Am ab't the same as usual—Had a bad spell two weeks ago, but am now around after my sort, nearly the same (a letting down a little peg, if no more, every time)—Yes I have had superb treatment from my English friends—Yours of 23[?]d rec'd2—I dont know whether I told you that a young Englishman who came into a fortune not long since, sent me 50 pounds3—then the Nineteenth Cent paid me 30£ for the little poem4—
W WCorrespondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).