Poets, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892
Since I never met Walt Whitman I am especially indebted to his friends
for the personal details with which they have so generously furnished
me: beside those already named, to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Johnston, Mr.
J. Hubley Ashton, Mrs. W. S. Kennedy, Mrs. E. M. Calder, Mr. and Mrs.
(Stafford) Browning of Haddonfield (Glendale), Mr. John Fleet of
Huntington, Captain Lindell of the Camden Ferry, and to Mr. Peter G.
Doyle; but especially to Whitman's surviving executors and my kind
friends, Mr. T. B. Harned and Mr. Horace Traubel. To these last, and
to Mr. Laurens Maynard, of the firm of Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co.,
the publishers of the final edition of Whitman's works, I am indebted
for generous permission to use and reproduce photographs in their
possession. I also beg to make my acknowledgments to Mr. David McKay
and Mr. Gutekunst, both of Philadelphia.
Helpful suggestions and information have been most kindly given by my
American friends, Mr. Edwin Markham, Professor E. H. Griggs, Mr. Ernest
Crosby, Dr. George Herron, Professor Rufus M. Jones of Haverford,
Mr. C. F. Jenkins of Germantown, and Mr. and Mrs. David Thompson
of Washington. Mr. Benjamin D. Hicks of Long Island has repeatedly
replied to my various and troublesome inquiries as to the Quaker
ancestry of Walt Whitman, and Dr. E. Pardee Bucke has furnished me
with an admirable sketch of his father Dr. R. M. Bucke's life and the
photograph which I have reproduced. In England also there are many to
whom I would here offer my most grateful thanks. And first, to Mr.
Edward Carpenter, whose own work has always been my best of guides in
the study of Whitman's, and whose records of his interviews with the
old poet in Camden have given me more insight into his character than
any other words but Whitman's own. He has also read the MS., and aided
me by numberless suggestions. Mrs. Bernard Berenson, who for some years
enjoyed the old man's friendship, has supplied me with an invaluable
picture of his relations with her father, the late Mr. Pearsall Smith,
and his family, and has generously lent me various letters in her
possession, and permitted me to make reproductions from them. Mr. J.
W. Wallace, of the "Bolton group," has allowed me to read and use his
manuscript description of a visit to Camden in 1891; and another of the
same brotherhood, Dr. J. Johnston, whose admirable account of a similar
series of interviews in the preceding year is well known by Whitman
students, has supplied me with a photograph of the little Mickle Street
house as it then was.
To Mr. William M. Rossetti and to Mr. Ernest Rhys I am indebted for
valuable suggestions; and for similar help to my friends, Professor W.
H. Hudson and Messrs. Arthur Sherwell, B. Kirkman Gray and C. F. Mott.
Finally, the book owes much more than I can say to my wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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