Your kind letter of September 5 duly received.2 I received also the newspaper you sent, namely the Camden Post, February 13, and The Times, October 22, 1890. This last one I read with special interest, as it loc.03740.002_large.jpg contained Col. Ingersoll's3 very eloquent speech about your achievements.4 This lecture (I mean the résumé of it I read) I found at once brilliant and true, full of precision and width.
I was very glad to hear you are always in pretty good health et could enjoy the last sunny days of the present year. As to me, I was exceedingly ill for several months (an iliac phlegmon)5 and like to die. I hasten to add that this dangerous crisis went away as soon as a chirurgical operation loc.03740.003_large.jpg took place; and I recovered entirely. These two months I am up and as strong as ever.
I am now quite used to my new situation, and my opinion, too, is that such a change of base will be something of a gain. I was poor, unfit for journalistic work and, nevertheless, wanted to free my intellectual life from pecuniary difficulties; I had an opportunity to be appointed here as a magistrate. In this way I secured my "bread and butter," loc.03740.004_large.jpg and, now, can set to my intellectual task; I can read, write, and think, without being constantly stopped by pecuniary difficulties.
I wish you, dear Walt, a bright and happy new year; be assured of all my love
Gabriel Sarrazin loc.03740.005_large.jpg see note Jan. 20 1891 loc.03740.006_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Gabriel Sarrazin (1853–1935)
was a translator and poet from France who commented positively not only on
Whitman's work but also on Poe's. Whitman later corresponded with Sarrazin and
apparently liked the critic's work on Leaves of
Grass—Whitman even had Sarrazin's chapter on his book translated
twice. For more on Sarrazin, see Carmine Sarracino, "Sarrazin, Gabriel (1853–1935)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).