the crowd, and peanut venders did business on the
outskirts of the gathering. Perhaps it is not amiss to recall what Bob
Ingersoll said on that occasion:

"He walked among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary
milliners and tailors, with the unconscious dignity of an antique god.
He was the poet of that divine democracy that gives equal rights to all
the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American voice."

And though one finds in the words of the naive Ingersoll the squeaking
timber of the soapbox, yet even a soapbox does lift a man a few inches
above the level of the clay.

Well, the Whitman battle is not over yet, nor ever will be. Though
neither Philadelphia nor Camden has recognized 330 Mickle Street as one
of the authentic shrines of our history (Lord, how trimly dight it would
be if it were in New England!), Camden has made a certain amend in
putting Walt into the gay mosaic that adorns the portico of the new
public library in Cooper Park. There, absurdly represented in an austere
black cassock, he stands in the following frieze of great figures:
Dante, Whitman, Moliere, Gutenberg, Tyndale, Washington, Penn, Columbus,
Moses, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Shakespeare, Longfellow and Palestrina.
I believe that there was some rumpus as to whether Walt should be
included; but, anyway, there he is.

You will make a great mistake if you don't ramble over to Camden some
day and fleet the golden hours in an observant stroll. Himself the
prince of loafers, Walt taught the town to loaf. When they built the new
postoffice over there they put round it a ledge for philosophic
lounging, one of the most delightful architectural features I have ever
seen. And on Third Street, just around the corner from 330 Mickle
Street, is the oddest plumber's shop in the world. Mr. George F.
Hammond, a Civil War veteran, who knew Whitman and also Lincoln, came to
Camden in '69. In 1888 he determined to build a shop that would be
different from anything on earth, and well he succeeded. Perhaps it is
symbolic of the shy and harassed soul of the plumber, fleeing from the
unreasonable demands of his customers, for it is a kind of Gothic
fortress. Leaded windows, gargoyles, masculine medusa heads, a
sallyport, loopholes and a little spire. I stopped in to talk to Mr.
Hammond, and he greeted me graciously. He says that people have come all
the way from California to see his shop, and I can believe it. It is the
work of a delig