Many thanks for your two enclosures of printed extracts &c. I wrote to Mr. Buchanan1
about his plan of forming a society for the circulation of your works, but he has not given me very definite
information of what is intended;
loc.01232.002_large.jpg
meanwhile for the time I have been absorbed by the news of the death of one of my brothers in India. This
brings with it the additional pang to me that it will probably prevent my intended journey to the States
this Summer. I had made all arrangements, and was carried forward on the hope of seeing you, and now I am
greatly disappointed.
I must ask instead that you will send me your two volumes2 when ready—two
copies of each—I am anxious to see them. Please forward them as soon as you can to me at
45 Brunswick Square, Brighton. I have got a P.O.O for £4
wh. I enclose; I was trusting
to what I think Robert Buchanan said that £1 was the price per vol.,
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but I do not feel sure this is right as $5 would be more than that. However you will let me know if there is
any excess due to you & I will forward the sum. It is difficult for us in England to know what is the truth
among all the conflicting reports. I hope that the latest namely that you are not suffering from any immediate want
is the right one, tho' I feel that you must often be under
some pressure of difficulty. Of one thing
I3 am sure—from internal evidence so to speak—namely that your books have never been a source
of profit to you—tho' they may have been to others
Correspondent:
Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was an English
writer and Whitman disciple. Like many other young disillusioned Englishmen, he
deemed Whitman a prophetic spokesman of an ideal state cemented in the bonds of
brotherhood. Carpenter—a socialist philosopher who in his book Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure posited civilization as
a "disease" with a lifespan of approximately one thousand years before human
society cured itself—became an advocate for same-sex love and a
contributing early founder of Britain's Labour Party. On July 12, 1874, he wrote for the first time to Whitman: "Because you
have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually
in my heart . . . . For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest
instinct of their nature." For further discussion of Carpenter, see Arnie
Kantrowitz, "Carpenter, Edward [1844–1929]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).