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Walt Whitman Esq.
Phila1
Jan 17th
Dear friend—
Just as I was deeply interested in reading "John Russell Youngs2 reminiscences of
Walt Whitman" as published in last
evn'gs Paper, my soul enters with the pleasing tidings that you
were not "only sitting up" (in bed)
but was partaking with a relish of such food
as you had not till now
been allowed or desired." To
gain strength is what you need to
combat with your disease & nourishing
food may bring about this happy result.
Such we shall pray &
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hope for—I have always longed to hear you recite
"Captain, Oh, My Captain,"3 &
may I not yet hear it?
I would again come over to see you, but I am not myself well & you
are too sick to entertain even friends.
To our Heavenly Fathers care I consign you, dear friend,
trusting He will spare you to us yet a little longer.
Truly Yours
Lavinia F. Whitman
Phila, 2337 N. 18th
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Correspondent:
Lavinia Fanning Watson Whitman
(1818–1900) was the eldest daughter of John Fanning Watson—author of
Annals of Philadelphia (1830) and a well known
historian of Philadelphia and New York City—and his wife Phebe Barron
Crowell. In 1846, Lavinia became the first woman to sponsor a United States Navy
ship when she christened the sloop-of-war, the USS
Germantown, in Philadelphia. She married Harrison Gray Otis Whitman, a
son of Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ezekial Whitman.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman Esq— | Camden | N Jersey. It is postmarked: PHILADELPHIA, PA
| JAN 18 | 2 AM | 92; PHILADELPHIA, PA | JAN 18 | 2 AM | 92 CAMDEN, N.J. | JAN18
| 6AM | 92 | REC'D. [back]
- 2. John Russell Young
(1840–1899) was a journalist, United States minister to China, and the
seventh Librarian of Congress. In Men and Memories (New
York, F. Tennyson Neely, 1901), a posthumous collection of Young's personal
reminiscences, his editor and wife, May Dow Russell Young writes: "A deep and
genuine affection existed between Walt Whitman and John Russell Young, the
result of many years' acquaintance and profound admiration" (76). The collection
includes Young's account of reading the first edition of Leaves of Grass and later meeting Whitman in Washington, D.C.
(76–109). For more information, see John C. Broderick, "John Russell
Young: The Internationalist as Librarian," Quarterly Journal
of the Library of Congress 33 (April 1976), 116–149. [back]
- 3. Whitman's poem "O Captain!
My Captain!," an elegy for Abraham Lincoln, was one of Whitman's most popular,
although it was atypical of his verse and style (the rhyme, meter, stanza and
refrain are conventional, and the poem makes use of traditional metaphors). "O
Captain! My Captain!" was first published in The New-York
Saturday Press on November 4, 1865, and it was reprinted in Sequel to
Drum-Taps (1865–1866). For more information on the poem, see
Gregory Eiselein, "'O Captain! My Captain!' [1865]," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]