Camden New Jersey U S America
Dec: 24 '891
Still (after a sort) hold possession of the ship—but my grasp growing fainter & my
eyes dimmer—Wish to specially write to thank you for kindness2—Y'r proof just
rec'd by Horace Traubel3—To-day a fine sunny day & I have been taken out two hours
on a drive—enjoy'd all—the sun most of all—been to a cemetery to select a
lot.
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
The Danish writer Peter Carl
Rudolf Schmidt (1836–1899) was the editor of the idealist journal For Idé og Virkelighed ("For Idea and Reality") and
had translated Whitman's Democratic Vistas into Danish in
1874.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Rudolph Schmidt | Blaagaardsgade 16 B | Copenhagen N | Denmark. It is
postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Dec 24 | 8 PM | 89; London | AM | Ja 2 | 90(?); OMB.
1 | 4-1-90 | (?). [back]
- 2. Schmidt was quoted in Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman (Philadelphia: David
McKay, 1889), 53–54. The volume, edited by Horace Traubel, collected notes
and addresses that were delivered at Whitman's seventieth birthday celebration
on May 31, 1889, in Camden, New Jersey. [back]
- 3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]