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328 Mickle Street Camden New Jersey
U S America
July 12 18901
Dear Comrade B O'D (& all the friends)
Y'r good long varied & loving letter came yesterday2 & has been welcome & nourishing to me—Sure
I read ab't that Australian "interior" bit, and "shearing"—& ab't the experience & death of Gordon
the poet3—& the whole letter—with much I will
not particularize—with deepest interest, & thank you for sending it to me & hope for more—&
can almost see you all there, & w'd wish to specifically send remembrance & love to you, Fred Woods,4 Jim
Hartigan,5 Ada, Eve,6 Mr: and Mrs:
Fryer,7 Ted, Louie,8 "Tom Touchstone"9 (when there,) &
any other friends not named—the 'cute & loving appreciation of my book & me by them there in Australia
has gone right to my heart—is far more than literary or technical fame.
I have sent you a copy of Dr Bucke's10 book11 by mail—if I repeat parrot–like you must
pardon—for one thing I forget & for another I am not certain former letters by P O get there, sent yesterday
same address as this—(it will interest you all but it is over color'd flattered)—Dr B is well & is
busy—is a leading personal friend & my chief literary advocate—full of work & responsibility in
London, Ontario, Canada—has a large family of sons & daughters12—I keep pretty well, eat & sleep
middling well, (eat bread & honey, blackberries &c this summer weather—occasionally a mutton chop)—my
worldly circumstances are good enough for me on a very low plane of course—I have a good strong tight cane chair
& get out in it almost every day13—propell'd by my stout young man nurse14—an
hour last evn'g at sunset down by riverside (the Delaware)—keep in fair spirits & in good flesh but no more
bodily volition or locomotive power than a log—can't get across the room—I am still sitting here at this
moment in a big cane chair—pleasant weather, open window (have had it very hot here)—Farewell for the present
God bless you & all—it is so welcome to me to be loved by you all but I know I am overestimated
Walt Whitman
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Correspondent:
Bernard O'Dowd (1866–1953), a
self-styled "poor clerk in an obscure library" in Melbourne, Australia, wrote
for the first time to Walt Whitman on March 12, 1890, although there is extant
an unsent draft letter written on August 6, 1889. From his confessions in
various letters it is clear that O'Dowd, the son of an Irish policeman, had a
lonely and loveless childhood, that he was reared a Roman Catholic only to
become a freethinker, that he became a teacher at an early age but then drifted
(not unlike Walt Whitman) from job to job, and that despite his marriage the
year before in his own eyes he was "a failure" and "an enigma to myself." He saw
Walt Whitman as an heroic father figure: "Had Carlyle added another chapter to
his 'Hero Worship' the 'Hero as Nurse' with Walt Whitman as subject would have
worthily capped his dome" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection; A. L. McLeod, ed.,
Walt Whitman in Australia and New Zealand: A Record of his
Reception [Sydney: Wentworth, 1964], 23). For discussions of O'Dowd,
see A. L. McLeod's article in Walt Whitman Review 7 (June
1961), 23–35, and his Walt Whitman in Australia and New
Zealand (1964).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Bernard O'Dowd | Supreme Court Library | Melbourne | Victoria | via San
Francisco. It is postmarked: Camden N.J. | JUL12 | 8 PM | 90; [illegible] | JUL12 | 8 PM | 90;
Philadelphia, PA. | JUL12 | 9 PM | F.D.; San Francisco [illegible] | JUL 17; Melbourne | [illegible] | AU23 | 90. [back]
- 2. It is uncertain which letter
Whitman is referring to here. [back]
- 3. Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870), a
British-born poet who had emigrated to South Australia, and whose grave O'Dowd
had recently visited according to O'Dowd's letter to Whitman of June 9 (Charles
E. Feinberg Collection; A. L. McLeod, ed., Walt Whitman in
Australia and New Zealand: A Record of his Reception [Sydney:
Wentworth, 1964], 21). [back]
- 4. Fred Woods was a member of
the Australeum discussion club and later wrote Heavenly
Thoughts (1932), a volume of poetry. See A. L. McLeod, "Walt Whitman in
Australia," Walt Whitman Review 7 (June 1961),
28n. [back]
- 5. James Hartigan was a
plasterer and member of the Australeum discussion club. [back]
- 6. Evangeline (Eva) Mina Fryer
O'Dowd was the wife of Bernard O'Dowd. [back]
- 7. Mr. and Mrs. Fryer were
Bernard O'Dowd's in-laws. John Robbins Fryer (1826–1912) was a carpenter
and conductor of the Melbourne Secular Lyceum. Jane Trump Fryer
(1832–1917) was often considered a "political and religious radical," who
was also a teacher in the Lyceum. For more on the Fryers, see Frank Bongiorno,
"Fryer, Jane (1832–1917)," Australian Dictionary of
Biography, Supplemental Volume, Online Version, 2006. [back]
- 8. Little is known about these
individuals (Ada, Ted, and Louie) save that they are likely relatives of Bernard
O'Dowd's wife, Eva Fryer O'Dowd. They may include her sibling (or siblings) and
their spouses. [back]
- 9. Thomas Bury, penname "Tom
Touchstone," was a columnist for the Ballarat Courier
(Victoria). See A. L. McLeod, "Walt Whitman in Australia," Walt Whitman Review 7 (June 1961), 28n. [back]
- 10. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 11. In 1883 Whitman arranged
with David McKay, his Philadelphia publisher, to print Bucke's Walt Whitman (1883). The poet personally supervised publication,
including proofreading. The typesetting of Bucke's biography was completed on
March 31 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the
Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.).
Bucke generated some of the text, but Whitman controlled every detail, altering
the proofs at will. [back]
- 12. Richard Maurice Bucke
(1837–1902) and his wife Jessie Gurd Bucke (1839–1926) had three
daughters and five sons: Clare Georgina (1866–1867), Maurice Andrews
(1868–1899), Jessie Clare (1870–1943), William Augustus
(1873–1933), Edward Pardee (1875–1913), Ina Matilda
(1877–1968), Harold Langmuir (1879–1951), and Robert Walpole
(1881–1923). [back]
- 13. Horace Traubel and Ed
Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for
the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's
letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8,
1889. [back]
- 14. Frank Warren Fritzinger
(1867–1899), known as "Warry," took Edward Wilkins's place as Whitman's
nurse, beginning in October 1889. Fritzinger and his brother Harry were the sons
of Henry Whireman Fritzinger (about 1828–1881), a former sea captain who
went blind, and Almira E. Fritzinger. Following Henry Sr.'s death, Warren and
his brother—having lost both parents—became wards of Mary O. Davis,
Whitman's housekeeper, who had also taken care of the sea captain and who
inherited part of his estate. A picture of Warry is displayed in the May 1891
New England Magazine (278). See Joann P. Krieg, "Fritzinger, Frederick Warren (1866–1899),"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 240. [back]