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  Dear Walt Whitman:

Our good friend William D. O'Connor died this morning about 2 o'clock.

I doubt not that you will have been informed by his friends, or by the press, but as it was my lot to be closely associated  with him for several months before he was forced to keep to the house, and as he often talked of you (I know from your books that you loved him, and I know that he loved you), I am impelled to write you the sad intelligence of the morning.

He seemed hopeful through the last weeks of his illness, but did not fear the End. He had often said to me that his greatest fear was years of bedridden lingering—such as sometimes accompanies maladies kindred to his. Often he quoted: "Come quickly, O beautiful Death!" and now that it has come  we cannot wish him back to that shattered tenement of clay.

Peace to his ashes!

I have not seen you, Walt Whitman, but it is not necessary to see you in order to know you, and I send you my love

Your friend, James L. Sill Washington, D. C.   letter f'm J. L. Sill  
 Death of Wm O'Connor May 9 '89.
to be treasured