r. T 
 
 JOHN JOHNSTON, M.D, 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
 T 7 ;> 
 
 
Jf 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^^c 
 
WALT WHITMAN. 
 
THE LABOUR PKKSS LTD., PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS, 
 ARKWRIGHT MILLS, MILLER ST., MANCHESTER. 
 
All rights reserved. 
 
DIARY NOTES OF 
 
 VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 AND SOUK OF HIS 1- HI ENDS, 
 IN 18<)0. 
 
 WITH A S E R 1 E S (.) F OR I ( . I N A I. PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN JOHNSTON, M.D. 
 
 HONORARY SUR(,KON TO KOLTON INFIRMARY. 
 AUTHOR OF " MUSA MEDICA." 
 
 MANCHESTER: 
 
 T H K L A B O T K P R K S S LIMIT 1C D , 
 ARKWRIC.HT MILLS, MILLKR STRKET. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE "CLARION" OFFICE, 77, FLF.KT STREET. 
 
 5898. 
 
WALLAC1 
 
 "SOMETHING FOR A TOKEN 
 
 196440 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following Notes, extracted from a 
 Diary record of a visit to America, in 
 July, 1890, were written at the time, 
 mainly for a small group of friends, 
 referred to as " The Eagle Street 
 College," and without any idea of 
 publication. 
 
 They were afterwards printed in 
 pamphlet form, for private circulation, 
 and a copy having been sent to Walt 
 Whitman, he not only endorsed them, 
 but requested that copies should be 
 sent to a large number of his friends. 
 (See letter on page 147). 
 
 Their reception among these and 
 others interested in Whitman having been 
 so favourable, and requests for copies 
 so frequently coming to hand, it is 
 
 XI. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 now decided to give them complete 
 publication, with the addition of some 
 of the photographs taken during the 
 visit. 
 
 It has also been thought best to 
 let them go as they were originally 
 written ; so that, whatever they may 
 lack in literary form, they may present, 
 in the most direct and perfect manner 
 possible, the actual impressions of the 
 time. 
 
 In this way, it is hoped that they 
 will preserve a certain life-likeness 
 which might otherwise be lost. And, 
 anyhow, it is the method which 
 Whitman himself approved, as will be 
 seen by the following. On January gth, 
 
 1891, he wrote to me : 
 
 "Next time you write give me a list of 
 whom you have sent the Notes to. (I think 
 you have builded better than you knew.)" 
 
 At the celebration of his seventy- second 
 birthday at Camden, N.J., on May 3ist, 
 
 xii. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 1891, a handsomely bound and illustrated 
 copy of the pamphlet, with illuminated 
 inscription, was presented to him from me, 
 whereupon he said : 
 
 "Say, you fellows, who dabble in the bigger 
 streams of literature, there is a splendid lesson 
 that such notes as these of Dr. Johnston teach. 
 It is the same lesson that there is in the play 
 of the Diplomatic Secret. At the end of 
 that interesting play, which I have seen, a 
 great fellow who is in pursuit of it comes in, 
 crying, At last I have found it I have found 
 the Great Secret ! The Great Secret is that 
 there is no secret at all! That is the secret. 
 The trick of literary style! I almost wonder 
 if it is not chiefly having no style at all. And 
 Dr. Johnston has struck it here in these Notes. 
 A man might give his fame for such a secret." 
 
 Later on, during the same evening, 
 referring to the same subject, he said : 
 
 " Who can doubt the Doctor s American 
 reports ? Even those who doubt me, doubt 
 the Leaves, ought to see how superbly the 
 Doctor handled his material or let it handle 
 itself." 
 
 J- J- 
 
 Bolt on, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 FIRST INTERVIEW 
 
 SECOND ,, 45 
 
 THIRD 6 9 
 
 FOURTH 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES . . 9 
 
 VISIT TO BROOKLYN 
 
 Andrew H. Rome John Y. Baulsir 93 
 
 VISIT TO WEST HILLS 
 
 Sandford Brown I0 5 
 
 VISIT TO HERHERT GILCHRIST 
 
 VISIT TO JOHN BURROUGHS 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES .... T 4 f) 
 
INDEX TO PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Frontispiece . . . . . . - . 6 
 
 Mickle Street, Camden, X.J 
 
 Walt Whitman s Room 
 
 Walt Whitman s House . . facing page 
 
 Walt Whitman on Camden Wharf 
 
 Walt Whitman and Warry Fritzinger on Camden Wharf 
 
 Interior of Downstairs Room in Whitman s House, .facing page 68 
 
 The " Fulton " Ferry Boat . . . . . . . . 97 
 
 West Hills, Long Island Whitman s Birthplace . . 103 
 
 John Burroughs .. .. .. .. .. 123 
 
 Interior of John Burroughs Study . . . . 135 
 
 Reduced Facsimile of Portion of Whitman s Letter . . 147 
 
OF TH 
 
 UWVER 
 
 OF 
 
 A Visit to 
 Walt Whitman 
 
 On Tuesday, July i5th, 1890, I 
 landed at Philadelphia "the city 
 of brotherly love," and after 
 getting through the troublesome 
 Customs, I called at the post-office, 
 where I found a letter from Mr. 
 Andrew H. Rome, of Brooklyn, 
 inviting me to go and stay with 
 him, and enclosing a letter of 
 introduction to Walt Whitman. 
 Crossing the ferry by the ferry-boat 
 Delaware, I arrived at Camden, 
 putting up at the " West Jersey" 
 Hotel, and about noon I walked 
 down to Mickle-street, which I 
 
 My Arrival 
 
 at 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Mickle Street, found to be a quiet and retired 
 Camden. & id e street, grass-grown on the 
 
 roadway and side walks, and 
 ornamented with two rows of 
 large and graceful, leafy trees, 
 which give it quite a pleasant, 
 breezy, semi-rural appearance. 
 The houses are, for the most part, 
 quaint, half-timbered structures, 
 painted different low-toned colours, 
 and of various heights and outlines. 
 Number 328 which, by the 
 way, is duplicated next door is 
 an unpretentious, two-storied 
 building, with four wooden steps 
 to the front door, on which is a 
 small brass plate engraved " W. 
 Whitman." I rang the bell, and 
 the vestibule door was opened by 
 a fine young nautical-looking man, 
 of whom I enquired if Walt 
 Whitman was at home. On his 
 answering " Yes, 1 I gave him my 
 
 18 
 
ig 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 card, and was shown into a room 
 on the left side of the lobby a 
 sort of parlour, with the blinds 
 three-parts closed against the heat. 
 The young man informed me that 
 " Mr. Whitman \vas pretty well, 
 but had been rather sick." He 
 " would see if he would receive 
 me." He returned almost im 
 mediately, and asked me to "go 
 right upstairs, turn to the left, and 
 go straight in." 
 
 I did so, and before I got to the My First 
 room I heard a voice from within Interview. 
 calling, "Come in, Doctor! Come 
 right in !" and in another moment 
 I was in, and saw Walt Whitman 
 seated. Stretching forth his right 
 hand as far as he could reach, he 
 grasped mine with a firm, affec 
 tionate grip, saying, l Glad to see 
 you. I ve been expecting you. 
 Sit down." 
 
 21 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 I did so, and his next words 
 were, " And how are you ? " To 
 which I replied, and he continued, 
 " You find it very warm in these 
 parts, don t you ? Strangers often 
 find it uncomfortably so, but I just 
 resign myself to it, and take things 
 quite easy, and I get along pretty 
 well during the hot spell. So 
 you ve been travelling about our 
 States, have you ? 
 
 " No," I said, " I only landed 
 in Philadelphia this morning." 
 
 " Ah, I am confounding you 
 with another friend of mine." 
 
 And so he talked on in the most 
 genial, natural, and affable manner 
 for a few minutes, until I said, 
 11 But I m forgetting my letter of 
 introduction, and my commission." 
 This gave me the opportunity of 
 changing my seat from facing the 
 light to a place by the window, 
 
 22 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 where I could see him better. I 
 then handed him Mr. Rome s 
 letter, and while he was reading 
 it I took a look at him and his 
 surroundings. 
 
 The first thing about himself Walt 
 that struck me was the physical Whitmans 
 immensity and magnificent propor- Appearance. 
 tions of the man, and, next, the 
 picturesque majesty of his presence 
 as a whole. 
 
 He sat quite erect in a great 
 cane-runged chair, cross-legged, 
 with slippers on his feet, and 
 clad in rough, grey clothes, and a 
 shirt of pure white linen, with a 
 great wide collar edged with white 
 lace, the shirt buttoned about 
 midway down his breast, the big 
 lapels of the collar thrown open, 
 the points touching his shoulders, 
 and exposing the upper portion of 
 his hirsute chest. He wore a vest 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 of grey homespun, but it was 
 unbuttoned almost to the bottom. 
 He had no coat on, and his shirt 
 sleeves were turned up above the 
 elbows, exposing most beautifully 
 shaped arms, and flesh of the most 
 delicate whiteness. Although it 
 was so hot, he did not perspire 
 visibly, while I had to keep 
 mopping my face. His hands are 
 large and massive, but in perfect 
 proportion to the arms; the fingers 
 long, strong, white, and tapering 
 to a blunt end. His nails are 
 square, showing about an eighth 
 of an inch separate from the flesh. 
 But his majesty is concentrated 
 in his head, which is set with 
 leonine grace and dignity upon 
 his broad, square shoulders ; and 
 it is almost entirely covered with 
 long, fine, straggling hair, silvery 
 and glistening, pure and white as 
 
 24 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 sunlit snow, rather thin on the 
 top of his high, rounded crown, 
 streaming over and around his 
 large but delicately-shaped ears, 
 down the back of his big neck, 
 and from his pinky-white cheeks 
 and top lip over the lower part 
 of his face, right down to the 
 middle of his chest ; like a cataract 
 of materialised, white, glistening 
 vapour, giving him a most vener 
 able and patriarchal appearance. 
 His high, massive forehead is 
 seamed with wrinkles. His nose 
 is large, strong, broad, and pro 
 minent, but beautifully chiselled 
 and proportioned, almost straight, 
 very slightly depressed at the tip, 
 and with deep furrows on each 
 side running down to the angles 
 of the mouth. The eyebrows are 
 thick and shaggy with strong white 
 hair, very highly arched, and 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 they stand a long way above the 
 eyes, which are of a light blue with 
 a tinge of grey, small, rather 
 deeply set, calm, clear, penetrat 
 ing, and revealing unfathomable 
 depths of tenderness, kindness, and 
 sympathy. The upper eyelids 
 droop considerably over the eye 
 balls, the left rather more than 
 the right. The full lips are 
 partly hidden by the thick, white 
 moustache. The whole face 
 impresses one with a sense of 
 resoluteness, strength, and intel 
 lectual power, and yet withal, it 
 evinces a winning sweetness, un 
 conquerable radiance, and hopeful 
 joyousness. His voice is highly 
 pitched and musical, with a timbre 
 which is astonishing in an old 
 man. There is none of the usual 
 senile tremor, quaver, or shrillness, 
 his utterance being clear, ringing, 
 
 26 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 and most sweetly musical. 
 
 But it was not in any one of 
 
 J 
 
 these features that his charm lay 
 so much as in his tout ensemble and 
 the irresistible magnetism of his 
 sweet, aromatic presence, which 
 seemed to exhale sanity, purity, 
 and naturalness, and exercised 
 over me an attraction which posi 
 tively astonished me, producing an 
 exaltation of mind and soul which 
 no man s presence ever did before. 
 I felt that I was here face to face 
 with the living embodiment of all 
 that was good, noble, and lovable 
 in humanity 
 
 Before I refer to his talk with His 
 me, I may say a word about his Surroundings. 
 surroundings, which were unique. 
 All around him were books, manu 
 scripts, letters, papers, magazines, 
 parcels tied up with bits of string, 
 photographs, and literary materiel, 
 
 27 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 which was piled on the table a yard 
 high, filled two or three waste- 
 paper baskets, flowed over them 
 on to the floor, beneath the table, 
 on to and under the chairs, bed, 
 wash-stand, etc., so that whenever 
 he moved from his chair he had 
 literally to wade through this sea 
 of chaotic disorder and confusion. 
 And yet it was no disorder to him, 
 for he knew where to lay his hands 
 upon whatever he wanted, in a few 
 moments. 
 
 His apartment is roomy, almost 
 square, with three windows one 
 blinded up facing the north. 
 The boarded floor is partly car 
 peted, and on the east side stands 
 an iron stove with stove pipe partly 
 in the room. On the top of the 
 stove is a little tin mug. Op 
 posite the stove is a large wooden 
 bedstead, over the head of which 
 
 28 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 hang portraits of his father and 
 mother. Near the bed, under the 
 blinded-up window, is the wash- 
 stand, a plain wooden one, with a 
 white wash-jug and basin. There 
 are two large tables in the room, 
 one between the stove and the 
 window, and one between that 
 and the wash-stand. Both of 
 these are piled up with all sorts 
 of papers, scissorings, magazines, 
 proof-sheets, books, etc., etc. Some 
 big boxes and a few chairs complete 
 the furniture. On the walls, and 
 on the mantel piece, are pinned or 
 tacked various pictures and 
 photographs Osceola, Dr. Bucke, 
 Professor Rudolph Schmidt, etc., 
 etc. 
 
 He himself sits between the two 
 windows, with his back to the 
 stove, in the huge cane chair,* 
 
 * -since described by himself in a letter to me as 
 " the big, rattan, heavy-timbered, old yellow chair "- 
 
 3 1 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 which was a Christmas present 
 from the children of Mr. Donald 
 son, of Philadelphia, and was 
 specially made for him. 
 
 Raising his head from Mr. 
 Rome s letter, which he read with 
 the aid of a folding vulcanite- 
 rimmed pince-nez, he said : 
 
 His Talk. " Oh, Doctor, you did not need 
 
 an introduction to me ; but I am 
 very glad to hear from my old 
 friend Andrew Rome. You know 
 he was my first printer, with his 
 other brothers, and I have a deep 
 regard for them." 
 
 He talked so freely, and so un- 
 constrainedly to me for ever an 
 hour, that I cannot possibly note 
 down all that he said ; and the 
 following are mere scraps of his 
 most intensely interesting talk : 
 
 " That must be a very nice little 
 circle of friends you have at 
 
 3 2 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Bolton." I assented, and he went 
 on " I hope you will tell them 
 how deeply sensible I am of their 
 appreciation and regard for me ; 
 and I should like you to tell all 
 my friends in England whom you 
 come across how grateful I am, 
 not only for their appreciation, but 
 for their more substantial tokens 
 of goodwill. I have sometimes 
 thought of putting my acknow 
 ledgments in print in some form 
 or other. I have already alluded 
 to it, but I feel it deserves more. 
 I have a great many friends in 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
 but most in England. I hope I 
 acknowledged your and Mr. 
 Wallace s communications some 
 of my correspondents are rather 
 remiss, and I do not wish to be on 
 the list of defaulters at all." 
 
 This gave me an opportunity of 
 
 33 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 presenting him with the book and 
 letter which my friend J. W. 
 Wallace had kindly commissioned 
 me to give him. The book was 
 Symonds s " Introduction to the 
 Study of Dante," and while reading 
 the letter he exclaimed : 
 
 " How wonderfully distinctly 
 Mr. Wallace writes ! " 
 
 "Yes," I said, " and he speaks 
 just as distinctly as he writes." 
 
 "Ah, that is one of his charac 
 teristics, then. It is a pleasure to 
 see such beautiful writing. Some 
 times one has to wrestle with 
 handwriting." 
 
 Reading on, he exclaimed, 
 " Have you met Symonds ? " 
 
 "No," I replied. 
 
 " He is a great friend of mine," 
 he continued, " never seen, but 
 often heard from ; and he has 
 given me a good many of his 
 
 34 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 books from time to time. He 
 writes a good deal, and writes 
 well ; and he reads my books." 
 
 Reading further on, he said, 
 " What a wonderful eye Mr. 
 Wallace has for the beauties of 
 external nature the light, the sky, 
 the earth." (This was in re 
 ference to a sentence in J. W. 
 Wallace s letter beginning, " I 
 draft this in the open fields.") 
 " That used to be a kink of mine. 
 Leaves of Grass, was mainly 
 gestated by the sea shore, on the 
 west coast of Long Island, where 
 I was born and brought up. There 
 is a great deal of sea there." 
 
 I here mentioned that I pur 
 posed visiting Long Island and 
 Huntington. " You do ! " he ex 
 claimed, evidently pleased ; " then 
 you must go to West Hills. It is 
 a very picturesque place, and is 
 
 35 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 still occupied by the same family, 
 named Jarvis, that succeeded my 
 father and mother in the farm. 
 It is rather a common name there, 
 and I think it must be a corruption 
 of some old English name." 
 
 " Do you know Gilchrist ? " he 
 then asked. 
 
 " No," I said, " but I have an 
 introduction to him, from Captain 
 Nowell, of the British Prince. I 
 believe he is staying on Long 
 Island." 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " quite 
 close to Huntington. He is 
 located there, and you must go 
 and see him." 
 
 Here I handed him J. W. 
 Wallace s beautiful letter to me 
 the day before my departure. As 
 he read it, he exclaimed, " The 
 dear fellow ! " At one part of it 
 he was visibly aflecled tears 
 
 36 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 standing in his eyes and for a 
 few moments he did not attempt 
 to speak. 
 
 Upon my saying that I intended 
 going to Timber Creek, he said, 
 " That is a place I am very fond 
 of. You must, while there, go 
 and see Mrs. Susan Stafford, at 
 Glendale, three miles from Timber 
 Creek. She is a great friend of 
 mine. Tell her that you have 
 seen me, and that I am still, as I 
 say, holding the fort." 
 
 On my saying that I might call 
 on John Burroughs, he took up 
 his big pen and wrote out the 
 address on one of his envelopes, 
 as well as that of Dr. Bucke, 
 whom he suggested I should visit, 
 if possible. 
 
 "Do you know Robert Inger- His opinion of 
 soil?" he asked me. Ingersoll. 
 
 " Only by repute," I replied. 
 
 37 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 " He was at your banquet, accord 
 ing to the report in the paper you 
 sent me." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " and made a 
 good speech of over an hour long. 
 He lately sent me a copy of one of 
 his books, most beautifully got up. 
 Here it is," handing it to me, and 
 showing me the inscription on the 
 fly-leaf. " He is a wonderful man 
 one of those men who remind me 
 of the ancient Peripatetics, who 
 used to deliver long orations in a 
 manner which few nowadays can. 
 In Ingersoll there are none of the 
 stock tricks of oratory, but it flows 
 from him as freely as water, pure 
 and clear, from a hidden spring 
 which eludes all the investigations 
 of chemistry. It has spontaneity, 
 naturalness, and yet behind it 
 everything." 
 
 But he checked himself, saying, 
 
 38 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 " I m talking too much, and in 
 fringing on the doctor s orders, and 
 I may have to pay for it by some 
 little prostration." 
 
 This led him to again refer to His Health 
 his physical condition, which we and Habits 
 had spoken of at the beginning of 
 the interview. 
 
 " I am fairly well, for me, at 
 present, though I have been sick 
 lately. I live very simply. I had 
 breakfast on bread and honey 
 there s some of the honey up 
 there," pointing to a butter-cooler 
 half buried in the pile of papers 
 on the table. 
 
 On my tasting it, he remarked, 
 " It is in the comb, just as the good 
 friend who lives where the bees 
 make it sends it to me. Isn t it 
 delicious ? You can almost taste 
 the bees, can t you ? Then I m 
 very fond of blackberries and fruits 
 
 39 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 generally. I have two meals a day ; 
 breakfast at half-past nine, and 
 dinner at four o clock. I get out 
 into the open air every day, if 
 possible; my nurse (the young man 
 I had seen downstairs) wheels me 
 out in the cool of the evening, and 
 I get along wonderfully well. My 
 physical functions are fairly regu 
 lar, and my mental faculties are 
 unaffected, except that they are 
 slo\ver than they used to be. The 
 brain has been somehow wounded 
 I don t know the exact physical 
 condition I doubt if even the 
 doctors know but my mentality 
 is still as good as ever, with the 
 exception of its being slower than 
 formerly." 
 
 I here referred to his paralysis. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " my right arm 
 is my best, but I have a good deal 
 of power in my left." 
 
 40 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 He then held it out for me to 
 feel, which I did, and I was sur 
 prised at the wonderful softness 
 and pliancy of the skin, and the 
 firmness and fulness of the 
 muscles beneath. 
 
 As I thought I had stayed long 
 enough I rose to go, when he said : 
 " I wish I could give you some 
 thing. Have I given you my 
 picture ? I suppose so." 
 
 I replied that he had not, 
 and, glancing round, I saw a 
 torn scrap photograph of himself 
 among the pile of papers, and held 
 it towards him. 
 
 "Ah," he said, "that s torn, 
 but if you care to have it you may. 
 I ll write my name on it." 
 
 And, taking up his huge pen, he 
 wrote on it, "Walt Whitman, July 
 1890." 
 
 Before leaving him I happened 
 
 4 1 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 to mention my copy of " Leaves 
 of Grass," whereon he expressed a 
 desire to see it, and asked me to 
 " come again to-morrow," and 
 show it to him, which I consented 
 to do. 
 
 I also mentioned that I had seen 
 a copy of the first edition of 
 " Leaves of Grass " (the thin, 
 quarto copy which Mr. Cuthbert- 
 son, of Annan, has), and that we 
 were anxious to possess it. 
 
 " Why?" he asked. 
 
 II Because," I replied, "we know 
 that the type had been partly set 
 up by your own hand, and the 
 book showed the first inception of 
 your ideas." 
 
 " As to the printing," he said, 
 "that edition was on very little 
 different footing from the others. 
 I always superintended, and some 
 times undertook part of the work 
 
 42 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 myself, as I am a printer, and can 
 use the stick, you know. " 
 
 Shaking hands with him, I came # 
 downstairs and was invited by D ownstairs. 
 Mrs. Davis, the housekeeper, to 
 sit down in the front room, which 
 is less than the one upstairs and 
 is evidently the visitors reception 
 room. The most striking thing 
 about it is the large collection of 
 photographs and portraits that 
 adorn it. Among these I noticed 
 oil paintings of his father, his 
 mother, and himself. The mantel 
 piece is covered with photographs, 
 among which are those of Dr. 
 Bucke, the late Mrs. Gilchrist, 
 Mr. Herbert Gilchrist, and others- 
 Curiously enough, I found a por 
 trait of J. W. Wallace, and a copy 
 of my photograph of Ecclefechan, 
 as well as one of myself, which we 
 sent to him, three years ago. His 
 
 43 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 wheeled chair occupies one corner, 
 and his big house-chair the other. 
 Two statuettes of ex-President 
 Cleveland and a huge head of 
 Elias Hicks stand in separate 
 corners. 
 
 His Household. In the room I found a little 
 coloured girl, Annie Dent, "clean 
 ing Mr. Whitman s wheeled chair," 
 as she said. The young man who 
 wheels him out and attends upon 
 him, and whose name is Frederick 
 Warren Fritzinger - - " Warry," 
 Whitman calls him is a fine- 
 looking young fellow with beauti 
 fully symmetrical features, coal- 
 black eyes and hair, and a quiet, 
 unobtrusive, gentle manner. He 
 is a genuine " sailor boy," as 
 Whitman says. His father was a 
 sea-captain, and he has been most 
 of his time at sea, having been 
 round the world three times. 
 
 44 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Mrs. Davis - - Warry s foster 
 mother and the widow of a 
 sailor who was drowned at sea 
 is an extremely pleasant and 
 comely young "ma am," almost 
 typically American in face and 
 speech, in striking contrast to 
 Warry, who speaks without 
 the least American accent. She 
 has been with Whitman for 
 six years, and Warry about 
 three. They are both evidently 
 very fond of him. During my 
 stay they gave me a good deal of 
 detailed information respecting his 
 habits and mode of life, and were 
 extremely kind to me in many 
 ways. After chatting awhile I 
 bade them good-day and left the 
 house. 
 
 In the evening I had another My Second 
 good hour s talk with Whitman- Interview. 
 an unexpected treat. At 7 p.m. 
 
 45 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 he was wheeled by Warry right 
 past my hotel, according to his 
 custom, down to the wharf, close 
 to the river. As I was waiting 
 about with my camera in the hope 
 of meeting him, he accosted me, 
 and I accompanied them down to 
 the river s edge. As we approached 
 the wharf he exclaimed, " How 
 delicious the air is ! " 
 
 On Camden On the wharf he allowed me to 
 
 photograph himself and Warry, (it 
 was almost dusk and the light 
 unfavourable), after which I sat 
 down on a log of wood beside 
 him, and he talked in the most 
 free and friendly manner for a 
 full hour, facing the golden sunset, 
 with the cool evening breeze 
 blowing around us, the summer 
 lightning playing on our faces, 
 and the ferry boats crossing and 
 re-crossing the Delaware. 
 
 4 6 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Soon a small crowd of boys 
 collected on the wharf edge to fish 
 and talk, which elicited the remark 
 from him that 
 
 " That miserable wretch, the American 
 mayor of this town, has forbidden 
 the boys to bathe in the river. 
 He thinks there is something 
 objectionable in their stripping off 
 their clothes and jumping into the 
 water! " 
 
 In reference to these same boys 
 he afterwards remarked : 
 
 " Have you noticed what fine 
 boys the American boys are ? 
 Their distinguishing feature is 
 their good-naturedness and good 
 temper with each other. You 
 never hear them quarrel, nor even 
 get to high words. Given a 
 chance, and they would develop 
 the heroic and manly, but they 
 will be spoiled by civilization, 
 
 47 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 religion, and the damnable con 
 ventions. Their parents will want 
 them to grow up genteel every 
 body wants to be genteel in 
 America and thus their heroic 
 qualities will be simply crushed 
 out of them." 
 
 His Talk on Among his other remarks were 
 
 the Wharf. something like the following : 
 
 Referring to his services during 
 the war, he said that the memories 
 of the American people were 
 " very evanescent." " I daresay 
 you find the same thing in Eng 
 land " this without the slightest 
 tinge of resentment or ill-feeling 
 in his words ; in fadl, I never 
 heard him express an angry feeling 
 except when he referred to the 
 mayor s aclion in reference to the 
 boys, and to the influences which 
 he knew would spoil them for 
 men. 
 
 48 
 

 WALT WHITMAN ON CAMDEN WHARF. 
 
 49 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 The great hope of the America 
 of the future, he said, lies in 
 the fact that fully four-fifths of 
 her territory is agricultural, and 
 must be so ; and while in towns 
 and cities there is a great deal of 
 pretentious show, sham, and scum, 
 the whole country shows a splendid 
 average, which is an absolute 
 justification for his fondest hopes, 
 and nothing could ever destroy it. 
 All his experiences of the war 
 confirmed him in it, and it was 
 yet destined to find a full fruition 
 in the future. 
 
 He quoted the saying of the 
 Northern Farmer of "Lord Tenny 
 son " as he called him " Taake 
 my word for it, Sammy, the poor in 
 a loomp is bad " ; which he took 
 exception to, saying that the poor in 
 a lump were not bad. " And not so 
 poor either, for no man can become 
 
 5 1 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 truly heroic who is really poor. 
 He must have food, clothing, and 
 shelter, and," he added sig 
 nificantly, "a little money in the 
 bank too, I think." . 
 
 " America s present duty," he 
 continued, " was to develop her 
 material sources for a good many 
 years to come, and to trust that 
 the spirit of the men who fought 
 as those soldiers did would yet 
 prove itself and justify our most 
 sanguine hopes." He repeated, 
 almost verbatim, the "Interviewer s 
 Item " in " Specimen Days," the 
 gist of which is that it is the 
 business of the Americans "to lay 
 the foundations of a great nation 
 in produces, in agriculture, in 
 commerce," etc., and "when these 
 have their results and get settled, 
 then a literature worthy of us will 
 be defined." Unlike other lands, 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 the "superiority and vitality" of 
 the nation lies not in a class, a 
 few, the gentry but in the bulk of 
 the people. " Our leading men," 
 he says, "are not of much account, 
 and never have been, but the 
 average of the people is immense, 
 beyond all history." In the future, 
 he thinks, "we will not have great 
 individuals or great leaders, but a 
 great average bulk, unpreceden- 
 tedly great." 
 
 Speaking of the war, he said H reference to 
 that the surgeons, with whom he ihe 
 mixed a good deal, proved them 
 selves heroic in their struggles to 
 save the lives of the soldiers of 
 both sides. " My sympathies," he 
 said, " were aroused to their 
 utmost pitch, and I found that 
 mine were equalled by the doctors . 
 Oh, how they did work and 
 wrestle with death ! There is an 
 
 53 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 impression that the medical pro 
 fession in war time is a bit of a 
 fraud, but my experience contra 
 dicts this, and nothing can ever 
 diminish my admiration for our 
 heroic doclors." I remarked that 
 he had not put this in his book so 
 emphatically, to which he said 
 that he knew he had not, but felt 
 that he ought to do, and if oppor 
 tunity offered he intended doing so. 
 
 O Connor and he, with a few 
 others " who," he said, " must 
 have been something like your 
 little band in Bolton," were 
 among the few in Washington who 
 supported Lincoln in his policy. 
 " We are ready enough to shout 
 hurrah for him now, but I tell you 
 that up to his death he had some 
 very bitter enemies," 
 
 " There were times, too, when 
 the fate of the States trembled in 
 
 54 
 
,T7ir 
 
 WALT WHITMAN AND WARRY KRITZINGER ON CAMDKN \VHARF. 
 
 55 
 
THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY } 
 
 OF 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 the balance when many of us 
 feared that our Constitution was 
 about to be smashed liked a china 
 plate. But it survived the conflict. 
 We won, and it was wonderful 
 how we did win." 
 
 Referring to Warren, as his Re " Leaves 
 " sailor boy," he said that he had f Gmss " 
 been of great service to him when 
 he was at a loss about the names, 
 etc., of parts of a ship. It had 
 always been his custom, when 
 writing or describing anything, to 
 seek information directly from the 
 men themselves, and he gave me 
 two illustrations of this. 
 
 i. In one edition of u Leaves of 
 Grass " he wrote, " Where the sea- 
 whale swims with her calves," 
 because he had often heard sailors 
 say that the calves did swim with 
 the mother ; but on reading it to 
 an old whaler he was told that it 
 
 57 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 was a very exceptional thing for a 
 whale to have more than one calf, 
 so he altered it to " Where the 
 sea- whale swims with her calf." 
 (See " Leaves of Grass," p. 56). 
 
 2. He was under the impression 
 that the Canadian raftsmen used 
 a bugle and he referred to it in one 
 of his lines ; but when he went to 
 Canada he found his mistake, and 
 struck it out in the next editon. 
 
 Speaking of Walter Scott s 
 Edition, of " Leaves of Grass," 
 he said he did not like it. " It was 
 like cutting a leg, or a shoulder, 
 or the head off a man, and saying 
 that was the man." He preferred 
 that people who wished to read him 
 should have the whole critter, and 
 those pans of his book to which 
 so many took exception, were the 
 very ones that he regarded as 
 most indispensable. 
 
 58 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 "Voltaire," he said, "thought 
 that a man-of-war and the grand 
 opera were the crowning triumphs 
 of civilization, but if he were 
 living now he would find others 
 more striking in the modern de 
 velopment of engineering, etc." 
 
 "A ship in full sail is the 
 grandest sight in the world, and it 
 has never yet been put into a 
 poem. The man who does it will 
 achieve a wonderful work." " I 
 once cherished the desire," he 
 continued, " of going to sea, so 
 that I might learn all about a ship. 
 At another I wished to go on the 
 railway to learn the modern loco 
 motive. The latter I did to some 
 extent, but the former I did not." 
 
 I asked him where I could get a 
 copy of Dr. Bucke s " Man s 
 Moral Nature." He told me at 
 Mackay s, Philadelphia, and on 
 
 59 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 my asking whether I could get a 
 copy of John Burroughs s " Notes " 
 there also, he said, " Oh, / will 
 give you a copy of that, if you like. 
 I think I have one I can spare." 
 In ike Street. After listening to his delightful 
 
 talk (oh, that I could reproduce 
 his words, and, more than all, the 
 sweetness of his voice, the loving 
 sympathy, the touches of humour, 
 the smile that played round his 
 lips and in his merry twinkling 
 eyes, the laughter that shook his 
 stalwart frame, and the intense 
 magnetism of his personal 
 presence!) we returned, I accom 
 panying him right to his own door 
 in Mickle Street. He talked the 
 whole time, seemed pleased with 
 everything and everybody, and 
 everyone, man, woman, and child 
 seemed to like him. He saluted 
 nearly every person he passed 
 
 60 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 the car drivers he accosted by 
 name ; to the young men, he said 
 " How do, boys ? ? ; to the women 
 sitting on the door steps, with 
 babies in their arms, he said, 
 " How do, friends, how do ? 
 Hillo, baby ! " The labourers 
 loafing at the corners saluted him 
 with " Good evening, Mr. Whit 
 man ! " and some took off their 
 hats to him, though most simply 
 bowed respectfully. 
 
 As we went along he told me 
 that he had " sent off a card to 
 Wallace," and continued, " When 
 you see him tell him what a pleasure 
 it is for me to see his beautiful 
 caligraphy. I get so many letters 
 that I can only read with a 
 struggle, that I cannot help 
 stopping to admire one which is 
 well written. I am very fond of a 
 well printed book. Your William 
 
 61 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Black & Sons, of Edinburgh, pro 
 duce some splendidly printed 
 works I think I was intended for 
 an artist ; I cannot help stopping 
 to look at the l how it s done of 
 any piece of work, be it a picture, 
 speech, music, or what not." 
 
 " Ingersoll is a good illustration 
 of what I mean. From my point 
 of view the main question about 
 his matter is, * What does it 
 amount to ? But I cannot but 
 admire his manner of giving 
 it utterance it is so thoroughly 
 natural and spontaneous, just like 
 a stream of pure water, issuing we 
 know not whence, and flowing 
 along we care not how, only 
 conscious of the fact that it is 
 beautiful all the time." 
 
 On his Soon we reached his house, 
 
 Doorstep. where Warren "scotched" his 
 
 chair in the angle between the 
 
 62 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 steps and the wall. He invited 
 me to take a seat beside him on 
 the steps, which I did, and he 
 talked off and on for half-an-hour 
 longer, mostly about his health 
 and physical condition. He 
 allowed me to feel his pulse, which 
 I was pleased to note was fairly 
 full and strong, and quite regular 
 no intermission, as I half 
 expected. Upon my expressing 
 the hope that he would not feel 
 any bad after effects from to-day, 
 he said 
 
 "No, Doctor, I don t think so, 
 though I have had quite a number 
 of visitors. A dear niece (my 
 brother s daughter) came to see 
 me, after a considerable interval, 
 and I have had several others as 
 well as yourself, Doctor. It has 
 been quite a field day with me. 
 My doctor is very strict, but I am 
 
 63 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 always fearful of being too good, 
 you know, and I am often tempted 
 to trespass." He then told me 
 the following story : 
 
 An old gentleman, named Gore, 
 lived opposite to him (in Mickle 
 Street), who was so strictly proper 
 in all his ways that once, when ill, 
 he asked the doctor so many 
 questions about what he must eat, 
 drink, and avoid, that the doctor 
 told him the best thing for him 
 would be to go on a "devil of a 
 drunk"! "By which," said 
 Whitman, " I guess he meant that 
 he lived so strictly by rules, that 
 it would be best for him to break 
 through and away from them all 
 
 o J 
 
 for once. And " he added, with a 
 chuckle, " I sometimes feel that 
 \vay myself ! " 
 
 " I suppose after this I shall 
 have what Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 
 6 4 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 calls a large poultice of silence. 
 Holmes is a clever fellow, but he 
 is too smart, too cute, too epi 
 grammatic, to be a true poet." 
 
 " Emerson came nigh being our 
 greatest man ; in fact, I think he 
 is our greatest man." 
 
 Some people passing and 
 saluting him, I said, " You seem 
 to have lots of friends about you, 
 Air. Whitman." 
 
 Yes," he replied, " and I have 
 some very bitter enemies. The 
 old Devil has not gone from the 
 earth without leaving some of his 
 emissaries behind him." 
 
 He then referred to the lines he 
 wrote at the request of an editor 
 upon the death of the old 
 German Emperor, and said that 
 his Democratic and Liberal friends 
 were incensed at him for venturing 
 
 65 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 to say a word in his favour/ 
 
 11 You know, I include Kings, 
 Oueens, Emperors, Nobles, Barons, 
 and the aristocracy generally in 
 my net excluding nobody and 
 nothing human and this does not 
 seem to be relished by these 
 narrow-minded folks." 
 
 44 I had a visit last year from a 
 young I English earl, who, in the 
 course of conversation, said : 
 
 4 I have an impression that 
 you regard lords and nobles as 
 akin to fools. 
 
 41 Well, I replied, there is an 
 impression of that kind abroad. 
 
 44 Hut, said the earl, I ven 
 ture to hope that you may be 
 
 * The following are the lines referred to : 
 
 THE DEAD EMPEROR. 
 
 To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia, 
 Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow less for 
 
 ths Emperor; 
 Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o er many a 
 
 salt sea mile, 
 Mourning a good old man a faithful shepherd patriot. 
 
 66 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 willing to admit that there may 
 be exceptions that they are not 
 all alike ! 
 
 "Which I thought," said 
 Whitman, " a remarkably good 
 answer." 
 
 As it was now g p.m. (his bed 
 time), I bade him good night, and 
 went to my hotel, pondering 
 deeply on many things, and 
 marvelling at the wondrous mag 
 netic attraction this man had for 
 me for I felt I could stay with him 
 for ever. 
 
 Wednesday, July i6th. A 
 magnificent day, but so intensely 
 hot that movement of any kind 
 is almost impossible. It was my 
 intention to go to Timber Creek 
 to-day, but as I find that it 
 is not very easy of access, and 
 the temperature being so oppres 
 sive, I resolved to spend the time 
 
 67 
 
 Another Day 
 
 at 
 
 Mickle-strcet. 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 at 328, Mickle-street instead. I 
 am glad that I did so, because I 
 have been able to take photo 
 graphs of the house and its 
 inmates, and have held much 
 pleasant converse with them. 
 Mrs. Davis gave me an engraved 
 portrait of Whitman, and ex 
 pressed a great desire to send 
 something as a little present to 
 my wife. She is an altogether 
 agreeable person, and so char 
 mingly natural that I do not 
 wonder at Whitman liking her ; 
 while Warren is so gentle, so 
 unassuming, frank, intelligent, and 
 unaffectedly kind-hearted, that the 
 more I see of him the better I 
 like him. He and I had quite a 
 long chat and a stroll, which I 
 enjoyed very much, and all he 
 told me served but to deepen my 
 reverential regard for my majestic 
 
 68 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 old hero. He said that two years 
 ago the dodtors including Dr. 
 Bucke, who was in attendance- 
 all said that he could not live, but 
 that he is better now than he was 
 for a long time after that. He 
 always attends to his mail himself, 
 and replies with his own hand to 
 all his letters, except those of 
 autograph hunters, which are con 
 signed to the waste-paper basket. 
 
 But my good fortune did not M y Third 
 end here, for I was favoured with Intevview 
 another brief interview with Whit 
 man himself, whom I found lying 
 upon his bed (over whose head 
 hangs a large daguerrotype of his 
 mother, another of his father 
 hanging by the washstand), fanning 
 himself prostrated by the intense 
 heat. I took the fan and fanned 
 him for about five minutes, when 
 he said, 
 
 69 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 " I have found that copy of 
 John Burroughs s Notes, and I 
 will get up and give it to you." 
 
 I assisted him on to his feet, 
 and with his right arm round my 
 neck and my left round his waist 
 we walked across the floor to his 
 chair, wading through the sea of 
 papers on our way. 
 
 He then gave me John 
 Burroughs s little book, and taking 
 up two other booklets, he said, 
 
 " I wish you to give these to 
 Mr. Wallace, and these" (taking 
 up two similar ones) " are for 
 yourself." 
 
 They were copies of "Passage to 
 India" (1871), and "As a Strong 
 Bird on Pinions free" (1872). 
 
 I thanked him, and afterwards, 
 at my request, he kindly wrote our 
 names and his own on the title 
 pages of them all. 
 
 70 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 As I did not want him to talk 
 much, I showed him some of my 
 photographs. One of Annan, from 
 the Milnfield, he especially 
 admired, saying 
 
 "What a beautiful vignette! 
 There s nothing finer. It is very 
 pretty." 
 
 He looked at it with evident 
 interest for several minutes, and 
 though I intended it for John 
 Burroughs I gave it to him. 
 
 He was interested in my copies of 
 " Leaves of Grass" and " Specimen 
 Days" (Wilson and McCormick s), 
 which he had not seen before, but 
 he at once recognised the type, 
 and said, 
 
 " I see they have used our type 
 and their own title page. I 
 believe they had permission to do 
 so." 
 
 When shewn the photograph of 
 
 7 1 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 the interior of " Eagle-street 
 College," he exclaimed, 
 
 " So this is the room where you 
 good fellows all meet ! What a 
 beautiful room ! 
 
 I asked him if he recognised the 
 portrait on the wall. 
 
 "Is it mine?" he asked eagerly; 
 11 which one is it ? : 
 
 I told him that it was published 
 in the Illustrated London News, 
 when he said, 
 
 " Oh, I have seen it, and I don t 
 like it." 
 
 " Why ? " I asked. 
 
 II A friend of mine says there s 
 a foxy, leering, half-cynical look 
 about it, and I think he s right," 
 he replied. " It s a wonderfully 
 good piece of engraving, though," 
 he added. 
 
 I gave him a photo of J. W. 
 Wallace s room, as well as those of 
 
 72 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 J. W. W. himself, which I took in 
 his room. 
 
 He referred to our hour on 
 the wharf last night with evident 
 pleasure. 
 
 Soon rising to go, I said, " Is 
 that the portrait of Osceola ? re 
 ferring to an old tattered engraving 
 tacked on the wall near the door. 
 
 "Yes," he replied; "do you 
 know much about him ? " 
 
 " Not much/ I said. He then 
 gave me a brief sketch of Osceola s 
 history, telling me that he was a 
 Seminole chief, whose grandfather 
 was a Scotsman, married to an 
 Indian squaw down Florida way, 
 and when trouble broke out some 
 fifty years ago he was basely be 
 trayed, imprisoned, and literally 
 done to death. 
 
 " That portrait," he continued, 
 " is by George Cable, who is quite 
 
 73 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 a clever portrait engraver. I got 
 it in Washington during the war. 
 It was packed away for a good 
 many years, and when I found it 
 it was all torn, cracked, and frayed. 
 I spent an hour one day in piecing 
 it and pasting it on that paper." 
 
 Among the photographs on the 
 mantel upstairs I noted the original 
 of the engraving in my edition of 
 " Leaves of Grass," two of Prof. 
 Rudolph Schmidt, of Copenhagen, 
 one of Dr. Bucke, and others. 
 
 " And that," I said, pointing to 
 a picture behind a pile of papers, 
 u is another oil painting of your 
 self?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, "do you like 
 it?" 
 
 " I do," I replied, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Then you may take it with you 
 if you like; I don t care for it," he 
 said. " It was done several years 
 
 74 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 ago by Sidney Morse, but I don t 
 think it is satisfactory." 
 
 " Nor do I. In fact, I ve never 
 yet seen a portrait of you that is 
 quite satisfactory to my mind," I 
 said. " They are portraits, but 
 they are not you." 
 
 "No, I guess not, he said. "You 
 cannot put a person on to canvas 
 you cannot paint vitality." 
 
 Before leaving, he again referred 
 to his circumstances, saying that 
 he got along pretty well. The time 
 of his extreme poverty had gone. 
 He had many good friends, his 
 wants were few, "and," he added, 
 but without the least touch of sad 
 ness, u it will probably not be for 
 very long that I shall want any 
 thing. I have no desire to emulate 
 
 * 1 his portrait, one of the few oil paintings of Whitman, 
 and of Jovine proportions, is valuable, as shewing some 
 thing of the colour and freshness he retained even in 
 advanced life. 
 
 75 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 the manners of the genteel, and I 
 never was one to whom so-called 
 refinement, or even orderliness, 
 stood for much." 
 
 Feeling that I had trespassed 
 too much, and quite overwhelmed 
 with his generosity, I took my 
 leave. 
 
 On the mantel of the room 
 downstairs I found the photograph 
 of " The Boys of the Eagle-street 
 College," as well as those of 
 Carlyle s grave and birth-room, 
 which we had sent to him. 
 
 In the evening, I walked down 
 to the wharf, in hopes of seeing 
 Whitman and " Warry," but was 
 disappointed. I sat down on a 
 log, and ate my repast of fruit and 
 crackers. Near me were a good 
 many boys, of the lower middle 
 class, fishing and frolicking, and I 
 could not but remark the genuine 
 
 76 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 good humour that prevailed among 
 them, and the entire absence of 
 anything approaching to rudeness 
 or bad language ; joking, of course, 
 there was, but all in good-natured 
 fun, and I never heard a single un 
 seemly utterance. I think our 
 English boys of a similar class 
 would compare very unfavourably 
 with them. Nurses, with babies 
 and little children, were sitting 
 about the logs, and I enticed one 
 bright little boy of three-and-a-half 
 years on to my knee with my bag 
 of crackers. The sun had just set 
 over the river, and Venus had risen 
 in the crimson afterglow. I stayed 
 there, in the waning light, en 
 joying the cool breeze from the 
 Delaware, until the mosquitoes 
 drove me home. 
 
 Thursday, July 7 ////.Another 
 
 77 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 day of magnificent sunshine and 
 intense heat. 
 
 I crossed the Delaware in the 
 Weenonah Whitman s old favour 
 ite ferryboat, he told me the other 
 night, while we were sitting together 
 on the wharf the name of an old 
 Indian tribe, though probably a 
 a corrupt spelling. 
 
 My Fourth Returning, I took a bag of fruit 
 
 Interview. ^{^ me to Mickle-street, and re 
 
 ceived a most cordial welcome from 
 my dear old friend, whom I found 
 sitting in his chair fanning himself, 
 looking quite bright and happy, 
 dressed as on my first visit, and 
 spotlessly clean. He gave me his 
 manly grip with extended arm, 
 saying 
 
 II How do, Doctor, how do ? 
 Take a seat " pointing to a chair. 
 He said he had had a fairly good 
 night, and had partaken of his 
 
 78 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 usual breakfast of bread and honey 
 (with milk and iced water, I think). 
 
 In a few minutes he said, " I m The Gutckunst 
 going to send this photograph to 
 Wallace" -lifting up a large 
 mounted photograph from the top of 
 his pile of papers "I wish him to 
 substitute it for the one he has 
 hanging in his room, as I don t like 
 that one at all. It makes me look, as 
 I told you, a bit foxy, sly, smart, 
 cute, and almost Yankee. So if you 
 will take this one, and ask him to 
 put it in place of the other, I shall 
 be glad. If it doesn t quite fit the 
 frame you can get what we call a 
 matt I dare say you in England 
 have them and make it fit." 
 
 I said that Wallace would value 
 this photograph very highly indeed, 
 and I considered it the very best 
 one of him I had yet seen. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I think it is 
 
 79 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 pretty satisfactory myself. They 
 got me over in Philadelphia, much 
 against my inclination, in the 
 spring, I think it was, and that is 
 the result of my sitting. Nowadays 
 photographers have a trick of what 
 they call touching up their work 
 smoothing out the irregularities, 
 wrinkles, and what they consider 
 defects in a person s face but, at 
 my special request, that has not 
 been interfered with in any way, 
 and, on the whole, I consider it a 
 good picture. And now I ll write 
 my name on it, and I want you to 
 take it to Wallace with my love." 
 He then wrote on it, " Walt 
 Whitman in 1890." 
 
 I told him I should try and copy 
 it. 
 
 " Oh! " he said. " Well, if you 
 do, I should be glad if you would 
 
 80 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 send me a copy." This I promised 
 to do.* 
 
 I now produced my bag of fruit, 
 and gave him an orange, which he 
 at once put to his nostrils, saying, 
 " How delicious it smells ! " 
 
 He smelled it in silence three or 
 four times, each time dwelling upon 
 it, and taking long, deep inspira 
 tions, closing his eyes, and being 
 apparently lost to everything ex 
 cept the delicious feeling which the 
 aroma of the luscious fruit imparted 
 to him. I noticed that he did not 
 do this with any fruit except the 
 orange, and that grapes, peaches, 
 and pears were admired and com 
 mented on, but not handled so 
 lovingly or fondled over, as the 
 orange, which he again took up 
 and smelled after putting all the 
 others aside. t 
 
 *A reduced copy of it forms the frontispiece to this volume. 
 He is endowed with exceptionally acute senses. Dr. 
 
 81 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 He then took up a little volume 
 " Camden s Compliment to Walt 
 Whitman " saying, " Oh, I ve 
 found a copy of that little book I 
 spoke of the other day, and will 
 give it to you since you say you ve 
 not seen it/ 
 
 Now it so happened that I had 
 bought a copy at David Mackay s, 
 and I told him so ; but that since 
 it was his original intention to give 
 it to me, I would accept it, and give 
 mine to someone else. He thereon 
 wrote in it, " J. Johnston, from 
 Walt Whitman, July, 1890 " 
 
 I afterwards found that he had 
 put the following note on page 53, 
 by the side of Rudolph Schmidt s 
 letter "This is the letter of R. S., 
 
 Bucke says he has heard him speak of hearing the grass 
 grow, and the trees coming into leaf. In the Song of 
 Myself " he mentions the " bustle ot growing wheat." And, 
 as to scent, he says in " Specimen Days, 1 There is a scent 
 in everything, even the snow; no two places hardly any 
 two hours, anywhere are alike. How different the odour 
 of noon from midnight, winter from summer, or a windy 
 spell from a still one ! " 
 
 82 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 referred to by me when Dr. J. asked 
 about the photo in Mickle-street." 
 
 Speaking of David Mackay, I 
 mentioned the fact of his being a 
 Scotsman, when he said that he 
 had known quite a number of 
 Scotsmen, " dozens, scores of 
 them," and had a high admiration 
 for them. There was something 
 "very human," something "very 
 good and attachable/ in the 
 Scottish people, especially in the 
 mothers of large families. Scots 
 men, he thought, were apt to be a 
 little glum and morose, as Carlyle 
 was, but as they became old they 
 usually mellowed a good deal. 
 
 I told him I had got an auto 
 graphed copy of "Peter Pepper 
 corn s" poems, and he said he was 
 glad I had, because he knew 
 " Peter very well, and liked him for 
 his genuine goodness of heart, and 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 his sharpness of intellect, which 
 was almost " canny." He was a 
 Scotsman, or of Scottish extrac 
 tion ; sometimes came to Camden 
 to see him ; and, with all his faults, 
 was a downright good fellow. 
 
 Another volume I had was 
 " Poems by Hermes " (Thayer), 
 whom he also knew. " He comes 
 here," he said, "and is a fine fellow 
 in fact, a very handsome fellow. 
 I believe he is writing a history of 
 modern Italy, including Garibaldi 
 and his times." 
 
 He afterwards most willingly 
 consented to let me try to take a 
 photograph of the interior of his 
 room, which I did, but he said, 
 
 " You can t do it, Doctor, no 
 more than you can photograph a 
 bird. You may get an outline of 
 the bird s body, but you can t 
 fix the life, the surrounding 
 
 84 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIKNDS. 
 
 air, the flowers, and the grass." 
 
 Before leaving, he shook hands 
 very warmly with me, saying, 
 
 " Good-bye, Doctor, good- bye ! His Good-Bye. 
 Give my love to Wallace and the 
 rest of the fellows, and tell them 
 that I hope they won t overestimate 
 Walt Whitman. He doesn t set 
 up to be a finished anything, 
 but just a rough epitome of some 
 of the things in America. I have 
 always been glad to hear from 
 you all, and now that I have seen 
 you in proprid persona I feel that I 
 know you, and regard you as 
 friends. Good-bye, good-bye ! " 
 
 Coming downstairs, I was in 
 vited by Mrs. Davis to join them 
 in their mid-day repast, -which I 
 did ; and much did I enjoy the 
 sugared blackberries, bread and 
 butter, and coffee. In fact, I 
 regard it as almost the crowning 
 
 85 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 honour that I should be asked to 
 share the hospitality of Whitman s 
 house, and to sit in that quaint, 
 ship s-cabin-like kitchen, as one of 
 the family. 
 
 Mrs. Davis gave me a fan 
 which "Mr. Whitman" used for 
 some time, and had given to 
 her ; also a bottle of most beau 
 tiful shells (off the mantel-piece), 
 which her late husband had 
 brought from the Island of Cuba. 
 These are presents from Mrs. 
 Davis to Mrs. Johnston. 
 
 Another member of the household 
 is Harry Fritzinger " Warry s " 
 brother a fine, tall, handsome 
 young American, quiet and re 
 served in manner, but very likeable, 
 and evidently " a good sort." 
 
 The other inmates are Polly 
 the robin, Watch the spotted dog, 
 
 86 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 ;i parrot, Kitty the black cat, and 
 a canary bird.* 
 
 While siting there I was sur 
 prised to hear the poet coming 
 downstairs " all by himself," and 
 he actually got nearly to the 
 bottom before Warren could reach 
 him. \Yhen he was seated in the 
 front room he asked : 
 
 " lias the Doctor gone ? " 
 
 No, sir," answered \\ arren. 
 " lie s having a cup of coffee and 
 some blackberries in the kitchen." 
 
 " Oh," said \Yhitman, " I m 
 very glad, and I hope he ll enjoy 
 them." 
 
 \Ye overheard him tell Mrs. 
 Davis that he had sent a poor 
 woman a dollar, and she had just 
 replied, saying that she had " re- 
 
 ;; This bird, which was the subject of Whitman s lines, 
 "My Canary Bird," died shortly after my visit, and Mrs. 
 Davis had it stuffed. It was brought to Bolton by Dr. 
 Bucke, together with an autographed copy of the lines, in 
 1891, and presented to Mr. Wallace. 
 
 8? 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 ceived his gift," which wording did 
 not please him, for he said, 
 
 "Why can t she say that she 
 has received the dollar I sent, and 
 not go running the devil round the 
 post by saying that she has received 
 my gift ? " 
 
 I then came into the room for 
 my things, and on my saying 
 "Good-bye" again to him, he 
 held out his hand this time the 
 left one, simply because it seemed 
 to be the handiest at the moment. 
 
 Warren came with me to my 
 hotel, assisted me to pack my box, 
 put it on to the hack, went with 
 me to the station, and even accom 
 panied me in the train to the first 
 station out. In our talk he said 
 that he thought Mr. Whitman had 
 enjoyed my coming to see him, and 
 he had never heard him say any- 
 
 88 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 thing but what was pleasant in 
 reference to it. 
 
 Many of his visitors, he said, 
 seemed to expect him to keep 
 talking about " Shakespeare and 
 poetry and such-like, all the time ; 
 and Mr. Whitman told him that he 
 liked a little of the talk of every 
 day life occasionally in fact, as 
 Mr. Whitman once put it, he 
 " liked to be a sensible man sonic- 
 times ! " 
 
 The following additional notes Additional 
 may be of interest :- 
 
 He does not use tobacco. I 
 should be surprised if he did ; I 
 could not imagine Walt Whitman 
 smoking. 
 
 He does not use a table for 
 writing, but does it on a pad upon 
 his knee, and he writes slowly and 
 deliberately, but without the least 
 perceptible tremor. He uses a huge 
 
 89 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 penholder and pen, and he seldom 
 blots his writing, preferring to let 
 the ink dry. 
 
 He speaks slowly, distinctly, and 
 with forceful and telling emphasis, 
 occasionally hesitating for the 
 right word or expression, but always 
 rounding and completing his 
 sentences in his own way ; and I 
 noticed that he frequently made 
 use of phrases and words familiar 
 to me in his books. 
 
 I cannot forbear quoting the 
 following interesting personalia of 
 him by Dr. Bucke, who has known 
 him intimately for a great many 
 years : 
 
 Personalia by " He never spoke deprecatingly 
 
 Dr. Bucke. o f an y nationality, or class of men, 
 
 or time, in the world s history, or 
 feudalism, or against any trades or 
 occupations not even against any 
 animals, insects, plants, or inani- 
 
 90 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 mate things ; nor any of the laws 
 of nature, nor any of the results 
 of these laws, such as illness, 
 deformity, or death. He never 
 complains cr grumbles, either at 
 the weather, pain, illness, or at 
 anything else. He never in con 
 versation, in any company, or 
 under any circumstances, uses 
 language that could be thought 
 indelicate. In fat, I have never 
 known of his uttering a word or a 
 sentiment which might not be 
 published without any prejudice to 
 his fame. He never swears ; he 
 could not very well, since, as far 
 as I know, he never speaks in 
 anger, and, apparently, never is 
 angry. He never exhibits fear, 
 and I do not believe he ever feels 
 it. His conversation, mainly toned 
 low, is always agreeable and 
 usually instructive. He never 
 
 91 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 makes compliments ; very seldom 
 apologises ; uses the common forms 
 of civility, such as if you please 
 and thank you, quite sparingly 
 usually makes a nod or a smile 
 answer for them. 
 
 " He never gossips. He seldom 
 talks about private people, even to 
 say something good of them, except 
 to answer a question or remark, 
 and then he always gives what he 
 says a turn favourable to the person 
 spoken of. 
 
 u His manner is invariably calm 
 and simple, and belongs to itself 
 alone, and could not be fully 
 described or conveyed. 1 
 
 Of late years he seems to have 
 changed in two particulars, (i) 
 Mrs. Davis told me that he does 
 not now sing much, whereas singing 
 used to be his favourite amuse 
 ment. Dr. Bucke speaks of him 
 
 92 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 singing whenever he was alone, 
 whatever he was doing, such as 
 while taking his bath, dressing, or 
 sauntering out of doors. (2) He 
 talks more than he used to do. He 
 certainly talked a good deal to me, 
 and as freely and unconstrainedly 
 as to an intimate and lifelong- 
 friend. 
 
 VISIT TO BROOKLYN. 
 
 At 2-40 p.m. I took train for 
 Brooklyn, which I reached about 6, 
 and went to 79, North Portland- 
 avenue, the residence of Mr. 
 Andrew H. Rome, where I received 
 a most cordial welcome from him 
 and his good wife, who is my wife s 
 cousin. 
 
 In our talk, Mr. Rome told me With 
 many new and interesting details Andrew 
 of Whitman s early life how he 
 became acquainted with him, and 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 the difficulties they had with the 
 printing of the first edition of 
 " Leaves of Grass." " Whitman," 
 he said, " always earned his own 
 living, was liked by everybody, was 
 never in a temper, never swore, to 
 his knowledge, but once, and then 
 extremely mildly, at something in 
 a newspaper of which he disap 
 proved ; never spoke disparagingly 
 of anyone or anything ; was not 
 then a brilliant conversationalist, 
 though he talks more now, and had 
 the knack of drawing other people 
 on to talk of what they knew best 
 about," etc. 
 
 The rest of our conversation was 
 about Annan and Annan folks 
 for Air. Rome, like myself, is an 
 Annan man and much did I enjoy 
 that talk about my dear old home, 
 3,000 miles away. 
 
 I have reason to believe that 
 
 94 
 
 / OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Mr. Rome is the friend in Brooklyn 
 referred to on page 25 of Dr. 
 Bucke s book. 
 
 Friday, July i8/A.-- Morning 
 gloriously fine. In company with 
 Air. Rome, who took me through 
 many of the public buildings, I 
 visited the corner of Cranberry and 
 Fulton streets, where Whitman s 
 first edition of " Leaves of Grass " 
 was printed at Mr. Rome s office. 
 I afterwards crossed the Fulton 
 Ferry to New York ; rode down 
 the whole length of Broadway ; 
 walked back to Brooklyn over the 
 magnificent Brooklyn Bridge, and 
 was much impressed by the superb 
 view over the whole bay, with its 
 splendid shipping, and all the 
 shows of Manhattan really the 
 finest spectacle of the kind I have 
 ever witnessed, or ever hope to do. 
 
 95 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Saturday, July igth. Another 
 
 morning of splendid sunshine, 
 
 tempered with a gentle breeze. 
 
 The "Fulton* After a visit in the morning to 
 
 Ferry Boat, Coney Island a favourite haunt of 
 
 Whitman s in his youth I spent 
 
 John 1 . 
 
 the afternoon at Fulton Ferry- 
 another of Whitman s youthful 
 haunts on the boat called the 
 Fulton, and there I had another 
 slice of good fortune. 
 
 As one of the deck-hands saw 
 that I was going to photograph 
 from the deck, he suggested that I 
 should ask the pilot to allow me to 
 go on the upper deck. This I did, 
 and the pilot s reply was, " I guess 
 you can, if you want to." I gladly 
 went ; and, after a little while, we 
 got into conversation, in the course 
 of which I asked him, " Did you 
 ever hear tell of Walt Whitman ? " 
 
 He looked up quickly and said, 
 
 96 
 
1 f 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 " Do you mean Walt Whitman 
 the poet ?" 
 
 u Yes,"Isaid,"doyouknowhim?" 
 
 " I should think I do ! " he re 
 plied. Why, he used to come 
 on this very ferryboat, when I was 
 a young fellow, nearly every day, 
 and go backwards and forwards 
 with us for an hour at a time." 
 
 " Indeed," I said. " What was 
 he like at that time ? Tell me 
 about him, as I m much interested 
 in all concerning him. I ve been 
 to see him at Camden." 
 
 "You have?" he said. u l hear 
 he is very feeble now. When I 
 knew him he was a fine, strappin 
 fellow, tall, broad-shouldered, and 
 straight ; walked with a slow, 
 steady, swing. He was a slow 
 speaker. He did not talk much, 
 and seemed to prefer hearin other 
 folk talk. He took a long time 
 
 99 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 tellin a thing, but, when he d 
 done, you d know what he meant. 
 He had a kind word for everybody 
 and from everybody, for everybody 
 liked him. / have good reason to 
 think well of him, for when I had 
 typhoid fever he used to come 
 every day with fruit and delicacies, 
 and sit with me for an hour or two 
 at a time, when 1 knew he could 
 ill spare it, as he had his duties to 
 attend to. Yes, I have a very 
 great regard for Walter." (This 
 was the first time I had heard 
 anyone call him "Walter, and he 
 often spoke of him by that name.) 
 "There was a little book of his I 
 used to be very fond of, called 
 Leaves of Grass. Do you know 
 it ? I ve heard that some folks 
 don t like him for some of the 
 things in that book ; but they 
 need nt come around this ferry 
 
 IOO 
 
AXI) SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 and say anythin agin Walter 
 Whitman." 
 
 I asked him to write his name in 
 my book, and I found it to be John 
 Y. Baulsir one of " the Balsirs " 
 mentioned in " Specimen Days." 
 He said that he had known several 
 of the other pilots mentioned 
 there John Cole, pilot of the 
 Union, who was a pilot yet ; George 
 White, Luther Smith ; and Bill 
 White, who died suddenly and 
 alone at his post in the very chair 
 in which I was then sitting. 
 
 He afterwards told me the fol 
 lowing incident which he had 
 witnessed : " Walter " and he 
 went one Sunday morning to 
 Trinity Church, Brooklyn, and 
 \\ hitman forgot to take off his 
 hat. One of the church officials 
 requested him to remove it, in 
 such a low voice that he did not 
 
 IOI 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 hear him, and thinking that he 
 was defying him, he deliberately 
 knocked it off, whereupon \Yhitman 
 stooped down, picked it off the 
 floor, and twisting it into a kind of 
 rope it was a soft felt he seized 
 the man by the collar and struck 
 him with it on the side of the head 
 three or four times, and then 
 walked out, followed by the red- 
 faced official, who vowed he would 
 have him arrested/ 
 
 I spent a couple of hours in that 
 pilot s wheel-house, chatting to 
 him, looking at the stream of 
 passengers, and enjoying the 
 deliciously sweet breeze from the 
 river, the ceaseless movement, and 
 all the brilliant and varied pano 
 ramic shows of "Manhattan from 
 the Bay." 
 
 * On my afterwards telling this to Mr. John Burroughs 
 he said it was the cnly instance he had ever heard ot 
 Whitman resenting anything. 
 
 102 
 
103 
 

AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 VISIT TO WEST HILLS. 
 
 Monday, July 2\st. After a 
 delightful visit to some relatives 
 at Wheatley, Long Island, I 
 took train to Huntington Here 
 a letter awaited me from Mr. 
 Herbert Gilchrist. A darkey driver 
 took me in a " Brewster s side- bar 
 wagon " on to West Hills, where, 
 after a little difficulty for candour 
 compels the admission that the 
 name of Walt \Yhitman is not so 
 familiar in the neighbourhood as I 
 expected I found the farm house 
 in which he was born. Alighting, 
 I went up to an elderly, farmer- 
 looking man in the yard. 
 
 " Good day to you ! Are you 
 Air. Henry Jarvis ? I asked. 
 
 " I believe I am," he replied. 
 
 "Is this the farm where Walt 
 Whitman was born ? " I enquired. 
 
 105 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 " Walter Whitman ? I guess 
 so," he replied. 
 
 "Well," said I, "I ve come a 
 long way to see this house, and I 
 should much like to stay in the 
 neighbourhood all night if I pos 
 sibly could." 
 
 After a little further talk, he 
 guessed I could stay there," but 
 in a few minutes his wife came out 
 and said she could not accommo 
 date me. However, after a little 
 persuasive eloquence, she con 
 sented to let me stay the night; 
 and here I am, writing this note 
 in the very house perhaps the 
 very room in which my grand 
 old hero first saw the light, seventy- 
 one years ago ! 
 
 A Memorable After supper with the family, 
 
 I spent three delightful hours 
 strolling quietly about the neigh 
 bourhood, which is exceedingly 
 
 1 06 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 picturesque, being richly wooded 
 with most luxuriant vegetation, 
 the roads seeming to cut their way 
 through the dense undergrowth of 
 wood and shrub which lined each 
 side, climbed high up the trees, 
 and completely covered the fences. 
 The evening was gloriously fine 
 another superb sunset, the sun 
 going down in a cloud of glory, 
 the afterglow flooding the entire 
 western sky with blood-red, crim 
 son, and vermilion colour, shading 
 off into violet, pink, yellow, maize, 
 saffron, and pale lemon an "art 
 ist s despair" sunset, which was 
 followed by a starry night of unusual 
 brilliance and beauty just such 
 another as I had witnessed at sea 
 the Milky Way stretching like a 
 great luminous belt right across 
 the star-sprinkled sky, galaxy 
 beyond galaxy, the constellations 
 
 107 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 shining in unsurpassed effulgence, 
 and almost shaming the light of 
 the four- days-old crescent moon. 
 
 I wandered on in the waning 
 light until the golden orb sank to 
 rest, when I sat upon a fence, 
 noting the quiet beauty of the 
 scene at " the drape of the day," 
 and listening to the all-pervading 
 music of the crickets, which filled 
 the air with their chirping, until 
 the young katydids began their 
 evensong, and the fire-flies flashed 
 their phosphorescent lights on the 
 grass, the roadway, the trees, and 
 the fences, almost rivalling the 
 stars overhead. I strolled along 
 the road to a point where all insect 
 sounds ceased, and there stood 
 still to absorb the deep solitude 
 and peace, and the sublime 
 spectacle of the luminous, crowded 
 heaven above. I do not remember 
 
 1 08 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 to have ever experienced such a 
 sense of utter solitude and silence 
 as when I stood there under the 
 silvery radiance of the moon, 
 " alone with the stars." They 
 seemed charged with a new beauty 
 and a new meaning addressed to 
 my individual soul. Long did I 
 stand there, drinking in peace, con 
 tentment and happiness and never 
 shall I forget the experience of 
 that solemn " hour for the soul." 
 It is of such a night as this mat 
 Whitman writes so beautifully : 
 
 July 22nd, 1878. 
 
 " I am convinced there are hours of Nature, 
 especially of the atmosphere, morning and evening, 
 addressed to the soul. Night transcends for that 
 purpose what the proudest day can do. Now, 
 indeed, if never before, the heavens declared the 
 glory of God. It was to the full the sky of the 
 Bible, of Arabia, of the prophets, and of the oldest 
 poems. There, in abstraction and stillness (I had 
 gone off by myself to absorb the scene, to have 
 the spell unbroken), the copiousness, the removed- 
 ness, vitality, loose-clear-crowdedness of that 
 stellar concave spreading overhead, softly absorb d 
 into me, rising so free, interminably high, stretching 
 
 109 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 east, west, north, south and I, though but a 
 point in the centre below, embodying all. 
 
 " As if for the first time, indeed, creation 
 noiselessly sank into and through me its placid 
 and untellable lesson beyond oh, so infinitely 
 beyond ! anything from art, books, sermons, or 
 from science, old or new. The spirit s hour- 
 religion s hour the visible suggestion of God in 
 space and time now once definitely indicated, if 
 never again. The untold pointed at- the heavens 
 all paved with it. The Milky Way, as if some 
 superhuman symphony, some ode of universal 
 vagueness, disdaining syllable and sound a flash 
 ing glance of Deity, address d to the soul. All 
 silently the indescribable night and stars far off 
 and silently." Specimen Days, pp. 118-119. 
 
 Tuesday, July 22nd. After a 
 most refreshing night s sleep I 
 awoke to the singing of some sweet 
 little songsters at my window. 
 What they are nobody here can 
 tell me, but they are certainly not 
 English. Even the so-called robin 
 is not the English robin, but seems 
 to be a sort of cross between it and 
 a thrush, being almost as large as 
 the latter, with a red breast and a 
 long spread-out tail, which it 
 
 no 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 flicks about with sharp, sudden, 
 spasmodic jerks, like a blackbird. 
 
 I was up betimes, and went out 
 into the grateful morning air and 
 the beautiful sunshine, which 
 flooded and steeped everything 
 with its glory. 
 
 I walked, or rather waded, An Insect 
 through a field covered with tall, 
 rank grass, wild flowers and weeds, 
 rising almost breast high, and was 
 perfectly amazed at the wealth of 
 rich colour, and the multitudinous 
 abundance and variety of insect 
 life there displayed, the creatures 
 seeming fairly to revel in that field 
 as in an insect paradise. Great 
 club-bodied dragon flies buzzed 
 with their gauzy, diaphanous 
 wings ; butterflies of every con 
 ceivable tint and hue hovered and 
 fluttered from flower to flower ; 
 brown locusts and green grass- 
 
 iii 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 hoppers shuffled and fiddled on 
 the slender, bending stalks of 
 the tall, golden-headed grasses ; 
 yellow-bodied, black-barred bees 
 hummed and sang as they flitted 
 from the nectar-laden chalices ; 
 flies, moths and "bugs" of all 
 kinds were there in almost count 
 less numbers ; and the katydids 
 were loudly whispering their self- 
 contradictory assertions, that 
 " Katy did," and " Katy didn t." 
 Where could such a scene as that 
 be found but in America ? 
 
 Soon too soon, alas, for I was 
 reluctant to leave this charming 
 district, the motherly-kind Mrs. 
 Jarvis and her interesting house 
 hold my darkey came along with 
 his wagon, to take me on to 
 Centreport Cove, to visit Mr. 
 Herbert Gilchrist. 
 
 On the road we met an old 
 
 112 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 man named Sandford Brown, who, My Talk with 
 I had been told, had known Sandford 
 Whitman in his youth. We Brown 
 stopped him, and the following are 
 some of the scraps of his talk re 
 Whitman : 
 
 "Walter Whitman, or Walt, 
 as we used ter call him, was my 
 first teacher. He kept school 
 for bout a year around here. I 
 was one of his scholars, and I used 
 ter think a powerful deal on him. 
 I can t say that he was exactly a 
 failure as a teacher, but he was 
 certainly not a success. He warn t 
 in his element. He was always 
 musin an writin , stead of tending 
 to his proper dooties ; but I guess 
 he was like a good many on us 
 not very well off, and had to do 
 somethin for a livin . But school- 
 teachin was not his forte. His forte 
 was poetry. Folks used ter con- 
 
 113 H 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 sider him a bit lazy and indolent, 
 because, when he was workin in the 
 fields, he would sometimes go off for 
 from five minutes to an hour, and 
 lay down on his back on the grass 
 in the sun, then get up and do 
 some writin , and the folks used 
 ter say he was idlin ; but I guess 
 he was then workin with his brain, 
 and thinkin hard, and then writin 
 down his thoughts. 
 
 " He was a tall, straight man, 
 but not so tall as his father and 
 his uncle, who were about 6J feet 
 
 high." 
 
 Here I showed him the portrait 
 in " Leaves of Grass," when he 
 said that he did not recognise the 
 features as he then knew them, but 
 he did recognise the negligent 
 style of the dress, the open collar, 
 and the "way of wearin the hat." 
 
 " He kept school for a year," he 
 
 114 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 went on, " and then his sister" 
 Fanny, he thought " succeeded 
 him. I did not see him again for 
 about forty years, when one day he 
 came to my house and asked me, 
 
 11 Do you know anything about 
 Walt Whitman ? 
 
 " I should think I do, I said. 
 And I looked at him, reco nisin 
 him, and said, 
 
 " Yes, an I know\Va.\t Whitman. 
 
 " Yes, 1 said Walt holding out 
 his hand, I see you do ; but I 
 have seen those that didn t. 
 
 "I m one of the very few left," 
 continued the old man, "that knew 
 him in the old days, but there are 
 enough on us to be his pall-bearers, 
 and I hope, when his time comes, 
 that he will elect to lie here, where 
 all his forbears rest." 
 
 I told him I had seen a news 
 paper paragraph to the effect that 
 
 "5 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 he had selected his burial place in 
 Camden, at which he hung his 
 head, and said sadly, 
 
 " Oh, I m very sorry if that s so. 
 I ve never read his Leaves of 
 Grass, because I could not afford 
 to buy it ; but I ve heard tell that 
 some folks say some parts of it is 
 immoral ; but I can t believe that, 
 because Walt was always a man of 
 strict propriety. But it may be 
 that those folks don t quite under 
 stand his meanin . He is a very 
 well eddicated man, and a very 
 deep thinkin man, and I am quite 
 sure that he would write nothin 
 but what he believed to be good, 
 proper, and true. I believe he is 
 far in advance of his time." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " he will have to 
 be dead and buried a hundred 
 years before he is properly appre 
 ciated." 
 
 116 
 
AND SOME OF HIS KRIEXDS. 
 
 At this the old man looked 
 suddenly up at me, and said quite 
 sharply, 
 
 " Bury Walt Whitman, did you 
 say ? No, sir-r ! They ll never 
 bury Walt Whitman ! Wall 
 Whitman II never die!" and he 
 nodded significantly at me, as 
 much as to say, " I have you 
 there ! " 
 
 "And so," I said, "you believe 
 in the immortality of the soul ? " 
 
 "Well, naow," he replied slowly, 
 " it would take too long to explain 
 my views on that subject, and I 
 might say somethin which might 
 mislead you ; but I may say I 
 believe that nothin really dies that 
 has ever lived. I believe, too, that 
 I once existed before I lived in my 
 present form, and that I shall 
 again live as an individual after I 
 have changed my present form." 
 
 1 1 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 " Why," I said, "that is some 
 thing like Whitman s belief. 7 
 
 " I don t know whose belief it is, 
 but I tell you it s mine," he said. 
 
 " Walt Whitman is a great 
 favouri/0 of mine, and I think a 
 good deal on him. I don t say 
 that because I know he has now 
 made a name for himself and 
 become famous. Lots of folks 
 want to claim friendship with him 
 now, but I hear he won t have em. 
 But it s what I ve allus thought, 
 and I would give almost anythin 
 just to take him by the hand and 
 look in his face though I wouldn t 
 tell him oh, dear, no! I wouldn t 
 tell him I couldn t tell him, what 
 I think on him ! " 
 
 VISIT TO MR. HERBERT GILCHRIST. 
 
 The remainder of our journey 
 was uneventful, a long drive along 
 
 nS 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 the shore of Centreport Cove 
 bringing us to the Moses Jarvis 
 Farm, where Mr. Herbert Harla- 
 kenden Gilchrist is located and 
 lives alone literally so and does 
 everything for himself cooking, 
 washing-up, bed-making, etc. The The Moses 
 house an old wooden farm-house, Jarvis 
 formerly built on the low ground Favm - 
 on the shore, but moved up to its 
 present elevation sometime during 
 the war is commandingly situated 
 on the brow of the hill over 
 looking the beautiful bay, which 
 Mr. Gilchrist says is like the 
 Bay of Tarsus, and is putting 
 into his new picture. Under 
 his artistic hand, the house has 
 assumed quite a charmingly pic 
 turesque and rural-retreat appear 
 ance a sort of ideal artist home. 
 On the walls of the rooms are 
 tacked or pinned various en- 
 
 119 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 gravings, sketches, photographs, 
 etc., notably those of Walt 
 Whitman, his late mother, engrav 
 ings of some of Rossetti s pictures, 
 a platinotype of his own picture 
 the " Rake s Progress," (exhibited 
 last year), photographs of friends, 
 etc., and on the table a copy of 
 his biography of his mother. A 
 beautiful skin rug covers the 
 luxurious couch in the large room, 
 and in the inner room is a fine old 
 spinning wheel. The kitchen is at 
 the back, and there is a good 
 orchard and garden attached. 
 
 I received a most cordial greet 
 ing, and an invitation to stay all 
 night with him, which I regretted 
 I could not accept. He was 
 engaged cooking the dinner when I 
 arrived, and it did seem strange to 
 hear this cultured English artist 
 and author say, 
 
 1 20 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 " Excuse me, but I must go and 
 attend to the dinner." 
 
 And a real good dinner we had 
 roast beef, potatoes, spinach, green 
 peas, and stewed apples all except 
 the beef raised in his own garden, 
 I believe. 
 
 I found him a most agreeable 
 host and a pleasant companion. 
 We had an interesting conversa 
 tion, and it was with extreme 
 regret that I left him to return to 
 Brooklyn in the evening. 
 
 VISIT TO MR. JOHN BURROUGHS. 
 
 Wednesday, July 2$rd. - This Up the 
 morning I left Brooklyn, and sailed Hudson. 
 up the beautiful Hudson river to 
 West Park, on a visit to Mr. 
 John Burroughs. Our steamer, 
 The Albany, was a floating palace, 
 most luxuriously fitted-up, and 
 filled to overflowing with a 
 
 121 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 thoroughly characteristic American 
 crowd of well-dressed people. We 
 were favoured with ideal weather, 
 and the sail up the magnificent 
 river was most enjoyable, the 
 scenery being of the highest order- 
 somewhat like that of the Rhine, 
 minus the castles. The banks 
 beyond the Palisades are beauti 
 fully wooded and diversified with 
 houses, villages and towns, most 
 picturesquely nestling among the 
 trees. The beauty is concentrated 
 at West Point, where the scenery 
 is exceedingly fine. 
 
 John Landing at Poughkeepsie, I 
 
 Burroughs. ferried to West Park, where I 
 
 found Mr. Burroughs watching 
 some workmen sinking a well 
 through a rock in the grounds of a 
 new house adjoining his own. 
 He is a fine, farmer-like man, of 
 medium height, with a well-built 
 
 122 
 
JOHN BURROUGHS. 
 
 I2 3 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 frame, a good head, well posed 
 on his square, sturdy shoulders, a 
 long, flowing, grizzled beard and 
 moustache, and greyish hair. His 
 sun-browned face has a peculiarly 
 pleasant expression, especially 
 about the eyes, which twinkle with 
 a merry light when he smiles ; and 
 he has a well-shaped,, nearly 
 Roman, nose, a mobile mouth, 
 and a full, broad, rounded fore 
 head. 
 
 He was dressed in a free and 
 easy style - - grey, home-spun 
 trousers, striped shirt, no vest, a 
 plum-coloured, loose alpaca coat, a 
 white straw hat, and canvas boots ; 
 and is altogether a good-looking 
 fellow, with a genial, likeable 
 presence, and an out-of-door air 
 about him just such a man as 
 one might expect this cultured. 
 
 125 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 lover and critic of nature and of 
 books to be. 
 
 I 11 ]l/is He gave me a most cordial 
 
 reception, and took rne at once 
 
 House. , . , i i 
 
 to his summer-house a shingle- 
 roofed, wooden structure, built of 
 peeled hemlock and vine branches 
 intertwined. It stands at the head 
 of a vine-clad slope, beneath some 
 wide-branching, leafy trees, directly 
 overlooking the Hudson. It is 
 open on all sides, and is provided 
 with a small table, a seat on each 
 side, and a couple of comfortable 
 chairs. Up in one corner near the 
 roof was a last year s robin s nest. 
 On the seat and the table were 
 lying papers, magazines, and books, 
 among which were the " Culti 
 vator," the " Country Gentleman," 
 the " Conservator," the " Critic," 
 the " Chautauquan," the " Unit 
 arian Review, 1 the " Blessed Birds " 
 
 126 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 (by Eldridge E. Fish), " Lorna 
 Doone," " Wide Awake," etc. 
 We sat down, he insisting upon 
 my occupying the most comfort 
 able chair, and had two hours 
 most enjoyable talk in the delight 
 ful shade of that cool retreat, 
 with the trees swaying and sighing 
 overhead, the majestic Hudson 
 smoothly gliding seawards in front 
 of us, the birds singing and 
 fluttering among the trees all 
 around us, and the vines at our 
 feet. 
 
 He was, of course, much 
 interested in all I had to tell him 
 about Whitman, and spoke very 
 affectionately about him. He said 
 he had been with him a good deal 
 20 or 25 years ago, and owed much 
 to him. Whitman, he said, was 
 altogether a unique man a pro 
 blem for the future. When he 
 
 127 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 (J. B.) and W. D. O Connor began 
 to write about him, there was a 
 good deal of opposition, " pooh- 
 poohing," and ridicule, but now 
 there was a great change in the 
 treatment of him, and he was no 
 longer insulted by the literary 
 guild, as he used to be. 
 
 Speaking of O Connor, he 
 showed me one of his letters, and 
 told me of his death. 
 
 " Did you ever know him ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Only through his essay on 
 Whitman," I replied. 
 
 His Talk "Ah! " he said quickly and with 
 
 re O Connor emphasis, " that was a splendid bit 
 and Whitman. of WQrk> wasn t it ? Well, he was 
 
 one of the most acute-minded men 
 I ever knew. His intellect was 
 like a Damascus blade so clean- 
 cutting and incisive. He was a 
 vehement debater, and the most 
 
 128 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 brilliant talker I ever heard. He 
 was a great reader, and never 
 seemed to forget anything he read 
 he had it, apparently, at his 
 finger ends. His essay on Whit 
 man shows him at his best. It is 
 vigorous, trenchant, high-pitched, 
 full of sarcasm, and is unsurpassed. 
 He was a keen controversialist, 
 and Whitman and he used to have 
 some fierce tussles. He held 
 socialistic views, was a great hater 
 of kings and emperors, whom 
 Walt Would often defend, and the 
 two of them used to go at it pell- 
 mell. I didn t care for these 
 wordy wars, but Walt enjoyed 
 them. He liked to be stimulated, 
 and O Connor stimulated him 
 with a vengeance ! At that time, 
 Whitman came to my house in 
 Washington regularly every Sun 
 day morning to breakfast, for three 
 
 129 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 or four years. He always came 
 by the street-cars, rolling off and 
 walking down street with a great 
 swing, which was characteristically 
 his own. He was never punctual 
 though, and we had always to wait 
 breakfast for him ; he was never 
 methodical in his habits. Mrs. 
 Burroughs used to make very nice 
 buckwheat cakes, of which he was 
 very fond. After breakfast we sat 
 and talked till noon, when he would 
 roll off home, going every Sunday 
 evening to tea to O Connor s, 
 where I often joined them. 
 He has stayed with me here for 
 weeks at a time, and I ve tried to 
 get him to come and live in this 
 neighbourhood in a cottage close 
 by which would be far better for 
 him than that half-dead place, 
 Camden, but he isn t to be moved." 
 
 130 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 In a little while we began to talk 
 about the birds, through my asking 
 him the name of a certain bird 
 near us. It happened to be the 
 king-bird, which, he said, was a 
 remarkable little creature for 
 keeping a place clear of hawks, 
 crows, and such pests, frequently 
 attacking them by getting on to 
 their backs and tweaking their 
 feathers, or otherwise annoying 
 them. He had seen a king-bird on 
 the back of an eagle doing this. 
 
 And thus began what was to me John 
 one of the most delightful treats I 
 had in America, viz., listening to and the Blvds 
 John Burroughs discoursing upon 
 American birds. While sitting 
 there we saw or heard the follow 
 ing : The cat-bird (a wonderfully 
 appropriate name, for its call is 
 just like the mewing of a cat), 
 king-bird, wood-thrush, robin, song- 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 sparrow (a sweet little songster), 
 goldfinch, swallow, bush-sparrow, 
 and, later on, the phaebe-bird, 
 purple finch I caught a young one 
 indoors next morning high-hole, 
 indigo-bird, blue-bird, etc. 
 
 One of the most striking things 
 about him was the fact that he 
 recognised every one of them in 
 an instant by their notes either 
 their songs or their calls and 
 could at once differentiate each 
 individual bird, even though there 
 might be several together of dif 
 ferent species. He would suddenly 
 exclaim : 
 
 " That is the woodthrush with 
 its sweet notes- pu-ri-ty, holy- 
 be ! There is the song of the 
 phaebe-bird over there, you may 
 just hear the * ch-e-e-p of the blue 
 bird, and there goes the robin, 
 which is really a thrush," etc., etc. 
 
 132 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Later on, I had a sample of his 
 wonderfully acute and accurate 
 powers of observation. While 
 walking down to the Post Office- 
 he is Postmaster which is in 
 West Park Station, he called my 
 attention to an elm, pointing out 
 how it differed from our English 
 elms, and said, " These long 
 branches overhanging the roadway 
 are favourite nesting places for the 
 oriole, which loves to swing in the 
 wind, and I shouldn t be surprised 
 if we saw one in one of these trees." 
 In a few moments his sharp eyes 
 had detected the very thing he ex 
 pected, and he exclaimed, " Oh, 
 there s one ! pointing directly 
 to an oriole s nest swaying at the 
 very end of the long branch. 
 
 He is a thorough countryman in 
 his habits, rising at what he calls 
 the " ridiculous hour of five 
 
 133 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 a.m., and going to bed at 9 p.m. 
 His Fruit He has a farm of about eighteen 
 
 Farm, acres, on which he grows nothing but 
 
 fruit apples, pears, raspberries, 
 strawberries, blackberries, peaches, 
 currants, and grapes for the 
 market. He was much concerned 
 about the apparently imminent 
 failure of his grape harvest, through 
 a black blight which had struck 
 the newly formed grapes. He took 
 me through his grounds lading 
 me with apples and pears down 
 to the immense wooden ice-houses 
 by the river side " our only cathe 
 drals here," he said and entering 
 them he tried to awake their echoes 
 by shouting " echo ! echo ! " at the 
 top of his voice. 
 
 To a question of mine as to how 
 he did with his vines, fruit trees, 
 etc., during a dry season, he re 
 plied, " They have just to take 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 their chance and wait until the 
 rain comes." " Do you never 
 water them ? I asked. (There 
 is a natural spring of beautifully 
 clear and good-tasting water in his 
 grounds). " No," he replied, " \Ye 
 cannot imitate Nature s method, 
 which is slow, gentle, and pene 
 trating Ours is too rapid, and 
 soddens the soil, instead of moist 
 ening it gradually through and 
 through as rain does." 
 
 ( )n our return he took me into his His Study 
 study a two-windowed, square, 
 one-storey building, situated a few 
 yards behind the summer-house. 
 The walls outside are covered with 
 large strips of bark. Entering this 
 sanction, we find two sides of it 
 devoted to well-filled book-shelves 
 let into the wall ; a strong, well- 
 cushioned couch stands on one 
 side, and near the door is an open 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 fireplace with hearth, for a wood 
 fire, a gun resting against the 
 jamb. In the centre of the room 
 are one or two chairs, and a large, 
 substantial table, all littered with 
 books, papers, magazines, pamph 
 lets, etc., a good reading-lamp 
 standing in the centre. Another 
 table beneath the bookshelves is 
 covered with books, among which 
 were cloth bound copies of David 
 Douglas s editionof his own six little 
 volumes, while stacked in the 
 corners are piles of periodicals, 
 manuscripts, etc. Pinned or tacked 
 on the walls, or resting on the man 
 telpiece, are portraits of Walt 
 Whitman two or three of these, 
 -Matthew Arnold, Humboldt, 
 Carlyle, Emerson these two last 
 similar to the ones that used to be 
 in J. W. Wallace s room at Eagle- 
 street Lyell, Ibsen he has not 
 
 138 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 got the Ibsen mania, Thoreau, 
 and others, including the profile of 
 himself which appeared in The 
 Century. There are also several 
 pictures of birds, an oriole s nest 
 in which the birds had interwoven 
 some coloured yarn, a gigantic 
 moth, and a good many other 
 natural curiosities. 
 
 From the study we went into His House. 
 his house, where I was introduced 
 to the hospitably -kind Mrs. 
 Burroughs and to their boy. The 
 house, which was planned by 
 himself, is built upon sloping 
 ground, so that it has three-storeys 
 behind and two in front. It has 
 four gables, a porch in front, and 
 a spacious balcony behind com 
 manding a splendid view across 
 the waters of the Hudson and its 
 richly-wooded and fertile banks 
 away to " the deleclable moun- 
 
 139 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 tains." The house is mainly 
 built of stone a dark-grey, quartz- 
 veined slate, quarried in the 
 neighbourhood ; and in showing it 
 to me Mr. Burroughs remarked, 
 11 Who would build with brick 
 when they eould get such stone as 
 that close at hand ? " The upper 
 storey is of wood, and the greater 
 part of the front is covered by the 
 red foliage of the Virginia vine. 
 The interior is most charming, the 
 whole of the wood-work from 
 floors to rafters being different 
 natural-coloured woods, carefully 
 arranged so as to contrast and yet 
 harmonise with each other, and 
 the carpets and wall papers are 
 all toned low, and in pleasing 
 combinations of colour. 
 
 After supper the Americans call 
 our " tea " supper we returned to 
 the summer-house, where we sat 
 
 140 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 talking and watching the long 
 raft-tows slowly gliding down the 
 river, until the light faded, the 
 fire-flies lit their flashing lamps, 
 the tree crickets fiddled and 
 chirruped out their monotones, 
 and the stars twinkled overhead 
 through the trees. 
 
 Thursday, July 2/j.///. I arose at His Talk 
 6 a.m., and spent a most delightful re Poets - 
 time with Mr. Burroughs in his 
 grounds, study, and summer-house 
 our talk being mainly about 
 America and England, their poets, 
 literary men, and literature. He 
 has a sweetly-toned, well modu 
 lated voice, with a clear, musical 
 ring in it. He talks well and 
 fluently, and there is a marked 
 individuality about some of his 
 sentences and phrases which a 
 student of his writings could easily 
 detect. 
 
 141 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 The poet who is more to him 
 than any other is Wordsworth, and 
 next to him comes Tennyson. The 
 latter, he thinks, is more fluent, 
 more universal than Wordsworth, 
 and is undoubtedly a great poet. To 
 him Tennyson s great charm lies 
 in his universality and his sympathy. 
 
 " Browning," he said, " I cannot 
 read with any satisfaction. He is 
 very brilliant, very clever, very 
 scholarly, but he is all the time 
 striking verbal attitudes like some 
 one turning somersaults over chairs. 
 It s very clever, no doubt ; but 
 gracious ! It tires me to think of 
 it ! He has not voiced his age like 
 Tennyson. I like a poet who 
 draws me with cords of sympathy 
 and love, rather than one who is 
 astonishing me all the time with 
 his verbal contortions. I do not 
 respond to Browning ; he seems to 
 
 142 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 require some trait of which I am 
 deficient." 
 
 The younger generation of 
 English poets are, he remarked, a 
 long way behind ; and the same is 
 true of the American. Swinburne he 
 abominates. Morris and Dobson 
 have written some good things, but 
 none which appeal to his deeper 
 nature. There are none to take 
 the places of Longfellow some of 
 whose things " will keep," as he 
 phrases it Bryant, Emerson, and 
 Whittier. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 is very clever and very witty, but 
 there is nothing solid, helpful, 
 moulding, or formative about his 
 writing. 
 
 He deplores the present state of 
 literature in America, from the 
 newspapers upwards. 
 
 " In America," he said, " there 
 is a host of authors and poetlings. 
 
 H3 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 In New York there is a Society of 
 Authors, of which I was a member; 
 but some two or three years ago 
 they actually blackballed Whitman ! 
 I ve never been inside the doors 
 since that. They would have done 
 themselves infinite honour had they 
 elected him / didn t propose 
 him, but they showed themselves 
 contemptible little fools by refusing 
 him. They are mostly second- 
 rate, obscure scribblers, who 
 consider themselves poets and 
 Whitman is not a poet, in their 
 opinion ! " 
 
 He spoke a little about his 
 private life said he had very few 
 friends in the neighbourhood for 
 whom he really cared much, his 
 neighbours being mostly rich mer 
 chants who knew nothing about 
 books. He was engaged most of 
 his time on his farm ; and spent 
 
 144 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 most of his leisure in his summer- 
 house or study, ever since a slight 
 illness a year or two ago, which 
 made him resolve to live mostly 
 out-of-doors ; but he often wished 
 he had some congenial society, and 
 that he could see Whitman now 
 and then. He was sure it would 
 do him a lot of good. 
 
 On my showing him the large R G the 
 portrait which Whitman had given Gutekunst 
 to me for Mr. W 7 allace, he Portrait. 
 exclaimed, -- " Gracious ! That s 
 tremendous ! He looks Titanic ! 
 It s the very best I have yet seen 
 of him. It shows power, mass, 
 penetration, everything. I like it 
 too because it shows his head. He 
 will persist in keeping his hat on 
 and hiding the grand dome of his 
 head. The portrait shows his body 
 too. I don t like the way so many 
 artists belittle their sitters bodies." 
 
 H5 J 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 " What a magnificent head it 
 is ! " he a^ain exclaimed. kk Kvery 
 part of it lar.j^c and in perfect 
 proportion. It is huilt like a 
 splendid stone bridge every part 
 necessarv, and the whole perfect in 
 symnietrv. It is certainly the very 
 finest head, and \\ hitman is the 
 greatest all-round personality that 
 this countrv has yet produced. 
 
 ST i l I.KM KNTAKY NOTKS. 
 
 Such are some <>t the details 1 
 learned about Walt Whitman 
 during niv short visit to America ; 
 but interesting and perhaps valu 
 able as the\- are, 1 feel that they 
 form but an imperfect record of 
 an experience which is indelibly 
 graved into mv memory as one of 
 the most important events of my 
 life. 
 
 \\ hen I think with what open- 
 
 146 
 
* x tt\^r C */ c 
 t / ou, > r c- ^ 
 
 
 Reduced Facsimile r f Portion 
 of Whitman s Letter 
 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 hearted loving-kindness he received 
 me, with what open - handed 
 generosity he treated me, what 
 trouble he took to please me 
 allowing me to photograph him 
 self and his surroundings, ran 
 sacking his treasures for souvenirs 
 " somethings for tokens"- of 
 his great love ; giving me an 
 oil-painting of himself, two auto 
 graph photographs and six auto 
 graph books for J. W. Wallace 
 and myself when I think of the 
 hours of unconstrained, genial, 
 friendly talk I had with him, and 
 the homely intimacy to which I 
 was admitted when I think of his 
 considerate kindness in writing to 
 Bolton after my first visit, and 
 of his tenderly anxious, almost 
 paternal, solicitude concerning me, 
 after I left him, because he had 
 not heard from me when I think 
 
 H9 
 
A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 of the many tokens of his regard 
 that we have been favoured with 
 since my return above all, when 
 I think of the immense debt I owe 
 him through his books, my heart 
 fairly swells with reverent, grate 
 ful affection to that superbly grand 
 old man, that large, sweet soul, 
 " exhaling love as a dew/ who is 
 to me the ideal of humanity, the 
 living embodiment of all that is 
 manly, noble, heroic, wholesome, 
 kind, and essentially lovable in 
 our nature. 
 
 He is by far the most impressive 
 personality I ever came in contact 
 with. Jove-like in his majesty, he 
 is childlike in his simplicity, and 
 pre-eminently natural and un 
 affectedly sincere through every 
 fibre of his being. 
 
 He is like a piece of primeval, 
 out-of-door nature itself: shaggy, 
 
AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 untrimmed, majestic, picturesque, 
 as of a piece with the cliffs, 
 the sea, the mountains, and the 
 prairies ; and he has the charm 
 and influence of Nature herself, 
 tonic and life-giving. It is im 
 possible, I think, for anyone to 
 look upon his noble face, to take 
 him by the hand, to walk and talk 
 with him, to listen to the tones of 
 his sweetly melodious voice, and 
 to gaze into the azure depths of 
 his blue-grey eyes without feeling 
 drawn to him by that irresistible 
 magnetic attraction which makes 
 almost everyone like him at once. 
 He is the impersonation of all 
 those qualities which constitute 
 Cameraderie nay, he is Camera- 
 dene. He seems to irradiate an 
 all-encompassing sympathy like an 
 aroma, so that one wishes to be 
 always with him, and feels loth to 
 leave him. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, 
 BERKELEY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 
 50c per volume after the third day overdue, increasing 
 to $1.00 per volumeAfter the sixth day. Books not in 
 demand may^je ^en^wed if&pplication is made before 
 tToaxi 
 
 expiration ot 
 
 period. 
 
 APR 
 
 J\M 5 1926 
 
 
 
 JUl 31 1931 
 
 27 
 
 
 REC U uD 
 
 OCT3U86D 
 
 REC D ID 
 
 REC D LD 
 
 APR 2 9 
 
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 C S 66 -9 AM 
 
 OAN DEPIT. 
 
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196440