I was very sorry indeed to hear a little while ago that you were so ill & should have written at once to Mrs Davis2 to make inquiries if I had not heard rumours of your having been moved from your house southwards, so I wrote to Herbert Gilchrist3 instead & as far as I gather from a short postcard he has written in reply you are still in Camden. However, not feeling quite sure, I thought loc_tb.00023.jpg I had better write to you first and hear if you are at home before sending you the yearly gift from myself and friends—I earnestly hope to hear in reply that you are pretty well again & out of pain.
I don't know whether you remember enough of me to recal that I had been a good invalided of late years through sleeplessness. I determined a year ago to try the manual labour cure & have been working since as a carpenter (an art which I learnt as a boy) & it has done me so much good that I hope to return soon to my proper work of teacher.
I have lately lent your poems loc_tb.00024.jpg to two new friends & have had the satisfaction of gaining their gratitude thereby—One of them was very much in need of the help to be found in them.
With much love & kind remembrances to yourself & Mrs Davis
Leonard Morgan Brown loc_tb.00021.jpg loc_tb.00019.jpg loc_tb.00020.jpgCorrespondent:
Leonard M. Brown (c.
1857–1928), a young English schoolteacher and friend of Herbert Gilchrist,
came to America in May, 1887. On March 31, 1887,
Gilchrist wrote to Whitman: "he is an uncommonly good fellow, quiet earnet
serious soul and very practical, full of solid worth, whose knowledge and
attainments are sure to be valued in America. His father is a clergyman, and
this son of his reads Leaves of Grass silently & unobserved by the sect of
his orthodox family." An entry in Whitman's Commonplace Book on August 29 reads:
"Leonard Morgan Brown goes back to Croton-on-Hudson—has been here ab't a
week" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman,
1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). See also Whitman's
letter to Brown of November 19, 1887; his letter
to Herbert Gilchrist of December 12, 1886, note 2;
and his letter to Brown of February 7,
1890.