
I read with great concern the statement in your note of 20 Octr that you are "in poorer health even than of late seasons": it wd. give me & others the sincerest pleasure to receive pretty soon a statement to the reverse effect.
Since I wrote last to you little sums have been accumulating in my hands: I enclose an account of them, amounting to
£31.19— Within the next few days I shall take the usual steps for postal
remittance of this amount, & will send you the papers.
In the letter of Miss L. Agnes Jones to me (more especially) there are some
expressions wh. I think you will be pleased to read. I don't know this lady: she writes
from 16 Nevern Road, Earl's Court, London. "The necessities of persons one knows,
& may be bound to do all one can for, are so near & pressing that to give
money to help—on the efforts of those who try to realize one's ideals is
seldom possible; &, even in sign of one's gratitude to one who has partly
reformed our ideals, is less so. . . . Yet Walt Whitman shd. have those: to whom it is at once instinct & natural inevitable duty
not to count any cost, or weigh this claim with that; but to break the alabaster,
& pour the ointment, with no thought but of him. Has
he not? This is a long apology for sending 5/-: it seemed so poor &
ungenerous to send, unless I had said what gratitude it may yet stand for. Walt
Whitman knows better than most that the sense of spiritual gain can seldom find the
expression it longs for; & that it may forever remain unexpressed in material
terms, & yet be present & abiding. I have as often wished to thank him."
I grieve to say that Mrs. Gilchrist has been much out of health of
late, & I fear still continues so. No doubt you have
details from head quarters.

