I received the "November boughs"1 and like the general get up of the book much.
It has a fresh, inviting appearance, & one wonders what it contains,
something good—sure! The most I have had time for yet is the Hicks
article.2 I think you have done good
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work for the long neglected. It is genial, inspiring, picture-like. If the
old broad brims3 of Richmond were not so close fisted, I should predict that
they would buy copies of the book by the score, but my experience with them
was that they wilted when the cost of things that enthused them stepped,
however modestly, to the front.
Blake4 is very much pleased to get the book, & will I expect give it a good
description in their Unity.5
I hear by Horace6 that you are moderately comfortable & holding on to your life interests. Do you know that is about the summing up for us all—moderately, so, so.
I am doing fairly well—am getting where I pay expenses now, with my entertainments.
A wealthy lady of culture7 by chance came to one of my evenings at
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B's church, & was thus pleased, she bought
my Carlyle8 & Emerson,9 & engaged
me for two parlor entertainments at her own home.10 The
first I gave last week Thursday to a company of some 30 young ladies—very
bright they were, and responsive. It was the most successful so far of all I have done.
To-morrow afternoon I give to the girls parents.
They are reputed to have culture & money, & to be "very swell."
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If they receive me as pleasantly as the young folk did, I shall
at least, enjoy the occasion myself. The young ladies, ranging from 18 to 25 perhaps,
were all alert, sympathetic, eager, enthusiastic. I drew with
chalk & worked the clay—modeling rough
a head of Cleveland,11 & then, changing it
to Harrison12—a work not exceeding five minutes.13 They happened to be all
republicans, so I finished on the top wave of great applause. Then
they gathered around & took a poke at the clay themselves— told me
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they are mostly graduates of Welsely College, near Boston. I was engaged for
an hour, but 3 hours passed before the company broke up, with lunch &
souvenirs of little clay heads.
This introduction promises to expand into a winter's work very pleasing and financialy satisfying, as well. To-morrow I am to take all the art-work I have here, & the lady is to procure other things so we can turn her back parlor into a studio on wh. she can open her folding doors at the appointed hour. It is suggested that I call these entertainments Morse's Studios—so people will say, "Go to, now: let us have one of Morse's Studios in our parlors. It is quite the thing." Ahem! Let the lady that presides over your house read this & say how it sounds.
We are having charming weather just now. The Election interest warms up & the din is to be heard every evening. It looks to me as though Harrison has made a steady gain over the country, while Cleveland has been guilty of much clap-trap. Undoubtedly the situation in N.Y. has grown desperate. Some of Harrison's little speeches I have noticed have been excellent in form & sentiment. He has certainly grown himself & in public estimtation. At first it looked as though Blaine14 would eclipse the Harrison but quietly he has come to the front, & Blaine has fallen back. B's reception here was hearty, but when H's name was mentioned the audience rose to their feet.
I am a looker on. The issue of the voting not so much, but the education of the campaign very much. The whole business of government is getting quite an airing.
The little suggestions of Chicago coldness we have had, so penetrating to bone & marrow, cause me to dread the coming winter. I'd like a Southern trip. With many thinkings of you constantly, & love,
Sidney. 665 W. Lake St.Correspondent:
Sidney H. Morse (1832–1903)
was a self-taught sculptor as well as a Unitarian minister and, from 1866 to
1872, editor of The Radical. He visited Whitman in Camden
many times and made various busts of him. Whitman had commented on an earlier
bust by Morse that it was "wretchedly bad." For more on this, see Ruth L. Bohan,
Looking into Walt Whitman: American Art,
1850–1920 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2006), 105–109.