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I saw an item of Balestier's death four days ago, but tho't it needed authentication (& seems to me yet), but I find this printed in Bost.—

He was the proposer of the foreign edn L of G. I spoke of—

Was any thing done—or is there any thing further—of sending the plaster bust to Dr Johnston?

—fine sunny Dec: weather—

Bad condition with me—"Keep good heart—the worst is to come"—was one of the sayings of my dear old father—

Ingram has moved into Phila: for the winter—I have sent paper-b'd copies of the new L of G. to Dr. J. & J W W.

Horace here last evn'g as usual—just taken a cool refreshing glass buttermilk—tolerable night last—sitting here ab't as ever big chair, wolf-skin, oak fire. God bless you

Walt Whitman

WOLCOTT BALESTIER.

The cable has done few things more tragic, in its own terse and terrible way, than to announce the sudden death, last Sunday, December 6th, at Dresden, of Wolcott Balestier. To those who knew him, the news will forever remain incredible, he was so full of active boyish interest in life and work, of plans and criticism, of real promise and personal significance. He would make on a stranger the impression of one who meant to last long, and yet he was not of robust build. He had a look not unlike the portraits of Hazlitt in his youth; slight, fair, decisive of step and speech; and his whole character was almost typically American, as befitted the descendant of Wolcott the Signer. He had written two novels. His "Common Story" in a recent Century won smiling praise everywhere for its shrewd and tender comprehension of women; and he had the glorious fun (it would have been his own word), of building and launching "The Naulahka," pegging away, day by day, with his dear friend Rudyard Kipling. He had passed most of his life with books, and he found, without trouble, his vocation as publisher. The new firm of Heinemann & Balestier started out with a vast stock of courage, and many English and American authors have reason to know that it made an instant, an honorable success. Press of pleasant affairs, and the occult duty of dethroning the kings of the house of Tauchnitz, carried him this month as often before, to Germany; and here, in his thirtieth year, is the inscrutable end. Ships at sea, the noisy New York highways where first he studied the humanities, the all-but-uninterrupted stretch of grass from Dean's Yard, Westminster, to his door at Kensington, which made his daily walk, and which he pointed out with great mischief to New Yorkers reared on din and dust—these shall know him no more.

He had many illustrious friends in his delightful exile; Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Gosse, with their lovely little children, will miss him most of all. What his loss is to his mother and his sisters, one of whom, long in England at his side, was his devoted playmate, comforter and stay, cannot be put into words. I shall think of him always as last I saw him—loving games and dogs and natural laughter; full of enthusiasm for literature and for old London; full of kindness for every creature about him; the busy, happy, unsoiled young heart! "The peace of Heaven, The fellowship of all great souls, go with thee."