Hiram Corson to Walt Whitman, 26 April 1886
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The Cornell University1
Ithaca, N.Y.
26 April, 1886.
My dear Sir:
I recd your favor of April 13th and the book, which I'm delighted to have.2 Pardon my delay in acknowledging, due to illness. I'm
delighted to learn that your lecture 
loc.01337.002_large.jpg and Reading, in the Academy of
Music, was so great a success.3 I hope you may repeat it
for many years to come. Americans are apt to forget their great men, unless their
work in this world, is kept before their minds, through annual presentations of it.
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It was a great disappointment to me, when I was last in Philada , that press of work and shortness of time, did not allow me to see you.
When I next visit the city, I shall certainly arrange to have a talk with you, on 
loc.01337.004_large.jpg certain points
upon which I have been long pondering—one especially, that of
language-shaping, and the tendency toward impassioned prose, which I feel will
be the poetic form of the future, and of which, I think, your "Leaves of Grass" is
the most marked prophecy.
Walt Whitman, Esq.
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see notes June 8 1888
from Prof: Corson
Correspondent:
Hiram Corson (1828–1911) was
a scholar of English literature from Philadelphia, where he taught at Girard
College. While his studies focused mainly on canonical British texts
(Shakespeare, Chaucer, etc.), Corson would also give public readings of
Whitman's verse.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman, Esq. | 328 Mickle Street | Camden, New Jersey. It is postmarked: ITHACA | 86 | APR 27 | 12_M | N.Y.; CAMDEN, [illegible] | APR | 28 | 8 AM | [illegible]. [back]
- 2. In his letter of April 13, 1886, the poet sent Corson—whom he addressed as "Prof. Carson"—John Burroughs's 1867 Notes on Walt Whitman. [back]
- 3. Whitman read his "Death of Abraham Lincoln" in Philadelphia on April 22, 1886. [back]