
I was rejoiced to get your card of yesterday this morning.
The blindness still continues, but with half an eye I send you a word to let you know
that I'm not dead yet, no more than you are, dear friend! The pleasing little malady
of the eyelid which has inspired me to much eloquent, though silent, profanity, is
called ptosis, a Greek name which is fully equivalent to
Abaddon (and a bad'un it is: joke: two in this style for one cent!) and
consists in a paralysis of the first nerve of the eyelid. The doctor continues the
battery, and promises relief soon, warning me not to use the other eye, which I
don't, with slight exceptions, such as this one. Soon I hope to send you better than
this myopian notelet.
I was glad to see Mrs. Costelloe's letter, which I sent the next day to Dr. Bucke (old angel!) and have heard he got it.
I am pleased that Stedman wrote to you. I suppose it included telling
you the delay of the calendar, for which I am not sorry on the whole, since it gives
another chance to get the help of Stetson's grand Fuseli-pencil for the design of another year.
Grace is going to touch this spirit to fine issues if possible next twelve-month,
when we hope he will be freer to work!
—But, whoa! eye-destroying prose. Pegasus of the devil—It fills me with
thanks that you still hold your own, dear Walt. I'll bet on you more than on either
Harrison or Cleveland! (Apropos, what a delicious mess
Bull-Sackville has got himself into! The tee-heeing and haw-hawing are
multitudinous! Also the Democratic roars!)
Nelly sends love. More annon.
Always affectionately, W.D.O'C Walt Whitman.—Where's the gold-and-azure October weather I prophecied! Wretched Augur! It is endless rain!