I was reading in your Nov. Boughs2
the other night & was for a long time thinking of you intently. I seemed to realize
you very vividly & of all you have been to me, & of all you still are. I
have had no word directly
from you in a long time. I thought I should see you
loc.01179.004_large.jpg
before this, but here I am in the old ruts.
I must get down your way this winter. I keep pretty well & lead an eventless life: read
a few books, write a little now & then, & work on my place.
I saw by the paper you were not as well as usual which makes me grieve. I hope you
are able to send
me a card: if you are not have Horace3 do it—I
long to have some word from you
loc.01179.005_large.jpg
Not much winter here yet. No snow at all. Julian4 has just
had his first skate.
He grows finely & is getting to be an omnivorous reader. Wife5 is well
except rheumatism. I go to Roxbury to-morrow on business.
Hoping you will be able to eat your Christmas turkey with relish
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).