431 Stevens st.
cor West.
Camden, N. Jersey, U. S. America. March 6
761
'Bram Stoker,2
My dear young man,
Your letters have been most welcome to me—welcome to me as Person, & then as
Author—I don't know which most—You did well to write to me so unconventionally,
so fresh, so manly, & so affectionately too. I too hope (though it is not probable) that
we shall one day personally meet each other. Meantime I send you my friendship & thanks.
Edward Dowden's3 letter containing among others your subscription for a
copy of my new edition, has just been rec'd. I shall send the books very soon by express in
a package to his address. I have just written to E. D.4
My physique is entirely shatter'd—doubtless permanently—from paralysis &
other ailments. But I am up & dress'd, & get out every day a little—live here
quite lonesome, but hearty, & good spirits.
Write to me again.
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. This letter's envelope bears the address,
"Abraham Stoker | 119 Lower Baggot street | Dublin, | Ireland." It is
postmarked:"Camden | Mar | 6 | N.J." [back]
- 2. Stoker (1847–1912) was the author of
Dracula, secretary to Sir Henry Irving, and editor of
Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906). As a
young man, on February 18, 1872, Stoker wrote a personal, eccentric letter to
Walt Whitman which he did not send until February 14,
1876. In the earlier letter he had written: "How sweet a thing it is
for a strong healthy man with a woman's eyes and a child's wishes to feel that
he can speak so to a man [Walt Whitman] who can be if he wishes, father, and
brother and wife to his soul." Stoker visited Walt Whitman in 1884 (Gay Wilson
Allen, The Solitary Singer (New York: Macmillan, 1955),
516). [back]
- 3. Edward Dowden (1843–1913), professor of
English literature at the University of Dublin, was one of the first to
critically appreciate Whitman's poetry, particularly abroad, and was primarily
responsible for Whitman's popularity among students in Dublin. In July 1871,
Dowden penned a glowing review of Whitman's work in the Westminster Review entitled "The Poetry of Democracy: Walt Whitman," in which Dowden described
Whitman as "a man unlike any of his predecessors. . . . Bard of America, and
Bard of democracy." In 1888, Whitman observed to Traubel: "Dowden is a book-man:
but he is also and more particularly a man-man: I guess that is where we
connect" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Sunday, June 10, 1888, 299). For more, see Philip W. Leon, "Dowden, Edward (1843–1913)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Whitman had written to Dowden on March 4, 1876. [back]