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United States Internal
Revenue,
San Francisco,
October 8, 1889.1
Dear Walt,
Your postal card was duly received.—I got all your papers and very glad of them.
Especially the Boston Transcripts, Critics, Liberty &c—I am glad to see the
notices of William2 that appear occasionally, but they give a
very faint idea of the man to those who knew him best—If I had power of
literary expression I would try to write something—If you had your health and
strength I know you could give just the right touches which would preserve the
portrait of an uncommonly gifted mind—John Burroughs3
might do it but he lacks sympathy I think with certain fiery and vivid types of
which Wm. was a bright exemplar.—But perhaps it is just as well. "The silent
organ loudest chants the masters requiem"4—
I am going up and down this fair land and watching the vintage "from which streams of
brandy do flow. By which I only mean that they are gathering and pressing
loc.02029.002_large.jpggrapes in all the
vineyards—1000 acre vineyards not uncommon with five tons of grapes to the
acre—and from the new wine brandy is largely distilled, we are in the height
of brandy making season with which the internal revenue department is largely
concerned—
Saw your interview with Edwin Arnold5
and much touched by it.—The applause of other nations, if not your own, begins
to be heard in your declining years. May every comfort and blessing gather around
you as your steps grow slow brother beloved.—I hope to see you next year.
Yours affectionately
Charles W. Eldridge.
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Correspondent:
Charles W. Eldridge (1837–1903) was one half
of the Boston-based abolitionist publishing firm Thayer and Eldridge, who issued
the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. In December 1862, on
his way to find his injured brother George in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Whitman
stopped in Washington and encountered Eldridge, who had become a clerk in the
office of the army paymaster, Major Lyman Hapgood. Eldridge helped Whitman gain employment in Hapgood's office.
For more on Whitman's relationship with
Thayer and Eldridge, see David Breckenridge Donlon, "Thayer, William Wilde (1829–1896) and Charles W. Eldridge
(1837–1903)," 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 | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: San Francisco, Cal | Oct 8
| 11 AM | 89; Camden, NJ | Oct | 14 | 6[illegible] | 1889 | [illegible]. [back]
- 2. 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). [back]
- 3. 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]
- 4. Here Eldridge is quoting
"Dirge" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. [back]
- 5. Sir Edwin Arnold (1832–1904)
was a British poet and journalist best known for his long narrative poem, The Light of Asia (1879), which tells the life story and
philosophy of Gautama Buddha and was largely responsible for introducing
Buddhism to Western audiences. Arnold visited Whitman in Camden in 1889. For an
account of Arnold's visit, see Horace Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Friday, September 13, 1889 and Saturday, September 14, 1889: "My main objection to him, if objection
at all, would be, that he is too eulogistic—too flattering," Whitman
concluded. Arnold published his own version of the interview in Seas and Lands (1891), in which he averred that the two
read from Leaves of Grass, surrounded by Mrs. Davis,
knitting, a handsome young man (Ned Wilkins), and "a big setter." There are at
least two additional accounts of Arnold's visit with Whitman; "Arnold and
Whitman" was published anonymously in The Times
(Philadelphia, PA) on September 15, 1889, and a different article, also titled "Arnold and
Whitman" was published anonymously in The Daily Picayune
(New Orleans, LA) on September 26, 1889. [back]