_At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889_.--Walt
Whitman said: My friends, though announced to give an address, there
is no such intention. Following the impulse of the spirit, (for I am at
least half of Quaker stock) I have obey'd the command to come and look
at you, for a minute, and show myself, face to face; which is probably
the best I can do. But I have felt no command to make a speech;
and shall not therefore attempt any. All I have felt the imperative
conviction to say I have already printed in my books of poems or prose;
to which I refer any who may be curious. And so, hail and farewell.
Deeply acknowledging this deep compliment, with my best respects and
love to you personally--to Camden--to New-Jersey, and to all represented
here--you must excuse me from any word further.
"INTESTINAL AGITATION"
_From Pall-Mall Gazette, London, England, Feb 8, 1890_ Mr. Ernest
Rhys has just receiv'd an interesting letter from Walt Whitman, dated
"Camden, January 22, 1890." The following is an extract from it:
I am still here--no very mark'd or significant change or
happening--fairly buoyant spirits, &c.--but surely, slowly ebbing. At
this moment sitting here, in my den, Mickle street, by the oakwood fire,
in the same big strong old chair with wolf-skin spread over back--bright
sun, cold, dry winter day. America continues--is generally busy enough
all over her vast demesnes (intestinal agitation I call it,) talking,
plodding, making money, every one trying to get on--perhaps to get
towards the top--but no special individual signalism--(just as well, I
guess.)
"WALT WHITMAN'S LAST 'PUBLIC'"
The gay and crowded audience at the Art Rooms, Philadelphia, Tuesday
night, April 15, 1890, says a correspondent of the Boston _Transcript_,
April 19, might not have thought that W. W. crawl'd out of a sick bed a
few hours before, crying,
Dangers retreat when boldly they're confronted,
and went over, hoarse and half blind, to deliver his memoranda and essay
on the death of Abraham Lincoln, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of that
tragedy. He led off with the following new paragraph:
"Of Abraham Lincoln, bearing testimony twenty-five years after his
death--and of that death--I am now my friends before you. Few realize
the days, the great historic and esthetic personalities, with him in
the centre, we pass'd through. Abraham Lincoln, familiar, our own, an
Illinoisian, modern, yet tallying ancient Moses, Joshua, Ulysses, or
later Cromwell, and grander in some respects than any of them; Abraham
Lincoln, that makes the like of Homer, Plutarch, Shakspere, eligible our
day or any day. My subject this evening for forty or fifty minutes' talk
is the death of this man, and how that death will really filter into
America. I am not going to tell you anything new; and it is doubtless
nearly altogether because I ardently wish to commemorate the hour and
martyrdom and name I am here. Oft as the rolling years bring back this
hour, let it again, however briefly, be dwelt upon. For my own part I
hope and intend till my own dying day, whenever the 14th and 15th
of April comes, to annually gather a few friends and hold its tragic
reminiscence. No narrow or sectional reminiscence. It belongs to these
States in their entirety--not the North only, but the South--perhaps
belongs most tenderly and devoutly to the South, of all; for there
really this man's birthstock; there and then his antecedent stamp. Why
should I not say that thence his manliest traits, his universality,
his canny, easy ways and words upon the surface--his inflexible
determination at heart? Have you ever realized it, my friends, that
Lincoln, though grafted on the West, is essentially in personnel and
character a Southern contribution?"
The most of the poet's address was devoted to the actual occurrences and
details of the murder. We believe the delivery on Tuesday was Whitman's
thirteenth of it. The old poet is now physically wreck'd. But his voice
and magnetism are the same. For the last month he has been under
a severe attack of the lately prevailing influenza, the grip, in
accumulation upon his previous ailments, and, above all, that terrible
paralysis, the bequest of secession war times. He was dress'd last
Tuesday night in an entire suit of French Canadian grey wool cloth, with
broad shirt collar, with no necktie; long white hair, red face, full
beard and moustache, and look'd as though he might weigh two hundred
pounds. He had to be help'd and led every step. In five weeks more he
will begin his seventy-second year. He is still writing a little.