The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Document
Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 15 March [1872]
Date: March 15, 1872
Source: The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman,The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 2:168–169. For a detailed description of discrepancies between this electronic edition and the print source, see our statement of editorial policy.
Location: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00301
107 north Portland av.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
March 15.1
We have had cold & spiteful weather all the time of my visit here—over a month—& I have not had my usual outdoor enjoyment, loafing about &c—have been indoors most of the time—I also caught cold just on coming here, & it has bothered ever since.
How are you, dear friend? & how is 'SulaBurroughs' wife Ursula.—dear friend, too—Write me a few lines, John—let me know how ChaunceyChauncey B. Deyo, Burroughs' nephew, was substituting for Whitman while he was in Brooklyn; see Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1931), 88. Whitman wrote of Deyo's "sudden insanity & death" in his June 5, [1874] letter to Burroughs and in his June 10, [1874] letter to Ellen M. O'Connor. is getting along—if he finds any difficulty—but I guess not—I guess he is getting along well—Is there any thing new among my friends there in Wash'n?
I have got out my new edition, from same plates as the last, only all bound in One Vol.—neatly done in green cloth, vellum—looks the best & most ship-shape of any edition yet—have not added any of my later pieces in this—leaving them to some future issue—
Rec'd a letter from Mrs. Gilchrist in England—she has been reading "Wake Robin" & takes to it greatly2—says Rossetti dined at her house not long since—(You know she is the authoress of the "Woman's Estimate," in the Radical)—
John, I think it likely I shall return about the 1st of April—Mother has had a bad spell for three days, but is about as usual again, yesterday & to-day—direct to me here—
Love to all,
Walt.
Notes:
1. This letter, as the contents confirm, was written at the same time as Whitman's March 15, 1872 letter to Peter Doyle. Evidently one of the executors inserted "'71" after the date on the manuscript.
This letter's envelope bears the address, "John Burroughs, | Office Comptroller | of the Currency, | Washington, | D.C." It is postmarked, "New York | Mar | 15 | (?)30 PM." [back]
2. Gilchrist referred to reading Burroughs' Wake-Robin (1871) in a letter to Burroughs on October 19, 1875 (Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1931], 115). It is surprising that not until this late date did Whitman inform his friend of Gilchrist's authorship of the article in The Radical. [back]