Feinberg/Whitman Box 9 Folder 29 General Correspondence Flower, Cyril Apr. 1871 - Feb. 1872Can be better felt than exprest. When are you coming - What month What week in What steamer, I know you will go to Brooklyn & then for Xing in the ferry boat among the crowd of people, & I hear the bells jangling & I see the great [Cecuarder's?] coming from us, to you & going from you to us, & then you will meet [ye?] : Mother & spend with her a few days. & then will you not cross again to the great new park and walk straight to the office take ticket, & spend 9 days of yr holiday when they Great Atlantic - land at L'port and come one to me. Remember you promised that you would do so and I have been counting and [?ing] upon yr: promise and am very very anxious to show you all I can. & to see you again. I must tell you that I gave Alfred Tennyson yr books. Furzedown. Streatham Surrey Sunday April 23. 1871 My dear W Whitman I wonder if you have quite forgotten me, I know the first thing you will very naturally do will be to look to the Sud of this letter endeavor to decipher the signature, & then maybe set to thinking of When & Where & how it comes to pass that you [hear?] from one - you will then I hope remember that some months ago (in the Early part of December I think it was for I know Washington was busy with preparations for the reopening of Congress) I came to see give in yr: office at the Treasury - And we had a long walk & talk together, I then promised that I would write to you when I reached England perhaps you have [thought] me forgetful. I hop not for indeed I think of you very very often & I though sometimes one feels as if there were or huge gulf between this and America at others again the thousands of miles of sounding sea seem but as a very little space & I must say that since I have crossed his ferry & shaken hands upon the other side the distance seems as nothing & the desire to return once more gets stronger every day - I have been very, very much occupied & writing [bring?] me way & another arrears of work claimed My attention for you know I am not or a "[?] banister" & latterly my work has increased but I have determined that this glorious spring time shall not pass without my carrying out the my intention of [?] to you I think that most countries are perhaps most beautiful in spring time certainly England is to my mind - you know the whole country looks like one lovely garden bursting forth into new life every shade of green the grass like emeralds & the most perfect effect, of light & shadow & really what with the songs of birds, the smell of the flowers, the clouds the rainbows & sunlight as I see them & hear them all from this my room one can almost for the time forget care & sorrow & believe that after all this is Paradise - & so it is if one will only make it so. I long for you very often to see all the country It is so different & yet so like to yours Differences I think very great yet almost distinguishable, certainly for the most part differences which(2) he was much touched by your memory of him and I told him of yr deep regard for him & that you were coming near here this year which seemed to please him and I can promise you from him too a hearty welcome. Indeed until you come. you can hardly I think understand how Many friends you have. I do not know that I have very much news to tell you for really yr papers contain all. I seemed to know none of what was going on here when I was over there than I do know somehow Lowe our Chancellor of Exchequer has just taken a leaf out of the transatlantic page & taxed matches. I think if I remember the tax has been a very bad one with you, & led to many [???] results here there is a general dislike to it is an artist with a spark of the divine light in him to be sure -- Yours my very dear Walt Very affectionately Cyril FlowerSwinburne goes on writing a good deal he has been ill very ill. It is fearful to see his life, utterly wretched & unmanly I think. it seems that his craving for drink is quite uncurable - Now I am not going to write any more just at present, but will write again soon & hope that perhaps before very long I may hear from you - & that you are well. Any news you may have all you say, & anything you think will be very welcome & intensely interesting to me, but if you tell me that you have finally resolved to come over to us directly this will be the most pleasing of all - this will delight me - I send you a little book written by a friend of mine printed only for private circulation, it is rather prettily done I think not perhaps very original & wanting in power, but still there is something engaging about it - HeLONDON, E.C. 4 AP 25 71 NEW YORK PAID ALL MAY Mr. Walt Whitman Washington, D. C. U. S. A. from Cyril FlowerCARRIER MAY 8 8AMFurze Down. Streatham July. 16. 71. Surrey. SW. Dearest Whitman. Tennyson writes to you {this mail he lays upon me the cause of not having written to you sooner, & I am willing to bear it the fact is the books went to his Turin address & were not forwarded . Yours affec [ty] [Cyril Flower?]LONDON, S.W. 5 JY19 71 CARRIER JUL 31 7PM POSTAGE ONE PENNY 11¢ INSUFFICIENTLY PREPAID see notes 22 Sept 23 1888 from Cyril Flower 1871 Mr. Walt Whitman Washington D.C. AmericaCARRIER JUL 31 7PMFurzedown Streatham Oct. 20. My dear Mr. Whitman I have just returned from a long tour in Germany and France to find a pamphlet of yours awaiting me sent I hope & presume by you - I say I hope for there is no line accompanying it and yet I think it is your writing on the cover. as so much of your work does of all that is sweet & good & noble in the world Somehow when I read you or think of you, I feel once more the cool never to be forgotten breeze of a boundless prairie; my lungs seem to open and I respire more easily. I feel perhaps freer for the time & less material & then again I feel that I hold in my hand clasped strong & tight & for eternity the great hand of a friend a simple good fellow & manIf you have sent it then am I not forgotten. I have often wished I may say even longed, to hear from you -- a few a very few lines to tell me of your well being a little of your doings and of your recollection (if it is not too much to ask) of one who is always yr: sincere friend & lover & who travelled many a mile to see and speak with you. I even hoped against hope that you would brighten us perhaps in England this summer but it passed and neither you, or word of you came. Many & many a time and oft as steamer after steamer arrived I wondered, does he come or write. - Enough. Thank you; if to you I am indebted for the pamphlet I like it much it strikes me as so simple pure & powerful, & reminds meyou - to me Paris was very saddening—still more Metz and Strasbourg which are alike what the French call abimé literally razed even unto the ground -- The soldiers all that remain of them look small, ill fed, ill clothed, and are I heard over drilled -- In Strasbourg a Prussian band plays magnificently every day at a curtain but as yet no one has been seen to stand & listen to it. (2) who loves me & who is beautiful because he loves, & with the consciousness of that I feel never alone never sad __ & much more, I feel but to what purpose do I write thus ~ I will tell you a little of what I have seen but it must be very little as I only returned late last night after a long journey & find much to occupy me. Paris, the gay, the beautiful is no longer eitherIt is terribly sad & horribly ugly. Great wounds as it were over the face of it—ruins at every corner streets blackened with petroleum. Shop window after shop window in the most busy & flourishing quarters still smashed & unmended patched up with paper houses torn by shells -- And the people on the streets & in the boulevards no longer the Parisians of old but a sadder may one hope a wiser people -- So many thousands are in deep mourning that this gives as it were a funeral touch to it all. Then the palace of St. Cloud is a skeleton, not a window not a bit of roof is left of it The [grand] old Tuileries, too look fearful -- with their picturesque walls & in the distance the grand almost sublime ruins of the Hotel de Ville look reproachfully upon(3) hatred is no word for the feeling between them. The Prussian soldiers are really splendid fellows I think you would very much like them. They are so manly & simple perhaps too warlike but that is of course the fault of their education for their temperament is it seems to me very domestic & affectionate. Blind as Frenchmen [*from Cyril Flower (Paris after the German Siege '71)*] [*see notes Feb. 10 1888*]always are to their own faults Parisians appear to be dimly conscious that it was Paris much more than France that forced the Emperor of its [new?] [?] to undertake the war which has ruined both the Emperor & Capital. I will write again when I hear from you In the meantime I remain dear Mr Whitman [???] affec Cyril FlowerWashington February 2, 1872 Dear Cyril Flower, You may think yourself neglected--perhaps forgotten--by your Amer- ican friend. But not for- gotten, believe me. Twenty times during the last year have I promised myself to write you. I am still here at Washington--every thing much the same in my con- dition as when you made your brief visit here. I continue well in health and good spirits--and as usual spend much more of my leisure in the open air, than reading, studying, or indoors at all. I am very soon going on to New York to bring out a new edition of my poems--same as the copy you have, only in one Vol. --I shall remain there until about 7th of April-- (My address there will be 107 North Portland av. Brooklyn, New York, U.S. America) -- Then to return again here (where my address will be Solicitor's Office Treasury, Washington, D.C. US.) Your two letters from England duly reached me at the time & were very welcome. Tennyson has twice written to me & good friendly letters. He invites me to visit him. I shall mail to you in a few days my latest piece, in a magazine. And now dear Cyril Flower I send you my love - & hope you may not think hard of me for not writing before. Walt WhitmanFeb. 2 '72 Dear Cyril Flower, Though you may think yourself neglected -- perhaps forgotten [--not] by your American friend. [--far from it] -- believe me -- -- Not at all the latter -- [& ] Twenty times during the last year I have [been] promised myself [twenty times for a year] to write [to] you -- & [at] the last year to [here] now at any rate early in the New Year, sending you my latest piece (same mail with this) I have determined [also] to write you a few lines, I also send you, by same fulfil the promise at last.[I send you my last piece.] I am still [continue] here at Washington -every thing much the same as when you made your brief visit here. I [com] continue well & hearty, in good spirits; spend much more [time] of my leisure in the open air than reading [or] studying, or in-doors at all.I am very soon going on to New York to bring out a new edition of my poems, (same as the copy you have, only in one volume.) - shall [be] remain there until about 7th my address of April - then to return here again, where my address will be solicitors [My address there will be 107 northYour two letters [of] duly [&] reached me, at the time and were very welcome. Tennyson has twice written to me- and [good] friendly hearty letters. He e invites me to visit him.I shall [may send] mail you [a] my latest piece [of mine] in a magazine, to be out [in a few] presently. And [now] dear [Cyril friend] Cyril Flower. I send you my love, & [truly] hope [this will find you] you will not think hard of [my not writing more prompt] me for not writing before.Feb. 3 '72 to Cycil Flower see notes Oct 10 1888WALT WHITMAN AUTOGRAPH LETTERS 1872 Feb. 2 WHITMAN, WALT to Cyril Flower. Autograph Draft Letter. Endorsed by W.W. CWW, VOL. II, No. 427 FEINBERG COLLECTION OF WALT WHITMAN