Camden1
Sept 25 (noon)
I shouldn't advise trying the C[ritic].2 Let it go for the present. I have rec'd a cheery letter from C W E[ldridge]—says he has hung out his shingle
as lawyer—but two or three lines in it squint at going into publishing yet3—John Burroughs is at Ocean Grove N.J. temporarily
for sanitary purposes.4 A bright, sunny glorious day here
as I write—
W W
Notes
- 1. This letter is endorsed:
"Answ'd Dec 2/83." It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | Life Saving Service |
Washington D C. It is postmarked: Camden | Sep | 25 | 4 PM | N.J.; Washington,
Recd. | Sep | 26 | 5 AM | 1883 | 2. [back]
- 2. On September 18 O'Connor spoke of "a vague wandering
notion of sending it to The Critic," but "I felt rather
deterred by the remembrance of [Joseph L.] Gilder's unfriendly sport at me when
I was fighting that contemptible clergyman, Chadwick, and was so clearly in the
right" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden
[1906–1996], 9 vols., 4:395). [back]
- 3. Eldridge, who had lost
his governmental position because of "an uncircumcized dog," and was about to
establish a law practice in Boston, wrote to Whitman on September 22: "I am still in the prime of life, have health, some
means and many friends, and if under these circumstances I did not cheerfully
accept the situation I should be unworthy ever to have read Leaves of Grass,
with its philosophy of hope and the morning." O'Connor, as indicated in his
letter to Whitman of September 22, wanted Eldridge
to re-enter the publishing business, "so that we might start a magazine, and
make it pleasant for the bats and owls and literary carrion generally, but he
appears to have abandoned the idea" (Traubel, 4:191–192). [back]
- 4. On September 21 Burroughs invited Whitman to join him
at the seashore. [back]