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Camden New Jersey U S America
Feb: 10 '901—
It is near sunset after a bright winter day & I am waiting for my supper—my
young nurse2 is down stairs practising his fiddle lesson—
—I have just written three letters & here's a line to thee—Love to
the dear little ones too & Mr C3—Don't invest thyself
too heavily in those reforms or women movements or any other movements over
there4—attend to thyself & take it easy—all going on with me as of acct's
before—have a bit in last Century5—
Walt Whitman
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Correspondent:
Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom
Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." A scholar of Italian
Renaissance art and a daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith, she would in 1885 marry
B. F. C. "Frank" Costelloe. She had been in contact with many of Whitman's
English friends and would travel to Britain in 1885 to visit many of them,
including Anne Gilchrist shortly before her death. For more, see Christina
Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This postal card is
addressed: Mrs: Mary Costelloe | 40 Grosvenor Road | the Embankment | London
England. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Feb 10 | 8 PM | 90; Philadelphia, Pa.
| Feb 10 | 11 PM | Paid. [back]
- 2. Frank Warren Fritzinger
(1867–1899), known as "Warry," took Edward Wilkins's place as Whitman's
nurse, beginning in October 1889. Fritzinger and his brother Harry were the sons
of Henry Whireman Fritzinger (about 1828–1881), a former sea captain who
went blind, and Almira E. Fritzinger. Following Henry Sr.'s death, Warren and
his brother—having lost both parents—became wards of Mary O. Davis,
Whitman's housekeeper, who had also taken care of the sea captain and who
inherited part of his estate. A picture of Warry is displayed in the May 1891
New England Magazine (278). See Joann P. Krieg, "Fritzinger, Frederick Warren (1866–1899),"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 240. [back]
- 3. Benjamin Francis Conn Costelloe
(1854–1899), Mary's first husband, was an English barrister and Liberal
Party politician. [back]
- 4. In her letter of February 3, 1890, Costelloe had said: "I cannot now
imagine what life would be like with no interest in politics!"; she spoke of the
spread of socialism and of a meeting of the Westminster Women's Liberal
Association at which she was to preside (Smith Alumnae
Quarterly [February, 1958], 88). On February
15, Whitman forwarded her letter to Bucke, who commented two days
later (on February 17, 1889): "I guess Mr &
Mrs Costelloe (and friends) are going to reform that old world over there! They
will have a whack at it any way and perhaps the trying to reform it is as good
as the actual reforming would be!" [back]
- 5. "Old Age's Ship & Crafty Death's" appeared in the February 1890
issue of the Century. [back]