Walt Whitman in Mickle Street Part 1

Walt Whitman in Mickle Street.

by Elizabeth Leavitt Keller.

PREFACE

Had it ever occurred to me that the time might come when I should feel impelled to write something in regard to my late patient, Walt Whitman, I should have taken care to be better prepared in antic.i.p.ation; would have kept a personal account, jotted down notes for my own use, observed his visitors more closely, preserved all my correspondence with Dr.

Bucke, and recorded items of more or less interest that fade from memory as the years go by. Still, I have my diary, fortunately, and can be true to dates.

After I had been interviewed a number of times, and had answered various questions to the best of my knowledge and belief, I was surprised to see several high-flown articles published, all based on the meagre information I had furnished, and all imperfect and unsatisfactory.

Interviewers seemed to look for something beyond me; to wait expectantly in the hope that I could recall some unusual thing in Mr. Whitman's eccentricities that I alone had observed; words that I alone had heard him speak; opinions and beliefs I alone had heard him express; anything remarkable, not before given to the public. They wanted the sensational and exclusive, if possible. I suppose that was natural.

But it set me thinking that if my knowledge was of any value or interest to others, why not write a truthful story myself, instead of having my words enlarged upon, changed and perverted? Simple facts are surely better than hasty exaggerations.

I have done what I could. One gentleman (_Mr. James M. Johnston, of Buffalo_), who has read the ma.n.u.script, and for whose opinion I have the greatest regard, remarked as he returned it: "It appears to me that your main view in writing this was to exonerate Mrs. Davis."

He had discovered a fact I then recognized to be the truth.

My greatest fear is that I may have handled the whole truth too freely--without gloves.

E. L. K.

I

MARY OAKES DAVIS

"_She hath wrought a good work on me.... This also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her._"--ST. MARK XIV: 6, 9.

"_Whitman with the pen was one man--Whitman in private life was another man._"--THOMAS DONALDSON.

Someone has said: "A veil of silence, even mystery, seems to have shut out from view the later home life of Walt Whitman."

There is no reason for this, but if it be really so, the veil cannot be lifted without revealing in a true light the good woman--Mary Oakes Davis--so closely connected with the poet's later years, and of whom he often spoke as "my housekeeper, nurse and friend."

Mrs. Davis's life from the cradle to the grave was one of self-sacrifice and devotion to others. Her first clear recollection was of a blind old woman to whom her parents had given a home. In speaking of this she said: "I never had a childhood, nor did I realize that I had the right to play like other children, for at six years of age 'Blind Auntie' was my especial charge. On waking in the morning my first thought was of her, and then I felt I must not lie in bed another minute. I arose quickly, made my own toilet and hastened to her." She continued with a detailed account of the attention daily given to "Auntie," how she put on her stockings and shoes, and handed her each article of clothing as it was needed; how she brought fresh water for her ablutions, combed her hair and made her presentable for the table; how at all meals she sat by her side to wait upon her, and how, after helping her mother with the dishes, she walked up and down the sidewalk until schooltime to give "Auntie" her exercise, the walks being repeated when school was over.

It seems strange that parents could permit such sacrifice for an outsider, however helpless, unmindful of their injustice toward the little daughter who so willingly and unconsciously yielded up her young life. No wonder this lesson of utter devotion to another, so early implanted in the tender heart of the child, should in after years become part and parcel of the woman.

When Mary was twelve years of age "Blind Auntie" died. Then came two more years of schooling, after which the girl voluntarily a.s.sumed another burden--the care of a melancholy, selfish invalid, a distant relative living in the country, of whom she had heard much from time to time. With her she stayed for six years, being in turn nurse, companion, housekeeper or general servant, as need required.

Poor child, she failed in brightening the invalid's life--which was her only hope in going there. All her efforts were unappreciated and misunderstood, and it was a hard task to follow out what she conceived to be her duty. During the first four years her sole remuneration was a small sum of money on rare occasions, or a few articles of clothing; during the last two, a modest monthly salary. The entire period was one of unremitting care and self-abnegation, and at the age of twenty, utterly disheartened, she summoned up resolution to leave.

She had long contemplated paying a visit to an old schoolmate and dear friend, Mrs. Fritzinger, the wife of a sea-captain, whose home was in Camden, New Jersey, and to this city she now went. Arriving, to her great sorrow she found her friend in a serious physical condition, and remained to nurse her through a protracted illness, which ended fatally.

On her deathbed Mrs. Fritzinger confided her two young sons to Mary's care, and from this time on they called her mother.

Captain Fritzinger soon became blind and had to give up the sea. He still however retained marine interests in Philadelphia, to and from which city Mary led him daily. Then came a long illness. The Captain appointed Mary co-guardian to his two sons, and at his death divided his property equally between the three.

Captain Davis, a friend of the Fritzingers, had met Mary during Mrs.

Fritzinger's lifetime. He was much attracted to her, proposed marriage and was accepted on condition that the wedding should not take place as long as her friends had need of her. But time slipped by; it may be Captain Davis thought their need of her would never end; so, meeting her in Philadelphia one morning, he insisted upon their going to a minister's and becoming man and wife. Mary, thus forcefully pressed, consented, but exacted the promise that he would not tell the Fritzingers until his return from the trip he was on the eve of taking.

In a few days he left Camden. His vessel was wrecked off the coast of Maine, and he was buried where he washed ash.o.r.e.

His hasty marriage and unlooked-for death prevented him from making the intended provision for his wife, and as she shrank from any contest with his family, all that was left to her was his name and the cherished memory of her one brief love.

During Captain Fritzinger's nine years of blindness, and through all his long sickness, Mary's ingrained habit of devotion to one person made her somewhat forgetful of others; and dearly as she loved the boys who called her mother, their happiness was too often sacrificed to their father's infirmities. Strange--and yet not strange, perhaps--that one whose childhood had been an unbroken martyrdom, should now be not always conscious of the needs of a new generation.

The house in which they lived, in a little street running at right angles to Stevens Street, was closed at dusk. Then, when she had read the daily papers, Mary would extinguish the lights, feeling that to read to herself, or for the boys to play games, would be selfish, as the sick man was deprived of such enjoyments. It didn't occur to her that these wide-awake youngsters had nothing of her own childhood spirit of resignation, or that the noise and laughter of other boys frolicking in the streets could have any attraction for them. They were sent early to bed, but time and again made their escape through the window, creeping along the shed, and so to the fence and the street.

Both boys had an innate love for the sea, and at the age of fourteen and sixteen respectively had become so restless and urgent for a change, that their father yielded to their wishes and procured berths for them aboard the same s.h.i.+p. In two years they returned to find him dead, and in a short time they embarked again in separate vessels and for longer voyages.

During their first absence, Captain Fritzinger had invited another ex-captain--an old s.h.i.+pmate and intimate friend--to come to his house to board, and for mutual companions.h.i.+p. The new guest was in poor health and extremely crotchety, and immediately upon his host's demise he took possession of the bed left empty. Then ensued for Mrs. Davis two more years of fidelity and constant care, until the one old s.h.i.+pmate went the way of the other.

But even now the long-tried woman was not left without someone to minister to, for shortly before a young orphan girl had been entrusted to her. It was certainly her destiny to find full scope for the spirit of self-sacrifice so early implanted, and so persistently called upon.

But it was almost inevitable for such a nature to be unconscious of the vein of irony in human affairs, of the element of the grotesque in the sublime. She went quietly on her accustomed way. It was her vocation to be victimized, and her daily business to be a blessing to others.

Such was the woman who entered so closely into Walt Whitman's life during the seven years spent in Mickle Street. She meant more to him than he was perhaps aware of; more, certainly, than he ever cared to admit. If she was incapable of realizing the fulness of his genius, he seemed unable to measure the fulness of hers. But he was glad to profit by it.

II

WALT WHITMAN'S HOME

"_And whether I come into my own to-day or in ten thousand or in ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I can wait._"--WALT WHITMAN.

"_I only thought if I didn't go, who would?_"--MARY O. DAVIS.

After physical disability had incapacitated him for duty, Walt Whitman went to Camden, the New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia, and there the remaining years of his life were spent, at first in his brother's house in Stevens Street and later in a little frame cottage, No. 328 Mickle Street, "where he lived alone with a single attendant," as a magazine writer phrased it. This attendant was Mary Oakes Davis.

With but one exception (_Thomas Donaldson, in "Walt Whitman the Man"_), all writers who have touched upon Whitman's domestic life seem to have failed to mention the interval between his two Camden homes. Fortunately it was of short duration, but in it came the great turning point in his career.

Of his early habits something may be learned from his brother George, who says: "Wait was always a trying person to live with." ("_In Re Walt Whitman._") Then he goes on to relate some of the poet's peculiarities, irregularities and eccentricities. "He had an idea that money was of no consequence.... He would lie abed late, would write a few hours if he took the notion, perhaps would go off for the rest of the day. If we had dinner at one, like as not he would come at three; always late. Just as we were fixing things on the table he would get up and go around the block. He was always so.

"He would come to breakfast when he got ready. If he wished to go out, he would go, go where he was a mind to, and come back in his own time."

It cannot be denied that a person with these traits of character would be an uncomfortable inmate to have in any home, and with Mr. Whitman this disregard for the convenience of others grew more marked as he advanced in years and deteriorated in body. Notwithstanding this, when his good brother and his most excellent sister-in-law retired to their farm in Burlington, New Jersey, they urged him to accompany them.

Their kind offer of a home Mr. Whitman thought best to decline, for although at this time he had but a restricted popularity as an author, he had some staunch friends in his own city, in New York, Philadelphia and abroad, and after twelve years' residence in one locality he thought it unwise to change.

No doubt he did not take into consideration the difficulties he would have to encounter alone, nor realize how unfitted he was to cope with them; but as usual he overruled all opposition and followed his own inclination.