Title: Walt Whitman to Thomas Carlyle, 3 September 1872
Date: September 3, 1872
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01713
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 2:185. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Kenneth M. Price, Elizabeth Lorang, Kathryn Kruger, Zachary King, and Eric Conrad
Following an impulse of the moment, I have just mailed to you two little books of mine—writing this note to introduce them—and taking permission to personally offer, as it were, from America true respects & love.
1. This draft letter is endorsed, "To Carlyle | with Dem Vistas | & Am Inst. poem." [back]
2. Perhaps Whitman sent the poems to Carlyle, who was not one of his admirers, because of Burroughs' letter from London on October 30, 1871, written after his recent visit to Carlyle: "I am sure you would like him & that he would like you." [back]