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  My dear Walt Whitman,

I was extremely pleased, last evening, to receive the copy of Ingersoll's lecture you were kind enough to send me, & I thank you for it with all my heart.

I have read it over tonight for the first time.—I was hardly prepossessed in its favour. I had previously known but little of Ingersoll. And I learned from Carlyle, long ago, to care little for   platform "oratory" as such, & to consider the main question always (as you do) "What does it amount to?" And the newspaper reports (necessarily brief & imperfect) did not make it appear to amount to very much.

But the full report, as I read it, swept away all prepossession & criticism, & filled me with a great & dilating joy. It is a great & notable utterance—strong, manly brave & free—worthy of its subject, & worthy of a great American orator to an American audience.

 

I feel as though I should like to write to Ingersoll himself to thank him for it. And I rejoice, with all my heart, that at last you should have heard so strong a public declaration of the value of your work. Honour to Ingersoll for it! and gratitude & love to him from all your friends here.

But my rejoicing is greatly disturbed & overclouded by intelligence received at noon today of your relapse & ill health. Dr J. sent me a copy of a paragraph in yesterdays "Daily Graphic" as follows:— "A post card received from Walt Whitman says:—'Am having an extra bad spell these days. May blow over; may not.'"

No date is given so that I do not know when it was written. But we shall be very anxious indeed till we hear further. I will write to Traubel by this mail to ask him to send word at once.

Dearest & best of friends! Most honoured of benefactors! What can we say to you?—but that our warmest love & sympathy & our hearts' best wishes are with you always.—

With best love Yours affectionately J.W. Wallace