Camden
Saturday noon
Aug: 4 '881
Your dear letter came this morning, enclosing Dr Channing's2 (herewith returned)3
Thank you & Dr. C. & dear Grace4 & Stedman5 & all—all the
movements are certainly roseate toward me & I feel
thankful & responsive—& all the confirmatory possible—
I am still kept in my room, hoping each day to get firmer & stronger & get
out—but no such day comes yet—or even the indication of it—&
to-day Saturday a fearful hot & oppressive baker & prostrater, the worst
to my feelings, as I sit here, of any yet—there is no set back, so far—but if a long spell of hot unhealthy
August weather sets in "the second time of that man will be worse than the
first"—
The November Boughs6 (did I tell you?) is all done
in copy—The printing office is now all diverged on a
Harrison and Morton book,7 hurry is up—will take them a week—my Boughs will be at least two months before
published—possibly longer—I remain in good spirits—It seems to be grow[ing] hotter & melter—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is endorsed:
"Answ'd Aug 31/88." It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | Life Saving Service |
Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Aug 4 | 8 PM | 88;
Washington, Rec'd | Aug 5 | 7 AM | 88 | 1. [back]
- 2. William F. Channing
(1820–1901), son of William Ellery Channing, and also Ellen O'Connor's
brother-in-law, was by training a doctor, but devoted most of his life to
scientific experiments. With Moses G. Farmer, he perfected the first fire-alarm
system. He was the author of Notes on the Medical Applications
of Electricity (Boston: Daniel Davis, Jr., and Joseph M. Wightman,
1849). Ellen O'Connor visited him frequently in Providence, Rhode Island, and
Whitman stayed at his home in October, 1868. [back]
- 3. On August 3, 1888 O'Connor mentioned that Grace
Channing's calendar (see Whitman's August 30,
1888, letter to Charles W. Eldridge) had been sent to Stedman, who was to
arrange for publication (see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman
in Camden, Monday, August 6, 1888). On the same day O'Connor wrote to thank
Stedman for his assistance in the projected work. On September 21 Stedman
informed Traubel that three firms had rejected publication of the calendar
(Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Saturday, September 22, 1888). [back]
- 4. Grace Ellery Channing
(1862–1937) was a writer and editor. She was the niece of William D.
O'Connor. In 1894 she married artist Charles Walter Stetson, soon after his
divorce from Channing's lifelong friend, writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. After
her initial refusal to ever read Whitman's work, Channing became enthralled by
the poet's words and, in 1887, had the idea of creating an illustrated calendar
with excerpts from Leaves of Grass. The illustrations
would be made by Walter Stetson. The project was never realized. For more on the
calendar project, see see Joann Krieg, "Grace Ellery
Channing and the Whitman Calendar," Walt Whitman
Quarterly Review 12:4 (1995), 252–256. Channing published her own
volume of Whitman-inspired poetry titled Sea-Drift in
1899. [back]
- 5. Edmund Clarence Stedman
(1833–1908) was a man of diverse talents. He edited for a year the Mountain County Herald at Winsted, Connecticut, wrote
"Honest Abe of the West," presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served
as correspondent of the New York World from 1860 to 1862.
In 1862 and 1863 he was a private secretary in the Attorney General's office
until he entered the firm of Samuel Hallett and Company in September, 1863. The
next year he opened his own brokerage office. He published many volumes of poems
and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were Poets of America, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest
Settlement to the Present Time, 11 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster,
1889–90). For more, see Donald Yannella, "Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1833–1908)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 6. Whitman's November Boughs was published in October 1888 by Philadelphia
publisher David McKay. For more information on the book, see James E. Barcus
Jr., "November Boughs [1888]," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 7. Whitman is probably
referring to Reverend G. L. Harney's The Lives of Benjamin
Harrison, and Levi P. Morton (1888). [back]