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The Walt Whitman Archive

St. Louis, Feb 11th /73

Yours received last night ¹   —We were all sorry to hear that you had had such a bad turn ²   —and glad enough to hear that you were gaining—

Mattie is about the same as when I last wrote—she is not failing so badly now—last night she rested better—did not seem to have quite so much pain

Still I do not think that she can be said to gain any—only she is not failing so fast and that is a great comfort—The last two days have been damp and cold and rainy so that makes it bad—I do hope dear Walt you will be able to come and see her—if [ sic ] would be a great comfort to her—

She sends you love and so dear brother do I

Jeff

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About the Text

The text presented here is derived from Dennis Berthold and Kenneth Price, eds., Dear Brother Walt: The Letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1984). For a detailed description of discrepancies between this electronic edition and the print source, see our statement of editorial policy .

The manuscript of this letter, dated February 11, 1873, is held in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

For more information on the letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman, see Dennis Berthold and Kenneth Price's introduction to the print edition.

Notes

1.  WW's letter of about February 9 is not extant; it is also not listed among the poet's lost letters (Edwin Haviland Miller, ed., Walt Whitman: The Correspondence [New York: New York Univ. Press, 1961-77], Vol. II, p. 363).  (Back)

2.  See Letter from Thomas Jefferson Whitman to Walt Whitman, 7 February 1873.  (Back)

Whitman Archive ID

loc.00465