The Vault at Pfaff'sListed as a letter to an unidentified correspondent, this short piece written from Brooklyn in 1857 may have been a jotting for an inclusion into one of Walt Whitman’s notebooks.
13. To an Unidentified Correspondent
TRANSCRIPT. Brooklyn|July 28,1857
O You should see me, how I look after sea-sailing. I am swarthy
and red as a Moor-I go around without any coat or vest-looking so
strong, ugly, and nonchalant, with my white beard-People stare, I notice,
more wonderingly than ever. I have thought, for some time past, of
beginning the use of myself as a public Speaker, teacher, or lecturer.
(This, after I get out the next issue of my "Leaves") -Whether it will
come to any thing, remains to be seen.... My immediate acquaintances,
even those attached strongly to me, secretly entertain the idea that I am a
great fool not to "make something" out of my "talents" and out of the general good will with which I am regarded. Can it be that some such notion
is lately infusing itself into me also?