It is too late for me to write much tonight.—But I must thank you heartily for your kind postcard of August 2nd & 3rd.1
It pains me that though you report "fine weather" you are not able to go out in it & enjoy it, but "lie on the bed a good deal of the time;"—even though "all goes fairly enough with you."—God bless you!—
What else can I say? loc_vm.02592_large.jpg That you exert yourself to write to us, & that you send your best love to us, is characteristic of you, & wins responding love from us—That, at least, will endure always.
We have received copies of the "Camden Post" for August 1st from Traubel.2 His article about Dr. Bucke's3 visit here is very affecting to us in many ways.4 It seems so very disproportionate in its references to us & to our reception of Dr. B—and Dr. B's own letters are generous & kind to an affecting degree.—But what appeals to us most is the fact that our doings should be loc_vm.02593_large.jpg noted at all.—They seem so small & futile compared with what is due to you, & with what will surely soon come.
But as time goes on groups of friends will be drawn more & more to the study of your books, & to knowledge of you, & will find, as we have found, their friendships deepened, & new Whitmanic comrades added. Till myriads of men find themselves knit together—"brethren & lovers as we are."5
It is a wonderful privilege to us to count you, & Dr Bucke, & Horace Traubel amongst loc_vm.02594_large.jpg our friends too. It seems as though God, himself, has come very near to us. My prayer is that it may bear fruit in our lives.
But I am too sleepy to write any more now.
Weather here dull & wet. Cold for the time of year, & very little sunshine for some time past—since Dr Bucke left us!
With my heart's best love to you, & constant good wishes
Yours affectionately J. W. Wallace.Correspondent:
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).