Revere House, Boston, May 27, '75.
My dear Walt Whitman:[6]
Your kind letter is received and the sad news of your ill health makes this pleasant weather even seem tiresome and out of place. I had hoped to find you the same hale and whole man I had met in New York a few years ago and now I shall perhaps find you bearing a staff all full of pain and trouble. However my dear friend as you have sung from within and not from without I am sure you will be able to bear whatever comes with that beautiful faith and philosophy you have ever given us in your great and immortal chants. I am coming to see you very soon as you request; but I cannot say to-day or set to-morrow for I am in the midst of work and am not altogether my own master. But I will come and we will talk it all over together. In the meantime, remember that whatever befall you you have the perfect love and sympathy of many if not all of the noblest and loftiest natures of the two hemispheres. My dear friend and fellow toiler good by.
Yours faithfully,
Joaquin Miller.
[[6]] From "With Walt Whitman in Camden," by Horace Traubel. Copyright, 1905, 1906, by Doubleday, Page & Co.
When Theodore Roosevelt was ill in hospital, Lawrence Abbott wrote him this letter:[7]
Please accept this word of sympathy and best wishes. Some years ago I had a severe attack of sciatica which kept me in bed a good many days: in fact, it kept me in an armchair night and day some of the time because I could not lie down, so I know what the discomfort and pain are.
I want to take this opportunity also of sending you my congratulations. For I think your leadership has had very much to do with the unconditional surrender of Germany. Last Friday night I was asked to speak at the Men's Club of the Church of the Messiah in this city and they requested me to make you the subject of my talk. I told them something about your experience in Egypt and Europe in 1910 and said what I most strongly believe, that your address at the Sorbonne—in strengthening the supporters of law and order against red Bolshevism—and your address in Guildhall—urging the British to govern or go—contributed directly to the success of those two governments in this war. If Great Britain had allowed Egypt to get out of hand instead of, as an actual result of your Guildhall speech, sending Kitchener to strengthen the feebleness of Sir Eldon Gorst, the Turks and Germans might have succeeded in their invasion and have cut off the Suez Canal. So you laid the ground for preparedness not only in this country but in France and England.
I know it was a disappointment to you not to have an actual share in the fighting but I think you did a greater piece of work in preparing the battleground and the battle spirit.