loc_vm.01155.jpg
Anderton, nr Chorley.
Lancashire, England.1
9. April 1891
My dear Walt Whitman,
This morning's post brought me a note from Dr J.2 with copy of a postcard recd from you
(dated March 29th)3 & a
very cordial inspiriting letter from Traubel.4 (March 28).
It gladdened my heart to note the cheerful hopeful tone in which Traubel refers to
your condition, & to the way in which you "swim the current still, with brave
arm & confident soul."
Your own report, loc_vm.01156.jpg the day
following,—"no worse, I guess, but bad enough"—"head distress
today"—harmonise only too sadly, when one notes in both letters how adverse
the weather has been. It has been no better here & still continues bleak &
cold. I am afraid that we cannot look for much definite progress till better weather
comes. But it must come soon, & we look forward to it longingly, in confident
hope that you will then emerge from your long illness, & delight our hearts with
reports of progress & regained freedom & cheer.
loc_vm.01157.jpg
Tomorrow night I am to address the friends in Bolton.5 I
intend to briefly review the records of your life prior to 1855, & to point out
as well as I can the influences which led to the production of L. of G. & which
shaped & coloured it. I wanted to prepare for it carefully, but circumstances
have prevented it. So I have merely jotted down heads for an informal talk, &
will let it go at that. Perhaps it will be better so.
I cannot write more loc_vm.01158.jpg
tonight. But my thoughts have been very full of you of late, & my heart's best
love goes out to you always.
Yours affectionately
J.W. Wallace
P.S.
The "Contemporary" contains an article on "The
Influence of Democracy on Literature" by Edmund Gosse,6
which it may interest you to glance over. I have ordered a copy & will send
it to you with this.7
loc_vm.01159.jpg
P.S.
Saturday morning 11 ap
Our meeting came off last night & was well attended—the usual hearty
friendliness of tone prevailing. I can only write a line or two, so will leave
the account of it to Johnston.
A letter received by me from Dr Bucke8 this morning confirms
the welcome news of the improvement in your condition, & is altogether
hopeful & cheering
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loc_vm.01153_large.jpg
see notes June 23 1891
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Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | 328, Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey | U.S.
America. It is postmarked: BOLTON | [illegible] | AP 11 | 91; PAID | C | ALL; NEWARK | APR
[illegible] | [illegible]0; CAMDEN | AP[illegible] | 2[illegible] | 91. [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. See Whitman's March 29, 1891, postal card to Dr. John
Johnston. [back]
- 4. 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]
- 5. Wallace is referring to the
"Bolton College," a group of English admirers of Whitman, that he and the
English physician Dr. John Johnston co-founded. [back]
- 6. Sir Edmund William Gosse (1849–1928), English
poet and author of Father and Son (a memoir published in
1907), had written to Whitman on December 12,
1873: "I can but thank you for all that I have learned from you, all the
beauty you have taught me to see in the common life of healthy men and women,
and all the pleasure there is in the mere humanity of other people" (see Horace
Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, June 1, 1888). Gosse reviewed Two
Rivulets in "Walt Whitman's New Book," The Academy, 9 (24
June 1876), 602–603, and visited Whitman in 1885 (see Whitman's letter
inviting Gosse to visit on December 31, 1884, Gosse's December 29, 1884 letter to Whitman, and
The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller [New
York: New York University Press, 1961–1977], 3:384 n80). In a letter to
Richard Maurice Bucke on October 31, 1889, Whitman
characterized Gosse as "one of the amiable conventional wall-flowers of
literature." For more about Gosse, see Jerry F.
King, "Gosse, Sir Edmund (1849–1928)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 7. Gosse's "The Influence of
Democracy on Literature" appeared in Contemporary Review
59 (April 1891), 523–536. [back]
- 8. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]