Just a few lines while I have an opportunity to shew my constant thoughts & good will.
Weather much colder here these 2 days & showery, but beautifully fine just now as I write (5:40 pm)
Have had a pleasant time here2 & quite like the place & people. Mr Stewart3
came out here 28 years ago, cleared off the land here, built
off his land here, built
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his house, & has brought up his 11 children in comfort. He is a very clever man
in many ways, can turn his hand to anything required, & is a good genial, kind man
into the bargain.
I leave here tomorrow morning for Port Hope. Am uncertain yet what route I shall take after that to New York (can't get proper information here) but shall probably go via Kingston & Albany.
I am staying here a day later than I originally
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intended to see if any letters come. Have not had any for a week.
I do hope that you are keeping fairly well, & that when I hear news of you it will be good
Will you please to give my affectionate regards to Mrs Davis4 & Warry5 & to H.L.T.?6
With love to yourself as always Yours affectionately J.W. WallaceCorrespondent:
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).