Skip to main content

Walt Whitman to Jessie Louisa Whitman, 23 April 1874

 wcu.00005.001_large.jpg My dear niece,

I received your nice good letter—and also Hattie's1 a week or two before2—& have been very much pleased with them. I want you both to continue. I am not much different in my health—no worse. All the rest here are well. This little cut picture was one I intended to send last Christmas, but it got lost in my papers—so I enclose it now, for fun—

Best love to you, dear child, & to my dear Hattie too, from Uncle Walt—

I will write to Hattie soon—


Correspondent:
Jessie Louisa Whitman (1863–1957) was the second and youngest daughter of Whitman's brother Thomas Jefferson "Jeff" Whitman (1833–1890) and Jeff's wife Martha Mitchell Whitman (1836–1873).


Notes

  • 1. Manahatta Whitman (1860–1886), known as "Hattie," was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson ("Jeff") and Martha ("Mattie") Whitman, Walt Whitman's brother and sister-in-law. Hattie and her sister Jessie were both favorites of their uncle Walt. [back]
  • 2. These letters have not been located. [back]
Back to top