The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 12 October 1890
Date: October 12, 1890
Whitman Archive ID: loc.03087
Source: . 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: Andrew David King, Cristin Noonan, and Stephanie Blalock
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Camden NJ Sunday pm1
Oct: 12 '90
The Ingersoll2 lecture (Liberty & Literature) is to come off evn'g Oct: 21, a week from next Tuesday. Horticultural Hall, Phila.3 I shall go & show myself & say publicly a word or so, (as I wish to definitely show my identification, sympathy & gratitude, & there has been some dodging & perhaps cowardise)—Looks now as there is going to be a full and lively meeting—Ing's: heart is in it—I will send you the best accts & reports (wish you & the dear frau4 c'd be here)—the grip is still hold of me—am writing
Walt Whitman
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). Apparently Kennedy had 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 letter is addressed: Sloane Kennedy | Belmont | Mass:. It is postmarked: CAMDEN, N.J. | OCT 12 | 5 PM | 90. [back]
2. Robert "Bob" Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) was a Civil War veteran and an orator of the post-Civil War era, known for his support of agnosticism. Ingersoll was a friend of Whitman, who considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. Whitman said to Traubel, "It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is Leaves of Grass. He lives, embodies, the individuality I preach. I see in Bob the noblest specimen—American-flavored—pure out of the soil, spreading, giving, demanding light" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, March 25, 1891). The feeling was mutual. Upon Whitman's death in 1892, Ingersoll delivered the eulogy at the poet's funeral. The eulogy was published to great acclaim and is considered a classic panegyric (see Phyllis Theroux, The Book of Eulogies [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997], 30). [back]
3. Whitman is referring to the lecture in his honor, which would take place on October 21, 1890, at Philadelphia's Horticultural Hall. The New York jeweler John H. Johnston and the Canadian physician Richard Maurice Bucke planned the event. Robert Ingersoll delivered the lecture. See Ingersoll's October 12 and October 20 letters to Whitman. [back]
4. Whitman is referring to Kennedy's wife. Kennedy married Adeline Ella Lincoln (d. 1923) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1883. [back]