.

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