Title: Letter from Walt Whitman to Ida Johnston, 14 June [1877]
Date: June 14, 1877
Whitman Archive ID: prc.00048
Source: Miller's transcription is derived from a typescript of the letter, provided by Ben Bloomfield. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:85. 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, Anthony Dreesen, Eder Jaramillo, Kevin McMullen, and Kenneth Price
431 Stevens st.1
June 14—11 a m2
Dear friend
I am afraid to venture out much in the heat of the day (as part of my trouble of the head is sun affection, & susceptibility)—so I give up the Congress visit to-day.
We will see about it, either next Wednesday, or indeed most any other (cloudy) day—as I want to go aboard—& you shall go, if you wish to. Love to mother, father & Jack.3
Walt Whitman
1. This letter bears the address: Miss Ida Johnston | 434 Penn street | near 5th | Camden. [back]
2. Ida was the daughter of Colonel John R. Johnston, the artist, whose home Walt Whitman visited almost every Sunday evening. See the letter from Whitman to John Flood of November 22, 1868. The year is conjectural, although entries in The Commonplace Book warrant the elimination of the next five years (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]
3. Her brother, John Jr. See the letter from Whitman to John Johnston of June 20, 1877. [back]