I2
got your
letter monday with the contents
all safe I should have written
before but I wanted to hear from
Hannah3 and we hadent had
any word from Jeff4
in a week
so I thought I would wait
I got one from Heyde yesterday
tuesday 17th he says Han is improving
the doctor lanced her wrist
and it discharged very
much he said and since he
said she was not quite so nervious
her wrist appears to
have been a gathering – it must be
on her right hand I dont wonder
at her letter being wrote so irregular
and she very nervous with all
well as to Jeff he is I suppose on
his way to Brooklyn – will be here
probably on saturday or sunday5
I am glad he is coming poor jeff
I feel sorry for him and sorry
for matty6
and sorry for myself –
I have my hands full I will
assure you Walter dear – I feel
sometimes almost done out – then i
get quite recruited) some days
matty has to lie down nearly
all day – then again she can doo
around a little – she has been
troubled very much with vomiting
I think she takes some things
duk.00555.002.jpg
that disagrees with her stomach
the wine she has had is not very
good I perswaded her to not
get any more George7
says they
say there is no good port wine
at all) the doctor does all he can
he sounded her lungs again
on monday and said it ws
no worse but if any thing rather
better) her right lung is the one
affected) she asked him if he
couldent give her something
for her coughf he said no
that it came from her lungs
and no medicine could cure
it – the only thing was the way she lived and
place she lived in) and that
was the only thing that would
help her) he said if she had 16
doctors the best that could be
produced they could not remove
her disease by medicine) but
if she would go where the air
was dry she could very likely
get better Yesterday she was
sick on account of the east wind
George went to the doctors last
night to get something he had
had prepared for her) the doctor
asked him if she hadent had
a bad day) charley heyde said
they mentioned her case to dr Thayer8
and he said she couldent have
come to a worse place than brooklyn
i sent Han a letter last week a good one9
This letter is unusual for its systematic correction. The marks are faintly visible on the digital image but are clearly visible on the manuscript in the Trent Collection at Duke University. The corrections appear to be in Louisa's hand, but she may have been prompted to make these corrections by her visiting granddaughter Manahatta. (Manahatta accompanied her mother Martha Mitchell "Mattie" Whitman for her return to Brooklyn for medical treatment.) It appears that Louisa Van Velsor Whitman in her hand corrected her usual lowercase "i" to capital "I" and made many marks to separate phrases. That said, while lower-case "i" is more common in later letters, capital "I" is not unusual in early letters. Also, the style of the slash to separate phrases is not systematically different from the mark that is elsewhere transcribed as a closing parenthesis—the style of the mark varies widely. In this edition, the dashes have been transcribed as an en dash with a space before and after, and the slash-style marks are transcribed as the closing parenthesis.
Louisa Van Velsor Whitman (1795–1873) married Walter Whitman, Sr., in 1816; together they had nine children, of whom Walt Whitman was the second. For more information on Louisa and her letters, see Wesley Raabe, "'walter dear': The Letters from Louisa Van Velsor Whitman to Her Son Walt" and Sherry Ceniza, "Whitman, Louisa Van Velsor (1795–1873)."
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