I was only in Philadelphia for a few hours, but I propose to return there for some days the end of next month or the beginning of November
loc.01733.003_large_mflm.jpgIt will give me real pleasure to make your aquaintence having been, I think, one of the first to welcome you into our great old world literature.
I remain yr very tly L Houghton loc.01733.003_large.jpg loc.01733.004_large_mflm.jpgCorrespondent:
Richard Monckton Milnes
(1809–1885), Lord Houghton, was an intimate of Alfred, Lord Tennyson
(1809–1892) and William Makepeace Thackeray
(1811–1863), as
well as a poet. He was a collector of famous people; in Dictionary of National Biography he is characterized as "eminently a
dilettante." Houghton wrote to Joaquin Miller on September 1, 1875, from
Chicago: "Please give my best regards to Mr Whitman." On September 5, 1875, Miller informed Whitman that he was trying to
arrange a meeting with Lord Houghton. On November 3,
1875, Houghton himself wrote to Whitman to ask whether November 6 would be convenient for a meeting. See Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in
Camden (1906–1996), Thursday,
June 21, 1888, 364, and Wednesday,
September 12th, 1888, 310; In Re
Walt Whitman (1893), ed. Horace L. Traubel, Richard Maurice Bucke, and
Thomas B. Harned, 36; and Harold Blodgett, Walt Whitman in
England (1934), 141–143.