Albert Waldo Howard to Walt Whitman, 12 March 1890
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3-12-18901
Walt Whitman,
My Dear Friend:—
Allow me to express my ineffable gratefulness to you for the immense delight your
"Leaves of Grass" have thrilled me with, in the form of a few of my rhapsodies which
I take pleasure in committing to you—though, I fancy I shall survive minus
encouragement, it would be infinitely
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agreeable to me to receive any cheer you may be disposed to render me—Mr.
Emerson's2 recommends of your work secured you a very nice introduction to the world,
and, perhaps, I should become as famous(!) under the ban of your warm regards for my
poetic productions—(properly belonging to the 21 & 22 centuries.)
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Like our great poets, I, too, am familiar with straitened circumstances..—Being,
now, in a position, that would find a small-fortune a great blessing:—since, I
do not seem to be endowed with the worldly tact or talent for making lucre—I
have, however, amassed material both poetical and philosophical for volumes, as soon
as ever,
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I can accrue the wherewithal for publishing.. Had, already, edited stray poems, which were received with much pleasure by
the public—But they were the poorest specimens of my work—Had it been
otherwise—that is, one of my most select copies,—the people would have
recoiled from them horrified!—Unable to accompany me to the heights
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of such transcendent rhapsody.
Awaiting your benign consideration of me, I here will waft you my adieu,
Votre devouée Ami Albert Waldo Howard 25 5th St North Minneapolis, Minn— To Walt Whitman, Camden, New Jersey
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out
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Mind your helm | & | Keep the run of
the log.
Correspondent:
Albert Waldo Howard (dates
unknown, pseudonym, M. Auburré Hovorrè) was the author of a utopian
novel, The Milltillionaire (Boston: A. Howard, ca. 1895).
Howard was partially deaf and published two pamphlets implying that he was the
reincarnation of the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. In the late 1880s, he
was living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, before moving east to Boston and New York
City. The August 16, 1889, issue of the Minneapolis Star
Tribune describes Howard as "an intelligent semi-mute who is looking
for employment at copying, drawing, bookkeeping, teaching music or instructing
private deaf pupils" (5). When he left the city in 1890, the newspaper's
farewell message called him a "student of human nature" who "expects some day to
give the world a volume of poetical and philosophical writings" (Star Tribune [June 8 1890], 5). For more information, see
Howard P. Segal, Technological Utopianism in American
Culture (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005),
49–50.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey—. In the lower left corner, Howard has written: "(The Poet)." Howard provided the following return address: Albert Waldo Howard | 25—5th—St—North—. The letter is postmarked: Minneapolis, Minn | Mar 12 | 11 PM | 90; Camden, N.J. | Mar | 15 | 8AM | 1890 | Rec'd. [back]
- 2. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American poet and essayist who began the Transcendentalist movement with his 1836 essay Nature. For more on Emerson, see Jerome Loving, "Emerson, Ralph Waldo [1809–1882]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]