Most of the time while he was living in Washington he occupied a small room up three flights of stairs. He had but little furniture and no dishes; he ate out of paper bags and subsisted upon a very meagre sum of money. This sufficed for that period of his life, when he was in "his splendid prime." (John Swinton.) He had health, strength and only himself to think of; and taking a house of his own in after years—humble as was the one in Mickle Street—did not seem to mature in him any realizing sense of the intrinsic value of money, or reveal to him his own pecuniary obligations. He never seemed to question what housekeeping involved, never seemed to pause and think that certain responsibilities rested upon him alone, or feel that he might be wronging others, especially those whose services he accepted and whose embarrassments he never inquired into, never offered to relieve. But Mrs. Davis, conservative, conscientious, and true to him, did not disclose his domestic failures or discuss them with others. His financial standing was not revealed to his English friends, and remained quite a secret until the Christmas season of this year, when he was given a site for a grave in Harleigh Cemetery.
It is not unreasonable to believe that he had special designs in putting money so quietly aside, one of which—and the greatest, perhaps—was to build a family vault. It has been said that it was for this very purpose he accumulated money; hoarded, accepted and saved in the most minute of things. Thomas Bailey Aldrich often told the delightful story of a certain $9.00 which Whitman borrowed from him—magnificently, but also irrevocably—in Pfoff's restaurant on Broadway.
After he had accepted and secured the site, he spoke freely of his wishes and intentions regarding the tomb. He specified that certain members of his family should be placed in it, and requested in particular that his parents should be brought from Long Island to sleep with them there.
It was to be of granite, massive and commodious; and on a projection above the door was to be a granite statue of himself, standing. His ideas were excessive, and the expense far beyond his means; still, he may have thought that the proceeds accruing from his book would warrant an extravagance for death that he never vouchsafed to life. The tomb was begun according to his orders, but was finished on a much smaller scale—as it now stands—and just in time to lay him therein.
When it became known that preparations had been made to erect this costly mausoleum, it dawned upon some of his friends that he had a way of keeping things to himself. It certainly did seem strange that some of them should pay a monthly tax for his support when he had means of his own, and could contemplate such an expenditure as this. In truth people were getting tired of the constant drain upon their purses, and many had long questioned why they should so frequently be called upon, and wondered what could become of the money that flowed in large and small streams into the Whitman exchequer. A few even suspected Mrs. Davis of appropriating it, and of this—unknown to her—she was accused. She was also charged with wastefulness, neglect of the invalid, and gross incompetence.
The poet still kept his affairs to himself, and "it may be he thought that what he received from his admirers was but a portion of the debt they owed him." (William Sloane Kennedy.)
January and February of this winter were hard months to the sick man. He suffered with severe headaches, lassitude and inertia, added to which he had long and obstinate spells of indigestion. He remarked to some old friends that he suffered somewhat from want of persons to cheer him up; most visitors came to him to confess their own weakness and failures, and to disburden themselves of their sorrows. It was just the opposite disposition in his two constant attendants that made their companionship so agreeable to him. Warren's witty and playful sallies always provoked a quiet smile, and his mother's "inventive thoughtfulness" was rewarded with an appreciative, approving look.
During March he made some gain, but it was not until April 15 that he got out of doors to enjoy the sunshine and invigorating air. With his rides new courage came to him, and in May he was able to be taken to the cemetery to witness the progress made on the tomb. But in the last ten months of his life he was so worn by pain, and had so aged, that his restful, reliable home comforts were the dearest of all earthly things to him.