loc.03118.002.jpg
Yes,1 I will send Dutch piece,2 but will have to wait till
Clement3 digs it out (wh' sooner or later he will he says). I sent you a box (exp.
prepaid) of candies with letter inside. Hope you got 'em. I have rece'd a delightful
pamphlet abt you by Johnston4 of Bolton England. Thanks to you (indirectly).
W.S.K.
yr card just [illegible]
loc.03118.001.jpg
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: Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: BELMONT | JAN |
9 | 1891 | MASS; CAMDEN, N.J. | JAN | 10 | 9AM | 1891 | REC'D. [back]
- 2. On October 6, 1890 Kennedy informed Whitman that the
Boston Evening Transcript would bring out "Walt Whitman's
Dutch Traits" "in time"; the editor "[Edward Henry] Clement is all
right—a man—but very timid & slow in
pushing the piece." Kennedy's "Dutch Traits of Walt Whitman" was eventually
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]
- 3. Edward Henry Clement
(1843–1920) of Chelsea, Massachusetts, began his career as a journalist
with the Savannah Daily News in the mid-1860s. He later
became the editor of the Boston Transcript, a position
that he held for twenty-five years, from 1881 to 1906. [back]
- 4. Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, founded
the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston and Wallace
corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members of the
Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet and
published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two Lancashire
Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more information on
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]