Camden
April 29 a m
Feeling pretty fair to-day. Drove down yesterday four miles to "Billy
Thompson's,"1 on the Delaware river edge, to a nice
dinner, baked shad & champagne galore—jolly
company2—enjoy'd all with moderation3—No, the
Mr Smith, my liberal & faithful Quaker friend, is R Pearsall Smith4 (glass manufacturer & man of wealth) father of Mrs.
Costelloe,5 my staunchest living woman
friend—the Librarian Logan Smith,6 (now dead) was
his brother—Did you see the N. Y. Eve. Sun of 15th Ap[ril]?7
W W
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. William J. "Billy" Thompson
(1848–1911), known as "The Duke of Gloucester" and "The Statesman," was a
friend of Whitman's who operated a hotel, race track, and amusement park on the
beach overlooking the Delaware River at Gloucester, New Jersey. His shad and
champagne dinners for Whitman were something of a tradition. See William Sloane
Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman (London: Alexander
Gardner, 1896), 15–16. [back]
- 2. The diners included
Thomas B. Harned, James Matlack Scovel, Judge Hugg, and William Duckett
(Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of
Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Whitman
had also gone to Thompson's at Gloucester, N.J., on April 24, 1886 (See
Whitman's letter to Kennedy of April 27,
1886). [back]
- 3. A year prior, Whitman noted
in his Commonplace Book that he had a "planked shad & champagne dinner at
Billy Thompson's" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman,
1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]
- 4. Robert Pearsall Smith
(1827–1898) was a Quaker who became an evangelical minister associated
with the "Holiness movement." He was also a writer and businessman. Whitman
often stayed at his Philadelphia home, where the poet became friendly with the
Smith children—Mary, Logan, and Alys. For more information about Smith,
see Christina Davey, "Smith, Robert Pearsall (1827–1898)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom
Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." A scholar of Italian
Renaissance art and a daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith, she would in 1885 marry
B. F. C. "Frank" Costelloe. She had been in contact with many of Whitman's
English friends and would travel to Britain in 1885 to visit many of them,
including Anne Gilchrist shortly before her death. For more, see Christina
Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 6. Whitman has inadvertently
written "Logan" here instead of "Lloyd." Lloyd Smith was Robert Pearsall Smith's
brother and a librarian; Logan Smith was Robert's son. [back]
- 7. The paper included "The
Good Gray Poet Is White Now," an account of Whitman's lecture entitled "The
Death of Abraham Lincoln," delivered in New York City on Thursday, April 14,
1887. [back]