We believe the delivery on Tuesday was
Whitman's thirteenth of it. The old poet is now physically wreck'd.
But his voice and magnetism are the same. For the last month he has
been under a severe attack of the lately prevailing influenza, the
grip, in accumulation upon his previous ailments, and, above all, that
terrible paralysis, the bequest of secession war times. He was dress'd
last Tuesday night in an entire suit of French Canadian grey wool
cloth, with broad shirt collar, with no necktie; long white hair, red
face, full beard and moustache, and look'd as though he might weigh
two hundred pounds. He had to be help'd and led every step. In five
weeks more he will begin his seventy-second year. He is still writing
a little.
INGERSOLL'S SPEECH
_From the Camden Post, N.J., June 2, 1890_ _He attends and makes a
speech at the celebration of Walt Whitman's birthday_.--Walt Whitman
is now in his seventy-second year. His younger friends, literary and
personal, men and women, gave him a complimentary supper last Saturday
night, to note the close of his seventy-first year, and the late
curious and unquestionable "boom" of the old man's wide-spreading
popularity, and that of his "Leaves of Grass." There were thirty-five
in the room, mostly young, but some old, or beginning to be. The great
feature was Ingersoll's utterance. It was probably, in its way, the
most admirable specimen of modern oratory hitherto delivered in the
English language, immense as such praise may sound.
Pages:
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844