431 Stevens st.
cor West.
Camden
N. Jersey.
March 21
Dear John, & 'Sula,
This will show you that "the lamp still holds out to burn"—though I have had a bad two months past—I have had another paralytic stroke,2 but it passed over, without any thing serious, (it is probable
I have had several slight strokes)—but I am feeling, as I write, about the same as is now usual for me—still entertain expectations—
If practicable I shall bring out a Vol. the coming summer—I hope to pay you the visit yet—Did you get the paper
I sent with a report of Emerson's late lecture on Eloquence—of course interesting, from him, but nothing very stunning,
it seemed to me—I see that Conway is coming to America next autumn certain, to see things, travel, lecture, &c—3—
John, [I] send you the last letter from a quondam correspondent & unseen rebel friend of mine,
away down in Alabama4—He seems to me a good affectionate fellow, a sort of uncut gem—I have had five or six letters from him,
all primitive but good—What are you about?—& how are you & 'Sula getting along?
Walt Whitman
My brother & sister well—brother full of business—
Notes
- 1. That this letter was
written in 1875 is confirmed by the succeeding notes. In addition, as indicated
in Whitman's February 24, 1875 letter to William
J. Linton, Whitman had begun plans for a new edition of his works. [back]
- 2. Whitman suffered a paralytic
stroke on February 16, 1875. In Whitman's February 19, 1875, letter to Peter Doyle—one of Whitman's closest comrades
and companions—Whitman explained that the stroke affected the "right side" but
was "not severe." [back]
- 3. Moncure D. Conway arrived
in America in September 1875; in his September 14,
1875 letter to William J. Linton, Whitman mentioned that Conway had
"just arr'd here from England." [back]
- 4. At the time Whitman wrote
to Burroughs he had received, as he said, six letters from the colorful and
eccentric John Newton Johnson, a self-styled philosopher from rural Alabama.
There are about thirty letters from Johnson in the Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C., but unfortunately there are no replies extant, although
Whitman wrote frequently for a period of approximately fifteen years. When
Johnson wrote for the first time on September 13,
1874, he was forty-two, "gray as a rat," a former Rebel soldier with
an income between $300 and $400 annually, though before the war he had
been "a youthful 'patriarch.'" He informed Whitman that during the past summer
he had bought Leaves of Grass and after a momentary
suspicion that the bookseller should be "hung for
swindling," he discovered the mystery of Whitman's verse, and "I assure
you I was soon 'cavorting' round and asserting that the $3 book was worth
$50 if it could not be replaced. (Now Laugh)." He offered either to sell
Whitman's poetry and turn over to him all profits or to lend him money. In the
letter he enclosed a gold dollar: "So much grand poetry nearly kills me with the
pain of delight." Characteristically, he concluded his letter with an unexpected
question: "Walt! Are you Orthodox or Universalist? I am Materialist of late." On
October 7, 1874, after describing
Guntersville, Alabama, he commented: "Orthodoxy
flourishes with the usual lack of flowers or fruit." His amusingly detailed
description of his face on November 7, 1875,
Whitman marked in red crayon. Thus Johnson became a self-designated
philosophical jester to amuse Whitman. See also Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man, Poet and Friend (Boston: R. G.
Badger, 1915), 125–130. [back]