Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-30
WHITMAN MEMORIES
BY Harrison S. Morris

the dinner given to Whitman on his sew
cnty first birthday, by some ones sugges
| tion became written lecture which Inger
soil gave for Waits benefit at Horticultural
Hall in Philadelphia. 1t was managed by
Horace Traubel and myself. Ingersoll was
to come over from New York and meet us
at hotel On the day chosen we received
telegram from one of Waits New York
trends saying. If pay coloneFs fare ,oiH
you REIN burSe me! The fare was about "a.
We thought this odd and decided not to
reply. When the Colonel arrived in the hotel
accompanied by the sender of the telegram.
we went through the greetings and showed
lngersoll his room. His companion then
whispered to Traubel that he need not re
turn him Ingersoll's fare, as in fact 1ngersoll
had paid the fare of both.
After the lecture the particular friends of
Walt gathered at table in n cafe nearby,
and it was found that about $1,000 had been
obtained for the feeble old poets comfort.
for which he expressed gentle and modest
thanks to Colonel IngersoI. and | can see
him now cautiously folding up the money
and putting it safely away in his great gray
coat.
A Nd this also recalls that day when ! saw
him seated in his big rough rocking
chair by the window on the street. opening
letters that asked for autographs. Some of
them he complied with but all he could not
begin to answer, and he was engaged when
| saw him, hat on and gray coat with many
pins stuck in the sleeve for safe keeping in
peeling off the postage stamps that were
sent him for reply and placing them fru-
gally on an improviscd shelf attached to the
window ledge. The chair was the gift OF
Thomas Donaldson, a collector of all that
was odd but often not valuable. He was
of the group that made Waits last years
comfortable. SO was Dr. ID. G. Brinton, an
cthnologist of note and student of letters.
1t was at his house that the sender of the
telegram about Ingersolls railway fare de-
livered an address his association with
Walt wherein he told feclingly of Waits
affection for his wife. He described her
death and how Walt placed a lily in her hand
as she lay on her bed of death; and he
worked us up to an extreme pitch of emo
ton. Then, with a change of voice and
manner denoting that that episode was over
and done with, he cried out About a year
from that day. when I had married my
present wife" which shocked his audience
into unscemly laughter and left humorous
impression of a solemn occasion.
THE birthday dinner of 1891 was held in
l. the lower room of the little boxlike house
on Mickle street, Camden. The two rooms
together were hardly larger than a good
sized parlor. and now the folding doors were
flung back and narrow table ran from the
front wall to the rear. Walt sat in the
center facing the hall. and the faithful
friends grouped themselves on either hand.
There was not much light nor much to eat,
but it was a memorable meal, because Walt
was Sayentv-two and his ma ssiye hody was
showing the ravages of disease and age. He
had to be helped to his chair with strong
arms and he sat down in some exhaustion.
But everybody was familiar to him and loved
him much, and as his eye ranged along the
table he lost the dazed look with which he
entered and when the speeches began he
was full of his old time fun. He lifted his
glass of champagne in a toast to Bryant
Emerson and I.ongfellow. deaa and to Ten
nyson and Whittier, living poets and he
talked of old friends. Doctor Bucke asked
questions which Walt parried, and Lincoln
Eyre a young lawyer, made a fowery sort
of speech, incidentally asking Walt why he
had never married. To this Walt gave a
rambling reply with evasive reference to the
cat in the "Nbeungen.' ''or somebody
cse's with an immensely long, long tail to
it He could not stay until the end. but
grew tired and was helped back to his room
upstairs, waving blessing for us all as he
disappeared in the little entry.
This was near the limit of his strength.
He lived with ebbing and flowing endurance
for nearly a year. but he suffered as any
great nature must suffer who knows the
lovelineSs of nature and the devotion of
friends and realizes deeply the separation
approaching and the unknown regions be-
yond He was not afraid; he was brave
under physical woe. and he had welcomed
death in his chanting as few or none among
the singers of the world had greeted it:
Come lovely and soothing Death
was his burden in lustier days as in these
hours of darkness and affection.
THE fickering spirit was almost extin-
l. guished more than once. l remember how
Doctor Buckle came down from Canada and
sketched out to Williams all the details of a
funeral that did not happen for several
months Walt sent a last message to his
friends in February, 1891, in which pro-
phetically he said
More and more it comes to the fore that
the only theory worthy our modern times,
for great literature, politics and sociology,
must combine all the best people of all
lands, the women not forgetting.
On March 90, 1892, Walt Whitman died.
THE funeral was as characteristic as his
l. life and his death. The crowd that en-
tered the little old shabby house was enor-
NOUS They streamed in for three hours
then the carriages came and the pallbearers
who were to ride got in four by four and
waited for the start. / was in carriage with
Judge Garrison, of the New Jersey courts,
and Jim Scoval, as he was briefly called,
journalist who had written much of Walt
and who once drolly confounded Sir Edwin
Arnold with Matthew Arnold in reporting
visit Of the former TO Mickle street An
other Camden journalist and friend occupied
+ba fourth seat