I am writing this note to introduce to thee our friend Mr. William Summers,2 who is a Member of Parliament. He will be able to give thee
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an interesting inside view of English political life, for he is Junior Whip to the Liberal Party.
I am glad to take this chance to send warm rememberances from all of us & our
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hopes that thy health is standing the summer weather.
Believe me,
Thine sincerely, Mary Whitall CosetlloeCorrespondent:
Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom
Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." A scholar of Italian
Renaissance art and a daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith, she would in 1885 marry
B. F. C. "Frank" Costelloe. She had been in contact with many of Whitman's
English friends and would travel to Britain in 1885 to visit many of them,
including Anne Gilchrist shortly before her death. For more, see Christina
Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).