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Walt Whitman to Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, 28 May [1884]

 loc.01344.001_large.jpg  loc.01344.002_large.jpg To Mary Whitall Smith | May 28. 1885 | Thanks for sheets— | pillowcases presented | to him— Dear friend

Thank you & dear Alys for the nice sheets & cases, which arrived yesterday, were immediately assigned to use, & will be of more direct & continued comfort to me than you think.

I am well as usual, & in good heart. Got through those three hot days quite well—Remembrances to all, especially dear boy Logan2

Walt Whitman

Dark & raining heavily here as I write, but opportune & welcome—


Correspondent:
Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe (1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." A scholar of Italian Renaissance art and a daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith, she would in 1885 marry B. F. C. "Frank" Costelloe. She had been in contact with many of Whitman's English friends and would travel to Britain in 1885 to visit many of them, including Anne Gilchrist shortly before her death. For more, see Christina Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).


Notes

  • 1. Edwin Haviland Miller assigns this letter to 1884 on the basis of the following undated entry in Whitman's Commonplace Book after June 2 of that year: "rec'd a most kind & serviceable present, from Mary & Alys Smith & Mrs S. nice new sheets & pillow and bolster cases for my bed." [back]
  • 2. Logan and Alys were Mary's siblings. [back]
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