The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to [Robert Pearsall Smith], 10 April [1887]
Date: April 10, 1887
Whitman Archive ID: loc.07168
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:81. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Ryan Furlong, Stefan Schöberlein, Kevin McMullen, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden
April 10 [1887] noon
Dear friend
I return you the cards signed—(Isn't there a mistake in the date? Ought it not to be marked right? Thursday Evn'g is the 14th—not the 15th)—
If convenient I think I will go on from here say on the 9 a m train Thursday from the depot here—but come over to-morrow & let's have it fixed for certain—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Robert Pearsall Smith
(1827–1898) was a Quaker who became an evangelical minister associated
with the "Holiness movement." He was also a writer and businessman. Whitman
often stayed at his Philadelphia home, where the poet became friendly with the
Smith children—Mary, Logan, and Alys. For more information about Smith,
see Christina Davey, "Smith, Robert Pearsall (1827–1898)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).