Max A. Wright to Walt Whitman, 24 February 1892
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26 Nelson Square1
Bolton.
England.
Feb 24th 1892
Dear Mr Whitman,
Your friend Dr J Johnson 2
of this town has today kindly shown me your letter recieved by him
last week.3 As a young Newspaper Editor, & as one who values your writings
more than I can ever attempt to express, please
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allow me to express my kindest & tenderest sympathies with you in your hours
of weakness & suffering. Your teachings rest always in my mind like gleams of
sunlight upon the pathway of the future, & I may say that I never write a leading
article without trying, as much as lies within me, to hold your
"Democratic Vistas"4 in my mind's eye.
In conclusion let me subscribe myself
Yours ever gratefully Max A Wright.
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Correspondent:
Max A. Wright was the editor
of the Bolton Star, a weekly newspaper published in
Bolton, Lancashire, England, from June 1891 until June 1892 (Archibald Sparke,
ed., Bibliographia Boltonienses (Manchester: University
of Manchester Press, 1913), 180.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey | USA. It is postmarked: BOLTON | S | FE 24 | 8PM | 92; BOLTON | S | FE 24 | 8PM | 92; BOLTON | S | FE 24 | 8PM | 92; CAMDEN, N.J. | MAR 4 | 8 PM | 92 | REC'D. [back]
- 2. 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). [back]
- 3. Wright is likely referring to Whitman's letter of February 6–7, 1892, in which he details for Dr. John Johnston some of his ailments and notes that it "may be [his] last" letter as his "right arm [is] giving out." Johnston had a facsimile of this letter produced, which he distributed to Whitman's English friends. [back]
- 4. Whitman's Democratic Vistas was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield. The volume was an eighty-four-page pamphlet based on three essays, "Democracy," "Personalism," and "Orbic Literature," all of which Whitman intended to publish in the Galaxy magazine. Only "Democracy" and "Personalism" appeared in the magazine. For more information on Democratic Vistas, see Arthur Wrobel, "Democratic Vistas [1871]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]