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Rudolf Schmidt to Walt Whitman, 5 February 1872

About This Item

  • Title: Rudolf Schmidt to Walt Whitman, 5 February 1872
  • Date: February 5, 1872
  • Creator(s): Rudolf Schmidt
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01904
  • 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.
  • Cite this page: Schmidt, Rudolf. "Rudolf Schmidt to Walt Whitman, 5 February 1872." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 18 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.01904.xml (TEI)
 loc.01904.001.jpg Copenhagen 5 Febr: 1872. Walt Whitman Washington. Dear Sir:

I will send you a few lines in reply to your kind letter of 16 January, which I have received today. That the papers are in my hands you probably are informed of at present. On the 5th January I wrote to Claiusen and inclose a sheet for you.

I am at present composing my article; in the [illegible] of March it shall be in your hands.  loc.01904.003.jpg If I did not write the English language so very imperfectly I should have a great deal of things to tell you privately. Of course the facts, you are pointing at have not escaped me. The newspaper articles as well as the book of John Burroughs have given me all [illegible] information. J. B's book has made me very great pleasure, the article of the English lady in "The Radical" also.

Your "Democratic vistas" I have yet not read completely. What I have read has astonished and delighted me. There are words of a  loc.01904.002.jpg genius superior to all the political and literary nonentities of the day and worthy the great horizons of your proud country, from which nevertheless the names of radicals as James Fisk have hitherto been the most resounding.

I read yesterday some part of "Democratical​ Vistas" to the Professor Rasmus Nielsen, one great Scandinavian philosopher and according to my conviction the mightiest [damage] living genius of the world at present—he was astonished and delighted, he also! Your ideas and ours are meeting  loc.01904.004.jpg a glad congenialness [damage] fighting with the same combat!

The rest you shall have through the printer would there are Danes enough in Washington and a verbal transaction you may easily have. Clausen has a number of the periodical for November 1871; among its contents is an article of the democracy of America. Perhaps it could have interest for you to get acquainted with it.

Most truly yours Rudolf Schmidt
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