
The above note appeared in the last number of the Boston Literary World.
I am only responsible for the words I have marked, as I sent them alone to Mr.
Gilman
the day I was over to see you.
The rest has been taken from floating paragraphs.
I do sincerely hope you are very well and enjoying this fine June weather. I have read the copy of "Good-Bye, My Fancy" you gave me, and I am amazed and delighted with the great quality of its poetry. It is equal, much of it, to the best you have ever written.
Truly Yours Harrison S. Morris.—The seventy-second birthday of Walt Whitman was celebrated at his home in Camden, N.J., on the evening of May 31. About forty friends and admirers sat down to a dinner, the poet occupying the seat of honor at the head. He was in good health and spirits, and entertained his guests with selections from his own works and comments on literary affairs. His opening words were characteristic: "I feel to say a word of grateful memory for the big fellows just passed away—for Bryant and Emerson and Longfellow; and for those we still have with us—Whittier, and the boss of us all, Tennyson." Letters were read from Lord Tennyson, Richard Waterson Gilder, Edmund Stedman, and others. Mr. Whitman has about ready what he considers his last book, entitled Good-bye, my Fancy, and a sub-title, "Second Annex to 'Leaves of Grass.'" It comprises sixty-six pages of prose and verse. He says that many of his pieces were submitted to publishers and magazine editors, and "were peremptorily rejected by them." "To the Sunset Breeze" was rejected by Harper's as being an "improvisation" only, and "On Ye Jocund Twain" was returned by the Century as "personal merely."


