Yours of the 18th received,1 and in response I enclose a check for $373. I hope to be able to send more in a few days by calling in the amounts already subscribed as speedily as the pressure of my journalistic work will permit. Had I more time it might progress somewhat faster, but I regard it a privilege to be able to do what I can, and I only wish more energetic hands and a more eloquent tongue might be in charge.
Faithfully yours Sylvester BaxterP.S.—We all want you to suit loc_es.00090.jpg yourself thoroughly in the matter and we hope you will soon find yourself domiciled amid surroundings after your own heart.2
I have had a call from a bright young German-Japanese, your friend Hartmann,3 who is on his way back to Philadelphia from Europe. It is satisfying to see your friends numbered among such diverse races.
Faithfully yours Sylvester BaxterCorrespondent:
Sylvester Baxter (1850–1927)
was on the staff of the Boston Herald. Apparently he met
Whitman for the first time when the poet delivered his Lincoln address in Boston
in April, 1881; see Rufus A. Coleman, "Whitman and Trowbridge," PMLA 63 (1948), 268. Baxter wrote many newspaper columns
in praise of Whitman's writings, and in 1886 attempted to obtain a pension for
the poet. For more, see Christopher O. Griffin, "Baxter, Sylvester [1850–1927]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).