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Walt Whitman to Daniel G. Gillette, 4 November 1873

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to Daniel G. Gillette, 4 November 1873
  • Date: November 4, 1873
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01719
  • 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.

    Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman Elizabeth Lorang Kathryn Kruger Zachary King Eric Conrad Nicole Gray
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Daniel G. Gillette, 4 November 1873." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 09 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.01719.xml (TEI)
 loc.01719.001_large.jpg 431 Stevens st.  
 cor West. Camden, N. Jersey, Nov.​ 4, 1873. My dear Dan Gilette,1

Your kind letter—with that of your English friend Chrissie Deschamps, (so full of kindness & affectionate sympathy, plainly enough from the heart, & not conventional merely)—have reached me to-day. I am getting along pretty well. It seems to be a fluctuating & pretty stout struggle between my general physique & constitution, & my special cerebral ailment—in which I think the physique will yet carry the day.

My best regards & love to you, my friend, & to my English friends the same.

Walt Whitman

Dan, it is very lonesome to me here, I go out hobbling a little, but to no satisfaction, although I am very comfortably fixed in domestic matters. Write to me when you can, send me any stray printed thing you are sure might interest me, or if you come Philadelphiaward come & see me.

 loc.01719.002_large.jpg

Correspondent:
According to the New York Directory of 1874–1875 and the Gouldings Directory of 1877–1878, Daniel G. Gillette was a clerk in the county courthouse. An undated entry in one of Whitman's address books (The Library of Congress #108) indicates that Gillette was at one time employed in the postmaster's office in New York.

Notes

  • 1. See the letter from Whitman to Gillette of September 26, 1873. Whitman consistently dropped an l in Gillette. [back]
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