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  Dear Walt

After a splendid time in Ceylon & India I have got back here again. Saw much of the interior life of the people, religious customs, &c—spent one night, or a good part of one, in a Hindu Temple during a festival—saw a little of the peasantry & their ways, and made several friends among the natives. Altogether it is very interesting—the old occult knowledge (some of a very remarkable character) lingering on among certain sections; then the   tremendous Westernising movement among other sections, towards education science, & commercialism, and away from caste & religion; caste itself, such an intricate & stupendous affair, impossible to get to know more than the fringe of it; the evident rapprochement between The East & The West, and yet the deep & vital differences between them, in temperament & almost everything—altogether it has given me a lot to think about!

I got a pamphlet from Dr Johnston of Bolton about his visit to you—wh. I enjoyed—also a capital photograph. His account in the pamphlet and in a recent   letter about your health, dear Walt, is not very good—this long confinement to the house, together with gastric troubles, must weary you at times—It does make such a difference when one can get out—and yet there doesn't seem much difference in you, exc: quite outwardly.

Some of us (Bessie & Isabella Ford; R.D. Roberts of Cambridge; William, Arthur & Ethel Thompson; and myself) are sending on to you our usual birthday remembrance—with our love and unchanged affection (I think I may say). The letter of credit, enclosed, is for £40. I don't quite know what "identification" they require; but I don't think you will have any   difficulty about the matter.

William Thompson is lately married & is working a little at bookbinding for a trade. Arthur & Ethel are his brother & sister, whom I know next to nothing of. The two Miss Fords have been down with influenza, but are mending again I believe. Herbert Gilchrist I hear is on Long Island. Affte​ rememberances to him & Harry Stafford when you see them. I send you a bit of sweet briar wh. grows by the door of this little house. Our garden goes on much the same, and all seems homelike & pleasant after my long absence—the bees humming in the sun as if the world had only just begun! I hope you will have a pleasant birthday gathering, dear Walt—

With much love Edward Carpenter

I heard from Traubel—to whom greetings.