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send same time with this first copy (rude, flimsy cover, but good paper, print & stitching) of L of G. at last complete—after 33 yr's of hackling at it all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old—the wonder to me that I have carried it on to accomplish as essentially as it is tho' I see well enough its numerous deficiencies & faults (at any rate "From waiting long & long delay Johnny comes marching home") The cumulus character of the book is a great factor—perhaps even the jaggedness, or what might be call'd so f'm the conventional & tidy principles of "art"—probably is so anyhow—Bad days & nights with me, no hour without its suffering

Walt Whitman   see notes March 12 1891