Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 19 September 1881

Date: September 19, 1881

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00437

Source: Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:244–245. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Kirsten Clawson, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Stefan Schöberlein, and Nicole Gray




Concord Mass:
Sept: 19 '81

Dear John

I keep on fairly in health & strength—have been out here a few days the guest of Mr & Mrs F B Sanborn—& everything most affectionate & hospitable from them both—& from others—Have had a curiously full and satisfactory time with Emerson—he came to see me Saturday evening early, Mrs E also, & staid two hours—Yesterday I went there (by pressing invitation) to dinner, & staid two hours—a wonderfully good two hours—the whole family were very cordial, including Mrs. E. & the son, Edward, a doctor, a fine, handsome, 'cute, glowing young man, with a beautiful wife and child—I took to them all—I cannot tell you how sweet and good (and all as it should be) Emerson look'd and behaved—he did not talk, in the way of joining in any animated conversation, but pleasantly and hesitatingly & sparsely—fully enough—to me it seemed just as it should be—

The book is about through—will appear last of October—every thing satisfactory—I go from here in about a week to Johnston's, cor: Mott avenue & 149th St. N.Y.—then to Camden—shall go to Canada this winter—


Walt Whitman


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