There lies before me, as I write, a copy of "Brother Johnathan" Vol 1. January 29th, 1842. No 5. The first article is a piece of poetry:
Written for the Brother Jonathan—
Ambition
By Walter Whitman.
One day, an obscure youth, a wanderer, Known but to few, lay musing with himself About the chances of his future life. etc: etc:2I would be very glad to hear from loc.03764.004_large.jpg you, as to whether this was one of your early poems. & if you have it in rememberance.
I have been a rambler in these old periodicals, magazines: etc: of 50 or 60 years ago, & found very many interesing pieces by our American Poets: notably some of Longfellow3 (1826), O.Wendell Holmes,4 (1829) etc:—
I was much pleased to read the account in a late "New York Times" & very glad to hear you "rest a good deal, try to worry about nothing, and don't think too much."5 good. good. good—
What an interesting fact came loc.03764.005_large.jpg to light the other day, that the only Sister of Keats,6 passed over to the other side last December,.
She was living at Madrid: & died aged about 86, leaving children and grandchildren.
A friend of mine, Mr. W. J. Linton,7 is I think an old acquaintence of yours—I have heard him talk of you often:—he has been in England the last two years, preparing a great work on Engraving.—& purposes I believe, very soon to return to America.—
Permit me to wish you the best things, and anyway "The storms of Life & Wintry Time8 will quickly pass, and one unbounded Spring Encircle all."
loc.03764.006_large.jpg Cordially Yours Geo. E. Sears. Walt Whitman: Camden. loc.03764.001_large.jpg loc.03764.002_large.jpgCorrespondent:
George Edward Sears
(1838–1916) was an American expatriate and book collector. Sears's father,
Robert Sears Sr. (1810–1892), was co-founder of the New York
printing-house of Sears and Cole, publishers of newspapers and illustrated
books. George Sears collected books and pamphlets for over twenty years while
living in New York City, and in 1893, sold his collection of works "technically
and historically illustrative of the printing industry" to William Evarts
Benjamin (1859–1940) for $25,000 (The American
Bookmaker [June, 1893], 230). According to the report in The American Bookmaker, Sears had housed his "curious and
instructive literary gleanings in one large apartment of a well-ventilated
mansion, without any gas-light or artificial heat." Sears privately printed
several catalogues from his collection, including A Collection
of The Emblem Books of Andrea Alciati (1888) and A
Collection of Works Illustrative of The Dance of Death (1889). In the
1890s, Sears relocated to Toronto, Ontario, and he is buried with his family in
Kingston's Cataraqui Cemetery.