Walt Whitman to Rudolf Schmidt, 25 January 1874 a machine readable transcription Walt Whitman Kenneth M. Price Ed Folsom Transcription and encoding The Walt Whitman Archive Staff Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln University of Iowa National Historical Publications and Records Commission 2012 The Walt Whitman Archive
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 rlc.00008 The following are responsible for particular readings or for changes to this file, as noted: Elizabeth Lorang Ashley Lawson Zachary King Eric Conrad Walt Whitman Edwin Haviland Miller The Correspondence New York New York University Press 1961–1977 2 269–270 Walt Whitman Walt Whitman to Rudolf Schmidt, 25 January 1874 January 25, 1874 The Royal Library of Copenhagen Walt Whitman Rudolf Schmidt added schematron declaration checked checked checked encoded extracted transcription from Major Authors cd Jan. 25, '74 My dear Rudolf Schmidt,

Your letter of Jan. 2 has just reached me here. I am always glad to get word from you. Write oftener. I have been very ill—now just a year—from paralysis & cerebral anæmia. I have been at death's door myself—& during the year have lost my dear mother & a dear sister by death.

I sent you a newspaper, with account, five months since, but as you do not allude to it I suppose you did not receive it. I send another by this mail. (I have sent you several papers & magazines the past year.) I am not in bed but up & dressed, & go out a little every day, & shall probably get well again—But I remain paralyzed yet—walk with difficulty & very little—have bad spells in my head—& ameliorate very slowly—Still I write & publish a little—Mental faculties not affected.

I have at present no thought of visiting England. In a letter two years since Tennyson kindly invited me to come to his house—which aroused some thought & wish for a time—but it has passed away.

What have I heard about some great German University, proposing for one of its prizes, for some annual or bi-annual literary fête, the question, Has America really produced any real poet? Have you heard any thing of such a discussion?

What about Bjornson? Is he coming to America? If so, give him my address, & tell him to come & see me. (It is almost a part of Philadelphia, where I now live—on the opposite side of the Delaware river.)

When you write, or send me (the Danish) Democratic Vistas, direct here. Write me from Germany,

Walt Whitman 431 Stevens street, Camden, N. Jersey. U. S. America

(I have not given up my place in the Solicitor's office, Washington—but keep up communication—& if I get well, expect to go back there)—I want to hear all about Bjornson—