Morning journal and courier., 1891-03-19
Walt Whitman at Present,

About myself at present. I will soon enter upon my seventy-third year, if ive-have passed an active life, as coun- try school teacher, printer, carpenter, au- thor and journalist, domiciied in nearly all the United States and principal cities north and south-went to the front (mov- ing about and occupied as army nurse and missionary during the secession war, 1861 to '65, and in the Virginia hospitals and after the battles of that time, tending the northern and southern wounded alike worked down south and in Washington city arduously for three years-contracted the paralysis which I have suffered ever since-and now live in little cottage of my own, near the Delaware in New ter sey. My chief book, unrhymed and un- metrical Gt has taken thirty years, peace and war, "a borning'0 has its aim as once said, "to utter the same old human critter but now in democratic American mod ern and scientific conditions" Then I have published two prose works, "Speci- men Days," and late one November Boughs." GA little volume Good Bye my Fancy" is soon to be out.) l do not pro pose here to enter the much fought field of the literary criticism of any of those works.
 Now for few portraiture or descriptive bits. To-day in the upper of little wooden house of two stories near the Del aware river, east shore, sixty miles up from the sea, is rather large twenty by twenty low ceilinged room something like big old ships cabin. The floor, three quarters of it with an ingrain carpet, is ha1f nnvaraA hr Haatn 1ittar of hnolyc papers, magazines, throw-down letters and circulars, rejected manuscripts, memoran- da, bits of light or strong twine, a bundle to be expressed" ," and two or three vene- rable scrap books. In the room stand two large tables (one of ancient solid mahoga- ny with immense leaves) covered by a tumble of more papers, Q varied and CO., pious array of writing materials, several glass and china vessels or jars, some with cologne water, others with real honey, granulated sugar, large bunch of beauti- full fresh yellow chrysanthemums, some letters and enveloped paper ready for the post office, many photographs and a hun dred indescribable things besides There are all around many books, some quite handsome editions, some half covered by | dust, some within reach, evidently used, | (good sized print, no type less than long primer), some maps, the Bible, the strong, cheap edition of the English crown), Ho- mer, Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Emerson l Ticknor's Spanish Literature" John Car | lyle's Dante, Felton's Greece, George
 Sands Consuelo, very choice little Epic | tetus, seme novels, the latest foreign and
 American monthlies, quarterlies, and SC
 on. There being quite strew of printer, proofs and slips, the place with its quaint | old fashioned calmness has also smack oi | something alert and nf Ixnrl
 There are several trunks and depositoriei
 backed up at the walls; tone well-bound
 and big box came by express lately iron l Washington city, after storage there fol
 nearly twenty years.) Indeed, the whol,
 room is a sort of result and storage col
 lection of my own past life. I have her
 various editions of my own writings, anC
 sell them upon request; one is a big vol
 ume of my complete poems and prose, on
 thousand pages, autograph, essays, speech
 es, portraits from life, etc. Another is
 little Leaves of Grass" latest date, si
 portraits, morocco bound, in pocketboo
 form.
 Am now QS91) domiciled, and have bee
 for some years, in this little old cottae
 and lot in Mickle street, Camden, with
 housekeeper and man nurse. Bodily
 am completely disabled, but still write fc . publication. Though paralyzed and sick
 am probably one of the resultants of
 sound natural constitution, good genes and (may I sayD of temperate and war : (not ascetic) habits. That have come oI !. from many close calls of war and pesc and live and write yet after all, is attrib1 , table to that physical solidity, born sr grown. AS to my books they are less r ceived and read in America, and more c . the continent of Europe, in translation everywhere, and especially in their ow l text in the British Islands. They certain ly obtain there a curious personal regar' ,, and fulfill something of what is looked f' 7 from the new world.
 , To-day, 'old, poor and paralyzed," ! keep generally buoyant spirits, write ofte as there comes any lull in physical suffe r l ings, get in the sun and down to the riv , | whenever I can, retain fair appetite, 6 < similation and digestion, sensibilities acu :, as ever, the strength and volition of II 5 right arm good, eyesight dimming, b :, brain normal, and re:ain my hearts ar ~ souls unmitigated faith not only in the - own original literary plans, but in the C :; sential bulk of American humanity es u and west, north and south, city and cou
 try, through thick and thin. to the la. <. Nor must forget, in conclusion, a specii