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LAW OFFICE OF
CHARLES H. ROBERTS,
GENERAL LAW.
PATENT LAW.
ROOM 20.
NO. 180 SOUTH CLARK STREET.
Chicago,1
Nov. 25 1891
Mr Walt Whitman
Camden,
N.J.
Dear Sir:
Years ago, centennial year,2 I spoke with you on Camden Ferry3 about sunset, Celia Thaxter,4
the man o war bird,5 John Burroughs,6 etc I
was then, or had been, mechanic and with Star & Sons, although a
western-man.
Now, at Chicago, I have just bought "Good-Bye My Fancy,"7 and renew the acquaintance.
I shall send you, tomorrow, a little book of mine, which some people read; and which
I think myself has green in it, though it may not be worth the browsing. I doubt if
I send it to be read, or even looked at, but rather—as a tribute to courage,
it is all I have. Look at its bill of fare; and—hand it to someone else,
or—heave it away.
Yours very sincerely
Charles H Roberts.
see notes Dec 4 1891
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Correspondent:
Charles Humphrey Roberts
(1847–1911) was an Ohio-born patent and estate attorney in Chicago,
Illinois. The book Roberts sent Whitman was likely his only novel, Down the O-hi-o (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1891), centering
on the Quakers of Southwestern Ohio and the underground railroad. According to a
review in the Chicago Tribune, "the author has made a
careful study of the Quaker and his ways" (vol. 60 no. 73 [March 14 1891], 12).
Roberts was working as an editor at the Cairo Bulletin
when he died in 1911. For more information, see "Charles H. Roberts Dead" in The Inter Ocean (December 1, 1911), 2.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed to
Mr. Walt Whitman, | Camden, | New Jersey. It is postmarked: Chicago, Ill. | Nov
25 | 230PM | 91; 14; Camden, N.J. | Nov 27 | 6AM | 91 | Rec'd. [back]
- 2. In 1876, the National Centennial commemorated the
100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The
Centennial was marked by celebrations across the United States, not the least of
which was the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, which ran from May to
November 1876 with approximately 10 million visitors in a seven-month
period. [back]
- 3. Here, Roberts reminisces
about a Camden Ferry ride with Whitman during the centennial year of 1876.
Riding this ferry had become a frequent, beloved activity of Whitman's since his
move to Camden in 1873. See Whitman's letter to Susan Stafford on September 10, 1882 in which Whitman describes the
profound connection he had to riding the ferry: "I don't know what I should do
without the ferry, & river, & crossing, day & night—I believe
my best times are nights—sometimes appear to have the river & boat all
to myself—." [back]
- 4. Celia Laighton Thaxter
(1835–1894) was an American poet and short story writer. The daughter of a
Maine lighthouse keeper and hotelier, Thaxter's stories are often set in the
American northeast and feature the Atlantic Ocean. Her works include Among the Isles of Shoals (Boston: James R. Osgood and
Company, 1873) and An Island Garden (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1894). For more information, see Joseph Flibbert's entry on Thaxter in
Encylopedia of American Literature of the Sea and Great
Lakes, ed. Jill B. Gidmark (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001),
441–442. [back]
- 5. The poem (later retitled "The Man-of-War Bird") appeared in the Athenaeum (April 1, 1876), 463, which paid Whitman £3.3 (Whitman's
Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman,
1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). It was later published
in Progress as "Thou who hast slept all night upon the
storm"; see The Cambridge History of American Literature,
Volume 2: 1820–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 557. [back]
- 6. The naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After
returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a decades-long
correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman.
However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged,
curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or
devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and
Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting
the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs,
see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 7. Whitman's book Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) was his last miscellany, and it
included both poetry and short prose works commenting on poetry, aging, and
death, among other topics. Thirty-one poems from the book were later printed as
"Good-Bye my Fancy" in Leaves of Grass
(1891–1892), the last edition of Leaves of Grass
published before Whitman's death in March 1892. For more information see, Donald
Barlow Stauffer, "'Good-Bye my Fancy' (Second Annex) (1891)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]