The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 31 July 1889
Date: July 31, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: loc.03031
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: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Alex Ashland, Breanna Himschoot, Ashlyn Stewart, and Stephanie Blalock
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Camden
PM July 31 '891
Nothing of importance—Rainy rainy weather here night & day. To-morrow the beginning of the last month of hot summer—I have stood it pretty well here, & am fairly condition'd as I write this afternoon—I not only know but feel that even a fair nibble is better than no loaf of bread at all (wh' comes to the question sometimes)—Ah there comes the sunshine as I conclude
W W
Correspondent:
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).
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: Sloane Kennedy | Belmont Mass:. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Aug 2 | 8 PM | 89. [back]