appearing on the same platform whence, eight years before, I
had delivered my impassioned graduating oration on "Going West." True, I
had gone east but then, advice is for others, not for oneself. Lee Moss,
one of my classmates, and in those Seminary days a rival orator, was in
my audience, and so was Burton, wordless as ever, and a little sad, for
his attempt at preaching had not been successful--his ineradicable
shyness had been against him. Hattie was there looking thin and old, and
Ella and Matilda with others of the girls I had known eight years
before. Some were accompanied by their children.

I suspect I aroused their wonder rather than their admiration. My
radicalism was only an astonishment to them. However, a few of the men,
the more progressive of them, came to me at the close of my talk and
shook hands and said, "Go on! The country needs just such talks." One of
these was Uncle Billy Frazer and his allegiance surprised me, for he had
never shown radical tendencies before.

Summing it all up on my way to Chicago I must admit that as a great man
returning to his native village I had not been a success.

After a few hours of talk with Kirkland I started east by way of
Washington in order that I might stop at Camden and call upon old Walt
Whitman whose work I had been lecturing about, and who had expressed a
willingness to receive me.

It was hot and dry in the drab little city in which he lived, and the
street on which the house stood was as cheerless as an ash-barrel, even
to one accustomed to poverty, like myself, and when I reached the door
of his small, decaying wooden tenement, I was dismayed. It was all so
unlike the home of a world-famous poet.

It was indeed very like that in which a very destitute mechanic might be
living, and as I mounted the steps to Walt's room on the second story my
resentment increased. Not a line of beauty or distinction or grace
rewarded my glance. It was all of the same unesthetic barrenness, and
not overly clean at that.

The old man, majestic as a stranded sea-God, was sitting in an arm
chair, his broad Quaker hat on his head, waiting to receive me. He was
spotlessly clean. His white hair, his light gray suit, his fine linen
all gave the effect of exquisite neatness and wholesome living. His
clear tenor voice, his quiet smile, his friendly hand-clasp charmed me
and calmed me. He was so much gentler and sweeter than I had expected
him to be.

He sat beside a heap of h