loc.02597.001_large.jpg
328 Mickle Street
Monday 2 PM1
I have just learned that a young man whom I sent to speak for me in my sympathy for you & deep
sorrow for Mr Kelley's death, did not call early last evening—So
I write this line—I am too feeble to get around much, but you can command any thing I,
or Mrs: Davis,2 can do or furnish—
I had not much acquaintence with your husband—but enough to know that he had a beautiful soul—
Walt Whitman
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Correspondent:
As yet we have no information about
this correspondent.
Notes
- 1. The Kelleys might have been
neighbors of Whitman in Camden. This letter was written during or after 1885, when
Mary Davis became Whitman's housekeeper. The "young man" Whitman refers to may
be Wililam H. Duckett, Edward Wilkins, or Warren Fritzinger. [back]
- 2. Mary Oakes Davis (1837 or
1838–1908) was Whitman's housekeeper. For more, see Carol J. Singley,
"Davis, Mary Oakes (1837 or 1838–1908)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]