loc.03078.001.jpg
Camden
early pm Aug: 27 '90
Yr's rec'd1—the Trans: comes regularly—thanks—enclosed
Logan Smith's2 letter3 —Am feeling fairly—writing a
little—presents of fruit (have just eaten two nice pears)—have just sold
50 copies folded in sheets (unbound) the big book (complete works)4 & 3
each—wh' quite sets me up—was out last evn'g in wheel
chair5—plenty of rain here (rain last night)—get frequent word f'm Dr
Bucke6—all well—quite a good run of visitors
talkers &c: street cries, hucksters, &c: some fine little children come
letters lots, some queer enough—occasionally one yet from former war-soldiers7
(one yesterday f'm California)—two or three days ago one f'm J A Symonds,8 f'm Switzerland—the grip has caught me again—have
rather a bad bladder trouble interferes with my rest at night—inertia at times
great—spirits bound up tho' soon as the pressure eases any—eyes going
out plainly—want to finish & turn out this 2d annex9 while they serve, altho' I guess there
is nothing to it—Horace T10 is composing a piece abt me for
the N E Magazine11 at their order I believe to come under
the name of W W at date—we will see what it amt's too —I am conciliatory ab't it—Horace is very good to me, ever
faithful
Yes let the Dutch article12 lie fallow a while—(but there's something special in
it)—there I believe I have babbled enough
—love to you & frau13
Walt Whitman
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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. Whitman is referring to
Kennedy's letter of August 23, 1890. [back]
- 2. Logan Pearsall Smith
(1865–1946) was an essayist and literary critic. He was the son of Robert
Pearsall Smith, a minister and writer who befriended Whitman, and he was the
brother of Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, one of Whitman's most avid followers.
For more information on Logan, see Christina Davey, "Smith, Logan Pearsall (1865–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. It is uncertain which letter
Whitman is referring to here. [back]
- 4. Whitman's Complete Poems & Prose (1888), a volume Whitman often referred to
as the "big book," was published by the poet himself—in an arrangement
with publisher David McKay, who allowed Whitman to use the plates for both Leaves of Grass and Specimen
Days—in December 1888. With the help of Horace Traubel, Whitman made
the presswork and binding decisions for the volume. Frederick Oldach bound the
book, which included a profile photo of the poet on the title page. For more
information on the book, see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and
Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
- 5. Horace Traubel and Ed
Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for
the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's
letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8,
1889. [back]
- 6. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 7. It is uncertain which letter
Whitman is referring to here. [back]
- 8. John Addington Symonds
(1840–1893), a prominent biographer, literary critic, and poet in
Victorian England, was author of the seven-volume history Renaissance in Italy, as well as Walt
Whitman—A Study (1893), and a translator of Michelangelo's
sonnets. But in the smaller circles of the emerging upper-class English
homosexual community, he was also well known as a writer of homoerotic poetry
and a pioneer in the study of homosexuality, or sexual inversion as it was then
known. See Andrew C. Higgins, "Symonds, John Addington [1840–1893]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 9. Thirty-one poems from
Whitman's book Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) were later
printed as "Good-Bye my Fancy 2d Annex" to Leaves of
Grass (1891–1892), the last edition of Leaves
of Grass published before Whitman's death in March 1892. For more
information see Donald Barlow Stauffer, "'Good-Bye my Fancy' (Second Annex) (1891)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 10. 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]
- 11. Whitman is referring to
Horace Traubel's "Walt Whitman at Date," which was published in the New England Magazine 4 (May 1891), 275–292. [back]
- 12. In a letter to Whitman on
August 29,1890, Kennedy suggests publishing a
piece in The Critic, entitled "Walt Whitman's Dutch
Traits." His "Dutch Traits of Walt Whitman" was published in The Conservator 1 (February 1891), 90–91 and reprinted in In Re Walt Whitman, ed. Horace Traubel, et al.
(Philadelphia: David McKay, 1893), 195–199. [back]
- 13. Whitman is referring to
Kennedy's wife. Kennedy married Adeline Ella Lincoln (d. 1923) of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, on June 17, 1883. The couple's son Mortimer died in
infancy. [back]