WALT WHITMAN.

(Photogravure.)

From a negative by G. C. Cox.

Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, L., I., N. Y., May 31st, 1819. He came of Dutch and English stock. At the Age of sixteen he was teaching school on Long Island. Two years later he was in a newspaper office as compositor and writer. His restless disposition soon started him on a wandering tour through the Western and Southern States—a "Working Expedition" he called it— as he practiced his trade of compositor in the several cities where he "camped." Returning to N. Y. about 1850, he wrote more or less for the newspapers, and occasionally tried his hand at carpentering. In 1862 he went to Washington where he secured a clerkship in the Attorney General's Office, spending all his leisure time in the hospitals nursing wounded soldiers. It is believed that this overwork broke down his magnificent physique. In 1873 he had a stroke of paralysis from which he never recovered. At this writing his death may be expected at any moment. His best known book is "Leaves of Grass," which has received heartier praise and fiercer condemnation than perhaps any book of modern times. Its sale was prohibited in Boston by some half witted, prurient cranks, but it found its place, nevertheless, on the library shelves of the cultured. As he is passing away, New York society ladies have conceived the idea of keeping his room filled with the flowers he loved in his robust days. A complimentary banquet given him in 1889, brought out the following from Richard Watson Gilder, and others:

"Place Walt Whitman's poetry in the corner stone of this nation, let some convulsion of Nature overthrow these United States and then let that poetry be found, and from the lines will rise up a picture of our times, such, I believe, as nowhere else can be found." Mr. Gilder also said in the same speech: —"I am a stickler for form in literature, and one thing that I admire in Walt Whitman is his magnificent form."

William M. Rosette, the eminent poet and critic, wrote from England: —"I consider him to be pre-eminent among the sons of men for a large human nature—broad, deep and glowing—and for the power of giving the deepest and most universal expression to the deepest and most universal feelings."

William Morris sent his greeting as to a personal friend and added: — "I look upon him as one of the men * * * without whom poetry would degenerate into a mere literary trick, insincere and empty, valueless to all who set a true value on life."

John Greenleaf Whittier wished "that he might have occasion to thank God for renewed health and many more birthdays and for the consolation which must come from the recollection of generous services rendered to the sick and suffering Union soldiers."

Horace Howard Furness was unable to be present, but in his note of regret he speaks thuswise: —"From the heights of a life invincibly true to the ideals of his youth, unswerving throughout in his honesty, standing 'four square to all the winds that blow,' with the heart instantly sensitive to every impulse of beauty, he must know of a surety that 'eternal sunshine will settle on his head.'"