Walt Whitman Quarterly Review

Walt Whitman: A Current Bibliography, Summer 2004

Folsom, Ed

Hutchinson, George

Price, Kenneth M. To Walt Whitman, America [review]

Scheick, William J

Aspiz, Harold. So Long!: Walt Whitman's Poetry of Death [review]

Reprints and comments on a May 19, 1890, New York Tribune interview with and report on Whitman

Regarding the folk tale Dorothy Stephens remarks: "Signs in the House ofBusyrane 
caution Britomart, 'Be bold, be bold,' and then 'Be not too bold' (III.xi.54), quota-
tions from the Bluebeard folk tale. In the Bluebeard text behind Spenser's text, the 
next sentence of the jingle is 'Lest that your heart's blood should run cold.' Because in 
the folk tale Mr. Fox (Bluebeard) commands Lady Mary not to look at his former 
wives, intending to make her join them if she does, Busyrane's own allusion to the tale 
implicitly warns his headstrong guest that it could be lethal for her to attempt any sort 
of meeting with the woman who is his prisoner." See Stephens, The Limits of Eroticism 
in Post-Petrarchan Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 32. 
Shakespeare also alluded to this tale in Much Ado About Nothing. For further analysis 
of this folk tradition, see K. M. Briggs's discussion of "The Hole the Fox Did Make," 
an offshoot of the international tale type The Robber Bridegroom in "Historical Tra-
ditions in English Folk-Tales," Folklore 75 (1964), 235-240. Briggs prints one of the 
more memorable versions of this tale, centrally relying on the "be ... be ... be not 
too bold" pattern in A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language (London: 
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), 1 :446-448. For further contextual discussion, see 
Jacqueline Simpson, "'Be Bold, but not Too Bold': Female Courage in Some British 
and Scandinavian Legends," Folklore 102 (1991), 19-20. 
7 Whitman, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward Grier (New 
York: New York University Press, 1984),5: 1884. Ed Folsom discusses this passage in 
"Trying to do Fair: Walt Whitman and the Good Life," Speakeasy 10 (March/April 
2004), 17. 
8 Thanks go to Ed Folsom for drawing my attention to this passage and for his 
comments on it. 
AN UNRECORDED WHITMAN INTERVIEW 
In the New York Tribune of May 19, 1890, there appeared an article entitled 
"Whitman Near the End," in which an anonymous correspondent reports on 
his trip to Whitman's Mickle Street home in Camden, New Jersey, where he 
talked with Mary Davis, Whitman's housekeeper, as well as with Whitman 
himself. The article is accompanied by an engraved portrait of Whitman, an 
engraving of his Mickle Street home, and a facsimile of his signature. A copy 
of the article was tucked into one of the copies of the 1881-1882 Leaves of 
Grass (Boston: James R. Osgood) owned by Whitman collector Kendall Reed. 
Previously unrecorded, this interview offers some illuminating details of 
Whitman's last years, including an intriguing explanation of why he never 
married. Here is the entire article: 
WHITMAN NEAR THE END 
Pitiful Life of the Good Gray Poet at Camden 
129 
There Isn't Anything to Make Life Worth the Living Now-Surroundings of this 
Man Who Has Worked and Suffered Much-Quietly Waiting for Death-Interesting 
Account of a Recent Visit to His Home 
It is not given to many men to preserve through unvarying seasons of popular 
misapprehension the optimistic temperament and faith in his kind that characterize 
Walt Whitman. Unduly abused by the many, extravagantly praised by the few, he has 
neither drawn tighter his cloak to protect him from the storm, nor cast it aside because 
of the noonday sun's fierce heat, but has walked forward undismayed along his ap-
pointed course, praising humanity, glorifying America, confident in the future of his 
race, says the New York Press. As a result he has two constant friends. They are: 
A woman and a dog. 
I hope never again to experience such shock as I did the other afternoon on reach-
ing No. 328 Mickle street, Camden. I had read of Walt Whitman's "comfortable but 
modest home," and was unprepared for the reality. Only on the testimony of two wit-
nesses-a passer-by and the door plate-could I bring myself to believe that this was the 
house of the "good gray poet." It needs paint on its weather-beaten boards, it needs 
new blinds at the dingy windows, but, more than all, it needs condemnation and de-
struction at the hands of the city authorities. The door was opened in response to my 
ring by a gentle-faced, wistful-eyed, elderly woman. 
"Please step into the parlor," she said, "while I take your card to Mr. Whitman. His 
health is precarious now." 
A spotted coach dog sniffed suspiciously about me. 
"Don't mind Homer," she added; "he's harmless, and Mr. Whitman's favorite 
companion. Why? Because he doesn't bother him with silly questions, I think." 
In response to the announcement I climbed a narrow stairway to an upper room. I 
went directly to one object of my mission and told him that an admirer was anxious to 
furnish him easy employment of a congenial nature. The fine pink skin flushed, the 
eloquent gray blue eyes lost a little of their luster. 
"Tell Mr. -," he said, "that Walt Whitman thanks him. These are all bad days now, 
but when they are only half bad I like to scribble yet. This offer means"-a pause-"it 
means that I shall be glad to do the work if I can." 
Was there not another meaning also to that broken sentence? I thought so as I 
looked at the great table piled high with books and papers, at the hard bed and uninvit-
ing lounge, at the windows through which no waving tree or nodding flower smiled 
welcome to their lifelong friend, at the man himself, royal and self-respecting, a dia-
mond set in dross, but shining with greater brilliance because of the mean surround-
ings. 
We talked of "Leaves of Grass," the book which secured Whitman's discharge 
from the Interior Department by Secretary Harlan and gained him the friendship of 
Tennyson and of the days when its author nursed the soldier boys. "I never married," 
he said, "for in place of a bride nature gave me sufferers to care for and scenes to clothe 
with poetry. Here," he continued, changing the subject, "is my message to the young 
authors: 'Employ not evil for its own sake. Make it a foil for purity.'" 
I told him of passages in his writings which I admired and referred particularly to 
"My Captain," that eloquent lament that marks the martyrdom of Lincoln like a monu-
ment. I quoted: 
130 
Exult, 0 shores, and ring, 0 bells; 
But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck; my captain lies 
Fallen cold and dead. 
"I'm glad you fancy that," he said quietly. "I thank you for your appreciation." 
Not a word of self praise; not a syllable of self depreciation; a simple proud humil-
ity in the acknowledgment of pleasure that his printed thoughts were remembered by a 
stranger. 
I had outstaid the moments to which I was pledged to limit my visit. I rose to go, 
and our hands met in friendly farewell. "Stay," he exclaimed. "Do you care for this?" 
and he wrote with firm stroke the following: 
Walt Whitman 
Apri122'90 
Then he added his message of regard to "the boys in New York," and we parted. 
At the foot of the stairs stood the two faithful watchers. The dog bounded up the 
steps; with the woman I stopped to chat a moment. "You did right," she smiled sadly, 
"not to bother him with questions. He is over 70 now, and the years bring their weight." 
Outside the sun shone, the birds sang, and the boys played. Within the doors sat 
the uncomplaining patriarch who has chanted the might and glory of America, and yet, 
strange to say, has gained greater applause and more practical sympathy beyond the 
seas than from the land he has celebrated. 
Whitman does not explicitly mention this visit to Horace Traubel in With 
Walt Whitman in Camden, but on the evening of April 22, 1890, he does refer 
to the "easy employment of a congenial nature" that seemed to be the main 
purpose of the correspondent's visit. Whitman tells Traubel: 
Today I had an application from the American Press Association. What for? A spe-
cialty? Oh not-anything, I suppose-prose or verse. 0 the mutations of years! Only a 
few years ago-five only-I waited for just such orders-wondered, and was willing, 
able, still with a modicum of strength: but no message came-the world did not want 
me. Now--hardly half a decade after, comes a multitude: comes cry and cry-after my 
power to respond is gone: after I am wrecked, stranded, left but to look for the end-or 
near end! And yet there is a sense of satisfaction in this .... " (WWC 6:373-374) . 
In his Daybook for April 22, 1890, Whitman noted that he was receiving "quite 
a number of offers Pm publishers, magazine editors, & heads of newspaper 
syndicates these times" (DBN 2:551). So, even though Whitman had been 
"too ill" to see his friend John Forney's daughter, who stopped by that day for 
a visit (WWC 6:374), he clearly had signaled Mary Davis to allow the Tribune 
correspondent to come up to his room so that he could collect another wel-
come offer to publish his work. 
The University of Iowa ED FOLSOM 
HVNEKER'S "A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN" 
I have dealt previously with James Gibbons Huneker's connection with and 
criticism of Walt Whitman. l Here I want to focus on Huneker's most exten-
sive discussion of Whitman, his essay "A Visit to Walt Whitman," which was 
briefly foreshadowed in his "Raconteur" column in the Musical Courier 37 
Guly 12, 1898), 23-24; elaborated to essay length in his "The Seven Arts" 
column in Puck 76 (November 21, 1914), 8, 20; and reprinted in his book 
Ivory Apes and Peacocks (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), 22-31 
(hereafter lAp). 
131 


English

An Unrecorded Whitman Interview

Offers a list and description of the places Whitman resided and worked in while living in Washington, D.C.; accompanied by a map reproduced on the back cover of this issue

Roberts, Kim

A Map of Whitman's Washington Boarding Houses and Work Places

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 22, no. 1

Sarracino, Carmine

Coghill, Sheila and Thom Tammaro, eds., Visiting Walt: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Walt Whitman [review]

Offers a corrected version of a map specifying the locations of Whitman's residences and offices in Washington, D.C.; the original flawed map was printed on the back cover of the summer 2004 issue of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review

A CORRECTED MAP OF WHITMAN'S WASHINGTON BOARDING 
HOUSES AND WORK PlACES 
Because of an error in the electronic transmission of the image, the map on 
the back cover of the last issue of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Sum-
mer 2004) contained some inaccuracies. Below is a corrected map, designed 
by Emery Pajer, showing the location of Whitman's residences and places of 
work during the decade (1863-1873) he lived in Washington, D.C. I have also 
included an abbreviated key to the map; for details about each site, see the 
original note in WWQR 22 (Summer 2004),23-28. 
Residences 
1. 394 L Street North. Now the site of the American Medical Association, 
entrance at 1101 Vermont Ave. NW. Whitman moved here in January 
1863. 
2. 456 6th Street West. Now the site of the U.S. Securities and Exchange 
Commission, entrance at 415 6th St. NW. Whitman moved here in Octo-
ber 1863. 
3. 502 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now part of the U.S. Capitol grounds, on a 
triangle of land across from the reflecting pool at the base of Capitol Hill. 
Whitman moved here in May 1864. 
4. 468 M Street South. Now the Claridge Tower Apartments, entrance at 
1221 M St. NW. Whitman moved here in January 1865. 
5. 364 13th Street West. Now a multistory office building, entrance at 1220 
L St. NW. Whitman moved here in February 1866. 
6. 472 M Street South. Now the site of the Claridge Tower Apartments. 
Whitman moved here sometime in 1867. 
7. 535 15th Street NW. Now the site of the Hotel Washington, entrance at 
515 15th St. NW. It is unclear when Whitman moved to this, his final 
D.C. home. 
Work Places 
8. Federal office building, 15th and F Streets NW. Now the site of the Hotel 
Washington. Whitman worked in a building at this site twice, from 1863 
to 1864, and from 1865 to 1871. 
9. U.S. Patent Office, 8th and F Streets NW. Now the National Portrait 
Gallery. Whitman worked here from January to June 1865. 
136 
10. Department of Justice, Pennsylvania Avenue and Madison Place NW. 
Now the site of the Treasury Annex. Whitman worked here from 1871 to 
1872. 
11. U.S. Treasury, 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Whitman worked 
here from 1872 to 1873. 
12. Armory Square Hospital, 6th Street and Independence Avenue SE. Now 
the site of the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. 
Washington, D.C. KIM ROBERTS 
137 


A Corrected Map of Whitman's Washington Boarding Houses and Work Places

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 21, no. 3/4

Walt Whitman: A Current Bibliography, Fall 2004/Winter 2005

Not a member yet