
By last mail I received your kind pc of Dec 10th & the copy of the Complete Edition of Leaves of Grass which you
kindly sent For both of these I give you my most hearty thanks. The book I shall
prize all my life
long as a gift from you my dear good old Friend, & I
desire in an especial manner to thank you for the beautiful inscription with which
you have adorned & enriched its title page.
Since receiving it we have been greatly concerned by the reports of your serious illness which have upset us all more than I can tell you.
Thanks to the good
offices of Horace we have received daily cablegram messages
about you for the last three days & the substance of these J.W.W. has communicated to Tennyson, Forman, Rhys, Costello,
Rossetti, Carpenter, Smith & others. God grant that the next news may be favourable
& that our anxiety may be relieved soon!
Meantime we continue to hope & to pray that your illness may even
now have taken a favourable turn & that you may have strength vouchsafed to you
to struggle through it as you have through so many others—We take what comfort
we can from your own words that "it will be all right either way" & say may he
who doeth all things well bless you in the way that seemeth to Him best.
I write in great perplexity & distress of mind & scarcely know why under the circumstances I write at all.
Yours affectionately & with best love J Johnston
