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My dear friend

Here is the Preface—three printed slips, copies—not so much of preface to the tales but my memorial & reminiscence of dear W[illiam]—& to give a dash of appropriate & something (I hardly can say what but I think I know) different or varied to the book—

How are you getting along?—I often think ab't you & Wm & old times—& you & y'r fortunes present tapering off the rest. I am here in the same spot & in not much different conditions—good spirits enough (constitutional I guess, physiological likely)—but almost a complete bodily wreck, cannot get across the room without holding on to something or being led—have a stout man nurse—go out doors in wheel chair occasionallyᾺwas out yesterday at sunset—I sell my own books when I can get purchasers & am still rejected by all the magazines—my right arm power & volition good yet—appetite, sleep &c: fair—am now well on my 72d year—have the grip rather bad—cool spell of weather here—Dr Bucke is well—Horace Traubel comes daily—

God bless you– Walt Whitman