His health was so seriously affected by the fogs that it became imperative that he should get into purer air so he decided to fulfil his intention of going to New York even though he had been forced to relinquish all ideas of lecturing. There were various publishing matters to attend to, and many friends to visit. In a letter to Mrs. Janvier, announcing his projected visit, he tells her of the particular work he had on hand:
“You will be the first to hear my new imaginative work. Although in a new method, it is inherently more akin to “Romantic Ballads” than to “Sospiri,” but it is intense dramatic prose. There is one in particular I wish to read to you—three weeks from now.” And he adds, “Do you not long for the warm days—for the beautiful living pulsing South? This fierce cold and gloom is mentally benumbing.... Yes you are right: there are few women and perhaps fewer men who have the passion of Beauty—of the thrilling ecstasy of life.”
During his short stay in New York he was made the welcome guest of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Stedman; and he delighted in this opportunity of again meeting his good friends Mr. and Mrs. Richard Stoddart, Mr. Alden, Mr. Howells, etc. But his chief interest was a memorable visit to Walt Whitman, in whose fearless independent, mental outlook, and joy in life, in whose vigorous individual verse, he had found incentive and refreshment. Armed with an introduction from Mr. Stedman he pilgrimaged to Camden, New Jersey, on January 23rd, and found the veteran poet in bed propped up with pillows, very feeble, but bright-eyed and mentally alert. William described the visit in a letter to me:
“During a memorable talk on the literature of the two countries past and to come, the conversation turned upon a vivid episode. ‘That was when you were young?’ I asked. The patriarchal old poet—who lay in his narrow bed, with his white beard, white locks, and ashy-grey face in vague relief, in the afternoon light, against the white pillows and coverlet—looked at me before he answered, with that half audacious, wholly winsome glance so characteristic of him, ‘Now, just you tell me when you think that was!’
“Then, with sudden energy, and without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘Young? I’m as young now as I was then! What’s this grey tangle’ (and as he spoke he gave his straggling beard an impatient toss),’and this decrepit old body got to do with that, eh? I never felt younger, and I’m glad of it—against what’s coming along. That’s the best way to shift camp, eh? That’s what I call Youth!’”
When the younger man bade him farewell Whitman gave him a message to take back with him across the seas. “He said to me with halting breath: ‘William Sharp when you go back to England, tell those friends of whom you have been speaking, and all others whom you may know and I do not that words fail me to express my deep gratitude to them for sympathy and aid truly enough beyond acknowledgment. Good-bye to you and to them—the last greetings of a tired old poet.’”
The impression made on my husband, by the fearless serene attitude of the great poet found expression in the few lines that flashed into his mind, when on March 29th he read in a London evening paper of the death of Walt Whitman:
IN MEMORIAM
He laughed at Life’s Sunset-Gates
With vanishing breath,
Glad soul, who went with the sun
To the Sunrise of death.