The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-04-13
MY STERY OF " Al
WHITMAN SOLVED


MARRIED TO WOMAN IN NEW Or
LEANS AND HAD CHILDREN.
Why This Incident In Ills Career Was
So Carefully Guarded His Son Wis
tied Camden at the Time Of Whit
mans Last Sickness Life
Of Whitman Brings Facts to Light.
Walt Whitman, as seen from an Eng
lish viewpoint, is excellently portrayed
by Henry Bryan Binns in !" A Life of
Walt Whitman an illustrated volume
OF 800 pages, published by =. p. Dut-
ton & Co. The writer has not attempt
ed. except parenthetically here and
there, to make literary decisions on the
value of Whitman's work. He de-
scrlbes him as man, but as q man Of
special and exceptional character, new
type of mystic or seer.
Whitman, at the age Of 30, had not,
to the writer 8 knowledge, wandered be-
yond the limits of his own state. nor
had he experienced any serious affair Of
eHS HedIG. LII 1910 ne Went SOuGn TO
assist N starting the Crescent, daily,
paper IN New Orleans. The period Of
his stay there-three months--was the
turning point In his career.
When asked in later years why he
had never married, he would say either
that it was impossible to give a salts.
factory explanation, altho such an ex-
PLANTATION might perhaps exist, or he
y would declare that, with an instinct Of
OF escaped from entanglements which
tn his freedom. These replies
ne mace With an OBVIOUS retrcence and
reservation. He, who had .professed to
make SO clean breast Of his own short
comlngs, ana who In his last years re,
CURED Gnat records OF himself should
SET ,e1:, IN oelng somewhat oyer.personal,
aeliperatelY concealed certain imp ortant
incidents IN his life. There can be
only one Interpretation Of this singu-
lar state or atfalrs: that these incidents
concerned others equally with himself,
and that those others were unwilling
to have them published. IF they had
communicated mn them. but they were not.
Whatever: Whitman s duty in this
matter, it behooves his biographer to
present as full a picture as possible OF
his life, and to let no fact 20 by with
out notices. while the knowledge that
Whitman himself could not disclose the
whole truth, should only make us the
more Re- careful in our reading Of the scan
It seems that during his southern So
lourn, Walt formed an intimate. rela-
tlonshlp with some woman Of higher
social rank than his own--a lady of the
south, where social rank is of the first
'consslderation-that she became the
mother OF his child, perhaps, IN after
years, Of his children; and that he was
prevented by some obstacle, presume
bly, OF family prejudice, from marriage
or the acknowledgment of his paterni-
tY. The main facts can now hardly be
disputed. whitman put some OF them
on record IN letter to Add1ngton Sy-
nonos curing 1ne last yea. OF ms ne,
@ ee ieave du!ler sea p',t 4h -
H. thr aease us e1eousois Sos Daye us 90
c ~, GsLe Remerls mb; % he iet "a n
from tine to time n nrivata converge
t;on seem e tn " admit - NJ ofher interpre-
IN one If his noems he. vfvidlv de.
| scrihes how once in nonnlous citv he
CHANGED To meet with = woman who
cast her love upon him. and how thew
! remained together till at last he tore
himself away. to remember nothing of
that city save her and her. love. IL
! spite Of Whitman's express desire that
the poem should be regarded merely in
its universal application q desire
which in itself seems to betoken a con:
seriousness of self betra yal-we cannot
but recognize its autoblograph1cal sug
q gestlon., And in the stress laid upon
the part OF the woman, we may see y
1 cause Tor Whltman 8 re!lcence. y =
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