loc.01240.001_large.jpg
Millthorpe
nr Chesterfield
17 May 18861
Dear old Walt
I just enclose a letter of credit for £45 on a bank in Philadelphia. It is
the result of contributions, unsolicited, among a few friends
- R. D. Roberts of Cambridge MA
- Bessie H. Ford {of Leeds}
- Isabella Ford2
- Charles R Ashbee of Cambridge undergraduate3
- Wm Thompson of Nottingham
- & a brother & sister
- and Myself.
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We shall be very pleased if you will accept the little present as our remembrance of
your birthday & we wish you good times & much happiness yet—with our
love.
I have just heard from Maurice Bucke4—he writes from
Dorset, & talks of coming north in a fortnight, so I hope to see him
Edward Carpenter5
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I saw you had a good lecture in Phila.
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Letter from Edward Carpenter May 17 '86
(£45 from friends birthday present)
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).
Notes
- 1. Whitman has added the
erroneous date "1866" to Carpenter's "17 May" and then has written in red the
correct year, "1886." [back]
- 2. Bessie (d. 1919) and Isabella
(1855–1924) Ford were sisters who lived together in Leeds, were friends
and disciples (as well as cousins) of Carpenter, and active social reformers,
working for women's suffrage, trade unionism, and an independent labor
party. [back]
- 3. Charles Robert Ashbee
(1863–1942) studied history at Cambridge University, then became an
architect, heavily influenced by John Ruskin, William Morris, and the Arts and
Craft movement; he designed handicrafts and jewelry as well as buildings. [back]
- 4. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Whitman delivered his
Lincoln lecture in the Chestnut Street Opera House in Philadelphia on April 15,
1886. [back]