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Walt Whitman to Logan Pearsall Smith, 26 June 1887

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to Logan Pearsall Smith, 26 June 1887
  • Date: June 26, 1887
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.03819
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

    Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alex Ashland Stefan Schöberlein Kevin McMullen Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Logan Pearsall Smith, 26 June 1887." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 14 September 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.03819.xml (TEI)
 loc_jc.00127_large.jpg Camden New Jersey June 26 '87 Dear Logan

Nothing special to write about—yet I tho't I would send you a line—I suppose they are all over there in London, having good times—the baby included—dear baby! henceforth not the least among the objects of our interest—

—Showery here to-day—I tho't of getting out with my horse & rig for a drive—but this prevents—I am still tied to the house & chair—a bad spell the last ten days—heat—but much less bad yesterday & to-day—Mr Morse1 still here sculping​ me & H Gilchrist2 with the portrait—both please me.

—I have born two little poems3—which you will see in due time. It is middle of afternoon—have had five of the N Y and Phila. Sunday papers, reading all day—also looking out of the window—the mocking bird over the way is singing gay & fast—God bless you Logan boy—

Walt Whitman  loc_jc.00128_large.jpg Logan Pearsall Smith.

Correspondent:
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) was an essayist and literary critic. He was the son of Robert Pearsall Smith, a minister and writer who befriended Whitman, and he was the brother of Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, one of Whitman's most avid followers. For more information on Logan, see Christina Davey, "Smith, Logan Pearsall (1865–1946)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

  • 1. 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. [back]
  • 2. Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist (1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 3. These pieces were "November Boughs" and "The Dying Veteran." [back]
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