Washington, D.C.
May 7, 1873.
My dear Edmund Yates,1
Pardon me for my forgetfulness about the pictures. I send you three, to make it up.
I have been putting off every thing—forgetting every thing—till I feel well again—for I am still in a pretty bad way—but shall come round again by-and-by,
with the blessing of God—And so, (as Mr. Philp's2 messenger is waiting) I shake hands across—& abruptly bid you good bye, for this time.
Walt Whitman
My address here is Solicitor's Office, Treasury, and shall always be happy to hear from you.
Notes
- 1. Edmund Yates
(1831–1894) was the drama critic of the London Daily
News, a novelist, and the author of several farces. On a lecture tour
of the United States in 1872 and 1873, he met Walt Whitman in Washington in
March 1873; see Yates' Fifty Years of London Life: Memoirs of
a Man of the World (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1885), 402, and
Doyle's comments on Yates's meetings with Walt Whitman, in The
Complete Writings of Walt Whitman (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1902), 8:13–14. In 1868 Yates had reviewed the London edition of Whitman's
poem in the Leader; Yates's review was quoted generously
in a review cited in Whitman's April 28–May 4,
1868 letter to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. [back]
- 2. Mr. Philp was one part of
Philp & Solomon booksellers in Washington, D.C. [back]