I recd the books all right, also your letter & card.1 I am just back from Roxbury where I went a week ago to make sugar in the old
woods of my boyhood; had a pretty good time, though too much storm. Only my brother
is now upon loc.01154.002_large.jpg the
old farm. I have to go back there at least twice a year to ease my pain. Oh, the
pathos of the old place where my youth was passed, where father & mother lived
& died, & where my heart has always been!
I have been pretty well since I saw you, except that I have been off my sleep a good
deal. Just now I am having a streak of sleeplessness. I do not quite know what to
make of it. To-day is loc.01154.003_large.jpg my birth-day, too, I am 49 today. I hope spring finds you
better. I lately heard from you through J. W. Alexander, the artist. I think he will
make a good picture of you.2 He is a fine fellow. I am
glad to hear of the projected new book.3 I hope it is to be a reality. The title is
good. My book "Signs & Seasons" will be out this month. I do not think much of
it,—the poorest of my books, I think. No news with me. I hope to see you in
loc.01154.004_large.jpg May, as I go to
Kentucky. I hope you will not try to face the summer again in Camden. It is very
imprudent. A bright afternoon here, with remains of last nights snow still
lingering.
Correspondent:
The naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After
returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a decades-long
correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman.
However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged,
curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or
devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and
Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting
the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs,
see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).