The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, 15 October 1889
Date: October 15, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01387
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: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Ryan Furlong, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
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Camden New Jersey
US America
Oct: 15 '89–1
Feeling a sort of impalpable nudge I send a line but what for I don't know, for there is nothing to write ab't—only the fact of writing to you if that is anything—Here I am in my den as for a year & a half, but not so much different or given out yet—My sleeping & appetite yet hold fair—you know I am along now in my 71st—
Love to you all—
Walt Whitman
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. This postal card is addressed: Mrs: Mary Whitall Costelloe | 40 Grosvenor Road | the Embankment | London England | SW. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Oct 15 | 8 PM | 89; Philadelphia, Pa. | Oct (?) | 8 PM | Paid. There is an additional postmark, but only the time of "8 PM" is visible. [back]