Dr. John Johnston to Walt Whitman, 23 May 1891

 loc_jm.00244.jpg Manchester Road Bolton. England1 May 23rd, 1891. 3.20pm. My Dear Old Friend,

I have nothing particular to say but I cannot let the mail go without a word of greeting & cheer to you.

My loving salutation to you, dearest & best of Friends!

This is a glorious day here—warm, benignant sunshine & balmy zephyrs—the best we have had for weeks. I have just returned from a  loc_jm.00245.jpg long round of professional visits, had dinner & attended to my consultations in the surgery & snatch a few minutes of leisure while waiting for my horse, to write a few lines to you.

During the past few days you have been much in my mind & I keep wondering how you are keeping, hoping you are better & sometimes fearing that you may be worse & I anticipate the next news about you with some anxiety

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This has been quite an eventful week for Wallace2 & me—a p.c. & magazine from you a letter from you3 (to J.W.W) & letters from Dr Bucke4 and Warry5 to JWW & a letter & parcel of magazines from H.L.T.6 to me all in one week!

This weekend (Whit-week) is a general holiday in Bolton—for everybody but the doctors!—& J.W.W is spending it quietly at home—(But there's my horse so I must stop a while—)

Later.

A sunless afternoon followed by a heavy  loc_jm.00247.jpg shower of rain which the thirsty vegetation has drunk up eagerly. Oh, how beautiful Nature now looks robed in her garmenture of fresh, transparent greenery in all varieties of tints!

Would that her resurrection from her hibernal sleep might be symbolical of your recovery from your long winter of depression & lethargy.

It pained me greatly to read in your letter to Wallace that you were at "a very low ebb" & I sincerely trust that by this time the waters have begun to "Come in again."

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Dr Bucke says that he will probably be in England in June or July7 & that he will come & see us.

I need not say how glad we shall all be to see him & give him such a welcome as we can.

His visit will be something to be remembered by us all—

By the time you get this your Birthday8 will be over & we hope that you will be none the worse of the excitement attending it. (Probably glad it is over.)

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Pardon this scrappy letter which is simply sent as a token of my loving sympathy and affection greeting

With kindest regards to all of your house & with best heart love to yourself

I remain Yours affectionately J Johnston

To Walt Whitman

P.S. I have sent a copy of the NE Mag, my "notes"9 & some of my "Whitman" photos to the Editor of the Review of Reviews10

JJ

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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 | MY 23 | 91; New York | June 1; PAID | C | ALL | Camden, N.J. | 1891 | REC'D. [back]
• 2. 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]
• 3. It is uncertain which letters are referred to here. [back]
• 4. 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]
• 5. 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]
• 6. 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]
• 7. During the months of July and August 1891, Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke traveled in England in an attempt to establish a foreign market for the gas and fluid meter he was developing with his brother-in-law William Gurd. While in England, Bucke spent time with Dr. John Johnston and James W. Wallace, the co-founders of the Bolton College of Whitman admirers, and visited the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. [back]
• 8. Whitman's seventy-second (and last) birthday was May 31, 1891. He celebrated the day with friends at his home on Mickle Street. [back]
• 9. Johnston published (for private circulation) Notes of Visit to Walt Whitman, etc., in July, 1890. (Bolton: T. Brimelow & co., printers, &c.) in 1890. His notes were also published, along with a series of original photographs, as Diary Notes of A Visit to Walt Whitman and Some of His Friends, in 1890 (Manchester: The Labour Press Limited; London: The "Clarion" Office, 1898). Johnston's work was later published with James W. Wallace's accounts of Fall 1891 visits with Whitman and the Canadian physician Richard Maurice Bucke in Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–91 (London, England: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1917). [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]