I write to inform you that I have expunged from the forthcoming Edition of my "Talks with Emerson" a pargraph referring to yourself, which I have learned was offensive to you.2 It should not have been printed. Time was, perhaps, when the publication of an eccentricity could not have injured you. Perhaps, indeed the effect would have been to the contrary. Such was my feeling I remember in regard to the effect of the incident when I mentioned it. I have learned with regret that it has caused you pain.
Your utterance was a noble help to me in days when I sorely needed it, and I would not bring one shadow across your brow.
Yours with high respect, Charles J WoodburyI am only here temporarily; my permanent address is,—
#123, California St., San Francisco, California.
(Dictated.)
loc_vm.01551_large.jpg loc_vm.01548_large.jpg See notes July 6 1891 also see note July 11 1891 loc_vm.01549_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Charles Johnson Woodbury
(1844–1927) was a senior at Williams College in 1865 when Ralph Waldo
Emerson visited the campus. Woodbury, who later worked as an editor and oil
company executive, published his memories of conversations with Emerson in Talks with Emerson (New York: Baker & Taylor, 1890).
Whitman objected to the book's characterization of his relationship with
Emerson; see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Monday, August 11, 1890, and Tuesday, August 12, 1890; Jerome Loving, Walt
Whitman: The Song of Himself (Berkeley, California: University of
California Press, 1999), 471.