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Camden
Dec 19/18751
1876
My dear Johnston,
Yours of yesterday rec'd.2 Every thing will suit me just that
way—would like to come during or before the close of January—would like
to have a room where I could have a fire, table, &c. My nephew3 & I when traveling always share the same room
together & the same bed, & would like best to do so there. I want to bring
on a lot of my books, new edition,4 & sell them, so I
can raise a little money (—& that is what my young man is for.)
Fix the time to suit Waters5 & yourself, that way.6
Thanks & affection
Walt Whitman
J.H.J.
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Correspondent:
John H. Johnston (1837–1919) was a New York
jeweler and close friend of Whitman. Johnston was also a friend of Joaquin
Miller (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 14, 1888). Whitman visited the Johnstons for the
first time early in 1877. In 1888 he observed to Horace Traubel: "I count
[Johnston] as in our inner circle, among the chosen few" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, October 3, 1888). See also Johnston's letter about
Whitman, printed in Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man,
Poet and Friend (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915), 149–174. For
more on Johnston, see Susan L. Roberson, "Johnston, John H. (1837–1919) and Alma Calder," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. The letter itself reads "Dec
19/1875" but an editorial marking crosses out 1875 and suggests instead that the
letter is dated 1876. [back]
- 2. This letter has not been
located. [back]
- 3. Walt Whitman met the 18-year-old Harry Lamb Stafford
(1858–1918) in 1876, beginning a relationship which was almost entirely
overlooked by early Whitman scholarship, in part because Stafford's name appears
nowhere in the first six volumes of Horace Traubel's With Walt
Whitman in Camden—though it does appear frequently in the last
three volumes, which were published only in the 1990s. Whitman occasionally
referred to Stafford as "My (adopted) son" (as in a December 13, 1876, letter to John H. Johnston), but the relationship
between the two also had a romantic, erotic charge to it. In 1883, Harry married
Eva Westcott. For further discussion of Stafford, see Arnie Kantrowitz, "Stafford, Harry L. (b.1858)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. During America's centennial celebration in 1876,
Whitman, reissued the fifth edition of Leaves of Grass in
the repackaged form of a "Centennial Edition" and "Author's Edition," with each
copy personally signed by Whitman. Around the same time, Whitman also brought
out, as part of the nation's centennial celebration, his Two
Rivulets, an experiment in prose and poetry, with (in the first section
of the book) poetry printed at the top of the page and separated by a wavy line
from the stream of prose at the bottom of each page. For more information on
these books, see Frances E. Keuling-Stout, "Leaves of Grass, 1876, Author's Edition"
and "Two Rivulets, Author's Edition [1876],"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. George Wellington Waters (1832–1912) was a
portrait and landscape painter from Chenango County, New York. John H. Johnston
commissioned Waters to paint Whitman's portrait. Johnston arranged for Waters to
stay at the Johnston home in March 1877, when Whitman visited the Johnstons.
Waters made two portraits of Whitman from this sitting. For more information on
the portraits, see See Ruth L. Bohan, Looking into Walt
Whitman [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006],
69–71. [back]
- 6. According to the letter from
Whitman to John H. Johnston of December 12, 1876,
Whitman had agreed to sit for a portrait by noted landscape painter George W.
Waters. [back]