I read with great concern the statement in your note of 20 Octr that you are "in poorer health even than of late seasons": it wd. give me & others the sincerest pleasure to receive pretty soon a statement to the reverse effect.2
Since I wrote last to you little sums have been accumulating in my hands:3 I enclose an account of them, amounting to
£31.19— loc.03609.002_large.jpg Within the next few days I shall take the usual steps for postal
remittance of this amount, & will send you the papers.
In the letter of Miss L. Agnes Jones to me (more especially) there are some
expressions wh. I think you will be pleased to read. I don't know this lady: she writes
from 16 Nevern Road, Earl's Court, London. "The necessities of persons one knows,
& may be bound to do all one can for, are so near & pressing that to give
money to help—on the efforts of those who try to realize one's ideals is
seldom possible; &, even in sign of one's gratitude to one who has partly
reformed our ideals, loc.03609.003_large.jpg is less so. . . . Yet Walt Whitman shd. have those: to whom it is at once instinct & natural inevitable duty
not to count any cost, or weigh this claim with that; but to break the alabaster,
& pour the ointment, with no thought but of him. Has
he not? This is a long apology for sending 5/-: it seemed so poor &
ungenerous to send, unless I had said what gratitude it may yet stand for. Walt
Whitman knows better than most that the sense of spiritual gain can seldom find the
expression it longs for; & that it may forever remain unexpressed in material
terms, & yet be present & abiding. I have as often wished to thank him."
I grieve to say that Mrs. Gilchrist loc.03609.004_large.jpg has been much out of health of
late, & I fear still continues so.4 No doubt you have
details from head quarters.
Correspondent:
William Michael Rossetti (1829–1915), brother
of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, was an English editor and a champion of
Whitman's work. In 1868, Rossetti edited Whitman's Poems,
selected from the 1867 Leaves of Grass. Whitman referred
to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871, letter to Frederick S. Ellis. Nonetheless,
the edition provided a major boost to Whitman's reputation, and Rossetti would
remain a staunch supporter for the rest of Whitman's life, drawing in
subscribers to the 1876 Leaves of Grass and fundraising
for Whitman in England. For more on Whitman's relationship with Rossetti, see
Sherwood Smith, "Rossetti, William Michael (1829–1915)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).