I wrote to you last evening,2 & after a short letter to Traubel3 spent the rest of the evening in chatting with Mr4 & Mrs5 Rome—about old memories of you, the changes in Brooklyn, persons & places in Annan, Scotland6 &c.
This morning we had breakfast a little after 7, & Mr Rome & son7 went to business. I followed them shortly after to see if there was loc_vm.01004_large.jpg any letter there for me. I was glad at heart when Andrew Rome gave me a letter from you. Tom Rome8 came up at the same time & Andrew introduced us. After a very brief talk I opened your letter & read it aloud to them both. How wonderfully it fitted in! How could it have been better? Through me you addressed a message of grateful & affectionate memories & love to them both—& there I received it in their actual presence, & without knowing its contents read it aloud to them both! You should have seen the look that came into loc_vm.01005_large.jpg their faces—as of a tender veil of mist over silent granite rocks. And before I came away Andrew Rome said he would try to come with me to Camden when I come—coming in the morning, returning at evening.
He came out with me & took me to Cranberry St—to the old office where you printed the Leaves. (Room now occupied by a bookbinder.) I stood a little in front of the window where you set the type—& in the corner where you used to sit to read the "Tribune" when you called in each morning.
Then he went back to business & I went down to the Fulton Ferry. I crossed & came back again—reading your poem again, & observing & absorbing all I could.9 I find that your friend, John Baulson10 has given up work as loc_vm.01006_large.jpg pilot—"gave it up a month ago of his own accord," the man said.
I walked across the Bridge & spent a little time in New York & then came back to dinner as promised. Am now writing letters, & by the time I have done Rome will come back here for a walk in Brooklyn with me.
Then I propose to go to Huntington, Long Island, for the week end—to visit West Hills &c. Will perhaps come back Sunday night or Monday morning—but should like to stay till Monday night, & may perhaps do so. Then another day or so in N.Y. before coming on—but will write to you again.
A. H. R told me at dinner that he met Ex-mayor Stryker11 this morning. They spoke about you, & R. said he hoped to see you soon, & S. commissioned him to convey his regards.
Love to you always from my heart of hearts J.W. Wallace loc_vm.01001_large.jpg loc_vm.01002_large.jpgCorrespondent:
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).