The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: William H. Ballou to Walt Whitman, 18 June 1888
Date: June 18, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01089
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 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: Jeannette Schollaert, Ian Faith, Stefan Schöberlein, and Stephanie Blalock
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FRENCH•LICK•
SPRINGS
ORANGE COUNTY,
IND.
June 18
1888
My dear Mr. Whitman:—
I read with sorrow of your severe illness and beg to offer my sympathy. I have written to the President recommending a special pension for you and propose to demand it of Congress through the press. I am also preparing an article of reminiscences which will soon be published. With hopes for your complete recovery, love, and veneration, I am
Yours most sincerely
Wm Hosen Ballou
Correspondent:
William H. Ballou (1857–1937)
was a journalist and natural scientist who falsely reported in the Cleveland Leader and Herald in 1885 that Whitman was about to go to
England to visit Tennyson; he conducted two interviews with the poet in 1885 and
1886. See Ballou's interview with Whitman of June 28, 1885 for the Leader and Herald and
his interview with Whitman of June 12, 1886 for the Chicago Daily
Tribune.