“Mister Whitman, I am thankful that you have consented to give me some of your time so that I can finished my article about you for the Gazette.”
“Please, Call me Walt. Everyone else does.”
The famous poet is just a little shorter than myself, his hair and beard grown quite Grey.. His study is modestly furnished. While he is certainly comfortable there is nothing about this room that speaks fo great wealth.
“Do you enjoy living here? It must be so calm compared to New York and Washington.”
“Camden is a good enough place to retire. After all that I have witnessed, I am content to rest in my modest little house. The Widow Davis, my friend and housekeeper, keeps the place neat enough and permits me to keep on at my work. Sadly, the words no longer come easily to me. For you see, Son, I had a mild stroke, some years ago, and afterwards the voice of my muse which used to sing loudly to me became a still tiny voice that I had to be very attentive to hear. Most of the time my muse is drowned out completely by the noises of human existence. Camden has grown considerably since the War Between the States. Even before Mother died, it was on its way to becoming a modern town, although not so grand as Philadelphia or Washington.”
“Walt, I’ve brought you and your guest some coffee and a Couple of those Butter cookies that you love.”.
“Thank you, Mary, that is most kind.”
“I’ll leave them here beside your desk on this little table. I am going out now to visit Anne Walker and I have to make a trip to the store for tonight’s dinner.” I should be back in a couple of hours.”
“I probably don’t actually need the butter cookies, but I was brought up to be polite. At least with Mrs. Davis out and about this afternoon, it will give us quiet to finish up our interview. The light on these winter afternoons fades a little after Four O’clock and I find myself growing tired and sleepy along with the dying of the light. In my whole long life I have never been a man who loved winter. I have always been one to rejoice at the coming of spring. I would make an exception only for the war years. During the War the killing slacked off a bit in the Winter, except in 62’ when that fool Burnside attacked St Mary’s Heights and ordered so many to their deaths.
Our hospital in Washington was busy after Fredericksburg. All those fine young men, boys really, some missing an eye, most a limb. The worse were the ones who were gut shot and a long time dying. For them there was nothing that we could do except to offer them some Morphine for the pain.”
“How did you get involved in the abolitionist movement?
“For several years after I left off teaching on Long Island, I edited and published newspapers. The work took me, for a time, to New Orleans before the war. The sight of the slave’s misery on the auction blocks and the way they were treated by their masters convinced me that Slavery had to end. I left that place and came back to Brooklyn to publish a Freeman’s Journal. That is what lead me to become a Republican and support Mr. Lincoln in 60’.”
“How did you become involved in the War effort as a volunteer Nurse?”
I was a abolitionist before and during the war. At first, I made it my mission to visit the wounded in the hospitals. When it was my brother who was wounded, I travelled to Washington to nurse him back to health. It was there that I found my true calling; tending to the Union maimed and dying. I was not formally trained in the caring profession of Nursing but I learned by watching and then doing. I became proficient in tending to the sick and relieving the suffering of those about to die. I have seldom been commercially successful with my writing, other than the one edition of Leaves of Grass which enjoyed strong sales after the war and earned me enough to buy and maintain this townhouse. During the War and for several years afterward, I clerked in the Department of the interior.”
“How did it come about that you left the department?”
“It turned out that my immediate superior was not a fan of my poetry, and, once he found out that I was the same Walt Whitman who was the author of that scandalous book of verse; my employment was at an end.” “It was all for the best, really. Mother was doing very poorly by then and my brother was not up to the task of caring for her.”
“Do you think you will ever publish another book of verse?”
I will certainly try. It is just that as I told you previously, the words don’t come as easily as once they did. For those ten years before during and after the war I was on fire with the pure bright flame of inspiration”. Now I don’t know if the world changed or I did. Both, I suspect.”
“The passions that excite us when we are young grow cool. They become replaced with tiredness and resignation.”
“Well Walt, for me your verse never grows old. It has been an honor to me you and I hope you enjoy my article when it appears in the Gazette.” “If I can successfully decipher my shorthand, I should have enough for a thousand words.”
Mister Whitman bade me farewell at the door. As it turned out we would never meet again, unless it be on the streets of Heaven. His housekeeper found him the next morning. He had passed in his sleep, perhaps from another stroke. My editor helped me redraft my article and it became the obituary of a great American. The memory of our brief meeting remains seared in my memory.
Though his brother decided to move to rural Burlington, New Jersey, Whitman chose to stay in Camden. In 1882, the surprise success of a late edition of his major work, Leaves of Grass, provided Whitman with the $1,750 needed to purchase a modest, two-story house located at 330 Mickle Boulevard, the first and only home he owned. He invited Mary O. Davis, a sea captain's widow, to move into his home, along with her furniture. She helped him keep house, and he took care of the living expenses and paid her a small salary. He referred to her as his housekeeper and friend, and she remained with Whitman until his death.
Now a National Historic Landmark, the Walt Whitman House has been preserved with his letters and personal belongings, a collection of rare photographs, his deathbed, and the 1892 notice of his
death nailed to the front door. Visit the Walt Whitman House website for hours, admission fees, and more information.
Visitors to Camden can also visit Whitman's tomb at the nearby Harleigh cemetery.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5750#sthash.tnoMRMon.dpuf
