I was greatly pleased at receiving your kind post card of Decr 31st1 this morning & I thank you most cordially for it & for the thoughtful consideration which prompted you to write it.
I was extremely sorry to learn from it, though, that there was then so little real improvement in yr physical condition—"health points much the same, (not favourable)," so says the p.c.—but I am glad to know that you were in "fair spirits" & able to sit up & "write a little."
loc.02458.002_large.jpgMy best thanks to you, too, for your kind offer to "send, or notify" me of, any thing you may write
I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could do something to really help you; & it grieves me to think how powerless I am; for I can do nothing but write to you & try to shew you something of a personal affection for you which is almost filial in its intensity & of the gratitude with which my heart is filled to overflowing, for all your great & countless benefactions to me.
God bless & keep you now & always, my life's Blessing, my Soul's Guide, Philosopher, Friend & Comrade Perfect!
loc.02458.003_large.jpgBy last mail I received a kind letter from Mrs O'Connor2 acknowledging the receipt of the copy of my "Notes"3 sent at your request. In it she informs me that her late husband's story, "The Brazen Android," is to appear in the Atlantic Monthly for April & May & the volume containing all the seven stories later.4
I have also had a friendly & affectionate letter from John Burroughs5 in wh: he says that he is pleased with the pamphlet, & compliments me upon my sketch of you.
I send you a Bolton paper containing an account of a serious railway collision to which I was called professionally. It was a distressing scene but fortunately loc.02458.004_large.jpg it has not been attended with any fatal results—
Today there are signs that our long frost is breaking up as a thaw, which seems general, has fairly set in—
I enclose a par., cut from the Family Herald6 (London), in which your name occurs.7 It shews that you have a reader on the staff of that paper.
I hope, when this reaches you, that you will be freed from the ailments which have troubled you for so long or at least that you may be relieved from the pain & able to enjoy your life in comparative comfort.
With kindest regards to all the members of yr household & with best love to yourself
I remain yours affectionately J. Johnston To Walt WhitmanCorrespondent:
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).