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I went the other day by appointment to visit him at his home in Camden, and after my usual quantum of

A few commonplace words and I settled my mind to business.

I project the future—depend on the future for my audience.

I know perfectly well my path is another one. Most of the poets are impersonal; I am personal.

In my poems all revolves around, radiates from, and concentrates in myself.

"Every fine day I have my stalwart attendant wheel me out, often to the Federal street ferry, where,

As Carlyle says in his life of John Sterling, many of my seances with O'Reilly are written in star-fire

meeting at Young's was a most memorable one, and Emerson was kind enough to select the passages from my

England are imperative and I must soon sail for merrie England, and after a short stay I will keep my

promise to visit you and to renew my pleasant memories of the Pacific slope.'

I spent considerable time in New York and a number of weeks on Long Island, my native place.

So many of my good friends are here that I must call it my home.

There are men and women—not here though—who bear my intuition and understand by their hearts.

in his "den" surrounded by a litter of books and papers: "When Osgood wrote me, offering to publish my

I must overlook the work myself and you must humor me in letting me have things my way.'

the comradeship—friendship is the good old word—the love of my fellow-men.

As to the form of my poetry I have rejected the rhymed and blank verse.

everything of the kind from my books."

I said, "Perhaps not, my dear, in the way you mean, and yet, maybe, it is the same thing."

He said: "It is my chief reliance." He talked of death, and said he did not fear it.

It was there that I hastened to seek my old friend Walt Whitman on the first morning after my arrival

when the federal troops occupied the village of Falmouth on the Rappahannock river, the house owned by my

father, where my early life was passed, was used as a hospital, and it was in that house that Walt began

On the day after my call, Walt came to see and dine with me, and I had many hours' conversation with

myself in memory of Poe, which I have obeyed; but not the slightest impulse to make a speech, which, my

Even my own objections draw me to him at last; and those very points, with his sad fate, will make him

That figure of my lurid dream might stand for Edgar Poe, his spirit, his fortunes, and his poems—themselves

They seemed charged with a new beauty and a new meaning addressed to my individual soul; and long did

—After a refreshing night's sleep I awoke to the singing of some sweet little songsters at my window.

I did not see him again for about forty years, when one day he came to my house and asked me,— " 'Do

I believe, too, that I once existed before I lived in my present form, and that I shall again live as

an individual after I have changed my present form."

It will be the whole expression of the design which I had in my mind When I Began to Write.

Now, that is the way it has been with my book. It has been twenty-five years building.

My theory in making the book is to give A Recognition of All Elements compacted in one— e pluribus unum

"My poetry," continued Mr.

Many of my friends have no patience with my opinion on this matter.

For my part when I meet anyone of erudition I want to get away, it terrifies me.

Not like some of my friends, very thick at first, then falling off."

I should have my friends there, as I have here."

I am feeling pretty well so far (Yet I attribute my feeling pretty well now to my visit for the last

year and a half, to the Creek and farm, and being with my dear friends the S—'s).

My impressions were written on the next day, and my memory has been vividly refreshed.

He walked with bared head to my desk and laid one in my hand, saying: Please tell Mr.

The voice caught my ear.

on my desk.

My metre is loose and free.

During my employment of seven years or more in Washington after the war (1865-72) I regularly saved a

great part of my wages; and, though the sum has now become about exhausted by my expenses of the last

three years, there are already beginning at present welcome dribbles hitherward from the sales of my

And that is the way I should prefer to glean my support.

In that way I cheerfully accept all the aid my friends find it convenient to proffer.

A Visit to Walt Whitman A visit to Walt Whitman On a hot August afternoon, in 1889, my wife and I went

And Walt replied: "Well my friends who have known me longest have told me, many times, that I always

And then he added, after reflecting a moment: "I think my poems are like your West—crude, uncultured,

Walt sat in his arm-chair, and held wife with his right hand and me with his left, and said: "So long, my

Rome—where I received a most cordial welcome from him and his good wife, who is my wife's cousin.

Rome, like myself, is an Annan man—and much did I enjoy that talk about my dear old home, three thousand

I asked him to write his name in my book, and I found it to be John Y.

river, the ceaseless movement, and the brilliant and varied panorama of "Manhattan from the Bay." ¹ On my

"I rode through it to-day with my friend, Senator Armstrong, and went to see my other ancient friend,

I also poid my respects to that most intelligent octogenarian, Mr.

found out the great secret, and I hope to meet their posterity and their friends and followers during my

I am spry no longer, but my spirits are as high-flown as ever.

Childs as a man whose hand is open as the day, but I never met him more than twice in all my life.

I could do my work much better with ink-blotches about me and a litter around and with a few broken chairs

My feeling towards him is something more than admiration—it partakes of reverence."

I am trying to cheer him up and strengthen him with my magnetism."

Come to my house on Sunday evening, and I will have him there to meet you."

It would give me great pleasure to grant this request, out of my regard to Mr.

it, as he showed when I went to give him an account of my interview with the Secretary.

" 'I cock my hat as I please, indoors and out,' " I quoted.

.— "Thou seest all things—thou wilt see my grave, Thou wilt renew thy beauty, morn by morn; I, earth

How can my nature longer mix with thine?

Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering

My first glimpse of Whitman was under such circumstances that I could not easily forget him.

As I sat listening to the arguments of Andrew and Sewall in my behalf, and of Woodbury against them,

I have known that Cleveland is a reader and admirer of my books, but I really don't know anything at

Did I ever tell you the caution my doctor gave me when I left Washington?

Wilde came to see me early this afternoon," said Walt, "and I took him up to my den, where we had a jolly

things I said was that I should call him 'Oscar;' 'I like that so much,' he answered, laying his hand on my

the æsthetes, I can only say that you are young and ardent, and the field is wide, and if you want my

My idea is that beauty is a result, not an abstraction."

indeed fill me best and most, and will longest remain with me, of all the objective shows I see on this, my

Cincinnati and Chicago, and for thirty years, in that wonder, washed by hurried and glittering tides, my

Here in this very Denver, if it might be so, I should like to cast my lot, above all other spots, all

Sir Edwin rushed toward him and exclaimed, "My dear friend, I am delighted to see you."

It stirs the cockle of my blood to read the nice things you say of me."

"Have you some of my poetry in your memory?" exclaimed the aged poet.

I twice questioned my informer before I could believe it."

"He flung it down at my door, as though the fellow meant some injury: an Italian would have handled it

I remember Thoreau saying once, when walking with him in my favourite favorite Brooklyn—"What is there

My friends laugh, and say I am getting Conservative—but I am tired of mock radicalism.'

"Well, honour honor is the subject of my story," —was the commencement of a favourite speech with him

My last visit to Camden was early in October, before I went abroad.

An autograph letter of Walt's was sold in this city last Spring for $80 to my knowledge."

I am having it printed on my own account. None of the publishers will take my writings.

I was telling a friend the other day that I was beginning to grow proud of always having my writings

My only way is to print the things myself or have them printed in the newspapers.

Rocky Mountains, three weeks ago, especially the Platte Canon Canyon , I said to myself, 'Here are my

"My idea of one great feature of future American poetry is the expression of comradeship.

couple of thousand miles, and the greatest thing to me in this Western country is the realization of my

How my poems have defined them. I have really had their spirit in every page without knowing.

Chairman Grey delivered the address of welcome, to which the poet responded briefly as follows: "My friends

All I have felt the imperative conviction to say I have already printed in my books of poems or prose

Deeply acknowledging this deep compliment with my best respects and love to you personally—to Camden—to

Give more than my regards to Walt Whitman, who has won such a splendid victory over the granitic pudding-heads

There was no hurry in his manner; having found me a seat, and then only leaving hold of my hand, he sad

had thought before (and I do not know that I had) that Whitman was eccentric, unbalanced, violent, my

Putting on his grey slouch hat he sallied forth with evident pleasure, and taking my arm as a support

My original idea was that if I could bring men together by putting before them the heart of man, with

As to my own opinion, why", said Holmes, "I have already given you that.

—of the poet that is to me more attractive than his writings, and my earliest recollections of poetry

I never saw my grey haired friend in such royal spirits.

short collar, open and fine beard, frosted poll, but not with age, till I could compare him only to my

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood.

The six sentences may be a key to those who like me, but say they don't understand my book.

My first meeting with Walt Whitman occurred when I was a boy and had occasion to ask for a certain residence

I did not know who or what he was, but on his answering my question I was so struck with the quality

My first visit to him occurred some years later, in the little house on Mickle Street which has been

matter of punctuation, and it was a source of annoyance to find the title of his latest book, "Good Bye My

I tell you it's an impossibility to me; why, my whole income from my books during a recent half-year

its eight periods of growth, "hitches," he calls them, he completes them with the annex, "Good-bye my

Whispers of Heavenly Death" cannot be an irreverent person; the impassioned "prayer"— "That Thou, O God, my

For that, O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees, Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee....

When this is commented upon he laughingly says, "Oh, yes, my friends often tell me there is a book called

picture of Wilson Barrett, the English actor, having upon it, inscribed in bold sign-manual: "I place my

"Tell them," he said, "that in my mind I feel quite vigorous; but that in body I am well used up with

"My 'Leaves of Grass,'" said the old gentleman, "I will publish as I wrote it, minor revisions excepted

Of my own life and writings I estimate the giving thanks part, with what it infers, as essentially the

I opened the door, and stood for a moment on the threshold before I could find my voice to speak.

What was my horror when, right in the midst of the exposure, the old bard waved his hand majestically

reason I like to drive a stage-coach on Broadway, I feel that the strength of the horses passes into my

veins, my muscles, and after that I can give strength to my poetry."

"My friend." Spoke of Swinburne & Tennyson. Most kind. Head from behind like Darwin. Bought a book.

Whitman recited "John Anderson, my Jo, John."

with countless cartridges of money coming up, and of endless change going down—to none of these were my

or forbidden; and, of all men in Philadelphia, he it was whom I most desired to see and to thank for my

In a strong round hand he inscribed my name in the volume we had discussed, gave me some precious pictures

first met Whitman, beginning a friendship that will always form one of the pleasantest memories of my

The task in question, however, would naturally have fallen to my colleague and intimate friend, Frederic

before, I believe—he dropped in upon Guernsey at the Herald and introduced himself with the words: "My

Making known my errand, he greeted me cordially.

"In the moral, emotional, heroic, and human growths (the main of a race in my opinion), something of

"So my friends tell me, but I never met him." "Don't you think, Mr.

My original intention was to create a comprehensive edition of Whitman interviews, an ambition that seemed

My research into the development of the interview genre made it clear that conceiving interviews as necessarily

The moment Garfield came over to our side of the car, I gave him my seat and I took his.

Olympian day at the Ritterhouse, when Whitman and Burroughs visited us together, I told Whitman of my

Knowing this I never attempted, during my talks with him, to question him or draw him out on any subject

And of course this applies also to my own account of him, as I saw him from day to day at a period very

manner he may have shown in earlier life, or on other occasions, no defects were ever observable in my

table, a knock at the door of our room—which served both as dining and sitting room—was answered by my

O'Connor offered to go out on the search with him; but before they started my husband asked me, aside

Walt had left his "carpet bag" with my husband, on his way down, wishing to be burdened with as little

When I expressed my doubts about his coming to us on his return from camp,— my husband's answer was,

My own first impression after reading the quarto edition of Leaves of Grass, recommended by Emerson to

"It used to be the delight of my life to ride on a stage coach," said he.

There was my friend Jack Finley.

Oh, yes, I was answering your question as to how I spent my time. Well, it is very monotonous.

But renewing the old fires of the rebellion was not to my taste.

"Then you are welcome to my home," Walt Whitman replied, giving him both his hands.

"I call it my war paralysis," said the poet.