Camden1
Sunday Evn'g2
Yours of yesterday rec'd—I had heard nothing of the Boston P. M.
action—(it is not some mistake?—As you describe it?)3—The price of the book such a volume as I sent you
is $3—I sent one to Prof. Loomis4—The heat
here to-day has been awful, but I seem to stand it well—
W W
I decidedly approve your non-answer to Sigma5—
Notes
- 1. This letter is endorsed:
"Answ'd June 29/82." It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | Life Saving Service Bureau
| Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Camden | Jun (?) | 26 | 7 AM | N.J.;
Washington | Jun | 26 | 5 M(?) | (?). [back]
- 2. June 25 was on Sunday in
1882. The year is also confirmed by the notes below. [back]
- 3. On June 24 O'Connor reported that the Boston
postmaster had halted a lecture by George Chainey on Leaves of
Grass (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in
Camden, Friday, December 21, 1888, 349). Obviously he meant the sending of
the printed lecture through the mail (see the letter from Whitman to George
Chainey of June 26, 1882). [back]
- 4. After O'Connor's request
on June 15, Whitman sent the volume on June 20 to
Professor Elias Loomis (1811–1889), the astronomer and Yale professor, who
at the time was in the Nautical Almanac Office of the Navy Department in
Washington (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the
Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.).
According to O'Connor's letter of June 19, Loomis
knew that Emerson had never qualified his praise of Leaves of
Grass (Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden
[Boston: Small, Maynard, 1906], 1:313). [back]
- 5. O'Connor "judged it
prudent to withhold my reply to 'Sigma.'" [back]