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Walt Whitman to William Michael Rossetti, 19 October 1875

My dear Mr. Rossetti,

Let me by this introduce to you an old and valued friend of mine, J. B. Marvin, who is making a short visit to London on business.2

Mr. Marvin is a New Englander, literary, democratic, has a family, and has a position in the Treasury at Washington.

I still continue here, laid up, but working a very little. Best wishes, congratulations etc. on the marriage. Kindest respects to Mrs. Rossetti. I have lately received a good kind letter from Tennyson.3

Write soon and freely. I am pretty lonesome here.

Walt Whitman

Notes

  • 1.

    Transcript.

    William Michael Rossetti noted receipt of this letter on December 23, 1875.

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  • 2. In a letter dated November 16–30, 1875, Anne Gilchrist referred to a pleasant visit with Marvin, who had gone to England with a "Treas[ury] squad" on official business (see Whitman's December 17, 1875 letter to John Burroughs). On December 23, 1875, Rossetti described to Whitman a dinner he gave for Marvin, which was attended by the following "good Whitmanites": Anne Gilchrist; Joseph Knight, editor of the London Sunday Times; Justin McCarthy, a novelist and writer for the London Daily News; Edmund Gosse; and Rossetti's father-in-law, Ford Madox Brown. [back]
  • 3. Alfred, Lord Tennyson had written to Whitman on August 11, 1875. [back]
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