I am very sorry to be so late with my reply to your note, which was received by me just on leaving home to go to Canada, & thence to some of your West N.Y. cities, a journey which has left me no leisure for writing notes to diplomatists, until today.2
If you wish to live in that least attractive (to me) of cities, I must think you can easily do so. Perhaps better in the journalism than in the Departments. You will see that I have dated my note from my known residence.3 With best hope,
R. W. EmersonWalt Whitman, Esq.
Endorsed (by Walt Whitman): "R W Emerson | Jan '63."
The envelope for this letter bears the address: Walt Whitman, Esq. | Washington.
[back]