Doctor1 is at his desk sending you
one of the messages you so much affect.
There is hardly need for me to add anything. Still I wish to say how
much I have enjoyed all things here & how much I regret to have to make
my stay so short.2 We were happy today to have the three notes
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from you. They arrived one with another,—a sweet sheaf
fm the Southward. Bless you for all the fields
you have planted & harvested for the world! What you say of
Ingersoll's3 address4 goes home. Doctor's copy
of that address arrived today. On Saturday I wrote Ingersoll quite a
note—the first since the lecture—and today I
got good word off to Baker5: a truly
noble & loving
fellow whom you would be drawn to.
I read Doctor my essay (N.E. Mag.6) Sunday night.
He set me on my feet with certain improvements in phraseology, on the point of your
Washington sickness. He thinks your & my terminology when we get off
on that field
lamentable if not laughable. Bucke has a big sneer when he minds. All
is well with us. I am in love with Ina
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& Pardee.7 They have a more than Grecian loveliness of expression
& demeanor—a commingling of two streams, antique & modern.
They are such hopes as lead out to America's
biggest future. We expect to have a generous drive tomorrow if it
is clear. The sky tonight is overclouded. The earth here is flat, but the
heavens tumble their gorgeous
hills without stint.
Canada—this part of it—is the land of horizons. Doctor gave
a talk to students today, & this day I went with him to the
dance— both times curiously instructed & quieted.
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I8 read Symonds'9 negative essay today.
After the "master" of his letters,
this is all touchy & resc[illegible]. He
must come out of his dim dread to say his say before he dies. When critics will
cease to be icebergs, authorship will get
its dues—not before!
Correspondent:
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).