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  Walt Whitman My dear Friend

How best can I introduce myself to you? How can I make myself known & liked by you who so well-known and loved by me.

When we call on folks & wish to make a good impression we don our best clothes, make our best bow tell our politest lie & the thing's done.

But to you, who likes naked flesh better than broadcloth, a warm grasp, a close embrace better than a fancy bow, the truth harsh and sonorous better than tinkling lies—to you I can't simper and smirk.

I love you! I claim you for a friend! I hold you tight! sometimes you strangely elude me! A few times you speak unkindly, worse you speak sometimes in an unknown tongue but yet you comfort and cheer me!

I read your "Specimen Days" first and liked them. I liked the chatty, shrewd, kindhearted old friend who chaperoned me through the war & all over the States. And then I read the Leaves of Grass and met my dearest friend! Didn't and don't yet half understand it all except that it breathes & lives & like all things that live and breath it has much of mystery & miracle about it all through. (After its only dead things that are dissectable)

   

Many things more I want to say but haven't words for now. Little things are the easiest to say always and of those I have but few for Walt Whitman. I will write again if my disjointed rhapsodies are bearable and I hope to come down and see you very shortly if your health permits you to see people.

And now dear friend and teacher have I spoken at all into words that are clear? If so Walt Whitman knows his

affectionate friend Carl Falkenreck.