I am sitting here in my bark-covered study this bright sharp day, writing you this
note. I look from the open fire that burns in the chimney, & the wood of which I
cut & hauled up the hill myself, out of the window on to the river just covered
with new ice, on off over the brown gray landscape. I am feeling well, better than
one year loc.01166.002_large.jpg ago
this time, my summers work I think has put something into me I much needed. I am
still busy nearly every day in the open air. There is no snow & the ground for the
past few days has been like iron. As soon as the snow comes we shall probably go to
Po'Keepsie to board a while. Julian1 says he rather stay here, & he likes the
country, & likes the school here. He learns well & begins to read books on
his own hook. The other
day at the close of the term of school he read his first composition in public. It
was a real piece.
loc.01166.003_large.jpg It was about "Papas Dogs" & gave much amusement. He spoke a couple of pieces
also, & easily carried off the honors. He is now reading "Tom Brown at Rugby."2 I
trust, dear Walt, you are better than when you wrote a couple of weeks ago, &
that you will have a fairly good Christmas. If you are not in the mood to write me
yourself ask Horace Trauble3 to drop me a
card. Nothing notable comes to or happens to me. I read a
little, write none at all, go nowhere, & try to make the most of the prose of life. If I could
only continue my farm work or else hibernate like a woodchuck
loc.01166.004_large.jpg I should be glad. If you have any
late news from O'Connor4 please let me have it. With much love
& a merry Christmas to you I am
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).