Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Letters
  3. Correspondence
  4. loc.02598

William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 20 January 1881

About This Item

  • Title: William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 20 January 1881
  • Date: January 20, 1881
  • Creator(s): William Sloane Kennedy
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.02598
  • 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.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kirsten Clawson Nima Najafi Kianfar Eder Jaramillo Nicole Gray Stefan Schöberlein Elizabeth Lorang Kenneth M. Price
  • Cite this page: Kennedy, William Sloane. "William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 20 January 1881." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 November 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.02598.xml (TEI)
 loc.02598.001_large.jpg from W S Kennedey, a college-bred man of 30, southern born but northern educated, an author & magazine writer 1107 Girard St. Philad.​ Jan​ 20 /81​ see notes June 24 1888 Dear Mr W.​

Thanks for the N. A.​ Review. I had already read two or three times yr​ admirable, cheerful & spirited paper, & wanted to buy it but did not feel able. I think (though I am not sure) that an article on it will appear in The American soon, by a couple of us. You will be safe in attributing the praise to me, though I "have somewhat against you" for rapping the dii minores among our poets, so hard over the coxcombs. Still it will do them good doubtless. They have treated you ungenerously & foppishly—always (most of them).

You have no idea how I welcome an utterance of yrs​ . I get so utterly sick of the idiocy and knavery of the mass that it is like a sea-breeze to feel & hear your voice.  loc.02598.002_large.jpgIt tickles my diaphragm to see you run yr​ huge subsoil prairie plough so deep down under the feet of the Lilliputians—knocking down their sham structures & leaving them either sprawling on the ground, or looking foolishly at one another because exposed in their small trickeries, & small literary bookeries.

I heartily congratulate you, dear friend, that at last you are having justice done you (in some degree) by the literary class of this country. My heart, at least, swells with gladness & pride on account of yr​ honors this winter. It is a red letter season in yr​ life—The honor not much; but then one likes to stand well at home too, as well as abroad;—one likes it a little better too.

 loc.02598.003_large.jpg

But I have never wondered that you were caviare to the general; because, although I see clearly that yr​ object in treating the passions as you do is a noble & pure one; yet I have thought that the world was not ready for such a move yet. And besides, I am inclined to think with Stedman, that (to such poor limited and petty creatures as we bipeds are) there is something intrinsically disagreeable in the various grosser functions of the body.

I hope we shall grow to be such giants sometime that this will not be so. But that it is the case now, I do not see how we can help admitting. I can't for my poor self at any rate. But never mind this, I congratulate you again on this success.

Yr​ friend cordially, W. S. Kennedy.  loc.02598.004_large.jpg  loc.02598.005_large.jpg  loc.02598.006_large.jpg
Back to top