Camden1—
Thursday noon
Sept: 13 '88
Thanks, dear friend,2 & to dear Mrs: I[ngram]3—the fruit came this forenoon by express—all
safe—& the bottles of wine ditto—thanks. Beautiful perfect weather here. I am still kept
in my sick room, (but no worse)—My book printing4 goes on smoothly—My "Notes," such as they
are, on E[lias] H[icks]5 among the rest—the bunch of golden rods on my table as I write—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Ingram, a Quaker, kept a tea
store—William Ingram and Son Tea Dealers—in Philadelphia. Of Ingram,
Whitman observed to Horace Traubel: "He is a man of the Thomas Paine
stripe—full of benevolent impulses, of radicalism, of the desire to
alleviate the sufferings of the world—especially the sufferings of
prisoners in jails, who are his protégés" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, May 20, 1888). Ingram and his wife visited the physician
Richard Maurice Bucke and his family in Canada in 1890.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Wm
Ingram | Telford | Bucks Co: | Penn:. It is postmarked: (?)den, N.J. | Sep 13 |
8 PM | 88. [back]
- 2. This is Whitman's reply to
Ingram's letter of September 12, 1888. When
discussing this letter with Horace Traubel, the poet pronounced Ingram "the best
salt of the earth: he is the finest sample of the democrat—of the plain
self-sufficient comrade: a real man among real men" (Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, "Friday, September 14, 1888." [back]
- 3. Little is known about Jane
Ingram (ca. 1826), the wife of William Ingram, who was the owner of a tea store
in Philadelphia. [back]
- 4. Whitman's November Boughs—a book of prose and poetry—was published
in 1888 by David McKay. The book included a long prefatory essay, "A Backward
Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," a collection of sixty short poems under the title
"Sands at Seventy," and reprints of several articles already published
elsewhere. For more information on November Boughs, 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]
- 5. Elias Hicks (1748–1830) was a
Quaker from Long Island whose controversial teachings led to a split in the
Religious Society of Friends in 1827, a division that was not resolved until
1955. Hicks had been a friend of Whitman's father and grandfather, and Whitman
himself was a supporter and proponent of Hicks's teachings, writing about him in
Specimen Days (see "Reminiscence of Elias Hicks") and November
Boughs (see "Elias Hicks, Notes (such as they are)"). For more on Hicks and his
influence on Whitman, see David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman's
America (New York: Knopf, 1995), 37–39. [back]