Your kind p.c. of Feb 26th2 to hand & my best thanks to you for it!
I note that you were then "about the same," & though we cannot but feel disappointed at the news & wish it were better still we are thankful that under the circumstances it is no worse
This prolonged "bad spell" must have told upon your strength & loc.02465.002.jpg exhausted you very considerably; &
yet, despite the physical exhaustion & the severe bodily pain which we know you
are almost constantly suffering, and which in an ordinary person would be regaded as
a sufficient reason for not replying to any letters, you
write to us by nearly every mail!
For this continued thoughtfulness & marvellous loving-kindness we thank you from the bottom of our hearts, beloved Master generous Benefactor and kind hearted Friend.
God bless you & grant that you may ere long have relief from the wearying pain & distress that have been yours for so long!
As the attendance at the last meeting of "the College"3 was limited to
three—R.K. Greenhalgh,4 Wentworth Dixon,5 & myself—we had a select little "Whitman
Evening" all to ourselves. After reading over our Whitman correspondence of the past
week R.K.G. read a long & most interesting letter from "dear J.W.W."6 as you call him—he is a dear
fellow—to a friend of his, Mr Goldstraw.7 It was in reply
to some of loc.02465.004.jpg G's
objections on his first attempt to read L. of G. & proved to be a really
splendid letter entirely worthy of J.W.W. We have kept a copy of it. Then R.K.G.
read "The Song of the Universal," W.D. read "The Song of Prudence," & I read "To
Think of Time"—& a very good time we had.
In this month's National Review8 I came across a quotation from Stedman9 and Kay'10 "Library of American Literature" to the effect that "American Literature began with Walt Whitman and has yet got no further."
This morning I had the pleasure of reading another beautiful letter from J.A. Symonds11 to J.W.W. In it he gives many interesting details of personal history & we purpose sending you a copy of it. He also pays J.W.W a high compliment upon his caligraphic skill by asking "if Dr. Johnston keeps a forger!" because the facsimiles of some of your post cards—the work of J.W.W.—which we sent to him were almost as like the originals as if they had been photographed.
During the past few days the Midlands & South West of England have been visited
by a very severe storm loc.02465.006.jpg
with an exceptionally heavy snow fall & we read of railway trains being buried
in snowdrifts, a lifeboat capsized, shipwrecks, people being frozen to death but
with the exception of frequent snowshowers we in the North have seen nothing of the
"blizzard"
This is a truly glorious day here—an easterly wind with bright sunshine, a
beautiful blue sky with great snow-white masses of cumulus clouds like sunlit
mountains of the purest cotton wool, sailing majestically across it—a day to
make the heaviest loc.02465.007.jpg
heart buoyant, the saddest rejoice, & all the sons of men unite in one grand
paean of thanksgiving to the All Good. If I only knew for
certain that you were better I should be ever so much more at ease. However
I must hope for the best, & we know that whatever
happens is for the best.
When next you see H.L.T.12 please convey to him my cordial regards;
& with a heartful of love & good wishes loc.02465.008.jpg
to yourself.
Correspondent:
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).