
Just another word of loving greeting & good cheer, wafted from over sea to you my dear good old Friend & to send you a message of love & sympathy.
I do hope you are keeping better now & that by this time you are able to get out & to enjoy the sunshine & fresh air.
I herewith send
you a dozen more facsimiles of your letter.
I am also sending—or have sent—copies to the following.
The friends at Bolton & Annan |
Tennyson |
Symonds |
Whittier |
Ingersoll |
Dr Bucke |
Carpenter |
Dowden |
Rhys |
Mrs Harrison |
Ed Mercer |
J Burroughs |
A Rome |
Rossetti |
Pearsall Smith |
Miss Ford |
H. Gilchrist |
Talcot Williams |
O'Dowd |
Sarrazin |
S. Kennedy |
Miss Whitman |
Dr Longaker |
Capt Howell |
H. L. Traubel |
Warry |
Mrs Davis |

Should you desire a few more I shall be very pleased to supply you
I have received a nice letter from Ernest Rhys in which he says that my Notes—sent to him at the request of Edward Carpenter—are most vivid & realistic & recall most suggestively his own adventures in Mickle St three or four years ago as his fortunate experience of you tallies mine very closely
He also kindly
offers to try & get me a copy of a defunct
magazine—The Scottish Art Review—Containing
an article upon the Portraits of yourself.
Though we are now fast approaching Midsummer Day—my dear, old
Mother's Birthday—we have had very little real Summer weather
yet; & though the country is looking lovely still, on the whole,
vegetation is very backward
for the time of the year. The hawthorne has just begun to sprinkle
the hedges with its summer snow & the laburnum to droop its
beautiful golden tassels—
Later
Since writing the above I have received yr kind pc of June 6th for which I return you my sincere & heartfelt thanks.
I at once made a traced facsimile & took it to
Wallace's office (I have not seen him for 3 or 4
days & did not today). I much regret
to note that you were "sick enough" on June 6th.
This looks as if there was not much real
& permanent improvement in your condition tho' doubtless part of
the depression is the inevitable result of the excitement from
the Birthday "Spree"—Your "triumph over your infirmities," as
Wallace calls it, has no doubt cost you some reactionary prostration
& I sincerely hope that by this time you have got over that &
resumed your normal
average of health.
We still keep on hoping that despite adverse appearances you will yet recover something of your lost vigour & be spared to cheer & comfort us all by your dear sweet presence for some time to come—
We shall give Dr B a cordial welcome
With kindest regards & best heart love I remain Yours affectionately J Johnston To Walt Whitman