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Marilla B. Minchen to Walt Whitman, 4 November 1891

 loc.03148.001_large.jpg Dear Walt Whitman—

May I address you a few lines 'ere you go hence? I have read your poems for a number of years. I am forty five years old, have not only but re-read them, and the answer to one of them I discovered only a few months ago, "The Riddle Song." It means The Spirit—I have lately been looking into Scientific Christianity and find in To You, page 186, that I never saw in this same light,—"These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them, master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution."1 These I have  loc.03148.002_large.jpg underlined are already being taught—and discussed as possibilities.

It brings peace to my soul to know that I can read and understand Leaves of Grass. I do not mean that any of the poems can be chosen out of the whole, but I select for a handful "All is Truth"—To Him That was Crucified, The Compost, Passage to India, Miracles, To You, Song of the Rolling Earth, and all the Songs, To a Common Prostitute, Eidolons."2 I have been through torture body and soul, and now to know that there is no end to time and space, and no end to myself.!

"My Spirit to Yours" Dear Brother,3 Marilla B Minchen. Carroll. Iowa.  loc.03148.003_large.jpg  loc_tb.00047.jpg MB Minchen

Correspondent:
Marilla Jane Bean Minchen (1846–1941) was born in Rock Island, Illinois, the daughter of John Liberty Bean and Marilla J. Smith. In 1869, she married Davenport, Iowa, businessman William T. Minchen, and the couple had three children, John Paul, Abigail Louise, and Florence. The Minchen family lived in Carroll, Iowa. According to Minchen's obituary, she was "one of the first to advocate woman's suffrage" and "always intensely interested in all forward looking movements." The obituary also describes Minchen as "an extensive reader" and a member of the Clio Club, a group that founded the Carroll Public Library in 1894. She died at her daughter Florence's home in San Mateo, California, and is buried in Carroll City Cemetery in Carroll, Iowa. For more information, see her obituary, "Mrs. W. T. Minchen, 95, One of the Earliest Settlers Here, Dies in California," in the Carroll Daily Herald 72.11 (January 14, 1941), 7.


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