431 Stevens St. Camden,
N. Jersey. June 5.
Dear friend,
Your second letter, with sad news—following the sad, sad, inexpressibly sad news of
the first—has just reached me.
I will not write any of the usual condolences. Chancy's1 malady
& death seem to be of those events sometimes mocking with unaccountable sudden tragedies
& cross–purposes, all of us, & all our affairs.
I have again had some pretty bad spells, (gastric & brain)2—but am decidedly better as I write, & for a day or two past—Shall
come—Will write again soon—
Walt—
Notes
- 1. Burroughs' nephew, Chauncey B. Deyo,
visited Whitman in March 1874 and wrote to his uncle on March 29, 1874: "It
seemed hard to see the great man afflicted, bowed down, and I could not suppress
my tears, and cannot suppress them now. . . . His death would be a heavy, heavy
blow to me. Oh, Uncle John, I can't think of it without crying, as I do now"
(Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades
[Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931], 89). See also Whitman's June 10, 1874 letter to Ellen M. O'Connor. [back]
- 2. In some manuscript jottings, Walt Whitman
described a visit to Dr. Grier on June 2, 1874: "He reiterated his theory that
my sufferings, (later ones) come nearly altogether from gastric, stomachic,
intestinal, non-excretory, &c. causes, causing flatulence, a very great
distension of the colon, of passages, weight on valves, crowding & pressing
on organs (heart, lungs, &c) and the very great distress & pain I have
been under in breast & left side, & pit of stomach, & thence to my
head, the last month. Advised me by all means to begin the use of an injection
syringe, (Fountain No. 2. tepid water for clysters)—was favorable to my
using whiskey—advised assa[feti]da pills, 2 ? kneading the bowel[s] . . ."
(The Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and
Special Collections Library). [back]