John Swinton to Walt Whitman, 12 August 1882
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THE LARGEST MOUNTAIN HOTEL IN THE WORLD. HOTEL KAATERSKILL.
EDWARD A. GILLET, LESSEE. Kaaterskill (P.O.) N.Y. Aug 12 1882 My dear Walt—
Nine years ago, I delivered before a German Society of New York City a lecture on American literature, in which a great deal was said about you. Last winter, after the M.S. had lain all these years in a trunk, I spoke it twice again,—before the Philosophical Society of Brooklyn and that of Williamsburgh. But
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now comes the fun for you. Some months ago, I sent the lecture, by invitation, as an essay to the great literary magazine of Russia, the Sagranitschuy Viestuik of St. Petersburgh—There it was put into the Russian language and into the Olympian Magazine. Now I have the magazine, and you have a very heavy puff in the organ which is studied by all the powerful and intellectual classes of Russia—about a quarter or a fifth of the whole article. I guess this is your first introduction
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to Rooshia, to the Czar and his subjects—and I am sure it would be satisfactory to you—You will never read it in the beautiful Russian—for it is a dreadful language; but it is enough for you to know it partly.
I have been
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staying here for a week, and shall leave in two or three days: but back in the city about the end of the month.