CHAPTER XXI_A Life of Walt Whitman

"GOOD-BYE, MY FANCY"

During the first years of his sojourn among them, some of the young

men of Camden had founded a Walt Whitman Club;[705] and year by year a

group of intimate friends was springing up about his own door.

Chief of these was Mr. Horace Traubel, whose life became so

inextricably interwoven with Whitman's last years that he has

rightly been called the old poet's spiritual son. He was one of the

first of Walt's Camden acquaintances. How or when they met, neither

could remember; looking back to the summer evenings when the lame,

white-haired man and the fair lad sat together on the steps of the

Stevens Street house, it seemed as though they had always been

friends.[706]

Another of the group was Mr. T. B. Harned,[707] Traubel's

brother-in-law, an able lawyer and lover of books, whose house became

a second home for Whitman after the removal from Philadelphia of his

friends the Pearsall Smiths. These two gentlemen, with Dr. Bucke,

eventually became Whitman's executors; better than anything else, this

shows the confidence which their old friend reposed in them.

On his sixty-ninth birthday--Friday, 31st May, 1888--his Camden friends

and others met him at dinner at Mr. Harned's.[708] Two days later he

was there again, and Dr. Bucke, arriving unexpectedly, was of the

party.

Walt had come in his carriage, and afterwards drove the doctor to the

ferry. Thence he made his way to a point where, urging his horse into

the river, he had nothing but water and sky before him, all filled

with the sunset glory. He sat for an hour absorbing it in a sort of

ecstasy.[709]

Returning home, he felt that he had been chilled, and recognised

intimations of a paralytic attack--the seventh--[710] as he went to

bed. He quietly resisted this alone. In the morning he had two more

slight strokes, and for the first time temporarily lost the power of

speech.

This was Monday, and all through the week he lay close to death. Dr.

Bucke had returned, his friends entertaining no hopes of his recovery.

But the end was not yet.

Even in the midst of the uncertainty he was determined to complete the

work he had in hand. Every day he contrived to get downstairs, and

every evening he turned over the proof-sheets of a new volume, which

Horace Traubel brought with him from the printer's on his way back

from the city. From this time on, Traubel was his daily visitor, his

faithful and assiduous aid.[711]

Slowly the old man began again to improve, but he never regained the

lost ground. His friends found him paler than of old, with new lines

on his face, and a heavier expression of weariness.[712] The horse and

carriage were no longer of service, and had to be sold; in the autumn

a nurse and wheel-chair took their place. The increased confinement

troubled him most of all, so that he became jealous of the tramp with

his outdoor life.

[Illustration: FAC-SIMILES OF POST-CARDS FROM WHITMAN TO MRS. BERENSON,

1887-8]

Altogether, as he wrote to his friends, though holding the fort--"sort

o'"--he was "a pretty complete physical wreck".[713] O'Connor, too,

was now paralysed and near his end; the two old friends, similarly

stricken, were once again exchanging greetings, though separated now by

a whole continent. In O'Connor's case, however, the brain itself was

also giving way. Walt followed all the illness of him who had been in

some respects his best comrade with pathetic interest, until, returning

from California to Washington, the broken flesh gave freedom at last to

the man's fiery spirit.[714]

* * * * *

Whitman grew somewhat more querulous in these later days, with the

increase of pain and discomfort;[715] for from this time on one may

almost say that he was slowly dying. Not that he complained or was

inconsiderate, but little things caused him greater irritation, though

only for a moment.

Nothing is more notable in Whitman's nature than the short duration of

his fits of quick-flaming wrath.[716] They flashed out from him in a

sudden word, and passed, leaving no trace of bitterness or resentment

behind.

An example of this is afforded by his behaviour toward the unexpected

and vehement assault upon him by a former admirer, Mr. Swinburne.

Having once acclaimed Whitman as the _cor cordium_ of the singers of

freedom,[717] he now consigned him to the category of the Tuppers;

opining that, with a better education, he might perhaps have attained

to a rank above Elliott the Corn-Law rhymer, but below the laureate

Southey. According to Mr. Swinburne's revised estimate, Whitman was in

short no true poet; and as for his ideal of beauty, it was not only

vulgar but immoral. The attack roused Whitman to snap out, "Isn't

he the damnedest simulacrum?" but that was all.[718] The affair was

dismissed, and he only regretted that, for his own sake, Swinburne had

not risen higher.

The rather contemptuous reference to Whitman's deficient education

recalls the first criticism passed upon the _Leaves_. Their author was

gravely commended to the study of Addison,[719] and to tell the truth,

this has been about the last word of a large number of academic persons

from that day to this. Their advice, when acted upon, nearly ruined

Robert Burns; it had little effect upon Whitman, though it was not

neglected.

But Mr. Swinburne's attack reminds one also of something more important

even than "Addison"; the antithesis and opposition which exists between

two great orders of poets, of which his friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti

and Whitman himself may be taken as the types. The _Blessed Damozel_

is in another world from any page of the _Leaves_; and there is almost

nothing which the two poets seem to share. Mr. Swinburne did good

service, in so far as he pointed the contrast; but he confused it by

declaiming against the prophet, and extolling the sonneteer.

The field may not so be limited; the exile of Byron, Emerson and

Carlyle from the brotherhood of poets, though proclaimed by Mr.

Swinburne, can hardly be enforced. For as Whitman has suggested,[720]

there are, inevitably, two kinds of great poetry: one corresponding, as

it were, to the song of the Nightingale, and another to the flight of

the Eagle. He himself has nothing of the infinitely allusive grace of

the former, the sonnet-twining interpreters of the romantic past, the

painters of subtle dream-beauties and fair women whose faces are the

faces of unearthly flowers wrought purely of the passions of dead men.

But they again have nothing of his appeal to the heroic and kingly

spirit that confronts the equally romantic future, grappling with

world-tragedies and creating the new beauty of passions hitherto

unborn. Doubtless the greatest poets unite these two orders,

reconciling them in their own persons; but such are the very greatest

of all time. I do not think that Whitman himself would have admitted a

claim on his behalf to be counted among them.[721]

* * * * *

The sheets he had been correcting with Traubel's aid, in the crisis of

his illness, were those of _November Boughs_, a volume composed, like

_Two Rivulets_, of prose and verse. It appeared in November, 1888.

Among its prose papers are sympathetic studies of Burns and of Elias

Hicks, with an appreciation of George Fox.[722] There are also many

reminiscences, notably of the Old Bowery Theatre, and of New Orleans;

and most interesting of all, a biographical study of the origins and

purpose of the _Leaves_ themselves.

This _Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads_[723] has far more of modesty

in it than his earlier writings, which were necessarily occupied with

self-assertion. In his old age he shows himself a little alarmed at

his more youthful readiness to take up the challenge which he had seen

Democracy and Science throwing down to Poetry. He recognises with

clearer vision than many of his friends, his own weakness in poetic

technique, and the experimental nature of his work in poetry. But he

does not pretend to doubt its importance; for, as he avers, it is the

projection of a new and American attitude of mind. He is not without

confidence also, that his book will prove a comfort to others, since it

has been the main comfort of his own solitary life--and he believes it

will be found a stimulus to the American nation of his love.

The poems of the new collection are all brief and many of them are

descriptive. For the rest, they are mainly the assertions of a jocund

heart defying the ice-cold, frost-bound winter of old-age, and

waiting for the sure-following spring. Meanwhile, he enjoys the inner

mysteries, and the enforced quiet of these later days, these starry

nights; living, as he quaintly says, in "the early candlelight of

old-age".[724] To him they sometimes seem to be the best, the halcyon

days of all.

Not from successful love alone,

Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or

war;

But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,

As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,

As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier,

balmier air,

As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs

really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,

Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!

The brooding and blissful halcyon days![725]

He often reviews his past, so seemingly purposeless and incoherent,

and yet so profoundly urged from its source within toward the unseen

goal. Still before him, he sees endless vistas of the eternal purpose.

The secret souls of things speak to him; the restless sea betrays the

unsatisfied passion of the Earth's great heart;[726] the rain bears

love back with it to the mountains whence it came.[727] Everything

instructs him, for he remains eager to learn--criticism and rejection

at least as much as acceptance.

* * * * *

Sometimes the long process of dying--the painfully prolonged separating

of a Body and Soul which were more intimately wedded than are

others--leaves its mark upon the page; as in a brief note where he

states simply that his solemn experiences at this period are unlikely

to occur in any other human life.[728] He felt himself solitary even

in his pain. But this was a solitude hallowed and supported by the

Everlasting Arms.

* * * * *

Though often sleepless and suffering, he kept, upon the whole, a cheery

business about him, working to the end. But silence now predominated

in his days, and his craving for it increased. In the evening, Traubel

would come in and sit beside him, watching his face profiled against

the evening light. He had grown to feel the old man's mood, and had

learnt to say nothing. After an hour or two he had his reward; Walt

would bid him good-bye with a smile, saying, "What a good talk we've

had". For neither of them wanted words.

Through the winter and spring of 1888 to 1889 he remained house-tied,

anchored in his big chair by the fire; "every month letting the pegs

lower," he wrote to his friends.[729] But in June he got out and about

in his wheel-chair, and in August crossed the ferry to be photographed,

immensely delighted at the evidences of gaiety and prosperity which

met him everywhere. America, he would say, is laying great material

foundations; the sky-climbing towers will arise in good time.

[Illustration: WHITMAN AT SEVENTY]

The birthday dinner, which he did not altogether approve,[730] became

this year a public function, and was held in the largest of the Camden

halls.[731] He was seventy, and the day was but doubtfully propitious.

However, he would not disappoint his friends, and arrived when the meal

was over.

He looked weary, as well he might, but the human contact and the

atmosphere of love and fellowship warmed and refreshed him. The

messages of congratulation came from far and from many, from William

Morris among the rest. Walt wore a black coat, which was almost

unprecedented, and hid himself behind a great bowl of flowers, enjoying

their colour and scent, sipping at his champagne, and tapping applause

with the bottle whenever he approved a sentiment. One remembers how

he used to detest and escape from all lionising, and to-night, after

the praises and the enthusiasm were concluded, he said laughingly to

his nurse that it was very well, but there was too much "gush and

taffy".[732]

That spring he had been too ill to celebrate the Lincoln anniversary,

but in the following, after a struggle with influenza, he delivered it

for the last--the thirteenth--time.

Hoarse and half-blind, he crossed the river,[733] assisted everywhere

by willing hands, and with great difficulty climbed the long stairs to

the room on South Broad Street, where Horace Traubel's Contemporary

Club held its meetings. Refusing introduction, he took his seat on the

platform, put on his glasses, and got immediately to business, reading

with a melodious voice and easy manner.

He was over in the city again for his next birthday celebration, and

after the dinner, Colonel Ingersoll made a long, impassioned tribute to

his friend.[734] The comradeship between them was strong and satisfying

to both; Whitman was always in better spirits after a call from the

colonel. "He is full of faults and mistakes," he said once to an

English friend, "but he is an example in literature of natural growth

as a tree"; adding, "he gives out always from himself."[735]

Their attitude toward questions of religion was often antagonistic, and

on this occasion, after the speech, Whitman made a sort of rejoinder.

While gratefully acknowledging his friend's appreciation of _Leaves of

Grass_, he pointed out that Ingersoll had stopped short of the main

matter, for the book was crammed with allusions to immortality, and was

bound together by the idea of purpose, resident in the heart of all

and realising itself in the material universe. He turned to Ingersoll,

demanding, "Unless there is a definite object for it all, what, in

God's name, is it all for?" And Ingersoll, shaking his head, replied,

"I can't tell. And if there is a purpose, and if there is a God, what

is it all for? I can't tell. It looks like nonsense to me, either way."

From this intellectual agnosticism no argument could dislodge a mind

like Ingersoll's, for noble as it was, it was limited by its own logic,

and to logic alone, working with the material of merely intellectual

knowledge, the universe must inevitably remain a riddle. Whitman,

recognising a more perfect faculty of reason, and cognisant of a field

of transcendent knowledge which Ingersoll had never known, was able to

realise a purpose in this, which to Ingersoll seemed only nonsense.

For the divinely creative imagination, when it is awakened, discovers

in all things the meanings of creative thought. And personality, when

in its supreme hours it transcends the limitations of human knowledge,

and enters the consciousness of the Whole, discovers the meaning of

immortality, and the indestructibility of the soul. Such flights are

naturally impossible to the pedestrian faculties of the mind.

Ingersoll spoke again in Philadelphia, in the same vein and on the

same subject, in October.[736] He had a large audience of perhaps two

thousand persons in the Horticultural Hall, and Whitman was present on

the platform.

Taking up his subject somewhat in the manner of O'Connor in the _Good

Gray Poet_, the orator denounced the hypocrisy and parochialism of

American opinion, and proclaimed the Divine right of the liberator,

genius. He justified "Children of Adam," and gave in his adherence to

the theory of free rhythm which is exemplified in the _Leaves_.

Alluding to the subject of their discussion after the recent dinner at

Reisser's, he declared it impossible for him to make any assertion of

immortality; but admitted that Hope, replying to the question of Love

over the grave, might proclaim that "before all life is death, and

after death is life".

After the fine, but, in cold type at least, the over-florid peroration

descriptive of the atmosphere of Whitman's work, the applause was dying

away, and the people rising to go, when the old poet signalled for them

to be detained, and saying that he was there himself to offer the final

testimony to and explanation of his writings, if they would look at him

and understand, he gave thanks to them and to the orator, and bade them

all farewell.

[Illustration: ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, FROM A PRINT]

The whole scene presents a curiously suggestive picture. And Whitman's

situation was a most singular one. His friends had arranged a benefit

lecture on the _Leaves_ by the most eloquent eulogist in America. It is

true the book is not identical with Whitman, but it would be difficult

to separate the _Leaves_ from the man. And here was the man, apparently

of his own free will, receiving the eulogy and applause in person and

the gate-money by deputy.

The pious Philadelphians had expressed their disapproval of the

lecturer,[737] his iconoclastic fervour and agnosticism, by refusing

him the use of the most commodious hall, and their opposition had

encouraged Walt to stand at his friend's side. But apart from this, his

presence illustrates some of the characteristics of his nature, his

child-like and sometimes terrible love of directness in the relations

of life, and his frank eagerness for appreciation.

We have seen already that he could learn from criticism, and there is

a story of Dr. Bucke's which is too good to omit, though it entails a

slight digression. It was against the awkwardness, not the severity, of

his literary surgeons that he would protest with a quiet humour. After

one of their operations, more painful than usual, in his slow, slightly

nasal drawl, he related how a Quaker was once set on by a robber in

a wood. The fellow knocked his passive victim to the ground, rifled

him thoroughly, and "pulling out a long knife proceeded to cut his

throat. The knife was dull, the patience of the poor Quaker almost

exhausted. 'Friend,' said he to the robber, 'I do not object to thee

cutting my throat, but thee haggles.'"[738]

But while accepting blame with serenity, he yet preferred praise;

understanding praise above all, though even ignorant praise was hardly

unwelcome. Praise not directly of himself, be it understood--that often

made him uncomfortable;[739] but of the book, his _alter ego_, his

child. For the book was, besides, a Cause, and that the noblest; and

even vain applauding of it sounded, in the old man's ears, like the

tramp of the hosts of progress; in whose ranks there must needs follow,

let us admit, a number of enthusiastic fools.

Of such, certainly, Ingersoll was not one. He saw in the book much of

what Whitman had put there; and especially he understood how it had

been written under the stress of an emotion which finds its symbol in

that banner of the blue and stars, which he so happily described as

"the flag of Nature".[740]

Other men have given themselves out to be a Christ, or a John the

Baptist, or an Elijah; Whitman, without their fanaticism, but with a

profound knowledge of himself, recognised in a peasant-born son of

Mannahatta, an average American artisan, the incarnation of America

herself. "He is Democracy," quoth Thoreau;[741] and when he sat with

a pleased indifference under the eloquent stream of Ingersoll's

panegyric, he was only testifying anew to his whole-hearted, glad

willingness to give himself, body and mind, for the interpretation

of America to her children. But none the less, it was a singular

situation; and, doubtless, Whitman, who was not by any means obtuse,

felt it to be such.

* * * * *

His last birthday dinner was held in the lower room at Mickle Street

after a winter of illness--"the main abutments and dykes shattered and

threatening to give out"[742]--broken by an occasional saunter in his

wheelchair with the welcome sight of some four-masted schooner on the

river, and by the visits of his friends.

He was still himself, however. An English admirer had recently been

astounded to find the irrepressible attractive power of the old

man.[743] He was brought downstairs, weak, after a bad day, to meet

some thirty of his friends.

Walt himself started the proceedings with a toast to the memory of

Bryant, Emerson and Longfellow, and to Tennyson and Whittier, living

yet;[744] for the fact that Whittier strongly disapproved of the

_Leaves_ in no way separated him from Whitman's affectionate esteem.

Rejoicing over his big family gathering, he wistfully remembered the

absent. Doyle had not been to the house for many months.[745] Perhaps

he was a little jealous of new friends, and resented even being thought

of as a stranger by Mrs. Davis. O'Connor was dead, and so was Mrs.

Gilchrist, and there were many others not less dear. Some who were far

away sent their greetings, Tennyson and Symonds among the rest; and

there were the usual warm congratulatory speeches.

The host was sometimes absent-minded, and sometimes, according to the

record, oddly garrulous. But the talk about the table was often of

the deepest interest. Dr. Bucke was present, and Whitman and he had a

friendly bout over _Leaves of Grass_. The poet would not accept the

doctor's interpretation, or indeed, any other's, saying that the book

must have its own way with its readers. It was simply the revelation of

the man himself, "the personal critter," as he would phrase it.

Dr. Bucke made some interesting reference to the elements of evil

passion which he detected in his old friend's make-up; "the elements of

a Cenci or an Attila". And Whitman quite simply admitted that he was

not sure that he understood himself.

A touch of humour was never long absent where Whitman was found. Some

audacious devotee asked him why he had never married; and Walt rambled

off into an explanation, which, after alluding to the "Nibelungen--or

somebody--'s cat with an immensely long, long, long tail to it,"

and again to the obscurities that confront the biographer of Burns,

concluded that the matter in question was probably by no means

discreditable, though inexplicable enough, except in the light of his

whole life.

The questioner remained standing--he was very enthusiastic--and had

more to follow. But as he began to recite "Captain! my Captain!" a

stray dog which had entered at the open door provided a melancholy

and irresistible accompaniment, convulsing those present in their own

despite until the tears ran down their cheeks.[746]

Finally, Whitman made an interesting political statement. He condemned

as false the protectionist idea of "America for the Americans"; and

asserted as the basic political principle, the interdependence of all

peoples, and their openness to one another for purposes of exchange.

The common people of all races are embarked together like fellows on a

ship, he said; what wrecks one, wrecks all. The ultimate truth about

the human race is its solidarity of interest. Then he was tired, and

calling for his stick and his nurse, he blessed them all and went

slowly upstairs.

* * * * *

It was the last of his birthday dinners. He was seventy-two, very old

in body, and very weary. But he was still bright and affectionate

toward the friends who continued to come great distances to greet him.

A group at Bolton sent two representatives in the years 1890 and 1891,

whose records of their visits are suffused with wonder at the old

poet's courtesy and loving consideration and comradely demonstrations

of personal feeling.[747] He was a little anxious lest his English

friends should misapprehend his character: "Don't let them think of me

as a saint or a finished anything," was the burden of his messages to

them, always accompanied by his love.

He spoke warmly of the English, comparing them favourably at times with

their cousins across the sea, and saying that they represented the

deeper and more lasting qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race; they were

like the artillery of its army.[748] The welcome from English readers

had astonished and delighted him. In 1887 he contemplated a visit to

Great Britain;[749] and he sometimes seems even to have toyed with

the idea of an English home. One can be more Democratic there than in

America, he had once declared.[750]

Of his own later years, he said to Mr. J. W. Wallace, who called

frequently during the late autumn of 1891, "I used to feel ... that I

was to irradiate or emanate buoyancy and health. But it came to me in

time, that I was not to attempt to live to the reputation I had, or to

my own idea of what my programme should be; but to give out and express

what I really was; and, if I felt like the devil, to say so; and I have

become more and more confirmed in this."[751] Whitman has so often been

accused of a self-conscious pose, that this partial acknowledgment that

such a pose had existed is full of interest; an interest accentuated by

the statement that he deliberately abandoned it in his later years.

Talking was at this time often an effort; the heavy feeling in his

head, which had become more and more frequent since his first illness,

increased till he compared his brain to "sad dough," or "an apple

dumpling". At times, when he was really prostrated, his head was "like

ten devils".[752]

The portrait prefixed to his last little book, is that of some

patriarch, bent under a world-weight of experience. The volume,

_Good-bye, my Fancy_, appeared in the winter--sixty pages of

fragmentary notes and rhythms of pathetic interest. He called them

his "last chirps".[753] It opens on a rather deprecatory note, but is

touched here and there with wistful humour.

[Illustration: WHITMAN AT SEVENTY-TWO]

The preface,[754] written two summers before, describes him as moved

by the sunshine to the playfulness of a kid, a kitten or a frolicsome

wave. He finds a grim satisfaction even in his present state, counting

it as a part of his offering to the cause of the Union and America, for

he has no doubt of its origin in the strain of the war-years. Of the

war, and of his part in it, he now sees all his _Leaves_ as reminiscent.

The prose memoranda are principally memorial of old friends, and

familiar books and places, and are full of those generous appreciations

which were a delightful feature of his later life. Among others, are

tributes to Queen Victoria, to his friend Tennyson, and to the great

American poets.[755]

He returns again to his gospel of health,[756] as the message most

needed in the world to-day; a message which would contrast with the cry

of Carlyle or of Heine, or of almost any of the dwellers in that Europe

which he sees afar off, as a sort of vast hospital or asylum ward. It

has been his own single purpose to arouse the soul, the essential giver

of Divine health, in his readers. His aim has always been religious;

he foresees the coming of a new religion which shall embrace both

the feminine beauty of Christianity and the masculine splendour of

Paganism.[757]

The poems are still in the vein of _November Boughs_. They are the

utterance of certain belated elements in his life-experience, without

which his book would be incomplete. Some review his past; others

anticipate his future.

The most important is the poem "To the Sunset Breeze,"[758] which is

perhaps the highest expression of his mystical attitude toward nature.

The breeze brings to this lonely, sick man, incapable of movement,

the infinite message of God and of the world; it comes to him as a

loving and holy companion, the distillation and essence of all material

things, the most godly of spirits:--

Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,

(Distances balk'd--occult medicines penetrating me from head to

foot),

I feel the sky, the prairies vast--I feel the mighty northern lakes,

I feel the ocean and the forest--somehow I feel the globe itself

swift-swimming in space;

Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone--haply from endless store,

God-sent,

(For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense),

Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told,

and cannot tell,

Art thou not universal concrete's distillation? Law's, all

Astronomy's last refinement?

Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?

One cannot doubt the feeling behind these passionate lines, or question

the soul-contact which the old poet felt with the things we are

complacently and ignorantly contented to regard as mere automata, moved

by mechanical force. For Whitman, Nature was a soul; a soul, though

strange and often seeming-hostile, yet beloved and really loving; a

soul, whose infinite life is, without exception, seeking and groping

after its divine source. He deliberately enumerates a catalogue of

things evil to make the significance of his meaning clear.

The title of the book is related, on the last page, to a curious

thought which occupied his mind at this period. While the imagination

which has prompted all his poems has not been exactly himself, it has

become so intimately related to him that he cannot now conceive of

himself existing after death unaccompanied by it; hence his _Good-bye,

my Fancy_ is but a new welcome, a _vale atque ave_.[759]

There are two more poems, not included in this volume, which seem to

close his work. One, the last thing that he composed, was a final

greeting to Columbus, who had become in his mind a type of the poet of

the future.[760]

The other, the last that I can note of these "concluding chirps,"[761]

as he would call them, is a beautiful correction of the popular

picture of death's valley. Before Whitman--and he of all men had a

right to speak upon the subject, because he knew Death, as it were,

personally--there spread out a very different landscape:--

Of the broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rippling

tides, and trees and flowers and grass,

And the low hum of living breeze--and in the midst God's beautiful

eternal right hand,

Thee, holiest minister of Heaven--thee, envoy, usherer, guide at

last of all,

Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot call'd life,

Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death.

As his book-making thus drew to a finish, he occupied himself with

his own tomb. This was being erected through the autumn of 1891 among

the young beeches and hickories of a new cemetery, a few miles out of

Camden. It was built of grey granite into the bank, and framed after a

well-known design of Blake's.[762]

At once plain but impressive, it is strikingly different from the

poor little cottage in which he died. And the fact illustrates again

Whitman's simple acceptance of realities. He knew that his grave must

be a place of pilgrimage; and having brought the bones of his father

and mother to lie beside his own, he gave all possible dignity, for the

sake of the book and the cause, to this his last resting-place.

While he was thus spending a considerable sum upon his tomb, the

extra expenses entailed by his prolonged illness were being met,

unknown to him, by the generosity of his Camden friends. After his

death, his executors were surprised to find that there was in the bank

a considerable reserve,[763] amounting to several hundred pounds,

available for distribution between his sisters and his brother Edward,

according to the terms of his will.

* * * * *

In mid-December, 1891, Whitman's right lung became congested, and when

Dr. Bucke arrived on the 22nd the death-rattle had already been heard,

and his immediate passing was anticipated.[764]

At Christmas, John Burroughs came over, and found such an unconquered

look upon the sufferer's face that the thought of death's nearness

seemed impossible.[765] From St. Louis came Jessie Whitman, her father,

Jefferson, having died a year earlier; and the colonel brother, who

seems now to have removed from Camden, spent at least one anxious night

in the little house. Mr. Johnston also came over from New York for

a last sight of his old friend. But even with those nearest to him,

interviews became more and more difficult. He longed for the solitude

and silence which their love found it hardest to give.

The wintry days at the junction of the years went by in suffering and

patience. Walt was affectionately grateful for the intimate services of

his nurse and of Horace Traubel; writing of the latter as "unspeakably

faithful".[766] Though he was generally calm he was longing for

death. He had dreadful hiccoughs, and grew colder and more emaciated.

The suffering had become terrible, and the anticipation of its long

continuance brought fear for the first time to his strong heart.

[Illustration: HORACE TRAUBEL AT FORTY-FIVE]

In mid-January, however, he rallied. The Fritzinger baby was born and

called after him, and Walt had it brought in to be fondled upon his

breast.[767] Colonel Ingersoll called, and his magnetic spontaneous

presence and words of profound affection comforted and sustained his

friend. Then, to his great satisfaction, the tenth edition of his

works appeared,[768] and special copies were forwarded to his friends.

He contrived to write brief notes to Dr. Bucke and to his favourite

sister, telling them of the publication and of his condition.

On the 6th and 7th of February he wrote a last pathetic letter, which

was lithographed and sent out to many correspondents. The "little spark

of soul" which, according to his own quaint version of a favourite

saying of Epictetus, had during all these months been "dragging a

great lummux of corpse-body clumsily to and fro around," was still

glimmering. His friends were ever faithful, he says, and for his bodily

state, "it is not so bad as you might suppose, only my sufferings

much of the time are fearful". And he added, as a last dictum, the

substance of his latest public thoughts--for he read the newspapers

constantly to the last--"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".[769]

His friend over-sea, Addington Symonds, was ill and depressed,[770]

and George Stafford passed away at Glendale. He became yet more

silent; looked over his letters and the journals; took and relished

his brandy-punch and slept. Almost daily his pain increased, and the

choking mucus. He was often in terrible exhaustion, and the long nights

were almost unbearable. "Dear Walt," said his faithful friend, as he

bent down and kissed him, "you do not realise what you have been to

us"; and Walt rejoined feebly, "nor you, what you have been to me".[771]

All through March the restlessness and agony increased. There seemed to

be no parcel of his emaciated body which was not the lurking place of

pain. The stubborn determination of his nature suffered the last throes

of human agony before it would surrender. Thus he learnt the lesson of

death as few have ever learnt it.

Those who watched could do little but love him, and for that his

dim eyes repaid them a thousandfold to the end. Without, the days

were dismally bleak; snow lay heavily upon the earth, but in the big

three-windowed room winter seemed still more fierce and dread.

On the night of the 24th he was moved on to a water bed, which eased

him. He tried to laugh when, as he turned him upon it and the water

splashed around, Warry, the sailor-nurse, said it sounded like the

waves upon a ship's flanks. The thought was full of suggestions and

chimed with his own; but the mucus choked him into silence.

Next day he was terribly weak, but restful, and that night he slept and

seemed easier. On the following afternoon they saw that at last he was

surrendering. He smiled and felt no longer any pain.[772] Warry moved

him for the last time about six o'clock, and Walt acknowledged the

change with gratitude. Half an hour later, holding Traubel's hand in

his, he lapsed silently into the Unknown.

It was growing dark, and the rain fell softly bearing its burden of

love to the earth, and dripping from the eaves upon the side-walk. The

noble ship had slipt its cable and gone forth upon "the never-returning

tide".

* * * * *

Whitman died on a Saturday night. On the Wednesday following, from

eleven to two, the Mickle Street house was invaded by thousands of

people of every age and class, who had come to take a last look at the

familiar face. "It was the face of an aged, loving child," said one of

them.[773]

Among the rest came an old Washington comrade,[774] who was

unrecognised by the policeman keeping order at the little door. No,

said he, it is late, and the house is full already. With a bitter and

broken heart, he was turning away bewildered from the place, when one

of the others saw him and, heartily calling his name, led him in.

How many, many thoughts surged through his brain, as he looked on

that dear face, and poignantly remembered again the old days! How

he reproached himself for the long lapses that had crept of late,

half-observed, into their intimacy! Why had he not been here these

months past, nursing and caring for one who had been dearer to him than

his father? Why had he left him in his last agonies to hired helpers,

however kind, and to new friends. Surely, he thought, the old are

dearer--if they be true.

He went out with the crowd to Harleigh, saw the strange ceremony, and

heard, without understanding them, the fine words spoken. And then,

refusing to be comforted, he escaped, walking home alone along the

dusty roads--alone forever now--the tears coursing down his cheeks.

But come! he would no longer waste the hours in vain reproaches. Walt,

after all, understood. He had always understood, and felt the depth of

love that sometimes seeks so false an expression in jealousy. Come now,

he will live henceforward by the thought and in the unclouded love of

his old Walt, once his and his now forever.

Of course, he had not understood Walt, not as these scholars, these

writers and poets understood him. But he had been "awful near to him,

nights and days". And those letters of his! Sometimes he thought that

in the passion of his young plain manhood, he had come nearer, yes,

nearer than any other, to that great loving soul. And for my part, I am

not sure that he was mistaken.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in the new cemetery, out along Haddon Avenue beyond the

Dominican Convent where dwell the Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary, they

had buried the remains of Walt Whitman's body. The hillside above the

pool had been covered with folk; and up on the beech-spray over the

tomb, the first blue-bird had sung its plaintive-sweet promise of the

breaking spring.[775]

In the palm-decked white pavilion, with its open sides, the words of

the old poet's Chant of Death had mingled with those of the Christ and

of the Buddha, and with the half-choked sentences of living lovers and

friends. "I felt as if I had been at the entombment of Christ," writes

one; and another murmured, "We are at the summit".

But the last words had been spoken by Ingersoll--"I loved him living,

and I love him still".[776]

[Illustration: THE TOMB AT HARLEIGH CEMETERY, 1904]

* * * * *

"To tell you the truth," writes one who knew him intimately, "I have

never had the feeling that Walt Whitman was dead. I think of him as

still there, capable of writing to me at any time, and my thoughts

often turn to him for his friendly sympathy."[777]

It is incredible that any being who has consciously entered upon that

life of love which approves itself to the soul as God's own life, can

be fundamentally affected by death. What our life is we know not, nor

may we speak with any confidence of the nature of the change which we

call death; but love we know, and in it, as Ingersoll rightly guessed,

is the key to the riddle of mortality.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[705] Bucke, 53 n.

[706] _In re_, 111.

[707] _Ib._, 387.

[708] _Ib._, 119; Kennedy, 31.

[709] _In re_, 120; Kennedy, 32.

[710] Undated news-cutting.

[711] _In re_, 119; Kennedy, 58.

[712] Kennedy, 32.

[713] MSS. Carpenter.

[714] Kennedy, 63; _Comp. Prose_, 511 n.

[715] Johnston, 88.

[716] _Cf._ Calamus, 29.

[717] _Songs before Sunrise_, and _Blake, a Critical Essay_; _cf._

_Fortnightly_, xlii., 170.

[718] Kennedy, 29; Burroughs (_a_), 54.

[719] MSS. Wallace.

[720] _L. of G._, 425.

[721] I cannot omit some reference to the brilliant and interesting

criticism of Whitman by Mr. George Santayana, especially that contained

in his _Poetry and Religion_, pp. 175-87, etc., though it is somewhat

outside my proper field.

Mr. Santayana, if I understand him aright, regards all mysticism

as a form of spiritual loafing; he heartily discounts the more

primal emotions as being "low" in the scale of evolution, and sets

a correspondingly high premium upon all that is subtle and complex.

Though he seeks to be just to his victim, his lack of sympathy is

clearly evidenced in the cleverly rhetorical but quite unworthy passage

(p. 180) wherein Whitman is described as having "wallowed in the stream

of his own sensibility, as later, at Camden, in the shallows of his

favourite brook". Such phrases may be funny, but I trust the preceding

pages have shown that they are not true to the facts of Whitman's life.

To reply to Mr. Santayana is obviously beyond my scope; and, even

if I could undertake the task, it would entail upon the reader many

laborious pages devoted to the study of æsthetic values. For I suspect,

that, whichever of us may be right, our difference goes back to the

beginning.

[722] _Comp. Prose_, 426, 439, 457, 474.

[723] _L. of G._, 488.

[724] _L. of G._, 433.

[725] _Ib._, 388.

[726] _Ib._, 392.

[727] _Ib._, 399.

[728] _Ib._, 403 n.

[729] Kennedy, 62; MSS. Berenson, etc.

[730] MSS. Carpenter.

[731] _Camden's Compliment._

[732] Donaldson, 101.

[733] _Comp. Prose_, 508; Kennedy, 35.

[734] _In re_, 349-51; _Comp. Prose_, 509.

[735] MSS. Wallace.

[736] "Liberty in Literature," by R. G. I., 1891; Kennedy, 66; _In re_,

252.

[737] Kennedy, 38, 66.

[738] _Whit. Fellowship_ (Bucke), _Memories of W. W._

[739] _Cf._ Symonds, 3.

[740] "Liberty in Literature."

[741] Bucke, 188.

[742] Kennedy, 67.

[743] Johnston, 27.

[744] _In re_, 297, 327.

[745] MSS. Wallace.

[746] Donaldson, 91.

[747] Johnston and MSS. Wallace.

[748] MSS. Wallace; Johnston, 85; _In re_, 425.

[749] News-cutting, 1887.

[750] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._

[751] MSS. Wallace.

[752] _Ib._

[753] MSS. Carpenter.

[754] _L. of G._, 408.

[755] _Comp. Prose_, 488; _cf._ _L. of G._, 402 (to Emp. William I.).

[756] _Comp. Prose_, 493, 502.

[757] _Ib._, 524, 525.

[758] _L. of G._, 414.

[759] _L. of G._, 422.

[760] _Ib._, 429.

[761] _Ib._, 428.

[762] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._

[763] Donaldson, 28; Kennedy, 48.

[764] _In re_, 413.

[765] Burroughs (_a_), 53.

[766] Kennedy, 56.

[767] _In re_, 417.

[768] _Ib._, 422.

[769] _In re_, 422 n.

[770] He died soon after Whitman.

[771] _In re_, 429.

[772] _In re_, 433, 434.

[773] M. D. Conway; Burroughs (_a_), 55.

[774] See _supra_, 230.

[775] Dr. Bucke in _Whit. Fellowship_.

[776] _In re_, 437.

[777] MSS. Berenson.

APPENDIX A

NOTE ON THE WILLIAMSES[778]

Whitman himself has described his grandmother, Naomi Williams, as

belonging to the Quaker Society, but upon inquiry it does not appear

that she was ever a member. She was one of seven sisters; her father,

Captain John Williams, and his only son, died at sea. He had been

part-owner of his vessel, a schooner in the East Indian trade, plying

between New York and Florida, and in 1767 he was married at Cold

Spring, where his father, Thomas Williams, also a seaman, was living at

the same time.

The name of Thomas Williams occurs elsewhere in the old records of this

district. In 1759 one of this name, who had a son John, was at Cove

Neck, having removed there from Cold Spring. This Thomas one inclines

to identify with the sea-going grandfather of Naomi, and he was the son

of John Williams and Tamosin Carpenter, of Musketa Cove, whose name

occurs in a document of 1727. I understand that this John and his son

Thomas were Quakers.

Another Captain Thomas Williams, described as "of Oyster Bay," was in

1758 first captain of the Queen's County recruits. Twenty-one years

later, a John Williams and a Daniel van Velsor were serving as privates

in a Long Island troop of horse, but they do not concern us.

In the absence of any definite information, and in view of the

frequency of the name of Williams throughout this district--owing

to the fact that Robert and Richard Williams (Welshmen) settled

hereabouts in the middle of the seventeenth century--one can only

surmise the cause which severed the family of Naomi Williams from the

Society. It is possible that her father married out, thus forfeiting

his membership, according to the old laws of the Society concerning

marriage with a non-member. Or the War of Independence may have

claimed his active participation and thus snapped the bond. Or,

again, circumstances connected with his profession, or difficulties

in attending the meetings for worship, may have caused his name to be

dropped from the lists of membership. There would seem to be no doubt,

however, that his daughter's sympathies remained with the Friends.

FOOTNOTES:

[778] Material supplied by Benj. D. Hicks; _cf._ Onderdonck's _Queen's

County_; Thompson's History, 486 n., etc., etc.

APPENDIX B

WHITMAN IN NEW ORLEANS

Edward Carpenter wrote in the _Reformer_, February, 1902, p. 89: "In a

letter to J. Addington Symonds (19th August, 1890),[779] he [Whitman]

mentioned that he had six children. Symonds, writing to me in 1893,

quoted the passage in question from this letter of Whitman's, and it

runs as follows: 'My life, young manhood, mid-age, times South, etc.,

have been jolly bodily, and doubtless open to criticism. Tho' unmarried

I have had six children--two are dead--one living, Southern grandchild,

fine boy, writes to me occasionally--circumstances (connected with

their fortune and benefit) have separated me from intimate relations.'"

In a letter to Carpenter, further attested in conversation with myself,

Horace Traubel says: "Walt frequently in his later years made allusions

to the fact of his fatherhood. That is, to me. One night, just previous

to his death, I went with Harned to Walt's room, at Walt's request, to

get a sort of deposition in the matter, its detail, etc., etc.... But

he was taken sick in our presence and was unable to proceed. There the

thing rested ... he ... could never resume the subject. He wished to

have the recital 'put away in Harned's safe,' as he said, 'in order

that some one should authoritatively have all the facts at command

if by some misfortune a public discussion of the incident were ever

provoked'.... He did not wish the matter broached. He felt that it

would indisputably do a great injury to some one, God knows who (I do

not). During Walt's last sickness his grandson came to the house. I

was not there at the time. When W. mentioned the occurrence to me I

expressed my regret that I had missed him. 'I wish I might see him.'

'God forbid!' [said Whitman]...."

I was informed in Camden that there were _two_ Southern (?) ladies,

one of whom had died. There was an impression among my informants

that Whitman was explicitly pledged, by the family of one if not both

of these ladies, never to hint at his relationship to the children.

He told Traubel that this enforced separation was the tragedy of his

life. There is a love-letter extant, signed with a pseudonym, dated

from New York in 1862, evidently written by a cultivated woman. If the

grandchild who called at Mickle Street in 1891 was from the South--the

correspondent of Symond's letter, as one may suspect--it is difficult

to put the birth of his father or mother much later, I think, than

1850. It is noticeable that Whitman destroyed the references among

his papers to the New Orleans visit, beyond those already printed in

his prose works. In a book of memoranda referring to his early years,

now in the possession of Mr. Harned, I have noted the tearing out of

several leaves after the entry of his starting for New Orleans. The

specification of "one living Southern grandchild," and of four children

still living in 1890, suggests the probability that the second lady was

not living in the South.

FOOTNOTES:

[779] Of which I have seen the original draft.

INDEX.

Abandonment, capacity for self-, 52.

Abolition sentiment, Lincoln and, 182.

See Slavery.

Abolitionism, 81;

and the South, 235.

Abolitionist, W. an, 39.

Abolitionists, 134;

in Democratic party, 27.

Actors, W. at home with, 191.

Adam, W. as, 160-2.

Adams, President John, 23, 24.

Addison, W. advised to study, 328.

Æschylus, W. reads, 57.

Affirmations of modern thought, 62.

Agnosticism and reason, 333.

Agricultural interest in America, 308.

Alboni, Marietta, her influence on W., 86, 131, 320.

Alcott, A. Bronson, his relations with W., 112, 138, 282.

Alexandria, Va., 195, 199.

Ambition, W. a youth of, 33.

America, romance of, xix-xxiii;

Elizabethan character of, xxi;

its development, xxvi;

changes in, 79.

America, and W., 87, 149, 180;

W. an incarnation of, xxviii, 132, 335;

an average American, 64;

his passion for, 63;

describes, 95;

his symbol for, 122;

symbolic character of, 124;

call to citizenship, 125;

need for comradeship in, 163;

Emerson's view of W.'s message to, 145-6;

W.'s criticism of, 124, 236-42;

W. the poet of, 249, 292 (see American poet);

her need for the war, 206-8;

A. and the soul, 255;

and death, 266;

and free-interchange, 306-7;

and labour-problem, 307-13;

W.'s ideal for, 312;

"material foundations," 331;

A. and solidarity, 337.

American art, xxiv.

American Bible, W. wishes to write an, 55.

American character, the, xxi;

its idealism, xxi, xxiii, 80-1, 177;

its power of assimilation, xxiv.

American character of _L. of G._, 109.

American cynicism, 264.

American literature, W. and, 60.

American opinion hostile to _L. of G._, 214, 333.

American poet, the, Emerson's dictum, 94;

general expectancy of an, 94;

W.'s prophecy of an, 95-6;

W. as the, 133 _n._

American poets, W. and the, 104, 279;

need for, 97.

_American Review_, W. writes for, 37.

Anger of W., sudden, 216, 236, 327.

Animals, W.'s feeling of kinship with, 99.

"Answerer, Song of the," 103.

Anthony, Susan B., 126.

Antietam, battle of, 182-3.

Anti-Nebraska men, 134.

Anti-slavery party, 45.

Appearance, W.'s, 276, 283, 289, 326.

See Portraits.

"Appearances, Of the terrible doubt of," 164.

_Arabian Nights_, W. reads, 19.

Aristocrat, poem on an, 53.

Armory Square Hospital, W. at the, 190, 194, 203.

Arrangement of _L. of G._, 286-7.

Art, its meaning first shown to W., 22;

popular, 43;

in N.Y., 84.

"As a strong bird on pinions free". See "Thou Mother," etc.

"As I ebb'd with the ocean of life," 154-6.

"As I ponder'd in silence," 208.

"As the time draws nigh," 169.

Asceticism, 71.

Ashton, J. Hubley, describes a visit of W.'s, 192;

and Harlan incident, 214.

Ashton, Mrs., 234, 248.

_Athenæum, The_, and W., 259.

Attila, 336.

Attorney-General's Office, W. in the, 214.

Aurelius, Marcus, 224, 262, 318.

_Aurora, The_, W. edits, 37.

Average American, W.'s life to be that of an, 64.

Babylon, L. I., W. at, 28, 33;

described, 28-9.

Bacchus, W.'s engraving of, 111.

"Backward Glance o'er travel'd roads, A," 329-30.

Baldwin, the engine, 271.

"Barnburners," Van Buren men, become Free-soil Democrats, 44, 134.

Barnum, P. T., 85.

Bathing, W.'s love of, 40.

Bayne, Peter, 258.

"Beat! Beat! Drums!" 207.

Beauty, W. indifferent to formal and static, 59.

Beecher, Ward, 112.

Beethoven, 267, 293, 320.

Beggars, W. and, 219.

Bell, Governor, 172.

Berenson, Mrs., her friendship with W., 302-4, 313, 318, 346.

Bernard, St., 146.

Bettini, 85, 320.

_Bhagavad-Gitá_, _L. of G._ compared with, 115.

Bible, W.'s wish to write an American, 55;

W. studies the, 57, 224, 318.

Biographies of W. See J. Burroughs, Dr. Bucke, and Preface.

Birthday dinners, 317, 325, 331-2;

last, 335-7.

Blake, 124, 225, 263, 290, 341;

his mystic sight, 66, 118;

W. and, 59.

"Blood-money," 39, 46, 103.

Body, W. and the, 99, 102, 159-62;

"a spiritual body," 152-3;

"enamoured" body, 162;

and soul, 125.

"Body Electric, I sing the," 102, 145, 160.

Boehme, 121, 146.

Bohemians of New York, W. and the, 138.

Bolton group of Whitmanites, 337.

Books, W.'s method of reading, 57;

his favourite books, 58-9, 318.

Booth, the elder, effect of his acting on W., 22.

Boston, 81, 138;

W.'s dislike of, 103, 279;

W. at, 136, 142-7;

second visit, 278-83.

"Boston Ballad, A," 103.

Boston Common, 144, 147, 281.

_Boston Intelligencer_, criticism of W., 108.

Botticelli, 102, 226.

Bowery Theatre, the (now the Thalia), 22, 329.

Bowne, John, a L. I. Quaker, 4.

Bragg, General, 187.

Breckinridge, J. C., 172.

Bremer, Frederika, and Emerson, 94.

"Broad-axe, Song of the," 122, 274.

Broadway, W. and, 41, 83, 87, 138, 219, 266.

_Broadway Journal_, W. writes for, 37.

"Broadway Pageant, A," 205.

Brooklyn, 1-3, 10-11;

W. in, 56-7, 86, 110, 203-4, 210, 219, 232;

leaves, 183;

secures Fort Greene to town, 43.

Brooklyn, battle of, 5.

_Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, W. edits, 42-4;

a correspondent of, 196.

Brooklyn Ferry, 11, 40, 85.

"Brooklyn Ferry, Crossing," 120.

_Brooklyn Times_, W. and the, 109.

Brown, John, different views of, and influence on America, 136, 159;

O'Connor and, 190.

Brown, Madox, 225.

Browning, R., 62, 92, 291;

and W., 293-5.

Bruno, Giordano, 224.

Brush, Major, 5;

his niece, 5-6.

Bryant, W. C., 40, 59, 172, 336;

friendship for W., 42.

Buchanan, President, 135, 175.

Buchanan, Robert, his letter on W., 258-9.

Bucke, Dr. R. M., 263, 305, 325-6, 334, 336, 341, 342;

visits W., 269;

account of, 269-70;

his _Cosmic Consciousness_, 270;

visited by W., 274-7;

goes with W. to L. I., 280;

his life of W., 304.

Buddha, the, 121, 345.

Bull Run, battle of, 182.

Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, 102, 265.

Burke, E., 290.

Burns, Anthony, 81, 103.

Burns, R., 289, 328, 337;

W. and, 59;

W. on, 329.

Burnside, General, 182, 183.

Burr, Aaron, W. and, xxv.

Burroughs, J., in Washington, 191, 215;

notes on W., 221, 304;

walks with W., 233, 262;

nurses W., 247-8; visits W., 251, 256, 258, 305, 342;

W. visits, 231, 266, 270.

Burroughs, Mrs., 234.

"By Blue Ontario's Shore," 123, 209.

Byron, 91, 320, 328; W. and, 59, 292-3.

Calamus, meaning of the word, 162.

_Calamus_ (poems), 162-7, 253;

most esoteric of W.'s poems, 162;

political significance, 163;

personal revelation in, 165;

underlying philosophy of, 166-7;

vindicated, 194;

J. A. Symonds and, 224.

Calhoun, J. C., 24, 79, 175.

California, 43, 63-4.

Californian redwood tree, 255.

Calvin, 121.

Camden described, 246;

W. in, xxvii, 248, 278, 315;

loneliness there, 250;

at 322, Stevens St., his life there, 250-1;

removes to 431, Stevens St., 256;

friends there, 257, 325;

literary work, 257.

See Mickle St.

Canada, 311;

W. plans to lecture in, 129;

goes to, 274-7;

interest in, 276-7.

Canary, W.'s, 319.

Capital punishment, W. opposes, 33, 42.

Capitol, W. often at the, 201-2.

"Captain! my Captain!" 337.

Carlyle, Thos., 35, 84, 91, 92, 121, 263, 291, 294, 296, 306, 318,

328, 339;

death of, 301;

and _L. of G._, 171;

his _Shooting Niagara_, 234, 236;

W. and, 41, 59, 293.

Carnegie, Andrew, 317.

_Carpenter, The_, by O'Connor, 191, 227-9.

Carpenter, Edward, 263;

visits W., 266-9;

account of, 266-7;

his _Towards Democracy_, 267;

his account of W., 267-9;

second visit to W., 305-7;

his _Art of Creation_, qu., 167;

on W.'s children, 349-50.

Carpenter, Tamosin, 347.

Carpentering, W. takes up, 57;

helpful to him, 85;

gives up, 87.

Carpenters, 122.

Cass, Lewis, 44.

Catalogues in _L. of G._, 84, 160, 222.

Caution, highly developed in W., 68, 163.

Cenci, 336.

Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 265.

Champagne, W.'s taste for, 315.

"Champion of America," 131-2.

Chancellorsville, battle of, 184.

"Chanting the Square Deific," 212.

See Satan.

"Chants Democratic," 150.

Charity, W. and, 312-3.

Chattanooga, battle of, 187.

Chestnut St. Opera House, Philadelphia, 317.

Chicago, W. visits, 54.

Child, in W.'s nature, the, 78, 344;

dreams of a, 55.

_Children of Adam_, 126, 144-7, 159-62, 284-6;

difficulty of discussing, 160-1;

Mrs. Gilchrist and, 225, 264.

Children, W.'s, 51, 186, 230-1, 252, 349-50;

W. and, 234, 273, 318, 320.

China, W. talks of, 265.

Chinese proverb, xxiii.

Christ, 313, 345.

See Jesus.

"Christ-portrait" of W., 67.

Christianity, W. and, 75-7, 168, 297, 339.

_Chronicle, The_, W. M. Rossetti writes on W. in, 222.

Church, W. in a Brooklyn, 68.

Churches, W. and the, 42, 75-6, 142, 241, 280, 323.

Cincinnati Society, 38.

Citizenship and the soul, 208;

for all, 240.

City-life, attraction for W., 114;

modern, xxviii.

City-populations, 307.

Clare, Ada, 139.

Class-feeling, W.'s dislike of, 323.

Classical allusions avoided in _L. of G._, 109.

Clay, Henry, 23, 40, 42, 79, 134.

Cleanthes, Hymn of, 224.

Clements, Mr., W. apprenticed to, 19-20.

Cleveland, President, 314, 320.

Clothes, W.'s, 83, 110, 140, 304, 331.

Cole, Mary, 234.

Coleridge, S. T., 91, 119, 290.

Colonna, Vittoria, 265.

_Columbian Magazine_, W. writes for, 37.

Columbus, xx-xxi, 243.

See _Prayer of C._

"Columbus, A thought of," 340.

Common people, W.'s love of the, 114.

Companions, the Great, 168.

_Complete Prose_, qu., 47-8.

See Footnotes.

"Compost, This," 122.

Comrade, W. as a, 67;

God the perfect, 244.

Comrades, a society of, 312.

Comradeship, _Calamus_ poems of, 162;

political significance of, 163;

W. institutes a rite of, 165;

philosophy of, 167;

W. creates a, 179;

_L. of G._ brings to Symonds, 224;

universal possibility of, 299-300;

W.'s, 133, 149, 168, 196, 228, 232-3, 253, 275, 297.

Comte, A., 62, 263.

Concord, W. at, 281-2.

Concrete, W.'s love for the, 60;

quality, W.'s, 198.

Coney Island Beach, W. goes to, 40, 57, 154.

Confederacy of Southern States adopts a constitution, 175.

Consciousness, the unfolding of, 69;

the double nature of, 73-4;

superhuman elements in, 228; W.'s, 316.