Oct 21
Dear boy and Comrade2
You say it is a pleasure to you to get my letters—well, boy, it is a real pleasure
to me to write to you—I just write off-hand, whatever comes up, and,
as I said before, mostly about myself & my own doings. [There have been some]
tremendous fires—the one [in] Brooklyn—eight or ten first-class steam
engines3—Tell Harry on No 11,4 he would see quite a change in the
Fire Dep't.5 Pete, if you see Pittsburgh either tell him the following,
or let him have this letter, & then return it to you. Write how David Stevens6
is, & write how he is getting along.7
I have more than I can attend to here. I find myself surrounded by friends,
many old ones, some new ones, some young & attractive, & plenty of invitations
& amusements. I have received an invitation from a gentleman & wife, friends
of mine, at Providence, R. I.,8 and shall go there & spend a few days latter
part of October. How about the cold? I hope it is well. Dear Pete, with all my
kind friends here & invitations, &c., though I love them all, & gratefully
reciprocate their kindness, I finally turn to you, & think of you there.9
Well, I guess I have written enough for this time. Dear Pete, I will now bid you
good bye for the present. Take care of yourself, & God bless you, my loving comrade.
I will write again soon.
Notes
- 1.
This draft letter is
endorsed, "5th letter | Oct 2. | To Pittsburgh | To Harry Hurt."
"Pittsburgh" was an alias for Lewis Wraymond, with whom Walt Whitman
corresponded on October 2, 1868. For Hurt, see
Walt Whitman's October 2, 1868 letter to Henry
Hurt.
[back]
- 2. Since this draft consists
of scraps of paper pasted together, with vague directions to transpose passages,
the text as here given is of necessity conjectural. [back]
- 3. On October 2, 1868, the
New York Times reported that there had been five fires in
stables during the week. A fire on October 1, 1868, in the stables of Teunis G.
Bergen, a Brooklyn official and U.S. Representative acquainted with Walt
Whitman, had caused damage estimated at $1,000 (see Walt Whitman to "Tunis
G. Bergen," January 15, 1849, in Edwin Haviland Miller, ed., The Correspondence [New York: New York University Pres,
1961–1977], 1:37). [back]
- 4. On September 27, 1868, Doyle informed Walt Whitman
that Harry wanted information about the New York Fire Department. [back]
- 5. After this sentence
appeared two notes which Walt Whitman apparently planned to expand in the
letter: "Political meeting, at Cooper Institute—the great Hall, mostly
under ground—conductor—pistol incident in Brooklyn." [back]
- 6. A driver. In an entry
dated September 7, 1874, in an address book (Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of
Walt Whitman, The Library of Congress, Notebook #108), Whitman recorded a visit
from Stevens, who was at that time a driver in Philadelphia. [back]
- 7. The latter part of this
sentence originally read: "& remember me particular. He is a young
man…" [back]
- 8. Walt Whitman accepted
William Francis Channing's offer to visit Providence in Whitman's September 27, 1868 letter to Channing. [back]
- 9. What was evidently to be
the next sentence was stricken: "I wish we could be together on the last trip
this evening, & have an hour with each other afterward as usual." Walt
Whitman also excised the following: "Political excitement—banners
stretched across the streets, &c—processions—" [back]