1929 north 22d st Phila 1
June 22
Am here having a good time—Carpenter2 returns to Europe in Saturday's steamer—the G[ilchrist]s all well—my folks in Camden all doing well3—Marvin comes here (to the G's) on 6th of July4—Shall come and visit you & S[ula]5 this summer—
W.W.
Notes
- 1. The envelope for this letter
bears the address: John Burroughs | Esopus-on-Hudson | Ulster County New York.
It is postmarked: Philadelphia | June | 22 | 3 PM. [back]
- 2. It was "with real
reluctance" that Edward Carpenter returned to England after coming under "the
added force of bodily presence" (Days with Walt Whitman,
[New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908], 32). [back]
- 3. Apparently Whitman, with
his customary optimism, considered that Louisa's health had improved. See the
letter from Whitman to Emma Dowe of July 12,
1877. [back]
- 4. Joseph B. Marvin, one of
Walt Whitman's Washington friends, visited Anne Gilchrist shortly after her
arrival in Philadelphia in September, 1876 (Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist, Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings [London: T.F.
Unwin, 1887], 228). Marvin had been co-editor of The
Radical in 1866-1867. Later he was employed in the Treasury Department
in Washington. On December 15, 1874, Marvin wrote
to Whitman: "I read and re-read your poems, and the 'Vistas,' and more and more
see that I had but a faint comprehension of them before. They surpass
everything. All other books seem to me weak and unworthy my attention. I read,
Sunday, to my wife, Longfellows verses on Summer, in the last Atlantic, and then
I read your poem on the Death of Lincoln. It was like listening to a weak-voiced
girl singing with piano accompanyment , and then to an oratorio by the whole Handel Society, with accompanyment by the Music Hall organ" (Library of Congress). Marvin's veneration of
Whitman is also transparent in an article in The Radical
Review, I (1877), 224-259. [back]
- 5. Ursula, Burroughs's
wife. [back]