Brooklyn, New York,
April 4, 1872.
Mr. Rudolf Schmidt,1
Dear Sir & Friend,
Your magazine with the article on my book has safely reached me—& a second copy in sheets—also your last letter.2 I only write now to make prompt, brief acknowledgment. I have gleaned a general knowledge of the article, & it pleases me very much. I have seen Clemens Petersen in New York, & he ran over it for me.3 He has been very ill with erysipelas, but is now nearly well.
I am to return to Washington in two or three days. I will write to you thence more fully, & hope to continue having letters from you—My address will be Solicitor's Office, Treasury.4
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. Rudolf Schmidt, editor of
For Idé og Virkelighed, wrote to Walt Whitman on
October 19, 1871: "I intend to write an article about yourself and your writings
in the above named periodical which is very much read in all the Scandinavian
countries. . . . I therefore take the liberty to ask you, if you should not be
willing to afford some new communications of yourself and your poetry to this
purpose" (Library of Congress). [back]
- 2. See Schmidt's February 27, 1872 letter to Whitman. [back]
- 3. Clemens Petersen
(1834–1918), for ten years the critic of the Danish magazine Fatherland, left Denmark in 1869 and stayed in the United
States until 1904. See Schmidt's letter to Walt Whitman of February 27, 1872. Also note Whitman's letter of
March 19, 1874. [back]
- 4. Whitman next wrote to
Schmidt on May 28, 1872. [back]