The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 1 July 1886
Date: July 1, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02897
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
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Belmont1
July 1.
Dear W.W.
The birth of the baby occurred in Fitchburg where Mrs Kennedy has been, at her aunt's, for a month. The child will have to be with relatives, I fear, for a year or so, until I get a settled position.2 You were partially right in thinking me connected with a large printing establishment. I do do proof-reading for such at times, but have no reg. position. I had a $100. job this winter, reading Greek & Hebrew proofs. But my chief reliance is on my pen at present. I am pulling every rope to get into the custom house. In the mean time, calmly, toilingly, ohne hast, ohne rast, working away on my literary chef-d-oeuvre, "Whitman, the Poet of Humanity,"—here in my idyllic, noiseless home-cottage. Wish I cd send you some of the pinks, accept my love instead in return for yours, as something more precious. You renovate & cheerify my ethical nature every time I visit you.
WS Kennedy.
Take good care of yourself, now, & don't go & have another sun-stroke
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and later published biographies of Longfellow and Whittier
(Dictionary of American Biography). Apparently
Kennedy had called on the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William
Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [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).
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey | 328 Mickle St.It is postmarked: BELMONT | JUL | [2?] | 1886 | MASS.; CAMDEN . N. J. | JUL | 3 | [1 PM?] | 1886 | REC'D. [back]
2. Kennedy had married Adeline Ella Lincoln (d. 1923) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1883. Their son Mortimer died in infancy. [back]