ogether with the knowledge the doctors
now have, will surely make his recovery certain and, I hope,
not long delayed. If he keep on as well as he has begun, you
will, I hope, presently feel as if you were taking a vacation.
Forget that it is enforced.

There comes to my mind as I write man after man in my
acquaintance who have successfully gone through this
experience and without serious permanent hurt. Some of them
live here. More of them live in North Carolina or Colorado as
a precaution. I saw a few years ago a town most of whose
population of several thousand persons are recovered and
active, after such an experience. The disease has surely been
robbed of much of its former terror.

Your own courage and cheerfulness, with his own, are the best
physic in the world. Add to these the continuous and sincere
interest that his thousands of friends feel--these to keep
your courage up, if it should ever flag a moment--and we shall
all soon have the delight to see and to hear him again--his
old self, endeared, if that be possible, by this experience.

And I pray you, help me (for I am singularly helpless without
suggestions from you) to be of some little service--of any
service that I can. Would he like letters from me? I have
plenty of time and an eagerness to write them, if they would
really divert or please him. Books? What does he care most to
read? I can, of course, find anything in New York. A visit
some time? It would be a very real pleasure to me. You will
add to my happiness greatly if you will frankly enable me to
add even the least to his.

And now and always give him my love. That is precisely the
word I mean; for, you know, I have known Mr. Alderman since he
was graduated, and I have known few men better or cared for
them more.

And I cannot thank you earnestly enough for your letter; and I
shall hope to have word from you often--if (when you feel
indisposed to write more) only a few lines.

How can I serve? Command me without a moment's hesitation.

Most sincerely yours,
Walter H. Page.
To Mrs. Edwin A. Alderman.

Joaquin Miller wrote the following letter to Walt Whitman on receiving
news that the latter was ill:

Revere House, Boston, May 27, '75