Thank you for the kind postal card2—Does Wm3 care ab't having papers (Critic, Boston Trans: &c) sent—& is he mostly at the house in O street—or to be address'd at the office? I think every day about him, & am almost feverishly anxious to do something—Would like at the least to send papers & letters to while away the time—but fear being intrusive with them—
I am living here in a little wooden house of my own, with a kind Jersey woman (a sailor's widow Mrs: Davis4) for housekeeper & cook—am totally bodily disabled as to locomotion &c.—but good heart—& eating, digestion, sleep-power &c. fairly active—I am sitting here in a big arm chair by the open window as I write—hot weather here too for eight weeks—but I have stood it—
Walt WhitmanCorrespondent:
Ellen M. "Nelly" O'Connor was the
wife of William D. O'Connor (1832–1889), one of Whitman's staunchest
defenders. Whitman dined with the O'Connors frequently during his Washington
years, and he speaks often in his letters of their daughter Jean, by nickname
"Jenny" or "Jeannie." Though Whitman and William O'Connor would break in late
1872 over Reconstruction policies with regard to emancipated black citizens,
Ellen would remain friendly with Whitman. The correspondence between Whitman and
Ellen is almost as voluminous as the poet's correspondence with William. For
more on Whitman's relationship with the O'Connors, see also Dashae E. Lott, "William Douglas O'Connor,"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald
D. Kummings, ed., (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).