I was pained to hear that you are sufffering more and more,2
but was glad to know that your brave spirit has never been bowed—and
that in all
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your agony your heart keeps sweet and strong.
I think of you a thousand times a day, and of the great good you have done the world.
You have uttered such brave,
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free and winged words—words
that have thrilled and ennobled the hearts and lives of millions—that
my admiration has deepened to obligation.
Again I thank you for for your courage, and again I lovingly say farewell—and yet I hope to see you soon
Yours always R G IngersollCorrespondent:
Robert "Bob" Green Ingersoll
(1833–1899) was a Civil War veteran and an orator of the post-Civil War
era, known for his support of agnosticism. Ingersoll was a friend of Whitman,
who considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. Whitman said to Horace
Traubel, "It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is
Leaves of Grass. He lives, embodies, the
individuality I preach. I see in Bob the noblest
specimen—American-flavored—pure out of the soil, spreading, giving,
demanding light" (Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Wednesday, March 25, 1891). The feeling was mutual. Upon Whitman's
death in 1892, Ingersoll delivered the eulogy at the poet's funeral. The eulogy
was published to great acclaim and is considered a classic panegyric (see
Phyllis Theroux, The Book of Eulogies [New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1997], 30).