As I write (noon) I have not heard a word since from Wash'n but of course our dear friend2 is buried3 & all has gone like tracks on the shore by sea waves washed away passing—
—Much the same with me (gradually yielding)—One betterment—I get out in a wheel'd chair,4 often twice a day—am sitting here by the open window—perfect weather—
best love— Walt Whitman loc.01168.001_large.jpg 6 | 5/17/89Correspondent:
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).