sent
Dec 8, '681
J. T. Fields,
Dear Sir:2
Your letter has come to hand, with the check for $100, as payment in full for
the piece "Proud Music of the Sea-Storm"—leaving me, however, the right to
print it in future book. Please when ready send me proof, which I will return
forthwith. Please send me,3 by
express, 30 copies of the number, when ready, to my address here.
With thanks & best respects,
Notes
- 1. This draft letter is
endorsed, "To | J. T. Fields | Dec. 8, '68." [back]
- 2. James T. Fields
(1817–1881) succeeded James Russell Lowell as editor of the Atlantic Monthly. After Emerson, who had received "Proud
Music of the Sea-Storm" in Whitman's November 30,
1868 letter, delivered the poem to Fields, Fields sent $100 to
Whitman on December 5, 1868. He informed Whitman
on December 14, 1868 that if he was to get the
poem into the February issue it would be impossible to send proof to Washington.
"Proud Music of the Sea-Storm" did, however,
appear in the February 1869 issue of the Atlantic Monthly
and was the second of Whitman's poems to appear in the magazine; "Bardic Symbols" was published in 1860. (For more
on "Bardic Symbols," see Whitman's January 20,
1860 letter to James Russell Lowell and Whitman's March 2, 1860 letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.) [back]
- 3. Unaccountably, Walt
Whitman lined through the rest of the draft. [back]