VIII

I was not in America between the spring of 1888 and the early fall of 1893 at which time Irving opened the tour in San Francisco. We did not reach Philadelphia till towards the end of January 1894. In the meantime Walt Whitman had died, March 26, 1892. On 4th February I spent the afternoon with Donaldson in his home. Shortly after I came in he went away for a minute and came back with a large envelope which he handed to me:

“That is for you from Walt Whitman. I have been keeping it till I should see you.”

The envelope contained in a rough card folio pasted down on thick paper the original notes from which he delivered his lecture on Abraham Lincoln at the Chestnut Street Opera House on April 15, 1886.

“With it was a letter to Donaldson, in which he said:

“Enclosed I send a full report of my Lincoln Lecture for our friend Bram Stoker.”

This was my Message from the Dead.