Though he was getting old, his capacity for enjoyment was as great as ever. He enjoyed everything, especially now that at sixty-five he was, for the first time in his life, a householder; he enjoyed his quarters, his friends, his food, and in a grim way his very suffering. “Astonishing what one can stand when put to one’s trumps,”[680] he wrote on a black day. While he could rattle along the roads in his waggon, he was naturally happy enough, and he encouraged all opportunities for pleasure. He enjoyed his food, and he now relaxed some of the stricter rules of temperance which hitherto he had followed.
During periods of his life, as a young man and through the years at Washington, he was practically a total abstainer, and till he was sixty he only drank an occasional toddy, punch, or glass of beer. After that he followed the doctor’s advice and his own taste, enjoying the native American wines, and at a later period, champagne.
Stories of heavy drinking were circulated by the gossips, and were tracked at last to the habits of a local artist, who imitated Whitman in his garb, and somewhat resembled him.[681] Walt’s head was remarkably steady, and it need hardly be said that he was always most jealous of anything which could dispute with him his self-control.
In 1885 and several subsequent years[682] a popular caterer on the river-side, a mile or two below Camden, opened the summer season, about the end of April, with a dinner to some of his patrons, and Whitman was one of those who did fullest justice to his planked shad and champagne. For the latter he would smilingly admit an “incidental weakness”.[683]
His temperance had given him a keen relish for fine flavours, and he enjoyed all the pleasures of the senses without disguise, and with a frank, childlike response to them. This responsiveness, more almost than any other thing, kept his physical nature supple and young. His consciousness was never imprisoned in his brain, among stale memories and thoughts whose freshness had faded; it was still clean and sensitive to its surroundings, and found expression in the noticeably fresh, rich texture of his skin.
It was well that he should practise these simple pleasures, for apart from his own ailments, which increased with time, he was still troubled with financial difficulties. The purchase of the house had not been exactly prudent, as it added considerably to his expenses, and the success of the Philadelphia edition was not long continued. The royalty receipts soon dwindled to a very little stream, and his other earnings—though he was well paid for such contributions as the magazines accepted, and was retained on the regular staff of the New York Herald—were not large.[684]
Word went round among his friends, both in America and in England, that the old man was hard up again, and a second time there was a hearty response. A fund, promoted by the Pall Mall Gazette at the end of 1886, brought him a New Year’s present of £80,[685] and individual friends on both sides of the sea frequently sent thank-offerings to him.
Some Boston admirers attempted at this time to secure for him a Government pension of £60 a year,[686] in recognition of his hospital work. But Whitman disliked the plan, and though it was favourably reported upon by the Pensions Committee of the House of Representatives, he wrote gratefully but peremptorily refusing to become an applicant for such a reward, saying quite simply, “I do not deserve it”.[687] His services in the Attorney-General’s Department seem to have been adequately paid, and one is glad the matter was not pressed. The hospital ministry could not have been remunerated by an “invalid pension”; it was given as a free gift, and now it will always remain so.