
Friday PM Oct: 3—Have just rec'd another good (pretty long) letter f'm my friends in Australia—(a fine cluster, men & women, centred in Melbourne)—& have just sent word in answer—somehow to be read so thoroughly & made so much of by those tried & thoughtful folks of both sexes, away off at the antipodes, drives deep into me—The wet & cloudy days have pass'd & it is sunny & fine to-day—I made my breakfast of oysters brown bread & coffee—have sent my big book, your W W, & John Burroughs' Notes, with a cluster of my portraits all in a bundle by express to Ingersoll, 45 Wall st N Y (as I heard he had not y'r book)—Shall probably get out in wheel chair this aft'n—
Saturday a m Oct: 4—Fine sunny day—The Ing: address will probably be (as I before told you) at Horticultural Hall, Phil: ab't 22d Oct—but the definite decision waits for Ing's word—(he was absent f'm N Y yesterday)—I doubt if Mrs: O'C tumbles to my "preface"—she probably expected something more conventional & literary—but I find (upon second & more deliberate tho't) I have said it as I wanted to ab't Wm O'C & my wish to put on record such a testimony (tho' short) signed by my name, suits me exactly, & is consistent with the proposed book—I will send you the MS.—I have rec'd a formal invitation to write for the N A Review & sh'l probably do so.
God bless you— Walt Whitman

