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Logan Pearsall Smith to Walt Whitman, 22 November 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Logan Pearsall Smith to Walt Whitman, 22 November 1891
  • Date: November 22, 1891
  • Creator(s): Logan Pearsall Smith
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.03831
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Ethan Heusser Cristin Noonan Alex Ashland Stephanie Blalock Amanda J. Axley
  • Cite this page: Smith, Logan Pearsall. "Logan Pearsall Smith to Walt Whitman, 22 November 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 11 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.03831.xml (TEI)
 loc_jc.00175_large.jpg Paris 15 Rue du Sommerard Nov 22 Dear Mr. Whitman

I often wonder how you are getting on, with the approach of winter? I hope it will find you in a comfortable condition.

I have come here to Paris for the winter, leaving Oxford at last. Paris is the great  loc_jc.00176_large.jpg center for art now of all Europe—there are thousands of arts students here from all the world. A great deal of good work is being produced, and the atmosphere is very exhilarating. Next to the French the best work is done by the Swedes & the Americans—there seems to be a real burst of life among these Northern people—the Swedes, Norwegians & Finns,  loc_jc.00177_large.jpg and Ibsen1 is not an isolated phenomenon. The American work here is very strong—there are a number of young men who have real genius, I think. I am going this afternoon to see the young Brooklyn sculptor2 who is making the great fountain for the Chicago exhibition—it is to cover acres & dispense Mississippis!

 loc_jc.00178_large.jpg

However, he is not frightened by the job, but has a splendid design—America sitting high on a barge, which is rowed by gigantic female figures.

They are all well in England I think—my mother3 is paying a short Temperance visit to N.Y. Boston & Chicago with an English friend of hers, but we expect her back shortly now.

Good-bye, dear Mr. Whitman Yours affectionately Logan Pearsall Smith

Correspondent:
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) was an essayist and literary critic. He was the son of Robert Pearsall Smith, a minister and writer who befriended Whitman, and he was the brother of Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, one of Whitman's most avid followers. For more information on Logan, see Christina Davey, "Smith, Logan Pearsall (1865–1946)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

  • 1. Norwegian playwright and director Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828–1906) was a founder of modernism in the theatre. He is considered one of the most influential playwrights of his time, and his major works include Peer Gynt, A Doll's House, and Hedda Gabler. [back]
  • 2. Frederick W. MacMonnies (1863–1937) was a Brooklyn-born sculptor, painter, and portraitist. He served as an apprentice under the French-Irish Scupltor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and also studied with the National Academy of Design and The Art Students League of New York. After moving to Paris to continue his training in sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he opened a studio in Paris and began to create some of his most famous works. In 1891, he was awarded the commission for his sculpture, the Columbian Fountain, which became the focal point and centerpiece of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. [back]
  • 3. Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911) was a Quaker preacher and writer born in Philadelphia. She is best remembered for her 1875 The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life and her 1903 The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered it: A Spiritual Autobiography. She was married to Robert Pearsall Smith in 1851 and her surviving children were Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe (Berenson), Logan Pearsall Smith, and Alys Pearsall Smith (Debra Campbell, "Hannah Whitall Smith (1831–1911): Theology of the Mother–Hearted God," Signs [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, 15:1], 79–101). [back]
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