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If you have time & patience to read my review I should be extremely obliged if you would tell me whether

with regard to the above question, I shall esteem it a great kindness; & in any case I assure you of my

My Dear Walt: Your card to hand last night, with its sad account of dear Mrs.

Very glad, my dear old Walt, to see your strong familiar handwriting again; it does one good, it's so

John Burroughs was very violent against my intaglio; on the other hand, Alma Tadema —our great painter

My portrait represents him standing firmly, in a scarlet hunting-coat well stained with many a wet chase

I have long meant to build up something of you from my studies, adding colour.

Would you forgive my suggesting, as a sufficient reply to your adverse critics, the the insertion of

I am still struggling along, striving to say something which, if I can say it to my mind, will be useful—will

Asylum for the Insane, London, 9th May 188 3 My dear Walt I returned home last evening and found plate

I am up to my eyes in work R M Bucke Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 9 May 1883

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.

Another on page 74 (very bad) where my sturdy "I vaunt it and I stand by it," is spoiled by being rendered

My lameness is very bad, and I am very exhausted before many hours pass each day.

My special trouble now is what they call schlerosis —an induration of the lower part of the spinal cord

I have never been troubled with costiveness in all my life, but now, like yourself, I have a partial

paralysis of the bowels, and must, under medical orders, resort to artificial means, and this is my remedy

It is a very warm Sunday afternoon—as I write up in my third story south room— W W Walt Whitman to Anne

Asylum for the Insane, London, 28th May 188 3 My dear Walt I have had the book a couple of days and have

credit than the Author —I am really surprised at the tact and judgement you have displayed in putting my

I suppose McKay will send me a statement (all in good time) showing my financial position as toward the

Bucke's WW done at last,—all bound & ready—seems to look very well—to-day I enter on my sixty-fifth year

Camden May 31 '83 The publisher having placed a few advance copies in paper of Dr Bucke's WW at my disposal

I mean exactly what I said in my last. W W Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 31 May 1883

26: "I am glad to . . . go to battle in a good cause, but I am not exultant about it, I have made up my

you can particularly the adverse ones —You do not say anything about sending copies as I asked you in my

I take it for granted meantime that you will attend to this—and also that you will have balance of my

My dear Mr.

Whitman I am writing to ask you to send me the two volumes of your writings which you sent my sister

Camden June 13 '83 Evn'g Evening My dear friend The corrections you specified have been or will be made

I am getting better, and hope soon to be myself again—A bandaged hand prevents my writing, and everything

As soon as I get the free use of my hand, I will write to him, as you suggest.

Nothing will ever please me like knowing that my Bucke letter stands as it does with you.

"Well, then," rejoined the other, "I think your sister is the ugliest girl I ever saw in my life."

Vermont Saturday afternoon June 16 Are you well enough my dear brother for me to send you my love and

In the margin of a copy, however, Whitman wrote: "my guess (at random) is that John Swinton is the writer

for the copy German rendering " Cradle Endlessly Rocking " & for all the other German renderings of my

you have sent me, & which I carefully keep, & prize—Dr R M Bucke has just published a book about me & my

poems—& having two or three advance copies (in paper) at my disposal I should like to send you one.

This is my excuse for profering proffering this request and I entertain the hope that you will graciously

Or during my tedious sickness and first paralysis ( '73 1873 ) how you used to come to my solitary garret-room

and make up my bed, and enliven me, and chat for an hour or so—or perhaps go out and get the medicines

Pete, give my love to dear Mrs. and Mr.

"The later years of the last century," he tells us, "found the Van Velsor family, my mother's side, living

My father's side—probably the fifth generation from the first English arrivals in New England—were at

"In February, 1873," he tells us, "I was stricken down by paralysis, gave up my desk, and emigrated to

And it is to my life here that I, perhaps, owe partial recovery (a sort of second wind, or semi-renewal

young hickory sapling out there—to sway and yield to its tough-limber upright stem—haply to get into my

Dear Walt: I have been so ill, and so burdened with the office charge, being scarcely able to hold my

of Bacon's Promus —a strong anti- Shakespere Shakespeare document—which hurt the book immensely, and my

Walt Whitman (Don't forget to return my Times article sometime.) William D.

Saturday afternoon 14 July '83 My dearest Brother I rec'd received your card and Book, some little time

I took a notion all at once to send my pictures, I have not been very prompt have I Walt about the pictures

United States, in their present devouring relations, controlling and belittling everything else, are, in my

getting the Critic of June 16, for which Brentano sent for me, and find that the item I copied into my

English—he pays well, when suited—he always paid me well & gave me lots of taffy besides—but balked at my

though momentary view of them, and then of their course on and on southeast, till gradually fading—(my

Moreover, just as his one successful lyrical poem, "My Captain," is enough to disprove all his theories

My Dearest Friend: Lazy me, that have been thinking letters to you instead of writing them!

But they do: I am as sure of that as of my own existence. When will men begin to understand them?

of the sea and I seem to remember such a place near Lynn Regis, where I was thirty years ago, when my

My little book on Mary Lamb just out—will send you a copy in a day or two.

stay here perhaps the ensuing week—The family, (& a fine one they are) are at Newport for the summer—my

combination of character from any you ever saw—& one I am sure you would like—And then the father himself, my

am only middling well—seem to be getting clumsier than ever, more loguey —rheumatic & other ailments—My

country, house, large library, garden—the family (they too special friends of mine) all away at Newport—my

The Nation this week (I have just seen it) does not print my reply, which may have come too late, and

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

I have just mailed you my two Volumes, Leaves of Grass and Specimen Days —Won't you kindly send me a

He was living in what my memory pictures as almost a slum, & his bedroom was not exactly tidy.

never mind, I appreciate them gratefully —I am well as usual this summer—nothing very new ab't about my

books or literary fortunes— I shall make a permanent move from Camden before many months—as my brother's

Camden Aug 29 Have finished my Germantown visit & am back here.

Ritter —have indeed not sent copies to any except my sisters and neices nieces . Mrs.

New York City, has translated many of my poems in German, & published them.

'My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite; I laugh at what you call dissolution; And I know the

, my Captain,' 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.'

What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition.

You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me.'

place with my own day here.'

a visit to very kind Quaker folks, particular friends of mine —had a good time—good grub—a horse to my

I am well as usual—nothing very new with my affairs (but the last six or eight months has kind of gone

I suppose look ab't about the same—(perhaps grayer & redder)—though young enough in spirit & now in my

My two books bring me in a moderate income —I am satisfied with very plain living—& bless the Lord I

am likely to have enough for that as long as I need— Tom, give my best regards to your wife, for all

from you quite a while ago (from Johnstown, Pa: Pennsylvania ) you mention some German translations of my

New York Sept 14 '83 My dear Sir; Dr.

I am at present very busy as I want to complete my critical history of American literature as soon as

I also enclose a press copy of my reply, and of the note I subsequently addressed with the MS to the

Montgomery wrote me a very kind note, saying that the editor wouldn't print my article for "professional

I was quite ill and weighed down with lassitude when I wrote it,—spurred only by my indignation.

Upon its return from the , I had a vague wandering notion of sending it to the Critic , as my blue pencil

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.

I am in great mourning that I can't get my reply to Richard Grant White on the Bacon-Shakespeare matter

.— I enclose you my professional card.

after a fair trial I do not succeed in earning a living in this way I shall probably drift back into my

I wish you would speak to M c Kay about the circulars he was to print for me in re my vol. "W. W."

We are all well here, I am up to my eyes in work, have to write my annual report in the next two weeks

"A horse, a horse—my kingdom for a horse!" WDO'C William D.

Dresden '83 My dear Master I got your post card last Tuesday morning.

Yet in writing my essay, I had no thought of him, nor had mentioned him.

As to my translation of the I am now ready to cooperate with any competent German, i.e.

Perhaps my essay when published may lead to something. I got Dr. Bucke's book.

I will send him my essay when it appears. Nothing more to say now.

My essay has not much translation in it, but I think of appending a complete transl. translation of some

am well as usual—always glad to hear from you—hope we shall be together again one of these days—give my