Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, [19 February 1873]

Date: February 19, 1873

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00307

Source: The Oscar Lion Papers, New York Public Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 2:199. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Kenneth M. Price, Kathryn Kruger, Zachary King, and Eric Conrad




535 Fifteenth st.
Wednesdady afternoon
3 o'clock.

Mother dear, I suppose you got a letter from me telling you that I had been down stairs & out on Monday—it was more exertion than I could bear, and I have not been so well since. I got two letters from Jeff to-day, the last one dated the 16th1—Matt had rested well the night before— poor, poor Mat, I am ready to hear to her departure any day—it seems terrible—

Things are going on as well as could be expected with me, but slowly— I overdid the matter day before yesterday, and am now waiting— I am sitting up by the stove alone writing this. Love [to] you, dearest Mother, and to all—


Walt.


Notes:

1. Jeff's letter to Walt Whitman is not known. Writing to his mother on February 15 and 16, 1873, he begged her to travel to St. Louis: "It seems to be the one desire of [Martha's] life to have you come and see her" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]


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