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  see notes Mar. 7, 1891 Dear Walt Whitman,

I was delighted yesterday morning to receive your kind post card of Decbr: 23rd, & I thank you for it with all my heart.

I was very much pleased to note the rather better report of your health at the time of writing:—("pretty fair—considering")—   & of your having been out the previous day.

This morning, I had the further pleasure of receiving a letter from Dr Johnston, enclosing copies of your P.C. to him & of a letter from Horace L. Traubel dated Decbr: 25th, which confirmed the glad news of your improved condition.

I was also very much pleased to receive a copy of "The New Ideal"   for Decbr, and one of "Unity" for August 28th;—both very kindly sent by Traubel at your suggestion. I will write to him tonight (though briefly) to thank him.

I note your description of your solitude &c, relieved "once in a while" by "something or somebody that cheers you," & I wish that I could do something better to cheer you than writing stupid letters. But I can only do "as they" are said to "do in Chowbent"   (a village near Bolton)—viz:—the best they can!

Indeed, I am doing very little in any way at present. I am still suffering from exhaustion of brain & nerves, which is very slow to quit, & which, while it lasts, prevents me from doing any thing beyond my necessary work.

Even the society of friends ("the College") of which I was the founder & leader, & which met at our house while we lived in Bolton, has seen very little of me this winter

  March 7th '91 note

Both in it, & in literary work besides, I have been anxious to extend your influence & to help on your work. And I trust that in good time, & by God's help, I shall be able to do so—perhaps all the better for my present inactivity.

Meanwhile, it is my proudest & dearest privilege to write to you, & to shew you something—(if nothing better) of a love which is as that of a son, & of the gratitude & homage due to my greatest benefactor & exemplar.

 

As I read your postcard, & thought of you sitting alone in your room, (in your big chair—with wolfskin,) writing & reading—"or rather going through the motions"—I wished that I could sit with you, & read aloud for you what you wished, & write as you dictated. How gladly would I do so if I only could!

But I have to content myself with looking up at your portrait which looks down upon me from the mantelpiece & writing as I can.

 

I am most heartily glad that you begin the New Year under improved conditions of health—(or seemed likely to do so at Christmas.) I devoutly hope that as the year goes on it may bring you increasing strength & immunity from pain, inspirations of nobler cheer & trust & love, with wider & deeper returns of the love you have poured forth in such a measureless & lifelong flood—& that   your eyes may be gladdened with visible beginnings of the noble harvest yet to come to the burning seeds of faith & joy & love you have so diligently planted.

With heartfelt, deepest thanks for all your benefits—& for all your personal loving-kindness—to me, & with responding love, gratitude & reverence always.

I remain Yours affectionately J.W. Wallace