Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1888 — A Visit to Walt Whitman. [ARTICLE]

A Visit to Walt Whitman.

A short time ago I went to see the “old gray-liaired poet” in his Camden home. A pull at the old-fashioned brass bell brought the pleasant-faced housekeeper, who ushered me, without ceremony, into the presence of the master of the quaint little brown frame house. I found him in his study, seated in a big arm-chair before the fire; enveloped in a loose, comfortable-looking dressing gown of dark blue; his slippered feet almost hidden from view in the huge gray fur rug. Altogether the room and its distinguished-looking occupant were well worth coming a long way to see, Papers, pamphlets, books and letters were strewn carelessly about the room; on the well-filled table stood a pitcher containing a solitary hot-house flower, while on a window sill was a glass which held a bunch of sweet blossoms sent by some thoughtful friend to cheer the poet’s lonely winter-bound house. A pot of yellow tulips hinting of the coming spring-tide stood’on a chair at his elbow; and overhead his pet canary softly chirped. On one end of the wooden mantel stood a bust of Carlyle; on the other, one of Emerson—or, as Miss Bilmer called him, “The Concord Sphinx”— who, by the way, was a great admirer of the Jersey poet. It was Emerson, I believe, who said of him: “Whitman is apparently' ’the greatest democrat the world has seen.” » As I gazed about the room I could not help wondering if the old grayliaired man ever felt lonely. “Has the winter seemed long?” I asked. Hereplied. “Yes, the days roll round monotonously.” “What,” said I, “with your books and friends and writing?” "Very gently, he answered, “Time grows weary with years and the weight of sin.” Struck with the words, I asked whose they were; he replied, “From an old song I used to hear, years ago, when I was a boy.” Here our conversation was interrupted by an expressman bringing in a big box. The poet gneeted him cordially, calling him, “my boy,” in his deep kindly tones, and in return the man addressed him most affectionately, as “Uncle Walt.” After the expressman had taken his departure the old man said, “They seem to belong to me, to be part of me some way.” Is it any wonder the soldiers and firemen, cardrivers and boatmen love him as they do? After that we talked over one or two of his latest poems. I told him how much I liked his “Western Sunset,” which appeared a short time since in the New York Herald; whereupon he wanted to know if I were familiar with sunsets of the far West, to which unfortunately I was forced to reply in the negative; but told him I admired the artistic way in which he laid on the colors! I then bade him good-by and left the house rather saddened, for the kindly old man .seemed weary and, I thought, just a trifle sad. He may not feel it, but to me he seemed bereft of near and dear ones; and, as Byron truly says: “Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.”— Detroit Free Press.