Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman: the letters

Bram wrote this long letter at the age of twenty-four, but kept it for four years before sending it with the covering letter below.

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43 Harcourt St Dublin
Ireland
18-2.72

If you are the man I take you to be you will like to get this letter. if you are not I don't care whether you like it or not, and only ask you to put it into the fire without reading any farther. But I believe you will like it. I dont think there is a man living, even you who are above the prejudices of the class of small-minded men—who wouldn't like to get a letter from a younger man, a stranger from across the world—a man living in an atmosphere prejudiced to the truths you sing and your manner of singing them. The idea that arises in my mind is whether there is a man living who would have the pluck to burn a letter in which he felt the smallest atom of interest without reading it. I believe you would and that you believe you would yourself—You can burn this now if you like and test yourself and all I will ask for my trouble of writing this letter, which for all I can tell you may light your pipe with or apply to some more ignoble purpose—is that you will in some manner let me know that my words have tested your impatience. Put it in the fire if you like—but if you do you will miss the pleasure of this next sentence which ought to be that you have conquered an unworthy impulse. A man who is uncertain of his own strength might try to encourage himself by a piece of bravo, but a man who can write, as you have written, the most candid words that ever fell from the lips of mortal man can have no fear for his own strength.—a man to whose candour Rousseau's Confessions is reticence—can have no fear for his own strength. If you have gone this far you may read the letter and I feel in writing now that I am talking to you. If I were before your face I would like to shake hands with you for I feel that I would like you—I would like to call you Comrade and to talk to you as men who are not poets do not often talk.

I think that at first I would be ashamed for a man cannot in a moment break the habit of comparative reticence that has become a second nature to him; but I know I would not be long ashamed to be natural before you. You are a true man and I would like to be one myself and so I would feel towards you as a brother and as a pupil to his master. In this age no man becomes worthy of the name without an effort. You have shaken off the shackles and your wings are free. I have the shackles on my shoulders still.—but I have no wings. If you are going to read this letter any further I should tell you that I am not prepared to "give up all else" so far as words go. The only thing I am prepared to give up is prejudice—and before I knew you I had begun to throw overboard my cargo—but it is not all gone yet. I do not know how you will take this letter. I have not adressed you in any form as I have heard that you dislike to a certain degree the conventional forms in letters. I am writing to you because you are different from other men. if you were the same as the mass I would not write at all as it is I must either call you Walt Whitman or not call you at all—and I have chosen the latter course. I do not know if it is usual for you to get letters from utter strangers who have not even the claim of literary brotherhood to write to you—if it is you must be frightfully tormented with letters and I am sorry to have written this. I have however the claim of liking you—for your words are your own soul and even if you do not read my letter it is no less a pleasure to me to write it. Shelley wrote to William Godwin and they became friends. I am not Shelley and you are not Godwin & so I will only hope that some time I may meet you face to face and perhaps shake hands with you—If I ever do it will be one of the greatest pleasures of my life.

If you care to know who it is that writes this my name is Abraham Stoker (Junior). My friends call me Bram. I live at no 43 Harcourt St Dublin. I am a clerk in the service of the Crown on a small salary. I am twenty four years old. Have been champion at our athletic sports (Trinity College Dublin) and have won about a dozen cups. I have also been President of the College Philosophical Society and an art and theatrical critic of a daily paper. I am six feet two inches high and 12 stone weight naked and used to be 41 or 42 inches round the chest. I am ugly but strong and determined and have a large bump over my eyebrows. I have a heavy jaw and a big mouth with thick lips—sensitive nostrils—a snub nose and straight hair. I am equal in temper and cool in disposition and have a large amount of self control, and am naturally secretive to the world. I take a delight in letting people I don't like—people of mean or cruel or sneaking or cowardly disposition—see the worst side of me. I have a large number of acquaintances and some five or six friends—all of which latter body care much for me. Now I have told you all I know about myself. I know you from your works and your photograph; and if I know anything about you I think you would like to know of the personal appearance of your correspondents. You are I know a keen physiognomist. I am a believer of the science myself and am in an humble way a practicer of it. I was not disappointed when I saw your photograph—your late one in especial.

The way I came to like you was this. A notice of your poems appeared some two years ago or more in the "Temple Bar" magazine. I glanced at it and took its dictum as final, and laughed at you among my friends. I say it to my own shame but not to my regret for it has taught me a lesson to last my life out—without ever having seen your poems. More than a year after I heard two men in College talking of you, one of them had your book (Rossetti's Edition) and was reading aloud some passages at which both laughed. They chose only those passages which are most foreign to British ears and made fun of them. Something struck me that I had judged you hastily. I took home the volume and read it far into the night. Since then I have to thank you for many happy hours, for I have read your poems with my door locked late at night, and I have read them on the sea shore where I could look all round me and see no more sign of human life than the ships out at sea: and here I often found myself waking up from a reverie with the book lying open before me. I love all poetry and high generous thoughts make the tears rush to my eyes—but sometimes a word or a phrase of yours takes me away from the world around me and places me in an ideal land surrounded by realities more than any poem I ever read. Last year I was sitting on the beach on a summer's day reading your preface to the Leaves of Grass as printed in Rossetti's Edt., for Rossetti is all I have got till I get the complete set of your works which I have ordered from America). One thought struck me and I pondered over it for several hours—"the weather-beaten vessels old ships entering new ports" you who wrote the words know them better than I do: and to you who sing of your own land of Progress the words have a meaning that I can only imagine. But be assured of this Walt Whitman that a man of less than half your own age reared a conservative in a conservative country and who has always heard your name cried down by the great mass of people who mention it here felt his heart leap towards you across the Atlantic, and his soul swelling at the words or rather the thoughts. It is vain for me to try to quote any instances of what thoughts of yours I like best, for I like them all and you must feel that you are reading the true words of one who feels with you.

You see I have called you by your name I have been more candid with you—have said more about myself to you than I have ever said to any one before—You will not be angry with me now if you have read so far you will not laugh at me for writing thus to you. It was with no small effort that I began to write and I feel reluctant to stop, but I must not tire you any more. If you ever would care to have more you can imagine, for you have a great heart, how much pleasure it would be to me to write more to you, how sweet a thing it is for a strong healthy man with a woman's eyes and a child's wishes to feel that he can speak so to a man who can be if he wishes father and brother and wife to his soul. I don't think you will laugh Walt Whitman, nor despise me, but at all events I thank you for all the love and sympathy you have given me in common with my kind.

Bram Stoker

After a debate about Whitman at Dublin’s Fortnightly Club, Bram sent his earlier draft with this covering letter.

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119 Lower Baggot Street
Dublin
14 February 1876

My dear Mr. Whitman,

I hope you will not consider this letter from an utter stranger a liberty. Indeed, I hardly feel a stranger to you, nor is this the first letter that I have written to you. My friend Edward Dowden has told me often that you like new acquaintances or I should rather say friends. And as an old friend I send you an inclosure which may interest you. Four years ago I wrote the enclosed draft of a letter which I intended to copy out and send to you—it has lain in my desk since then—when I had heard that you were addressed as Mr. Whitman. It speaks for itself and needs no comment. It is as truly what I wanted to say as that light is light. The four years which have elapsed have made me love your work four fold and I can truly say that I have ever spoken as your friend.

You know what hostile criticism your work sometimes evokes here, and I wage a perpetual war with many friends on your behalf. But I am glad to say that I have been the means of making your work known to many who were scoffers at first. The years which have passed have not been uneventful to me, and I have felt and thought and suffered much in them, and I can truly say that from you I have had much pleasure and much consolation—and I do believe that your open earnest speech has not been thrown away on me or that my life & thoughts fail to be marked with its impress—I write thus openly because I feel that with you one must be open. We have just had tonight a hot debate on your genius at the Fortnightly Club in which I had the privilege of putting forward my views—I think with success. Do not think me "cheeky" for writing thus. I only hope we may sometime meet & I shall be able perhaps to say what I cannot write. Dowden promised to get me a copy of your new edition—and I hope that for any other work which you may have you will let me always be an early subscriber. I am sorry that you are not strong. Many of us were hoping to see you in Ireland.

We had arranged to have a meeting for you—I do not know if you like getting letters. If you do I shall only be too happy to send you news of how thought goes among the men I know—

With truest wishes for your health and happiness believe me
Your friend
Bram Stoker

Whitman welcomed both letters and offered the young Dublin writer his friendship.

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431 Stevens st.
cor West.
Camden, N. Jersey, U. S. America.
March 6
76

'Bram Stoker,
My dear young man,

Your letters have been most welcome to me—welcome to me as Person, & then as Author—I don't know which most—You did well to write to me so unconventionally, so fresh, so manly, & so affectionately too. I too hope (though it is not probable) that we shall one day personally meet each other. Meantime I send you my friendship & thanks.

Edward Dowden's letter containing among others your subscription for a copy of my new edition, has just been rec'd. I shall send the books very soon by express in a package to his address. I have just written to E. D.

My physique is entirely shatter'd—doubtless permanently—from paralysis & other ailments. But I am up & dress'd, & get out every day a little—live here quite lonesome, but hearty, & good spirits.

Write to me again.

Walt Whitman

Read about Bram’s friendship with Whitman and their later meetings, or return to Source materials.