It is a long time since I wrote to you1—but I have heard a good deal about you
from the Gilchrists2—about your journey West and back again. I am glad you have seen it all, and are satisfied—and
the great mountains of Colorado—did they not make your man_ej.00181_large.jpgsoul shout? I would like to see you
and be with you for a little time—it would seem so restful. I wonder now
whether you have good friends about you at Camden, and feel at peace, spite of
illness. Do you sometimes feel really satisfied, and as if you didn't care what
happened, knowing it is done and can never be undone—dear Walt I wish you
could live and renew your strength again in all those whom
man_ej.00182_large.jpgyou have delivered. But perhaps you
do so. I have long had it on my mind to write and ask you about the possibility of
publishing a cheaper edition of yr Leaves of Grass in England;—there are so many now who cannot afford
the long price of present editions. I have thought that the sale might be so
increased by a cheaper edition (say a 7/6 one) as even to pay you. But then
there is the
man_ej.00042_large.jpgdifficulty of publishers (Trübner wd I think do you justice); and of course you could not issue your present
stereotyped edn in England at a lower price than in America. Still, what if a few friends
in England combined to undertake the expense of a comparatively cheap edition, sell
it through Trübner or some other publisher, and the profits to go to you. Would
you approve? I have thought a good deal about it, and that is the only feasible plan wh occurs to me—that will make the book accessible
man_ej.00043_large.jpgto the people, and
also pay you. But then again, would such a cheaper edn be pirated across the Atlantic & sold in the U.S.A in competition with
yours? Of course you have thought all this over: but you may not realise, what I am
only beginning to realise, the great demand wh is likely to arise here for your works, not among the literary
world but among the ordinary working day world. I have often been asked lately about
cheaper editions—
A friend of mine, a carpenter, writes "I need not tell you not to
forget 'Leaves of Grass' wh I have no doubt will please me as much as did 'Dem Vistas'. If I had sent you the references I made (and I made them to send
to you) you would have been amused for I had marked almost every page and almost
every paragraph. I considered it would be better to praise the whole book, for it is
all excellent. It is to be hoped Whitman will publish a cheaper edition of his
splendid works. He is one of those whom man_ej.00184_large.jpgmankind in the future will surely
know better than now how to honour." I believe I once mentioned to you a Mrs Hardy who is now out in Penna (Lawrence Co). If she ever comes to find you
out—you will receive her. But I will not quote what she says of you—and
yet I think I will—she says "I have not felt it a 'new birth of the soul'
merely, I felt
that his poems were the food for which my poor weak soul
man_ej.00045_large.jpgwas longing. Oh I do love him, the
dear earnest old man,
I want so much to see him to take him by the left hand and standing palm to palm
look away up into his
blue eyes and say 'Walt Whitman I love you'. There are only a very few men I know to
whom I could say it, but he I know would be able to understand all I mean by it; and it wd do us both good—in no other way could I tell him how much
man_ej.00046_large.jpgI admire his
poems".
About myself, I feel that I cannot go on with this lecturing—and in a month I hope to be at work out in the country near here—at first on some land of Ruskins3—but perhaps not for very long so. When you see Harry Stafford4 give him my love and say I am going to send him a photo: and hope he will send me one.
Goodbye, dear friend whom I do not ever forget. I wish I could be near you, in body, as I am in soul
Edward Carpenter