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Washington. D.C.
May 9. 1867.1
My dear Walt:
I duly got your letter of May 5th2 and was very glad to
hear from you. I sent you a letter which came for you on Monday, and which I hope
you got, and herewith enclose another which Ramsdell3 left for
you.
I earnestly hope George4 will be better when this reaches
you.5 We all felt sobered to know that he was so badly. The turn in the weather
today, I think will be good for him.
I can well imagine how you must have felt to see him so, and how sad it must be for
loc.01820.002_large_mflm.jpg your
mother.
I enclose a letter I got from that child of a burnt father, Allen,6 which you can bring back with you when you come. It is truly Pecksniffian,7 and seems to have been written on all-fours. You will
see that it ends the matter of publishing the book, and he doesn't say a word about
John Burroughs'8 book,9 but of course
that is understood to be declined also. I have written him, saying that John will at
once put the book to press himself.
I had another letter from Raymond10 yesterday, very kind
loc.01820.003_large_mflm.jpg and
friendly. He evidently does not yet know of the Allen–Carleton decision.
Part of it is about my coming upon the Times—a sort of hankering treatment of the subject,
but no offer, which of course he couldn't well make, not knowing exactly how useful
or available my talent would be to him. He has not heard that I was in New York. I
shall write him—today, if I can.
I think, on the whole, it is probably altogether best that Carleton should have
nothing to do with "Leaves of Grass," though I would well enough like to have him publish
the "Notes."
—I write in a hurry, nearly loc.01820.004_large_mflm.jpg on mail time. Nelly11 charged me to send you her love. Your letter was very sweet. I
think a young girl finding herself beloved or admired by some one unsuspected
before, must feel as I did when I read how the household thought of me. But I didn't
lay myself out at all, as you say, and moreover, the evening I was there I had a
shocking headache.12
Give my loving remembrance to all, especially your mother. I
have not yet succeeded in telling you (you know we were interrupted each time we
began to talk of it,) how deeply she affected me. Her cheerfulness, her infinite
gentleness and tenderness, were like the deep loc.01820.005_large_mflm.jpg smile of the evening sky. As
I saw her that night, with the children on each side, and each leaning a head upon
her, I thought of the Madonna grown old.
Charley13 bade me send you his love. He has been in the most
extraordinary jolly humor all this week. It is as if the Cheeryble Brothers14 were rolled into one. The Times has done him the recent honor of copying at length, and devoting an
editorial to, besides, one of his late letters to the Standard, in which he comes the bloody Roman centurion on a batch loc.01820.006_large_mflm.jpg of
politicians, sparing not one.
H. Clapp15 will end by becoming a respectable citizen. When once a
man enters upon the downward path, &c. Like De Quincey's16 warning against the practice of murder, on the ground that it leads to procrastination and Sabbath
breaking, so one can see as the guilty result of Bohemianism, a place in the Common
Council or Board of Aldermen!
Good bye. I hope George is better today.
Your very faithful
W.D.O'C.
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Wm O'Connor
May, 1867.
see notes Jan 12 1889
Correspondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman, Esq | Box 218. | Brooklyn. N.Y. It is postmarked: Washington D.C.
| MAY | 9. [back]
- 2. See Whitman's letter to
O'Connor of May 5, 1867. [back]
- 3. Hiram J. Ramsdell
(1839–1887) was a clerk in Washington; in a hospital notebook (Henry E.
Huntington Library, San Marino, California), Whitman called him "chief clerk." Ramsdell was the
Washington correspondent for the New York Tribune and the
Cincinnati Commercial. On May 8,
1867, Ramsdell reported the high praise that George Townsend, the
journalist (1841–1914), accorded to Whitman—"a stupendous
genius," "the song of a God." On July 17, 1867, he
asked Whitman to do whatever he could for Judge Milton Kelly, of Idaho,
against whom charges had been brought by "a very bad man," Congressman Edward
Dexter Holbrook (1836–1870), a Democrat from the Idaho Territory.
Actually, on July 12, 1867, Whitman had submitted to the Attorney General a
"Report on the Charges submitted by Hon. E. D. Holbrook, Del[egate] from Idaho Terr[itory], against
Hon. Milton Kelly, Asso[ciate] Just[ice] Supreme Court of
Idaho" (National Archives). To this forty-one page summary of the evidence, all
in Whitman's hand, there is appended a letter signed by attorney general
Henry Stanbery (1803–1881) but inscribed by Whitman, dated July 20,
1867: "The Conclusion in the preceding Report is hereby adopted by me, &
ordered to stand as the decision of this Office in the Case, so far as now
presented." On July 22, 1867, Ramsdell apologized
for his "aggressiveness." Judge Kelly wrote to Whitman on June(?) 21, 1867
(National Archives), and again on August 9, 1867.
On November 15, 1875, Ramsdell, among others, petitioned Benjamin H. Bristow
(1832–1896), Secretary of the Treasury, that Whitman "be appointed to a
position in the Treasury Department" (National Archives & Records Administration, Washington, D.C.). [back]
- 4. George Washington Whitman (1829–1901) was the
sixth child of Louisa Van Velsor Whitman and ten years Walt Whitman's junior.
George enlisted in 1861 and remained on active duty until the end of the Civil
War. He was wounded in the First Battle of Fredericksburg (December 1862) and
was taken prisoner during the Battle of Poplar Grove (September 1864). As a
Civil War correspondent, Walt wrote warmly about George's service, such as in
"Our Brooklyn Boys in the War" (January 5,
1863); "A Brooklyn Soldier, and a Noble One"
(January 19, 1865); "Return of a Brooklyn Veteran"
(March 12, 1865); and "Our Veterans Mustering Out"
(August 5, 1865). After the war, George returned to Brooklyn and began building
houses on speculation, with partner Mr. Smith and later a mason named French.
George also took a position as inspector of pipes in Brooklyn and Camden. Walt
and George lived together for over a decade in Camden, but when Walt decided not
to move with George and his wife Louisa in 1884, a rift occurred that was
ultimately not mended before Walt's 1892 death. For more information on George
Washington Whitman, see Martin G. Murray, "Whitman, George Washington," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. On May 2, 1867, Louisa Van Velsor Whitman reported
that George Washington Whitman was not well, but was still able to go to work;
she did not indicate the gravity of his illness. She was upset by all the
turmoil involved in Thomas Jefferson "Jeff" Whitman's moving. Martha, Jeff's
wife, somewhat impulsively, sold all the furnishings "and spent the money as
fast as it came in for clothes to go in the country." Under the circumstances,
since the family desperately needed some one who could "take things coolly," it
is understandable that Walt Whitman decided to hurry to Brooklyn. [back]
- 6. Henry Stanley Allen
(1830–1904) was a publisher who partnered with New York publisher George
W. Carleton in 1867; the 1867 Directory listed them at the same business
address. In 1864 O'Connor had suggested Carleton as the publisher of Drum-Taps; see Trowbridge's February 12, 1864, letter to Walt Whitman. In 1865, O'Connor proposed
to George William Curtis (1824–1892), the editor of Harper's Weekly, that he write to Carleton about the publication of
The Good Gray Poet; see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906–1996), 1:86.
Since O'Connor was not successful in either attempt, it is surprising that he
once again sought to interest Carleton in publication schemes. See also the introduction
to Drum-Taps, ed. Frederick DeWolfe Miller (Gainesville, FL:
Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1959), 25. [back]
- 7. Seth Pecksniff is a villain
from Charles Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit whose name
became synonymous with hypocrisy. [back]
- 8. The naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After
returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a decades-long
correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman.
However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged,
curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or
devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and
Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting
the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs,
see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 9. John Burroughs's Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person
was first published in New York in 1867. The text was extensively revised and
rewritten by Whitman. [back]
- 10. Henry Jarvis Raymond
(1820–1869) established the New York Daily Times on
September 18, 1851. Raymond termed The Good Gray Poet
"the most brilliant monograph in our literature" (Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs, 35), and he published O'Connor's review of Leaves of Grass on December 2, 1866 (see Whitman's letter to
Louisa Van Velsor Whitman of December 4, 1866). Raymond later
asked O'Connor to write for the Times; see the letter
from Whitman to his mother of April 16,
1867. [back]
- 11. Ellen M. "Nelly" O'Connor (1830–1913) was the
wife of William D. O'Connor (1832–1889), one of Whitman's staunchest
defenders. Before marrying William, Ellen Tarr was active in the antislavery and
women's rights movements as a contributor to the Liberator and to a women's rights newspaper Una. Whitman dined with the O'Connors frequently during his Washington
years. Though Whitman and William O'Connor would temporarily break off their
friendship in late 1872 over Reconstruction policies with regard to emancipated
African Americans, Ellen would remain friendly with Whitman. The correspondence
between Whitman and Ellen is almost as voluminous as the poet's correspondence
with William. Three years after William O'Connor's death, Ellen married the
Providence businessman Albert Calder. For more on Whitman's relationship with the O'Connors, see Dashae
E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas [1832–1889]" and Lott's "O'Connor (Calder),
Ellen ('Nelly') M. Tarr (1830–1913)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 12. O'Connor is responding to a
comment made by Whitman in his last letter of May 5,
1867, in which he had described O'Connor's popularity within the
family: "They all talk of you here—as of the good person, the desired one,
exhilarating, whose presence gives sun, & whose talk nourishes—(I
think you must have laid yourself out that evening)." [back]
- 13. Charley Sorrell and his brother, Jim, were
drivers. [back]
- 14. The "Cheerbyle Brothers" are German identical twin brothers
and merchants with a zest for philanthropy. The brothers are characters in
Charles Dickens's novel Nicholas Nickleby (1839). [back]
- 15. Henry Clapp, Jr. (1814–1875)
was a journalist, editor and reformer. Whitman and Clapp most likely met in
Charles Pfaff's beer cellar, located in lower Manhattan. Clapp, who founded the
literary weekly the Saturday Press in 1858, was
instrumental in promoting Whitman's poetry and celebrity: over twenty items on
Whitman appeared in the Press before the periodical
folded (for the first time) in 1860. Of Clapp Whitman told Horace Traubel, "You
will have to know something about Henry Clapp if you want to know all about me."
For more about Whitman's thoughts on Clapp, see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in
Camden, Sunday, May 27, 1888. For more information on Clapp, see Christine
Stansell, "Clapp, Henry (1814–1875)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds., (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 16. Thomas De Quincey
(1785–1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best
known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
(1821). [back]