Camden1
Oct 28 '87
Ab't the same as usual with me—Few or no visitors—have been reading
Pepys2 & Lewes's Goethe papers3—A letter from John Burroughs4 yesterday—he
inquires particularly for you—he is at West Park again—I have just
written to C W E[ldridge]5 & sent him a bundle of papers. My
canary is singing loud & fast, as I write—Cloudy half-dripping weather,
promising cold—clear skies I think before night—as I sit here by the
window—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is endorsed:
"Answ'd Nov 25/87." It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | Life Saving Service |
Washington D C. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Oct (?) 8 | 4 30 PM | 87;
Washington, Rec'd. | Oct | 28 | 10 PM | 1887 | 1. [back]
- 2. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) was
the author of the well-known diary of a decade of his life (1660–1669),
which remained unpublished until 1825; an expanded edition was published in
1875–1879. [back]
- 3. George Henry Lewes
(1817–1878) published his much-admired Life of
Goethe in 1864. [back]
- 4. The naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After
returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a decades-long
correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman.
However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged,
curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or
devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and
Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting
the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs,
see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Charles W. Eldridge (1837–1903) was one half
of the Boston-based abolitionist publishing firm Thayer and Eldridge, who issued
the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. In December 1862, on
his way to find his injured brother George in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Whitman
stopped in Washington and encountered Eldridge, who had become a clerk in the
office of the army paymaster, Major Lyman Hapgood. Eldridge helped Whitman gain employment in Hapgood's office.
For more on Whitman's relationship with
Thayer and Eldridge, see David Breckenridge Donlon, "Thayer, William Wilde (1829–1896) and Charles W. Eldridge
(1837–1903)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]