Whitelaw Reid to Walt Whitman, 18 November 1878

 rut.00012.002_large.jpg New York,1 Nov 18 1878 My Dear Whitman:

I am sorry that the pay for that Gathering the Corn article was overlooked.2 Thanks for your reminder of the 27th. I hasten to enclose it.

With best wishes, Very truly yours, Whitelaw Reid. Walt Whitman, Esq  rut.00012.001_large.jpg

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Notes

• 1. Whitman crossed out this letter and wrote a series of manuscript notes about Tennyson on the back of it. [back]
• 2. Whitelaw Reid (1837–1912) was the editor of the New York Tribune from 1872 to 1905 and also American ambassador to France (1889–1892) and England (1905–1912). He met Whitman in the hospitals during the Civil War. Of his relations with the poet, Reid later observed: "No one could fail then [during the War] to admire his zeal and devotion, and I am afraid that at first my regard was for his character rather than his poetry. It was not till long after 'The Leaves of Grass' period that his great verses on the death of Lincoln conquered me completely." See Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man, Poet and Friend (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915), 213, and Edwin Haviland Miller, "Walt Whitman's Correspondence with Whitelaw Reid, Editor of the New York Tribune," Studies in Bibliography 8 (1956): 242–249. [back]