FEINBERG/WHITMAN MISCELLANY Transcripts of Letters Box 51 Folder 7[*Goldsmith*] COPY Southold Oct. 27 (1939) My dear Miss Molinoff Received your letter yesterday. Finally you reach Ezra L. Goldsmith's only child A person 77 years of age. He was born in 1817 and lived all his life next Sodom School. A small ungraded school. Since our district joined the Village district and have a large school and our little red school has gone for years - I have no picture of my Father to give or loan you. He lived all his life right here as did his Father and myself. 1735 found also Grandfather's (sic) on this farm so it was natural my people taught and held office here. It was a neighborhood of a sect of a people called Universalists and I presume given the name by others of a different name but they were as far as I know equal with any about - You were the first person to tell me my Father was ever a trustee there and in the home I never heard the name of Walt Whitman mentioned but have around heard he once did teach here. In my mother's home - Greenport - I used to see a book of his poems and hear of Mothers brother knowing and Alas (sic) the large family are all dead and their children and I have no one left to talk matters over with. A few years ago I cleared up my Cousin's * home and among found things (sic) her friends twins pictures** which I enclose and will give you. They were evidently fond of Whitman a quite near relative and I always heard named one "Walt Whitman" Tuthill for or after him. The pictures I send were evidently taken by [*near*] Greenport Floyd Memorial Library. I chanced to be cleaning out a box and these pictures were before me when your letter came. If you want to know more Mr. Ansel Young of Wyandank could tell you*** for I think he is of that family (on his Mothers side I think.) For a year I have been in my room and quite helpless so you will excuse my leaving out words etc. I few (sic) around here know anything along you line of inquiry. Sincerely yours (Signed) Lucy (A?) G. Brown Southold. * Sent the pics to Mrs. Tuthill of Greenport, and she said the boys were her grandsons. Pix were given originally to a Mrs. Jeffry, the Cousin. ** Twins are David and Walter (Tuthill) Swertfaeger. See original letter, to which pix are attached. *** Ansel Young is brother of Mrs. Zora Young Tuthill. He runs hotel at Greenport, but so far has been unsatisfactory to interview. However, Alice Eldredge of East Marion has promised to see him for me. Southold, Nov. 10 ... Your nice note of Nov. 6 is before me and thank you for your kind words. I am sorry to say I have no idea what my Mother knew of W. Whitman for she died when I was born and I always lived here with my Father and I'm sorry to say I told you all I can in my other note. I know today no person about here who could tell anything about the school of interest to you, and my Father I hardly feel like speaking about, not but he was a person worthy of remarks. A quiet, brave man devoted to his home and family but I feel he had much sadness. A father to his young Brothers and Sisters, providing for them all his 73 years and to the end they were they most fond and loyal bunch I ever saw. One of the sisters lived to be 93, one 92, and a Brothere 78. All three passed away in one year - 1913. They were fond of music and flowers and home was their principal interest, and the family. Nothing of interest to the world in general, but if there were more such in the world today how different would be conditions in general. So glad I mentioned Mr. Young of Greenport. I little expected you were passing the old school grounds, and me. , , , L.A.G. BROWNSpooner Goldsmith From- Morton Pennypacker,County Historian 11/14/39 "Alden Spooner Douglas was born in 1849, son of Daniel Douglas. His sister was the stepmother of Miss Addie Sherrill, now living in East Hampton, but she has nothing that throws any light on what you wish to know." "You will find Ezra L. Goldsmith in Southold Town. He had two sisters and two brothers living in 1865."COPY ORIENT POINT INN 11/14/39 • • • I regret that this letter is late in getting to you, but I was away when it arrived here in Orient (sic), and now I find that the old records about Walt Whitman have been damaged beyond recognition by the hurricane of last Fall. I did not realize that the storeroom where I had these records was soaked so badly, as it is pretty well filled with odds and ends, and I didn't have a chance to check on everything until now. I got most of them from the brother of Mrs. Post, who used to own the old Clark House in Greenport. He used to drive Walt Whitman and James Fenimore Cooper around when they visited here at the Inn. It is too bad that both Mrs. Post and her brother have passed away - they had many interesting anecdotes. If you and Dr. M. should be in this vicinity any time after May first, I would be very glad to see you, and perhaps by that time I would be fortunate in getting Walt Whitman's signature from some old records in this vicinity. He may have had relatives around here. Sincerely, Eugene McDonnell.[*Sodom School Goldsmith*] COPIES - [3]4 Letters from Southold Librarian 1. Mrs. Elsie C. Hilliard Southold, New York (c. 10/24/39) Miss . . . . . Dear Miss Molinoff I referred your inquiries regarding Walt Whitman's (?career?) to the Town Historian Wayland Jefferson. Mrs. Lucy Goldsmith Brown, a niece* of Mr. Ezra Goldsmith is living - But she is an invalid. She may be able to give some information. My father purchased the old Sodom Schoolhouse, using [*where is farm?*] it for a garage. It is still*on the old farm. I had the pleasure of attending. A tiny one room building, about Sixty attending when I did, and how one teacher ever accomplished the work I do not know. But I was able to do the nine grades. I have no records and do not know where you could find them. Sincerely, (Signed) Elsie C. Hilliard * Mrs. Brown writes she was the only child of Ezra. * Where is "the old farm"? 2 SOUTHOLD FREE LIBRARY (c. 10/28/39) Elsie Hilliard,Librarian ... I did attend the Sodom School, but not when Walt Whitman taught. My father was not born and who went before that I do not know and have never heard much about it. I am sending a picture taken after I left. My brothers are in it (the head in line with t he window.) The group is small, at this time the higher grades were sent to the Southold High School. Inside were two rows of seats - just boards. Three sitting in them. -flat benches for class recitals and in fact it was the crudest of buildings. Please return pictures. Sincerely, [*Really! This was 1840!*] 3 (c. 11/2/39) . . .My father was Charles G. Corey of course a decentent (sic) of the first John Corey. He purchased the old Sodom School house in 1902 for which he paid $42.00. I remember the thrills we had when we remarked that at last the school came to us after years of going to It. It am sorry Wayland Jefferson can give you no more information.He is busy- and the searching involves so many hours. He is writing the pageant for the Celebration in 1940.(over ) 4. 11/11/39 ...The picture was received. My family enjoy looking over the old pictures and have many a laugh at old groups. I have been interested in the School history and have asked many questions during the past week and so far no one knows a thing about the teaching of Walt Whitman in Sodom School. All of my father's school friends have passed on. It was the other generation and no records are found. But I shall continue to ask. Thanks for thinking of sending me a picture. Sincerely ESLIE HILLIARD.Phillips COPY From Letter of Morton Pennypacker - 11/14/39 "Samuel Phillips will be found in the HISTORY OF SUFFOLK COUNTY under the head of S. Wells Phillips, his son. In brief what is there reads: "Samuel Phillips was born at Mt. Sinai March 24, 1792. In early life he followed teaching but in 1826 he established THE WATCHMAN, a weekly newspaper, at Sag Harbor, where he conducted it until 1844 when he moved his plant to Greenport. Here he conducted he paper up to two years before his death, which occurred August 25, 1859, when his son S. Wells Phillips became proprietor. Mr. Phillips was Postmaster of Sag Harbor two terms, was Sheriff of Suffolk County one term, and was Justice of the Peace for several years; in fact he was one of the leading men of his section and day and was in every respect worthy of the esteem of his fellows. "The wife of Samuel Phillips was in maidenhood Miss Jane Chapman, but at the time of their marriage she was the widow of Captain Crowell. She was born in London, England, November 6, 1789, and died July 27, 1875."[*Phillips*] COPY The John Jermain Memorial Library Sag Harbor, NY Sept. 2, 1939 . . . Mr. Phillips has referred your letter of Aug. 30th to us. Thompson's Hist. of LI, Vol. II p. 194 states: On Sept. 16 1826, the paper called the "Republican Watchman" was begun by Samuel Phillips, and continued to be published weekly until Sept. 1844, when office was removed to Greenport, where it has been ever since.* On P. 578 of the Third Vol of Thompson's Hist. you will find a biographical sketch of the Phillips family. However there are so many Samuel Phillipses that it is hard to determine which Samuel Phillips published the paper although the logical one seems to be Samuel son of Samuel who was born June 23, 1771. However this is the only information we can give about this Samuel Phillips. There is no record of his marriage, education, or death. Furthermore, we have no definite information whether (sic) he was the one to publish the paper. . . . ELIZABETH PHILLIPS Asst. Librarian. * In 1939 this being published at Mattituck, not Greenport. Editors named Wickham. Phillips COPY VILLAGE OF GREENPORT Inc. 1838 Clerk Ella L. Phillips 9/26/39 ... In reply to your letter of August 30th I am sending you a few notes relative to Samuel Phillips. He was born at Mount Sinai, Suffolk County, NY, March 24, 1792. Died at Greenport, Aug. 25, 1859. He gained what education he could through the schools within his reach, then spent 2 years at a private pupil of the Rev. Mr. Hunting of Southold, with the intention of becoming a Presbyterian clergyman, but for some reason changed his mind and went to Sag Harbor and for several years was a teacher in that place. In 1826 he established "The Republican Watchman" a weekly newspaper at Sag Harbor and conducted it until 1844, when he moved his plant to Greenport and continued to publish the paper during the remainder of his life, relieved towards its close by the assistance of his son, Samuel Wells Phillips. I have copies of the 1940 (sic-means 1840) papers. ... ELLA L. PHILLIPS. Phillips COPY Greenport, N.Y. Nov. 1, 1939 . . . I am very glad to comply with your request for information concerning M. Samuel Phillips. I only wish that I might be able to offer more. Samuel Phillips, together with his wife Jane (maiden name not recorded) united with the Greenport Presbyterian Church by Certificate of Dismission - presumably from Sag Harbor, since that was his home prior to moving to Greenport according to your information - Oct. 6, 1844. Immediately following the names of these two and listed as having been received at the same time and also by Certificate is one "Isabella Matilda Phillips", apparently a daughter, and who, according to a [subsequent] notation was the wife of a Samuel C. Osgood. When this marriage was solemnized there is no record (sic) and Mr. Osgood is not listed among the members of this Church. Another note opposite Isabella's name records a letter of dismission granted her to some unnamed church. There is no record of any Phillips children having been baptized in this Church. For information regarding the family, marriage, children, etc., I would suggest that you write the Rev. Dr. Sidney H. Barrett, the Minister of the Sag Harbor Presbyterian Church, from which church - I suppose - the Phillips family came. According to the records of the Church Session, Mr. Phillips was ordained and installed asa[r]Ruling Elder in this Church June 4, 1848. On Jan. 15, 1852, he was elected Clerk of the Session, which office he held until his death. Now as to the date of his death, I note in your letter that according to your information the death occurred in 1859. The Church record gives Aug. 25, 1858 as the date. I trust this will not be confusing, but enlightening instead. It is verified in a number of instances. No place of burial noted. Regarding Mr. Phillips's character, perhaps this note found in a "Memorial Minute" dated January 1859 may be of help to you. "Since our last meeting God in his wise providence has seen fit to remove from our midst our beloved brother, Samuel Phillips and as a Church and Session we deeply feel our loss. "He was a wise counsellor - a faithful husband - an affectionate father - a consistent Christian and in his departure we have sustained a loss which we know not how to bear and which cannot easily be repaired." Apparently Mr. Phillips never entered the ministry, though he may have begun training for the profession. No Van Nostrands are mentioned in any of our records. . . . Very truly yours, KERMIT H. JONES.[*Phillips Spooner*] COPY 11/1/39 "Herald House" ... Enclosed is the best I can find for reply to your inquiry regarding Walt Whitman - I'm sorry I cannot answer more of the questions - it is possible that Mr. Pennypacker of E. Hampton, who is the official historian for Suffolk County and who seems to know everything - may be able to give you definite answers - he is to be found simply as addressed Easthampton - his wife is librarian there. I have gathered the enclosed thru the Sag Harbor John Jermain Library, one of the ladies there got this up for me - in regard to the WATCHMAN she gives 4 dates. It so happens that among my old papers I find I have one SUFFOLK GAZETTE older than any of these, June 10th, 1805 - but I do not know that that can be any help - I merely mention it. It is SUFFOLK GAZETTE, by Alden Spooner, published June 10, 1805 - probably printed in my home here - The Herald House, built 1735 and the L.I.Herald printed 1791, was sold to Spooner 180[5]4 to 1811 - when it was again sold and moved up the Island - by others and eventually the Brooklyn L.I.STAR may have been the final step in David Frothingham's venture of 1791 - I hope this hurried bit will help you - but it was the best I could do-should I gather anything definite about WW I will forward it to you - I wish you success with your book & all your literary work - perhaps it may not be unsuitable for me to say that I know a little bit about the thrill that comes to one, when one's work wins the public favor - for my daughter and myself have just released upon the public a little Booklet - not a book- etc.(see letter 1.) ... Annie C. Boyd ENCLOSURE 1. Rep. Watchman issued 1826. Removed to Greenport 1844. Issues filed John J. Library: 1841:1/16,3/13,3/27,6/25,12/4. Published by Samuel Phillips. Suffolk Gazette-Pub. by Alden Spooner-1804-11. Thes complete in Library. Infor.re.Spooner-Wm.S.Pelletreau's Hist .L.I. Vol.2,ch.20 Infor re.Phillips- " ... ENCLOSURE 2. (Quotation) "Sag Harbor: Saturday Evening, February 23rd. SUFFOLK GAZETTE DISCONTINUED This event, long forseen, and too long procrastinated for the interest of the subscriber, is at length reluctantly announced. The Suffolk Gazette discontinues with the present number. Many circumstances have contributed to deny the Gazette that portion of the patronage necessary to insure it permanency. Our insular situation, our scanty population - the very economical habits of the country, and the difficulty of receiving and disseminating intelligence before the County would be supplied thro other channels, and insurmountable obstacles(sic). I had the hardihood to make the attempt notwithstanding two previous failures in this place. I have persevered during seven years, and now reluctantly relinquish it. The County has many enlightened and patriotic citizens whose friendships I shall long remember; but they are, indeed, too few for the support of a newspaper. It is expected the accounts of the establishment will be immediately settled. Those indebted for papers as advertisements (sic) previous to the 1st of September last, will make payment to me or my agents in the -over-several towns. I am likewise authoriz[ing]ed by the proprietors to receive payments for papers and advertisements since tha[y]t time. Those advertisemnts of mortgages which have not been published six months, according to law, will be continued to the completion of the time in the LONG ISLAND STAR, at present published by Mr. Thomas Kirk at Brooklyn; which paper I would take the liberty to recommend as well deserving the patronage of the Republicans of this County. All persons having demands on the subscriber are requested to present them for settlement. ALDEN SPOONER. Sag Harbor, Feb. 23rd, 1811. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 14, 1939 ... The Whitman home of which I made sketches was Huntington. The "Story of Sag Harbor" is not, in any way, designed to throw the spotlight on the Herald House, because, it being my home, it is personal, and my modesty forbids having the booklet give it any special attention.As my daughter and I agreed, we wished to have the booklet impartially a history of Sag Harbor- & while the old house certainly should have a front page because of its romantic and historic record, we do not wish to be the one to exploit it. I have no cuts of the interior of the house, but I have a faithful photo ? of the interior as we have had (Kodak)- and the outside as it was when it came to me by inheritance. I will enclose these. The rooms are small - two rooms on each side of the front entrance - I use one as my office or den, one I am old-fashioned enough to still call a "parlor" altho it is a very much lived in one - one is my studio, & one a bathroom - back of these is a long fine dining room & pantry and there is a "lean-to" for a kitchen - it is impossible for me to know positively on which side the printing press was set up - but I have faith that it was in my office - & parlor - and their home life was carried on in my studio - & bathroom, which was then a bedroom...we did not mutilate the interior except to dig out a stairway to go upstairs & opened two large windows up there, (there was only a ladder)... The 1805 Gazette will keep... I am 74, & I know Life... A.C.B. P.S. I cannot locate the Kodak pictures, but I just turned up a statement in one of my old [papers] newspapers - "Walt Whitman wrote in 1857 that the suggestion of making a separate state of Long Island was already 30 years old". (this may help)COPY c. 10/28/39 "Herald House", Sag Harbor • • • Your note of inquiry in regard to Walt Whitman has been receiving my attention- I have given it to our John Jermain Librarian who will see what she can find & inquiry is being made concerning your special questions - I have no personal knowledge except that I have some clippings stowed away at a time when I made two sketches of his home - these were placed in my studio & picked & sold to someone who felt they were very fine & true pictures, although I did them from the newspaper cuts I found - which is not my way of working generally, as my work is almost entirely from nature.- But I will try to find those cuts & clippings in a day or two, will let you know if I can help you. In regard to David Frothingham, it so happens that my home & museum-Studio, is, according to tradition, the place where the famous L. I. Herald was set up & printed. I have family affidavits to that tradition - consequently I am on the outlook all the time for material about him, his charming wife Nancy Pell. If you are ever passing this way, call in at my ancient shanty and you will find a welcome and an interesting old-time house. This year my daughter and myself - have put out - in Aug.- a little booklet called -"The Story of Sag Harbor" by Nancy Boyd Willey. We have them on sale for .35 plain covers.,.50 hand-painted covers, & 1.00 with all illustrations (14) painted. -the story or history is entirely Nancy's, & the illustrations are all my own free-hand pen-and-ink work & original sketches mostly... Cordially- ANNIE COOPER BOYD.[*Ralph Smith*] COPY FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Southold, L.I. E. Hoyt Palmer, Minister Oct. 14, 1939 ... I am not even sure that Ralph Smith was here as late as 1841, the date given you by Mr. Jefferson. That is the date in which the next minister was installed, but Ralph Smith must have left about 1838. The church was vacant for a time. During the time he was here there is very little [about him] to be found in the church record. There are indications that there was some contention and dissatisfaction in the church at tthattime, but whether it was something which had to do with him or whether it was mostly between others would be hard to say from what small amount of information is here. There are no exact dates of his coming or going. ... ... Wrote asking for more 10/17Rev. Ralph Smith COPY East Hampton Free Library East Hampton, L.I. 11/14/39 Sent by Morton Pennypacker, County Historian Quotation from Pelletreau's Hist. of L.I. "The Rev. Ralph Smith was the ninth pastor (of the Presbyterian Church). His parents were Epenetus and Rhoda Smith, and he was born at Smithtown, L.I., Nov. 27, 1811; was prepared for college at Clinton Academy, East Hampton, by the Rev. Joseph Condit, its principal, and was graduated at Williams College in 1830. He subsequently studied medicine at New Haven under Dr. Knight, and was graduated as M.D. at Yale College in 1833. He commenced practice at Patchogue, but his attention was soon turned to the ministry, and he entered the Presbyterian Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, where he pursued his studies two years. He was licensed to preach by the second Presbytery of Long Island, and subsequently ordained by the Presbytery of L. I., and installed pastor of the Southold Church June 15, 1836. He was released from this charge, at his own request, April 18th, 1838. After a short absence he resumed his ministry here (in Southold) and continued it until December, 1840. He was active in the ministry at various places in New England. "He died at Saugerties, New York, November 1, 1867, and was buried in Smithtown."Carbon LETTERS TO AND FROM CARPENTER re WHITMAN May 4, 1877 to July 5, 1910 PAUL MUNTER Certified Shorthand Reporter 154 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK PHONE 5389 BEEKMAN(From Edward Carpenter to Benjamin) Montgomery Hotel Philadelphia 4. May 1877 My dear Benjamin: I must write to tell you TALES ? -- you know. And as I have just written a letter to my sister on the same subject I shall give you extracts from it. I need not say that I think him the most profound & wonderful thing that I have met, but I was surprised to find (although I had expected it in part) how genial, accessible, considerate & courteous (if you can use such a word of a Colossus) he is. 431. Stevens Street Camden is a very well to do brick house in a long quiet street planted with trees. Going there on Sunday afternoon last (it is only across the Delaware river from Philadelphia) they told me in the most nonchalant way that he had gone away for a week or so, they didn't know where --or when he wd be back! Fancy my disgust. However I managed to see the sister in law Mrs. Whitman, a common comfortable2 little lady who gave me hope: and sure enough when I called again on Tuesday morning he was there. A cry of "Walt" went through the house on my arrival -- and in a few moments the cleanest whitest old man (for he looks more than 58) -- long snow white hair & beard -- came slowly down stairs. We met at the bottom of the staircase. He held my hand for a long time, looking with clear blue eyes into mine -- and then said in an unmistakably American voice "I was afraid we should miss each other after all". Then he sat down & asked me about myself, and chatted about the European war in a way which put me at my ease at once. The thing which strikes one about his face is the great interval between his eyes & eyebrows. That 'space in which the soul seems to move' is very large. The eyebrows very much arched so as to make the bridge of the nose very long -- the nose itself straight & well-proportioned. The mouth & chin are covered with a fall of white hair, but the forehead is clear & high. As to his eyes of3 course it is impossible to put them into words -- the impression they produce on me is of an immense, immense, background: yet it is very characteristic of them that the pupils are small & distinct. The likeness to Christ is quite marked. I suppose it comes in the high eyebrows. I send you a sketch (!) which will give you an idea of the proportions of the face. Put into it the extravagant, prophetic look of genius, intense perceptive power, and as much sentiment as you like, and you have something like. He was kindness itself -- as he is to everybody -- went out with me and fixed me up in the present hotel, wh. is cheaper & pleasanter than the other I was at, put my name down at a reading room, & gave me an introduction to the Gilchrists, some excellent English people of whom more anon. Walking through the streets with him -- he leaning on my arm, for one foot is still semiparalyzed -- it was a sight (a sight for which I know you will bless him) to see the working people come around.4 The bus drivers, the ferryboat men, jacks of all trades, stopped his way with greetings. One man jumped down off a dray cart. He had been a driver on Broadway, New York, 'hadn't seen 'Walt' for 3 or 4 years': tears stood in his the driver's eyes, as he stood & held his hand & gazed hard in his face. One can see how it is that he has this wonderful personal influence. If he hears 'George' is ill, he must go 'right away' & see him; if anyone is in trouble he lends a patient ear for any time: he is full of kindness, yet he unites this tenderness with the most wonderful strength & persistency and selfness of character that I ever saw in any one. That union of the two is what I can't phrase -- it alternately fascinates & awes me. I haven't had any long conversation with him yet, for though I met him again the next day at the Gilchrists, and went a long way home with him afterward, yet there was no opportunity for sustained & continued talk. But indeed I have felt content just to be with him without bothering about conversation. However I do want to tell5 him about friends in England, and hope I shall have an opportunity for that. Well I must tell you more & about myself another time. I am charmed with the American people (I mean the working folk, for the commercials are very sordid) & with their customs (except the spitting), and with the build & plan of their towns, and with the climate. The whole thing is a magnificent sketch, a sketch on the grandest scale of what is to come, and I do not doubt that in course of time it will be filled in. If you write, it had better be shortly after receipt of this to Post Office New York, but do not trouble to. I shall enjoy telling you about it all some time -- and of course you will have to go yourself & see. Many greetings to Job and the Genius. Ever yours E.C6 (From Edward Carpenter to Benjamin) 1929 North 22d St. Philadelphia 20 June 1877 Dear Benjamin, I write from the abode of the Gods. I wrote to you at the beginning of my tour from this place, but Olympus seemed too high to scale then, and I went away sad (though happy inside as a Ford would say! ). I went to Niagara and sat by it, gaining strength from its splendour, for four days ; then I went down the Hudson and on to Boston, and visited Emerson, Holmes and the rest, and now at the last I have come back here. And he seems to tower higher & more splendid than ever. And he has taken me to himself. This is the house of Mrs. Gilchrist an English lady, widow, with two daughters and a son. She, do you remember name ? wrote an article in the Radical Review a long time ago on Whitman. She is first rate. And he has a room in the house, permanently his own, and where he spends a good part of his days. He is staying here now, and so am I. Domestic life7 with him is fulfilment. He seems to bring with him an atmosphere of perfect rest & union: and to fill out the moments as they should be filled out into something great. Full of fun & laughter, his conversation half the time is on the simplest things in the world. Yesterday we all sat round the table looking at my photographs. He specially admired you three, and looked at them long. I think he remembered the name -- at any rate when I told him what admirers you were he was pleased. I told him how much interested you were in American politics and in the future of the country; and he said warmly that hardly anything pleased him more than to find that his writings drew people to America. I picked out all the photographs in my collection of people that read his books -- about 10 altogether -- and he looked at them carefully. He seemed much struck with my youngest sister's face among them. Then we played a game of which he is fond -- called the Game of 20 questions. But the best time is in the evening when we8 set a chair for him in the porch, and the rest of us sit round and on the steps -- he generally holding some one by the hand and looking like a great God in the twilight or moonlight -- with his full white hair & beard & florid face & lionlike head. -- Whatever the conversation is, it is all the same. There is no effort, no constraint. Listening to others or talking himself he makes each moment sane and healthy. His reading is vast & varied. Though I expected that to some extent, I did not realise the extent. Yet you might live with him for days and never discover that he knew anything but what Nature had taught him. Conventionality is dead & buried in this house. He generally appears in this sultry weather with just a perfectly clean white shirt on -- open at the front and showing his chest beneath his beard -- that and grey trousers complete his costume: and we others dress & behave with a like ease. Though he has such a range of interests &9 subjects, and seems to look out like a mountain over the world, yet I almost think his greatest delight is in doing the smallest little acts of kindness. He never seems to go out without giving an orange or something to some child, or getting to talk to some working man & cheering him up with his strong ringing voice : and almost every afternoon since I have been here he has gone on quite a long journey to the other end of the town to see a rather common & vulgar sister in law who is unwell. You must know these Gilchrists when they return to England--which may be in a year or two. The son is an artist and the eldest daughter (she is about twenty-two) is studying medicine for a profession. Well I wont write more now. I leave for England in 4 days. Perhaps I may add a postscript before I go. Love to your sisters. Ever yrs Caleb. W.W. has bagged the photos of you three!10 He has written his name on one of his own in return -- which I send. You will have to send me another set to replace these. Do so with a letter to Brighton, as soon as you get this. 11 (From A. Gilchrist) 1 Elm Villas, Elm Bow Heath St. Hampstead Nov. 24th /79 Read & enjoy the little notes of your lecture on Lincoln Dear Friend We are settled for the winter here in the pleasantest part of Hampstead & in very pretty homelike lodgings with capital studios attached. Should you be passing through London at Xmas & able to give us a glimpse of your very little Grandson -- such an engaging affectionate little toddler of 14 months is with me now -- his Father & Mother are at Sheffield & I would like them to see you if you are not already whelmed with acquaintances (they are not literary, but Per has capital brains & a stalwart character. He is just now superintending the starting of his Dephosphorization process at Messrs. Brown Baily & Dixon, at Atlercliffe, who are making splendid steel from the worst possible ore. Also they have good news from Germany, Belgium & France -- both of its success, & after long battling of having 12 a legal triumph with their patents. So altogether it seems as if their years of patient labor -- Percy's and Sidneys jointly -- were really to be crowned with brilliant success. Good news too from Bee (I don't feel as if I were boring you with these long accounts of my children). She succeeded in mastering enough German at Weisbaden to speak & understand it with ease & is now happily and comfortably working at Bern -- has been fortunate in finding a home with some excellent & cultured ladies who take every possible care of her health & comfort, & the medical advantages are splendid -- the Professors mostly men of great ability, the whole spirit of the School one of earnest work -- the women students having every opportunity & advantage that the male students have -- bedside clinics &c &c. & the men as courteous & gentlemanly as possible. Altogether she is full of enthusiasm & enjoyment of her work & very happy with the simple minded unpretending kind of humanity she is amongst. I will copy for you below a letter I received13 from Walt this morning accompanied by a map marked as he describes -- a real treasure. St. Louis Missouri 1000 miles west of Philadelphia Nov 10/79 My dear friend Just rec'd your postal card (your letter of a month ago from Haslemere rec'd both forwarded here). Two months ago I started off (make or break) on a long jaunt West -- have been to the Rocky Mountains (2000 miles) and Denver City & Colorado generally, -- with Kansas & Missouri -- wonders, revelations I wouldn't have missed for my life -- the great central area 2000 miles square, the Pacific States, the real America I find (& I find that I wasn't realizing it before) -- but three weeks ago I was taken down sick & have come back & stopt here in St Louis ever since -- am quite comfortable in quarters & shall soon be well enough to return home to Camden. -- I enclose a rude map which will show the line of my jaunt -- the red lines are of my present14 trip, while the blue lines are of former journeys of mine. May interest you and give you some idea.-- I shall probably be able to send you papers of my jottings before long (my sickness has prevented hitherto what I designed to write). My sister brother & nieces are well. Best love. Walt Whitman Lived a couple of weeks on the Great Plains 1800 miles wide, flat--the greatest curiosity of all)-- 50 years from now this region will have a hundred million of people the most comfortable, advanced, & democratic on the globe--indeed it is all this & here that America is for. ----------------- Good by.--I am still busy with the Blake-- have some interesting new letters to insert. Love from all. Goodbye. A. Gilchrist15 (From John Addington Symonds to Edward Carpenter) Dear Edward Carpenter, I think I know you somewhat, & had long felt toward you, as one who has been able to simplify his life. Am I right? It is what, if I had health, I would wish to do. But I am tied down & clogged physically. Nothing survives energetic in me but the unconquerable mind: often a torment to itself, in these distracted times. I will post Traubel's letter to Dr. Johnston. Great Whitman, we must not call him poor, or commiserate him. But would that he could be released. It is very painful this hard-dying and the irony of nature, or her equity: in return for his firm grip (as you observe) upon the material world. We are all of us the better for having come to know him. I did not think you lived so far north. Goodnight. This is a poor scrap of paper. But I am too tired & weak to reach out for better16 writing gear. Thank you for your kind words. I respond with the greetings of a sincere comrade and herzlich grüssend, as we say here. John Addington Symonds Jan: 23/92 Davos.17 (John Addington Symonds to Edward Carpenter) AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND. March 20 1892 My dear Carpenter I duly received the gift of your book "Towards Democracy" in its third edition, & have been reading it with sustained interest ever since it came into my hands. It is certainly the most important contribution which has as yet been made to the diffusion of Whitman's philosophy of life, & what I think we may now call the new religion. You must not mind my saying that I somewhat regret the doubtless inevitable circumstance of the form of your work suggesting an echo or imitation of Whitman. It has so much that is original, individual to yourself in it, that this seems to me a pity and as likely to make careless or hostile readers lay it aside as a mere sub-species of "Leaves of Grass." And yet I do not know in what better way an extended commentary or exposition of the principles18 involved in that "incommensurable" production could have been given to the English public. Mere criticism I feel to be helpless face to face with Whitman. As I have said in print, I feel that talking about him is much the same as talking about the Universe. What you have done has been to give a thoroughly personal, a specifically English, & if I may so put it, a feminine (as implying other strains of sensitiveness, humours, ways of regarding particular modes of social life), interpretation upon the leading ideas. Insofar, then, as "Towards Democracy" is read & appreciated, it will do more than any amount of analysis or criticism to diffuse the teaching wh. inspires you. You know how deeply I sympathize with all that is involved in the new religion. The circumstances of my own existence & having been early married, & then reduced to a state of comparative physical inefficiency, have rendered it not only a19 necessity, but a duty also, & what is more, the best practical form left for me of service--to carry on my own work as a scholar, a writer, a student of history, an analyst. I have been unable to do what I should have preferred, had I been vigorous & unentangled, namely to join the people in their lives. Still I have endeavoured more & more to approach them, & have learned more & more from them. A large portion of my happiness in later years has come to me from frank companionship, wholesome comradeship, & mutual fellow-service with these Swiss mountaineers among whom my lot has been cast. There is much in your way of regarding the world & human life, wh. I do not feel able to grasp. I cannot be so optimistic, cannot feel so sure that all things are really right for all, cannot find in nature so clear an exit from human pains & troubles, finally cannot divest myself of self so utterly :--or indeed understand exactly what that means.20 I intensely accept what you say on pp. 20-27, 59-62. I wish people would take these passages to heart. And I recognize how the healing is to come from the spirit expressed in pp 42-47. I too have felt, and feel continually in my daily life, the deliverance which you have sung so ably in the poem "In the Drawing Rooms" 139-144. The postilion on Alpine passes with his hard life & simple ways & strong unselfish service is a perpetual aid to my soul toward a higher spiritual frame : an escapement from the stifling air of the "better vulgar" & so much the "higher vulgar" than those who are called the vulgar. So far as all this goes, I am one with you to ground down. But the "joy" you utter so frequently --that note, I take it, is more a matter of individual temperament than of aught else, & is hardly to be gained by any shifting of our mental or emotional attitude. I will send you a little book just about to appear, written by one of my daughters with myself,21 upon "Our Life in the Swiss Highlands." You will see that it has something of the Democratic spirit in it, though I do not feel it my vocation to prophesy. I have forgotten our address, & might send this to the publishers. Believe me in true comradeship your John Addington Symonds. What is the meaning of "Summer-Heat"? p. 289. I wish I could talk to you. I should so much like to know what you think about the relation of Comradeship to Sexual Emotion. This is a subject which has been lately forced a good deal upon my mind by actual facts observed in the life of my Swiss & Italian friends among the people. In these nations the love of comrades becomes laxity & usually erotic. Suspect it does so everywhere. If I am in England, as I hope this Summer, shall I try to come to you? Business connected with a Hospital a Carlisle, will probably take me North. And of course I shall be in London.22 (J.A.S. to Carpenter) Am Hof Davos Platz Dec: 29, 1892 (Private) My Dear Carpenter Thank you much for your letter & the promise of your book. I will send you my last little book in return. It is called "In the Key of Blue." I fear you will not find much in it. Look at "Platonic Love," "Clifton," & the first Essay. I am so glad that H. Ellis has told you about our project. I never saw him. But I like his way of corresponding on the subject. And I need somebody of medical importance to collaborate with. Alone, I could make but little effect -- and the effect of an eccentric. We are agreed enough upon fundamental points. The only difference is that he is too much inclined to stick to the neuropathical theory of explanation. But I am whittling that away to a minimum. And I don't think it politic to break off from the traditional line of analysis, which has been going23 rapidly forward in Europe for the last 20 years upon the psychiatric theory. Each new book reduces the conception of neurotic disease. I mean to introduce a new feature into the discussion, by giving a complete account of homosexual love in ancient Greece. I wrote this some time ago, & had 10 copies of it privately printed. If you like to see it, I will lend you one of my two remaining copies. I should indeed value a word from you about it. All the foreign investigators, from Moreau & Casper to Moll, are totally ignorant of Greek customs. Yet it is here that the phenomenon has to be studied from a different point of view from that of psycho-pathology. Here we are forced to recognize that one of the foremost races in civilization not only tolerated passionate comradeship, but also utilized it for high social & military purposes. (By the way, in the book I send you, you will find an essay on the subject). You raise a very interesting question with regard to physiological grounds for this passion.24 I have no doubt myself that the absorption of semen implies a real modification of the physique of the person who absorbs it, & that, in these homosexual relations, this constitutes an important basis for subsequent conditions--both spiritual & corporal. It is a pity that one cannot write freely on the topic. But when we meet, I will communicate to you facts which prove beyond all doubt to my mind that the most beneficent results, as regards health & nervous energy, accrue from the sexual relation between men: also, that when they are carried on, with true appetite, through a period of years, both comrades become united in a way which would be otherwise quite inexplicable. The fact appears to me proved. The explanation of it I cannot give, & i do not expect it to be given yet. Sex has been unaccountably neglected. The physiological & psychological relations even in the connection between man & woman are not understood. We have no theory which is worth anything upon the differentiation of the sexes, to begin25 with. In fact, a science of what is the central function of human beings remains to be sought. This, I take it, is very much due to physiologists assuming that sexual instincts follow the build of the sexual organs; & that when they do not, the phenomenon is individual or morbid. In fact, it is due to science at this point being still clogged with religious & legal presuppositions. Any good book upon homosexual passions advances the sound method of induction, out of wh. may possibly be wrought in the future a sound theory of sex in general. The first thing is to force people to see that the passions in question have their justification in nature. My hope has always been that eventually a real chivalry, i.e. a second elevated form of human love, will emerge & take its place for the service of mankind by the side of that other which was wrought out in the Middle Ages. It will be complementary, by no means prejudicial to the elder & more commonly-acceptable.26 It will engage a different type of individual in different spheres of energy--aims answering to those of monastic labour in common or of military self-devotion to duty, taking here the place of domestic cares & procreative utility. How far away the dream seems! And yet I see in human nature stuff neglected, ever-present --pariah & outcast now--from which I am as certain as that I live, such a chivalry could arise. Whitman, in Calamus, seemed to strike the keynote. And though he repudiated (in a very notable letter to myself) the deductions wh. have logically to be drawn from Calamus, his work will remain as infinitely helpful. South-Sea-Idyls. C. W. Stoddard. Boston. James R. Osgood. 1873. I got mine from Sampson Low, I think, through Nutt 270 Strand. If you cannot get a copy, let me hear, & I will send you mine. It was suppressed once in America. Now, dear friend, farewell. I put "Private" on this letter, quia habent sua fata epistolae. Yours in affection J. A. S.27 (J. A. S. to Carpenter) AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND. Jan: 10. 1893 My dear Carpenter I want to tell you how very much I have enjoyed your book about India. My wife has just finished reading it aloud to me. We both of us are quite enthusiastic about its style & its feeling. Some passages are very beautiful--especially the last pages. We have a fine set of her sister Miss North's oil-sketches of Indian places & people here. Your book proved a running commentary to them, & they illustrated your words. I am afraid that in my last letter I wrote rather too emphatically. But I feel strongly upon the point, & just then I had received what seemed to me a remarkable verification of my views. Believe me Very Sincerely Yours John Addington Symonds28 (J.A.S. to Carpenter) AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ SWITZERLAND Jan: 21, 1893. My dear Carpenter Thank you for yours of the 17th. What you say about H. Ellis in conversation is just what R. Noel told me. In correspondence I find him full, eager, open-minded, scientifically conscientious: the sort of man, I think, to lead our joint enquiry. When you make notes on those matters for us, will you send them to me? Of course, H.E. will see the bulk of them. But you might feel it more appropriate to let me have things wh. you would not care to submit to him. This is only a suggestion, arising from my desire to lose nothing you may have to say. I will copy out for you Whitman's very singular letter to me about Calamus, when I have time. I feel sure he would not have written it, when he first published Calamus. I think he was29 afraid of being used to lend his influence to "Sods". Did not quite trust me perhaps. In his Symposium Speeches, he called me "terribly suspicious", you may remember. I will send my Greek study to Holmesfield. The blending of social strata in masculine love seems to me one of its most pronounced, & socially hopeful, features. Where it appears, it abolishes class distinctions, & opens by a single operation the cataract-blinded eye to their futilities. In removing the film of prejudice & education, it acts like the oculist's knife. If it could be acknowledged & extended, it would do very much to further the advent of the right sort of Socialism. I find a great deal of the emotion, in a wholly manly & admirable form, abroad among the people here. It does not interfere with marriage, when that is sought as a domestic institution, as it always is among men who want children for helpers in their work & women to keep their households. We have a most awful snowstorm raging here, after 2 months of cold sunny weather. I think30 pensively, with a troubled heart of many friends, carters, postillions, conductors of diligences, abroad upon our passes--the highest in Europe, averaging (five of them) 7000 feet above the sea. Goodnight. I respond to your greetings of affection, & return them with my heart. J A Symonds.31 (J. A. S. to Carpenter) AM HOF , DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND. Jan: 29. 1893. (night) Dear Carpenter I sent you a copy of my "Problem in Greek Ethics", wh. I found by accident in a drawer today. If you care for it, please keep it. I have another copy for reprinting when I need. When you wrote to me upon the subject of assimilated semen, were you thinking about a book called "Le Degenerazion Isis-Sexuali" by Silvio Venturi? I got it, at H. Ellis's suggestion, with a view to our joint work. I have been reading it tonight, & find little for my purpose. But it has this peculiarity, that it tackles the problem you raised. The author has experimented upon patients by the injection into them of bestial & human semen, with results which (if one may trust his report) show that semen received into the system32 is a powerful nervous agent. He draws the conclusion that the absorption of male semen through the mucous membrane of women may account for the thriving of girls who improve in physical condition immediately after marriage. It is so strange to find this (otherwise tedious & stupid book) tonight under my hand, (but the only one in which I have seen the subject treated)--so strange that I think you must have been reading it or something similar. --Let me hear if this or any other literary work put you on the track. Yrs. JAS.33 (J.A.S. to Carpenter) Davos, Feb: 5 1893 My dear Carpenter I did send you my Problem in Greek Ethics & will now send you the Modern Problem--which please to keep if you care. Since the latter was written, Moll & Schrenck-Notzing have done a great deal to whittle down the theory of "erbliche _gelastung". My elaborate polemic against Kraft-Ebing ishardly required now. Your notes are very interesting & valuable. Percy's love-letter is quite charming, & the silhouette of the Sheffield show-boy delightful. What the guardsman said to your friend accords with what I know about military prostitution. I made acquaintance last autumn in Venice with a Corporal of the 2d Life Guards who was travelling with a man I knew. He gave me a great deal of information. But it all pointed to the mercantile aspect of the matter. However, he said that some men 'listed on purpose to indulge their propensities. An Italian Colonel told me the34 same thing -- i.e. that young men of the best families, after serving as volunteers, or in the natural course of conscription, would sometimes remain on in the ranks with a view to the opportunities afforded by barracks. Referring to what you stated as to Case H, the only boy among 6 sisters, I have wondered whether cases of this sort do not support Ulrich's physiological hypothesis: as though the combination of the parents tended to female sexuality in the differentiation of the offspring, so that when a male came he was feminine in temperament. I know a decided invert, who grew up with 3 sisters. But his parents had produced before him 2 still-born males, & a third who died in infancy of acute inflammation of the brain. The sisters normal, & all married. This will not prove much, however. I know two Ducal families in which there is Sexual Inversion. One is Somerset, where males & females are pretty equally distributed. The name of the other I will not mention. But here also males &35 females occur in balanced quantities. The eldest son, the Duke, was a man much given to women. The second married a cousin of mine, & died after the birth of their first child, a boy. The third is an invert of marked quality. He is a great friend of mine, & tells me that he thinks he inherited his temperament from a Ducal great uncle of a different race. I wish the medical psychologists would study the phenomenon from this point of view. If only it had fallen into the hands of Fr. Galton! Did you get a copy of South Sea Idylls? Apropos of yr. friend the engine driver--I must tell you how much I admire that passage in "Toward Democracy" (pp 140-143). Yrs. affectly J. A. S.36 (J.A.S. to Carpenter) AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND. Feb: 7. 1893 My dear Carpenter I am sending off my "Problem of Modern Ethics" registered. It does not represent my views completely, since I have read & thought a great deal during the last two years. And on the Continent the subject has rapidly been gaining in completeness. Did you ever come across any of Ulrich's works? They are very curious. He must be regarded as the real originator of a scientific handling of the phenomenon. I went to visit him in Nov: 1891. He lives exiled & in great poverty at Aquila in the Abruzzi, under the snowy crests of "Il gran passo d'Italia". There is a singular charm about the old man, great sweetness, the remains of refined beauty. His squalor was appalling. I drove to his house in a carriage, & then persuaded him to take a drive with me, which he37 did. He had no shirt & no stockings on. My magnificent Venetian gondolier & manservant was appalled at the sight of this poor beggar sitting next his padrone. However, I told Angelo that the old man was one of the men I prized & respected most in Europe. And Angelo got to like him in spite of his rags. (You saw Angelo on the top of the Brighton omnibus.) I do so much wish that we could meet & exchange thoughts in quiet somewhere, before this book on Sexual Inversion is begun. Could you not come out & stay with me in the early Summer here, or could you come to Venice & stay with me in May? I have a little house at Venice, wh. is delightful for 2 people. If my wife & a daughter are in it, I would take apartments for us near. But as yet I know not what the family will do. In April I want to be in Rome. Yours affectionately J.A.S. Do you know Müschow's photographic studies from the nude in open air?38 (J.A.S. to Carpenter) Davos, Feb: 13 1893 Dear Carpenter I wrote in the Summer of 1890 to Whitman, asking him what his real feeling about masculine love was, & saying that I knew people in England who had a strong sexual bias in such passions, felt themselves supported & encouraged by Calamus. Unluckily I have not got a copy of my letter. He replied (Aug: 19/90) "About the questions on Calamus etc: they quite daze me. L of G is only to be rightly construed by & within its own atmosphere & essential character --all of its pages & pieces so coming strictly under--: that the Calamus part has even allowed the possibility of such construction as mentioned is terrible. I am fain to hope the pp themselves are not to be even mentioned for such gratuitous & quite at the time undreamed & unrecked possibility of morbid inferences --wh. are disavowed by me & seem damnable." That is all that is to the point. He rambles on about his being less "restrained" by temperament & theory than I (J.A.S.) am -- "I at certain moments39 let the spirit impulse (female) rage its utmost wildest damnedest (I feel to do so sometimes in L. of G. & I do so)". That last passage seems meant to quality the first. But if it does so, it implies that these inferences are not so gratuitous, morbid & damnable as supposed. At the end of the letter (wh. is a long one) he resumes: "My life, young manhood, mid-age, times south, etc, have been jolly bodily, & doubtless open to criticism. Though unmarried, I have had six children --two are dead--one living southern grandchild fine boy writes to me occasionally. Circumstances (connected with their benefit & fortune) have separated me from intimate relations". It struck me when I first read this p. s. that W.W. wanted to obviate "damnable inferences" about himself by asserting his paternity. Section X of my Modern Problem treats of Calamus you will find. My "Study of W. W." is now in the hands of J.C. Nimmo. I am sure he will make a pretty40 book out of it, but I doubt a cheap one. I fear that the blind idolaters of W. W. will not wholly like it. Yours affectly J. A. S. "Civilization" came last night. Have not had time to do more yet than look at p: 105--which Is firmly & delicately touched.41 (Traubel to Carpenter) WALT WHITMAN FELLOWSHIP: INTERNATIONAL: 1900-1901 Phila Dec 27 , 1901 Dear Carpenter Your paper was forwarded me after some delays. Walt frequently in his later years made allusions to the fact of his fatherhood--that is, to me. One night just previous to his death I went with Harned to Walt's room, at Walt's request, to get a sort of deposition in the matter--its detail, &c &c. Walt always regarded Harned as in a sense his attorney. He wished to set down this affair in an unquestionable record & purposed signing the paper we drew up. But he was taken sick in our presence & was unable to proceed. There the thing rested. For from that day on he grew progressively weaker & could never resume the subject. He wished to have this recital "put away in Harned's safe," as he said, "in order that someone should authoritatively have all the facts at command if by some misfortune a public discussion of the incident "were ever provoked." He cautioned me at the time--as he had always cautioned me on prior occasions--on no account42 whatever to be a party to the revelations. "Better to be forever hushed", he averred: "It involves bad feeling, passion, families, even a fortune", & so on: "and it would in at least one place cause great unhappiness." These things have come back to me as I read your paper. What do they suggest to you, dear Carpenter? I will write you again. Beautiful man, I love you! Traubel43 (Traubel to Carpenter) THE CONTEMPORARY CLUB: PHILADELPHIA HORACE TRAUBEL CAMDEN NEW JERSEY Phila Feb 28 1902 Dear Carpenter I cannot discuss Bucke's death. It comes too near. And yet I wish in the March number of The Conservator to pay my respects to him. I am writing a few of his friends to send me such spontaneous tributes as the event may seem to suggest. Do you feel like adding your own word to these printed pages? Words do nothing. And yet the word may live. I send you back the Whitman MS, dear Carpenter, because I could not print it without being involved with the interviewer. I remember my promise to Walt & must adhere to it. He did not wish the matter broached. He felt that it would indisputably do a great injury to someone--God knows who (I do not).--During Walt's last sickness his grandson came to the house. I was not there at44 the time. When Walt mentioned the occurrence to me I expressed my regret that I had missed him. "I wish I might see him!" "God forbid!"--I think, dear Carpenter, that you thoroughly understand my position. I go round the streets & to my work & try to write always with Bucke's dear face before me. Lovingly Traubel45 (Charles W. Eldridge to Carpenter) Washington D. C. June 24/02 Dear Sir: I have noted the article by you copied from the London (Eng) Reformer about Walt Whitmans six children.--I was Walt Whitman's publisher in Boston in 1860, and in Washington from 1863 to 1873 was probably more intimate with him than any person now living.--You refer to Walts letter to Symonds, (dated Aug 10, 1890) as your authority. I have no doubt of the authenticity of your reference, but I want to say that no such thing can possibly be true. Walt was a serious invalid for over twenty years of his life, and for the last two or three years must have been subject to delusions. Harned and Traubel say that he never gave them any satisfaction as to when, where, or by whom he had these six children, or whether any of them survived.--For the last two or three years he was a very sick man and this was only one of the evidences that his mind had weakened. --You say in your letter that of Walts life previous to arriving in Washington "only the barest outline is known." This is a mistake.--Walt was46 a well known citizen of New York and Brooklyn for more than 20 years before. He edited newspapers in both cities--was a printer & reporter in New York and a builder in Brooklyn. The material for a minute biography of his whole life at the period is ample. He was known to thousands, many of them now living.--At one time he was a Tammany orator, or stump-speaker during a campaign.--I have talked with many persons who knew him well at that time.-- I wished to give you this view of an old and intimate friend so you may know how the story is regarded by some of us. Very truly yours Charles W. Eldridge Address Treasury Department, Washington D. C. To Mr Edward Carpenter Holmesfield, near Sheffield, England47 (From Leonard Abbott to Carpenter) EDITORIAL ROOMS OF THE LITERARY DIGEST 30 LAFAYETTE PLACE New York, Oct. 24/02 Dear Carpenter, I appreciate very much your kindness in sending that $5.00 and the list of names. I think we are all very conscious of the conditions and imperfections of The Comrade. In the nature of things, it is more or less a school for the movement, and cannot rise very much above the level of the movement. There has been very little money back of it. If Herron had not come to the rescue, I fear it would have gone down ere this. But it is quite safe for the present, and I think that if you knew all the obstacles with which Spargo has had to contend, you would agree with me that he has done pretty well. Horace Traubel and I were out to see J. Wm. Lloyd a few Sundays ago, & spent an altogether enjoyable day. In the evening Traubel read us some most interesting correspondence between Walt48 Whitman and John Addington Symonds on the subject of homogenic love,--one letter in particular in which Walt says that any deduction of physical or sexual love between men from the "Calamus" poems was "damnable". I wonder if you know about this. I was surprised, I confess. A few of us also made an excursion recently to John Burroughs' hut in the woods. That was a red-letter day, too. He spoke of you, & remembered well the visit you paid him so many years ago. I was more than pleased with that portrait of you in the new literary journal, "The Reader". That is the best yet. With all good wishes, I am, Your Comrade, Leonard Abbott. Burroughs is to write the new "Life" of Whitman.49 (H. B. B. to Carpenter) 3 Cavendish Mnsns. 28. Sept 04 My dear Carpenter, Many thanks for your Snowden Card. I found some curious entries in a diary of Walt's (which Traubel has not even read!!) for 1876-1886. Nov. 25-28, 1876. At White Horse (Timber Creek) "Memorable talk with H.S. settles the matter (?) for life." This I think as partly erased, but legible. H.S. might or might not be Harry Stafford. (Dec 19 Evening sitting in room (?Camden). had serious view and revelation and conviction about H's course in the matter. Saw clearly what it really meant. Very profound meditation on all. More happy and satisfied at last about it singularly so . . . . Apl 2d. 1877 Scene with H. in the front room. July 20. 1877 " in the room at White Horse "Goodbye". ) Now these, it seems to me, may refer to the closing up of some relationship which had previously existed with some woman. H alone might [however] refer too the troublesome 50 brother-in law--Heyde--but that he is generally referred to by his other initials. Do you know anything which would lead you to suppose that Harry Stafford could be referred to in these entries?-- He could only have been a lad, I suppose, at the time. I hoped to meet him--but was pressed for time--would have spent a whole day doing it--& was vigorously dissuaded by Traubel. I have a mind to write & ask him for reminiscences. --The Staffords were eager for news of Gilchrist. if you think of it next time you are sending me a wad will you tell me how he is going on. There is a note in the Diary of your being at Timber Creek & Mrs Gilchrist's in May 1877--& June and a note in Sept. "Meetings with Ed. C by the pond moonlight nights".(*) Were you still there? or is this a reference to someone else. It does not matter much to me: but I was interested. Harned has a brief illiterate note written at Washington, by someone who had called & missed ---------------- (*) (In pencil: "No, not me--Ed Carpenter")51 W.W. it is dated Apl 1. 1864 & is by W E Vandermack "to his father Walt Whitman". (sic). I presume it is "a manner of speech" Traubel (& Harned, I think) told me Walt had five children (one may have died) by two Southern ladies both of high family. E.H. Griggs reminded me that a Southern woman's unblemished character was the boast & most sacred asset of the South. Walt used to feel the separation from his children as most tragic, according to Traubel, & built his huge tomb to accommodate them--but found it impossible to have them. Traubel showed me a love-letter from Ellen Eyre (? of New York) in 1862--& J H Johnston a photo of a young N. Y. actress who had been "one of Walt's sweethearts". Maynard says that Doyle admitted he knew of a woman in Washington with whom W. had sex relations. This is all I could gather on our subject. I found great hostility to J A Symonds' Calamus suggestions: Maynard says that American school life is quite different in that respect from52 English. Evidently the Whitman set were astonished at the suggestions! And I gather that old Walt was, too. I am very deep in the book. My greetings to your George. Affectionately H. B. B. I am to have photo-illustrations of Walt's friends: may I have one of you, please: I have a delightful one of Anne Gilchrist who (they tell me) was very much in love with Walt--& Harned (?) adds [would like] offered to [have] marr[y]ied him. Harned doesnt want the family to know, though! Bother these discreet silences--I know one must tread warily.53 (Ellen M. Calder to Carpenter) P.O. date Nov 15, '09 ans? 29 Dec '09 (In pencil: "15 Nov 1909") 306 Hope Street, Providence, R.I. U. S. A. To Edward Carpenter, Author of "Days with Walt Whitman:" Ever since I first read your "Days with Walt Whitman" in 1906, it has been in my mind to write you and say that of all the many books and papers concerning Walt Whitman not one has touched me as yours has done. Not one has seemed to me to comprehend the man as you have comprehended him. In those short visits, it is marvellous to me that you have taken in the sweetness and sadness and lovableness and beauty of his character, as well as what you rightly call, on page 47, his "cussedness". It was my great privilege to know him intimately from the time he came to Washington in the latter part of 1862, for many months, and for some time he was the guest of Mr. O'Connor and myself, as I have told in my Atlantic Monthly article of June,54 1907. As he himself has implied, which you quote on page 37, he had a personal love for O'Connor, but, for all that, they disagreed violently in regard to giving the ballot to the Negro--Whitman opposing the idea. As you will conclude,--at the time above referred to I was the wife of the late William D. O'Connor. Sincerely yours, Ellen M. Calder.55 (Ellen M. Calder to Carpenter) 306 Hope Street, Providence, R.I. Jan. 11, 1910. Dear Mr. Carpenter, Your letter of Dec. 29 has just come, and I will write you at once. It is because there were so many sides to the character of our dear Walt that I was so much impressed by your penetration. I was indeed very fond of Walt, and both, myself and Mr. O'Connor knew him well. Mr. Horace Traubel was almost incredulous when he asked me if I knew of the children, and I assured him that I knew nothing of the matter,--then he said that he was sure that Walt told William,--and I was equally sure that Walt never did,--he was not that kind of a man, and we were not the sort of people that would have helped him to unburden his heart, if he had not the disposition to do so. You ask if I have any views about the question of Whitman's children. Yes, views, theories, but no knowledge. You remember what he says of his trip to New Orleans,and his stop there, and all of56 it. My belief is that some probably light colored woman loved him, and perhaps followed him North, and no doubt there was a child born, but with you, I doubt if there was more than one. To me the idea that Mr. Binn has elaborated is all bosh, if you will excuse the word. He never seduced a woman, and he never was a guest in any such family as is pictured. Horace Traubel says that Walt loved William O'Connor more than he loved any living man,--I think so, too, and Mr. O'Connor was all that you say of him,--and a most lovable and gifted man. Will you tell me when I can get any of your books, the one on "Evolution" I want, and no doubt others. Ever most cordially with best wishes, Yours truly, Ellen M. Calder.57 (Ellen M. Calder to Carpenter) 306 Hope Street, Providence, R.I. June 3d 1910. Dear Mr. Carpenter: I have no excuse to make for not answering your most kind letter of last February. I think it was sheer procrastination, perhaps induced by not being quite well. I am sending you in this an article from the "Boston Globe" of last Sunday, and I see that the printer has called you out of your name, Edmund, and not Edward. Shall we forgive him! As for any information that Traubel has about Walt's children, it is nil. I know all that he knows, for he has told me all, but some time the facts may be known, and then we shall all wonder that we ever wondered! Thanks for the copy of your list of books. It is "The Art of Creation", that I meant, and I shall be very glad to have it. Yours cordially Ellen M. Calder. (In pencil: "Art of Creation sent 13 June")58 (Ellen M. Calder to Carpenter) 306 Hope St. Providence, R.I. July 5, 1910 Dear Mr. Carpenter, The book, "The Art of Creation", reached me safely, and I am reading it. I will take more than one careful reading too make it mine, surely. Thank you very much for it, and for the pamphlet that you sent with it. I should like two more copies of that, for friends, who will be very glad of it. I also want a copy of "Edward Carpenter: The Man and his Message". I will send the money for all later. I am not at home just now, but shall be, and will send soon, I trust. I enclose a thought about Walt Whitman in regard to the children question. It may be worth noting. Yours cordially Ellen M. Calder. It has occurred to me that though my opinion59 is no better than that of anyone in regard to Walt Whitman, who loved him very much and knew him, I feel that it may be in some measure correct. You remember in your "Days with Walt Whitman" on page 56 you quote a poem from the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, omitted later. That to me is a key to much, very much of his life. Change the pronoun for the feminine, and remember what he tells of his early life in New Orleans, and what he told us, William and me,--and it gives a clue to much. The love for him of the girl who clung to him, his leaving, --the long sorrow,--he could not marry her,--he could not for many reasons, and the long regret, all go with his nature to make up the story. To me it seems almost plain. I do not think that Traubel has any information "up his sleeve" or anywhere. He has some notes out of which he is trying to make something, but to me things are plain.A LIST OF THE AUTOGRAPH LETTERS OF WALT WHITMAN IN THE COLLECTION OF BLISS PERRYI 1863, November 15, Brooklyn, 4 pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor 1864, June 25, Brooklyn, I p., To W. D. O'Connor July 5, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor July 24, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor September II, Brooklyn, 4pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor September II, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor October 10, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor October 14, Brooklyn, 2pp., To W. D. O'Connor December 4, Brooklyn, 3pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor 1865, January 6, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor January 20, Brooklyn, 3pp., To W. D. O'Connor March 26, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. and Nelly O'Connor April 7, Brooklyn, 2pp., To W. D. O'Connor October 12, Brooklyn, 3pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor October 20, Brooklyn, 4pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor 1866, January 25, Washington, I p., To W. D. O'Connor August 26, New York, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor 1867, May 5, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor May 12, Brooklyn, 3pp., To W. D. O'Connor September 15, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor September 21, Brooklyn, 4pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor September 27, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor 1868, February 24, Washington, 4pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor September 27, New York, 4pp., To W. D. O'Connor October 4, New York, 3pp., To W. D. O'Connor October 14, New York, 2pp., To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor October 19, Providence, 4pp. To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor2 I869, August 23, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W.D.O'Connor December 23, Washington, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor I87I, June 8, Washington, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor July I4, Brooklyn, 4pp. To W.D.O'Connor July 26, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W.D.O'Connor I873, July 26, Camden, 4pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor (I873?), September 5, Camden,3pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor I874, February 3, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor (I874?), March 22, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor I874, May I5, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor (I874?), June I0, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor I874, November 23, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor (I874?) Sunday noon, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor I878, May II, Brooklyn, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor I882, May 7, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor May 17, Camden, 3pp., To W.D.O'Connor May 25, Camden, 5pp., To W.D.O'Connor May 28, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor May 30, Camden, 6pp., To W.D.O'Connor June I8, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor June 28,2pp. To W.D.O'Connor July 6, Philadelphia, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor July 9, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor October 29, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor November I2, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor December I7, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor December 27, Camden, Ip. To W.D.O'Connor3 I883, February I9, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor February 2I, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor (This letter is with another sheet which is probably a post-script.) March I4, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor March I6, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor March 25, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor March 29, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor March 3I, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor April I4, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor June I3, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor June 27, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor July [3]20, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor September I3, Camden, To W.D.O'Connor (A note on an envelope addressed to W.W.) Sept Camden, to W.D.O'Connor (Enclosing a letter W.D.O'C. might send to the Editor of The Sun) October, 7, Camden 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor I884, September 29, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor I885, June II, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor I886, January I8(?), Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor (on the back of a 3 page/letter to W.W. from W.S.Kennedy). January 22, Camden, 2pp. To W.D.O'Connor April I2, Camden, 2pp., To W.D.O'Connor May 26, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor November I9, Camden, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor I887, July 26, Camden, Ip., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor4 1888, January 14, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor March 9, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor April 12, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor April 18, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor April 25, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor June 14, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor August 4, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor November 9, Camden, 1p., To W.D. O'Connor 1889 May 12, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor September 15, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor November 23, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor December 18, Camden , 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor 1890, September 25, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor September 29, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor 1891, April 8, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor November 12, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor The following letters do not show the year in which they were sent: Feb. 11, Camden, 4pp., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor [*3 pp.*] Feb. 23, Camden, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor Feb.24, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor Feb. 26, Washington, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor Feb. 29, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor Nov. 9, Washington, 1p., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor May 1, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor5 June 29, Brooklyn, 4pp., To Ms. E.M.O'Connor Aug. 2, Brooklyn, 4pp., To W.D.O'Connor Aug. 5, Camden, 2pp., To Mrs. E.M.O'Connor Nov. 27, Washington, Ip., To W.D.O'Connor There are also three one page letters to W.D.O'Connor which do no bear any date.[*134*] A LIST OF THE AUTOGRAPH POST CARDS OF WALT WHITMAN IN THE COLLECTION OF BLISS PERRY1 Dates which are probably true but cannot be verified are put in parenthesis. (1882, May 3) (correspondence card,) To W.D. O'Connor 1882, May 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor June 22, Camden,To W.D. O'Connor June 25,Camden,To W.D. O'Connor July 11,Camden,To W.D. O'Connor July 19, Philadelphia, To W.D. O'Connor July 21, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor August 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor August 6, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor August 27, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor September 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor September 17, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor October 25, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor October 31, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor December 14, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor 1883, February 17, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 23, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 9, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 11, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 15, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor (1883), March 18 Camden, (correspondence card) to W.D. O'Connor (1883), April 5 Camden, (correspondence card) To W.D. O'Connor 1883, June 18, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor2 1883, August 14, Germantown, to W.D. O'Connor August 29, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor September 6, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor September 17, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor September 25, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor September 30, Ocean Grove, N.J., To W.D. O'Connor December 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor December 9, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor 1885, January 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor 1886, February 3, Elkton, Md., To W.D. O'Connor March 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 19, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor August 18, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor August 24, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor 1887, August 8, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor October 28, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor October 30, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor 1888, January 18, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor January 24, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 16, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor March 10, Camden, to Mrs. E.M. O'Connor May 7, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor May 18, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor June 17, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor June 23, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor3 1888, July 11, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor July 19, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor July 27, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor(typewritten copy, no [?]) August 6, Camden, To W.D.O'Connor September 19, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor October 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor October 7, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor October 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor November 13, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor November 20,Camden, To W.D. O'Connor December 9, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor December 19, Camden, to Mrs. E.M. O'Connor December 21, Camden, to Mrs. E.M. O'Connor 1889, January 1, Camden, to Mrs. E.M. O'Connor January 20, Camden, to W.D. O'Connor January 23,Camden, To W.D. O'Connor January 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor January 29, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor January 31, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 8, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 10, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 11, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 12, Camden, to Mrs. E.M. O'Connor February 15, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 16, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor4 1889, February 18, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 19, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 20, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 22, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 24, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 27, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor February 28, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 1, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 4, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 5, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 6, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 7, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 8, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 11, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 12, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 13, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 14, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 15, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 17, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 18, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 19, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 20, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor5 1889, March 21,Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 22, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 24, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 25, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 28, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 29, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor March 31, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 2, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 4, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 7, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 8, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 11, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 14 Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 16, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 17, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 22, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 26, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor April 28, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor May 3, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor May 5, Camden, To W.D. O'Connor May 6 Camden, To W.D. O'Connor May 9, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor July 2, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor August 4, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor6 1889, August 27, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor September 19, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor September 29, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor November 7, Camden, To Ms. E.M. O'Connor 1890, April 30, Camden, to Mrs. E.M. O'Connor May 9, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor September 21, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor 1891, January 4, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor The following cards do not show the year they were sent: January 7, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor January 11, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor January 15, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor March 3, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor March 9, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor March 23, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor April 10, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor April 17, Camden, To Mrs. E. M. O'Connor May 6, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor May 29, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'Connor November 23, Camden, To Mrs. E.M. O'ConnorBrooklyn June 25, 1864. Dear friend I write just a line to let you know I got home all safe — I do not feel very well yet, but expect to, or begin to, pretty soon — I send my love to you & Nelly & to Charles Eldridge. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. Original in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry (1935).Brooklyn, Tuesday eve'g July 5, 1864. My dear friend I have had the misfortune to fall back a little since I wrote to you — I have had three or four pretty bad days & nights — but I am feeling decidedly brighter this afternoon, & have no doubt I shall be myself again before long. The trouble has been as before, bad spells of weakness with heavy aching head — I think the throat is no worse, but it is not well yet --William I rec'd your letter today, also one from Charles Eldridge, with one in envelope — as to the future, & as to our meeting again, I have no doubt we shall meet again & have good times —— — if Nelly has not gone when this reaches you I wish her to consider it just the same as if written to her — I do not write much, nor do any thing hardly, but keep as quiet as possible — my physician thinks that time with the change of locality, & my own latent recuperative power, will make me well, but says my system is probably saturated with the virus of the hospitals &c which eludes ordinary treatment — &c &c &c — I have nothing new or interesting to write you. I intend to move heaven & earth to publish my "Drum-Taps" as soon as I am able to go around. So Eldridge is down at Petersburgh — if I were there at Washington & well I should want no better fun than accompanying them — When you see Count tell him I sent him my love — also Ashton — I will write should there be any change in my condition — Good bye for present my dear friend & God bless you — Walt. Transcribed from a [y]typewritten copy [o]in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. Original manuscript in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry (1935).Brooklyn, Sunday afternoon July 24, 1864. My dear friend Since I last wrote to you my illness has been gradually alleviated, until now I go about pretty much the same as usual — I keep pretty old-fashioned hours, rise early, dine at 1, & go to bed before 10 — My head feels clear & comfortable & my strength has returned almost, but not quite up to what it was. I rec'd Nelly's letter. I could not get over to New York that afternoon — Nelly my dear friend, you must excuse me, — I wished much to see you, too — I hope you are having a good time & feeling well physically & in good spirits — & the little one, little Jenny, this line is for you, my dear, I hope you too are well — William I rec'd the volume of Navy reports, transactions of ironclads, fights, &c. for '62 & '3 — it will probably give me material for some pieces, thumb-nail sketches, for my "Drum-Taps" — I take it you had that in view in sending it to me — I am trying to make arrangements to publish my volume — I shall probably try to bring out myself, stereotype it, & print an edition of 500 — I could sell that number by my own exertions in Brooklyn & New York in three weeks — I rec'd Charles Eldridge's last letter — so he is to go down to front again — how I wish I was in Washington to go with him & Major — I should try it as I am, & be glad of the chance — O I almost forgot the big raid — it is already a thing of the past, I find by my own thoughts & memory, but I suppose it would not do to write a letter to Washington as soon and not mention it — — We have heard from my brother George up to the 18th inst. — he was living & well up to that time — At home hereall are well as usual — Mother's age I think begins to just show — in a few weeks, she will commence her 70th year — still she does most of her light housework — My sister and her children are well — (Nelly I write these particulars for you) — Well William about the war I have to inform you that I remain hopeful & confident yet — I still think Grant will go into Richmond — My brother describes the spirits of the troops as confident & sanguine under all their trials — I wish you to enclose this in your next letter to Nelly — I wish you to give my remembrance & love to the Howells, to Miss Howard, & to Arnold Johnson — Write soon & tell me all the news — tell me how is Ashton — Good bye & God bless you my dear friend Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. The manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor is owned by Prof. Bliss Perry (1935).Brooklyn, September 11,1864. Dear friend I have nothing of consequence to write, but I thought I would send you a few lines anyhow. — I have just written Nelly a letter, & send to Little Compton — we are full of politics here, the dispute runs high & hot everywhere — I think the Republicans are going to make a stout fight after all, as there is confusion in the opposition camp — the result of course I do nor pretend to foretell — My health is quite re-established, yet not exactly the same unconscious state of health as formerly — The book is still unprinted — our family are all well as usual — I go two or three times a week among the soldiers in hospitals here — — I go out quite regularly, sometimes out on the bay, or to Coney Island — & occasionally a tour through New York life, as of old — last night I was with some friends of Fred Gray association, till late wandering the east side of the city first in the lager beer saloons & then elsewhere — one crowded, low, most degraded place we went, a poor blear eyed girl bringing beer. I saw her with a McClellan medal on her breast — I called her & asked her if the other girls there were for McClellan too — she said yes every one of them, & that they wouldn't tolerate a girl in the place who was not, & the fellows were too (there must have been twenty girls, sad sad ruins) — it was one of those places where the air is full of the scent of low thieves, druggies, foul play, & prostitution gangrened - I don't know what move I shall make, but something soon, as it is not satisfactory any more in New York & Brooklyn — I should think nine tenths of all classes are Copperheads here. I never heard before such things asI hear now whenever I go out — then it seems tame & indeed unreal here, life as carried on & as I come in contact with it & receive its influences — How is Ashton? & is he there again? — I got a letter from Charles Eldridge yesterday — I suppose he is now in Boston — My dear friend, I often think of you, & count on our being together again may be quite soon — Meantime good bye and God bless you & I send you my best love. Walt. P.S. We are having a sloppy rainy dark Sunday here to-day — Lewis Brown (that was in Ward K Armory Square) is a clerk in the Provost Marshall's office cor 18th & I sts — I got a letter from him the other day, — perhaps you may see him sometime — I am going off for a couple of weeks soon to Burlington Vt. — — O how the rain is pouring down as I write — — at the other window sits my mother reading the Sunday Herald — — quiet & pleasant & soothing — only us two home to-day — not a word spoken in a long time. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. Manuscript of this letter to W. O'Connor is in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry ( 1935). Brooklyn, January 6, 1865. Dear friend Your welcome letter of December 30 came safe. I have written & sent my application to Mr. Otto, & also a few lines to Mr. Ashton, with a copy of it. I am most desirous to get the appointment, as enclosing, with the rest of the points, my attentions to the soldiers & to my poems, as you intimate. — — It may be Drum-Taps may come out this winter, yet, (in the way I have mentioned in times past) . It is in a state to put right through, a perfect copy being ready for the printers. I feel at last, & for the first time without any demur, that I am satisfied with it — content to have it go to the world verbatim & punctuatim. It is in my opinion superior to Leaves of Grass — certainly more perfect as a work of art, being adjusted in all its proportions, & its passion having the indispensable merit that though to the ordinary reader let loose with wildest abandon, the true artist can see it is yet under control. But I am perhaps mainly satisfied with Drum-Taps because it delivers my ambition of the task that has haunted me, namely, to express in a poem (& in the way I like, which is not at all by directly stating it) the pending action of this Time & Land we swim in, with all their large conflicting fluctuations of despair & hope, the shiftings, masses, & the whirl & deafening din, (yet over all, as by invisible hand, a definite purport & idea) with the unprecedented anguish of wounded & suffering, the beautiful young men, in wholesale death & agony, everything sometimes as if blood color, & dripping blood. The book is therefore unprecedently sad, (as these days are, are they not?) — but is also has the blast of the trumpet, & the drum pounds & whirrs in it, & then an undertone of sweetest comradeship & human love, threading its steady thread inside the chaos, & heard at every lull & intersticethereof — truly, also it has clear notes of faith & triumph. — — Drum-Taps has none of the perturbations of Leaves of Grass. I am satisfied with Leaves of Grass, (by far the most of it) as expressing what was intended, namely, to express by sharpcut self assertions, Ones'-Self & also, or may be still more, to map out, to throw together for American use, a gigantic embryo or skeleton of Personality, fit for the West, for native models — but there are a few things I shall carefully eliminate in the next issue, & a few more I shall considerably change. I see I have said I consider Drum-Taps superior to Leaves of Grass. I probably mean as a piece of art, & from the more simple and winning nature of the subject, & also because I have in it only succeeded to my satisfaction in removing all superfluity from it, verbal superfluity I mean. I delight to make a poem where I feel clear that not a word but is indispensable part thereof & of my meaning. Still Leaves of Grass is dear to me, always dearest to me, as my first born, as daughter of my life's first hopes, doubts, & the putting in form of those days' efforts & aspirations — True, I see now, with some, things in it I should not put in if I were to write now, but yet I shall certainly let them stand, even if but for proofs of phases passed away. Mother and all home are well as usual. Now a word for over three months from my brother George — the probabilities are most gloomy.— I see the Howells now & then. I am well, but need to leave here — need a change. If you see Miss Howard tell her Jesse Mullery has been to see me — came yesterday & has just left this forenoon. He talked of nothing but her. His life is saved,& he will have tolerably good strength & health, at least for present. His address is Ward 7 Centre St. Hospital Newark New Jersey. I was up at Mrs. Price's the other night. She is better this winter. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis is stopping with her this winter. I have sent a paper with sketch of Hospital Visits, to Dr. Wm. F. Channing. I cannot forgive myself for not acknowledging his assistance for the Hospitals, by letter at the time. I send you another paper also, as you might like it. I take it by a line in your letter that Charles Eldridge has not gone to Boston. I have been reading the strange articles from the Richmond press. A thousand Satans baffled, with terror, hatred, malignant squirming, appear in every paragraph. Little California is playing around me as I finish, & has been for half an hour. Love to dear Nelly & Jeannie & all. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from the typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry.Brooklyn, January 20, 1865. My dear friend I suppose you must have heard from Ashton that I received Mr. Otto's letter, & that I returned for answer that I would report myself to him on or about Tuesday 24th instant. — During the week previous to 16th I was quite sick, but this week I am about as well as usual. I intend to leave here on Monday 23d — shall take the 8 o'clock morning train, which will probably arrive in Washington about 7 in the evening. William, if you could hear of a room, I wish you would engage it for me — if Gwinne has one, it would do — take the first good room you find, if any, irrespective of price — it would do for a week or so, any how — would like convenience for a fire, as I am susceptible to chill this winter. We got word yesterday by means of an exchanged prisoner, from my brother George, but only up to November 27 — at that time he was at Danville, Virginia, in confinement with 350 other officers. We hear that he is full of fortitude & even good nature, but like all the rest, starved, miserable & naked, to the last degree. We are all well, home here. Last night another snow-storm, but fine & sunshiny this morning — So far this winter, snow, rain, mud, melt, fog, with spells of sharp cold. I have received a letter from Charles Eldridge, from an island off in the sea, far beyond Boston. I suppose you got my letter of some ten days since. Nelly I send you my love, & hope you are well & good spirits. Farewell. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from typewritten copy in possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript (1935). [*To William O'Connor.*]Engineer's Office, Nassau Water Dep't. 355 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. March 26, 1865. My dear William & Nelly O'Connor, I write a few lines to tell you how I find the folks at home — Both my mother & brother George looked much better than I expected — Mother is quite well considering — she goes about her household affairs pretty much the same as ever, & it is cheerful. My brother would be in what I would almost call fair condition, if it were not that his legs are affected — it seems to me it is rheumatism, following the fever he had — but I don't know — He goes to bed quite sleepy & falls to sleep — but then soon wakes, & frequently little or no more sleep that night — he most always leaves the bed & comes down stairs, & passes the night on the sofa. He goes out most every day though — some days has to lay by — He is going to report to Annapolis promptly when his furlough is up — I told him I had no doubt I could get it extended, but he does not wish it — He says little but is in first rate spirits. I am feeling finely — & never enjoyed a visit home more than I am doing this. I find myself perplexed about printing my book. All the printers tell me I could not pick a more inopportune time — that in ten days prices of paper, composition, &c will all be very much lower &c. I shall decide to-morrow. My brother Jeff wishes me to give you his sincerest thanks for your good will &c in the matter of the Engineer's situation —Brooklyn, April 7, 1865 Dear friend, I am stopping longer than first intended, as I have decided to print the book, and am now under way with it. Probably I will not be back till 16th or 17th. I have been to Christern's the great importer of foreign & special London books — he said he had no Hugo's Shakspeare & had heard of none — English I mean: — if any Scribner would know about it — I have been to Scribner's today — He thinks he has seen one announced in English literary announcements — but thinks it is not yet printed — has not had or seen any such book. The grand culminations of last week impress me profoundly of course. I feel more than ever how America has been entirely re-stated by them — and they will shape the destinies of the future of the whole of mankind. My dear mother is well. My brother George has been unwell, again, and has sulkily permitted me to get an extension of his leave of absence, 20 days longer. Please go to the Post Office & get all the letters & send me. Please inquire for last week's advertised letters, & the present weeks also. I will not trouble to send any after next Wednesday night. My book will be small & not thick at all — but will be well printed. (The commissioner has granted me the two weeks longer.) Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript. [*To William O'Connor.*]Brooklyn, Friday, Sept. 27, 1867. My dear friend, Your letter, & the two accompanying, came safe. I saw F.P.Church again yesterday — the arrangement is, that Democracy is to make an article of fifteen or sixteen pages, & is to be the leading article of the December number — it must be in his hands by the 25th of October. The Ethiopia Commenting has been formally accepted, but is held back until the long article appears. I have felt that the Galaxy folks have received & treated me with welcome warmth & respect. F.P.Church is a sample of a New Yorker, a club man, (he pressingly invited me to a dinner at Atheneum Club — I declined,) young, cordial, refined, &c. He made no very decided impression on me, however — — we will see how the acquaintance works and holds out in the future. The indirect & inferential of his tone & words in speaking to me would satisfied your highest requirements — they evidently meant that in his opinion I was, or was soon to be, "one of the [greatest] great powers." Nothing new among my folks, or domestic matters. I have been purchasing property, or rather becoming responsible for the same — — William you needn't send any more of my letters to me here, after you receive this — keep them for me. I shall return within three or four days — I shall write out & finish Democracy there, as my leave extends two weeks yet. — I suppose you rec'd the Gazette containing T. Titcomb, his opinion on such books as Leaves of Grass, etc. I think it very likely I shall return on Monday 30tj. I have seen Fred. Gray, Nathaniel Bloom — the dear, good affectionate young men — more kind, more affectionate than ever.— William, I do hope, it will come to you to buckle-to, & write something for Putnam, — et al. — You are talked about, & cause expectancies, curiosities, &c. — F.P.Church sent a florid & evidently genuine message to you by me — the meat of it is, a fervid appreciation of your literary genius, & a special request that you write for the Galaxy. John Burroughs, I send you my love, & will soon be with you all again. Walt. Transcribed from typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript. [*To William O'Connor.*]New York, September 27, 1868. Dear friend, I received your note, with Ferdinand Freilegrath's address at Cologne. I have called on Mr. Westerman, who seem to think, upon the whole, that the best way to reach F.F. would be direct to him to care of his publisher, J.G.Cotta, at Stuttgart, Germany. I should like to make up a package for F.F. — but most that I want to send him if there in Washington. Still, I may attempt it here. I will write you further about it. I am having pleasant quiet times here — am occupied a little, and loafe around a great deal — am having fixed, & bound, (partly printed too,) the remainings of Leaves of Grass, edition 1867 — as there are none on hand, & there is a small demand. Am also writing &c a little. My dear mother I find in unusual health & spirits, for one of her age. We are moving into the new quarters — much more agreeable & roomy, when settled, than the old ones. My brother George is well & hearty. Eddy the same. Mother sends her love to you & Nelly. I received yesterday a kind note from Dr. Channing, offering me hospitality at Providence. I shall gladly accept — shall certainly make them a visit of a few days before I return to Washington. I am rooming at Mrs. Price's, but spend a great part of every day with Mother, always taking dinner there. The journey to & fro, & especially crossing the ferry, & resuming my acquaintance with the pilots, is quite a part of my pleasure here. I had quite a interview tete-a-tete with John Swinton a fewnights ago. He is much more deeply impressed with Leaves of Grass than I had supposed — said that the more he read it, the more it imprest him with the meanness & superficiality of all current literature & journalism — went on in a strain that would have answered your & John Burroughs' extremest demands, &c. Swinton has lately been posting himself about William Blake his poems, has the New London edition of W.B. in two vols. He, Swinton, gives me rather new information in one respect — says that the formal resemblance between several pieces of Blake, & my poems, is so marked that he, has with persons that partially know me, passed them off temporarily for mine, & read them aloud a such. He asked me pointedly whether I had not met with Blake's productions in my youth, &c — said that Swinburne's idea of resemblance &c was not so wild, after all. Quite funny, isn't it? Tell John Burroughs I send him my love & I wish you to let him have an opportunity of reading this letter, if he desires to. Charles Eldridge the same. Is Ashton there, & well — & what news in the office? To Nelly. Dear Nelly, I am writing this in my room at Mrs. Prices. We had rain all last night, and now a rainy, cloudy, dark Sunday. I was down late to breakfast this morning — had a good breakfast though — nobody home but Mrs. Price & Mr. Arnold — I like the latter more than formerly — After breakfast we sat leisurely & had a good chat — subject, the Roman Catholic religion — anent of Mrs. Price's sister & adopted sister being Catholics. When I rose I said I was going to my room to write to you & William — There werewarm expressions from both — Mrs. Price charged me to give her love to you, to William, & to Jeannie — Mr. A. said "Give my love to Mrs. O'Connor, she is a woman I like — Mr. O'Connor I believe I have never seen." Good bye for the present, — dear friends. Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. The manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor is owned by Prof. Bliss Perry (1935)/New York October 4, 1868. Dear friend, I suppose you received my letter of September 25. The letters to me from A.G. office, (I suppose sent by you,) have probably all come right. I have received some five or six. Please continue to send them the same way. If the envelopes run out, please prepare some more, same form. When you write, tell me what news in the A.G. office. Is Ashton well? Is he running the office? Say to him I sent my love — & that, here north, as it seems to me, the Grant & Colfax tide is rising higher and higher every day. Did you see John Swinton's warm about my illustrious self in N.Y. Times. Ist instant? Give my best love to John Burroughs, & show him this note to read. J. B., dear friend, I wish I could have you here, if only just to take a ride with me for once up & down Broadway, on top a stage, of a fine afternoon. — I send my love to Charles Eldridge — By a wretched oversight on my part I missed an appointment with at Fifth Av. Hotel, when he passed through New York. William I shall send Freiligrath a small package, containing a copy of L. of G. with John's Notes. — A Good Gray Poet &c. in a couple of days from here, by the European Express. I wish, if you feel like it, you would prepare a letter to FF. to go by mail — following the package. Nelly, my dear friend, I send you my best love — in which my mother joins me — we are all well. Half my leave has alreadyexpired —& the other half will be soon over. Affectionately Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. This letter to William O'Connor is owned by Prof. Bliss Perry (1935).New York, October 14, 1868. Dear friend, I only write to say that I have received your welcome letter of the 9th, from Jamestown — & that — as Mrs. Paulina Davis has been here, & has in her own, & husband's behalf, kindly invited me, & indeed made the arrangements — I shall come on to Providence to-morrow, 15th — they to meet me at the depot, & take me home as their guest — from whence I shall report to you, & to Dr. & Mrs. Channing forthwith — & fulfil my promised visit to them also, before I return here — which will be about 21st or 22d. Affectionately Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. The manuscript of this letter is owned by Prof. Perry (1935).Brooklyn, August 23, 1869. Dear William O'Connor: I was very ill after my arrival here — & made worse by the heat — but have recovered — & to-day, Monday, feel about the same as formerly. Mother is well, & sends her love to you all — Mother asked a great deal about Nelly, and also about Jenny — — My brother George is remarkably well & robust this summer — he was out in all the excessive heat of the three latter days of last week, & came home every evening to his supper, unflagging, & full of strength & fun — I quite envied & admired him — especially as I felt deathly weak, — indeed despicable — but, as before said I think I am all right again now — I have not been out yet — havn't seen Mrs. Price — but shall begin to explore, this week — & will report in my next — — Dear Nelly, I had an unusually pleasant journey that afternoon & evening in the cars — felt quite well — enjoyed my lunch, the cold tea &c — got in at Jersey City a few minutes after 10, not a bit tired — Nothing very new from my sisters Mat or Hannah — Eddy is as usual — Jenny, my darling, I must not forget to put in a line for you too, & send my love — — — Walt. My address is 101 Portland Av. opp. Arsenal Brooklyn, New York. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript (1935).Mother says he has talked much about it & feels your kindness in it thoroughly. Martha & the little girls are well. My sister at Burlington, Vt. is not well, & mother will probably pay a long visit there this summer. Walt. Copied from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript (1935).Brooklyn, 107 North Portland Av. July 14, 1871. Dear friend, There is nothing special to write about, yet I will send you a line. I wrote to Nelly between two & three weeks ago — with a line to you and Charles Eldridge — which I suppose came all right at the time. I have been having a comfortable time, absolutely doing nothing, sleeping a good deal, eating & drinking what suits me, and going out a few hours a day, a good part of the tie on the water. Mother has had an attack of illness, somewhat severe the last few days — & I have been sort of nurse and doctor (as none of my sisters are home at present) — result is that Mother is very much better this morning — — John Burroughs has called on me — looking well. I must tell you that the Westminster for July has for the 2d article of the number a long article of 33 of pages, headed "The Poetry of Democracy: Walt Whitman" and capped with the names of the three last issued books — rather quiet in tone, but essentially very favorable & appreciative — undertakes to define the Character of Democratic art & poetic literature, as discriminated from Aristocratic — quotes freely from all y books — will please you, I think. Wednesday's brush in N.Y. you have seen in the papers — in five sixths of the city, it was curiously almost unfelt, every thing went on the same — 30 or 40 killed and a hundred wounded — yet it all falls very languidly on our people — we have supped full of horrors of late years — the policemen looked &behaved splendidly — I have been looking on them & been with them much, & am refreshed by their presence — it is something new — in some respects they afford the most encouraging sign I have got — brown, bearded, resolute, American-looking men, dusty & sweaty — looked like veterans — the stock here even in these cities is in the main magnificent — the heads either shysters, villains or impotents — Love to Nelly, Charles Eldridge & Jeannie. Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. Manuscript of this letter to W. O'Connor is owned by Prof. Bliss Perry (1935.)Camden June 18. p.m. 1882 Only a word to catch this evening's mail — the second letter in to-day's Tribune fully follows up the first — & I should say settles the Chadwick points. — Dear friend I only wanted to say again how entirely satisfied I am with your championship, matter & spirit — Walt Whitman. The "Savage" letter of 'Sigma" following seems a very curious one. I am more than half inclined to think it some crafty friend who take the mask of foe — Transcribed from typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935)/Camden New Jersey Dec: 27 '82 Thanks for the Moliere — the Vols: — (vivacious & jaunty & entirely new to me & not too deep) — will surely lighten many hours in a way most opportune & desirable — — I am well as usual — have been out in Germantown on a few days' visit — have taken long rides & explorations along the Wissahickon, Indian Rock & all about that region — Happy New Year — Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to Willam O'Connor (1935).Camden noon Feb. 19 '83. Dear friend You will get a copious shower (Dr. B. and me together) of these pestering messages. I have been looking through the G.G.P. and Dr. B. sent it in his copy, & it comes to my soul over the dozen years more eloquent & beautiful than ever — seems to me, (as a passionate shooting shaft launched into those times & indeed fitting to the whole situation then & since) — it deserves to stand just as it is — two passages in the last page only might be left out, — & I should so suggest. Seems to me all that is wanted is a brief prefatory. Dated present time, distinctly confirming your faith &c. That it is without diminution (it couldn't have "increase") — To morrow & next day the printers will be waiting for the copy. It is intended to put it the copy whole book in hand in force, & have it out soon — send to me here — I am pretty well his ending winter. Yes I rec'd the big Powell Ethnology & have made more than one courageous attack on it (thought I acknowledged it) — The air here (human & other) all nervous from the plowing crowds of big disasters, floods, mine cavings, deaths, wrecks big casualties from every quarter — W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Dec: 17, '82 Dear friend Yours of 15th rec'd — (J.B. had written me for the letter — he heard of it from Dowden himself) — Yes I too think D's words "sweet and beautiful" — I read yesterday the Dec. "Nineteenth Century article (Josiah Child, of Trubner's, mailed me in sheets) — & like it much — you may not on acct of the author's John Bull reservations, but I think it decidedly the best English (or any foreign) criticism yet printed. I will send you a copy (of the cheap N.Y. reprint) in two or three days — it was not ready last night — — William as you are going to collect the "Tribune" letters &c, — I suggest that you ask Dr. Bucke to give up the "Good Gray," & you include it — make a cluster of all you have written (Have you the "Times" article you furnished Raymond Dec: 1866? I have a copy & can send you) — I think it would be just as well for you to so include as Dr. B has enough otherways — I hope you will like the idea — shall I ask Dr. B. to give it up? There is something to me quite preferable in these collections a first hand, for a life affair, even history out of which the modern intelligent reader, (a new race unknown before our time) can take and adapt & shape for him or herself — I send you the "Critic" with my piece on Burns — — — Cold, cold — but very bright & sunny here to-day — I am well as usual — Wonder how the Heywood trial will eventuate — Somehow I feel clear that however it goes, we will "pluck the flower" &c &c from that however — So you must not feel anxious a bit — — T.W.H. Rolleston at Dresden, Saxony (with one or twoGerman scholars) is translating L. of G. into a full German version — expecting it to be ready next spring — He is an Irish gentleman, a college man, about 30 I think, married, & I suppose of some fortune — What I know of him ( by quite considerable correspondence) I like much — A Merry Christmas W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor. (1935.)Brooklyn, Wednesday forenoon, July 25, 1871. Dear William O'Connor, I take it by the enclosed from Rossetti that he has sent me the Westminster by mail to Washington, & that it is now there, probably in the A.G. office. You go down & see, & get it to read. (May be in P.O.) Mother's health is about reestablished if nothing unfavorable occurs I shall return to Washington early next week. I start this afternoon for New Haven for one day only — an emergency — an artist friend of mine is very low there with consumption — is in fact dying — & has expressed the most earnest wish to see me — We have been, & are having a cold easterly rain storm here — I enclose, on loan, the last two photos of my most sweetly philosophic & fascinating self — (for you to gaze upon till I return) — — The Swinburne Hilliard article has been copied in the World, Home Journal, &c &c Not a word of the Westminster article — The ungodly, (sorely tried,) will of course endeavor to ignore it, & leave it entirely unmentioned & uncommented on, if possible — but that will not be possible — It is a powerful essay — I have been reading it over carefully a second time — It strikes the true chords — even the name "The Poetry of Democracy" &c — is it not pregnant? From your loving old Walt. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript. (1935).Brooklyn May 11, 1878. Dear William, My hand has been pretty bad, but looks more encouraging to-day. I don't think there is anything very serious, but it has caused me much suffering, since I have been here. If the "Radical" has come, send me a copy immediately. Address to No. 101 Portland Avenue, opposite Arsenal. Mother is well as usual. We both send love to you and Nelly. I expect to be back next Monday. Walt Whitman By A.H.R. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript a (1935). [*To William O'Connor.*]431 Stevens Street Camden N.J. noon May 7 '82. Dear William O'Connor Yours of 5th rec'd & welcomed. To keep you posted I make note at random of this Osgood affair, & send herewith. — I have an article A Memorandum at a Venture 5 or 6 pages signed by my name in the forthcoming June number North American Review, which although hastily written & eligible to great additions I consider a sort of rallying point or key note to my position in the Children of Adam business — will be out probably 12th to 15th of May — I shall have some proof copies, & will send you two or three as soon as I get them — (It is a paid for contribution, my own price given) — As the newspapers specially like to have something up at the moment, this N.A. Rev., piece might give a current reason why, for your article — commending by alluding to it — The skeleton facts of the Osgood publication are these. Osgood & Co. wrote to me last May ('81) asking about a new & complete edition & suggesting that they were open to proposals. I wrote back that a new & complete edition was contemplated but I wanted it distinctly understood that not a line was intended to be left out or expurgated, — that the book must be printed in its entirety & that those were pre-requisites to opening any negotiation. They wrote back asking me to send the copy. I sent it. In a few days they wrote me that they would publish it. The bargain was closed. I was to have 12 1/2 per cent on the sales, and the contract was to run ten years. I went on to Boston (Sept. '81) and saw the book throughthe press, pub last of Nov. '81 — (I think 3000 must have been published by them since then.) In their penultimate letter (a month or so ago) Osgood & Co. wrote me that the pieces the District Attorney specially & absolutely required to be entirely expurgated were To a Common Prostitute and A Woman Waits for Me — those left out the rest could be arranged without trouble, & he would allow the publication to continue — but the leaving out of those two pieces was indispensable. — I shall write you again dear friend, as any thing occurs or suggests itself that I think you ought to know bearing on this matter — I am well as usual now — after a pretty bad month of illness — but mainly getting along pretty well & in good spirits considering. Walt Whitman Copied from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript. (1935).Camden, May 17 '82 noon. Ben Ticknor has just been here, to make a settlement of the L. of G. publication business between me and Osgood & Co. — which settlement has been amicably effected, — and O. & Co. have withdrawn & given it up for good, & made he plates &c over to me — — What I write for is this: — Ben tells me that the whole business originated from the State Attorney General Mr. Marston, who, (at the instance of certain parties) peremptorily instructed the Boston Dist. Attorney Stevens to proceed against L. of G. As I wrote you before, the betes noir were To a Common Prostitute and A Woman Waits for Me. Unless those were left out he was instructed to indict and arrest to the law's extremity. (I believe I told you that Osgood & Co. formally notified me that they would continue the publication if those were expurgated.) I do not myself feel any resentment toward O. & Co. for any thing done me or the book — They have acted with reference to conventional business & other circumstances. Marston is the target for you — If I learn more I will notify you. W.W. Have you seen my N.A. Rev. article? I expect some proof impressions and will immediately send you two or three. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript (1935).Camden May 25, 1882. My dear friend Yours of 20th recd — At this present writing, I don't think the Tribune will print your letter at all — if it don't appear next Sunday I doubt if it appears at all — the course of the T. towards me I think has been left to Wm. Winter, who I have no doubt writes the squib in T. of 24th May, — & also wrote (may be in conjunction with R.H. Stoddard,) the notice of L. of G. in T. four or five months ago — After Stedman's Scribner article a year or two ago that T. extracted half a column of his condemnatory views & opinions on my treatment of amativeness in L. of G. — A few days afterward, an extract, offering third of a column from Mrs. Gilchrist's Woman's Estimate was sent Reid, but he refused to print it. — I think, at present at any rate, that indicates their stand — (expediency, popular current &c) carrying out the old enmity of Bayard Taylor, &c &c — Have you seen Dr. Bucke's letter in Springfield Republican, of May 23 — and the vigorous editorial same number? — The Boston Herald May 24 (Supplement) takes the same ground — both editorials would satisfy you perfectly. Shouldn't at all wonder if your guess about Rev. T.W. Higginson hits the nail — one nail — exactly on the head. Your line about the Emerson talk on the Common &c is very opportune — it was as you say — the essential matter, at the spine or abysm of all such as the Bible often presents & in all primal poetry & attempt at returning to Creation's birth-innocence — let alone my attempt at the same result, based on modern science biology & physiology, was not touched upon at all by Emerson — but it was a splendid & most sincere unfolding ofthe technical esthetic & conventional & technical literary points applicable — — As things are, I don't feel any resentment at all toward Osgood & Co. A sharp friend here suggests that they themselves O. & Co. had some hand in the Marston-Stevens proceedings & rather egged it on — that they were losing paying me 25 cts royalty, &c &c — But I havn't the least idea of any such thing — I only mention it because I shouldn't wonder if it came up that way & you will hear it broached — Dr Bucke is absent in Ottawa, Canada — from there he goes to Cincinnati — John Burroughs I suppose is in England — (he went off in a depressed humor — blue as indigo) — As I write — Thursday forenoon — it is raining again, with east wind & the heavens all lead colored — but I am feeling well as usual & in good spirits — sometimes I feel to welcome any whack that breaks the stupid monotony even of life's prosperous evenness — & as to this last & in some sense most marked buffeting in the fortunes of Leaves of Grass — why — if it cant stand it & throw it off & go on better than ever why let it go under — of which I havn't the slightest idea though — but, I feel sure the book will gather added perhaps a main part interest, from what it has gone through, from association — & I shall too — I tickle myself with the thought how it may be said years hence that at any rate no book on earth ever had such a history — I shall keep you advised if I hear anything. Walt Whitman. Later. Thursday afternoon May 25 I have just had he Tribune of to-day, in which I findthe letter — I don't know but Charles Eldridge was right — Being so much interested perhaps I am not a fair judge — but if ever Jupiter went into the press hurling the lightnings (& yet a sort of Jovian continence) this letter has got him in — it is apparently printed with wonderful correctness — don't need a single alteration — it will live in literature at least as long as Junius - God bless you. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript (1935).Camden Sunday May 28, '82 Dear William O'Connor I like the big letter of May 25 the more I have read it — I think it will never die — — I am glad the Rev. Mr. Chadwick appears with his Tribune letter to you to day (as enclosed) for the fine chance it affords to ventilate the real account & true inwardness of that Emerson talk on the Common in 1860 — & I at once send you the best synopsis of it I can recall — quite certainly the same in amount as I told you while it was fresh in my memory — the which, with hasty scribblings on my relations with Emerson — I hope (working in as from yourself) you will incorporate in your answer to Tribune — Walt Whitman. for head What were Emersons relations to Walt Whitman? Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry.What made, and ever makes, the argument of Emerson, in that walk on the Common so dear and holy to me, was the personal affectionateness of it, as of an elderly brother to a younger. It as a vehement even passionate well-wishing, which I, felt then and feel to this hour the gratitude and reverence of my life could never repay. But although perfect from an intellectual and conventional point of view, it did not advance any thing I had not already considered. And my arriere and citadel positions — such as I have indicated in my June North American Review memorandum — were not only not attacked — they were not even alluded to. While I am on the subject, let me tell you I am sure the same process went on with Emerson, in this particular (it was not needed any where else) that goes on with many other of my readers. Certain I am that he too finally came to clearly feel that the "Children of Adam" pieces were inevitable and consistent — and in that sense, at least, proper — pars of the book. He was not the man to retract any utterance; whatever it had been it had expressed the truth of the period. That he said some transient things, from 1863 to 1873, which are in the critical direction, and are acrid, (very likely your discussion will bring them out) there is no doubt. But he permanently loved me and believed in my poems, of which the "Children of Adam" section, though difficult to unfold is vertebral."Camden Tuesday evening May 30 — 1882 The whole hinge of the Chadwick letter — involving you and yours, with me & including the question of veracity — seems to me to be essentially What are the relations of Emerson to W.W.? As permanently left by the sum of the transactions and judgments of twenty five years — (Just the same as the Bible means is whole & final spirit, not one or two picked out verses or texts) — confirmed by a most deliberate and emphatic set of the last year of his E's life. — — Seems to me the mood of your reply to the Chadwick letter may well be different from the other (which the more I read it the more it unfolds — it is such a piece of literary work) — I see clearly that the question above is more involved than that of veracity you speak of — I send personal information — perhaps nothing but what you know already. I suppose you know that the Life of Emerson — (& a very good one I guess) — published nearly a year ago by Osgood — all with the sanction & revision of the family & of E. himself gives in full the letter of 1856 you quote — thus confirming & sanctioning it. — See said Life. Emerson had much more of a personal friendship for W.W. than has been generally known; making a determine visit to Brooklyn soon after the appearance of Leaves of Grass, twenty five years ago. Walking out to the little cottage in the suburbs, several miles from the ferry where Mr. W. then lived. From that time regularly for years. Afterwards whenever he came to New York heappointed a meeting, and they two generally dined together and spent some hours. When Mr. Whitman was in Boston in 1860 Emerson was his frequent & cordial visitor. As time elapsed, though officious persons intervened, and there was a lull of some years, I doubt if it could be said that Emerson's affections (and few know how deeply he could love!) ever went out more warmly to any one and remained more fixed under the circumstances than toward Walt Whitman. -:x-x-:- Mr. Chadwick evidently thinks that if the author of Leaves of Grass had any case to state, that walk on the Common in 1860 was his time. But it is well known to his intimate friends that Walt Whitman who has the most simplicity and good nature of any man alive, is also the haughtiest and the most disdainful and at those periods when expected to talk loudest and best, and when he probably could do so, is apt to remain perfectly silent. The main reason certainly was, curious as it may seem, that Emerson's objections on that famous walk did not at all touch Whitman's principle of treatment which was a moral one, or rather it involved the vertebrum of all morals. I have heard the author of Leaves of Grass say that what he sought to do in "Children of Adam" seemed all the more necessary after that conversation. Though Emerson's points were of the highest and keenest order, they sprang exclusively from conventional and what may be called the usual technical literary considerations. I know from what he has told me Whitman himself had long dwelt on these very points in his own mind - that he was anxious to hear the utmost that could be brought in their behalf. And now when he heard what the best critic of the age do broughtforward, and his inmost soul and brain remained altogether untouched, his final resolution was taken, and he has never changed from that hour. -:-x-x-:- Then to clinch the whole matter of the relations between these two men, I doubt whether there is anything more affecting or emphatic in Emersons whole career — a sort of last coruscation in the evening twilight of it - than his driving over to Frank Sanborn's in Concord Sept 1881 to deliberately pay those "respects" for which he had obligated himself twenty five years before. Nor was the unusual compliment of the hospitable but formal dinner made the next day for Walt Whitman by Mr. and Mrs. Emerson, without a marked significance. It was a beautiful autumn Sunday. And if that afternoon, with its occurrences there in his own mansion, surrounded by all his family, wife, son, daughters, son-in-law, nearest relatives, and two or three very near friends — some fourteen or fifteen in all — if that does not mean how Emerson, by this simple yet almost solemn rite, wished before he departed to reiterate and finally seal his verdict of 1856, then there is no significance in human life or its emotions or actions. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry. [*To William O'Connor.*]Wednesday noon June 28 1882 Yours rec'd yesterday — Publishers secured — (not in the front rank at all but young, experienced & I guess square & the proposition to take the book comes vehemently from them) — Rees Welsh & Co: 23 South 9th St: Phila: (dealers in 2d hand books & pub: of law-books & some others) — — Satisfactory to me as I see at present, & in prospect. they are to publish L. of G. same style as O's ed'n, same price, from my plates, & pay me 35 cts a copy royalty. — They are also to publish immediately, my prose writings, Specimen Days & Collect — a companion vol. to L. of G. Same price & abt same size, for which they pay me 22 cts royalty. They consider favorably the idea of publishing Dr. Bucke's book also — & I think will do so — though they have not pledged themselves — — — — By what I hear since I wrote last I think the enemy (in Boston) have formally appealed to the Post Master General to order L. of G. excluded from the mails under the Comstock statutes — I think the P.M.G. has it before him — perhaps has already decided — I keep well. W.W. The Boston Herald has articles strongly in my favor — Cambridge Chronicle also — Boston Globe also — — Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor.Philadelphia, July 6, 1882. My dear friend If entirely convenient I wish you would find out whether there has been any consideration of the question of sending Leaves of Grass through the mails, and the decision thereon, at the P.O. Department — & send me word at once — I am well as usual — Walt Whitman direct to me at Camden N.J. Transcribed from the typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935)/Camden Sunday noon July 9, 1882. Yours rec'd — yes indeed it is a cheering & very important victory — most important coming just as this nick of time, — vivfies Rees Welch much ( as I saw yesterday) & give an absolute cement to what perhaps was not so entirely set as I could have wished — though as I get along with them, & versed, I am well satisfied with R. W. & Co. and my prospect with them — Though Thursday & Friday last were pretty dark, big clouds, big enemies on the horizon, some bad letters sent them, & threats from the "Society," they did not flinch but went on getting out the new edition as fast as possible — — Now of course they feel entrenched & good heart — The printing is done at Sherman & Co's cor 7th & Cherry, the best printing office in Philadelphia. My L. of G. plates having been sent on there from Rand & Avery's, Boston - & I shall begin on "Specimen Days" there in about a week — — — I haven't emerged from the house to-day. (it is July heat, oppressive) — but I shouldn't wonder if the L. of G. officially ordered to pass unmolested through the mails was itemized generally over the land everywhere to-day, as the Telegraphic Associated Press charge here in Phila. told me yesterday afternoon he intended to send it generally — — — the Phila: Press here is very friendly — it has three short pieces in to-day, a first rate acc't of the P.O. Dept. decision & commending it editorially, Talcott Williams on the P. is an ardent friend — — William I wish you would get an authentic copy of the P.O. order & send me soon, if you can. When you see Col. Ingersoll say he doesn't know how deeply he has served me & ata time when it told best. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935.)Camden Sunday Eve'g — Oct. 29 '82 Thanks for kind letter the bit poem — like a real star-twinkle. I continue sick but move slowly toward recuperation. The liver begins to act. It has not been an engorgement or anything like it. The basic situation I take to be this — that just now the liver is the seat of, & concentrates, that markedly defective enervation which my paralysis of '73 to '7 &c. has left me for life. The doctor comes every day — (old school, but receptive & progressive — believes more in drugs & medicines than I do, but so far his diagnosis seems thorough, & his doses are justified by results.) — About that Heywood, Boston, arrest, mustn't there be some mistake? — The Chainey affair certainly settled the U.S. mail part — but the Mass: statutes on printed "indecency" are sweepingly stringent I believe. Do you know that Rand and Avery refused to print an edition of L. of G. for me, after the Osgood row? — afraid of indictment. — Where is Charley Eldridge's address? Walt Whitman Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935.)431 Stevens Street Camden New Jersey Nov. 12 '82 — Sunday a.m. It is the same publisher, only under a different name. The man who runs Rees Welsh's business, (the chief mate of the ship) and who first proposed & put through the bargain last June with me — David McKay — has formally bot out & assumed R.W's miscellaneous & publishing & second hand books business — & is now & henceforth the publisher of L. of G. and S.D. — drops into Rees Welsh's shoes — it is just as well — & is indeed to me no change — for really my doings have been with McK. all along from the beginning — S.D. sales rather sluggish — (1500 were printed, towards 400 remain on the shelves 23 Ninth St.) — I have rec'd a long letter from Ezra H. Heywood dated Princeton Mass: — Heywood has been arrested by Comstock — part at least of the cause appears to be sending printed slips by mail with "to a common prostitute" and "A woman waits for me" — supplements to Heywood's paper "the Word" — — (I believe I will just enclose His letter — slips & all) — My impression is that Comstock's chief object is to get (by snap judgment probably) a judicial decision on which he can base a show to go before the P.M. General. (as per the late decision of P.M.G. in such questions) — the hearing is to come off before U.S. Comissioner Hallett in Boston, Nov. 16 — — (As to the vehement action of the Free religious & lover folk, in their conventions, papers &c. in my favor — and even proceedings like those of Heywood — I see nothing better for myself or friends to do than quietly stand aside & let it go on) what do you think? As I write it is a cloudy moist warmish Sunday, 10-1/4 a.m.pleasant — quiet here — I am up in my 3d story, south-front room, writing this — — There is a long & supercilious notice of S.D. in N.Y. World, Oct. 30, — I wonder if written by Hurlburt himself? — am emanation of that New York next of little malignants, (Stoddard, little Winter, and half a dozen more) — The Boston Herald some weeks since (Oct. 15) had a lengthy and very warm notice — very judicious extracts ( Sylvester Baxter author) — the best I have seen from the books own standpoint (which of course is every thing) — Are you then going to make a brochure of the Tribune letters? Good, if so — Shall I furnish you with more detailed and verbatim data of the Osgood transaction & correspondence — or have you them sufficiently? — Where is Ashton? Is he there in W. & do you see him? If so tell him I have not forgotten him — & that I send him & Mrs. A. my love — — In a late note I asked you, if eligible, to send me Charley Eldridge's address — (Do you know what ducks & drakes are? Well S.D. is a rapid skimming over the pond-surface of my life, thoughts, expressions, that way — the real area altogether untouched, but the flat pebble making a few dips as it flies & flits along — enough at least to give some living touches and contact points) — I was quite willing to make an immensely negative book. I am holding my own in the recovery of my half state of health — am contemplating some changes of base, (residence, domicile — sometimes I have thought of coming to Washington, settling there, getting a lot & small house in fee simple) — Haveyou sent Dowden's letter to Dr. Bucke?—I got a letter from Dr. Channing asking me to lecture in the Tilton [sister's] sisters' course this winter in Boston—but I cannot lecture at present— besides I shall certainly not do anything to identify myself specially with free love. W W Write often as you can—the days are quite stagnant with me— (a spell at any rate) Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry.328 Mickle Street Camden New Jersey Thursday noon May 26 '86 Dear Friend Your letter came yesterday — also the liquorice powder — I have no doubt the powder will be good for me. I have already begun it — I am as well as usual with me — up, and at my window, as now — get out with the horse & wagon every afternoon but shall not today — nothing new in my affairs — get along quite comfortably — have some visitors — a canny Scotchman, a literary man, but a good jovial fellow, elderly with a humorous turn, & much reminiscence has been in this forenoon to see me — I like t have him. — It is a raw, dark, rainy day, — I wish I could have you here to eat a bite of dinner with me, & chat for the afternoon — Several of my friends have had your little cook, lent the by me — Scovel (with his lawyer's head) said to me after reading it, "there can be no doubt of it" — i e that B. is the true author — W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor. (1935). [*"B" is Bacon — referring to O'Connors on the Bacon — Sh. problem.*]Camden N J Feb: 21 '83 - p.m. Have just been looking over the "Transfer" pamphlet you sent — pages 46 '7, to which you call'd my attention are (I allow myself to think) a latent flattering unction to me & the ways I suggest of looking at questions in America. Indeed such things do me more good than you think for — I am just going over to Germantown to spend the night, to morrow & till Thursday noon in the big family, & big house, wife, son, two splendid daughters of a Quaker friend, whose carriage comes for me presently. The eldest daughter, age 20, an admirer of L. of G. who comes up even to you. Thanks for the MS: — (as I write, has not yet arrived but will be here soon no doubt) — you shall see the proof — all your wishes shall be followed. — — I am curious to see the Carlyle-Emerson letter — (had not heard before about my being in them) — You hit long ago on the reason why of the Emerson (apparent) change, or defection or cloud — whatever it is to be call'd — it was the interference, doubtless hard lying, of course, — there was & is a little know of my most malignant enemies. — deadly haters, — in & around Boston — some in high quarters — and they plied the man incessantly. Then above all that appears or he appears to say — — You may be sure that E. loved me — I believe more than he did any one — he showed it at first & stronger still at last. — that Saturday eve'g & Sunday afternoon he & I were (mostly silently) together in September, 1881, at Concord, told it — told better than ever can be put in words. You appear to have dropped ( have not sent) the last page —or pages — of the Stoddard — Lanman — Round Table finale — I enclose you the last page of Ms. a you sent it. Supply the missing concluding lines please & return immediately. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935.)431 Stevens Street Camden New Jersey March 14 '83 Dear friend Your telegram just rec'd. Your letter rec'd last Monday — I had however sent proofs of the entire Introductory Letter by Sunday night's mail hence in a parcel to Washington — & I have just sent a letter directed to (Acting) Chief Clerk L.S.S. asking him (if not already done) to forward the parcel to you at Providence — I last night forwarded proofs of good part of the G.G.P. to you at Providence direct — will forward the rest in a day or two. I send best love to Nelly. I send best sympathy and love to the dear sufferer Jeannie — Love too to Dr and Mrs. Channing, & their children — — Beautiful sunny day here — noon — the window open as I write - Dr B's book is half in type — Send the proofs back soon as convenient — (no immanent hurry) — — — "Yes, I like the letter very much — — — — I am well as usual. Walt Whitman Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden March 16 '83 Noon My dear friend Yours of the 14th and proofs of 1883 Letter rec'd — All y'r marks will be attended to — the Emerson passages put in as you desire — the text minutely adhered to — every correction carried out — with the single exception (if you will allow it, as I personally request you will) of restoring the italic non-quoted names of books, &c. The typographical plan was laid out by the Superintendent in the printing office & agreed to by the publisher & myself — I stipulated that your text should be adhered to without the slightest variation but gave in to the type & technique business, so as to have a certain system & uniformity which those names as printed come under — But it does not involve any material point & I know you will be entirely satisfied when you come to see the letter and the G.G.P. in the printed book — Also I request you to allow a few certain breaks in the G.G.P. — not at all affecting the text — but helping the typography & reader — I think most decidedly helping — — — The foot note (early part of G.G.P.) is printed I see exactly as in copy — If not the true note, send it on as you wish, & it shall appear verbatim - (we have no fear of scarifying Lowell) — If the exigencies of the printing office allow I will have a revise sent you — but it is not certain. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden March 25 p.m. 1883. Don't be impatient because the second proof dont come — One little thing or another delays — but you shall see the revise & have your say, before the pages are cast — I hope to send it to morrow evn'g — or next — — Every thing moves on, & I keep well — — You appear middling largely in letter, & mighty largely in spirit in the book — & I know you are going to like the typographical presentation too — W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935.)Camden March 29 1883. Yours just rec'd—The printers are very slow—but will be coming along in a day or two—have a sudden rush— the American reprint "Encyclopedia Brittanica." I send you by express a little package of books—the three Vols. of my own writing you keep—& give away, or do what you are a mind to with—The Elze book (have you run afoul of it before? I guess not)—I send to while away unoccupied hours— keep it as long as you stay in Providence—then return it to me here. W.W. Your 27th M. letter has pleased me well—as all your letters do—William let me know how the Heywood affair gets [geys] on, or turns out as you hear from it. —We—I and McKay—have been somewhat at a loss what to do in it—whether to send on some money ($20 or so)—or whether to remain entirely aloof & silent (& send no money)—I finally concluded on the latter—& I am quite clear that is the right course for me—mainly because it satisfies me best, upon the whole—— What you say about Mrs. Spofford's say lubricates my soul like precious ointment—— Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden, 1883, March 31, noon. My dear friend I send you the second proofs — look over carefully for technicals, misspelling of names & in the Italian text on Page 109 &c — but make no changes or alterations. If we were to begin the setting of the copy de novo you should certainly be obeyed in every detail & minutest particular — & I know I should like the result well enough. But I like wonderfully well the whole presentations Just ag they appear here — & I know you will too, either right off, or soon as you get accustomed to them. Besides the matter itself, after being faithfully given as to text & with typographic cleanliness & propriety, makes remaining points not worth dwelling on. Taken together the Introductory letter and the G.G.P. are so tremendous & vehement, so beautiful & orbic in themselves — so fitting for the body of the volume (almost its heart & lungs) — so honest & subtle, as well as stupendous, a eulogy and dissertation, o L. of G. & on certain primary & spinal literary laws — so assuring a pedestal for my future fame — & as here printed so satisfactory in their type, style, & paragraphing &c. as they stand that any change in those particulars would be worse than unnecessary — would be fatuous — — I keep well — — Write me often as you can — tell me all the news — your own movements as much as you can — — Did you get the parcel of books? Walt Whitman. Keep the proof two days after you get it if you wish. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).About Walt Whitman Dr. Bucke's Book. To the Editor of the Sun The following answer of mine to an article in the Nation of July 26 having been refused publication by that paper, it is sent to you, not in any controversial spirit, but because the facts I give are of current interest and should be kept well before the American public. Washington Sept: 1883. I suggest that you send it to the N.Y. Sun, for their Sunday edition — with the preceding note Dana I think is more or less friendly. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935.) Camden, April 14, 1883. My dear friend I wish you would apply to the Librarian of Congress's office for the Copyright at once — take it out of course in your own name — send the enclosed printed title page — & ask for a certificate — it is $1 — (50c for ent'g & 50 for cert.) Everything is going on well — but slowly with the book. It will be out last of the month. I shall send you an earliest copy or two. The publisher McKay told me to say to you that you can have at half price($1) whatever number of copies you want "for personal or literary use" — — Dr. Bucke is absent from London on official business — (though I believe it is about time for him to return) — At last accounts John Burroughs was home in Delaware County, recuperating in maple sugar woods — he was better — — Do you see in the Heywood trial, the Judge peremptorily ruled out the L. of G. slips part of the indictment — (which ruling out "was received with applause") — & H was afterward on the remaining part or parts acquitted. So A.C. retires with his tail intensely curved inwards. I am just starting for two or three days down in my Jersey woods retreat. W.W. The Doctor took a decided dislike to having the Latin motto on title page — so at his request I left it out — (I partly coincided with him.) Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden June 13 '83 Evn'g. My dear friend The corrections you specified have been or will be made, for future printing — ( I wish you would notify me of any others you see also) — The book is to be published simultaneously here and in London Eng. on the 15th June. Typographically, & in get up, binding &c. the experts all pronounce it a success — it is generally taken for an imported book, (if that is any compliment) — the wonder is not that there are a few errors & plate-breakages — but that there are so few — Your part looks & is even better than I anticipated from the proofs — more tremendous — the 1883 Letter is vitalest of all — it is like the Old French Revolution of '93 — long, long, its provocation & reason — why stands there, something, the only, — an immense prologue before it & an immense epilogue after, & it but a speck in the middle between — an exception — but enough, the mark, the inerasible warning for a thousand years — — — The printed notice enclosed is from a scholar & staunch friend — yankee — a literateur — W.S.K. — if you feel to so I wish you would write him a few words — he is worthy — say that I sent you the criticism — his address is Wm. Sloane Kennedy Cambridge Mass: I am well. Did you see the Critic June 9? I saw the Tribune notice. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor.Camden June 27 '83 Evn'g. As I was about mailing these to Dr. B. I thought I would send first to you — (tho' I dont really know why — for there is nothing to dwell on in the cuttings) — please forward them to Dr. Bucke. I continue quite well for me. The British publisher of the "W.W." is Wilson & McCormick, St. Vincent Street, Glasgow — they also issue (under their own imprint) L. of G. and Specimen Days — the new book somewhat sluggish yet — it will take to fall & winter before the news gets well around — but it is secured & effectual. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden July 20 '83 Dear friend Yours of 19th rec'd. Thanks for the corrections & if you notice any more errors mention them to me as I want to make out a full list preparatory to next printing — — I will speak to McKay abt the 25 copies & tell him I will go security — I dont know of any "office editor" to the N.A. Review — I think Allen Thorndike Rice the editor (& owner 30 Lafayette Place New York) keeps everything (in reading articles, judgment,) &c. in his own hands — seems to like controversial articles, attacks, &c — anything but dulness — yet I sh'd say is naturally conservative, respectable & English — he pays well, when suited — he always paid e well gave me lots of taffy besides — but balked at my Carlyle article (pp. 170 to 176 Specimen Days) & sent back the MSS. — A fuller acc't of that Russian mater is in he enclosed, wh: after reading, please send back to me. The American (same mail with this,) after reading please forward to Dr.Bucke. Thanks for the Boston Transcript (I have sent it to Dr. B.) If George Edgar M. keeps on this way he will soon be among the avowed & emphatic advocates of L. of G. The N. Y. Times article of some three weeks since I have not yet seen. I am well — have been down all this month at a secluded place I go in the Jersey woods — pleasant weather here now — — The stress, &c. ab't Dr. Bucke's book will begin next winter here & in England. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Oct. 7 '83. The worry of Ruskin with Leaves of Grass is that they are too personal, too emotional — launched from the fires of myself, my special passions, joys, yearnings, doubts, appetites &c. &c. :— which is really what the book is mainly for (as a type however for those passions, joys, workings &c in all the race, at least as shown under modern & especially American auspices) — Then I think he winces at what seems to him the Democratic brag of L. of G. I have heard from R. several times through English visitor friends of his — It is quite certain that he has intended writing to me at length & has doubtless made draughts of such writing — but defers & fears — & has no yet written. — R. like a true Englishman evidently believes in the high poetic art of (only) making abstract works, poems, of some fine plot or subject, stirring, beautiful, very noble, completed within their own centre & radius, & nothing to do with the poet's special personality, nor exhibiting the least trace of it — like Shakspere's great unsurpassable dramas. But I have dashed at the greater drama going on within myself & every human being — that is what I have been after — W.W. P.S. William, (as you seem to be destined to defend the banner) I say have once for all you have my permission to make and extracts, at any time, should you so like from any of my letters. Transcribed from the typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1835).328 Mickle Street Camden New Jersey September 29, '84. Dear friend Enclosed a little piece the whole idea of which I got from you — as you see. It is in the Critic of Sept. 27 — Dry and warm an often oppressive weather here — a long spell — My lameness seems permanent like — — I have promised to write a War Hospital Article for Century to supplement their forthcoming swell war narratives, by Grant & the rest — — William I wonder is you or Charles Eldridge couldn't help me to something there from the Medical Bureau — summaries, or statistics or any information — who do you know in the Surgeon Gen's office? Walt Whitman Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).328 Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey. June 11 '85—noon. The picture arrived this morning—it is a splendid piece of work & I feel sure a good likeness—at any rate it is that rare bird a perfect photo—& I am mighty glad to get it—it leans against the wall before me this moment with the Bacon—(I am [a] [little] ashamed to say never before acknowledged—but it is in my little sitting room & before [me] my eyes every day—more than half the time is taken for Shakspere) —I am about as well as usual in general health—full as well—but laid by with lameness, added to by a fall two months ago & turning my ankle in. I hear from Dr. Bucke and John Burroughs—both well— Doctor busy as a bee—both vehement in hospitable invitations to me which I should be most glad to accept—but I find it best not to stray too far from my own chair & bed—Mrs. Gilchrist has a strong article abt L. of G. &c printed in the "To-Day" cheap radical English magazine for June—I shall probably have some soon & will send you one—It is equal to the 1872 piece—How are you? Any prospect of decapitation?—How is Nelly? Give my best love & remembrances to her?—I am comfortable here in my shanty. I suppose you get the papers & pieces I send—So long dear friend W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Monday p.m. January 1886 All ab't the same with me—I took dinner with the Scovel family Sunday & a ride with my old nag & rig in the afternoon—so you see I have not utterly stopt moving—but I feel exceeding heavy & lethargic & stir only with great effort. —I send you Kennedy's note rec'd to-day. Have you seen his pamphlet—essay on poetry? — A dark persistently rainy warm day here. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of the letter to William O'Connor (1935).—The death of Mrs. Gilchrist has been a gloom to me, & has affected me ever since—I am not sure but she had the finest & perfectest nature I ever met—Glad to hear ab't the Channings—give them my love— I am scribbling in my little front room down stairs— the parrot has been squalling & the canary singing—I write hardly at all. W.W. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).328 Mickle Street, Camden. /86 Jan: 22 noon. Dear friend Yours of 21st rec'd this forenoon, with slip from Nation (herewith enclosed, returned)—I am glad you sent it me as I do not see the N. —The eye-works have resumed operations pretty nearly same as before—I see out of both now & a great blessing in my imprisoned condition—A friend has sent me Stedman's book & I have looked it over—it seems to me a dissertation & biographies on very grand themes & persons by an amiable "clerk with a pen behind his ear"—as Warren Hastings or Macaulay, or Canning or Sheridan or somebody said—("By God, sir, if I am to have a master, don't let it be a mere clerk with a pen behind his ear")— I heard from John Burroughs ten days since—he was well & every thing right—I hear from Dr. Bucke pretty often—he is not well himself—(though not down)—& there has been bad sickness in his family & the hospital staff—his last letter rec'd yesterday is dated at Sarnia, Canada.— —I am getting along comfortably—the weather has been bad as can be & the traveling ditto, for three weeks past, my old nag has nearly given out too, & I have not been out of the house—which tells on me—great torpor of the secretions— I am very clumsy & can hardly get up or down stairs— —The English "offering" (through Rossiter and Herbert Gilchrist) will am't to over $500—the principal part of which has been already sent me—& on which I am really living this winter—write oftener—My last half-annual return of royalties for both my books just rec'd—$20.71 cts.328 Mickle Street Camden, April 12 p.m. 1886. Dear friend Rec'd yours last week & was glad—as always to get letter from you—Dr. Bucke has been here—left this morning for N.Y.—Sails Wednesday next for England—to stay two months —was with me Friday Saturday & Sunday—we rode out every day— He is pretty well— —I am ab't the same as when I last wrote—am to read the "Death of Lincoln" lecture [thurs] Thurs: afternoon next in the Phila: Chestnut St. Opera House—the actors & journalists have tendered me a sort of benefit—Thomas Donaldson and Talcott Williams, are the instigators of it all—(I am receiving great & opportune kindnesses in my old days—& this is one of them) The printed slip on the other side I just cut of my Phila: Press of this morning—I am looking for your little book —Good weather here— Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the original manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor. (1935).328 Mickle Street Camden. 1888. March 9 p.m.—Y'r card came this mn'g & makes me gloomy all day—was hoping from Dr's and Horace's accts there would likely be a good long continuation of "let up" and easier time—& hope indeed when this comes, there will be again— —Matters here ab't "the same subject continued" as my former writing—I don' t see much of Dr. B.—he is engrossed with the meter business—& has many acquaintances & invitations —& much to do anyhow—expects to return to Canada early the coming week. Sunday noon March 10—A raw not clear day—Dr. B. and Horace call'd—nothing specially new—much sympathy for Wm. & prayers & hopes he is better, much—Dr. B. is probably to return home within a day or so—much depends on him there— —I am suffering among the rest with a bad obstinate lingering cold in the head—sitting here alone by the stove as I write— Best love— Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to Mrs. O'Connor (1935).328 Mickle Street Camden New Jersey Nov. 19 '86. Dear friend If you feel like it write me as soon as convenient after rec'ing this, as it is quite a while since I have heard from you, & I am getting anxious. Nothing very different with me—I go out by my own volition not at all, as my power of walking &c. is quite gone.—I only get from one room to another in the house, with effort & very slowly. I drive out fair mild days. Sleep tolerably —appetite good—digestion so-so. —I write (prose pieces) from time to time yet—have one ab't "Burns" in N.A. Review for November—(they pay quite well, & Redpath is very good to me)—Have a paper "My Book & I" in Lippincott's for Jan. next. Will send it you in printed slip. Shall probably get ready my little concluding book "November Boughs" this winter or next spring—I enclose Dr. Bucke's last, just rec'd—the Heine extract it is possible I rec'd from you, but think not—I found it very interesting. Best love as always. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Jan 14 '88 Evn'g. Was very glad to get y'r letter—(I return herewith the Nation criticism) I have rec'd another letter from Tennyson —Rec'd to-day a letter from John Burroughs. He is rather blue— the boy Julian is his great comfort—the "domestic skies" (as he terms it,) are not fair and happy—I hear from Kennedy— Rhys is there with him & they take to each other muchly—I am invited (by letter from Cortland Palmer rec'd to day) to go to R's lect: before the Century Club, N.Y. Feb. 7 & say a word at conclusion—But of course cannot go—I have rec'd a nice letter from Whittier, thanking me, &c. I hear from Dr. Bucks regularly & often—he is true as steel— —Has been very bleak & cold here, but better & sunny to day—I am quite unwell, but keep up & around & eat my meals in moderation—(an old fellow who comes here said to me as I was eating my supper "No extremes any way—but eternal vigilance in eating & drinking is the only thing for a sick man, or an old coon.") —I want to print a little 15 or 20 page annex to L. of G.—Also a sketch of Elias Hicks—but don't know when.— Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden p.m. April 18 '88. Dear W.O.'C. Your kind good copious letter came to-day & has been read & reread. Nothing new in the monotony of life — I have rec'd a good plaster bust of Elias Hicks, (size inclined to colossal) wh' I have put open in the corner of my room — & I think it does me good — perhaps needful almost to me — Elias at the latent base was sentimental — religious like an old Hebrew mystic — & though I may have something of that kind way in the rear, it is pretty far in the rear & I guess I am mainly sensitive to the wonderfulness & perhaps spirituality of things in their physical & concrete expressions — and have celebrated all that. — My writing for the Herald continues on — they have lately written to me to continue — the have paid me so far $165, wh' I call first rate, 25 for the Whittier bit, also enclosed — The little slip enclosed Lilt of Songs I sent first ( a week or ten days ago) to the Cosmopolitan N.Y. — asking $12 — it came back at once rejected — so I sent it to Herald — The Cosm. man stopt here last fall & urged me to send him something — but I think they now have new men — — Yes I think Stedman inclined to be friendly & receptive — (L. of G. though has to fight ag't a most infernal environment there in New York) Best love to you — Best love to Nelly — Walt Whitman The Herald April 18 (editorial page 5th col.) has some off hand remarks of mine on Matthew Arnold's death. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Thursday Even'g. April 12, '88. Dear W.O'C. Lots of inquiries & prayers good wishes abt you come to me (& I hear of) that you never hear of. I rec'd Nelly's two brief cards over two weeks ago — but hunger for more frequent & fuller information — Hear from Dr. B. & Kennedy often & from John B. at long intervals — His book has not yet begun the printing but is to be — is settled. — All my Herald bits will be included in November Boughs & I will send an early proof of all to you — — As I write I am sitting here in my big chair by the window (I have open'd it a few moments — it is near sunset — air a little tart) — I am quite immobile & don't get out except by being toted — a bunch of white lilies is in the window & my bird is singing like a house a fire — Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden April 25, 1888. towards noon. A pleasant day out & I am feeling better than for two weeks past—Drove down yesterday three or four miles to Gloucester, on the Delaware below here, to a fine old public house close to the river, where I had four hours & a good dinner of planked shad & champagne—had a good view of the picturesque sight of the [grest] great boat, 20 black men rowing rhythmically, paying out the [bir] big seine—making a circuit in the river, (here quite a bay)—enjoyed all & was driven back to Camden abt sundown,—so you see I get out & have fun yet—but it is a dwindling business.— —I enclose an old note from Kennedy.—Mrs. Louise C. Moulton was here day before yesterday—two English travelers a couple of hours later—Did I acknowledge & thank you for your good letter of a week ago?—Last even'g came a little eng: from one of J. F. Millet's pictures—a present from Felix Adler of N.Y. Best love & remembrances to you both. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Thursday Afternoon June 14 '88. Dear friend W. O'C. Got your good letter to-day. Here I am sitting up in the big chair—I got up ab't noon (& shall keep up an hour or two, & send you my actual sign manual to show proof)— Have been pretty ill, indeed might say pretty serious, two days likely a close call—but Dr. Bucke was here & took hold me without gloves—in short, Monday last (four days since) I turned the tide pronouncedly & kept the favorable turn Tuesday forenoon—havnt since kept the good favoring turn the last two days—but the indications are still favorable, good pulse the Dr. says last two days, for my getting sort abt as usual— —Dr. B. went back to Canada last Tuesday night; R.R. train—I am half thro' on my little "November Boughs"—& am sick stuck of it—proofs &c. Best love to you and to Nelly. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Saturday noon Aug: 4 '88. Your dear letter came this morning enclosing Dr. Channing's (herewith returned) Thank you & Dr. C. & dear Grace & Stedman & all —all the movements are certainly roseate toward me & I feel thankful & responsive—& all the confirmatory possible— —I am still kept in my room, hoping each day to get firmer & stronger & get out—but no such day comes yet—or even the indication of it—& to-day Saturday a fearful hot & oppressive baker & prostrater, the worst to my feelings, as I sit here, of any yet—there is no set back so far—but [o]if a long spell of hot unhealthy August weather sets in "the second time of that man will be worse than the first"— —The November Boughs (did I tell you?) is all done in copy—The printing office is now all diverged on a Harrison and Morton book, hurrying up—will take them a week—My Boughs will be at least two months before published—possibly longer— I remain in good spirits— —It seems to be growing hotter & melter. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of P[f]rof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this let[e]ter to William O'Connor (1935).Camden Nov: 9 '88 night. I have had a pretty good week so far—[em] am either throwing off (or easying) some of the worst bad subjections and grips—My big book (collection of all) is all printed & paid for & at the binders delaying for one or two little things— it is nothing more than you have seen—but I had a great desire for all to be combined, comprehended at one glance—and here it is—of course I shall send you a copy— —I am sitting yet in my sick room now in my usual big chair by the oak wood fire, & alone. I have plenty visitors enough & good ones—my appetite & sleep are fair—I have a new helper & nurse a clean strong kind hearted young Kanuck man Dr. Bucke sent me— —All indeed goes as well & comfortable as could be expected with me—And how with you?—I think of you every day— & most all my friends coming here ask ab't you— I rec'd the letter last week & thankful & ask for more —I cannot say I enthuse on H's election—but I accept it— all right for what it goes—Dr. B. is probably coming this way in a week—Best love to you & to Nelly. Walt Whitman. Transcribed from a typewritten copy in the possession of Prof. Bliss Perry who owns the manuscript of this letter to William O'Connor (1935).