Compare the death-bed of the Deist, Joseph Blanco White, with that of poor Keats, and I think it must be admitted that both in faith and fortitude the former has immeasurably the advantage. It ought, however, to be recollected that Blanco White was older, and had had more time to gain strength of mind. But he was also of a more religious turn from the first. _Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge._
WHITEFIELD (George, founder of the Calvinistic Methodist Church, and chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon), 1714-1770. "_I am dying._" He was standing by the open window gasping for breath, as he uttered these words. A friend persuaded him to sit down in a chair, and have a cloak thrown over him, and thus seated he quietly passed away.
"David Hume pronounced Whitefield the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard, and said it was worth while to go twenty miles to hear him. But perhaps the greatest proof of his persuasive powers was when he drew from Benjamin Franklin's pocket the money which that clear, cool reasoner had determined not to give."--_Robert Southey._
WHITMAN (Walt, American poet and army nurse), 1819-1892. "_O, he's a dear, good fellow_," said of Thomas Donaldson, one of his most enthusiastic friends, and later his biographer.
There was a most pathetic incident connected with Mr. Whitman's death. It was related to me by "Warry" Fritzinger, his nurse. Warry had arranged a rope above Mr. Whitman's head, in the bed, which was attached to a bell below. He would pull this rope after he became weak, and thus ring the bell to attract attention. Prior to this time he had used his heavy cane to pound the floor with. This brought assistance at once. Just before he died, as the great change came over him--he was conscious that it was a great change, a something unusual (Mrs. Davis and Warry were by his side)--he seemed as if groping for something. Death had called for him, and as the call came, he attempted to reach above his head with one of his hands and feel for the rope, as if to call for help. In an instant the arm dropped, and soon he was dead. _Donaldson: "Walt Whitman the Man."_
Whitman has, amid the fleshly and physical poems, much that is deeply spiritual; amid the tuneless and formless, much noble thought fitly voiced. The higher mood and the higher work may be seen in "O Captain! my Captain!" "Reconciliation," "Vigil on the Fields," "The City Dead-House," "Song of the Broad Axe," "Proud Music of the Storm," "The Mystic Trumpeter," "Seashore Memories," and the death-carols of the "Passage to India." _Welsh: "Digest of English and American Literature."_