The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Document
Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 22 October 1868
Date: October 22, 1868
Source: The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman,The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 2:66. For a detailed description of discrepancies between this electronic edition and the print source, see our statement of editorial policy.
Location: The Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00654
Providence, R. I.
October 22, 1868
Dear friend,
I have been thinking about you this morning, and will write a few lines, though without any thing special to communicate. My vacation is nearly done, & in four or five days more I shall be back in Washington. I have been here in Providence the past week, as guest of Thomas Davis, a manufacturer here, & formerly M. C.—have had a good time generally, in a quiet way—am going on to New York this afternoon, & shall be back in Washington on the 27th—
William O'Connor1 is here in Providence—I have been with him a good deal—he is not very well, but goes around—Will finish my letter in New York, & mail it thence to-morrow.2
Walt.
Notes:
1. Before he returned to Washington, O'Connor called on Walt Whitman's mother in Brooklyn, as mentioned in Louisa Van Velsor Whitman's November 4, 1868 letter to Walt Whitman. [back]
2. The sale at the American Art Association on March 11, 1924, listed a one-page letter to Burroughs on October 23, 1868, which stated that Walt Whitman intended to spend a few days in New York before he returned to Washington. [back]