Camden
March 291
I have run over the Carlyle proof & being in the mood have thought best to mark
(of course for your consideration—you may have something behind which I do not
see) out certain passages just as they summarily imprest
me—clearly though rapidly feeling as I went along that the article would be
bettered & more unitary without them. What you set out mainly to say & have
to say, seems to me very well said indeed, & I like the
article—What you have to offer as the Carlyle-foil, in defence
of America, I dont like so well—(besides it is unnecessary any how—Unless one has
got something outsmashing C himself—a battery-ram that batters his ram to the dust)—
Write when you can—Do you want me to send you papers or any thing?—always yours
W W
Notes
- 1. The year is established
by the following: on March 31, 1883, Whitman noted in his Commonplace Book
(Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.) that he had "read John Burroughs's
'Carlyle' proof"; on May 20 Burroughs referred to his article to which he was
"adding a page about Mrs. C. as revealed by her letters" (Syracuse University;
Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, April 7, 1889, 510); and the article, entitled "Carlyle,"
appeared in The Century Magazine in August, 1883. After
writing "Carlyle and Emerson" for The Critic, 2 (20 May
1882), 140–141, and an unsigned review of Froude's Thomas Carlyle in The Century Magazine, 24
(June 1882), 307–308, Burroughs began to gather material for a more
extended article, as he informed Whitman from London on June 16, 1882 (Traubel, Monday, August 20, 1888, 171). [back]