Camden
May 11
My dear friend
I have come up from White Horse, & think of visiting you tomorrow Wednesday—towards the latter part of the afternoon. Will be then to supper. Have met Edward Carpenter of Brighton, England, & have taken the liberty of inviting up to your house to spend a couple of hours—to be there at 6—I am keeping up well in health for me.
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. Walt Whitman had been
with the Staffords from April 24 to 30, and Edward Carpenter was in Camden on
May 1 (The Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). This was Whitman's first meeting with his fervid English
admirer (see the letter from Whitman to Edward Carpenter of April 23, 1876). On March
1, 1877, Carpenter wrote to Whitman about his intended visit: "I think
there are reasons why we should meet. . . . What must be
done—and what you have largely (for a foundation entirely) done—is to form a new organic centre for the thought
growth of this age. All seemed clear to me at times, so simple, so luminously
clear—I have no more doubt or trouble for myself—but then to express it: that is an endless business—a thing
never finished." In Days with Walt Whitman, Carpenter
erred in dating his visit May 2 ([New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908],
3–4). A few days later he followed Whitman to Kirkwood, where he was
charmed by the poet's naturalness among the earthy Staffords. [back]