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Walt Whitman to Sylvester Baxter, 13 August 1891

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Let me send my little word too to J R Lowell's2 memory.3 His was the true American's and Humanity's heart in the light of his own convictions; and he wrought it out faithfully. His written pages preserve a certain altitude everywhere. As Emerson4 says, we are at any rate all beholden to kings and eminencies for their grand standard of atmosphere & manners, or suggestion of them.

Walt Whitman

Private—dear SB. since you was here I tho't I w'd like to contribute a word am'g the rest.—& you are at liberty to bring it in any way seems best for you

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Correspondent:
Sylvester Baxter (1850–1927) was on the staff of the Boston Herald. Apparently he met Whitman for the first time when the poet delivered his Lincoln address in Boston in April, 1881; see Rufus A. Coleman, "Whitman and Trowbridge," PMLA 63 (1948), 268. Baxter wrote many newspaper columns in praise of Whitman's writings, and in 1886 attempted to obtain a pension for the poet. For more, see Christopher O. Griffin, "Baxter, Sylvester [1850–1927]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).


Notes

  • 1. This letter is addressed: Sylvester Baxter | office Herald newspaper | Boston Mass. It is postmarked: Cam(?) | Au(?) | 8(?) | 9(?). Whitman wrote this letter on stationery printed with the following notice from the Boston Evening Transcript: "From the Boston Eve'g Transcript, May 7, '91.—The Epictetus saying, as given by Walt Whitman in his own quite utterly dilapidated physical case is, a 'little spark of soul dragging a great lummux of corpse-body clumsily to and fro around.'" [back]
  • 2. James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) was an American critic, poet and editor of The Atlantic. One of Whitman's famous poetic contemporaries, Lowell was committed to conventional poetic form, which was clearly at odds with Whitman's more experimental form. Still, as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, he published Whitman's "Bardic Symbols," probably at Ralph Waldo Emerson's suggestion. Lowell later wrote a tribute to Abraham Lincoln titled "Commemoration Ode," which has often, since its publication, been contrasted with Whitman's own tribute, "O Captain! My Captain!" For further information on Whitman's views of Lowell, see William A. Pannapacker, "Lowell, James Russell (1819–1891)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998) [back]
  • 3. Lowell died on the preceding day. In 1889, Whitman had refused to contribute to a Lowell number of The Critic, a literary magazine co-edited by Joseph Benson Gilder (1858–1936) and his sister, Jeannette Leonard Gilder (1849–1916). See also Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, February 27, 1889. [back]
  • 4. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American poet and essayist who began the Transcendentalist movement with his 1836 essay Nature. For more on Emerson, see Jerome Loving, "Emerson, Ralph Waldo [1809–1882]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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