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Walt Whitman to George and Susan Stafford, 20 June [1880]

 loc_gt.00023_large.jpg Dear friends all

I have come on some 200 miles further north & west (from Niagara) and am now very pleasantly quartered in Sarnia, Canada West, at the house of Mr and Mrs Pardee. (Mr P is one of the Queen's big officers here, & a tip-top fellow) I am writing this on Lake Huron. The weather is fine, & the country looks first rate. Susan I take every thing very easy, & so far I have felt unusually well & comfortable in health. George you would be interested in the way they farm here, it is a noble farming country but very different from Jersey new, plenty of good wood, hard soil, rather wet.—wheat, grass, barley &c mainly—not much corn & hardly any rye—good for potatoes—all later loc_gt.00024_large.jpg—I enclose you a letter I have written for the papers1—George, Harry & Mont, it will give you some idea of my goings about here—Susan I know you will be interested in it—(I shall send it you in a paper here, in about five days, & then I want you to give it to Debby)—Harry, how are you getting along?—Edward Carpenter's address is 45 Brunswick Square, Brighton England—The waters here Lake Huron & St Clair river are as fine as I ever saw, & alive with steamers & sail craft—Every body is kind & hospitable wherever I go—to morrow forenoon I am to visit a Chippewa Indian village out a ways—& in the evening a moonlight steamboat excursion up Lake Huron, they have prepared for us. I often think of you all. If any of you write, direct to me London, Ontario, Canada & I will get it. (3 cent stamp only required) Harry you write, dear boy—I go back to London Thursday—

Walt Whitman

Notes

  • 1. The letter "for the papers" was "Summer Days in Canada," which Whitman sent to many newspapers for publication on June 22. See the letter from Whitman to Whitelaw Reid of June 17, 1880. [back]
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