Edmund Clarence Stedman to Walt Whitman, 8 June 1875
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New York City
June 8th, 1875
My dear Whitman:
During my wanderings in the tropics, with my nervous system feeling like a mixed-up mess of broken fiddle-strings, I've often thought of you—& wondered if all poets have got & pay such tribute to mortality. I am not given to autograph-collecting, but
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Linton has sent me a proof-copy of his admirable admirable engraving of your head-and-shoulders, & I would very much like to have some of your Ms. to place beside it. Haven't you got some scrap of paper, which you can spare, containing a few lines of your own work? And, if so, won't you give it me? I am one of those American writers who have always looked upon you as a noble, original, & characteristic poet; &
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perhaps, in your retirement, it may not seem ungracious or officious, for me to tell you so. When I was a boy I read extracts from your first book, in a "Putnam's Mag." review—the "little Captain" & the "crushed fireman". They greatly influenced me, & I have read all you have written since.
Swinburne, in his letters to me, always speaks carefully & understandingly of you.
I hope that you truly
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will be soon as healthy as your disposition always was & is, & wish that every part of myself was as healthy as either.
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Stedman
Ans. June 17, '75
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Chattanooga