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  My Dear Old Friend and Master,

We are wondering how your birthday found you, how you stood the inevitable excitement of the day & are looking anxiously for some news about you.

With us the day dawned gloriously fine & the sun shone resplendently the whole day long. It was a perfect   day here & we hope that it was as auspicious at Camden as it was at Bolton

In the afternoon—after arranging for our cablegram to be sent off at 5 p.m—I went out to Anderton where I found Wallace & Greenhalgh. They had spent the morning in the fields with L. of G & together we all went out, &, selecting a shady nook on a grassy bank overlooking the lake we sat down for an hour & a half during which Wallace [cut away]   us what he calls one of his "informal talks" upon your attitude to Religion, with readings from L. of G & Good Bye My Fancy, which we both enjoyed greatly.

We sat against a stone wall, beneath the shade of some wide spreading sycamores & mountain ashes, overlooking a wide expanse of pastoral country dotted with old time, grey & white farm houses near which the sheep & cows were quietly feeding. On our right rose the grand outline of the rugged old Pike, grass clad to the top.

 

In the middle distance lay the lake, to purple waters sparkling in the sunshine & rippling in tiny white-crested wavelets to the banks.

The weathercock of Rivington chapel spire caught the rays of the sun & shone like a star.

At our feet lay the white roadway & the grey stone work of the low-arched bridge at one end of which a clump of prickly gorse flung out its golden bells.

The birds sang & twittered joyously in the swaying & rustling trees overhead & a gentle breeze played   around us, bending the blades of the new grass & dappling the greenery with ever shifting leaf shadows.

Upon the lovely landscape the sun shone with dazzling effulgence from out the white-cloud-flecked empyrean.

To me it was a sweetly sacred hour & my heart was full of the tenderest & most hallowed thoughts of you beloved Friend & Benefactor & the day will be ever memorable to us all.

 

Wentworth Dixon joined us at tea after which I had to leave them to attend to some professional work in the evening

I have read most of "Good Bye" now. It arouses emotions & thoughts too sacred & solemn for expression & its every line is precious to me.

My heart's best love goes over the sea to you with a great & tender yearning.

Heaven's best blessing be yours now & always!

Yours, devotedly, J. Johnston. To Walt Whitman.

P.S. The "British Prince"—my ship—sails from Liverpool today. How I wish I were going too!