Rebel Souls

by Justin Martin

  Then more bad news: Whitman learned that his mother was dying. She had moved in with his brother George in Camden, New Jersey, where he now worked as a pipe inspector. On May 20—just four months after his stroke—he rushed to her bedside. Three days later, she died. She left behind a note composed for her children: “Farewell my beloved sons farewell I have lived beyond all comfort in this world dont mourn for me my beloved sons and daughters farewell my dear beloved Walt.”

  Whitman decided to stay on for a while with George and his wife. There had been so much tumult; a rest was sure to do him good. He arranged for a two-month leave from his job. When the time was up, he managed to extend the leave, staying on with George. This may seem a curious decision, especially since it kept Whitman apart from Doyle.

  But other circumstances may have weakened their bond. Lately, they had contended with plenty. Whitman’s stroke had made their twenty-four-year age difference stark. Doyle was still a young man; Whitman, all at once, was an old man, even one who required nursing care. Doyle gave Whitman a cane, a thoughtful but awkward gesture. For Whitman, this practical gift must have been a painful reminder, and for his regular, everyday cane, he relied on a different one. There are hints, too, of other troubles between the couple. Whitman may have wanted a deeper commitment; perhaps he even hoped they could move in together. Doyle felt pulled by obligations. He had family in Washington and was also charged with helping care for his mother, who was in declining health.

  Whitman kept extending his leave until eventually he’d been away for a year, too long, even by the lax standards of his employer. His position at the attorney general’s office was officially terminated. It’s then that Whitman made a fateful decision. He chose to remain in Camden.

  For Whitman, there was something comfortingly familiar about this industrial city on the banks of the Delaware River. Camden played Brooklyn to Philadelphia’s Manhattan. And its big sister city was accessible via a quick ferry ride, a trip that Whitman made frequently. He’d traversed Broadway as a young man, moved through Boston as he typeset the 1860 Leaves of Grass, seemingly gotten to know every lane and byway of Washington in wartime and after. Now a great pleasure was to hail a stage and make his way up and down Philadelphia’s Market Street.

  Whitman took over a small bedroom in his brother’s house. He continued writing poetry. But his abilities as an artist had greatly diminished. Some new poems such as “Passage to India” are deeply affecting. As Whitman pressed forward as an artist, however, almost everything he wrote suffered in comparison to the impossible standard of his earlier work. Many years before, he had told his editor Charles Eldridge, “I shall range along the high plateau of my life & capacity for a few years now, & then swiftly descend.” Even then, Whitman had known. At the very top of his power, he was aware of what a lofty place he’d reached, and he recognized that such creativity simply could not be sustained.

  Still, he continued to bring out versions of Leaves of Grass. In the course of his lifetime, he would publish seven separate editions of what he called “that unkillable work.” During the postwar years, each successive version contained only a small number of new poems. Otherwise, Whitman made continual—and usually tiny—revisions to the existing poems, such as “Song of Myself” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” A growing fondness for apostrophes, for example, prompted Whitman to change words such as buzzed to buzz’d in later editions. He tinkered endlessly with poem titles and reshuffled their sequence, seeking fresh thematic groupings. The grand cathedral had been built years before. Now, it was a matter of making small adjustments.

  But he kept working. Eventually, he’d be listed by his profession (“Walt Whitman, poet”) in the Camden city directory. He even began to derive a modest income from Leaves of Grass. For a while, he sold the self-published volume by mail, handling the order fulfillment himself. Then, for the later editions, he was able to line up commercial publishers such as David McKay, a small Philadelphia press. They paid him royalties on every copy sold. In a good year, he could earn $1,000, though there were plenty of lean years. Whitman never required much money. Emerson was right: he was a Bohemian.

  From Camden, Whitman also realized his long-held ambition to become a “wander-speaker.” Each year, he delivered a lecture about Abraham Lincoln’s death. It was always on or around April 15 (the anniversary of his passing), and it was usually in Philadelphia or New York, though once in Boston. The strain of standing was too much for Whitman, so he gave his speech seated. He’d put on his spectacles, which, out of vanity, he never wore for any of the countless photographs taken during his latter years. He’d consult his notes, which he’d pasted to the pages of a book of poetry entitled The Bride of Gettysburg. That way they would be harder to scatter or misplace. And there was an added advantage: If he happened to glance at his notes during a speech, he would appear to the audience to be paging through a book.

  Whitman spoke slowly, in an unusually low, quavering voice—not exactly a natural orator. But he had his wiles. The auditorium would grow hushed as he described “the muffled sound of a pistol shot” and the fleeing Booth “catching his boot heel in the drapery of the American flag” before landing on the stage, looking around with “those basilisk eyes flashing,” and shouting “these words: ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis.’” What always struck audiences was the immediacy of the scene Whitman painted. “He related the death of Abraham Lincoln quite simply,” noted one attendee, “as though the event had taken place the evening before. Not a gesticulation, no raising of the voice.” The attendee added that Whitman’s account possessed an authority, gave the impression that “I was there; everything happened to me.”

  Only Whitman hadn’t been there. He was, of course, relying on Doyle’s long-ago account of the event. With each passing year, the two men had drifted further apart. There would be other romances for Whitman in Camden, but none would ever manage a rival claim to the poet’s heart. Doyle took a job as a brakeman on the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad, making late-night runs up and down the mid-Atlantic corridor, sometimes passing only miles from where Whitman lay in his bed. Indeed, there would come a point when Whitman entirely lost track of Doyle, had no idea as to the whereabouts of the man to whom he’d once professed eternal love. “He is a bird of passage,” mused Whitman, adding, “I would not know how to reach him now.”

  Whitman lived with George for nearly eleven years. Then he bought a home of his own in Camden. It was a modest wood-frame house, painted brown, and located at 328 Mickle Street. Whitman appreciated the shade tree out front and the lilac bushes in the backyard. The house cost $2,000, an amount that Whitman cobbled together from his modest royalties, meager savings, and a loan from a businessman acquaintance.

  Whitman had accumulated very little furniture. On first moving in, he used an overturned box as a kitchen table. But then he cut a deal with Mary Davis, a widow who lived nearby. In exchange for her furniture and her agreement to perform cooking and housekeeping duties, Whitman invited the widow Davis to live with him rent free. She also brought along assorted pets, including a dog, a cat, and a canary, which she placed in a cage that hung from the kitchen ceiling. Whitman would repair to the little front room—what he jokingly called the “parlor”—and sit in a rocking chair, soaking up the comfort of his household’s clutter and activity.

  During the years in Camden, Whitman played host to a steady stream of distinguished visitors. Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and an ancient Longfellow crossed the Delaware to see him. At home and overseas, his fame kept growing. Vincent Van Gogh painted his Starry Night after reading Leaves of Grass in translation, even took the title from one of Whitman’s poems. The mythologizers only multiplied. One in particular, Richard Maurice Bucke, the superintendent of an insane asylum in London, Ontario, made repeated visits to Camden while formulating his theory of cosmic consciousness. It held that select individuals throughout history—Buddha, Shakespeare, Muhammad, Saint Paul, and Walt Whitma
n—had evolved to a plane higher than the rest of humankind. Bucke was thrilled to discover that the poet existed “in an upper spiritual stratum above all mean thoughts, sordid feelings, earthly harassments. He resembled hardly at all ordinary men, but lived in a different world and was governed by entirely different thoughts and feelings and considerations.”

  That was of little solace when Whitman had a cold, felt lonely, was exhausted. He pressed on, past loss and recompense and loss again, through the indignities of aging and the pleasures of adulation.

  Along the way, he paid one final visit to Pfaff’s. On August 16, 1881, during a trip to Manhattan, he stopped by the saloon. The place had moved yet again, this time to 9 West 24th Street, and with the passage of the years it had grown respectable. Pfaff was still the proprietor, rounder now, grayer now, but jolly as ever. Herr Pfaff went and retrieved a bottle of the establishment’s finest wine. He poured a glass for Whitman and took a seat across from him. Then they talked about the old times, about that little vaulted room in the Broadway basement, and about the Bohemians, Clapp, Clare, O’Brien, and the rest, most dead, all gone. “Ah, the friends and names and frequenters,” marveled Whitman, “those times, that place.”

  Whitman sat for a pleasant hour, sipping wine and reminiscing. Then the old poet bid farewell to Herr Pfaff. He made his way slowly through the saloon and out into Manhattan, where he was once more amid the throng, the millions, toiling, striving, alive.

  Photographs

  Pfaff’s saloon was at 647 Broadway in New York City. It was in the basement of the Coleman House hotel (second building above the cross street, Bleecker, in this photo from the 1860s).

  During the 1850s and 1860s, America’s first Bohemians met at Pfaff’s saloon. Henry Clapp Jr., leader of this remarkably talented collection of artists, always sat at the head of a long table in a specially set-aside vaulted room. Clapp (pictured with his trademark pipe) had lived in Paris and is responsible for importing Bohemia to America.

  Fitz-James O’Brien (left), a talented but dissolute writer, was the charter member of the Pfaff’s circle. Elegant, quick-witted Ada Clare was dubbed Queen of Bohemia.

  This 1854 photo provides an idea of what Whitman looked like when he first started going to Pfaff’s.

  Whitman frontispiece from the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. Time among the Bohemians inspired him to write fresh poems and explore bold new themes.

  Whitman at Pfaff’s: This 1895 illustration was based on decades’ old memories. Thus, details of the saloon and Whitman are from an 1890s perspective.

  Adah Isaacs Menken, nineteenth-century sex symbol and one of the most colorful members of the Pfaff’s set. Onstage, she gained notoriety as the Naked Lady, thanks to her role in the risqué equestrian drama Mazeppa. Offstage, her busy love life provoked equal controversy.

  Mazeppa

  Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author of The Hasheesh Eater, was a psychedelic pioneer.

  Ludlow’s wife, Rosalie, and his friend, the painter Albert Bierstadt.

  During the 1860s, no term even existed for what Artemus Ward did. People often called his performances “comic lectures.” But this Pfaff’s regular is more accurately seen as America’s first stand-up.

  President Abraham Lincoln was a huge fan of Artemus Ward. Young Mark Twain made fast friends with the comedian when they met out West.

  The year 1860 was ominous: On April 17, a bare-fisted match between John Heenan and Tom Sayers lasted forty-two rounds. The night of July 20 featured a meteor procession that lit up the sky over Manhattan for a full minute. This is an extremely rare cosmic event; modern astronomers know of only four such occurrences. Whitman and his fellow Pfaff’s Bohemians took it as an evil omen.

  Less than a year later, America descended into civil war. The Pfaff’s set scattered but continued to reconnect in new settings. Whitman moved to Washington, DC, where he ministered to wounded soldiers in places such as the Armory Square Hospital (top). In Washington, he also met Peter Doyle, the love of his life (bottom).

  Edwin Booth—tortured, a drunk, but spectacularly gifted—was part of the Bohemian artists’ circle. Two of his brothers were also actors. The three appeared together onstage only once for a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Afterward, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth got into a heated political argument. John Wilkes stormed off, and the rest is history.

  The brothers Booth (left to right): John Wilkes as Marc Antony, Edwin as Brutus, and Junius Jr. as Cassius.

  Whitman lived on: While many of the Pfaff’s set—including Artemus Ward, Adah Menken, and Fitz Hugh Ludlow—died young, often under tragic circumstances, Whitman carried on into old age, becoming the Good Gray Poet.

  Acknowledgments

  “Have you ever heard of Pfaff’s saloon?”

  I was asked this question by Terry Alford, a history professor at Northern Virginia Community College. My answer: no. So I did some research and was intrigued. After some further digging, I became fascinated. Before I knew it, I was writing a book about Pfaff’s and its circle of Bohemian artists. Thanks to an offhand question, I dove into a project that has filled my past two years with focus, passion, challenge, and discovery. Had Dr. Alford not asked me about Pfaff’s, I would never have set off on this particular writing journey. From the seed of an idea to bound book, this has been a collaborative process. A whole lot of people helped me along.

  It was a pleasure to work yet again with the talented team at Da Capo Press. Publishing is a notoriously transient industry, so it’s a rare luxury to be able to rely on the same set of people, book in, book out. Merloyd Lawrence, my editor, has been a tireless champion of this project, which she dubbed “Walt and the rowdies.” She helped shape this book, bringing big-picture vision while also lending small, deft touches. Lissa Warren, publicist extraordinaire, works hard—and works magic—getting books much-needed attention in this era of gifs, tweets, and selfies. Thanks to Jonathan Sainsbury for another stunning cover; to Annette Wenda, for another fine-tooth copyediting job; and to Sean Maher for continued marketing expertise. Brent Wilcox and Cindy Young deserve high praise for designing the book’s stylish interior. My appreciation to marathon-runner Carolyn Sobczak for moving the book smoothly through production without even breaking a sweat. For his good efforts and support, I also wish to thank my agent, Don Fehr at Trident Media Group.

  Another team that I’m thrilled to be part of is the Gotham Biographers Group. This is a small, intimate group; besides me, it consists of eight other writers, and very accomplished ones I might add: Kate Buford, Ina Caro, Betty Boyd Caroli, Gayle Feldman, Anne Heller, Carl Rollyson, Stacy Schiff, and Will Swift. Writing a biography (a group bio, in my case) has its own unique set of challenges. It’s a great help—great comfort too—to be able to turn to a circle of writers for advice. Thanks GBG: I’ve gained so much from our free-flowing, ­generous-spirited discussions. Guess one might say this is our version of Pfaff’s, though decidedly less decadent (we haven’t had any drunken fist-fights . . . yet).

  While researching this book, I spent a vast amount of time at libraries and archives. I made some great discoveries—and appreciate the help of the many knowledgeable staff members I consulted—at the following places: Brown University’s Hay Library, Columbia University’s Butler Library, Harvard’s Houghton Library, the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, St. John’s University library, and Union College’s Schaffer Library. I also made use of a couple of excellent online archives that merit mention. The Vault at Pfaff’s, maintained by Lehigh University, is an excellent resource, featuring brief biographies of America’s first Bohemians and also a complete set of the Saturday Press, a hugely influential nineteenth-century journal that is, regrettably, very difficult to find. The Walt Whitman Archive is also superb, as a Web-based repository where it’s possible to do everything from scroll page by page through a rare 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass to read documents Whitman copied as a
clerk in the US Attorney General’s office.

  As always, I want to thank my parents, Rex and Donna Martin. Officially they are, respectively, a semiretired philosophy professor and a semiretired editor (they also remain about the busiest people I know). While working on this book, I turned to them frequently for their considerable knowledge and expertise. Even more often, I fell back on their unwavering love and understanding. Thanks Mom and Dad! I also want to thank my in-laws, Sylvia Charlesworth and Jerry Kressman, aka Mr. K. Their enthusiasm and support is so appreciated—­always gives me a lift.

  I’ll close with a great big thanks to my wife, Liza Charlesworth, and my twelve-year-old twin sons, Dash and Theo. My household is very active and very loud: baseballs fly, electric guitars blare. But my family is also my finest collaboration, and for that I am very grateful.

  Notes

  ABBREVIATIONS KEY

  CW. The Collected Writings of Walt Whitman, a multivolume set published by New York University Press

  HTC. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA