Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Letters
  3. Correspondence
  4. loc.02548

Dr. John Johnston to Walt Whitman, 16 March 1892

About This Item

  • Title: Dr. John Johnston to Walt Whitman, 16 March 1892
  • Date: March 16, 1892
  • Creator(s): Dr. John Johnston
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.02548
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Cristin Noonan Amanda J. Axley Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Johnston, Dr. John. "Dr. John Johnston to Walt Whitman, 16 March 1892." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 19 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.02548.xml (TEI)
 loc.02548.001_large.jpg 54 Manchester Road, Bolton. England1 Mar 16. 92 My Dear Walt,

How fares it with you, tonight? Better I hope.2 My heart is with you and I send you its best and warmest love.

I was very sorry to hear from Mrs Traubel3 that you were going to lose your good, kind nurse Mrs Zeller4 & I hope that the new arrangement5 will suit  loc.02548.002_large.jpg [cut away] I have just received a postal from your old friend, Rudolf Schmidt6—in acknowledgement of the facsimile7—in which he says that he has known you for twenty one years & signs himself

"In Whitmanly friendship Truly, yours, Rudolf Schmidt."—

I read a long essay—an hour & 35 minutes long—upon you on the 11th to the "Bolton Literary Society" & J.W.W.,8 who has since read the M.S., pronounces it "an exceptionally good  loc.02548.003_large.jpg paper." "Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed!" but I am not satisfied with it.

This has been quite a spring–like day here—after a long succession of dreary days—& I heard a lark sing today though it was caged, in a back street. Poor little songster! What longing it must have for its sweet liberty, the green fields, the pure air & the blue sky! What a heartful of cheer it must have had to sing there at all! My heart ached for it.  loc.02548.004_large.jpg I hope you like your new bed & that you have better nights now than you used to have.

God bless you dearest & best of Earthly friends

My love to you now & always

Yours affectionately J. Johnston  loc.02548.005_large.jpg  loc.02548.006_large.jpg

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 | N.J | U.S. America It is postmarked: BOLTON [illegible]; PAID | ALL; [illegible] | 92; NEW YORK | MAR | 23; CAMDEN, N.J. | MAR24 | 9AM | 92 | REC'D. [back]
  • 2. On December 17, 1891, Whitman had come down with a chill and was suffering from congestion in his right lung. Although the poet's condition did improve in January 1892, he would never recover. He was confined to his bed, and his physicians, Dr. Daniel Longaker of Philadelphia and Dr. Alexander McAlister of Camden, provided care during his final illness. Whitman died on March 26, 1892. [back]
  • 3. Anne Montgomerie (1864–1954) married Horace Traubel in Whitman's Mickle Street house in Camden, New Jersey, in 1891. They had one daughter, Gertrude (1892–1983), and one son, Wallace (1893–1898). Anne was unimpressed with Whitman's work when she first read it, but later became enraptured by what she called its "pulsating, illumined life," and she joined Horace as associate editor of his Whitman-inspired periodical The Conservator. Anne edited a small collection of Whitman's writings, A Little Book of Nature Thoughts (Portland, Maine: Thomas B. Mosher, 1896). After Horace's death, both Anne and Gertrude edited his manuscripts of his conversations with Whitman during the final four years of the poet's life, which eventually became the nine-volume With Walt Whitman in Camden. [back]
  • 4. Johnston here means Elizabeth Leavitt Keller (1839–1928), who was hired by Dr. Richard M. Bucke and Horace Traubel to be Whitman's fulltime nurse during his final illness. She began work on December 28, 1891, and, because of previous engagements, left on March 8, 1892, just a couple of weeks before Whitman's death. She describes her experiences in her book about Whitman's final years, Walt Whitman in Mickle Street (1921). [back]
  • 5. Horace Traubel and Mary O. Davis, Whitman's housekeeper, hired an additional housekeeper to free Mrs. Davis to devote her attentions to caring for Whitman. [back]
  • 6. The Danish writer Peter Carl Rudolf Schmidt (1836–1899) was the editor of the idealist journal For Idé og Virkelighed ("For Idea and Reality") and had translated Whitman's Democratic Vistas into Danish in 1874. [back]
  • 7. Johnston is referring to Whitman's letter of February 6–7, 1892, in which Whitman details some of his ailments and explains that it "may be [his] last" letter as his "right arm [is] giving out." Johnston had this and other Whitman letters lithographed and sent the facsimiles to the poet's friends and followers in England and Europe. [back]
  • 8. 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]
Back to top