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54. Manchester Road,
Bolton.
Lancashire, England.1
Novr 29th 1890.
Dear Walt Whitman,
Thanks to you for your kind p.c. of the
18th inst. 2 just received
this morning, from which I am sorry to learn that you were still troubled with the
grippe etc.
The reading of your p.c. inspired me with a great longing desire to go to you & to do
something to help you in your trouble.
How I envy H. T.3
his great privilege & wish that I could be with you as he
is! But I am heartily loc.02450.002.jpg
glad to know that he is with you daily & I have no doubt
that his presence is a great comfort to you.
By this time you will, I trust, be in possession of my printed notes and of the
numbers of Great Thoughts4 containing Edmund
Mercer's5
article upon yourself.
I have discovered that he is a young solicitor residing in Manchester which is 11
miles from Bolton. I have been favoured with two letters from him in one of which he
says:—
"Since I first read any of Whitman's poems—5 years ago—I have always more
or less admired him & a profounder loc.02450.003.jpg knowledge serves to increase that admiration . . . . . I feel to
him just now as though he were my grandfather or an aged uncle; as though I once
knew him but my remembrances were like an infant's."
He further says that he has long cherished a desire to write to you and had at
last—thanks to my sending Great Thoughts to
you—"screwed his courage to the sticking place" to do so.6
He seems to be a genuinely good fellow & has a deep regard for you.
Thank you also for your kindness in promising to send me a copy of the Ingersoll7 Lecture.8 Might I loc.02450.004.jpg ask you to send one also to J. W. Wallace9
& I will remit the cash on receipt?
We had our first fall of snow here today, & very beautiful did the outside world
look, all robed in its white mantle of purity, glorified into dazzling splendour by
the radiant beams of the great "silent sun."
A similar occasion last year on my birthday Dec. 8th
suggested the enclosed "Snow Thought"
It is now a lovely moonlight night & I have just returned from a most enjoyable
walk—a professional call—& the tramp along the snow-caked glistening
road & through the keen, frosty air has exhilirated me & sent the warm blood
tingling to my finger tips. loc.02450.005.jpg
Novr 29th 1890 I have today
heard from JWW—to whom I conveyed your loving salutation—that along with
his copy of the Conservator10 is another marked copy which
he presumes that you have sent for me. Thank you for it!
Our Librarian11 informs me that there is a poem of yours in one of this month's
magazines—probably Scribner's12—but I have not
seen it yet
With kindest regards to all the members of your household & with best love
to yourself
I remain
yours affectionately
J. Johnston
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A Snow Thought
Scenes that are wondrous fair
This morn are everywhere:
For snow has fallen in the night
And robed the slumb'ring world in white.
On street and roof it lies,
An Essence from the skies—
Pure as the angels' feathery down,
Transfiguring the dingy town.
It seems as if, in love,
Our Father, from above
His mantle of Forgiveness vast
Upon a guilty world had cast.
Alas! that men elect
His mercy to reject!
And trample it beneath their feet
As snow is trodden in the street.
J. Johnston
Bolton
Dec. 8th 1889
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see notes 12-14-90
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Correspondent:
Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, founded
the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston and Wallace
corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members of the
Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet and
published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two Lancashire
Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more information on
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey | U. S. America. It is
postmarked: Bolton | [illegible] | NO29
| 90; Bolton | [illegible] | NO29 | 90;
92, New YORK |
DEC | 13; PAID | H | ALL: Camden, N.J. | Dec | 1[illegible] | 5 PM | 1890 | Rec'd. Johnston has written his
initials "JJ" in the bottom left of the recto of the envelope. [back]
- 2. See Whitman's postcard to
Johnston of November 18, 1890. [back]
- 3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Johnston is referring to the
annual periodical Great Thoughts from Master Minds
(1884–1937), which was published in London and edited by Robert Colville.
The publication included prose, poetry, and illustrations. [back]
- 5. Edmund Mercer
(1865–1945) was from Manchester, England, one of five children born to
Thomas Mercer (1836–1893)—a silk manufacturer—and Alice Holden
(1837–1921). In 1899, he married Helena Harriet Tippins (1872–1939)
and the couple had two children, Geoffrey Edmund (1901–1981) and Robert
Osborn (1909–1995). English census data record Mercer as a solicitor
living in Manchester. His sonnet "Blue and Gold" appeared in the August 24,
1889, issue of Chambers's Journal (544); he also
regularly contributed essays to the Manchester Quarterly,
published by the Manchester Literary Club, of which he was at one time a Council
Member. When Mercer died in 1945, he was working for the firm of Maurice Rubin
and Company, and his obituary in volume eleven of The Law
Times claims that he as "reputed to be the oldest practicing solicitor
in Manchester" (202). [back]
- 6. Mercer wrote to Whitman on
November 28, 1890. [back]
- 7. Robert "Bob" Green Ingersoll
(1833–1899) was a Civil War veteran and an orator of the post-Civil War
era, known for his support of agnosticism. Ingersoll was a friend of Whitman,
who considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. Whitman said to Horace
Traubel, "It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is
Leaves of Grass. He lives, embodies, the
individuality I preach. I see in Bob the noblest
specimen—American-flavored—pure out of the soil, spreading, giving,
demanding light" (Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Wednesday, March 25, 1891). The feeling was mutual. Upon Whitman's
death in 1892, Ingersoll delivered the eulogy at the poet's funeral. The eulogy
was published to great acclaim and is considered a classic panegyric (see
Phyllis Theroux, The Book of Eulogies [New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1997], 30). [back]
- 8. On October 21, 1890, at
Horticultural Hall in Philadelphia, Robert Ingersoll delivered a lecture in
honor of Walt Whitman titled Liberty in Literature.
Testimonial to Walt Whitman. Whitman recorded in his Commonplace Book
that the lecture was "a noble, (very eulogistic to WW & L of G) eloquent
speech, well responded to by the audience," and the speech itself was published
in New York by the Truth Seeker Company in 1890 (Whitman's Commonplace Book
[Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.]). [back]
- 9. James William Wallace
(1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of
Whitman. Wallace, along with Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927), a physician in
Bolton, founded the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston
and Wallace corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members
of the Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet
and published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace,
Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two
Lancashire Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more
information on Wallace, see Larry D. Griffin, "Wallace, James William (1853–1926)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 10. Horace Traubel founded The Conservator in March 1890, and he remained its editor
and publisher until his death in 1919. Traubel conceived of The Conservator as a liberal periodical influenced by Whitman's poetic
and political ethos. A fair portion of its contents were devoted to Whitman
appreciation and the conservation of the poet's literary and personal
reputation. [back]
- 11. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]
- 12. Scribner's
Monthly was an illustrated literary magazine published monthly from
1870 until 1881 by Scribner & Company. Later, in 1881, after Charles
Scribner (1854–1930) sold his share of the company, the magazine was
relaunched as The Century Magazine. [back]