Nothing very new—Am pretty well but have the grip again & sore throat & swell'd head—but ate my breakfast & got out last evn'g in wheel chair1 & might be (& doubtless shall be) much worse—
Enclosed I send what I have just scratch'd off ab't the Hollandisk piece2 (I believe that's ab't the best word to nip & print & stick to)—It is quite a theme—quite significant—means a good deal to me & for me—hope the mood will get hold of you one of these times soon—have just heard from Dr B[ucke],3 all well—I am sitting here as usual in my den—fine sunshiny day & cool enough—
God bless you Walt WhitmanI sh'd suggest the Critic for the Hollandisk piece—"Walt Whitman's Dutch traits" is a good name—Of course rambly & careless—like y'r little Quaker piece4—not thinking of getting it all in by a long shot—but a few little hints & seed-facts of the Matter5—
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).