Blake Bigelow to Walt Whitman, 20 March 1892

 loc.01108.003_large.jpg FRANK BIGELOW.1 BLAKE BIGELOW, M.D. Bigelow & Bigelow, LAWYERS. Malone, N.Y.,March 20th 1892. My dear Friend:—

I dare to call you my friend because I have read your poetry. So many, many times I have wanted, during the past years, to write to you, and was afraid to do so. Because there was no reason for my letter unless I told you what was in my heart to tell, and people generally would call that flattery, or at the least, extravagance. But your recent sickness determined me to write at the hazzard of being misunderstood, but trusting that you will allow me to throw aside all conventionality and speak the truth heart to heart. That is how I have felt while reading some of your poems—as though I knew your very heart's care. I believe you are the greatest poet of this age,—at any rate, you interpret your thought to me as such.

How I would prize a word from you, but I am too small relatively to expect you to mind writing me, and yet your fame must rest with such as I, who commit your  loc.01108.004_large.jpg verses to memory, and praise them and you to others, and defend your genius before all disputants. I used to think I would be a poet and think if my life had been less crowded out of shape, I might have written something worthy reading. I will send you herewith a musical attempt of my own, written last year, when I was Surgeon for the Nicaragua Canal Construction Company. I graduated at two medical colleges—practised 9 years—am now President of the "Franklin Co Medical Society," and last month was admitted to the bar, and at thirty years of age, I am just starting in my choice of professions and intend to realize intense ambitions, so that after you are dead, you will not be ashamed to have me champion you as your friend.

My brother and I often recite your verses and love their beauty and patriotism. In your poems I have been thrilled with thoughts I had known but never had read before. 'No, not even in Shakespeare do I find many thoughts you alone express.' Is not part of the charm of a great poet, in finding a thought that we have thought, and would be afraid to tell to ordinary mortals? The endless procession of the human race with occurences and re-occurences all along the centuries—the multiplication of human events—of individual deeds and lives and deaths—all these that  loc.01108.005_large.jpg would require pages and hours to express with adequacy—you have pictured so well. I cannot describe to you how great the pleasure has been to me in the perusal of what you have written.

You have written for us, more of what was before unwritten, than any other of this age.

I want you to know that I cannot help loving you for your work, and the work too.

Do not think I have written this to gain an answer from you (although nothing in this world could please me so much) for I have not—my true thought was, that if you could spare time to read it, it might please you just a little (if you could think our opinions of value enough for that) and if so you are permitted to throw is​ aside from your memory, without forfieting​ , in any respect, our esteem and love,—that is as I expect—My only regret that my name cannot, of itself, carry weight to give you pleasure; all I can hope is that you will not call me presumptious and take umbrage if you deem this somewhat bizarre.

I have learned some philosophy from your poems, but still we poor  loc.01108.006_large.jpg foolish humans cannot break the environments of nature and attain animal complacency and content—it will be a long time yet that we must "Fret and whine about our condition" and "Be awake in the dark and weep for our sins,"2 but we are growing towards it. I read your postal and saw your picture in the "Review of Reviews" for February.3

I trust that your life will lengthen many years and your pen give us more of what you have been thinking.

Down in Nicaragua, a lot of us Americans read your poetry (from a book I had and some liked it enough to steal it) and they all praised you highly, and loved the poems. There is not the difference of opinion as to your merits now that I found fifteen years ago—I had often to fight for you then, but all willingly agree nowadays, and call you great and good. With the kindest wishes for your long life and happiness and with love that necessitates no reward or return, but cares only for your peace and prosperity, I am, my dear friend,

Yours truly and sincerely, Blake Bigelow To Walt Whitman, New Jersey,  loc.01108.001_large.jpg  loc.01108.002_large.jpg 136.40 1007 42 1193 82

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Notes

• 1. This letter is addressed: Mr. Walt Whitman, | Camden | N. Jersey. It is postmarked: [illegible] | Mar | 21 | | 430PM | [illegible] | N. Y.; N. Y. | 3-22-92 | 930AM; Camden, N.J. | MAR22 | 4PM | 92 | Rec'd. The envelope is printed with the following return address: "CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR." | NEW YORK STATE CONFERENCE | FRANK BIGELOW, | DISTRICT SECRETARY | MALONE, N. Y. This letter arrived four days before Whitman's death on March 26, 1892. [back]
• 2. Bigelow is referring to Whitman's "Song of Myself." [back]
• 3. The February 1891 issue of The Review of Reviews included an illustration, drawn from a photograph of the poet by Napoleon Sarony taken in July 1878, and a facsimile of a manuscript postal card written and signed by Whitman. See The Review of Reviews: An International Magazine. American Edition 5 (1891), 11. [back]