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  Dear Walt Whitman;

After ascertaining from Frederick Locker-L. that Tennyson was still staying at Haslemere, I posted your portrait to him last Monday and received an acknowledgement from Hallam this morning with a letter for you, wch​ I direct and forward with this.

I received your welcome letter of October the 22nd—I rejoice that you and my friends at Glendale continue in such excellent health—I should indeed have enjoyed the drive with you that you suggest in yr​ letter—quite pleasant to think of.

Poor Frederick Locker-Lampson is suffering from "an obstinate attack of rheumatism," he is at Bath; but his daughter Mrs Lionel Tennyson tells me that he is coming to London soon. I posted your present to Mrs. Tennyson (as bade me to) last Monday and I have heard of its safe arrival since: L said in a letter to me "how kind of Walt Whitman to give me his poems" or some such remark: this rather languid swell has grown very friendly to you and I may add myself!—as we say here in school-boy fashion Locker-L​ is a "very decent chap"! and a distinct success from his own "West-end" point of view.

It is foggy, smoky and dark this morning at the a.m. o.c. and I am scribbling this instead of painting—oh, how often I think of American "air full of sheen & oxygen" as compared to this groggy London fog, alas. What a wonder it is that we are a great people and that there are Englishmen with good tempers!

Ernest Rhys must I should fear be having a rough time of it on the Atlantic he sailed last Saturday—I have given him Mrs. Paul's address where I expect he will stay.

I enclose my portrait and one for Morse. I like it because I look in it as if I meant to paint or do my best in that direction!

Give my regards to all enquiring friends especially Tom Harnard and also to Mrs Davies.

A stream of people continue to call on Sunday afternoon to see your portrait—and general approbation is continued to