
I got your letter of the 6th, a postal card of the 11th, divers newspapers, and day
before yesterday the handsome magazine with the pen-an-ink portrait—a
beautiful piece of work, but a bad likeness—in fact, a caricature, which I
hope, as Voltaire said of the "Letter to Posterity," is a
letter that will never reach its address. He has given you a wad for a mouth and
made you squint like one of George Borrow's gipsies. Drat his
imperence!
I have had it on my mind for a month to write, but have had a bad time. I thought of you anxiously during the abominable swelter of August, and felt rejoiced when the cool spell came, hoping it would do you good, though I got a cold out of it, by ill luck, which pulled me back considerably.
Your letter was very comforting. I shall hope to hear good news of you. I sent your
messages to Dr. Channing,
Grace and
Stedman. No news has reached me about the calendar, but I
hope it is all right. Grace is expected here in a few days.
Who is it writes of you so friendlily in the editorial notes of Lippincott?
I shall hope all good things for November Boughs. I wish it were further along.
I have been using the spare hours when I have felt less weak and woe-begone than I
usually do, and less weighted down with office work, to scratch off in pencil a
defence of Donnelly's book for the N. A. Review, if I can only
get it in. It has been a bad task, but a duty, for the reviewers have been
outrageous.
My hope and heart are high for you. If the weather will only let up!
Good bye. I find that I can't write much, as I hoped to when I began. As the Indian said to Roger Williams when they landed at Seekonk, "What cheer, brother, what cheer!"—meaning, all cheer!
Affectionately, W.D.O'C Walt Whitman.
