my dear oldest girl. Then my husband took it--and in five days it carried
him from me. I think, dear friend, my sorrow was far more bitter, though
not so deep, as that of a loving tender wife. As I stood by him in the
coffin I felt such remorse I had not, could not have, been more tender to
him--such a conviction that if I had loved him as he deserved to be loved
he would not have been taken from us. To the last my soul dwelt apart &
unmated & his soul dwelt apart unmated. I do not fear the look of his dear
silent eyes. I do not think he would even be grieved with me now. My
youngest was then a baby. I have had much sweet tranquil happiness, much
strenuous work and endeavour raising my darlings.
In May, 1869, came the voice over the Atlantic to me--O, the voice of my
Mate: it must be so--my love rises up out of the very depths of the grief
& tramples upon despair. I can wait--any time, a lifetime, many
lifetimes--I can suffer, I can dare, I can learn, grow, toil, but nothing
in life or death can tear out of my heart the passionate belief that one
day I shall hear that voice say to me, "My Mate. The one I so much want.
Bride, Wife, indissoluble eternal!" It is not happiness I plead with God
for--it is the very life of my Soul, my love is its life. Dear Walt. It is
a sweet & precious thing, this love; it clings so close, so close to the
Soul and Body, all so tenderly dear, so beautiful, so sacred; it yearns
with such passion to soothe and comfort & fill thee with sweet tender joy;
it aspires as grandly as gloriously as thy own soul. Strong to soar--soft
& tender to nestle and caress. If God were to say to me, "See--he that you
love you shall not be given to in this life--he is going to set sail on
the unknown sea--will you go with him?" never yet has bride sprung into
her husband's arms with the joy with which I would take thy hand & spring
from the shore.
Understand aright, dear love, the reason of my silence. I was obeying the
voice of conscience. I thought I was to wait. For it is the instinct of a
woman's nature to wait to be sought--not to seek. And when that May & June
I was longing so irrepressibly to write I resolutely restrained myself,
believing if I were only patient the right opening would occur. And so it
did through Rossetti. And when he, liking what I said, suggested my
printing something, it met and enabled me to carry into execution what I
was brooding over. For I had, and still have, a strong conviction that it
was necessary for a woman to speak--that finally and decisively only a
woman can judge a man, only a man a woman, on the subject of their
relations. What is blameless, what is good in its effect on her, is
good--however it may have seemed to men. She is the test. And I never for
a moment feared any hard words against myself because I know these things
are not judged by the intellect but by the unerring instincts of the soul.
I knew any man could not but feel that it would be a happy and ennobling
thing for him that his wife should think & feel as I do on that
subject--knew that what had filled me with such great and beautiful
thoughts towards men in that writing could not fail to give them good &
happy thoughts towards women in the reading. The cause of my consenting to
Rossetti's[6] urgent advice that I should not put my name, he so kindly
solicitous, yet not altogether understanding me & it aright, was that I
did not rightly understand how it might be with my dear Boy if it came
before him. I thought perhaps he was not old enough to judge and
understand me aright; nor young enough to let it altogether alone. But it
has been very bitter & hateful to me this not standing to what I have said
as it were, with my own personality, better because of my utter love and
faithfulness to the cause & longing to stand openly and proudly in the
ranks of its friends; & for the lower reason that my nature is proud and
as defiant as thine own and immeasurably disdains any faintest appearance
of being afraid of what I had done.
And, my darling, above all because I love thee so tenderly that if hateful
words had been spoken against me I could have taken joy in it for thy dear
sake. There never yet was the woman who loved that would not joyfully bare
her breast to wrest the blows aimed at her beloved.
I know not what fiend made me write those meaningless words in my letter,
"it is pleasantest to me" &c., but it was not fear or faithlessness--& it
is not pleasantest but hateful to me. Now let me come to beautiful joyous
things again. O dear Walt, did you not feel in every word the breath of a
woman's love? did you not see as through a transparent veil a soul all
radiant and trembling with love stretching out its arms towards you? I
was so sure you would speak, would send me some sign: that I was to
wait--wait. So I fed my heart with sweet hopes: strengthened it with
looking into the eyes of thy picture. O surely in the ineffable tenderness
of thy look speaks the yearning of thy man-soul towards my woman-soul? But
now I will wait no longer. A higher instinct dominates that other, the
instinct for perfect truth. I would if I could lay every thought and
action and feeling of my whole life open to thee as it lies to the eye of
God. But that cannot be all at once. O come. Come, my darling: look into
these eyes and see the loving ardent aspiring soul in them. Easily, easily
will you learn to love all the rest of me for the sake of that and take me
to your breasts for ever and ever. Out of its great anguish my love has
risen stronger, more triumphant than ever: it cannot doubt, cannot fear,
is strong, divine, immortal, sure of its fruition this side the grave or
the other. "O agonistic throes," tender, passionate yearnings, pinings,
triumphant joys, sweet dreams--I took from you all. But, dear love, the
sinews of a woman's outer heart are not twisted so strong as a man's: but
the heart within is strong & great & loving. So the strain is very
terrible. O heart of flesh, hold on yet a few years to the great heart
within thee, if it may be. But if not all is assured, all is safe.
This time last year when I seemed dying I could have no secrets between me
& my dear children. I told them of my love: told them all they could
rightly understand, and laid upon them my earnest injunction that as soon
as my mother's life no longer held them here, they should go fearlessly to
America, as I should have planted them down there--Land of Promise, my
Canaan, to which my soul sings, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come & the
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." After the 29th of this month I
shall be in my own home; dear friend--it is at Brookebank, Haslemere,
Surrey. Haslemere is on the main line between Portsmouth & London.
Good-bye, dear Walt,
ANNE GILCHRIST.
_Sept. 6._
The new portrait also is a sweet joy & comfort to my longing, pining heart
& eyes. How have I brooded & brooded with thankfulness on that one word in
thy letter[7] "the comfort it has been to me to get her words," for always
day & night these two years has hovered on my lips & in my heart the one
prayer: "Dear God, let me comfort him!" Let me comfort thee with my whole
being, dear love. I feel much better & stronger now.
LETTER III
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Brookebank, Shotter Mill
Haslemere, Surrey
October 23, 1871._
DEAR FRIEND:
I wrote you a letter the 6th September & would fain know whether it has
reached your hand. If it have not, I will write its contents again quickly
to you--if it have, I will wait your time with courage with patience for
an answer; but spare me the needless suffering of uncertainty on this
point & let me have one line, one word, of assurance that I am no longer
hidden from you by a thick cloud--I from thee--not thou from me: for I
that have never set eyes upon thee, all the Atlantic flowing between us,
yet cleave closer than those that stand nearest & dearest around
thee--love thee day & night:--last thoughts, first thoughts, my soul's
passionate yearning toward thy divine Soul, every hour, every deed and
thought--my love for my children, my hopes, aspirations for them, all
taking new shape, new height through this great love. My Soul has staked
all upon it. In dull dark moods when I cannot, as it were, see thee,
still, still always a dumb, blind yearning towards thee--still it comforts
me to touch, to press to me the beloved books--like a child holding some
hand in the dark--it knows not whose--but knows it is enough--knows it is
a dear, strong, comforting hand. Do not say I am forward, or that I lack
pride because I tell this love to thee who have never sought or made sign
of desiring to seek me. Oh, for all that, this love is my pride my glory.
Source of sufferings and joys that cannot put themselves into words.
Besides, it is not true thou hast not sought or loved me. For when I read
the divine poems I feel all folded round in thy love: I feel often as if
thou wast pleading so passionately for the love of the woman that can
understand thee--that I know not how to bear the yearning answering
tenderness that fills my breast. I know that a woman may without hurt to
her pride--without stain or blame--tell her love to thee. I feel for a
certainty that she may. Try me for this life, my darling--see if I cannot
so live, so grow, so learn, so love, that when I die you will say, "This
woman has grown to be a very part of me. My soul must have her loving
companionship everywhere & in all things. I alone & she alone are not
complete identities--it is I and she together in a new, divine, perfect
union that form the one complete identity."
I am yet young enough to bear thee children, my darling, if God should so
bless me. And would yield my life for this cause with serene joy if it
were so appointed, if that were the price for thy having a "perfect
child"--knowing my darlings would all be safe & happy in thy loving
care--planted down in America.
Let me have a few words directly, dear Friend. I shall get them by the
middle of November. I shall have to go to London about then or a little
later--to find a house for us--I only came to the old home here from which
I have been absent most four years to wind up matters and prepare for a
move, for there is nothing to be had in the way of educational advantages
here--it has been a beautiful survey for the children, but it is not what
they want now. But we leave with regret, for it is one of the sweetest,
wildest spots in England, though only 40 miles from London.
Good-bye, dear friend,
ANNE GILCHRIST.
LETTER IV[8]
WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST
_Washington, D. C.
November 3, 1871._
(TO A. G., EARL'S COLNE, HALSTED, ESSEX, ENG.)
I have been waiting quite a while for time and the right mood, to answer
your letter in a spirit as serious as its own, and in the same unmitigated
trust and affection. But more daily work than ever has fallen to me to do
the present season, and though I am well and contented, my best moods seem
to shun me. I wish to give to it a day, a sort of Sabbath, or holy day,
apart to itself, under serene and propitious influences, confident that I
could then write you a letter which would do you good, and me too. But I
must at least show without further delay that I am not insensible to your
love. I too send you my love. And do you feel no disappointment because I
now write so briefly. My book is my best letter, my response, my truest
explanation of all. In it I have put my body and spirit. You understand
this better and fuller and clearer than any one else. And I too fully and
clearly understand the loving letter it has evoked. Enough that there
surely exists so beautiful and a delicate relation, accepted by both of us
with joy.
LETTER V
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_27 November '71._
DEAR FRIEND.
Your long waited for letter brought me both joy & pain; but the pain was
not of your giving. I gather from it that a long letter[9] which I wrote
you Sept. 6th after I had received the precious packet, a letter in which
I opened all my heart to you, never reached your hands: nor yet a shorter
one[10] which, tortured by anxiety & suspense about its predecessor, I
wrote Oct. 15, it, too, written out of such stress & intensity of painful
emotion as wrenches from us inmost truth. I cannot face the thought of
these words of uttermost trust & love having fallen into other hands. Can
both be simply lost? Could any man suffer a base curiosity, to make him so
meanly, treacherously cruel? It seems to cut and then burn me.
I was not disappointed at the shortness of your letter & I do not ask nor
even wish you to write save when you are inwardly impelled & desirous of
doing so. I only want leave and security to write freely to you. Your book
does indeed say all--book that is not a book, for the first time a man
complete, godlike, august, standing revealed the only way possible,
through the garment of speech. Do you know, dear Friend, what it means for
a woman, what it means for me, to understand these poems? It means for her
whole nature to be then first kindled; quickened into life through such
love, such sympathy, such resistless attraction, that thenceforth she
cannot choose but live & die striving to become worthy to share this
divine man's life--to be his dear companion, closer, nearer, dearer than
any man can be--for ever so. Her soul stakes all on this. It is the
meaning, the fulfilment, the only perfect development & consummation of
her nature--of her passionate, high, immortal aspirations--her Soul to
mate with his for ever & ever. O I know the terms are obdurate--I know how
hard to attain to this greatness, the grandest lot ever aspired to by
woman. I know too my own shortcomings, faults, flaws. You might not be
able to give me your great love yet--to take me to your breast with joy.
But I can wait. I can grow great & beautiful through sorrow & suffering,
working, struggling, yearning, loving so, all alone, as I have done now
nearly three years--it will be three in May since I first read the book,
first knew what the word _love_ meant. Love & Hope are so strong in me, my
soul's high aspirations are of such tenacious, passionate intensity, are
so conscious of their own deathless reality, that what would starve them
out of any other woman only makes them strike out deeper roots, grow more
resolute & sturdy, in me. I know that "greatness will not ripen for me
like a pear." But I could face, I could joyfully accept, the fiercest
anguish, the hardest toil, the longest, sternest probation, to make me fit
to be your mate--so that at the last you should say, "This is the woman I
have waited for, the woman prepared for me: this is my dear eternal
comrade, wife--the one I so much want." Life has no other meaning for me
than that--all things have led up to help prepare me for that. Death is
more welcome to me than life if it means that--if thou, dear sailor, thou
sailing upon thy endless cruise, takest me on board--me, daring, all with
thee, steering for the deep waters, bound where mariner has not yet dared
to go: hand in hand with thee, nestled close--one with thee. Ah, that word
"enough" was like a blow on the breast to me--breast that often & often is
so full of yearning tenderness I know not how to draw my breath. The tie
between us would not grow less but more beautiful, dear friend, if you
knew me _better_: if I could stand as real & near to you as you do to me.
But I cannot, like you, clothe my nature in divine poems & so make it
visible to you. Ah, foolish me! I thought you would catch a glimpse of it
in those words I wrote--I thought you would say to yourself, "Perhaps this
is the voice of my mate," and would seek me a little to make sure if it
were so or not. O the sweet dreams I have fed on these three years nearly,
pervading my waking moments, influencing every thought & action. I was so
sure, so sure if I waited silently, patiently, you would send me some
sign: so full of joyful hope I could not doubt nor fear. When I lay dying
as it seemed, [I was] still full of the radiant certainty that you would
seek me, would not lose [me], that we should as surely find one another
there as here. And when the ebb ceased & life began to flow back into me,
O never doubting but it was for you. Never doubting but that the sweetest,
noblest, closest, tenderest companionship ever yet tasted by man & woman
was to begin for us here & now. Then came the long, long waiting, the hope
deferred: each morning so sure the book would come & with it a word from
you that should give me leave to speak: no longer to shut down in stern
silence the love, the yearning, the thoughts that seemed to strain & crush
my heart. I knew what that means--"if thou wast not gifted to sing thou
wouldst surely die." I felt as if my silence must kill me sometimes. Then
when the Book came but with it no word for me alone, there was such a
storm in [my] heart I could not for weeks read in it. I wrote that long
letter out in the Autumn fields for dear life's sake. I knew I might, and
must, speak then. Then I felt relieved, joyful, buoyant once more. Then
again months of heart-wearying disappointment as I looked in vain for a
letter-O the anguish at times, the scalding tears, the feeling within as
if my heart were crushed & doubled up--but always afterwards saying to
myself "If this suffering is to make my love which was born & grew up &
blossomed all in a moment strike deep root down in the dark & cold,
penetrate with painful intensity every fibre of my being, make it a love
such as he himself is capable of giving, then welcome this anguish, these
bitter deferments: let its roots be watered as long as God pleases with my
tears."
ANNE GILCHRIST.
_50 Marquis Road
London
Camden Sqr. N. W._
LETTER VI
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_50 Marquis Road, Camden Sqre.
London, N. W.,
January 24, '72._
DEAR FRIEND:
I send you photographs of my oldest and youngest children, I wish I had
some worth sending of the other two. That of myself done in 1850 is a copy
of a daguerrotype. The recent one was taken just a week or so before I
broke down in my long illness & when I was struggling against a terrible
sense of inward prostration; so it has not my natural expression, but I
think you will like to have [it] rather than none, & the weather here is
too gloomy for there to be any chance of a good one if I were to try
again. Your few words lifted a heavy weight off me. Very few they are,
dear friend: but knowing that I may give to every word you speak its
fullest, truest meaning, the more I brood over them the sweeter do they
taste. Still I am not as happy & content as I thought I should be if I
could only know my words reached you & were welcome to you,--but restless,
anxious, impatient, looking so wistfully towards the letters each
morning--above all, longing, longing so for you to come--to come & see if
you feel happy beside me: no more this painful struggle to put myself into
words, but to let what I am & all my life speak to you. Only so can you
judge whether I am indeed the woman capable of rising to the full height
of great destiny, of justifying & fulfilling your grand thoughts of
women. And see my faults, flaws, shortcomings too, dear Friend. I feel an
earnest wish you should do this too that there may be the broad unmovable
foundation-rock of perfect truth and candour for our love. I do not fear.
I believe in a large all-accepting, because all-comprehending, love, a
boundless faith in growth & development--in your judging "not as the judge
judges but as the sunshine falling around me." To have you in the midst of
us! we clustered round you, shone upon, vivified, strengthened by your
presence, surrounding you with an atmosphere of love & cheerful life.
When I wrote to you in Nov. I was in lodgings in London, having just
accomplished the difficult task of finding a house for us in London, where
rents are so high. And I have succeeded better than I anticipated, for we
find this a comfortable, dear, little home--small, indeed, but not so
small as to interfere with health or comfort, and at rent that I may
safely undertake. My Husband was taken from us too young to be able to
have made any provision for his children. I have a little of my own--about
L80 a year; & for the rest depend upon my Mother, whose only surviving
child I am. And she, by nature generous & self-denying as well as prudent,
has never made anything but a pleasure of this & as long as she was able
to see to her own affairs, was such a capital manager that she used to
spare me about L150 out of an income of L350. But now though she retains
her faculties in a wonderful degree for her years (just upon 86), she is
no longer able to do this & has put the management of the whole into my
hands. And I, feeling that she needs, and ought to have, now an easier
scale of expenditure at Colne, have to manage a little more cleverly still
to make a less sum serve for us. But I succeed capitally, dear friend--do
not want a better home, never get behind hand & find it no hardship, but
quite the contrary to have to spend a good deal of time & pains in
domestic management. And then, just to help me through at the right
moment, dear Percy[11] obtained in November a good opening in some large
copper & iron mining & smelting works in South Wales at a salary upon
which he can comfortably live; & he likes his work well--writes very
cheerfully--lodges in a farmhouse in the midst of grand scenery, within a
walk of the sea. So this enables me to give the girls a turn in education,
for hitherto they have had hardly any teaching but mine. And I chose this
part because there is a capital day school for them handy. And Herby[12]
walks in to the best drawing school in London & is very diligent and happy
at his work. His bent is unmistakably strong. It was well I have had to be
so busy this autumn & winter, dear Walt, for I suffered keenly, sometimes
overwhelmingly, through the delay in my letters' reaching you. What caused
it? And when did you get the Sept. & Oct. letters & did you get the two
copies that I, baffled & almost despairing, sent off in Nov.? Good-bye,
dear Friend.
ANNIE GILCHRIST.
LETTER VII[13]
WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST
_(Washington, D. C.)
Feb. 8 '72._
I send by same mail with this my latest piece copied in a newspaper--and
write you just a line. I suppose you only received my former letters
(two)--I ought to have written something about your children (described to
me in your letter of last summer--[July 23d] which I have just been
reading again.) Dear boys and girls--how my heart goes out to them.
Did I tell you that I had received letters from Tennyson, and that he
cordially invites me to visit him? Sometimes I dream of coming to Old
England, on such visit.--& thus of seeing you & your children----But it is
a dream only.
I am still living here in employment in a Government office. My health is
good. Life is rather sluggish here--yet not without the sunshine. Your
letters too were bright rays of it. I am going on to New York soon, to
stay a few weeks, but my address will still be here. I wrote lately to Mr.
Rossetti quite a long letter. Dear friend, best love & remembrance to you
& to the young folk.
LETTER VIII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_50 Marquis Rd.
Camden Sq. N. W.
April 12th, '72._
DEAR FRIEND: