Walt Whitman to George William Curtis, 28 April [1872]

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to George William Curtis, 28 April [1872]
Date: April 28, 1872
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: med.00699
Source: Fruitlands Museum. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), 35. 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 Jonathan Y. Cheng Elizabeth Lorang Nima Najafi Kianfar Nicole Gray
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to George William Curtis, 28 April [1872]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 09 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: med.00699.xml (TEI)

WashingtonSunday
Forenoon
April 28. My dear Mr. Curtis,

Thanks for your kind contribution & note.1 The help I seek is for Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro—he has paralysis—& has had a miserable winter, cold & hungry—(I have myself been absent great part of the winter)—But he is now up & comparatively better—your kind $5 will truly aid in ameliorating his condition—

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
George William Curtis (1824–1892), author and editor of Harper's Magazine, was a New England writer and orator who had been a neighbor of Ralph Waldo Emerson for some time in the 1840s.

Notes

1. On April 26, 1872, Whitman inserted an appeal in the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle for "pecuniary assistance for a man of genius" (see the letter from Whitman to Samuel Ward of April 26, 1872). This person was Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro (1808–1886), an Irish-born journalist, actor, State Department translator, and lecturer (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 2:901). [back]