The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Unidentified Correspondent to Walt Whitman, June 1888
Date: June 1888
Whitman Archive ID: bos.00011
Source: The Alice and Rollo G. Silver Collection in the Special Collections at Boston University. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Alex Ashland, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |  image 2 |
[Paris]1
Read the histories of Lourdes and La Salette,2 and, if you relish them the lives of St. Peter and Paul (Catholic) You might also read the Catholic life of Jesus Christ Pray Sts. Peter and Paul to cure you and have Votive Masses (P & P) prayers and Communions made on 29. June, 30 June, and 1 August. Buy pictures of them and hang them in your room; or, buy statues. P. & P. will be pleased at [your3?] intercession4
Correspondent:
As yet we have no information about
this correspondent.
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: Walt Whitman, | the American Poet, | 328. Mickle Street 328. | Camden, N.J. Etats Unis. It is postmarked: Paris | 6e [illegible] | J [illegible] | 88 | [illegible]; New York | [illegible]; [illegible] | Rec'd; 6 [illegible] | J [illegible] | 88 | R. De [illegible]; Paid | G | AL [illegible]. [back]
2. La Salette-Fallavaux is a village in southwestern France where, in 1846, two children saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary. There is now a Sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette, built in the mountains near where the apparition appeared, and also shrines dedicated to Our Lady of La Salette in Portugal, the United States, and Mexico. [back]
3. The letter continues at the top of the postal card. [back]
4. Regarding this postal card, Whitman said to Traubel: "I do not make light of such matters." See Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Saturday, June 23, 1888; see also Whitman's June 24, 1888, letter to Richard Maurice Bucke. [back]