
Dark, cold, stormy-wet day out, slippery—falling rain freezing. Have had a markedly bad week days & nights but am weathering-it-on (as my phrase is)—smally but palpably easier to day—easier debouch to both water works & bowel works this forenoon & consequently less muddle & pain in head & general tone—appetite middling—am abstemious but I find it dont answer for me to be markedly abstemious, as I have tried two or three times to be—still eat rice & mutton stew, vegetables & bread, & drink mainly tea—Lippincotts wont print Kennedy's Dutch piece "affinities of WW" &c. but Horace wants it for his little paper & I have written to K for consent—(I like the piece)—Have not heard f'm the page of poemetta I sent to Scribner's a month or more ago—I also sent a little piece to Youth's Companion Boston & no word f'm them—expect printed slips of NA Rev: & Lip: pieces & sh'l send you copies if I get them—Enclosed my last bit (pay rec'd—small, but all I ask'd) f'm Critic—(wh' you will not likely commend)—So things go. I am sitting here same (a little shawl extra around my back neck & right shoulder ag't draft) comfortable & good trim enough & fair spirits but dark & glum enough out.—
Walt Whitman

