Stopped at W.'s in the early morning. All well there. Then to Philiadelphia. Letters from Bucke Friday and Saturday. B. not "confident" W. will last long. Who is? Is afraid we won't be able to give him (Bucke) much notice when the end comes. Down to W. again in the evening. Talk with Ed. Walsh had been in. Had little to say. Only: "Whitman is better." George Whitman stopped in. Ed says W. talked considerably with him after we left last evening. Sat up more to-day than yesterday. Ate well: chicken broth, wine and milk, mutton broth: more than for several days past. Did not touch a book, however, or write. When I got there W. was fast asleep. I stayed in Ed's room till I heard W. stirring—probably half an hour. Then I passed in and had a short talk with him. Light down, room all closed, perceptible odor of burning wood. W. sitting on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, then lying down again. Had this been a better day? "I don't know; I think rather not: only mostly like other days." And he

     W. said he had "not felt well enough" to "do the books"to-day. "I had a Critic in the morning's mail: sent it to the Doctor: it contained several references to me—to the books: Doctor will want them, of course." Had also sent B. some Italian papers (Palermo). Proposed to take a bath to-day but when the time came his zest had flown. Read Press and Record this forenoon: also the local papers—Post, Courier. Harned not in to-day. Makes no move towards the discussion of a cover for the complete W. or the cover for the book to go on the market. For the present everything is suspended. To be resumed? He himself asks: "Who can see a way out of this? who?" Yet hopes—expresses hope: refuses absolute despair, though he is more easily depressed than formerly. "This is one peg more, or many: it even looks like many." Bucke writes: "It is wonderful how clear his writing is." Bucke congratulates Harned on getting the will into a secure place. W. has said nothing about it. Has not missed it. We talked of the Rossetti letters. W. wished it. Not at great length. I had some questions to ask W. Was very vehement about the expurgations. "Of course I see now as clearly as I did then how big and fine Rossetti was about it all—how thoroughly he realized me: much more so and more promptly than Conway, as you must have noticed. But I now feel somehow as if none of the changes should have been made: that I should have said, take me as I am: my bad and my good, my everything—just as I am: to hell with all cuts, all excisions, all moralistic abridgements. I never regret that I gave Rossetti options in the matter, but I doubt if I would do the thing over again that way. Rossetti himself used his margin with great tact, consideration, delicacy: was miracu-

     I asked: "Did you feel any active dynamic impulse to push the book forward in that way in England?" "No—none at all: I was rather passive as towards it all—would personally have been as well satisfied if the game had been declared off at any stage of the play." "And about redistributing the poems—giving them new titles: did n't that play hob with your scheme?" "Did it? yes indeed: mixed me all up—made Leaves of Grass over from a sequential product to a poetic scrap-heap." Did W. agree with Conway as to the advantage of having an introduction by an Englishman instead of by an American? "Yes—surely: for the purposes of that edition that was the best thing to do: yet we lost heaps in losing William out of that book. There was another regret from which I have always suffered: I always wished William to figure in some edition of the Leaves in an Introduction of some sort, either abroad or here—wanted him in the book as a part of its blood and sinew: at first I thought the Rossetti book might be the occaision I hoped, looked for: then the objections arose: they were good objections." W. said again: "Conway could never understand my stony attitude towards expurgations: he at once flew to the conclusion that I was as willing to expurgate a complete Leaves as a volume of extracts. But the two things are quite unlike: even the extracts should have been used word for word, but I yielded on that—said yes with my lips when my heart said no: I wished to let Rossetti alone as much as possible—not to stand in his

14 Milborne, West Brompton, London, Nov. 7.

      My dear Walt: I introduce to you Mr. John Morley, Editor of the Fortnightly Review, in whose acquaintance you will find much pleasure as he will in yours.

Cordially yours,

M. D. Conway