The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: John Burroughs to Walt Whitman, 2 June 1873
Date: June 2, 1873
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01122
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: Kenneth M. Price, Elizabeth Lorang, Alex Kinnaman, Beverley Rilett, and Kevin McMullen
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Middletown N.Y.
June 2d 73
Dear Walt,
I got the Camden paper this morning containing the notice of your mothers death. I had heard through Eldridge a few days ago that all was over with her. I suppose it was not unexpected to you yet for all that the blow must have been a heavy one to all her children and doubly so to yourself. I should like to hear from you the particulars of her last days. I wish I might have seen her again. If you are able to write do drop me a line & tell me about yourself & what your plans are for the summer. I hope you do not think of returning to W. before fall. I go to N. Y. to-morrow for a few days. While there a letter addressed to me care of George Bliss Jr. W. S. Atty, 41 Chambers St. will reach me. If you can come North & spend some time with me I should be delighted. I am going out on L. I. to look at a place for sale, Yaphank on Carmans River. Do you know the country out there?
My nephew, Chancy B. is with me for a few days but leaves to-morrow; so does Sulic for Kingston. They both speak affectionately of you & are much concerned on your account.
The lilacs are in their prime here, but the season is getting dry.
With much love.
Ever Yours
John Burroughs
Correspondent:
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).