Have been trying to while the last two or three hours with the labors, good & ill fortunes &c (well told) of antiquarian Lord Elgin2 in Greece nearly 100 years ago.—Hope this idle card will find you resting & easy—nothing new with me—
Walt WhitmanCorrespondent:
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).