Skip to main content

Walt Whitman to Peter Doyle, 20 June [1877]

 loc.01675.001_large.jpg Dear, dear boy Pete

I am stopping here now for a week or two in the house I believe I have mentioned to you before, & where I wanted you to come & see me—(& still want you, if you have a chance.) But I spend most of my time down at an old farm down in Jersey where I have a fine secluded wood & creek & springs, where I pass my time alone, & yet not lonesome at all (often think of you Pete & put my arm around you & hug you up close, & give you a good buss—often)—

—I am still keeping pretty well for me, have improved much indeed, quite fat, and all sun burnt brick red in the face, & hands as brown as nuts—am pretty lame & paralyzed yet, but walk or rather hobble sometimes half a mile, & have no more (or hardly ever) of those bad prostrated gone-in, faint spells I used to have most every day—so you see I am doing pretty well, my dear1—I still make my brother's house at Camden my headquarters, & keep my room there—address my letters to Camden always—But my sister is not well, has not been for some weeks, (is soon to lie confined)—Upon the whole, am getting along pretty well, & good spirits

 loc.01675.002_large.jpg

The new edition of my books I sell enough of to pay my way very nicely—so I get along all right in that respect—(I don't need much)—how are they getting along at the Navy Yard? I send them my love—(I havn't​ forgotten the pictures, but they are a long while a-coming)—When you see Mr Noyes2 tell him I should like to come on & pay him a visit this fall—& now good bye for this time, my own loving boy—

Your Old Walt

Notes

  • 1. The word "boy" has been penciled in as an addition here. [back]
  • 2. Crosby Stuart Noyes, the editor of the Washington Star. See the letter from Whitman to Peter Doyle of October 9, 1868. [back]
Back to top