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Walter Lewin to Walt Whitman, 2 September 1887

 loc.03216.001_large.jpg Dear Walt Whitman,

It seems fitting that, as I have been writing about you, I should submit for your inspection what I have written, and therefore I send to you by this mail a copy of Murray's Magazine for the present month.1 Whether or not you will approve of what I say, I cannot tell; but of this I am sure that it is sincerely spoken and not in haste. I hardly know  loc.03216.002_large.jpg  loc.03216.003_large.jpg how many years it is since I began to prepare it. Some four or five years ago I read a portion of it to a society of "Literary & Scientific" persons (as they styled themselves) in Birkenhead, and succeeded in stimulating them to enquire for themselves about the brave poet of whom they had often heard but knew little. Again, last December, a more important society in Liverpool listened to what I had to say on the same subject. Part of what I told them is contained in the present article & part in a pamphlet which I will send you later on, as soon  loc.03216.004_large.jpg  loc.03216.005_large.jpg as I receive it. I may say that at this meeting I had the pleasure of hearing several warm admirers of yourself discuss my paper. Mr. E. R. Russell,2 the editor of the Liverpool Post and late M. P for Glasgow had some good & wise words to say. Perhaps in its printed form my article may stimulate others to enquire. If so I shall be well satisfied.

Hearty greetings to you, Walt Whitman! Walter Lewin.  loc.03216.006_large.jpg

Correspondent:
Little is known about Walter Lewin, a journalist from Bebington (near Liverpool). He apparently published frequently in The Academy.


Notes

  • 1. The enclosure is not extant. [back]
  • 2. Edward R. Russell (1834–1920) was a journalist who edited the Islington Daily Gazette and was in 1865 appointed editor of the Liverpool Daily Post, a position he held for fifty years. A Liberal and strong supporter of William Gladstone, Russell was a Member of Parliament (Glasgow) from 1885 to 1887. He wrote frequently about literature and the arts and was an active member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. [back]
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