The heat of this summer debilitated the invalid more than that of the previous one, or even of the famous (or dreadful) one of 1887, devoted so exhaustingly to art. For days the old man would now be too overcome for any outing, and would be glad instead to sit on the sidewalk, as of old, in the shade of his cherished tree. He spent some evenings with friends, and occasionally went out to a Sunday dinner or to meet certain people; but this became too strenuous, and the after-effects too serious.
The chair rides, though so often interrupted, were continued until late in the fall.
"Was out in wheel-chair yesterday, November 8, from twelve to two-thirty."
He made a few visits to the river, and seated in his chair took his last boat rides across it. In October he visited Philadelphia for the last time.
XIV
FRIENDS, MONEY, AND A MAUSOLEUM
"Christmas Day, 1890, was spent by Walt Whitman in giving himself and all his family a Christmas present for all eternity. He went out to Harleigh Cemetery, a suburb of Camden, to select a site for a tomb."—William Sloane Kennedy.
ON the evening of October 21, Colonel Robert Ingersoll gave a lecture in Horticulture Hall, Philadelphia, for the benefit of Mr. Whitman. The subject was "Liberty in Literature."