Henceforward, though records are multiplied, the movement of Whitman’s life is less and less affected by outer events, and becomes yearly more private and elusive.
WHITMAN AT SIXTY-TWO
There is little to record of 1883, save that shortly after his sixty-fourth birthday there appeared the biographical study of Whitman by his Canadian friend. Like the earlier and smaller sketch by John Burroughs, Dr. Bucke’s volume was revised and authenticated by the poet, and is an invaluable record. Though fragmentary and far from exhaustive, it is written by one of the very few who can be said to have caught the real significance of the life and personality of the author of Leaves of Grass. That he fully understood Whitman, neither he nor his poet friend ever suggested; but then one must add that Whitman always laughingly asserted he did not by any means understand himself.[655]
As a result of the sales of the Philadelphia edition and the royalties which they brought him, the old man was now enabled to carry a long-cherished plan into execution.
On March the 26th, 1884,[656] he left his brother’s house, and removed to a little two-story cottage on Mickle Street, near by. Here he installed himself, at first with an elderly workman and his wife, and afterwards under the more efficient régime of Mrs. Mary Davis, a buxom New Jersey widow of comfortable presence, who brought into the house that homely atmosphere which Whitman had so long been seeking.[657]
Downstairs, in the little front parlour, he carried on what remained to him of his own publishing—the old autograph editions which he had not entrusted to Mr. McKay; and over it, upstairs, was his bedroom, which he liked to compare with a big ship’s cabin. In the backyard were lilacs, which he loved; and a shady tree stood in the side-walk in front.
He found his little “shack,” as he called it, pleasant and restful, and his own. He was not much worried by the rasping church choir and the bells, which jangled cruelly loud for such sensitive hearing every Sunday; nor by the neighbourhood of a guano factory, which was noticeable enough to the most ordinary nose.[658] Here his friends from far and near were frequent visitors, Dr. Bucke, John Burroughs and Peter Doyle among them; and in June came Edward Carpenter from England on his second visit.[659]