Your letter1 respecting package of books sent is at hand. I will see to
their distribution as named.
Accept my thanks for your valued gift to myself of your writings. It makes life "lively" to have so
many attacks along with the hearty praises. The wind on both sides should enable you to steer straight.
Miss Repplier, of
W.Phila a bright member of the Contemporary Club & our
authoress2 has been with us this week
bringing new accounts of you & your talk at the club.
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You can take both the strokings of your fur, down & up, very quietly now, without getting
into a rage at the one or being unsettled by the other.
I am very sorry that you have to endure the terrible heats of our climate—but now the autumn days will bring you relief.
We are spending our summer on a place we have taken on a 21 years lease, longer than our lease of life. It has about 180 acres—160 of it in very beautiful woods over a mile long & full of the most delightful things. We look across a wide valley to a great tract of pines in the distance.
The question is continually before me as to whether I have right
with me in occupying so much space for private pleasures—"Its a muddle" of strange
& conflicting "rights," this our complicated civilization
I give myself the benefit of the doubt & confusion. Mary3 &
her husband4 & guests come
in to us to meals—Logan5 studies hard—recuperating in the saddle—and
Alys6 makes sunshine in all the house,
gathering many young & charming guests to share her pleasures. I am fast "ageing" and find great
delight in the beautiful forms
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of nature around us. A vista cut through the woods gives us a western prospect—the setting sun
in its glories. When, oh, when! will there be a vista through the perplexing obstructing
surroundings of life to show us the eternal verities. We are both near the disrobing—where
& how will come "the clothing upon" of eternity.
Do you feel any nearer to the solution of this than when we last talked it all over?
Good bye—God be with ye—All are just now away but myself. Accept the kind greetings of
Yours faithfully R. Pearsall SmithCorrespondent:
Robert Pearsall Smith
(1827–1898) was a Quaker who became an evangelical minister associated
with the "Holiness movement." He was also a writer and businessman. Whitman
often stayed at his Philadelphia home, where the poet became friendly with the
Smith children—Mary, Logan, and Alys. For more information about Smith,
see Christina Davey, "Smith, Robert Pearsall (1827–1898)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).