Samuel Thompson to Walt Whitman, 25 February 1892

About This Item

Title: Samuel Thompson to Walt Whitman, 25 February 1892
Date: February 25, 1892
Creator(s): Samuel Thompson
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04222
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: Ethan Heusser Cristin Noonan Erel Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Amanda J. Axley
Cite this page: Thompson, Samuel. "Samuel Thompson to Walt Whitman, 25 February 1892." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.04222.xml (TEI)

loc_vm.00365_large.jpg Chapel House, Rivington, Lancs. England 25 Feb 1892 My dear Friend

I send you just a few lines to thank you for your very great kindness in sending me your Book, a kindness I shall never forget. I have not seen you in the flesh but yet I feel that I understand you, & be assured, it raises within me a psalm of thanksgiving to know that there is a man (yourself) whose thoughts, feelings, actions have from first to last been of the purest, noblest, best; whose life stands out in all the perfect symetry and perfect beauty of self-sacrifice.

I feel in thorough sympathy with the aim you have ever kept loc_vm.00366_large.jpg in view, to elevate humanity & to bring all men together as brethren. Nature and Humanity must have a common centre and to raise the ideals of life to their highest, everything must be seen as sacred. This you have done & in time an increasing influence will flow from your life & example that will bless the world. Strong in faith and hope that the soul is immortal your words will be sure helpers & friends to many in the valley of doubt, and bring consolation to the sorrowing.

You say "Whoso touches my book, touches me,"1 and with reverence I claim to take you by the hand, and call you brother, yea, though you loc_vm.00367_large.jpg are also my Master. In imagination I have looked at you (as in reality I have often looked at the photos of you in the L of G.) and seen you smile, and realized the greatness and the goodness that lay within. I have seen, strength blended with wisdom & a love for Humanity that broke down all barriers of creed, or colour or condition, and realized how well I loved you for it all.

And now I see you broken, but unconquered, by the years and the circumstances of life; suffering from pain of body & the weakness of the flesh, but in mind & soul calm and serene and beautiful as a setting sun. I saw brother J.W. Wallace 2 last night who told me loc_vm.00368_large.jpg how ill you were. He is a good soul & as I listened to his reminiscences I felt anew that the future ages will be helped and quickened by your life and thought to broader sympathy and deeper love for justice and Humanity.

I do most fervently trust that the pain of body is somewhat less and I am comforted by knowing that you are surrounded by some friends out of the many who would deem service to you an honour, & that their love is some recompense for the sufferings of a sick bed.

I am My dear Brother Gratefully & lovingly yours Sam Thompson

Correspondent:
Reverend Samuel Thompson (b. 1835), originally from Canada, was the last resident minister of the Rivington Unitarian Chapel near Bolton, England; he served as the minister from 1881 to 1909. He hosted and provided entertainment for the Eagle Street College group (later known as the Bolton College and the Bolton Fellowship)—a literary society established by James W. Wallace and Dr. John Johnston, and dedicated to reading and discussing Whitman's work—when they celebrated Whitman's birthday each May 31st.

Notes

1. Thompson is paraphrasing Whitman's poem "So Long!," in which Whitman writes, "Who touches this touches a man." [back]
2. 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]