Washington D. C., January 21, 1886.

Dear Walt:

     I got yours of the 4th instant, written on the back of Kennedy's, and meant to have written you long before, as well as after, but have been in a wretched condition with the misery in my back, as the colored brother calls it. I don't improve in my back and legs as rapidly as I ought and am nearly as lame and heavy as you are, but keep hoping.

     I have waited to hear how you are, especially your eyes, which you don't mention. The state of your eyes worries me more than anything else about you.

     Did you see the enclosed, cut from The Nation, from the great Italian fortnightly? The article must be a splendid one, to bear such excerpting by The Nation. We tried to get the magazine through Brentano, but failed. It must make these fellows gnash their teeth to see this growing foreign appreciation. Send the slip back sometime when you are writing.

     I got a copy of Kennedy's pamphlet from him, and but for my bad condition would have written to him, which I will do yet. I can't help feeling that he skates on pretty thin ice sometimes, though he says many things that are quite undeniable.

     I had a letter from Grace Channing recently in which she says: "By the way, there is in the latest edition of Leaves of Grass a poem—The City Dead-house—which affects me I cannot tell you how powerfully. I never saw it before, and I think Walt has never written anything more divinely beautiful. Often as I have read it, I can't keep the tears out of my eyes."

     The Channings are all very happy in their new home at Pasadena, in California. It appears to be a perfect Paradise.

     Up to date the New York publishers have uniformly refused to publish my Baconian reply to R. G. White, even at my expense. Reason, Shakespearean hostility to the subject. This is a pretty note! I am now going to try Boston.

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     The death of Mrs. Gilchrist deeply stirred me. I was just about to try to write her when I saw the news of her decease.

     When you next write tell me how your eyes are. I am really anxious to know. Good-bye.

Faithfully yours,

W. D. O'Connor.

     W. was anxious about William. He said: "That letter seems like the beginning of the end: it shows William with some of his fire gone out: he is still always vigorous, inerrant, inevitable: yet the trouble already active two years ago has gone on increasing, is still going on, God knows to what—I hate to think what." He asked me: "Where have you been to-day?" I had been way off in the country on the other side of the river, walking with Kemper and May. He wanted to know about it. "I walked great walks myself in the Washington days: often with Pete Doyle: Pete was never a scholar: we had no scholar affinities: but he was a big rounded everyday working man full to the brim of the real substance of God." I asked him if he and O'Connor did much walking together. "I took many and many a walk in Washington—I may say thousands of them: but not many with William." Then talked rapidly about William: "At that time, for the first two or three years of the War, O'Connor was warm, earnest, eager, passionate, warrior-like for the anti-slavery idea—immersed, sucked in, in a way that would have offended the deep and wise Emerson. This in some ways served to keep us apart—though not really apart—(superficially apart): I can easily see now that I was a good deal more repelled by that sentiment—by that devotion—in William—(for with him it was the profoundest moral devotion)—than was justified. With these latter-day confirmations of William's balance, of his choice, of his masterly decisions—the fruit of later eventuations—the later succession of events—there has come to me some self-regret—some suspicion that I was extreme,

     I asked W. what sort of a looking man O'Connor was at that time. W. then: "He was one of the most graceful of men: agile, easy: yet also virile, vigorous, enough. William came along the street this way"—indicating by a wave motion of his right hand: "I can liken it to nothing but the movements of a beautiful deer—a fawn: his body swung along with such strength, his step was so light, his bearing was so superbly free and defiant." When Burroughs was here he described W. in almost the same terms. W. negatived that. "No—no: that might apply to O'Connor—it does not apply to me." Then: "O'Connor was essentially, before all else, mobile by nature, inside and out." "As graceful as his sentences?" I inquired. "Certainly—more so—as nature is than art." W. went on: "In those early years of the War, settling in Washington, I endeavored to make my living by writing for the newspapers. You know Charles Eldridge: he is now in southern California, Los Angeles: it was to him I was indebted at that time for consistent kindness." And after a pause: "There was Major

     I asked W.: "Did I understand you to say that O'Connor and Emerson had met?" W. answered: "No—I think they never met." I remarked again: "Your own position in that anti-slavery matter was almost exactly like Emerson's." W. asked: "Do you think so?" Then: "It was curious, O'Connor, hot as he was, never accused Emerson: he had real reverence for Emerson: respected him above, below, all others: I never once heard him complain of Emerson: but he would go for me—go for me in the fiercest way—

     We talked of Lincoln: "What was your first impression of Lincoln?" W.: "I did not enthuse at the beginning, but I made up what I may call a prophetic judgment from things I heard of him: facts, stories, lights, that came in my way. Lincoln's composure was marvelous: he was self-contained—had a thorough-going grip on himself. For two or three years he was generally regarded darkly, scornfully, suspiciously, in Washington, through the North. Now, O'Connor took to Lincoln unhesitatingly, at the first glance—never wavered: was warmly, even hotly, favorable, right along. There was Gurowski, too: have you heard me speak of Gurowski—Count Gurowski, the Russian refugee. He came to Washington: some of us grew to realize his great keenness, his splendid intellect. I think Gurowski liked O'Connor on sight—liked me, too, I believe—had the

     Something my sister Agnes said to me concerning Ray Walton's interest in Walt's magazine war memoranda led W. to say: "Ah! I wrote my mother voluminously from the War: ah! those letters! my dear, dear mother! She was in Brooklyn, alone: I wrote every day or so: sometimes in a general way: frequently all sorts of personal quips, bits, oddities, interspersed—family jottings: no letter in the whole lot absolutely clear of them." He spoke more generally of women: "I don't think our Northern women have ever been given sufficient credit: we have heard of the women of the South—of their fortitude, patriotism: we have heard