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  Dear Walt Whitman,

I have to thank you for the copy of the "Philadelphia Enquirer" of the 12th inst, which I received this morning. I was very pleased to read the paragraph marked, and still more pleased by the kind remembrance & consideration which prompted you to send it.

I wish that,  besides the information it gives as to what you are doing, it had also said how you were. By its account of your "buoyant spirits," and of your "getting outdoors in good weather" it indirectly conveys a good impression of your health, but I am anxious to hear a more authentic account. I earnestly hope that you are much better than when you wrote last.  Dr Johnston received a long & most kind & interesting letter yesterday from J. A. Symonds which he sent on to me to read. He intended to forward a copy to you by this mail, & I have no doubt but that he will do so.

Symonds's letter is so kind, & so pathetic in its interest, that I am inclined to write to him myself;—and, if a favourable opportunity presents itself, I will do so.  Your name will be a sufficient warrant for my intruding upon his Alpine solitude and 7 months winter—in "broken health" & "meditations upon the problem of approaching death" (referred to in the Preface to his last Essays)—with a note of friendliness & sympathy—with no little of reverence and gratitude too. God bless him.

 

We have had a very seasonable Christmas here.—snow on the ground with slight frost, rather dull & overcast, with heavy snowfall in the evening.

We had a slight thaw for a day or two previously, but it seems likely to revert to frost again. Last week end—while the keen frost continued & the trees were hung with rime—we had two of  the most lovely moonlight nights here I ever remember to have seen. The country about Rivington—near here was beautiful beyond description. I only wish that I had the time & the power to give you some account of it. But one element in a description of its effect upon me as I walked through it would lie in the influences your books have  had on me to make me receptive to its marvellous & mystic beauty. Thanks to you.—and love to you—now and always.

When you get this we shall have entered upon a new year. I hope that it may bring you renewed health and strength & blessedness & joy. All good be with you, & the increasing love of  an increasing number of those who are entering upon the blessed fruits of the long travail of your soul.

With love & best wishes

Yours affectionately J. W. Wallace