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Thomas Dixon to Walt Whitman, 9 April 1870

About This Item

  • Title: Thomas Dixon to Walt Whitman, 9 April 1870
  • Date: April 9, 1870
  • Creator(s): Thomas Dixon
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01448
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Cite this page: Dixon, Thomas. "Thomas Dixon to Walt Whitman, 9 April 1870." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 03 March 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.01448.xml (TEI)
 loc.01448.001.jpg 15 Sunderland Street Sunderland April 9 1870 Dear Sir,

I have sent you a small Box of Books carriage Paid to your address in Washington. I expect it will leave Liverpool on Wednesday the 13th so I expect you will have it very soon after the arrival of this letter. I regret I could not send you some Indian Books I had in view when I wrote you some time ago. I mean the Bhagavad Gita—and the Vedas. the last is a work at present only published for the Scholars and Students it is in 8 large octavo volumes.— loc.01448.002.jpg and will not all be published this year. However the Collection is a representative one as you will find on looking over the list. I have few of them so relating to our modren Literature as you will observe they are by men whom I highly esteem though I do not endorse or hold by all they teach two of the Books are connected with my own thoughts and Studies. Time & Tide and the progress of the Working Classes from 1832 to 1868, compiled by two warm advocates of the working Classes. the memoir of Bewick is also a work I love and esteem and one that i think will be  loc.01448.003.jpg read by you with pleasure and also delight, as the utterances of a real noble honest soul, free from all pretensions of culture or Book-making, a truly representative Man, and lover of Nature, and natural Life. it is a Book I would fain see more known here and in America, it is so brimful of good sound sense. There is also a Portrait of Dante & Milton both photographed by admirers of your works, and reading Pamphelets by [illegible] other warm admirers of your Book, and lastly there is 2 remarkable Indian Pamphelets Jesus Christ Europe & Asia by Chunder Sen, an Hindoo—and one on Beneficent Government also written by an Hindoo Philosopher

 loc.01448.004.jpg

Also 4 numbers of the Cooperator containing L. Napoleon's remarkable work the Extinction of Pauperism to me a very remarkable production despite his none fullfilment of it now that he is in power and position—The last I will name is the Dabistan a very remarkable Book by a Persian on the Schools of Religion in the East a Book after your own heart I think one that will be dear to you indeed, or I am much mistaken in your love of Books, interspersed with fine stanzas of oriental Poetry, altogether in my opinion a real Book. and then the Sacconitala & Indian Drama—the Flowery Scrawl, a Chinese Novel. These few fragments I hope will help to lift the Veil of the East to thee.

Yours Truly T. Dixon  loc.01448.006.jpg

P.S. 
  In Emerson's new Book Society and Solitude, the Essay upon Books makes references to several oriental Books. I hope that notice of them will promote their publication by some Publisher or else some Society will be formed to do it. people who are lovers of the Writings of Emerson & Mazzini ought to take the matter in hand and do it effectually. then we would possess the necessary works for a proper study of Humanity in all ages and in all Countries.

P.S. Friends here would like a Portrait of your without your Hat.—a Card would do—

I got the 2 Newspapers you sent me all safe

 loc.01448.005.jpg

Small Box of Books as follows, per Suttons Parcel Dispatch. addressed W. Whitman, Attorney General's Office, Washington D. C. U. S. America.—

  • Dabistan 3 Vols Cloth—
  • Sacontala 1—cl 
     
  • Time & Tide 1——
  • Mazzini's Duties of Man—
  • Carlyle a Choice of Books.
  • Working Classes 1832. 1868.
  • Memoir of Thomas Bewick
  • Flowery Scrawl Chinese Novel
  • Words of a Believer. Lamenais
  • Christ Europe & Asia
  • Beneficent Government
  • Cooperator with Napoleon on Pauperism
  • Portraits of Dante & Milton
  • What is a Christian J. C. Street
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