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  My dear Walt Whitman,

Your two post cards of March 8th & March 10th addressed to Dr. Johnston were received together yesterday—along with one from Warry.

We were very pleased to receive them & to compare them, so as to arrive at a fair idea of your condition. We were very glad to note in the later one (March 10th) that there was "a suspicion of shade of betterment" in your   condition. We hope that the improvement is now more pronounced, as Traubel was "quite convinced" it would be, & look for a better report when the weather improves.

It affects us very deeply that, in the midst of your weakness & suffering, & your other correspondence & writing, you are so constantly mindful of us, & so kind in writing to us.—What can we say in return? but that our deepest gratitude & our heart's best love & sympathy are with you always.

 

I wish that we could shew​ show​ them better than by mere letter writing, & by sending such papers & magazines as are likely to interest you. But since even these please you, we shall continue to send them, as poor tokens of our deepest affection.

We have not only cause for gratitude to you for all that your books have done for us,—& will continue to do for us as we more deeply explore them, & assimilate their teaching & spirit—& for the   glad wonderful gift of your personal affection & constant, ever-thoughtful kindness, (so deeply enhancing the personal appeal of your books too), but for the warm & ever widening comradeship & affection which comes to us through your influence. Love & gratitude to you evermore.

Surely this "ever widening commune of brothers & lovers" is destined to develop to unprecedented extents. Wherever the songs of Burns are sung Scotchmen meet together as brothers, in a common spirit of patriotism.

 

But when your influence & fame reach their height, not Americans only, but your readers in every country will feel themselves linked together in a common bond & a common love.

But, outside this acknowledged brotherhood, your influence will permeate further still;—as in small beginnings it does now. For in our daily lives it makes itself felt in all our dealings with others. Johnston feels it in his professional work, & I, too, in mine. Brought daily into contact with numbers   of others, we learn to regard them more & more in your own spirit,—& are ourselves happier thereby.

I am glad to learn that you "are getting on fairly with proofs of 2nd Annex," & can understand how relieved you will be when you get it fairly out of your hands. And to us its interest will be very great indeed.

I turn again & again, with inexhaustible interest & delight, to the wonderful preface to your first edition, (illustrating & harmonizing so well,   in every word, with all your after performance.) And I cannot but look forward with tender swelling joy & pride & love to your latest confirmation of the "message from the heavens" of which you have been the mouthpiece—"nor once losing nor faith nor ecstacy in Him."

From the poems which have already appeared, (as in Lippincott's) I quite believe Traubel's words (in a letter to me) that they will   detract nothing from previous years & work," but will add to them, & that the book "is saturated with divine flavors."—

But I must close. I intended to write to Traubel by this mail, but will ask you to convey my affectionate regards to him instead.

I expect Johnston & Fred Wild here tomorrow afternoon (Sat. 4) if the weather is favourable. In that case Johnston will post this for me on his return to Bolton (Post from here tomorrow night too late for mail).

With best love to you always

Yours affectionately J.W. Wallace