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Cornell University Library
PS 3231.A56
Walt Whitman at home /
3 1924 022 222 479
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Photograph of Walt Whitman Frontispiece
Walt Whitman in Camden - Page 7
A Visit to Whitman's " Shanty" " 11
Facsimile of First Page of Manu-
script ... " 15
Facsimile of Manuscript of " Spirit
that Form'd this Scene" " 21
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A Visit to Whitman's
"Shanty."
( The Critic, 28 November 1891.)
I lived within thirty miles of Walt Whit-
man all summer, but it was not until the
week before I returned to town that I de-
termined to make a Camden pilgrimage.
There were four pilgrims — two little girls,
a young lady and myself. The day was a
beautiful one, cold, crisp and clear — just
the day for a visit to a poet. There is that
about Camden which dissipates any poetic
preconceptions one may have in visiting
that Jersey town. One would as soon ex-
pect to find a bard in Long Island City.
Even the poet's house has no outward ap-
pearance of sheltering any but an ordinary
tenant beneath its roof. A two-story-and-
a-half frame building, painted a dark brown,
with the upper shutters closed and the
edges of the loose-fitting lower window-
sashes stuffed with newspapers to keep out
the wind beating down from the north
greets the searcher after No. 328 Mickle
Street. At the curbstone is a block of
white marble with the initials "W. W."
cut into it, and the door-plate imparts the
further information that ' ' W. Whitman "
can be found by pulling the bell-handle.
17
I pulled it, and a young man in his shirt-
sleeves, with a short pipe in his mouth,
opened the door. ' ' Walt " was not down-
stairs yet, but if we would wait in the parlor
he would be told that we were there.
The room in which we found ourselves
was comfortable enough, but suggestive of
anything rather than poetry. The only
things that relieved its prosaic aspect were
a violin and a music-stand with a few
sheets of music lying on it. After a while
the young man returned and said that
"He" was not able to come down-stairs,
but that we might go up if we would.
The first door at the end of the hall, front,
was the one we were to pass through. We
climbed a narrow stairway and knocked
for admittance. " Come in," said a feeble
but familiar voice. I opened the door, and
stood for a moment on the threshold be-
fore I could find my voice to speak. Seated
in a big rocking-chair with a grey fur rug
thrown over the back, wrapped in a gown
made of a grey blanket, sat the "good
grey poet." I had not seen him for three
or four years, and he was very much
changed. His body was thinner than I
had ever seen it, but the fine head crowned
with its white hair was unaltered.
What had startled, not to say shocked,
me upon opening the door was the appear-
18
ance of the room as much as the appear-
ance of its occupant. The blinds were
closed and there were no curtains at the
windows, and it was no easy matter to
pick one's way across the sea of old news-
papers that surrounded the poet. The
office of the exchange reader on a dai-
ly paper was never so littered. These pa-
pers were the accumulation of years, to
judge by their dates; and so was the dust
upon them, to judge by its thickness. A
table stood opposite Mr. Whitman, and
this too was stacked, as high as it would
hold, with newspapers. A little space had
been left, just big enough to hold an ink-
stand but not big enough to use as a desk,
for when the poet wrote his name in a book
for me, he had to hold it on his knee. A
hot wood fire burned in an old-fashioned
' ' air-tight " stove, guiltless of blacking,
and on the opposite side of the room stood
a big double-bed that had not yet been
made up. Any one with the bump of
order even half developed would have been
driven wild by the appearance of the place;
but the poet did not seem to mind it at
all; and what surprised me greatly was,
that amid all this confusion he seemed to
know just where to lay his hand upon any-
thing he wanted. He would dive into the
enormous pile of newspapers at any angle,
and always fish out the book or the picture
or the manuscript that he wanted. He
19
spoke quite feelingly of the comfort of his
surroundings and of the good care that
was taken of him, but spoke very despond-
ently of his health. His mind, he said,
was generally very clear, but every now and
then his head would feel "like an apple-
dumpling," and he would have to stop
reading or writing and rest.
I had a small camera with me, which I
had brought ' ' with intention," and I asked
Mr. Whitman if I might take a picture of
him. He was good enough to say that I
might, so I opened one of the blinds and
asked him to sit quietly for a moment as
it would take some little time to get a
picture, the room being so dark. "Now,"
said I, "sit just as you are — don't move,"
and I took off the cap. What was my
horror when, right in the midst of the ex-
posure, the old bard waved his hand ma-
jestically, and turning towards the window
exclaimed, "The sun is coming out now ! "
Luckily, I had another plate, with which I
got a fairly good picture — one that will at
least serve as a memorandum of the poet
amid his unique surroundings. * But the
first one was nothing but chaos with a
ghostly shape in the foreground that bore
little resemblance to anything human.
J. L. G.
•See frontispiece.
(From The Critic.)
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