desired to be alone about twenty- three hours out of the twenty-four. That he did not understand this was probably MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 253 due to his own neglect to observe. During the last three months of his life he wanted to be let alone, and left alone. After January 1 and to March 26, 1892, when he died, he sent almost constant messages of love and cheer to his friends. Mr. Whitman, the last month or two of his life, asked Mrs. Davis and Mr. Pritzinger, his nurse, to see that no one entered his room but persons whom he asked. This, when conveyed in the third person, angered one or more gentlemen who had been presumably close to Mr. Whitman. They had been very useful to him I personally know, and some feeling against Mrs. Davis and Mr. Frit- zinger was the result. Mr. Whitman did not want to be constantly asked ques tions, and for the month before he died he answered, as a rule, only his nurse, Mrs. Davis, and his physicians. One gentleman was frequently kept in the small room in the rear of Mr. Whitman s bedroom. It was seldom he ever got a look at or talk with Mr. Whitman while he was conscious during the last 254 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. three weeks of his life. Mr. Whitman was thankful and grateful, but his physical condition compelled him to accept services which, had he been stronger, he would have done for him self. He was grateful but not confi dential. He leaned upon himself, Mrs. Davis, and a half dozen old friends, for whom he had. only to "rub the lamp." While I sat in Mrs. Davis chamber with her son, she, worn out, lying on the bed, the night after Mr. Whitman s death, March 27, 1892, we could hear the doctors below talking and chatting while they were making a post-mortem on Mr. Whitman s body. There was a gentle man present with them making notes at every movement. He had been doing this about the house for some days before. He usually carried about with him a tablet and pencil, and down went anything that occurred which he considered sufficiently important to note. He was a zealous, earnest man, who, by reason of youth and inexperience, did not at all times convey, by speech and acts, what he really in tended. This subjected him to criticism, MB. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 255 in many instances undeserved. One day, toward the end of Mr. Whitman s life, the tablet and pencil became fearfully apparent to him. Mr. Whitman inti mated to his nurse that the gentleman should find other employment, while about his house, than standing on the edge of doorways looking and listen ing for last words and last breaths. Orders given to "Warry" and Mrs. Davis to curtail, for periods, at least, the times of bedroom visits, were considered as their interference. The order was Mr. Whitman s. He wanted rest. During his sleepless nights he had apparitions of seeing a last-word and last-breath chron icler in the edge of the doorway, under the bed, or behind the stove. Those who have had experience with very sick per sons, indisposed to sleep, or have been that way themselves, can easily imagine how a diseased or worn mind would easily pick out some object, or event, which would become a nightmare. This " tab let" in Mr. Whitman s mind became por tentous. It threatened to fall upon and smother him. He was always, in the 256 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. half-awake moments of the last few weeks of his life, dodging it. One day, when of unusually clear and lucid mind, he asked Warry what the discussion was outside his chamber door. Warry replied : "Oh, that s Mr. - - talking about the non- arrival of some flowers from New York." "Oh!" said Mr. Whitman, rising, "Oh, he be - -!" Those about the Whitman house thought that Mr. Whit man imagined that the tablet or writing pad was falling on him, as he was dying, and to avert it he tried to pull the rope above his head to ring the bell for help. Mrs. Davis was much opposed to the post-mortem on Mr. Whitman s body. Of course, she had no legal right to object. Mrs. George Whitman was consulted as to this and, it was understood, consented. Mrs. Davis had the impression that the post-mortem was chiefly for curiosity, or for a news item for the papers, or for a book. She thought that, as he was dead, after years of suffering and the cause of it so well known, he ought to be permitted to be buried in peace. During tlie post mortem below (it was in the back parlor), ME. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 257 I detected the odor of a fearful pipe. It might have been from the street, and it might not have been. Mr. Whitman was not smoking, I was sure. Still, everyone to his trade. Doctors in the interest of humanity carve and cut human bodies as butchers do meat, and it becomes a matter- of-fact, indifferent matter. Of the physi cians who attended Mr. Whitman for years, not one ever presented a bill. Among them was Dr. Wm. Osier, Dr. Daniel Longaker of Philadelphia, and Dr. Alexander McAlister of Camden. The two last named attended him during his fatal sickness. He was grateful to them and they were kind to him. Mr. Whitman was a philosopher if contemplation of death was a cheerful duty, and preparation for it as well. He always had it in mind, and chatted about it at times to me as freely as about other matters One winter night, late in 1889, I called upon him with a friend. He was sitting by the stove with his hat on in his bed room upstairs; over his legs was thrown a blanket. The light on the table, near 258 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Sit hand, was a gas drop-light, with an argand burner with a chipped glass- tophanging at an angle of 10 to its holder. It was queer looking, and seemed to me on the point of dropping. " Let her alone, Tom, let her alone ! She s been that way for some months. Old things and old friends are best ! " I am not sure but what it was Christmas night, 1889. He was cheerful, but said that he was cold and chilly, that he had been out riding during the day to a rural spot and picked out his grave. Well, I replied, "cheerful occupation, eh!" "Yes, yes ; still we must get ready. But, I am not going to die yet a while, only getting the case ready for this old hulk. I am offered any location I like. I have picked out a bit of a hill, with a southern expo sure, among the trees. I like to be with the trees. The name of the cemetery is Harleigh not a pretty name ! A family name, I believe, and of the persons who once owned the land. Yes, I think I have selected a comfortable grave." This was all said with a twinkle of humor and in a cheerful manner. MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 259 He seemed intent, as given in one con versation, upon building a tomb in which should be placed his entire family ; posi tively, his father and mother. I sug gested that, if so, then their bodies had best be moved during his lifetime. " But the vault will not be ready." Mr. Whit man had a friend get up the plan of the vault and then let the contract for its erection. After his death, one of his ex ecutors, Mr. Thomas B. Harned, forced the contractor to reduce the bill, which was said to be very exorbitant. This also proved Mr. Whitman s oft-repeated re mark as to the growing shrewdness of American tradesmen, verging on "ram pant dishonesty, and that they would soon consider even robbing the dead to be a virtue ; that haste to get rich was with some of them warrant for all acts, dis honest or otherwise." Mr. Whitman s last illness was terrible in the misery it entailed on him. How hard the Anglo-Saxon dies ! I received word December 19, 1891, that Mr. Whitman wanted to see me others of his friends were desirous of seeing 260 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. him, but were denied. I made a minute of this visit to him, at once after I left him ; all of the interview is not given : PHILADELPHIA, PA., December 20, 1891. Went over to Camden to-night and arrived at Walt Whitman s house about twenty minutes before seven o clock. The door was ajar and I walked into the hallway unannounced. I did not ring the bell, for fear it might disturb him. Mrs. Davis came out of the parlor when she heard my footsteps and said, u How strange ! I was this minute thinking of you." In answer to my inquiry she said that Mr. Whitman was apparently sinking fast arid the two physicians had told her, about half -past five, that he might live four days; but it hardly seemed probable, as his right lung was about solid and the left one was involved; in fact, his whole system was going fast. Mr. Whitman, she said, had not seen any person except the phy sicians and Warren, her son (his nurse), and her self for three days. He had ordered her to permit no one else to see him; " but he wants to see you," she added, "and left word that when you came to admit you at once. So, come right upstairs." I led the way, and she followed, crying and sobbing as we went up the stairway. I entered his room in the second story through the small door of the back bedroom. Mrs. Davis preceded me here and, MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 261 walking to the foot of his bed, the head of which was against the west wall of the room, said, Mr. Whitman, Mr. Donaldson is here." He spoke up quickly and said, " Who ? " and she replied, "Mr. Donaldson. " Mr. Whitman reached out his right hand, said, "Oh, it s Tom! How are you, anyway? " "Pretty well," I answered, "but what a strong voice you have. I supposed from what I heard that you were very ill." " I am," he replied. "Turn up the light at the left of the bed and sit down in that rocking chair." I did as he directed and under the strong flame of the drop light obtained a good look at him. He was lying upon his back, and breathing with great difficulty. His throat was choked with phlegm and his efforts to raise it were painful. He lay with his eyes open, and looked so small that one could not imagine that he was the Walt Whitman of old. He had fallen away from two hundred pounds in weight to about one hundred and forty. His voice was strong and clear : after speaking a few words he would rest, and then begin the conversation again. When I would speak to him he would rouse himself up as if from a sleep and answer, and then speak out with vigor. His mind was clear, and never a thought muddled. His sense of hearing seemed to have increased, for he heard everything that went on in or about the house. The high color on his cheeks was as pronounced as usual, and his long white hair and beard, streaming over his face, shoulders, and breast, made him more pic- 262 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. turesque than ever. His lost flesh made the Gre cian form of his nose more apparent, increased the strength of his head, and made his resemblance to Tennyson s portrait more marked than ever before. The room as usual contained an immense amount of poetic litter, newspapers, manuscripts, and books. The small stove on the east side of the room was kept well fired up with small pine and oak wood, and just in front of it lay several arm- fuls of bright fresh pine. I sat in a comfortable cane-bottomed rocking chair, to the left of the head of the bed, with a round center-table between me and the window. On this was a drop-light with an argand burner. Mr. Whitman s gray hat, a broad-rimmed felt slouch, lay on a table in front of me, together with a pile of books. To the right of the bed against the west wall was a trunk ; on the top of this sat a bottle of whisky, a bottle of cologne (often referred to, which I had sent him), an old-fashioned stoneware mug, with a spoon, a brass candlestick, with a candle and matches. Near the head of the bed was his cane, with which he used to pound upon the floor to attract attention when he wanted anything. This man is the most peculiar person I ever knew. While he delighted in the companionship of men and children, and sometimes women, he seemed to have two selves, and found more delight apparently in hours of entire loneliness, in which he seemed in thought to be away from earth and all its surroundings and with his other self; what MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 263 his thoughts were while in this condition, if any, no one could fathom. As I sat watching him, breathing heavily, and holding on to and parting with life at the same time, his whole life work, history, and results passed in review. This man would have made a great business man ; cunning, shrewd, and upright, he would have been a masterful man in commerce. One thing which he possessed might have militated against this, however : he was strictly honest. As the moments lengthened and his slight hold on life became more apparent to me, the thought arose, will this man have a place in history, literature, or in the affairs of men ? and the answer came involun tarily, Yes, a decided and a positive one, from any and every point of view. His simplicity of life, his strength of character, his positive opinion, and the continuity of his work, will make him an integer, not a cipher, in the future literature of the Republic. After a time he turned his head around and, continuing my greeting of five minutes before: "Well, two doctors have just been here, and examined me, and say this is the end, and I think so. My systen) is about gone, and my lungs, as you see, are involved ;" and after a pause he said, " How are your wife and children, the boy and the girls ? " After telling him that they sent him their love and that they were pretty well, "Give them my love; I always recall them with affection." After a talk which concerned ourselves he continued, " And now tell me, what 264 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. have you been doing lately ; on the Indians still ? " I detailed about the Indian bulletins that I was preparing for the Census and the final report, to which he added, "Oh, sort of a supplemental work to your Catlin." Then he paused, arid closed his eyes a bit. I thought he was sleeping, when after a long pause he spoke up sharply and quickly, " Indians ! I suppose we are never to get rid of that word. I suppose it is so engrafted on the language that it never can be gotten rid of. It s all wrong ; they deserve a better name ; they got the name Indians from the fact that Columbus and Americus Vespucius and other early naviga tors supposed they were sailing to some portions of the Indies and so called the aborigines Indians. It is as much a misnomer as the word American. These people deserved a higher, a more distinct and a more meaning name, one relating to their aboriginal or pre-Columbian times, one which would be significant that they were the possessors and owners of the continent prior to the advent of the Europeans." Then another three-minute pause. He looked around at me, and I mentioned the fact that a few days before I had been in the office of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, in New York, and that the colonel had read to me from a new edition of " Leaves of Grass," dated 1892, a poem which he admired very much. Mr. Whit man quickly asked, " Which one was it ? " " The one to your mother." He drew a long sigh and said, "Ah!" "Colonel Ingersoll seemed to think that three or four of your poems contained MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 265 the philosophy of your work." Here he relapsed into the quiet state again. I sat still and watched him closely. He placed his left arm above his head as if to keep the reflection of the light out, and breathed slowly and heavily. After a time he spoke up as one would who had returned from a long journey, and as if the subject was just new, said : " After all I suspect every fellow knows all about my work; he does if he only would think he did." This gave me an opportunity. "You know I intend to write about you and your poetry, and I suppose I know as much about you as anybody else." "Yes," he answered promptly, " surely you do, and I guess you understand my work as well as anybody else. I have just done my work because I believed in it. My method has been to let it come, and not curb it or draw the rein too tight. There is no secret in it or about it. So I guess you understand it as well as anyone, or as I do. When I was a boy I frequented the theaters, and once I saw a long five-act drama, quite bloody and fierce and with much expectation. The leading character was a prodigiously quaint old fellow who lugged a secret around with him. It was in a pack on his back, and some who ex pected to be heirs watched this secret with eager ness. One day the old fellow died, and lo ! the pack contained no secret. And this is my work ; there is no secret about, or in it. Some think there is and so some are expectant and have been so, but there is none." Then he dropped off again into quietude. I 266 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. watched him for a time and then slowly arose in my chair and turned the light down a bit, He was watching me all the time, or knew my move ments. "So," he said, "you are going. Well, give my love to yours," and as I walked around the bed to the south side of it, he reached out his right hand. It was dry and heated, and holding mine in it with a firm grasp, he said slowly: "Give my love and best remembrance to all friends in New York, Philadelphia, and Washing ton." I replied that I would, and as I dropped his hand, said : "Now, Mr. Whitman, if there is anything you need or want from a needle to an anchor, command us and it s yours." "Thank you, I know that, Tom, and so good-by." " No, I won t say good-by, I will say good-night, and don t forget me." " As you like," he answered. " Please close the door a bit when you go out, and good night again." I passed through the door, never to hear his voice again. It was the same hearty and manly voice when I left him forever, that I had heard for many years. And so I passed down stairs and out, after bidding Mrs. Davis good night. All through the period from December, 1891, to March 26, 1892, the day of his death, I was advised of Mr. Whitman s condition. His desire to be alone was always uppermost in the minds of those whom he called his friends, so they kept MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 267 away from him ; they were informed by the constant Mary Davis of his condition. All knew that his end was a matter of a few weeks at most, and as he slowly lingered they patiently waited the end. I was the last person Mr. Whitman spoke of before his death. I had written Mary Davis, at Camden, I think, the morning of Mr. Whitman s death, i. e., Saturday, March 26, 1892, asking if any thing could be done for his comfort, and if so, to command it. In a reply to this she answered me, not thinking Mr. Whit man was then within three hours of death: AT HOME, 3 P. M., Saturday, March 26, 1892. DEAR MR. DONALDSON : Mr. W. is slowly but surely slipping away from us ; is very weak, helpless, and restless. Some of his friends bought a water bed for him. He has been on it since Thursday midnight and he seems more comfortable. The last twenty-four hours that he was on the hair mattress he was turned sixty-four times, thirty-one times during Warren s watch, which is from 11 P. M. to 11 A. M., and thirty-three times in mine, which is from 11 A. M. to 11 P. M. daily. I read your letter to him just now. He smiled and said: "Oh! he s a dear good fellow." 268 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. This letter was written at 3 p. M. Mr. Whitman died at 6.43 P. M. of the same day. There was a most pathetic incident con nected with Mr. Whitman s death. It was related to me by "Warry" Fritzinger, his nurse. Warry had arranged a rope above Mr. Whitman s head, in the bed, which was attached to a bell below. He would pull this rope, after he became weak, and thus ring the bell to attract attention. Prior to this time, he had used his heavy cane to pound the floor with. This brought assistance at once. Just before he died, as the great change came over him he was conscious that it was a great change, a something unusual (Mrs. Davis and Warry were by his side), he seemed as if groping for some thing. Death had called for him, and as the call came he attempted to reach above his head with one of his hands and arm and feel for the rope, as if to call for help. In an instant the arm dropped and soon he was dead. There were present at Mr. Whitman s death Mrs. Mary 0- Davis, on whom MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 269 the charge of Mr. Whitman had rested for his entire illness, and Warren ("Warry") Fritzinger, her son and the favorite nurse. He received the last words of the dying man. Dr. Alexander McAlister, the attending physician : Thomas B. Earned, a friend and a true one ; and Mr. Horace L. Trau- bel, were also present. They were hastily summoned by Mrs. Davis when the end seemed at hand. Mr. Horace L. Traubel is a young gen tleman of Camden, with literary standing, who attached himself to Mr. Whitman a few years before his death and remained faithful to the end. He did a vast amount of work for Mr. Whitman in all fields, and without fee or reward. He deserves the sincere thanks of Mr. Whitman s friends for his self-sacrificing spirit in this connection. The post-mortem on the body of Mr. Whitman, held by Professor Henry W. Cattell, in the presence of Dr. Daniel Longaker, Professor F. X. Dercum, and Dr. Alexander McAlister, at Mr. Whitman s house on the evening of March 27, 1892, showed that Mr. Whitman s 270 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. death was due to Pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis, and paren- chymatous nephritis," any one of which would have probably killed an ordinary man of Mr. Whitman s age. I was a pall-bearer at the funeral of Walt Whitman, March 31, 1892. He had requested it. On my road to Mr. Whitman s, house, where the services were called for 2 P. M. the body was viewed from 11 A. M. to 2 p. M. I met Mr. and Mrs. E. Gr. Ingersoll in a coupe on the Jersey side of the Market Street Ferry about one o clock, stranded. The coupe driver from Philadelphia did not know a street in Camden. Colonel Ingersoll hailed me from the cab window and asked me to tell him the way to Whitman s. He was just from a long journey. I think he had been at Rochester or Syracuse the day before, and looked tired. I directed him to the house and he drove on. I reached the Whitman house, No. 328 Mickle Street, about the time that Colonel Ingersoll did. We entered together. The house was crowded. Mrs. Ingersoll stood MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 271 near me in the small hallway on the west side of the house. I called her attention to Mr. Whitman s calm look as the light streamed in from a near window and over his face. She called to the colonel by a beck and he came to us. "Don t you want to see him, Robert?" "No, I do not." I said, " Come, I will go in with you." So he and I walked into the small back parlor where Mr. Whitman lay, dressed in gray and with his head to the south. Some three lots of flowers lay on the oak coffin, which exposed him to his waist. Colonel Ingersoll looked at him a moment and then turned his head away. Just as he did so a head passed between us, and Moncure D. Conway said: "How Rembrandt would have liked to have painted that face ! " It was a picturesque one and not at all disagreeable in color or features. George Whitman, his brother, stood opposite the coffin, and when the call was made by the funeral director for the friends, he leaned over the casket and kissed Walt Whitman s head a dozen times. Mrs. Whitman, his wife, was 272 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. much affected, but poor Mrs. Davis, the housekeeper, showed the most grief and pain. There was very little curiosity shown by the persons in the house. The two pall-bearers at the head of the coffin were J. H. Stoddart and Julius Chambers. The pall-bearers, honorary and active (six acted as active pall-carriers), as announced, were George W. Childs, Julian Haw thorne, Robert G. Ingersoll, Horace Howard Furness, Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, John Burroughs, Lincoln L. Eyre, J. H. Johnston, N. Y., J. H. Stoddart, Francis Howard Williams, Dr. R. M. Bucke, Talcott Williams, T. B. Harned, Horace L. Traubel, Judge Charles G. Gar rison, H. L. Bonsall, Rev. J. H. Clifford, Harrison S. Morris, Richard W. Gilder, H. D. Bush, Julius Chambers, Thomas Eakins, Hon. A. G. Cattell, Ed mund Clarence Stedman, David McKay, and Thomas Donaldson. The cemetery was about two miles from the house. There was nothing remarkable at the cemetery except the very large concourse of well-behaved and well-dressed people. A tent had been erected (its sides or walls MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 273 were up) in anticipation of rain. This was about five hundred feet from the Whitman tomb, and under it the speaking was had. The rain did not come, but instead a lovely day one Walt Whitman would have enjoyed. A platform at the south end of the tent contained four chairs and a table. These chairs were occupied by Dr. D. G. Brinton, Francis Howard Williams, Thomas B. Earned, and Dr. R. M. Bucke, all of whom took some part in the exercises. Faithful John Bur roughs was also near by. A few ferns and palms, grouped about the platform, com pleted the floral display. Chairs were placed for the ladies. Mr. Whitman lay with his head to the south and close to the platform. In the tent there was given a curiously made-up programme of ceremo nies a variety of quotations and oratory. There was no music or singing, only read ing and speaking. Francis Howard Wil liams acted as reader, and opened the funeral ceremonies by reading from Mr. Whitman on " Death." Then Mr. Har- ned read his paper. Mr. Williams fol lowed, reading extracts from Confucius, 274 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. Gautama, and Jesus Christ. Next Dr. Brinton, and Mr. Williams again, with readings from the Koran, Isaiah, and John. Dr. Bucke read his paper on Mr. Whitman. Mr. Williams then read from the Zend-Avesta and Plato. Colonel In- gersoll followed, and this closed the cere monies. The ceremony had the fault of being obnoxious to the criticism that it might seem to be gotten up to meet the humors of certain local people. I am inclined to think that Mr. Harned made the most practical of the addresses. Dr. Brinton s was also good. Colonel Inger- soll, it seemed to me, started on too high a plane, by saying, "The most eminent citizen of the Republic." He could have said with truth, "One of the most emi nent men, in letters, of the Republic." He spoke without notes ; the others read from type-written memoranda. He was earnest, and his eyes filled, while his voice broke several times. Of course his man ner, oratory, and splendid rhetoric made the contrast between himself and the others painful. The ceremonies were short less than an hour and a quarter. When MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 275 Mr. Whitman s body, preceded by the pall-bearers, was taken from the tent and to the vault along a people-lined path, the honorary pall-bearers formed in two lines in front of its door and the body passed through and was placed in the niche inside by the undertaker s men. Colonel Ingersoll stood by me and near the door. He peeped in with a curious expression on his face. I spoke to him, and said : " Well, it s the last of our old friend." "Yes," he softly replied, as he turned to leave, and I noticed that his eyes were running with tears. The vault was hardly completed, and looked small inside. At 4 p. M. we were back in Philadelphia. The multitude who at tended the funeral did not injure or destroy one leaf in Harleigh Cemetery. While restlessly walking (the night of Mr. Whitman s funeral) under the stars, who were his friends, and whom he loved, the thought came : Does such a life and personality end when the curtain is rung down ? Are .the earthly surround ings which he left all that is to be ? With this thought came the other : Why are we 276 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. not satisfied with, the visible results and life work of such a man, without attempt ing to lift the lid and look into the casket of mystery which may or may not hold the transplanted germ of life ? Thought is immortal. Good or evil, it finds ceaseless repetition and con stant reiteration, and will as long as the mind shall exist. Why query at all ? for who would be happier were all known ? Is it not best that we do not know ? Then came the thought as to the man Whit man and his works. Mr. Whitman did his work within the bounds of his capac ity. His limitations were natural. He could not reach beyond his allotted scope. Possessed of the genius of true poesy, he curbed his verse and checked his rhyme, as he believed, the better to convey his thoughts. He fought his battle on clear points. His base was level. His literary work, in his view, was honestly done and had Hope and Faith for its background, and was intended as a lesson for and of life. He was a pioneer over some rough and untrodden paths, and a few persons made his journey rougher than was neces- MR. WHITMAN S LAST ILLNESS. 277 sary. He appreciated friendship and valued love. His heart was as broad as his literary aims. He sang for love, duty, good cheer, and the dignity of manhood, and above all exhorted self-reliance on a moral basis. He was honest, just, and brave. He was a misfit in character and opinions held to many whose depth of lit erary appreciation is in the mere name of an author, and his method was decried merely as a fad by some bland and mag nesia-like critics who did not honestly differ with him, and who could not look without shading their eyes to the altitude where he lived and labored. He was a singular and rugged type of vigor, pre science, and expression. He did not dis honor, while his life was devoted to the welfare of his fellows. All my reflections as to him bring pleasant memories and awaken kindly thoughts. No sorrow came to me at his departure ; instead, gladness. Gladness that he had passed out from the pain and ills of his wretched body and that his spirit dwelleth with the blessed. Greater men have passed over ; more heroic deaths have been noted 278 WALT WHITMAN, THE MAN. and placed men and women with the world s immortals, but when Mr. Whit man s great soul was unchained from earth, there left us a kindly, earnest, and lovable nature that always did its level best for man and his cause. As his spirit passed through the archway of silence, let us hope that congenial souls became happy in anticipation of its comradeship. He was human and with human frailties, but his purposes were pure and his life s object noble. With an ivy wreath there lay on Mr. Whitman s coffin this : W. W. Good-by, Walt ! Good-by, from all you loved of earth Rock, tree, dumb creature, man and woman To you, their comrade human, The last assault Ends now ; and now in some great world has birth A minstrel, whose strong soul finds broader wings, More brave imaginings. Stars crown the hilltop where your dust shall lie ; Even as we say good-by ; Good-by, old Walt ! EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. 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