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  My Dear Walt Whitman,

Your kind p.c. of Feb 26th to hand & my best thanks to you for it!

I note that you were then "about the same," & though we cannot but feel disappointed at the news & wish it were better still we are thankful that under the circumstances it is no worse

This prolonged "bad spell" must have told upon your strength &   exhausted you very considerably; & yet, despite the physical exhaustion & the severe bodily pain which we know you are almost constantly suffering, and which in an ordinary person would be regaded as a sufficient reason for not replying to any letters, you write to us by nearly every mail!

For this continued thoughtfulness & marvellous loving-kindness we thank you from the bottom of our hearts, beloved Master generous Benefactor and kind hearted Friend.

 

God bless you & grant that you may ere long have relief from the wearying pain & distress that have been yours for so long!

As the attendance at the last meeting of "the College" was limited to three—R.K. Greenhalgh, Wentworth Dixon, & myself—we had a select little "Whitman Evening" all to ourselves. After reading over our Whitman correspondence of the past week R.K.G. read a long & most interesting letter from "dear J.W.W." as you call him—he is a dear fellow—to a friend of his, Mr Goldstraw. It was in reply to some of   G's objections on his first attempt to read L. of G. & proved to be a really splendid letter entirely worthy of J.W.W. We have kept a copy of it. Then R.K.G. read "The Song of the Universal," W.D. read "The Song of Prudence," & I read "To Think of Time"—& a very good time we had.

In this month's National Review I came across a quotation from Stedman and Kay' "Library of American Literature" to the effect that "American Literature began with Walt Whitman and has yet got no further."

 

This morning I had the pleasure of reading another beautiful letter from J.A. Symonds to J.W.W. In it he gives many interesting details of personal history & we purpose sending you a copy of it. He also pays J.W.W a high compliment upon his caligraphic skill by asking "if Dr. Johnston keeps a forger!" because the facsimiles of some of your post cards—the work of J.W.W.—which we sent to him were almost as like the originals as if they had been photographed.

During the past few days the Midlands & South West of England have been visited by a very severe storm   with an exceptionally heavy snow fall & we read of railway trains being buried in snowdrifts, a lifeboat capsized, shipwrecks, people being frozen to death but with the exception of frequent snowshowers we in the North have seen nothing of the "blizzard"

This is a truly glorious day here—an easterly wind with bright sunshine, a beautiful blue sky with great snow-white masses of cumulus clouds like sunlit mountains of the purest cotton wool, sailing majestically across it—a day to make the heaviest   heart buoyant, the saddest rejoice, & all the sons of men unite in one grand paean of thanksgiving to the All Good. If I only knew for certain that you were better I should be ever so much more at ease. However I must hope for the best, & we know that whatever happens is for the best.

When next you see H.L.T. please convey to him my cordial regards; & with a heartful of love & good wishes   to yourself.

I remain Yours affectionately J Johnston   see | notes | May 30 | 1891