Camden New Jersey U S America1
January 22 1890
My dear E R2
Y'rs regularly rec'd & welcom'd (I often send them afterward to Dr Bucke,3
Canada)—
I am still here, no very mark'd or significant change or happening—fairly
buoyant spirits &c—but surely slowly ebbing—at this moment sitting here in my den Mickle Street by the oak
wood fire, in the big strong old chair with wolf-skin spread over back—bright
sun, cold, dry winter day—America continues generally busy enough all over her
vast demesnes (intestinal agitation I call it)—talking,
plodding, making money, every one trying to get
on—perhaps to get toward the top—but no special individual
signalism—(just as well I guess)—I write without any particular purpose,
but I tho't I w'd show you I appreciate y'r kindness & remembrance—The two
slips enclosed you are at liberty to do what you like with4—affectionate
remembrance to the dear sister5—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Ernest Rhys | Care Walter Scott 24 Warwick Lane | Paternoster Row | London |
England. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Jan 23 | 6 AM | 90; London E.C. | C |
Fe 3 90 | AK. [back]
- 2. This letter originally
appeared in The Correspondence of Walt Whitman, Volume 5:
1890–1892. That version was based on a transcript that appeared
in Pall Mall Gazette on February 8, 1890, and that
Whitman used in Good-bye My Fancy (1890). The current
transcription, which appeared The Correspondence, Volume 6: A
Supplement with a Composite Index, is based on the manuscript letter in
The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature,
New York Public Library. The transcription of the manuscript letter reinstates
Whitman's salute as well as the first line. It also reveals that the line
stating "America continues generally busy enough..." was changed to "America
continues—is generally busy enough..." in the Pall Mall
Gazette. [back]
- 3. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. The slips Whitman is
referring to are most likely copies of "Old Age's Ship & Crafty Death's," which appeared in the February
1890 issue of the Century magazine. The poet sent "slips"
to Mary Smith Costelloe, as well as her brother and father. See his January 22, 1890, letter to her. [back]
- 5. Edith Rhys, who was involved
in music and in British theatre as an actor and director (she directed and acted
in the production of one of Ernest Rhys's plays, The Masque of
the Grail, in 1908 at the Court Theatre), was Ernest Rhys's sister. She
visited Whitman in June of 1887; Whitman briefly describes the visit in his
letter to Ernest Rhys of June 26, 1887. She began
study at the London Academy of Music the following year. See also Rhys's letters
to Whitman of March 2, 1889, and of January 3, 1888. [back]