
Pleasant and sufficiently cool & breezy to–day, (after some exhaustingly hot weather lately, but I am here ab't the same after it all)—Dr John Johnston f'm Bolton England, has been here three or four days, & I have seen quite a good deal of him & like him well—I believe he intents to go to Ontario & call upon you—I am sure you will be interested in him—he is a great reader &c of L of G—he yesterday went to Brooklyn, to visit Andrew and Tom Rome & intends going down to Huntington L I to visit Herbert Gilchrist—Sh'd suppose he might come y'r way ab't a week or thereab't fr'm now—
J A Symonds has sent me his (formidable) finely printed "Essays Speculative & Suggestive," two Vols. duodecimo, Chapman & Hall, London—one essay being devoted to me, "Democratic Art, with special reference to Walt Whitman"—Have run it over & a few other pages—I guess there is meat in the vols. but I doubt whether he has gripp'd "democratic art" by the nuts, or L of G. either—then the pretty magazine here "Poet Lore" for July 15, (Lippincott, Phila:) has an article "Walt Whitman's View of Shakspere," signed Jonathan Trumbull, very friendly respectful & complimentary to me—but dont get to marrows hardly at all—
Saturday P M—Fine day—sunny—cool enough—Am feeling fairly—this enclosed slip is cut f'm Horace's little paper—y'r letters rec'd—am sitting here the same in cane chair in my Mickle Street den—the big whistle has sounded 1 o'clock—my good nurse Warry has just bro't me some nice ice cream, wh' I have duly eaten—A NY man has offered me $100 for a novel (shortish story, 5000 words)—shall probably not try—
Love to Mrs: B and the childer— Walt Whitman

