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  My dear Whitman,

I have been voyaging amid the Hebrides,—strolling amid the Highlands,—loafing by the Sea,—trying to extract from two or three weeks' vacation some vigour and virtue for my work, which in these last years grows heavy. On returning I found your munificence to be as of old. The three volumes, and the photographs were most welcome. A third photograph was sent to me by Sharman. (If you see him tell him that his accompanying letter got lost in my absence or it shd​ have been answered.)

About the same time that I received your volumes I got a letter from Kate Hillard, (a brilliant girl and writer of Brooklyn who was here last year) written       from the Adirondacks. She says:—"I have made a discovery since I have been here, and that is, that I never half appreciated Walt Whitman's poetry till now, much as I fancied I enjoyed it. To me he is the only poet fit to be read in the mountains, the only one who can reach and level their lift, to use his own words, to pass and continue beyond. The others seem more or less paltry and insufficient, except Shakespeare, and he seems almost too courtly. But Walt Whitman exactly accords with the ruggedness and tenderness of the mountains, and seems in some way more their fellow. At any rate he so affects me, and what other thing can we know?"

 

2d sheet.

I copy this for you as it is in a way what the mountains said about you to the girl.

As you may judge, the criticism in the Westminster Review seemed to me valuable on account of its stand-point and main principles. The Hon​ Roden Noel (one of the Lord Byron blood, and author of a pleasing volume of Poems) submitted to me recently a very long and careful review of your work, which begins with a charmingly incisive analysis of the Saturday Reviews criticism. The Essay of Noel will probably appear in the new Oxonian magazine "The Dark Blue." I shall take care to send it to you.

What is this I hear of your coming over here? Is it to be so?—& if so, when? and for how long? When you arrive—if that       good fortune await us—you must (letting me know beforehand the Ship by which you sail from America) come straight to my house, where you will find a small room but a large welcome. I hear that Tennyson has written to you, and should be very glad to know what he said.

Let me hear from you so soon as you find it convenient.

Ever your friend M D Conway   M.D. Conway Sep 13, '71. see notes Nov 16 1888