
I can't write much tonight, but I want to send you a few lines by this mail.
Fred Wild called to see me yesterday & had dinner with me
(in Bolton). I spoke of my last letter to you, & said that if I had had a spare
copy of his photo: I would have sent
it to you.—So, this morning, I was pleased to receive a letter from him
enclosing one, which I forward herewith.
He is very much pleased with his copy of L. of G., (he is
an old lover of yours,) & regards its presentation from Johnston & myself as "another token of our brotherhood," covenanted
anew in your dear & honoured name. He hopes that the influence of the book
"may
bind our hearts more firmly together in the coming years," & asks me, when I
write to you again, "to at least send you his warmest love & good
wishes."—I am glad to do so at once, for I know well how sincere & deep
his love & admiration for you are.
He is not "literary" at all, though he is not without appreciation of the best literatures. He has an artist's eye for the beauties
of
Nature (paints a little), but prefers Nature at first hand, with its vital freshness
& movement. (Loves the sea especially—boating,
sailing, fishing &c). He is not conventional, but rather too unconventional, & always prefers to be considered much
worse than he is, rather than better. He has a wild, native wit of his own, & is
frank, outspoken & free, in speech & manners—But he is liked at once
by all wherever he goes. And, at
the heart of him is a deep, constant affectionateness, faithful & unswerving,
& a native reverence of soul, all the deeper because so impatient of make-belief
as to seem irreverent & irreligious. He has a wife
& four children of whom he is fond. And I, his friend & intimate chum from
boyhood, have found him stedfastly loyal & true & affectionate, through
thick & thin.
I wish the portrait were a better one, but such
as it is, it may serve as a message of his personal love & adhesion.
I rejoice to think that natures like his respond to you so spontaneously & so
warmly. You can afford to let the literary classes stand in antagonism to you
(though it can be for a short time only), while the masses (the great majority,) who
deal with life & nature & experience at first hand, & who despise
second hand presentations in books & art, see in you a master, as fresh &
vital as Nature itself, offering them love & faith, & vistas before
unknown.
I hope that you are better, & your "health points" more "favourable" than when you wrote last.
With love to you always
I remain Yours affectionately J.W. Wallace

