(no subject)
I splurged and bought an incomplete (because complete would have been prohibitively expensive) few volumes of Whitman's 1902 complete works (of which there were only 500 copies printed) including a few books completely of prose in one of which the following, to his beloved, is:
"I never dreamed that you made so much of having me with you, nor that you could feel so downcast at losing me. I foolishly thought it was all on the other side. But all I will say further on the subject is, I now see clearly, that was all wrong."
This nestled in the middle of the most quotidian detail-sharing and simple planning. Suddenly something wonderful.
And this, too, in another letter:
"I can almost see you drowsing and nodding since last Sunday, going home late--especially as we wait there at 7th St. and I am telling you something deep about the heavenly bodies--and in the midst of it I look around and find you fast asleep, and your head on my shoulder like a chunk of wood--an awful compliment to my lecturing powers."
Loving in the letters, here especially available, his playful self-abnegating good-natured humor, which is here, too, though only in initial slivers overshadowed by clear tenderness:
"The carrier brought quite a bunch this forenoon for the Whitman family, but no letter from you. I keep real busy with one thing and another, the whole day is occupied--I am feeling quite well all the time and go out a great deal, knocking around one place and another. The evenings here are delightful and I am always out in them, sometimes on the river sometimes in New York--There is a cool breeze and the moon shining. I think every time of you and wish if we could only be together these evenings at any rate."
And then, a little more beautiful idiomatic artfulness:
"I find myself going with the pilots muchly--there are several that were little boys, now grown up, and remember me well--fine hearty fellows--always around the water--sons of old pilots--they make much of me, and of course I am willing."
"I never dreamed that you made so much of having me with you, nor that you could feel so downcast at losing me. I foolishly thought it was all on the other side. But all I will say further on the subject is, I now see clearly, that was all wrong."
This nestled in the middle of the most quotidian detail-sharing and simple planning. Suddenly something wonderful.
And this, too, in another letter:
"I can almost see you drowsing and nodding since last Sunday, going home late--especially as we wait there at 7th St. and I am telling you something deep about the heavenly bodies--and in the midst of it I look around and find you fast asleep, and your head on my shoulder like a chunk of wood--an awful compliment to my lecturing powers."
Loving in the letters, here especially available, his playful self-abnegating good-natured humor, which is here, too, though only in initial slivers overshadowed by clear tenderness:
"The carrier brought quite a bunch this forenoon for the Whitman family, but no letter from you. I keep real busy with one thing and another, the whole day is occupied--I am feeling quite well all the time and go out a great deal, knocking around one place and another. The evenings here are delightful and I am always out in them, sometimes on the river sometimes in New York--There is a cool breeze and the moon shining. I think every time of you and wish if we could only be together these evenings at any rate."
And then, a little more beautiful idiomatic artfulness:
"I find myself going with the pilots muchly--there are several that were little boys, now grown up, and remember me well--fine hearty fellows--always around the water--sons of old pilots--they make much of me, and of course I am willing."