James W. Wallace to Walt Whitman, 28–29 July 1891

 loc_vm.01899_large.jpg Anderton, nr Chorley. Lancashire, England1 28 July. 1891 My dear Walt Whitman,

A few lines only—of loving greeting and good wishes.—

I saw Dr Johnston2 yesterday afternoon for a few minutes. He told me that he had received a letter from Traubel,3 & had sent it to the office to me. But as I have not been to the office since (been out of town on business) I have  loc_vm.01900_large.jpg not yet seen it.

I understand that he reports you to continue about the same, without any visible improvement, but also no worse—I am glad to hear of your driving in the open air, & am sure you will derive benefit from it.

Since I began this letter Revd S. Thompson4 called here & I accompanied him part way home to Rivington. Cool evening, but air deliciously fresh, sweet, tonic & bracing. Beautiful sky & cloud effects,  loc_vm.01901_large.jpg with most delicate & lovely variations of colour & shade on hill & moorlands.

Quite a cold wind though all day, but fresh & tonic.

Had a good time on Sunday evening. Bright warm sunshine, clear atmosphere & a wonderful sky. Got up into the fields above Rivington (alone) commanding a wide view seaward (westward). Had L. of G. with me & read most of the "Song of Myself," carefully & studiously. Cattle grazing near, every influence sweet, sanative, & beautiful beyond expression.

 loc_vm.01902_large.jpg

Last night was almost equally beautiful, but colder, with strongish wind. I had a walk again round the nearest lake—L. of G. as usual my companion.

Dr J. is expecting an assistant5 soon, & I hope that he will be able to share some of my evenings here with me.

Some of the friends were here on Saturday,—Dr J amongst them. But he would probably tell you after his return.

If only my letter could convey you a breath of our English air tonight!—vitalizing bracing, sweet,& exhilirating.

 loc_vm.01903_large.jpg

It may at least convey loving thoughts & wishes—or some hint of them—the most untold.

In a recent letter I referred to two early notices of L. of G. in the "United States Review" & the "American Phrenological Review" as wonderfully appreciative, & apparently heralding a better acceptance than has come. How stupid it was of me not to see that they were your own! I supposed them to be written by friends in sympathy with you, & was astonished by their powerful & kindred style.6  loc_vm.01904_large.jpg Dr Bucke7 let daylight into it at once when he told me you had written them, & it astonishes me now that I should have needed to be told.—

I hope that tomorrow, or the day following, will bring further news of you—& I trust better news.—

With a heart full of love & good wishes

Yours affectionately J.W. Wallace

 loc_vm.01905_large.jpg Evng. 29 July. 54, Manchester Rd Bolton

Here at Johnston's. Had tea with Dr & wife,8 & have since had a good time reading a good, long letter from Warry9 p.c. from yourself,10 & a short letter from our dear friend Traubel.

This mg. I received your long kind letter of July 19 & 2011 which Dr J. has just read. (am sending a copy on to Dr Bucke).

Grateful thanks to you for the letter—It grieves us very much that you  loc_vm.01906_large.jpg have to report "bad days and nights" & that the "bladder affliction has returned." Loving sympathy & best wishes to you.

Thank you for your kind considerate approval of my negative decision (for the present) re visit to you.12 But I live in hopes that the circumstances which now prevent my coming will set me at liberty before long. If only I could do something when I come!

I have been deeply moved by letters from Traubel  loc_vm.01907_large.jpg & his wife,13 full of the most ardently affectionate & tactful appeals to come over—letters which, in any event, I shall prize while I live

All lovers of yours are indebted to Traubel for his long & loyal service to you. And it will be a great joy to me if I am privileged to see him & his good wife for their own sakes.

Wonderful how your friends are united in affection & comradeship—not only towards you, our supreme & dearest friend—but towards each other:—a brotherhood  loc_vm.01908_large.jpg destined to expand more & more & to bring to fact & reality the cherished dream of ages.

As I write Johnston is busy on the other side of the table cutting photographs, mounting them &c for you looking quite aglow with happy activity

Dull sky outside, threatening rain—passing cabs, cars &c rattling or rumbling along the street.

Love to you from both, & from the friends14 to whom I have shewn​ your letter. Greenhalgh15 said it did him good to read such a kind, brave, cheerful letter despite its bad news of your condition

J.W. Wallace  loc_vm.01897_large.jpg see notes Aug 6 1891  loc_vm.01898_large.jpg

Notes

• 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman, | 328, Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey. | U.S. America. It is postmarked: BOLTON | U | JY29 | 91; NEW YORK | AUG | 4; D | 91; PAID | H | ALL | CAMDEN, N.J. | AUG | 6 | 6AM | 1891 | 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. 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]
• 4. Reverend Samuel Thompson (b. 1835), originally from Canada, was the last resident minister of the Rivington Unitarian Chapel; 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, dedicated to reading and discussing Whitman's work—when they celebrated Whitman's birthday each May 31st. [back]
• 5. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
• 6. Wallace is referring to two unsigned reviews of the first edition of Leaves of Grass that were written by Whitman himself. "Walt Whitman and His Poems" was published in The United States Review in September 1855 and "An English and American Poet" was published in the American Phrenological Journal in October 1855. [back]
• 7. 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]
• 8. Margaret Beddows Johnston (ca. 1854–1932?) of Bolton, England, was the daughter of Thomas Beddows—a wheelwright—and his wife Mary. Margaret was a millinery worker and a dressmaker; she married Dr. John Johnston in Bolton in 1878. The couple did not have any children. [back]
• 9. Frank Warren Fritzinger (1867–1899), known as "Warry," took Edward Wilkins's place as Whitman's nurse, beginning in October 1889. Fritzinger and his brother Harry were the sons of Henry Whireman Fritzinger (about 1828–1881), a former sea captain who went blind, and Almira E. Fritzinger. Following Henry Sr.'s death, Warren and his brother—having lost both parents—became wards of Mary O. Davis, Whitman's housekeeper, who had also taken care of the sea captain and who inherited part of his estate. A picture of Warry is displayed in the May 1891 New England Magazine (278). See Joann P. Krieg, "Fritzinger, Frederick Warren (1866–1899)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 240. [back]
• 10. Wallace may be referring to Whitman's postal card of July 14, 1891. [back]
• 11. See Whitman's letter to Wallace of July 19–20, 1891. [back]
• 12. Dr. John Johnston mentioned the possibility of Wallace traveling to the United States in his July 3–4,1891, letter to Whitman. At the time, Wallace was "rather afraid of the excitement." Wallace would visit the U.S. in the fall of 1891, landing at Philadelphia on September 8, 1891 (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, September 8, 1891). After spending a few days with Whitman, Wallace traveled with Bucke to the physician's home in London, Ontario, Canada. [back]
• 13. 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]
• 14. 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]
• 15. Richard Greenhalgh, a bank clerk and one of Whitman's Bolton admirers, frequently hosted annual celebrations of the poet's birthday. In his March 9, 1892, letter to Traubel, Greenhalgh wrote that "Walt has taught me 'the glory of my daily life and trade.' In all the departments of my life Walt entered with his loving personality & I am never alone" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, March 20, 1892). James Wallace described Greenhalgh as "undoubtedly a rich, royal, plain fellow, not given to ornate word or act" (Sunday, September 27, 1891). For more on Greenhalgh, see Paul Salveson, "Loving Comrades: Lancashire's Links to Walt Whitman," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 14.2 (1996), 57–84. [back]