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Camden
Thursday noon
Oct. 25 '88
First thank you for your good affectionate letter, inspiriting more than you
knew—That seems to me too long, condensed, dwelling a pull proof reading
work—pressing work too on the delication of the
brain
—I had a friend a woman of 30 a counter in the
Redemption Bureau in the Treasury—told me she was "going to the devil fast
& steady" (her own description) from her dense
brain‑exhausting‑dulling labors, till she adopted the plan of getting a
10 or 12 minutes' nap (sleep or even doze) at noon or one oclock every day, just
leaning down at her desk—fortunately she could fall
in her nap—wh' is the great part of it—at any rate it cured1—
—I heard from Bucke2 to-day3—he sends me the enclosed little slip4 from
O'C5—the condition is bad, & I feel pretty gloomy
ab't my best friend—yet he has great vitality & may tide over
it—
—Nothing very different with me—Dr Ostler6 (very
'cute, a natural physician, rather optimistic, but best so)—thinks I am either
on a very good way, or substantially cured of this last attack—I only wish I
could feel so, or even approximate it—But any how
thank God so far my thoughts & mental power are entirely within my
control—I have written a short letter to Critic (by
their request) on the "poet" question (wh' they may print)7—My sister—George's wife8—has just paid me a
good cheery visit (with some nice home made Graham biscuits)—So I get along
well, am comfortable, have a fair appetite, & keep a good oak fire—
Love
Walt Whitman
Please send this to John Burroughs with slip [Over]9
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Belmont
Oct' 25th 88
Dear B[urroughs]
I forward this to you.
You need not have returned the XM Register. It was a mistake—the "Please return."
Geo. W. Cooke10 is a wooden-head of the first order—the incarnation of commonplace yet—a well-meaning man.—
Cordially yrs
W S Kennedy
University Press
Cambdridge
Oct 26.
What a good nice letter from the dear old fellow this is!
He cheery he is—keeps up heart most of the time.
Writen me a line when the mood takes you, dear friend—Any thought-point that may strike you—
K
Correspondent:
This letter is addressed to two
close acquaintances of Whitman: William Sloane Kennedy (1850–1929), a
writer and defender of the poet, and the naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921). For more on these figures, see these entries from Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998): Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)" and Carmine Sarracino,
"Burroughs, John (1837–1921) and Ursula
(1836–1917)."
Notes
- 1. Kennedy wrote on October 20, 1888: "Mrs. K. is in Boston at a
Symphony Concert and a precious ½ hour for my soul being at my disposal I
feel a strong inner impulse to pour out here in the evening solitude, my heart
to you in a genuine heart-letter of affection, welling up out of the deeps you
long ago touched as no other ever did or can. Dear friend whom I have for so
long admired, do you not feel that all is well with you & the great cause of
freedom for which you have laid down yr life? I do. I feel somehow that the
future is going to be with you, with us. Humanity is sweeping on into the larger
light. To me who have drank at all fountains of literature the world over, &
climbed the lonely peaks of thought in every land & age, your Leaves of Grass still towers up above everything else in
grand aspiration, right philosophy, & the heart-beats of true liberty."
Kennedy went on to complain that he was "really ill with hard work—nerves
trembling, eye fluttering & above all sleepy." [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. Whitman is referring to
Bucke's letter of October 23, 1888. [back]
- 4. A brief note from William
D. O'Connor to Bucke on October 20, 1888 mentioned that "a month ago my right
eye closed, and the lid had not yet lifted, spite of battery. So I am
practically blind" (University of Pennsylvania). Whitman tells Kennedy and
Burroughs that this letter had been enclosed with the letter he received from
Bucke on October 23, 1888. [back]
- 5. 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). [back]
- 6. Sir William Osler (1849–1919)
was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding staff members of Johns
Hopkins Hospital, where he served as the first Chief of Medicine. Richard
Maurice Bucke introduced Osler to Whitman in 1885 in order to care for the aging
poet. Osler wrote a manuscript about his personal and professional relationship
with Whitman in 1919; see Philip W. Leon, Walt Whitman and Sir
William Osler: A Poet and His Physician [Toronto: ECW Press, 1995]).
For more on Osler, see Philip W. Leon, "Osler, Dr. William (1849–1919)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on the relationship of Osler and
Whitman, see Michael Bliss, William Osler: A Life in
Medicine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). [back]
- 7. See Whitman's letter to the
editors of the New York Critic, November 1888. [back]
- 8. Whitman is referring to his
brother, George Washington Whitman, and George's wife Louisa Orr Haslam
(1842–1892), called "Loo" or "Lou." [back]
- 9. This postscript appears at
the top of the first page of the letter. On the verso of this letter, Kennedy
has written a letter to Burroughs dated October 25, 1888, as well as a second
note, dated October 26, 1888. Both of those letters are transcribed
below. [back]
- 10. George Willis Cooke
(1848–1923) was a Unitarian minister and writer, known for his history of
Unitarianism and for his books on Transcendentalist writers, including his 1881
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in which he deals with
Emerson's views of Whitman. [back]