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Form No. 1.
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
This company TRANSMITS and DELIVERS messages only on conditions limiting
its liability, which have been assented to by the sender of the following message.
Errors can be guaraded against only by repeating a message back to the sending station
for comparison, and the company will not hold itself liable for errors or delays in
transmission or delivery of Unrepeated Messages, beyond the amount of tolls paid thereon,
nor in any case where the claim is not presented in writing within sixty days after sending
the message.
This is an UNREPEATED MESSAGE, and is delivered by request of the sender, under the
conditions named above.
THOS. T. ECKERT, General Manager.
NORVIN GREEN, President.
NUMBER 27
SENT BY MC
REC'D BY R
CHECK 9 Pd.
Received at
P 5/29 18901
Dated
New York 29.
To
Walt Whitman
Will be with you Saturday evening tell Mr Traubel.2
R.G. Ingersoll
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see Notes May 29, '90
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Correspondent:
Robert "Bob" Green Ingersoll
(1833–1899) was a Civil War veteran and an orator of the post-Civil War
era, known for his support of agnosticism. Ingersoll was a friend of Whitman,
who considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. Whitman said to Horace
Traubel, "It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is
Leaves of Grass. He lives, embodies, the
individuality I preach. I see in Bob the noblest
specimen—American-flavored—pure out of the soil, spreading, giving,
demanding light" (Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Wednesday, March 25, 1891). The feeling was mutual. Upon Whitman's
death in 1892, Ingersoll delivered the eulogy at the poet's funeral. The eulogy
was published to great acclaim and is considered a classic panegyric (see
Phyllis Theroux, The Book of Eulogies [New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1997], 30).
Notes
- 1. This telegram is addressed
to Walt Whitman. The envelope includes the following information: Form 116. | Western Union Telegraph Co. | Pay no Charges to
Messenger unless written in Ink in Delivery Book. | No. 27 | Charges, Pd. [back]
- 2. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]