431 Stevens st.
cor West.
Camden,
N.
Jersey. U.S. America
Jan 27
76
My dear Rudolf Schmidt1
It is now some time since I have written to you, or heard any thing from you.2 I still remain here laid up unwell from my paralysis—but
keep much the same—no worse. I enclose you some slips—those relating to myself,
(which tell their own story) because I know you will be interested in any thing about me3—and the humorous pieces because I remember you are curious
about American dialect & fun literature.4
As I write, it is a dark, rainy, muddy day. I am to recite a piece tonight for the benefit
of the poor fund5—it will be printed in the paper, & I
will send it to you. I tell you this partly to show you I still take some part in affairs,
though I am badly shattered & old.
Remember your letters are always welcome to me.
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. Rudolf Schmidt, a Dane and
editor of For Idé og Virkelighed, is credited with
introducing Walt Whitman to Scandinavia by quoting translated passages from Leaves of Grass in an 1872 essay in his magazine. He
wrote to Walt Whitman on October 19, 1871:
"I intend to write
an article about yourself and your writings in the above named periodical which
is very much read in all the Scandinavian countries. ... I therefore take the
liberty to ask you, if you should not be willing to afford some new
communications of yourself and your poetry to this purpose" (The Library of
Congress). [back]
- 2. Walt Whitman had written on July 31, 1875. [back]
- 3. Undoubtedly the articles in the
Springfield Republican and the West
Jersey Press; see Whitman's January 26,
1876 letter to William Michael Rossetti. [back]
- 4. See Whitman's March
4, 1874 letter to Schmidt. [back]
- 5. On this occasion Walt Whitman read
Schiller's "The Diver" (Clifton Joseph Furness, Walt Whitman's
Workshop 1928, 205). The program for the "Musical—Literary
Entertainment, under the auspices of the Walt Whitman Debating Club of Camden,
N.J.," is in the Oscar Lion Collection, New York Public Library. [back]