loc.03739.001_large.jpg
Noumeáa
Nouvelle-Calédonie
(Colonies Françaises)
3/7 1890
Dear Walt,
an important event took place in my life at the beginning of this year et I delayed
answering you for this very reason. As I have no fortune whatever, and journalism
does not suit my temper, I obtained a situation in our colonial magistracy and
loc.03739.002_large.jpg am now in New
Caledonia. It will be now easy for me to write my books in peace and without being
incessantly troubled with pecuniary difficulties.
I thank you very much for the newspapers you sent to me at different times: and
especially for the two essays on Giordano Bruno,1 by
Daniel G. Brinton and Thomas Davidson.2 My opinion, too,
is that Bruno is one of the
loc.03739.003_large.jpg martyrs of free thought, one of our martyrs, and one of the
forerunners of this future Humanity you sang in our days with such a genial
intuition.
Excuse my short letter, as I am more used to read English than to write it and am
always afraid of making many mistakes.
I hope you are always in pretty good health.
loc.03739.004_large.jpg
On my arrival here I suffered from this Oceanian climate, but am getting better each
day and will, no doubt, accustom myself to the climate.
I am writing to H. L. Traubel3 and to Harrison S. Morris4 by this very post; be assured, dear Walt, of all my love
Gabriel Sarrazin
My address is as follows:
M. Gabriel Sarrazin magistrat
á Noumeá, Nouvelle-Calédonie,
(Colonies Françaises)
Correspondent:
Gabriel Sarrazin (1853–1935)
was a translator and poet from France who commented positively not only on
Whitman's work but also on Poe's. Whitman later corresponded with Sarrazin and
apparently liked the critic's work on Leaves of
Grass—Whitman even had Sarrazin's chapter on his book translated
twice. For more on Sarrazin, see Carmine Sarracino, "Sarrazin, Gabriel (1853–1935)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. Giordano Bruno
(1548–1600) was an Italian Dominican friar and philosopher, whose notions
of a vast and infinite cosmos, as well as his pantheism and denial of doctrines
like the divinity of Christ and the virginity of Mary, got him tried for heresy
beginning in 1593 and burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. [back]
- 2. Giordano Bruno: Philosopher and Martyr (1890) consisted of two
speeches before the Philadelphia Contemporary Club by Daniel G. Brinton
(1837–1899), a pioneer in the study of anthropology and a professor of
linguistics and archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, and by Thomas
Davidson (1840–1900), a Scottish philosopher and author. It included a
prefatory note by Whitman dated February 24, 1890 (see The
Collected Writings of Walt Whitman: Prose Works 1892, ed. by Floyd
Stovall, 2 vols. [1963–1964], 2:676–677). In his essay Brinton links
the poet with Bruno in his rejection of the "Christian notion of sin as a
positive entity" (34). On April 4, 1890, Whitman sent copies of the book to John
Addington Symonds, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Gabriel Sarrazin, T. H. Rolleston, and
W. M. Rossetti (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of
the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.). See also Whitman's April 11, 1890, letter
to Bucke. After the poet presented him with a copy of Complete
Poems & Prose, Brinton expressed his thanks effusively on April 12, 1890. [back]
- 3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Harrison S. Morris
(1856–1948) of Philadelphia was a writer, editor, and translator. He made
an English translation of French critic Gabriel Sarrazin's "Poétes moderns
de l'amérique, Walt Whitman," La Nouvelle Revue, 52
(May 1888), 164–84; Morris's translation of Sarrazin's piece is reprinted
in In Re Walt Whitman (1893, pp. 159–194). Morris
also served as the managing director of the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine
Arts and editor of Lippincott's Magazine, as well as the
president of the Wharton Steel Company. He was the author and/or editor of
several books, including Walt Whitman. A Brief Biography, with
Reminiscences (1929). [back]