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Anderton, near Chorley.
Lancashire, England.1
31 July 1891
My dear Walt Whitman,
I hope that this will find you in better health than when you wrote last.2—If the cool weather
here is anything to go by you will at last have had a diminution of the oppressive heat.
Cool, showery weather here, with one or two days this week of strong winds & positively
cold for the time of year.
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Clear, cool evening tonight. Last night specially fine, with glorious sunset.
Dr. Johnston3 & his brother4 (from Scotland) Mrs
Johnston5 & a lady
friend of hers,6 went off at noon to the Isle of Man. They are staying at a house Johnston & I
have stayed at before—a house at once boarding-house & farm. It is situated
on the west coast, 5 miles from the little town of Peel. It is away from the tourist haunts,
in the most beautiful region of the Island. The farm slopes
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up from the sea (the house 2 fields away) with rugged hills behind, with wooded glens &c.
The coast—curving outwards like a wide shallow bay—is very rocky & precipitous,
with steep hills, & narrow winding bays or creeks. Ireland visible on
clear days, or at sundown—the lighthouse at Point of Ayr, Scotland, visible at night.
Scanty population of farmers & fishermen, simple unsophisticated & hospitable. (Have several
friends amongst them.) Boating, fishing & one or two good places for bathing
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(au naturel). Rocks on shore, with innumerable pools, a paradise at ebb tide for a naturalist.
Purest & sweetest air—an almost ideal place for bodily & mental rest & recuperation,
alone (or nearly so) with mountain & sea, & the innocent farm pursuits.
Doubtless Johnston will write you at length about it all & send you photographs of the place & people.
I imagine him at this moment, newly arrived, & good old motherly Mrs
Teare7 ministering to him & the rest. (First visit of Mrs Johnston and the rest).
We were there 4 years ago, & a rare good time we had!
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We were there at the end of harvest & came in for the Manx "mēlya"8—all the farm servants, & neighbors coming into supper,
& then adjourning to the barn, where to the
light of 2 or 3 candles Johnston played a fiddle & the rest of us danced & romped about in hilarious games.
What good times J. & I had alone, too, down at the foot of the cliffs, amongst the rocks,
& elsewhere, reading L. of G. "Sea Drift"9 &c.—not to be forgotten.
And the talks with fishermen—old John Gow,10 for instance, with his rheumatism, & his reminiscences
of wrecks on that coast. And down at old
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Ann Watterson's11 little cabin nestled in among the rocks right on the shore,
fullfronting the bay,—with Bradda Head, Cronk-ny-ira-la , the Calf of Man,
Fleshwick Bay &c in grand panorama, & the everpresent sound of the sea.
The harvesting, boating &c. and one visit to the quaint little church (about as big as your room) the parson12 ringing the bell
to summon his people, the quaint congregation, with their simple unconventional ways &c.
I was there again the following spring for 4 days, and two years ago I spent 3 weeks there.—Johnston
with me the first time, & visiting me the second time.
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Blessings on them all! And may Johnston & his party enjoy their holiday.
I got Lippincott13 for August today, & have since read the report of your birthday spree again.14 I like it
better than ever, & am delighted to have it.
Have not heard from Dr Bucke15 this week.
I write this hastily & must now close.
Love to Traubel16 & his wife,17 to Mrs Davis18 & Warry.19
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And my supreme love & best wishes to you always.
J. W. Wallace
Mg. 1. August
Letter from Dr Bucke this morning, enclosing a long letter he had recd from Traubel.—What
a live fellow T. is! busy, ardent, aspiring, loyal, loving. God speed him!
Am looking forward to the publication of O'Connor's20 stories.21
Love to you.
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see notes August 10 1891
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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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman, | 328, Mickle St | Camden | New Jersey. | U.S. America. It is postmarked: BOLTON | 34 | AU 1 | 91; [illegible]; PAID | [illegible] | ALL; CAMDEN, N.J. | AUG | 10 | 9AM | 1891 |
REC'D. [back]
- 2. In his letter to Wallace of
July 14, 1891, Whitman noted that he felt
"badly depress'd" that day. [back]
- 3. Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, 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
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. William Joseph Johnston
(1863–1935), the younger brother of Dr. John Johnston, was a solicitor in
Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. [back]
- 5. Margaret Beddows Johnston
(ca. 1854–1932?) of Bolton, England, was the daughter of Thomas
Beddows—a wheelwright—and his wife Mary. Margaret was a millinery
worker and a dressmaker; she married Dr. John Johnston in Bolton in 1878. The
couple did not have any children. [back]
- 6. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]
- 7. Little is known about Mrs.
Teare, who seems to have been the prorpietor of a boarding house and farm near
the town of Peel on the Isle of Man. [back]
- 8. Mheillea is the ancient Manx
fall harvest celebration on the Isle of Man, involving a supper given by a
farmer to his workers and neighbors who have helped bring in the harvest and a
social gathering to thank the pagan gods for a bountiful year. [back]
- 9. Wallace is referring to the
"Sea-Drift" cluster, which consists of eleven poems including "Out of
the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life." The
cluster was first incorporated into Leaves of Grass in
1881. [back]
- 10. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]
- 11. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]
- 12. As yet we have no information about
this person. [back]
- 13. Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was a literary magazine published in
Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915. Joseph Marshall Stoddart was the editor of the
magazine from 1886 to 1894, and he frequently published material by and about
Whitman. For more information on Whitman's numerous publications here, see Susan
Belasco, "Lippincott's Magazine." [back]
- 14. Horace Traubel's article
"Walt Whitman's Birthday, May 31, 1891," was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in August 1891. It offered a detailed
account of Whitman's seventy-second (and last) birthday, which was celebrated
with friends at the poet's home on Mickle Street. [back]
- 15. 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]
- 16. 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]
- 17. Anne Montgomerie
(1864–1954) married Horace Traubel in Whitman's Mickle Street house in
Camden, New Jersey, in 1891. They had one daughter, Gertrude (1892–1983),
and one son, Wallace (1893–1898). Anne was unimpressed with Whitman's work
when she first read it, but later became enraptured by what she called its
"pulsating, illumined life," and she joined Horace as associate editor of his
Whitman-inspired periodical The Conservator. Anne edited
a small collection of Whitman's writings, A Little Book of
Nature Thoughts (Portland, Maine: Thomas B. Mosher, 1896). After
Horace's death, both Anne and Gertrude edited his manuscripts of his
conversations with Whitman during the final four years of the poet's life, which
eventually became the nine-volume With Walt Whitman in
Camden. [back]
- 18. Mary Oakes Davis (1837 or
1838–1908) was Whitman's housekeeper. For more, see Carol J. Singley,
"Davis, Mary Oakes (1837 or 1838–1908)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 19. 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]
- 20. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 21. At the behest of Ellen
O'Connor, Houghton, Mifflin & Company published her late husband William D.
O'Connor's story "The Brazen Android" (which Whitman misremembers here as "The
Bronzoid Android") in The Atlantic Monthly in April and
May of 1891. They also planned to publish a collection that included three of
O'Connor's stories and a preface by Whitman. Three Tales: The
Ghost, The Brazen Android, The Carpenter was published the following
year, in 1892. [back]