Note 17 — WALT WHITMAN’S CHILDREN

For some evidence that Whitman in his later years not unfrequently alluded to the fact of his fatherhood, see Binns’ “Life of Whitman,” p. 349. It is also supposed that, the lady at New Orleans being of aristocratic connection, her family would only recognise the children on condition of their fatherhood being concealed; and that these were the circumstances which separated Whitman “from intimate relations” with them.