Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Herbert Gilchrist, 21 November [1876]

Date: November 21, 1876

Whitman Archive ID: upa.00062

Source: Walt Whitman Collection, 1842–1957, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.

Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Jonathan Y. Cheng, Elizabeth Lorang, Zachary King, Eric Conrad, and Nicole Gray



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431 Stevens street
Camden
Nov 21

My dear Herbert

I had a safe little jaunt home yesterday afternoon1—What a long-drawn-out storm—cloudy yet this morning.

Upon talking more fully with my sister about the colored woman Rosy, I am convinced she would not do—so I think we will give up any further thought of her as a help to you—

J T Nettleship's address is 233 Stanhope street, Regents' Park N W—The criticism in the Examiner was written by J H McCarthy.2 I am feeling pretty well (for me) this morning—Affectionate regards to all—


Walt Whitman


Correspondent:
Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist (1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes:

1. A reference to his return from a visit to the Gilchrists in Philadelphia from November 18 to 20 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]

2. According to his Commonplace Book, Whitman sent Two Rivulets on September 7 to Justin H. McCarthy, Jr. (1860–1936). On September 23, McCarthy thanked him for the volume, and recalled that his father, the novelist, had met the poet in 1870; see also Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 418–419, and Justin McCarthy, Reminiscences (London: Chatto & Windus, 1899), 1:258–261. McCarthy's unsigned review of Two Rivulets, "Songs Overseas," appeared in The Examiner on October 21. After praising Whitman's description of Lincoln's death, McCarthy observed: "Could he apply this power to the whole as to this chapter, Walt Whitman might abandon all other titles for that of America's first historian." [back]


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