You cannot understand how comforted I was & am to hear from you once more. I have been prostrated by the heat into even more than my usual disability, but trust I am getting around—Respects to your father—God bless you, dear boy—
Walt WhitmanWrite whenever convenient—above address—I have a new poem in London Nineteenth Century for August—just out.2
Correspondent:
Percy Ives, grandson of
Elisa Leggett, was an aspiring artist who made several pencil sketches of
Whitman on December 21, 1881. They resulted in the oil painting now in the
Feinberg Collection (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). On August 11, 1885, Whitman wrote to Percy in answer
to a letter now lost. See Charles E. Feinberg, "Percy Ives, Detroit and Walt
Whitman," Detroit Historical Society Bulletin 16
(February 1960), 5–8.