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Dear Mr. Whitman:1
I saw lately that you were not so well—but hope it is a newspaper report merely
and that you are continuing to gain. I saw Mrs. Dr.
Spaulding2 recently she is doing all she can for the acceptance of
L. of G. By the way I found a lover where I least expected it, in Mr. Hezekiah
Butterworth3 of the "Youths Companion." Who said when
I invited him to hear my lecture upon your work—"I shall come by all means. I
think Whitman one of the greatest if not the greatest of our American poets."
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He is not afraid of your work but wishes some of it were left out of it, for a
popular volume. He would think it all right in itself I presume. Mrs
Moulton4 has gone south for a month. Returns
in—May I hope she may be able to see you before she sails for England in
June.— Kennedy5 I never see now. Dont know what he is
doing. I should like to see him very much. I am digging away in a fair way to earn a
living.
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I gave two evenings to your work before my class at New England Conservatory. My
class is composed of about fifty bright young girls studying music. You see I am not
afraid to carry your word to anyone. To me there is not a line that has a downward
tendency. Still I recognzie the fact that to many people "A woman waits for me" is
wholly inadmissable, and I know that the rest of the book is a sealed book to
them6—perhaps it would be anyway—there's
consolation there. I shall have "Specimen Days"7 in my class
during Spring term.
With greatest esteem
Hamlin Garland
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Hamlin Garland
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Correspondent:
Hamlin Garland
(1860–1940) was an American writer best known for his fiction about the
Midwest. He strongly endorsed Whitman's work, and he frequently wrote and
lectured about him. Whitman sometimes misspells Garland's name as "Harland." For
more on Garland's relationship to Whitman, see Thomas K. Dean, "Garland, Hamlin," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle st. | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: Jamaica
Plains Sta | Apr | 3 | 8PM | 1889 | Mass.; Received 2 | Apr | 4 | 1130AM | 1889
| Phila; Philadelphia, Pa | Apr | 4 | 230PM | 1889 | Transit; [illegible] N.J. | Apr | 4 | [illegible] | [illegible] | [illegible]'D. [back]
- 2. Mrs. Ada H. Spaulding, of
Boston, was an admirer of Whitman who praised him publicly. On March 17, 1889,
she visited Whitman in Camden. When she returned to Boston, she wrote to thank
him for the visit; on March 28, 1889, she sent Whitman flowers. [back]
- 3. Hezekiah Butterworth
(1839–1905) was assistant editor (1870–1904) of The Youth's Companion, a prominent Boston weekly magazine for
children. Garland published two poems in The Youth's
Companion in 1889: "A Dakota Wheat Field," which appeared in the July
18 issue, and "By the River," which appeared in the August 15 issue. [back]
- 4. Ellen Louise Chandler
Moulton (1835–1908) was an American poet and critic who published several
collections of verse and prose, in addition to making regular contributions to
the New York Tribune and Boston
Herald. Moulton corresponded with Whitman starting in 1876 and visited
him in Camden on April 23, 1888; she wrote of their meeting in her article,
"Three Very Famous People. Mrs. Cleveland, George W. Childs and Walt Whitman.
Words of Washington and Philadelphia. Poet Who Wrote of the Birds on Paumanok's
Shore" (Boston Sunday Herald, April 29, 1888, 20). Though
she had words of praise for Whitman and his work, Whitman said of her, "I can't
endure her effusiveness: I like, respect her: but her dear this and dear that
and dear the other thing make me shudder" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, March 1, 1889). [back]
- 5. William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 6. In 1882, "A Woman Waits
for Me" and "To a Common
Prostitute" were two of the poems that the Boston district attorney
referred to when officially classifying Leaves of Grass
as an obscene book. [back]
- 7. The first issue of Whitman's Specimen Days and Collect was published by the
Philadelphia firm of Rees Welsh and Company in 1882. The second issue was
published by David McKay. Many of the autobiographical notes, sketches, and
essays that focus on the poet's life during and beyond the Civil War had been
previously published in periodicals or in Memoranda During the
War (1875–1876). For more information on Specimen Days, see George Hutchinson and David Drews "Specimen Days [1882]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]