Details
WHITMAN, Walt (1819-1892). Autograph letter signed ("Walt Whitman") to William James Linton, Brooklyn, 11 April [1860s?]. 4 pages, 8vo, several small spots, otherwise fine.
POET TO POET
A fine, relatively early Whitman letter, to Linton (1812-1897), who fled England after the Chartist agitation, actively supported worker's causes, and was the author of To the Future, which Whitman had just read: "I have just been spending an hour looking over 'The Future,' and the 'Ireland' you sent me, & stopping at certain pieces here & there, & reading them quite carefully, & dwelling upon them. They touch me deeply, indeed more than any thing of the kind... --The undertone of anguish & despair, the Laocoon struggles (apparently useless) under the tightening gripping folds of the serpent, the cries & complaints & remonstrances & calls for help--somehow, in your verses, brought the fearful condition of the laboring millions not only of Ireland, Italy, Poland &c, but all Europe, more vividly than ever yet, before me. And it is well for me to get such remindings. But my own vein is full of hope, promise, faith, certainty, I see how an American--I for instance--cannot realize the people's desperate condition over the major part of the world. This point you have today brought up sharply before me..." In a postscript, he writes: "I return to Washington Saturday."
POET TO POET
A fine, relatively early Whitman letter, to Linton (1812-1897), who fled England after the Chartist agitation, actively supported worker's causes, and was the author of To the Future, which Whitman had just read: "I have just been spending an hour looking over 'The Future,' and the 'Ireland' you sent me, & stopping at certain pieces here & there, & reading them quite carefully, & dwelling upon them. They touch me deeply, indeed more than any thing of the kind... --The undertone of anguish & despair, the Laocoon struggles (apparently useless) under the tightening gripping folds of the serpent, the cries & complaints & remonstrances & calls for help--somehow, in your verses, brought the fearful condition of the laboring millions not only of Ireland, Italy, Poland &c, but all Europe, more vividly than ever yet, before me. And it is well for me to get such remindings. But my own vein is full of hope, promise, faith, certainty, I see how an American--I for instance--cannot realize the people's desperate condition over the major part of the world. This point you have today brought up sharply before me..." In a postscript, he writes: "I return to Washington Saturday."