Walt Whitman's Secret

by George Fetherling

  In May Eighty-nine, Ed Wilkins took W for a long push in the wicker-seated invalid’s chair. Returning from this, his first outdoor adventure since the previous June, W announced that he would try to duplicate the activity each day. I and others tacitly assumed, though none of us spoke directly of such a motive, that he was adopting the practice in order to build up his endurance for the big do scheduled to take place on his birthday. On the thirty-first of the month he would turn seventy. That was the event for which he had no doubt been anxiously preparing long before he and I had entered each other’s lives in any meaningful way. With eight others, some of them members of the gang, others political and business friends of Tom’s, I organized a large banquet in Camden to celebrate the anniversary that W feared he would never attain (and he was not the only one). The event was to be called the Feast of Reason (a compromise title) and would unfold at Morgan’s Hall at Fourth and Market, a former Odd Fellows meetinghouse that had become, after enlargements and extensive renovations, what young people to-day would term the ritziest place in town.

  Here is a terrible admission for a Socialist to make: I had learned that committees seldom function at acceptable levels of efficiency and moreover that I am rarely at my best as a member of one, or at least not of a large one. In some ways, the dinner that resulted from this assembly of worthies resembled what might have come to pass if God, rather than barking an order, had assigned Moses the task of striking a board that would entertain the possibility of proposing a list of possible Commandments, no fewer than eight nor more than twelve.

  For example, Anne was radiantly furious with me for days afterward once she discovered that she was to be the only woman seated with two hundred men at the enormously long linen-draped tables arranged in neat ranks. I first tried to pass the blame to Tom’s banker friends on the committee, saying that they were not aware they were being rude but were simply not accustomed to dealing with women in the exercise of their daily business. When that didn’t wash, I switched to Tom’s Republican Party colleagues. “They do not value women,” I said accusingly, “because women do not yet exercise the franchise, though let us hope that this tyranny of denial will end soon, as seems to be in the cards.”

  Her gorgeous blue eyes narrowed as though she was squinting at me through a gun-sight on the firing-range. For indeed I was properly to blame because I was after all the convener and the chairman. To be sure, I never repeated the mistake. The greater lesson I took away from the experience, however, was how even a slight rebuke from Anne pained me more than if a bullwhip had turned my flesh to raw meat. It was not simply that I couldn’t live without her but rather that I could not even understand how I had done just that for so long. The slightest tremor in our arrangements, of the sort that I imagine all couples must experience from time to time, sent me tottering until I felt I might tumble over the edge. I all but literally worshipped her, and worship her still. It is one thing to turn your back on your religion, a practice not unfamiliar to the Traubel family. It is quite another to realize to your horror that your religion may be, if only temporarily, turning its back on you.

  Rather than try to transfer blame to others, I might have enhanced my apology by enumerating all the chores and charges with which I had had to deal in preparing for the occasion, in addition to earning the money we needed— calling at Mickle Street for hours each day, being an errand-boy, editor, proofreader and printing-house foreman ex officio, and all the rest. But did I really need to point this out? She saw the banners I had had made stretched across the wall, high above the head table. She saw the bill of fare, tasteful in its typography and perfectly printed on the best card-stock, and, looking at it, could not have been unmindful of the agony of decision-making that went into choosing each dish in consultation with Morgan’s Hall’s accomplished head cook. There were little-neck clams and jellied consommé to begin, followed by either beef or lamb on the one hand or fish on the other, the last of these alternatives recognizing that some of W’s admirers were rather more Pythagorean, and righteously so, in their dietary habits. And so on, descending the list of courses, as though down a flight of lushly carpeted stairs, until one stepped on the landing below to be offered coffee, pressed in the French manner, and cigars (fine ones, not Walt Whitman Cigars, though it was claimed these were hand-rolled in Havana— Havana, New Jersey, perhaps).

  Moreover, I had filled the room by selling tickets at five dollars apiece, a price intended simply to recoup expenses, for profit would have been the unseemly residue of such a tribute. Or, that is to say, I sold tickets to the literary gents at least, who ranged from Hamlin Garland, the enormously popular novelist who idealized the farms of the Midwest, to Julian Hawthorne, the flamboyant Harvard-educated newspaper correspondent and literary jack-of-all-trades. What’s more, I had secretly solicited, from literary worthies in every quarter, messages of congratulations and praise to be read aloud during the ceremony. They arrived by post and by wire. My inside breast pocket had a thick packet of them, from Mark Twain, Howells, Whittier, Rossetti and no less than Tennyson. I had taken care of everything. What I had not done, for it was not possible, was to guarantee that the guest of honor would appear.

  People in Camden, and no doubt in other places that imitate Camden in their civic deportment, prefer to dine on the early side, and the crowd was largely assembled by five o’clock, enjoying their apéritifs and scuttlebutt. Rather than make a formal announcement and risk being the object of a massed stare of disappointment or even a chorus of boos, I quietly went from prominent person to prominent person, saying that when I had popped in on W only a few hours earlier, he was mightily ill and not ambulatory in any way I could visualize. He felt dead of spirit as well as body, for here I had invested so much effort— so many of us had— to realize this epochal evening that I knew had existed in his forward imagination for such a long time. He was disappointed for his own sake and also for mine. It made for a poignant and disheartening scene. I told everyone in whom I confided the news, expecting them to tell others, that we would carry on regardless, with first the fine meal and then speeches, telegrams and other encomia (including one from Bob Ingersoll, delivered to me by messenger as I was entering the hall). Certainly we displayed all the warm sentiment and sense of occasion that we could wear on our faces. I imagined that W would have difficulty getting there even if he were feeling better. A very strong westerly wind, the kind that steals hundreds of hats and makes horses stand stock-still and plant their hooves on the bricks as firmly as they can, was blowing across the city, accompanied by a pulverizing rain.

  Everyone enjoyed the meal, and I remember thinking how thoughtless I was to have ordered up so many rich dishes, as Bucke was forever concerned that spicy foods were another source of W’s intestinal distress. But of course this would not be a problem if the hero failed to appear.

  As the waiters were bussing the soiled plates &cet., a strong voice at the back, near the double doors, shouted to us: “He’s coming!” I looked across to see one of the two Camden coppers whom Tom had persuaded his friend the chief of police to post at the function (warning me, for he was wise in such matters, to see that the head cook fed them lavishly in the kitchen, “as much as they want of whatever they want”). The cop then disappeared into the corridor. The crowd fell silent, like, I imagined, the Millerite brethren who for years would gather at certain spots on particularly portentous dates, waiting in utter silence for the Rapture that never came. In a moment, the doors flew open and the two Irish coppers, the shouting one and his equally burly colleague, gently set W’s wheeling-chair and its passenger down on the floor, having carried it up the long flight of steps.

  Ed Wilkins, who had followed behind them after shepherding the chair from Mickle Street in a hack, resumed his grip on the handles and pushed W slowly toward his empty place at the main table, near to the podium. As he did so, the guests, every last one of them, rose to their feet in a single motion, applauding, cheering and whooping hosannas. In the case of those
who had not seen W in an age or perhaps had never laid eyes on him before, as with some of Tom’s businessmen who were present because they never missed a chance to give a boost to Camden, the fortissimo greeting may have masked shock at the storied poet’s appearance.

  I surely more than anyone else had seen W in all stages of ill health, but I must say he looked especially terrible: wobbling from side to side in his seat, his head appearing to bob up and down, his frame, growing thinner by the day, looking as though it was constructed of japonais rice-paper, his fingers clutching the sides of the chair for dear life. He looked startled, as though he had just heard an unfamiliar noise in the middle of the night. That he was soaking wet certainly did not help the overall impression. But his dress and grooming did. Draped around his shoulders was a blue overcoat that a well person would have found far too heavy for the end of May, even in such inclement weather. Beneath it was a black jacket, not his old gray one of the same cut, and beneath that a fine white shirt, brand-new would be my guess, open at the neck in the way he favored. Inevitably perhaps, he was wearing his familiar sloucher, tipping it slightly to acknowledge the ovation and not taking it off until he was positioned in the place of honor. The dining chair there had been removed, enabling him to continue to sit in his mobile one, as he preferred. His trousers bore a crease and had obviously, like his beard and hair, been vigorously brushed. Someone, Missus Davis I presume, had blackened his boots. There was a bouquet on the table in front of him, and he leaned forward to savor its aroma.

  There were eight speeches, each quite excellent in its way. Tom, for example, was forcefully eloquent yet cogent and to the point, as though the trial in the case of United States v. Whitman were nearly at an end and he was winning over the jury by infusing his closing arguments with equal measures of logic and charm. Another set of remarks came from Julian Hawthorne, another good friend to W, who, in acknowledging the kind oration, paid tribute to the memory of the speaker’s father, the author of The Scarlet Letter and other tales and romances, who had died during the war, though not of it. W had made certain that I had reporters from the Camden newspapers there and that I gathered up copies of the tributes being delivered, for he certainly had not abandoned his fight for authorial survival by any means necessary, including press-agentry.

  Tom whispered in Ed’s ear to run over to the Harned homestead on Federal Street, only a short distance away, and ask Gussie (another female I had snubbed! good grief!) to give him a bottle of champagne. This was quickly done.

  Rising from his wheeled contrivance seemed an especially difficult feat for W to accomplish. I suspected it was so low that it was hard for him to decamp without becoming dizzy enough to lose his balance. With assistance from Ed and me, however, he stood up, fortified by small sips from his champagne glass, to join in singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Then he had to sit down again, quite unsteadily. He took one of the fresh flowers from the vase, inhaled its scent once again, and placed it in his lap.

  Everyone present seemed to be pressing in, hoping to shake his hand. With cold weak fingers he was acceding to their requests, however tiring all the shaking was proving to be, but at the same time he signaled for Ed to begin the homeward procession. Progress toward the doors was slow, as the people with hands still unpumped surrounded his vehicle. He did his best to give them all what they sought and to acknowledge their congratulations and best wishes. But then suddenly he asked all these cigar-wielding men to step aside that he might give precedence to another hand-shake petitioner standing near the swinging doors of the kitchen. They dutifully parted like the Red Sea and the colored woman who supervised all the cooking at Morgan’s Hall, she with whom I had conspired to devise the menu, came forward slowly. She was clearly excited by the opportunity and spoke so that all the men standing there, the ones saying their goodbyes to W with their eyes but not their words, the banking cabal, the members of the Camden bar and the large patchwork of Bohemians and bibliophiles, could take in the full meaning of her words.

  I will never forget even one syllable of what she said: “I am sorry to see you looking poorly, Mister Whitman, sir, for you are a great and good soul, and it is the pleasure of my own long life to touch your hand. During the war, when my man went and got him self wounded, you nursed him back to health. The love in your heart was the medicine you used. And Jesus has not yet called him home. He walks the streets of Camden still— cause you treated him no different than you would any white boy.”

  W drew her close. I sensed that he would have preferred to stand, but his body insisted he retain his place in the chair that was also his cage. He gave her the flower. The cook’s eyes became moist. So did W’s. So did mine. There was another burst of clapping and a further murmur of acclaim.

  Once he had achieved the momentous birthday, outside events, even longer-term subjects of concern such as the tariff, could rouse his voice to a level of fervency and ardor that his body had long since ceased being able to match, for he, perhaps more than anyone, knew what a big slice of biological existence the passions account for. He had looked so wretched at the big banquet, and in front of all the most prolific gossips of Camden’s commercial and professional classes, that rumors about his condition started to spread quite widely. In the aftermath, he found himself in the unprecedented position of receiving more newspaper publicity than he might have wished. There was a headline in the Philadelphia Record that ran

  WALT WHITMAN ILL

  The Poet Stumbling to Old Age

  and Feebleness

  HE’S CONFINED TO THE HOUSE

  A Familiar Face Missed in the Streets of Camden—

  Preparing for the Final Scene.

  The story began: “That Walt Whitman, ‘the good, gray poet,’ is failing— and rapidly, too— is a fact patent to all of his intimate friends.” Noting a drastic decrease in wheeling-chair sightings, the piece went on to report that “Lawyer Thomas B. Harned, the poet’s close friend and counselor, recently admitted that Whitman is failing rapidly, that a marked physical change has come over him, and that his friends are just beginning to realize it. Whitman was never of a robust physique [how W hated that particular ‘blasted calumny’], and of recent years he has been feebler than ever. Dr Buck [sic], his biographer, is spending a good deal of time with him now, and he, too, admits that the famous man is nearing the end.”

  The famous man was not in the least amused.

  Such bulletins (there were others) only increased the number of visitors hoping to shake his palsied and sepia-spotted hand. We guardians kept many of them away, but there seemed to be no lessening in the volume of correspondence, leastwise not of the incoming portion, as I struggled as best I could with the outbound. Some days W would declare that he felt so-so, not bad, all right, good, or even, on one occasion I recall, moving right up to the top of the scale, jaunty. Most days it was quite otherwise, though here too there were many gradations, most of them discernible by the strength or weakness of his voice and, on close examination, the condition of his eyes: clear or cloudy. Still other factors figured into the general picture. For example, the state of his deafness varied considerably one day to the next, though the overall direction was downward; but the real determinants were deep inside his own body, in his lungs and limbs and in whatever was causing the terrible pain in his side. Ed Wilkins thought it could be nothing else but the kidneys, as W said he sometimes found himself unable to pass water when the need to do so was upon him, particularly in the night.

  But at least his voice always seemed to pick up when he spoke of his latest project, a pamphlet to be made from the speeches delivered at the birthday banquet, with an assortment of other pats-on-the-back thrown in. He thought such a thing would be of the greatest possible benefit to the sale of his books, including this new and still larger edition of the Leaves that he had in the works for me to engineer. At the time I thought there was something too blatant even for W in the notion of this publicity booklet, which I nonetheless managed to have appear that Autumn
under the title Camden’s Compliments to Walt Whitman, but of course I kept my opinion a private one. Later, I acquired a better understanding of the idea’s importance. He saw us noticing that his deterioration continued unchecked. He needed new endeavors, including ones as small as Compliments, so modest in size if not in conception, as much as he needed one so enormous and vitally important as the new Leaves, which was to be in two fat volumes. He needed them, as he needed Anne’s constant affectionate mindfulness, to keep himself breathing. If he ceased doing what writers do, which is to write and publish, then he ceased to be one and his end would come all the more swiftly. He believed this; so did Anne and I.

  Even so, soon after the banquet, any repetition of such an event as that, with all its physical stresses, was rapidly becoming unthinkable. But W was nothing if not tenacious. In fact, he carried tenacity well beyond the point at which it ceases to be bravery and is left to sit as a monument to folly. That Summer, when it was so hot that he had to make his outings in the chair only after the sun had retreated, he managed to visit Philadelphia. A photographer there, Gutekunst by name, wished him to sit for the lens, and sealed the deal by sending a carriage for him, promising the same for the return journey as well. But this show of will on W’s part was dwarfed by another, early the following Spring, when he again crossed the river to deliver his Lincoln lecture. On returning, he found the additional bit of strength needed to write out an anonymous account of his appearance for one of the Boston papers. He was the busiest sick man I had ever seen, but likewise the sickest busy one, though I myself may be breaking the first of these records right now. Either way, there was a note of desperation to his actions that was unbearably sad but also somehow admirable.