Content:
This manuscript is a response to a letter of March 17, 1887 from Joseph B. Gilder, editor
of the
Critic
.
In the letter, Gilder asked Whitman if he agreed to publish a short note about the
letter that the poet had recently received from Alfred Tennyson. (Tennyson had responded to Whitman's "A Word About Tennyson," published in the
Critic
on January 1, 1887).
Whitman agreed to the publication of such a note, followed by his ideas on how to phrase it. The note, based closely on Whitman's suggested phrasing, was published first in the
Critic
on March 26, 1887 and then in
The Literary World
on April 8, 1887.
