I send you an authentic copy, so that if you care to you can print in Friday morning's paper (as I deliver it on the evening previous)1—
W. W.
Notes
- 1. This note is written at
the top of a proof sheet entitled "Walt Whitman Last Night,"
which Whitman had obviously placed in type before he gave his lecture. Although
the letters are not extant, probably the poet sent similar notes to the editors
of the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Commercial, and to the Philadelphia Press.
There is the possibility that Whitman prepared this copy but did not send it. At
the bottom of the sheet Whitman appended a note: "to
printer dont mind the different type." [back]