Mr Whitman Dear Sir
I1 once more take my pen in hand to write a few lines to you And if I dont get an answer to this I shall never write again. I have never recd a line from you since I left Washington I am at present attending the Commercial College here in Detroit. It is a good institution if I can judge by the Book Keepers here in the City that have been through the course I have been here about five weeks now and think it will take about four or five weeks longer. I think I can keep Books in any business that may be brought on the carpet Now Mr Whitman if you could get me a situation as Book Keeper or Clerk in the Paymaster department or some other good place if you will I will pay you any price your a mind to ask. Detroit is a very pleaseant City They have two or three Theaters going now I was to one of them last evening they Played The Country Cousin Miss Laura Keenns Company from N.Y. City have been here for the last week last night was the last night I persume you have seen her lots of times No more until I receive a letter from you. Yours Truly
I have my Photograph when I receive yours I will send you Give my respects to Mrs. O'Connor.2 Jay
Notes
- 1. Justus F. Boyd was a
soldier in the 6th Michigan Cavalry. Whitman wrote the following entry on Boyd
in a notebook that he kept shortly after his appointment to the Christian
Commission, January 20, 1863 ("Walt Whitman Soldier's," Thomas Biggs Harned
Collection of Walt Whitman, The Library of Congress, Notebook #99, sheets
1098–1133): "Corp. Justus F. Boyd bed 22 co. D 6th Michigan cavalry been
in five months, four sick, affection of kidneys and pleurisy—wants some
paper and envelope and something to read gave him 12 sheets paper, & 12
envelopes & three of them franked by Sumner." [back]
- 2. For a time Whitman lived
with William D. and Ellen M. O'Connor, who, with Charles W. Eldridge and later
John Burroughs, were to be his close associates during the early Washington
years. William Douglas O'Connor (1832–1889) was the author of Harrington, an abolition novel published by Thayer &
Eldridge in 1860. He had been an assistant editor of the Saturday Evening Post before he went to Washington. O'Connor was an
intelligent man who deserved something better than the various governmental
clerical posts he was to hold until his death. The humdrum of clerkship,
however, was relieved by the presence of Whitman whom he was to love and
venerate—and defend with a single-minded fanaticism and an outpouring of
vituperation and eulogy that have seldom been equaled, most notably in his
pamphlet, "The Good Gray Poet." He was the first, and in many ways the most
important, of the adulators who divided people arbitrarily into two categories:
those who were for and those who were against Walt Whitman. The poet praised
O'Connor in the preface to a posthumous collection of his tales: "He was a born
sample here in the 19th century of the flower and symbol of olden time
first-class knighthood. Thrice blessed be his memory!" (Complete Prose Works [New York, D. Appleton, 1910] pp. 513). For more
on Whitman's relationship with the O'Connors see O'Connor, William Douglas [1832–1889]. [back]