How best can I introduce myself to you? How can I make myself known & liked by you who so well-known and loved by me.
When we call on folks & wish to make a good impression we don our best clothes, make our best bow tell our politest lie & the thing's done.
But to you, who likes naked flesh better than broadcloth, a warm grasp, a close embrace better than a fancy bow, the truth harsh and sonorous better than tinkling lies—to you I can't simper and smirk.
I love you! I claim you for a friend! I hold you tight! sometimes you strangely elude me! A few times you speak unkindly, worse you speak sometimes in an unknown tongue but yet you comfort and cheer me!
I read your "Specimen Days"1 first and liked them. I liked the chatty, shrewd, kindhearted old friend who chaperoned me through the war & all over the States. And then I read the Leaves of Grass and met my dearest friend! Didn't and don't yet half understand it all except that it breathes & lives & like all things that live and breath it has much of mystery & miracle about it all through. (After its only dead things that are dissectable)
loc.02053.002_large.jpg loc.02053.003_large.jpgMany things more I want to say but haven't words for now. Little things are the easiest to say always and of those I have but few for Walt Whitman. I will write again if my disjointed rhapsodies are bearable and I hope to come down and see you very shortly if your health permits you to see people.
And now dear friend and teacher have I spoken at all into words that are clear? If so Walt Whitman knows his
affectionate friend Carl Falkenreck. loc.02053.004_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Little is known about Carl
Falkenreck of Brooklyn. He was involved in Republican politics, published at
least one poem in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and was a
member of The Amerian Life Saving Society, that provided instruction and
assistance on such topics as water and boat safety and first aid.