Just a line as you have been much in my thoughts lately. The Scottish Art Review is publishing a review of November Boughs1 next month—by me—and I send you a slip.2 The winter keeps very mild here, but gloomy, and we don't see much of the sun. I suppose you find your strength waning very much, and don't reckon to be long with us now. Mr. Sharpe,3 my old harper friend that I told you of, died a few days ago—"very quiet & gentle" says his son writing to me. I hope you have not much pain dear Walt; we shall miss you so much—but you will perhaps understand more about us than we about you.
I am in London for a week or two. A friend of
yours, from Belfast, who does not give his name, wants to send the enclosed 22/6 to
buy you some little thing, now loc.01242.002_large.jpg you are ill. So you will accept it, won't you? Affectionate
remembrances to Herbert Gilchrist4 if you see him.
I saw Ernest Rhys5 a day or two ago
P.S. The Money Order is sent in my name.
Correspondent:
Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was an English
writer and Whitman disciple. Like many other young disillusioned Englishmen, he
deemed Whitman a prophetic spokesman of an ideal state cemented in the bonds of
brotherhood. Carpenter—a socialist philosopher who in his book Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure posited civilization as
a "disease" with a lifespan of approximately one thousand years before human
society cured itself—became an advocate for same-sex love and a
contributing early founder of Britain's Labour Party. On July 12, 1874, he wrote for the first time to Whitman: "Because you
have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually
in my heart . . . . For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest
instinct of their nature." For further discussion of Carpenter, see Arnie
Kantrowitz, "Carpenter, Edward [1844–1929]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).