Mrs. Davis also sacrificed her reputation by keeping house for the author of the notorious Leaves of Grass. Many conventionally-minded/ people in Camden regarded this menage as highly improper, and slanderous gossip was circulated in the town. Whitman had never cared what his neighbors thought, but the woman was more sensitive.

-Gay Wilson Allen

 


          Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer (New York: Macmillan, 1955; revised edition, New York: New York University Press, 1967) 519-520.