“Edward Dowden’s letter containing among others your subscription for a copy of my new edition has just been rec’d. I shall send the book very soon by express in a package to his address. I have just written to E. D.
“My physique is entirely shatter’d—doubtless permanently—from paralysis and other ailments. But I am up and dress’d, and get out every day a little, live here quite lonesome, but hearty, and good spirits.—Write to me again.
“Walt Whitman.”
In 1871 a correspondence had begun between Walt Whitman and Tennyson which lasted for some years. In the first of Tennyson’s letters, July 12, 1871, he had said:
“I trust that if you visit England, you will grant me the pleasure of receiving and entertaining you under my own roof.”
This kind invitation took root in Walt Whitman’s mind and blossomed into intention. He was arranging to come to England, and Edward Dowden asked him to prolong his stay and come to Ireland also. This was provisionally arranged with him. When he should have paid his visit to Tennyson he was to come on to Dublin, where his visit was to have been shared between Dowden and myself. Dowden was a married man with a house of his own. I was a bachelor, living in the top rooms of a house, which I had furnished myself. We knew that Walt Whitman lived a peculiarly isolated life, and the opportunity which either one or other of us could afford him would fairly suit his taste. He could then repeat his visit to either, and prolong it as he wished. We had also made provisional arrangements for his giving a lecture whilst in Dublin; and as the friends whom we asked were eager to take tickets, he would be assured of a sum of at least a hundred pounds sterling—a large sum to him in those days.
But alas!
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley.”
At the very beginning of 1873 Walt Whitman was struck down by a stroke of paralysis which left him a wreck for the rest of his days. He could at best move but a very little; the joys of travel and visiting distant friends were not to be for him.