Camden1
Tuesday P M
Nothing very different with me—I am just going out for a drive—cool &
bright weather—hear from Dr Bucke2 frequently—he is
busy & well—always writes me cheerily & chipper—wh' I like, for
it is pretty monotonous here—have not heard from O'Connor3
for several weeks—suppose he is yet at Bar Harbor—& if "no news is
good news" he must be on the mend, wh' I deeply hope—
I return Symonds's4 letter herewith5—the whole matter—this letter & the
Fortnightly note—seems to me funny.
("Perhaps there may be bairns, kind sir / Perhaps there may be not")6
Yes, I like the little English Spec. Days, too7—you
keep y'r copy—I have a photo. for you soon too—One from Cox's (N Y)8 I call it the laughing philosopher—
W W
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is endorsed by
William Sloane Kennedy: "[Oct. 4, '87]." [back]
- 2. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. John Addington Symonds
(1840–1893), a prominent biographer, literary critic, and poet in
Victorian England, was author of the seven-volume history Renaissance in Italy, as well as Walt
Whitman—A Study (1893), and a translator of Michelangelo's
sonnets. But in the smaller circles of the emerging upper-class English
homosexual community, he was also well known as a writer of homoerotic poetry
and a pioneer in the study of homosexuality, or sexual inversion as it was then
known. See Andrew C. Higgins, "Symonds, John Addington [1840–1893]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Undoubtedly Symonds's
second letter of September 17 to William Sloane Kennedy (See also Whitman's September 7, 1887 letter to Kennedy). [back]
- 6. Whitman quotes these two
lines from a poem by Walter Scott entitled "The Bonny Hynd. Copied from the
Mouth of a Milkmaid in 1771." [back]
- 7. Specimen
Days in America was published in Great Britain by Walter Scott in
1887. [back]
- 8. George Collins "G. C." Cox
(1851–1903) was a well-known celebrity photographer who had taken
photographs of Whitman when the poet was in New York to give his lecture on Abraham Lincoln (his Lincoln lecture)
in April 1887. "The Laughing
Philosopher," one of the most famous photographs of Whitman, was taken
by Cox in 1887. [back]