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328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey U S America1
Sept. 14 '86—
Yours rec'd—The anecdote ab't Sir E T at Washington is substantially
correct.2 (He knew who the lady was). You are all
wrong in your literary estimate of Dr. B3—but I am glad you refused the letters
for publication—They were strictly private4
Walt Whitman
Don't forget my circular specifying all
the English subscribers—love & thanks to W M R5
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Correspondent:
Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist
(1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter
and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro,
"Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This postal card is
addressed: Herbert H Gilchrist | 12 Well Road | Hampstead | London England. It
is postmarked: CAMDEN | SEP | 14 | 4 30 PM | 1886 | N.J. [back]
- 2. Sir Edward Thornton
(1817–1906) was the English envoy at Washington from 1867 to 1881.
According to the anecdote, Sir Edward, upon observing an intoxicated lady
surrounded by jeering people in the streets of Washington, descended from his
carriage and escorted her home (Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist, Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings [1887], 233). [back]
- 3. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. See the letter from
Whitman to Herbert Gilchrist of August 23,
1886. [back]
- 5. This postscript was added,
in red ink, at the top of the postal card. W M R is William Michael Rossetti,
the editor of the first British edition of Whitman's work and brother of the
poets Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. For more, see Sherwood Smith, "Rossetti, William Michael [1829–1915]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]