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I could convey no idea to you of how it affects my soul.

I got it, looked into it with wonder, and felt that here was something that touched on depths of my humanity

My berry crop & other crops were much injured.

I think I shall send my wife down there this winter; in the mean time I wish you would look into it.

Feb. 27, 1890 Dear Walt: Here I am back from Pokeepsie Poughkeepsie in my little study to-night with

But few of my friends have visited me here, but here I sit by my open fire & have long long thoughts

How many times have I planted you there in my big chair by the window, or here in front of the open fire

Give him my love if you write him. I think I told you we were housekeeping in for the winter.

My winter has been flat stale & unprofitable.

I had to come back to look after my farm. The heavy rains came near washing it away.

I & my man live alone in the old house, I am chief cook & bottle washer I keep well & busy, & am not

In a couple of weeks my grapes will be all off (only 1/2 crop this year) & I shall take another holiday

I wish you were here to enjoy this view, & this air, & also my grapes & peaches. Drop me a card.

My publishers still stick to me for a book & say that if I am not content with the usual 10 per cent,

I could not have gone in any case, my wife was ill in bed & I had to go to Delaware Co County to examine

My own health is nothing to brag of, I thought the trouble was with my nervous system, but the doctor

finds it in my arterial; arteries hard & brittle, danger from apoplexy &c.

I have given up eating meat & have otherwise changed my habits—shall probably go out home in the spring

He did not even ask about your health, or any other human thing, & made me feel that my call upon him

I had resolved, for reasons of my own, not to call upon any of those fellows, & I feel like throttling

Herbert for making me depart from my resolution.

If you have a copy of my "Notes" to spare, send it to O'Connor. I have but one.

I slept in my boat or under it all the time.

The next week after I returned home I wrote up my trip for the magazine, using the health & strength

say about you, with extracts, but I cannot catch you in any mistake, as I wish I could, for that is my

I wish I could also find a slip in Shakspeare Shakespeare , or Tennyson, but I cannot according to my

The baby is doing well & completely fills my heart. Wife is about as usual.

volumes of Horace Traubel's With Walt Whitman in Camden (various publishers: 1906–1996) and Whitman's "My

Commemoration Ode," which has often, since its publication, been contrasted with Whitman's own tribute, "O Captain

My Captain!"

It has been my plan to have you up here for the summer if I could pursuade persuade you to come, But

I have always had my opinion of him.

Dec 23 d 1888 Dear Walt: I am sitting here in my bark-covered study this bright sharp day, writing you

I am feeling well, better than one year ago this time, my summers work I think has put something into

If I could only continue my farm work or else hibernate like a woodchuck I should be glad.

New Jersey Sept 21 st Dear Walt: I am down here for a week or two, under the direction of my Dr, taking

Now mainly what I write for is this, to ask you to come up & be my guest for a week.

My life now seems very pale & poor compared with those days.

which I derive any satisfaction, Julian & that bit of land up there on the river bank where I indulge my

is developing into a very happy, intelligent boy, full of enthusiasms, full of curiosity, & is about my

I hope I can see my way to go to W again to see him. I shall not stay here in P. much longer.

My own health is pretty good.

It has reduced my weight about 10 per cent. My belly has gone away as if I had been confined.

has had in the past, but I have no more doubt that it is one of the few immortal books than I have of my

Burroughs is referring to "My Book and I," which appeared in the January 1887 issue of the magazine.

There's something back of all that in my history, physiology, accounting for the hole I've got myself

the foot of the hill: it seems as though nothing would stay, however some things might or do delay, my

If you preferred you could have your bed here in my shanty—a large comfortable room on the brink of the

hill, fifty yards from the house, where my books and papers are, and where I spend most of my time.

My Carlyle article goes into the August Century. I am adding a page about Mrs.

I keep pretty well & lead an eventless life: read a few books, write a little now & then, & work on my

It is better than I expected It is my philosophy always to accept the good & let the bad go to the dogs

My nephew, Chancy B. is with me for a few days but leaves to-morrow; so does Sulic for Kingston.

The heat is delicious I have a constant bath in my own perspiration.

him better than I expected, looks coarse & strong & healthy, has a sort of husky voice like a sea captain

I have written a short sketch as the result of my sea-shore sojourn, for the Boston "Wheelman" a new

Eldridge thinks that my publishers are dealing honestly with me.

When one of my books was published they sold the first 6 months 733 copies.

Osgood would gladly undertake my books; so would Dodd Mead & Co of Fine day here to-day, but have had

May 18, 85 Dear Walt: I have set my house & heart in order for a visit from you before these May days

You would enjoy the country here now, & it would add to the length of my days to see you here again.

, but the day has been so beautiful & the charm of the open air so great that I could not long keep my

My bees are working like beavers & there is a stream of golden thighs pouring into the hive all the time

I spend all my time at work about the place & like it much.

I have been busy with my pen, turning out pot-boilers, nothing else I shall keep an eye out for your

I see nothing in the literary horizon, no coming poet or philosopher My opinion is that life is becoming

I clung to the farm & lived alone with my dog, coming down here Sundays & stormy weather.

The old farm where I was born has come back upon my hands & is very embarrassing.

I tried to help my brother through with it, but he has proved unequal to the task & I have had to take

Robert Browning (1812–1889), known for his dramatic monologues, including "Porphyria's Lover" and "My

I think it would lengthen my days to see you once more.

I hope you will continue writing me such notes as these, "My food nourishes me better."

My love to W.W. J.B. John Burroughs to Walt Whitman, 16 October 1888

My first taste of the country was at Alloway, Burns' birth place.

It is dry as a bone here, no rain for many weeks, my potato crop is cut short 50 per cent, & all my young

I try to keep absorbed in my farm operations.

My regards to Horace Traubel. Tell me something about him when you write again.

Still at times my thoughts will go back & hover & nestle about the little home & the many familiar places

I graze in them with my eyes daily. Grass like this is never seen so far south on the Potomac.

summit, & could see the Catskills 50 miles to the North, & peaks that I recognized as visible from my

I have plenty of time on my hands now, but do not seem able to turn it to any account in a literary way

I can't get back my ruminating habit.

My domestic skies are not pleasant & I seem depressed & restless most of the time.

Indeed I am thinking strongly of selling my place. I am sick of the whole business of housekeeping.

volumes of Horace Traubel's With Walt Whitman in Camden (various publishers: 1906–1996) and Whitman's "My

& now I am paying the penalty of the exposure to the severe cold in another attack of neuralgia in my

I have just sent off my MS. to Briton.

If I can devise a better title I shall do so, but I think my readers will understand this one; the great

public does not care for my books anyhow.

July 12, 89 Dear Walt: I write you briefly this morning before starting on my 2 weeks vacation to Delaware

At that time I was having one of my streaks of insomnia, & was very wretched for two or three weeks.

I go about all day with two balls of twine at my side, training the young vines in the way they should

new, all strange, & very mixed; but I am now fairly master of the situation, & though I do not expect my

I was so warm & snug & my nest was so well feathered; but I have really cut loose & do not expect to

My greatest loss will be in you my dear Walt, but then I shall look forward to having you up here a good

to close up this bank, then I shall make me another nest among the rocks of the Hudson and try life my

I hope you are well & will write to me, & will go up & see my wife.

May 11 / 89 Dear Walt: Yesterday on my way up to Olive to see my wife's father, who is near the end of

for some time, yet it was a stunning blow for all that I know how keenly you must feel it, & you have my

No words come to my pen adequate to express the sense of the loss we have we suffered in the death of

Drop me a line my dear friend if you are able to do so.

I had, in my years of loafing, forgotten how sweet toil was.

I had quite lost any interest in literature & was fast losing my interest in life itself, but these two

months of work have sharpened my appetite for all things.

I think I can make some money & may be renew my grip upon life. I was glad to see Kennedy.

The baby is lying on the lounge in my room as I write, I hear him nestle & see that his eyes are open

The morning after my return some wretch poisoned my dog & the loss has quite up set upset me.

I have not been my self myself since.

Alcott praised my Emerson piece, but Sanborn appeared not to know anything about my writings.

I got the Library Table with Blood's sanguinary review of my book.

He evidently wanted to pitch into my Eagle, but was afraid of the claws.

I enclose my ck. check for the amt. amount you ask for, $100. What a blank there in New England!

Whitman Camden Dear Sir I trust you will pardon me for intruding upon you—after you read my letter—I

I am oh so very glad—but not so with me—on the contrary I am gradually growing worse—my case is called

I was first attacked in my right eye last Oct. it passed off and in April it again showed itself in the

side of my face roof of my mouth tongue & throat—I can only swallow liquid food. my speech is badly

Walt Whitman, Esq., My dear Sir, I enclose you a map of Harleigh Cemetry, which I though I had sent before

Pennsylvania , Dec. 29 th 188 4 Walt Whitman Esq Camden, New Jersey Dear Sir: My friend Col.

Charles my younger boy and all the child we have left lives at home with us though it seems somewhat

Dear & honoured Friend & Master I thank you from my heart for the gift of your great book—that beautiful

But my heart has not the power to make my brain & hands tell you how much I thank you.

I cannot even attempt to tell yourself (upon this page of paper with this pen in my hand), what it is

If my health, riven to the bottom like a tree in me, twelve years ago,—& the cares of a family, complicated

reliance on you, & my hope that you will not disapprove of my conduct in the last resort.

My dear Sir, When a man has ventured to dedicate his work to another without authority or permission,

This must be my excuse for sending to you the crude poem in wh. which you may perchance detect some echo

Grass in a friend's rooms at Trinity College Cambridge six years ago till now, your poems have been my

What one man can do by communicating to those he loves the treasure he has found, I have done among my

I fear greatly I have marred the purity & beauty of your thought by my bad singing.

This is my permanent address.

I live here in a large old house wh. belonged to my father—a house on a hill among trees looking down

Yet I felt that if you liked my poem you would write.

In these I trust the spirit of the Past is faithfully set forth as far as my abilities allow.

The little girl in one of them is my youngest child.

Sept: 5. 1890 My dear Master I am sincerely obliged to you for your letter of August 19.

With the explanation you have placed in my hands, in which you give me liberty to use, I can speak with

The conclusion reached is, to my mind, in every way satisfactory.

either by your detractors or by the partizans of some vicious crankiness—sets me quite at ease as to my

I will tell my bookseller in London to send you a copy of the "Contemporary" in which there is an essay

Whitman's "Rejoinder" was also reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (Prose Works 1892, Volume 2: Collect and

Am Hof, Davos Platz, Switzerland August 3 1890 My dear Master I received your card of July 20 in due

But it was then too late to alter the reference in my own essay on "Democratic Art" w. had been printed

I hope to have a second edition of my "Essays Speculative & Suggestive" (for only 750 copies were printed

For my own part, after mature deliberation, I hold that the present laws of France & Italy are right

It has not infrequently occurred to me among my English friends to hear your "Calamus" objected to, as

"A monument to outlast bronze," comes from the first line of Horace's Ode 3.30: My Monuument.

Your "November Boughs" has been my companion during the last week.

I shall try to obtain it through my London bookseller.

Each time I have attempted to do so, I have quailed before my own inadequacy to grapple with the theme

from want of love for you, not because I am not always in communion with you:— that I am, & so are all my

friends; there is a fine young fellow, son of Col Brackenbury, lying dead now in my neighbor's house

No: it is not that I do not love you, & do not dwell with you, that I have sent no token of my work.

You will see that I have stamped my two books of Sonnets with the heraldic coat borne by my ancestors

I will send you photos of my house, myself (done by Clifford), & 3 of my daughters.

But yet I must exchange my token for yours—brazen for golden gifts, as the Greek poet said.

The misfortune of my poem is that it presupposes much knowledge of antiquity—as for instance that this

Jan: January 23 1877 My dear Sir, I hardly know through what a malign series of crooked events—absence

chiefly on my part in Italy & Switzerland, pressure of studious work, & miscarriage of letters—I should

however, begging you to send me copies of Leaves of Grass & Two Rivulets , & enclosing a Cheque on my

This is now framed & hangs in my bedroom.

I do not know whether you are likely to have heard that I make literature my daily work.

Whitman referred to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871