Camden
Evn'g Feb: 14 '891
Y'rs came to-day, welcome—I send "Magazine Poetry" only half thinking it may be
a sort of curiosity to you—Mail it to Dr B[ucke]2 as he
owns it & wants it back—O'C[onnor]3 is still room-fast
& badly off—I am fearful of the worst luck (of wh' a long miserable
helpless lingering condition is perhaps worst)—Sunny & cold here—I
am ab't as usual—a cold in the head—
Walt Whitman
I've sent a Sarrazin4 to Baxter5 & to Harland.6
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This postal card is
addressed: Sloane Kennedy | Belmost | Mass:. It is postmarked: Camden (?) | Feb
14 | 8 PM | 89. [back]
- 2. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Whitman is referring to Gabriel
Sarrazin's "Poetes modernes de l'Amerique, Walt Whitman," which appeared in La Nouvelle Revue, 52 (May 1, 1888), 164–184.
Whitman had asked both William Sloane Kennedy and Richard Maurice Bucke to make
an abstract in English of it (see Whitman's letter to Kennedy of January 22, 1889, and to Bucke of January 27, 1889). Sarrazin's piece is reprinted in
an English translation by Harrison S. Morris in In Re
(1893, pp. 159–94). Gabriel Sarrazin (1853–1935) was a translator
and poet from France, who commented positively not only on Whitman's work but
also on Poe's. For more on Sarrazin, see Carmine Sarracino, "Sarrazin, Gabriel (1853–1935)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Sylvester Baxter (1850–1927)
was on the staff of the Boston Herald. Apparently he met
Whitman for the first time when the poet delivered his Lincoln address in Boston
in April, 1881; see Rufus A. Coleman, "Whitman and Trowbridge," PMLA 63 (1948), 268. Baxter wrote many newspaper columns
in praise of Whitman's writings, and in 1886 attempted to obtain a pension for
the poet. For more, see Christopher O. Griffin, "Baxter, Sylvester [1850–1927]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 6. Hamlin Garland
(1860–1940) was an American novelist and autobiographer, known especially
for his works about the hardships of farm life in the American Midwest. For his
relationship to Whitman, see Thomas K. Dean, "Garland, Hamlin," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). Whitman sometimes
misspells or is inconsistent in his spellings of the names of William Osler, his
doctor, and Hamlin Garland. He writes "Ostler" when he means "Osler" and refers
to Garland as "Harland." [back]