The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Thomas B. Harned, 9 June 1889
Date: June 9, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: med.00876
Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. Edwin Haviland Miller derives his transcription from a transcription in the catalog of Stan V. Henkels, May 8, 1917. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:349. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Alex Ashland, Ryan Furlong, and Stephanie Blalock
June 9, 1889
Have had such a good time with the Champagne you sent me, must at least thank [you] for it. I drank the whole bottle (except a little swig I insisted on Ed1 taking for going for it) had it in a big white mug half fill'd with broken ice, it has done me good already (for I was sort of "under the weather" the last 30 hours.)
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel (1856–1914), was
Horace Traubel's brother-in-law. For more on him, see Dena Mattausch, "Harned, Thomas Biggs (1851–1921)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on his relationship with Whitman, see
Thomas Biggs Harned, Memoirs of Thomas B. Harned, Walt
Whitman's Friend and Literary Executor, ed. Peter Van Egmond (Hartford:
Transcendental Books, 1972).
Notes:
1. Edward "Ned" Wilkins (1865–1936) was one of Whitman's nurses during his Camden years; he was sent to Camden from London, Ontario, by Dr. Richard M. Bucke, and he began caring for Whitman on November 5, 1888. He stayed for a year before returning to Canada to attend the Ontario Veterinary School. Wilkins graduated on March 24, 1893, and then he returned to the United States to commence his practice in Alexandria, Indiana. For more information, see Bert A. Thompson, "Edward Wilkins: Male Nurse to Walt Whitman," Walt Whitman Review 15 (September 1969), 194–195. [back]