
Y'r good letter 29/9 & the newspaper came this mn'g & was welcome, as always—am cheer'd to hear f'm you all, & y'r affectionate treatment of me, thro' L of G. See you must have rec'd all my letters, papers, slips & scraps, & Dr Bucke's book (remember that Dr B gives his coloring f'm the eye of a zealous friend—I know well enough that W W is not a quarter as good as B makes him out, but is full of defects & vagaries & faults)—I have since sent you report of R G Ingersoll's big lecture in Philadelphia here Oct. 21—I have rec'd from it (& him) $869.45 wh' keeps me in bread & meat & shanty-keeping a good time yet—I also send to you printed slip, "Old Poets" my latest piece—am not sure but this internationality of P O & mails (I got a letter this mn'g. all safe f'm Nagasaki, written very fair English, f'm a young Japanese reader & absorber of L of G) is the grandest proof of modern civilization, practical brotherhood & Christianity—we feel it here in the U S f'm Canada to Texas, & f'm Atlantic side to Pacific shore—& you must too in Australia—Am mainly ab't same in health but slowly dimming & the pegs coming gradually out as I call it—this grip has hold of me thoroughly, & bladder trouble badly—but I keep fair spirits & suppose mentality & (as before written) fair appetite & sleep—have a good nurse, Warren Fritzinger a strong hearty good natured young American man, has been f'm boyhood a sailor & all round the world—go out in propell'd wheel chair—was out last evn'g to a friend's & wife's to supper, (drank a bottle of first rate champagne)—when you write don't be afraid to send me ab't Australian idiosocrasies idiosyncrasies , the woods, special trees & birds & books, life, people, peculiarities, occupations &c. (Under the thin glaze-surface of conventionalities, as here a vast plummetless-depth of democratic humanity is existing, thinking, acting, ebbing & flowing—there no doubt—that I would like O so like to flatter myself I am giving or trying to give voice to)—I am leisurely cooking up a little 2d annex for my L of G, & a collected appendix for Nov. Boughs. I enclose you a couple of slips of my last poemet in Dec. Phila. Lippincott's Magazine—
Barney, you don't know how much you & all there have done me—words by pen & ink are poor perhaps but O how I wish to give you all & each a God bless you & my love to you & the dear wife & baby & to Fred & Jim & Kate, & Ada, Eve, & Mr & Mrs Fryer & Mr Bury & other friends I fear I have not specified—
Walt Whitman

