Walt Whitman to Peter Doyle, 14 November [1873]
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1873
431 Stevens st. cor West Camden, Friday afternoon Nov. 14. Dear Pete, dear son,
I am sitting here in my room again writing to you—there is no particular change in the situation—we are having some pretty cold weather here—I go out a little every day, but my walking does not improve any—I had a partially bad spell yesterday afternoon, & did not go out, but it passed over, & to-day I feel as well as I usually have lately—I shall get out this afternoon, & over to the Reading room in Philadelphia—(Looking over the papers, I see occasionally very interesting news, about myself—a paper in Salt Lake, Utah, had me dead,—& the Philadelphia Item, about the same time, had me at a public dinner, in Phil. making a speech.) I rec'd your last. I suppose you got mine last Tuesday—
—I have just had my dinner, bean soup, boiled beef, & pumpkin-pie, all good—so you see I might be doing worse—it is now just after 2, & I am feeling quite comfortable—& hope this will find you all right, my loving boy—
Walt.
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Correspondent:
Peter Doyle (1843–1907) was
one of Walt Whitman's closest comrades and lovers, and their friendship spanned
nearly thirty years. The two met in 1865 when the twenty-one-year-old Doyle was
a conductor in the horsecar where the forty-five-year-old Whitman was a
passenger. Despite his status as a veteran of the Confederate Army, Doyle's
uneducated, youthful nature appealed to Whitman. Although Whitman's stroke in
1873 and subsequent move from Washington to Camden limited the time the two
could spend together, their relationship rekindled in the mid-1880s after Doyle
moved to Philadelphia and visited nearby Camden frequently. After Whitman's
death, Doyle permitted Richard Maurice Bucke to publish the letters Whitman had
sent him. For more on Doyle and his relationship with Whitman, see Martin G.
Murray, "Doyle, Peter," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia,
ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing,
1998).