Alfred Webb to Walt Whitman, 18 February 1876
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STEAM PRINTING WORKS
Removed from
177. GT. BRUNSWICK STREET
74 Middle Abbey St.
Dublin,
18/2 1876
My dear Mr Whitman
I send you an order for 39/= for a copy of your works the $10 edition. If the amount does not cover the cost of mailing pray let me know I will send it. I hope you will write your name in the volumes.
I hear of you occasionally through Mr. Dowden.1 You may suppose that I often dwell with pleasure upon that little visit I paid you in Washington now nearly 4 years ago.
I wish you could see all the people—all the free young men, and pure women—here who take pleasure in &
have received life & light from your works—
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Not that they are very numerous, but I think you would take greater pleasure from the kind of people who care for you
than the number
I wish you cd have been at, or that it could be pictured to you, a
meeting of a literary society2 I attended last Monday evening where a "gentleman" made
a most ignorant & savage attack on your writings. I wish you cd
have heard Professor Dowdens reply—I wish you could have
seen how his beautifully spiritual face lighted up as he proceeded—and reading intelligently & with
feeling the very same passages from your works which the lecturer (a coarse Man of the world) had read as
words—make all clear & beautiful what was before
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coarse nonsense. I must say that I only know Mr Dowden casually—a person of my world cannot aspire to
much acquaintance with a man whom I know to be so much in advance of me in every respect. My knowledge of
literature is very slight—I have not the critical insight into things that he has
Dear friend, I am sorry to hear of your not being well. Is there no chance of our ever seeing you at this side? I hope I will again see you in any case.
Life appears to me increasingly beautiful & interesting—I feel increasingly
tender towards all living creatures. My having been
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obliged to give up all idea of a separate life for myself beyond the grave, forces me more & more to strive to
do what little good I can in this world—convinces me more that (beyond our animal necessities) spiritual
life, that truth, that intercourse with the pure hearted amongst us here—is the only life really worth
living—I must not exclude the pure joys of nature—the [illegible], the mountain top,
and the forest.
Correspondent:
Alfred John Webb (1834–1908) was the son of Richard Davis Webb (1834–1908) and Hannah Waring Webb (1810—1862).
He was from a family of activist printers; they owned a print shop in Dublin and belonged to a Quaker group that supported suffrage and the abolition of slavery. Webb
was the author of A Compendium of Irish Biography (1878), and later became a politician with the Irish Parliamentary Party and served as a Member of Parliament.
Notes
- 1. Edward Dowden (1843–1913), professor of English literature at the University of Dublin, was one of the first to critically appreciate Whitman's poetry, particularly abroad, and was primarily responsible for Whitman's popularity among students in Dublin. In July 1871, Dowden penned a glowing review of Whitman's work in the Westminster Review entitled "The Poetry of Democracy: Walt Whitman," in which Dowden described Whitman as "a man unlike any of his predecessors. . . . Bard of America, and Bard of democracy." In 1888, Whitman observed to Traubel: "Dowden is a book-man: but he is also and more particularly a man-man: I guess that is where we connect" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, June 10, 1888, 299). For more, see Philip W. Leon, "Dowden, Edward (1843–1913)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. On February 16, 1876, Dowden mentioned a discussion of "The Genius of Walt Whitman" at the Fortnightly Club that had taken place two days earlier. [back]