
I received a few days since your last letter. It is very pleasant to me to find you liked my Shakspere Shakespeare book, but much more to know that you are not indifferent to me, myself, & do not think of me as a stranger.
The report of your health makes us both hopeful & anxious. I do not know whether your American Summers are as health-bringing as our Summers, but I should suppose they have a decided advantage over your winters in this respect (notwithstanding all John Burroughs says of Winter Sunshine) for an invalid; so it is chiefly from the summer that we shall look for an advance towards recovery

The newspaper statement of the attitude of the American public towards you is a surprise & a disappointment We had been misled by a correspondent of The Academy, which is a paper always friendly to you, into quite a different view of things—I am waiting until next Saturday to see whether Rossetti has inserted this statement in the Academy. If he has not, I will write to him & try to get it printed there.
Two friends, Professor Atkinson of Trin. Coll.
Dublin, & Stoker, who writes to you, have asked me to get copies of
your Three volumes, L of G, Two Rivulets & Memoranda.
But I do not doubt that half-a dozen of my friends will wish to have the
books, so I should be obliged if you would send a parcel containing six copies of Each book—the
Autograph 1876-Edition. Stoker wishes me to ask you to put, if you do not object, his
name (Abraham Stoker) & your own in the copies for him—
He has told you perhaps of a very lively debate we had at our "Fortnightly Club" on "The genius
of Walt Whitman" last Monday Evening Feb 14th A most savage, but
ill-planned, attack opened the discussion. I followed with a speech which consisted in
the main of apt selections from L. of G. & Democratic Vistas, & these were felt by my
hearers to be a very effective answer to the previous speaker's extravagant statements. Then,
to my surprise & great satisfaction, followed speaker
after speaker on the Whitman side,—a barrister, a young clergyman, a man in business,
& others, while the remaining speakers were three, one who placed you below Victor Hugo
on the ground of alleged deficiency of form & beauty in your poems,
one who announced that he had never read your books but was sure you could have written nothing
as good as Burns' "Cotter's Saturday Night", & a third recently
introduced to L. of G. & who confessed to having discovered some few great poems, but much
that baffled him, & that should be challenged.
The result was on the whole highly satisfactory. It was the 2nd Evening occupied by you during the present session.
These little skirmishes, however, are only occasional incidents in the quiet progress which as
I said before I am
convinced your writings are making.
I was very glad to hear of Burroughs. I still owe him a letter of thanks for his Winter Sunshine.
I Enclose a draft for the Equivalent of sixty dollars. Please send the parcel to me at the following address Winstead, Temple Road, Rathmines. Dublin.
And now, dear friend, goodbye. Be sure that any tidings of you, good or the reverse of good, will always be of great concern to me, & write a line when it suits you, but at no other time.
Yours always, Edward Dowden
P.S. If you have any Magazine articles why not try The Gentlemans Magazine—if a poem, or—better—if prose The Fortnightly Review?
But have a 2nd copy of the MS made to avoid the risk of its being lost—
I strongly incline to think Morley of the Fortnightly Review would be glad to hear from you, if you have anything suitable.
It also occurs to me that some arrangement might be come to with Messrs Chatto & Windus to publish your Two Rivulets &c., & give you a royalty on copies sold. I will write to Rossetti about this.