loc.02476.001_large.jpg
54 Manchester Road
Bolton, England
May 16th 18911
My Dear Old Friend,
My warmest thanks to you for your kindness in sending us news of you by your p.c. of
May 5th which I received on May 14th.2
We were grieved to hear of your condition being "bad all around" in spite of which
however you had been out the previous day.
We still keep hoping that you will get a permanent turn for the better & we must
not loc.02476.002_large.jpg be
disheartened by the reports about & from you but keep on hoping that somehow
things will come right with you.
You have our warmest sympathy in your prostration & depression & our thoughts
are often & often with you, especially now that your
birthday3 is drawing so near when you will receive so many expressions of sympathy
& messages of good cheer from your friends all over the world.
We had a pleasant little College4 meeting at Wentworth Dixon's5 last night when J.W.W6 in your name
& ours presented him loc.02476.003_large.jpg with the pocket L. of G.7 on which you had so kindly inscribed his name & on
which some of us also inscribed ours.
In his little speech J.W.W. made a comparison between the essential teachings of L. of G. & of Epictetus8—the stoics are favourite
studies of W.D's—& shewed how L of G not only
tallied all the cardinal doctrines of stoic philosophy but transcended them.
The weather here today has been extraordinary even for an English May, alternating
between brilliant sunshine & showers of snow—May wedded to Decr literally—& as I write this the air is thick
with the loc.02476.004_large.jpg
s[torn-away]ging, dancing snowflakes where a few
minutes ago the sunshine gleamed from the street cars.
We thank you for your loving benediction & for yr kind promise to send us the
photo:9 you speak of.
All good be with you, my dearest & best of friends & His Peace be yours!
We shall be anxious till we hear some news about you.
With kindest regards to all your household & with best love to yourself
I remain Yours affectly
J. Johnston
P.S. We send you the Review of Reviews10 & Black & White11
P.P.S.12 I have just read a nice letter from Edward Carpenter13
in wh: he speaks of yr old friends Mr & Mrs Lay.14
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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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey | U.S.
America. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | May | 28 | 6 AM | 1891 |
Rec'd; New York | May 27 | 91; Paid | A | All; Bolton | [illegible] | MY 16 | 91. [back]
- 2. See Whitman's letter to
Johnston of May 5, 1891. [back]
- 3. Whitman's 72nd (and last)
birthday was May 31, 1891. [back]
- 4. 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]
- 5. Wentworth Dixon
(1855–1928) was a lawyer's clerk and a member of the "Bolton College" of
Whitman admirers. He was also affiliated with the Labour Church, an organization
whose socialist politics and working-class ideals were often informed by
Whitman's work. Dixon communicated directly with Whitman only a few times, but
we can see in his letters a profound sense of care for the poet's failing
health, as well as genuine gratitude for Whitman's continued correspondence with
the "Eagle Street College." See Dixon's letters to Whitman of June 13, 1891 and February
24, 1892. For more on Dixon and Whitman's Bolton disciples, see Paul
Salveson, "Loving
Comrades: Lancashire's Links to Walt Whitman," Walt
Whitman Quarterly Review 14.2 (1996), 57–84. [back]
- 6. 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]
- 7. Whitman had a special
pocket-book edition printed in honor of his 70th birthday, May 31, 1889, through
special arrangement with Frederick Oldach. Only 300 copies were printed, and
Whitman signed the title page of each one. The volume also included the annex
Sands at Seventy and his essay A
Backward Glance O'er Traveled Roads. See Whitman's May 16, 1889, letter to Oldach. For more
information on the book see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and
Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
- 8. Epictetus (55–135) was
a Greek Stoic philosopher. Stoics believe that humans should not be controlled
by fear, pain, and desire, but should contemplate them in the pursuit of
self-discipline and the fair treatment of others. Stoicism is one of the
fundamental components of Western ethics. [back]
- 9. In May 1891, the sculptor
and educator Samuel Murray (1869–1941) accompanied another sculptor,
William O'Donovan (1844–1920) of New York, to Whitman's home in Camden,
New Jersey. Murray photographed Whitman in a profile
portrait, which Whitman referred to as "the most audacious thing in
its line ever taken" in his May 23, 1891, letter
to James W. Wallace. He again commented on the portrait's "audacity" (Horace
Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, May 19, 1891) and proudly described it as "an artist's
picture in the best sense" (With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Saturday, May 23, 1891). [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. Mary Costelloe on March 14, 1890, had sent Whitman a copy from England. [back]
- 11. The Black
& White: A Weekly Illustrated Record and Review was an illustrated
British weekly periodical founded by the English novelist and travelogue writer
Charles Norris Williamson (1859–1920) in 1891. In 1912, the Black & White was incorporated with another
periodical, The Sphere. [back]
- 12. Johnston has written this
postscript sideways in the left margin of the third page of the letter. [back]
- 13. 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). [back]
- 14. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]