The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: John Swinton to Walt Whitman, 23 June 1874
Date: June 23, 1874
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01957
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.
Editorial notes: The annotation, "John Swinton," is in the hand of Walt Whitman. The annotation, "See notes April 9 1888," is in the hand of Horace Traubel.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Elizabeth Lorang, Eder Jaramillo, Ashley Lawson, John Schwaninger, Caterina Bernardini, Marie Ernster, Cristin Noonan, Amanda J. Axley, and Stephanie Blalock
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134 East 38th St, New York,
June 23/18741
My beloved Walt—
I have read thy sublime poem of the "Universal"2 once and again, and yet again—seeing it in the Graphic,3 Post, Mail, World, and among other papers. It is sublime. It raised my mind to its own sublimity. It seems to me the sublimest of all your poems. I cannot help reading it every once of a while. I return to it as a fountain of joy
My beloved Walt.—You know how I have worshipped you, without change or cessation, for twenty years. While my soul exists, the worship must be ever new.
It was perhaps the very day of the publication of the first edition of the "Leaves of Grass"4 that I saw a copy of it at a newspaper stand in Fulton street Brooklyn. I got it, looked into it with wonder, and felt that here was something that touched on depths of my humanity. Since then you have grown before me, grown around me, and grown into me
—I expected certainly to go down to Camden last fall to see you. But something prevented. And, in time, I saw in the papers that you had recovered—The New Year took me into a new field of action among the miserables. Oh, what scenes of human horror were to be found in this city last winter.—I cannot tell you how much I was engaged, or all I did for three months. I must wait till I see you to tell you about these things. I have been going toward social radicalism of late years, and appeared here at the Academy of Music lately as [Primort?] and orator of the Rochefort meeting. How I would like to see you, in order to temper my heat, and expand my narrowness
How absurd it is to suppose that there is any ailment in the brain of a man who can generate the poem of the "Universal" I would parody Lincoln and say that such kind of ailment ought to spread.
My beloved Walt—Tell me if you would like me to come to see you, and perhaps I can do so within a few weeks.
Yours always
John Swinton
Correspondent:
Scottish-born John Swinton (1829–1901), a
journalist and friend of Karl Marx, became acquainted with Whitman during the
Civil War. Swinton, managing editor of the New York
Times, frequented Pfaff's beer cellar, where he probably met Whitman.
Whitman's correspondence with Swinton began on February
23, 1863. Swinton's enthusiasm for Whitman was unbounded. On September 25, 1868, Swinton wrote: "I am profoundly
impressed with the great humanity, or genius, that expresses itself through you.
I read this afternoon in the book. I read its first division which I never
before read. I could convey no idea to you of how it affects my soul. It is more
to me than all other books and poetry." On June 23,
1874, Swinton wrote what the poet termed "almost like a love letter":
"It was perhaps the very day of the publication of the first edition of the
'Leaves of Grass' that I saw a copy of it at a newspaper stand in Fulton street,
Brooklyn. I got it, looked into it with wonder, and felt that here was something
that touched on depths of my humanity. Since then you have grown before me,
grown around me, and grown into me" (Horace Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, April 10, 1888). He praised Whitman in the New York Herald on April 1, 1876 (reprinted in Richard Maurice Bucke,
Walt Whitman [Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883],
36–37). Swinton was in 1874 a candidate of the Industrial Political Party
for the mayoralty of New York. From 1875 to 1883, he was with the New York Sun, and for the next four years edited the
weekly labor journal, John Swinton's Paper. When this
publication folded, he returned to the Sun. See Robert
Waters, Career and Conversation of John Swinton (Chicago:
C.H. Kerr, 1902), and Meyer Berger, The History of The New
York Times, 1851–1951 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951),
250–251. For more on Swinton, see also Donald Yannella, "Swinton, John (1829–1901)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. Whitman showed this letter to Horace Traubel in 1888, and Traubel in With Walt Whitman in Camden offers a transcription. In that transcription, he dates the letter January 23, 1884. Swinton's handwriting is occasionally hard to decipher, and the date of the letter is unclear. Traubel’s dating is clearly wrong, however, since Whitman’s “Song of the Universal” was written in 1874 and was published in the New York Daily Graphic and Evening Post on June 17, the Springfield Republican on June 18, the New York World on June 19, and the Camden New Republic on June 20. The poem then appeared in the "Centennial Songs" section of Whitman's 1876 Two Rivulets. Swinton clearly wrote this letter soon after reading the poem in various newspapers. [back]
2. "Song of the Universal" appeared in the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874; in the New York Evening Post on June 17, 1874; in the Springfield Republican on June 18, 1874; in the New York World on June 19, 1874; and in the Camden New Republic on June 20, 1874. For digital images of the poem as it appeared in the New York Daily Graphic, see "Song of the Universal"; for digital images of the poem as it appeared in the New York Evening Post, see "The Song of the Universal." [back]
3. The New York Daily Graphic published a number of Walt Whitman's poems and prose pieces in 1873 and 1874. In the former year the Daily Graphic printed the following works: "Nay, Tell Me Not To-day the Publish'd Shame" on March 5, 1873; "With All the Gifts, America" on March 6, 1873; "The Singing Thrush" (later titled "Wandering at Morn") on March 15, 1873; "Spain" on March 24, 1873; "Sea Captains, Young or Old" (later called "Song for All Seas, All Ships") on April 4, 1873; "Warble for Lilac-Time" on May 12, 1873; "Halls of Gold and Lilac" on November 24, 1873; and "Silver and Salmon-Tint" on November 29, 1873. In 1874, the Daily Graphic printed "A Kiss to the Bride" on May 21, 1874; "Song of the Universal" on June 17, 1874; and "An Old Man's Thought of School" on November 3, 1874. [back]
4. Whitman's first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) was printed by the Rome brothers in a small shop at the intersection of Fulton and Cranberry in Brooklyn. For the cover, Whitman chose a dark green ribbed morocco cloth, and the volume included an engraving of a daguerreotype of Whitman, a full-body portrait, in working clothes and a hat. The book included a preface and twelve poems. For more information on the first edition of Leaves of Grass, see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]