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Letter to Walt Whitman

Vaughan, Frederick B. Letter to Walt Whitman. 1872.
Full Text Available Below
Type: 
manuscript
Genre: 
correspondence
Abstract: 

This letter from Fred Vaughan to Walt Whitman was sent before 1872.

Full Text

Walt
Driver hour. I loafing in a Lumber Yard at foot of 35th St—Under the shade of a pile of Lumber and sitting on a lower pile. —Opposite and close to me at the pier head a Barque. In the forerigging flapping lazily in the summer breese are a few sailors clothes. From the galleypipe between the Main and the foremast issues a cloud of smoke. — One of the men in blue shirt and bare footed has just come from alooft—where he has been loosening the Mainsail which seems to be wet. He has now gone below I suppose to his dinner.— On the opposite side of the river WtillialmsbCurigh — between the ever plying ferryboats, the tugs, the Harlem Boats, and mingled with the splash of the paddle wheels — the murmur of the sailors at dinner. —the lazy flap of the sails, the screech of the steam whistle of the tugs, the laugh and wrangle of the boys in swimming—comes a remembrance of thee dear Walt — With WmsBgh & Brooklyn—with the ferries and the vessels with
the Lumber piles and the docks. From among all out of all. Connected with all and yet distinct from all arrises thee Dear Walt. Walt—my life has turned out a poor miserable failure. I am not a drunkard nor a teetotaler—I am neither honest or dishonest. I have my family in Brooklyn and am supporting them. — I never stole, robbed, cheate, nor defrauded any person out of anything, and yet I feels that I have not been honest to myself—my family nor my friends

One Oclock, the Barque is laden with coal and the carts have come. The old old Poem Walt. The cart backs up, the bucket comes up full and goes down empty —The men argue and swear. The wind blows the coal dust over man & beast and now it reaches me. — Fred Vaughan Atlantic Ave. 2nd door above Classon Ave. Brooklyn

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