Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Harry Stafford, 30 January 1883

Date: January 30, 1883

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00473

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, 1961–1977), 3:322–323. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Eder Jaramillo, and Nicole Gray




Camden
Jan: 30
'83

Dear Harry

Your letter came all right, & glad to hear from you, as always. There is nothing very new with me—I keep on about the same in most every respect—To-day, (Tuesday) as I write it is warm & bright, & I am going out to enjoy it—pretty much the same old round—over the ferry & up Market street, Phila, & stop occasionally at 23 south 9th st. where my books are pub'd. Now that my two books, prose and the poems, are out, I hardly know what to strike for—what to look forward to, as I used to—The Vols. are selling middling well—"Specimen Days" has been republished in Scotland1 & L. of G. is being translated in Germany2

Tuesday night 10½—I am finishing my letter, as I have been out & only got back late—This will be a dry letter—but you must take the will for the deed—I send you a package of papers &c. once in a while, which I suppose you get—I came over to-night through the thick ice, filling the river—one big cake, half an acre, or more, hard & thick, I thought would conquer us, but it didnt, we crunch'd our way thro'—but it was a high old crunch & fight for ten minutes—& I enjoy'd it I tell you—

I have just been looking for your last letter to see if there is any special thing I ought to answer—but I cant find the letter—Never mind, Harry, dear—we'll make it all right when we meet—I have just written to your mother—Well my space is out, & there goes the clock striking 11—Good night, dear son—& here's a buss for you—


W W


Notes:

1. Wilson & McCormick, of Glasgow, Scotland, published Specimen Days (see the letter from Whitman to Anne Gilchrist of February 27, 1883). [back]

2. Thomas W. H. Rolleston's projected German translation. [back]


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