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  Dear Whitman,

I read with great concern the statement in your note of 20 Octr​ that you are "in poorer health even than of late seasons": it wd.​ give me & others the sincerest pleasure to receive pretty soon a statement to the reverse effect.

Since I wrote last to you little sums have been accumulating in my hands: I enclose an account of them, amounting to £31.19—   Within the next few days I shall take the usual steps for postal remittance of this amount, & will send you the papers.

In the letter of Miss L. Agnes Jones to me (more especially) there are some expressions wh.​ I think you will be pleased to read. I don't know this lady: she writes from 16 Nevern Road, Earl's Court, London. "The necessities of persons one knows, & may be bound to do all one can for, are so near & pressing that to give money to help—on the efforts of those who try to realize one's ideals is seldom possible; &, even in sign of one's gratitude to one who has partly reformed our ideals,   is less so. . . . Yet Walt Whitman shd.​ have those: to whom it is at once instinct & natural inevitable duty not to count any cost, or weigh this claim with that; but to break the alabaster, & pour the ointment, with no thought but of him. Has he not? This is a long apology for sending 5/-: it seemed so poor & ungenerous to send, unless I had said what gratitude it may yet stand for. Walt Whitman knows better than most that the sense of spiritual gain can seldom find the expression it longs for; & that it may forever remain unexpressed in material terms, & yet be present & abiding. I have as often wished to thank him."

I grieve to say that Mrs. Gilchrist   has been much out of health of late, & I fear still continues so. No doubt you have details from head quarters.

Yours in reverence & affection, W. M. Rossetti     see notes Sept 16 1888