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 SarrazinCorrespondent:
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).