While he was thus spending a considerable sum upon his tomb, the extra expenses entailed by his prolonged illness were being met, unknown to him, by the generosity of his Camden friends. After his death, his executors were surprised to find that there was in the bank a considerable reserve,[763] amounting to several hundred pounds, available for distribution between his sisters and his brother Edward, according to the terms of his will.
In mid-December, 1891, Whitman’s right lung became congested, and when Dr. Bucke arrived on the 22nd the death-rattle had already been heard, and his immediate passing was anticipated.[764]
At Christmas, John Burroughs came over, and found such an unconquered look upon the sufferer’s face that the thought of death’s nearness seemed impossible.[765] From St. Louis came Jessie Whitman, her father, Jefferson, having died a year earlier; and the colonel brother, who seems now to have removed from Camden, spent at least one anxious night in the little house. Mr. Johnston also came over from New York for a last sight of his old friend. But even with those nearest to him, interviews became more and more difficult. He longed for the solitude and silence which their love found it hardest to give.
The wintry days at the junction of the years went by in suffering and patience. Walt was affectionately grateful for the intimate services of his nurse and of Horace Traubel; writing of the latter as “unspeakably faithful”.[766] Though he was generally calm he was longing for death. He had dreadful hiccoughs, and grew colder and more emaciated. The suffering had become terrible, and the anticipation of its long continuance brought fear for the first time to his strong heart.
HORACE TRAUBEL AT FORTY-FIVE
In mid-January, however, he rallied. The Fritzinger baby was born and called after him, and Walt had it brought in to be fondled upon his breast.[767] Colonel Ingersoll called, and his magnetic spontaneous presence and words of profound affection comforted and sustained his friend. Then, to his great satisfaction, the tenth edition of his works appeared,[768] and special copies were forwarded to his friends. He contrived to write brief notes to Dr. Bucke and to his favourite sister, telling them of the publication and of his condition.
On the 6th and 7th of February he wrote a last pathetic letter, which was lithographed and sent out to many correspondents. The “little spark of soul” which, according to his own quaint version of a favourite saying of Epictetus, had during all these months been “dragging a great lummux of corpse-body clumsily to and fro around,” was still glimmering. His friends were ever faithful, he says, and for his bodily state, “it is not so bad as you might suppose, only my sufferings much of the time are fearful”. And he added, as a last dictum, the substance of his latest public thoughts—for he read the newspapers constantly to the last—“more and more it comes to the fore, that the only theory worthy our modern times, for great literature, politics and sociology, must combine all the best people of all lands, the women not forgetting”.[769]