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Walt Whitman to Frederick Locker-Lampson, 26 May 1880

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to Frederick Locker-Lampson, 26 May 1880
  • Date: May 26, 1880
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00414
  • Source: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, 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, 1964), 179–180. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones Grace Thomas Eder Jaramillo Kevin McMullen
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Frederick Locker-Lampson, 26 May 1880." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 19 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: nyp.00414.xml (TEI)
Camden New Jersey—U S America1 May 26 1880 Frederic Locker Dear friend

I rec'd​ yours of April 7th & believe me I fully respond to your cheery greetings & kind wishes—I am pretty well for me (call myself now a half-paralytic)—am much of the time in the country & on the water2—yet take deep interest in the world & all its bustle, (though perhaps keeping it at arm's length)—I send you a Boston paper same mail with this, an "Emerson number" that may interest you—a piece by me in it3—After you are through with it, send it to Mr Tennyson, if you think proper—& should you do me kindness to write me again (I hope you will) send me Mr T's post office address (a good permanent one that whatever sent to will finally reach him)—

We are having a dash of the hottest weather here ever known, & I am standing it finely. I believe I sent you a month ago a little paper with my late piece "Riddle Song." The early summer is very fine here, & I am enjoying it, even heat and all—I live on the banks of the Delaware river like—I wish you could know my dear friend Mrs Gilchrist & her family, now 5 Mount Vernon, Hampstead—they were three years here in America—Best respects & love to you—

Walt Whitman

Notes

  • 1. This letter is addressed: Frederick Locker | 25 Chesham Street | Belgrave Square | London S W | England. It is postmarked: Camden | May | 28; Philad'a Pa. | May | 28 | Paid All. [back]
  • 2. Whitman was with the Staffords from May 19 to 23 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). His trips "on the water" were confined to his rides on the ferry from Camden to Philadelphia. [back]
  • 3. See the letter from Whitman to John Burroughs of May 9, 1880. On June 15, Locker-Lampson acknowledged Whitman's letter as well as the receipt of the Emerson article and "The Riddle Song." On July 3, he requested that Whitman write a few lines in a Sir Walter Scott manuscript. [back]
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