Dr. John Johnston to Walt Whitman, 14–15 April 1891

 loc.02473.003_large.jpg 54, Manchester Road, Bolton, England.1 April 14th 1891.

My heart's best gratitude to you beloved Master & Friend for your magnificent Letter of march 30th & 31st2 which reached me on Sunday last (Ap 11th) & wh I at once sent on to J.W.W.3 as you desired.

What can we say to you or do for you in return for this overpowering proof of your affectionate regard for us?

We find ourselves constantly marvelling at your unstinted generosity and  loc.02473.004_large.jpg loving-kindness toward us & we have of late been almost daily congratulating ourselves upon our good fortune in being favoured with so many communications from you; but that you should take the trouble of writing such a long & interesting letter to us not only fills us with wonder mixed with pride but affects us very deeply indeed.

Thanks, & again thanks to you for it generous hearted Benefactor!

Your letter was especially welcome because of the  loc.02473.005_large.jpg real good news it contained about you. For it is gladsome tiding for us to know that you are "getting along fairly, considering" that you "have no vehement pain night or day that you make acc't of" that you can get 5 or 6 hours sleep & that your most distressing symptoms are now so much relieved

The cheeriness which pervades your letter gladdens our hearts & inspires us with the hope that thanks to your originally superb physique & your noble &  loc.02473.006_large.jpg indomitable fortitude & "pluck" you will yet weather this storm as you have done so many before

After your long & tedious seclusion you must be longing for the fresh air, the sunshine & the sense of freedom which out-of-doors influences inspire.

What a joy it will be for you to awake from your hibernation & to get out side once more! How I wish that I could be privileged to accompany you & Warry4 upon your first excursion down to the wharf  loc.02473.007_large.jpg to participate with you in the pleasures of the delicious air, the sunshine upon the River, the groups of little children, the workmen, the teamsters, the ceaseless movements to & fro of the ferry boats & all the exhilirating​ sights & sounds of Camden Ferry!

As I write this my mind reverts to that inexpressibly happy July evening of last year when I sat by your side, facing the golden sunset, drinking in the varied delights of the place, enjoying your tenderly sweet companionship & listening  loc.02473.008_large.jpg to the sound of your "valved voice";5 and I seem to live over again those two red letter—nay rather epoch-making—days of my life which I spent with you, my dear, old Camerado & Elder Brother.

Would that I were with you now! But alas! We are separated by 3000 miles of sea. But we shall surely meet again!

I am glad that you like Dr Longaker6 & "his doings" & I thank you for kindly favouring me with his address. I am writing a short letter to him  loc.02473.009_large.jpg by this mail

Wed April 15th

We had another Whitman gathering at The College7 last night (April 14th) Some of the friends came to my house & J.W.W. read your "Lincoln" Lecture8 and "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed"9 in his best style!

We wondered under what circumstances you were reading the Lecture as we felt persuaded that you would not allow the day to pass without keeping up your hitherto annual custom in some fashion

By this mail we are sending you the Review of  loc.02473.010_large.jpg Reviews10 which contains several items which will interest you see pp 321—on which you are seen dancing hand in hand with Amelie Rives11—366 & 378.

By the way I am sending a copy of yr last letter to Symonds.12

I also send you a copy of this weeks issue of Great Thoughts13 containing portrait of & article on Charles Berry14—a Lancashire man stationed for sometime in Bolton, who had the courage to refuse the succession to your Henry Ward Beecher15 in Brooklyn.

I had got this far with my letter (3.20 PM) when the postman brought me a long & most interesting letter about you from "Warry," which  loc.02473.011_large.jpg confirms the previous good news about your improved condition. He says that Dr Longaker seems to have done you a great deal of good & that he hopes before long to be able to take you down to the wharf—where I took your photograph & had such a good time with you & him & the first place that he intends taking you to—

He also says that Dr Bucke16 intends paying you a visit, if he can, on your birthday. That  loc.02473.012_large.jpg will do you good I am sure & I hope you will be able to stand the inevitable excitement of that event.

I took Warry's letter to J.W.W.'s office. Fortunately I found him in & upon reading the letter he exclaimed:—"Warry is a trump!"—and so say all of us. He is a trump. His letter is full of his characteristic cheeriness bonhommie & warm-hearted friendliness, and we are glad  loc.02473.013_large.jpg to know that you are attended by such a sincere & unaffectedly good young fellow as your "Sailor-boy"—bless him!

But I must close as I have other duties awaiting my attention.

Will you please kindly convey my warmest thanks to Warry for his kind letter & tell him that I will write to him shortly?

With kindest regards  loc.02473.014_large.jpg to H.L.T.17 & to all the members of your household & with best heart-love to yourself

I remain Yours affectionately J.Johnston. To Walt Whitman  loc.02473.001_large.jpg see note July 5 1891  loc.02473.002_large.jpg

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Notes

• 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey | U.S. America. It is postmarked: Bolton | 56 | AP 15 | 91; PAID | H | ALL; New York | Apr | 24 | 91; Camden, N.J. | Apr | 25 | 6AM | 1891 | Rec'd. [back]
• 2. See Whitman's March 30–31, 1891, letter to Johnston. [back]
• 3. 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). [back]
• 4. 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]
• 5. Johnston here quotes from Whitman's Song of Myself. [back]
• 6. Daniel Longaker (1858–1949) was a Philadelphia physician who specialized in obstetrics. He became Whitman's doctor in early 1891 and provided treatment during the poet's final illness. For more information, see Carol J. Singley, "Longaker, Dr. Daniel [1858–1949]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R.LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
• 7. The "Bolton College" was a group of Whitman admirers located in Bolton, England. Founded by Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927) and James William Wallace (1853–1926), the group corresponded with Whitman and Horace Traubel throughout the final years of the poet's life. 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). 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). [back]
• 8. Whitman first delivered his lecture "The Death of Abraham Lincoln" in New York in 1879, and he would deliver it at least eight other times over the succeeding years, including the final time on April 15, 1890. He published a version of the lecture as "Death of Abraham Lincoln" in Specimen Days and Collect (1882–83). For more on the lecture, see Larry D. Griffin, "'Death of Abraham Lincoln,'" Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
• 9. Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd," an elegy expressing both personal and national loss, was composed only weeks after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865. [back]
• 10. The Review of Reviews was a magazine begun by the reform journalist William Thomas Stead (1849–1912) in 1890 and published in Great Britain. It contained reviews and excerpts from other magazines and journals, as well as original pieces, many written by Stead himself. [back]
• 11. Amélie Rives (1863–1945) was an American novelist, poet, and playwright, whose 1888 novel The Quick or the Dead sold 300,000 copies and created a scandal because of its erotic subject matter. Her personal life was also a sensation; she had an unhappy marriage to John Armstrong Chanler, the grandson of John Jacob Astor, and later to Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy of the well-known aristocratic Russian family. For more on Rives, see Francis Verzelius Newton Painter, Poets of Virginia (Richmond: B. F. Johnson Publishing Company, 1907). [back]
• 12. John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), a prominent biographer, literary critic, and poet in Victorian England, was author of the seven-volume history Renaissance in Italy, as well as Walt Whitman—A Study (1893), and a translator of Michelangelo's sonnets. But in the smaller circles of the emerging upper-class English homosexual community, he was also well known as a writer of homoerotic poetry and a pioneer in the study of homosexuality, or sexual inversion as it was then known. See Andrew C. Higgins, "Symonds, John Addington [1840–1893]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
• 13. Johnston is referring to the annual periodical Great Thoughts from Master Minds (1884–1937), which was published in London and edited by Robert Colville. The publication included prose, poetry, and illustrations. [back]
• 14. Charles Albert Berry (1852–1899) was an English nonconformist clergyman; he published two volumes of sermons, titled Vision and Duty (1892) and Mischievous Goodness (1897). [back]
• 15. Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) was a famous preacher and abolitionist in the antebellum North. He became the first pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn in 1847. [back]
• 16. 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]
• 17. 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]