How quickly the year comes round!—and I haven't sent a word to you I believe since last May. It is too bad. I got the newspaper however with account of your lecture—and I hear there is a poem of yours reprinted in the Review of Reviews which I haven't seen yet. Bucke2 writes occasionally & gives me news of you.
loc.01244.004_large.jpgThe two Ford sisters3 and Wm Thompson4 & R. D. Roberts & myself saw our usual little remembrance, dear Walt—enclosed first of exchange for $203[.]65 on the Tradesmens' National Bank, Phila—(£42)—with much love & good wishes to you, always the same. Roberts has lately married and sends "warmest & good wishes & greetings from us both."5
The eldest Miss Ford (Bessie) has been very ill for some months (internal loc.01244.005_large.jpg complaint) but is getting better now—sits out under the trees. Isabella has written a little novel in Murray's Magazine6 wh. is quite a success. I am going over to see them in a few days.
How do you manage, Walt, about getting out now? Do you get out much in your chair, or are you kept in a good deal. It does make such a difference if one can be out. Have you seen Havelock Ellis'7 new book on The New Spirit. There is a fine loc.01244.006_large.jpg essay on W. W. and the book is interesting all thro'—but no doubt he has sent it you.
We go on much the same here—the social question grows daily & seems likely to absorb all other interests. A new hope in the breasts of the millions of Europe's toiling masses—a new light in their eyes.
I have taken up the sandal trade, and make quite elegant leather sandals at 10/6 a pair. Will you have a pair??
Send us a line on receipt8 of this & believe us ever yr. loving friends
loc.01244.001_large.jpg loc.01244.002_large.jpg Ed. Carpenter &cCorrespondent:
Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was an English
writer and Whitman disciple. Like many other young disillusioned Englishmen, he
deemed Whitman a prophetic spokesman of an ideal state cemented in the bonds of
brotherhood. Carpenter—a socialist philosopher who in his book Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure posited civilization as
a "disease" with a lifespan of approximately one thousand years before human
society cured itself—became an advocate for same-sex love and a
contributing early founder of Britain's Labour Party. On July 12, 1874, he wrote for the first time to Whitman: "Because you
have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually
in my heart . . . . For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest
instinct of their nature." For further discussion of Carpenter, see Arnie
Kantrowitz, "Carpenter, Edward [1844–1929]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).