Robert Pearsall Smith to Walt Whitman, 5 September [1884]

About This Item

Title: Robert Pearsall Smith to Walt Whitman, 5 September [1884]
Date: September 5, 1884
Creator(s): Robert Pearsall Smith
Whitman Archive ID: loc.05853
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: Alex Kinnaman Stefan Schöberlein Nicole Gray Ed Folsom
Cite this page: Smith, Robert Pearsall. "Robert Pearsall Smith to Walt Whitman, 5 September [1884]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 11 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.05853.xml (TEI)

loc_jp.00045_large.jpg My dear friend,

Can you not come over Friday and stay till Monday with me? Mrs S. & Alys go to Baltimore to the Friends Yearly meeting and Clifford & myself will be left alone. I hope that he has a good transfer of your outer man to canvass1

Yours affy RP Smith Sept 5"

loc_jp.00046_large.jpg

Correspondent:
Robert Pearsall Smith (1827–1898) was a Methodist preacher, writer and businessman. He was the father of Logan (born 1865) and Alys (born 1867), who later became the first wife of the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Whitman stayed at the Smiths' house on numerous occasions.

Notes

1. Edward Clifford, an English portrait painter who visited Smith in Philadelphia in 1884, made a drawing of Whitman on November 3 (see Whitman's Daybooks). [back]