
Thanks to you for your kind p.c. of the 18th inst. just received this morning, from which I am sorry to learn that you were still troubled with the grippe etc.
The reading of your p.c. inspired me with a great longing desire to go to you & to do something to help you in your trouble.
How I envy H. T.
his great privilege & wish that I could be with you as he
is! But I am heartily
glad to know that he is with you daily & I have no doubt
that his presence is a great comfort to you.
By this time you will, I trust, be in possession of my printed notes and of the numbers of Great Thoughts containing Edmund Mercer's article upon yourself.
I have discovered that he is a young solicitor residing in Manchester which is 11 miles from Bolton. I have been favoured with two letters from him in one of which he says:—
"Since I first read any of Whitman's poems—5 years ago—I have always more
or less admired him & a profounder knowledge serves to increase that admiration . . . . . I feel to
him just now as though he were my grandfather or an aged uncle; as though I once
knew him but my remembrances were like an infant's."
He further says that he has long cherished a desire to write to you and had at last—thanks to my sending Great Thoughts to you—"screwed his courage to the sticking place" to do so.
He seems to be a genuinely good fellow & has a deep regard for you.
Thank you also for your kindness in promising to send me a copy of the Ingersoll Lecture. Might I ask you to send one also to J. W. Wallace
& I will remit the cash on receipt?
We had our first fall of snow here today, & very beautiful did the outside world look, all robed in its white mantle of purity, glorified into dazzling splendour by the radiant beams of the great "silent sun."
A similar occasion last year on my birthday Dec. 8th suggested the enclosed "Snow Thought"
It is now a lovely moonlight night & I have just returned from a most enjoyable
walk—a professional call—& the tramp along the snow-caked glistening
road & through the keen, frosty air has exhilirated me & sent the warm blood
tingling to my finger tips.
Novr 29th 1890 I have today heard from JWW—to whom I conveyed your loving salutation—that along with his copy of the Conservator is another marked copy which he presumes that you have sent for me. Thank you for it!
Our Librarian informs me that there is a poem of yours in one of this month's magazines—probably Scribner's—but I have not seen it yet
With kindest regards to all the members of your household & with best love to yourself I remain yours affectionately J. Johnston

A Snow Thought
Scenes that are wondrous fair This morn are everywhere: For snow has fallen in the night And robed the slumb'ring world in white. On street and roof it lies, An Essence from the skies— Pure as the angels' feathery down, Transfiguring the dingy town. It seems as if, in love, Our Father, from above His mantle of Forgiveness vast Upon a guilty world had cast. Alas! that men elect His mercy to reject! And trample it beneath their feet As snow is trodden in the street. J. Johnston Bolton Dec. 8th 1889



