University of Virginia Library

XII.
(Light green paper, 10" x 8", two sheets, originally used by Ernest Rhys for his letter to Whitman of March 29, 1887).

I send you Rhys's letter to me rec'd yesterday—tho I suppose the disagreeable item in it, relating to the pub'n of y'r book has been already written to you ab't by R ___ My under the weather spell still continues, but with a slight let up. I expect to go on to New York to speak my "Death of Lincoln" piece Thursday afternoon next—Probably the Shake up will do me good—

—I drove over last evening to spend a couple of hours with my friends Mr & Mrs. Talcott Williams Phila. & take dinner there—Enjoyed all—

—I receive the Transcripts & look them over—then send them to O'Connor—

—I don't make much reckoning of the N Y performance—the best is to be borne in mind (& warmly borne in mind) by a few dear N Y friends— Sunny & summery weather here & my canary is singing like a house afire—

This letter was obviously written to William Sloane Kennedy, Whitman's Boston admirer, who was hoping to publish a book on Whitman in England. His Reminiscences of Walt Whitman, however, did not finally appear until 1896. Whitman frequently traveled to New York in his later years to deliver a lecture on Lincoln on the anniversary of his death. Talcott Williams was an editor of the Philadelphia Press, an admirer of Whitman, and later director of the Columbia University School of Journalism. Kennedy and others of Whitman's Boston admirers contributed frequently to the Boston Transcript. O'Conner is, of course, William D. O'Connor, the author of The Good Gray Poet. Ernest Rhys's letter on the reverse of this manuscript discusses the English publication of Specimen Days, tells of a visit with Mrs. Costelloe, and announces that Wilson the publisher was too ill to attempt bringing out Kennedy's book.