pleasant episode in my life at Haslemere. Hearing of the extreme beauty of
the scenery thereabouts & specially of its comparative wildness &
seclusion, he thought he would like to find or build a house, to escape
from the obtrusive curiosity of the multitudes who flock to the Isle of
Wight at certain seasons of the year. He is even morbidly sensitive on
this point & will not stir beyond his own grounds from week's end to
week's end to avoid his admiring or inquisitive persecutors. So, knowing
an old friend of mine, he called on me for particulars as to the resources
of the neighbourhood. And I, a good walker & familiar with every least
frequent spot of hill & dale for some miles round, took him long ambles in
quest of a site. Very pleasant rambles they were; Tennyson, under the
influence of the fresh, outdoor, quite unconstrained life in new scenery &
with a cheerful aim, shaking off the languid ennuye air, as of a man to
whom nothing has any longer a relish--bodily or mental--that too often
hangs about him. And we found something quite to his mind--a coppice of 40
acres hanging on the south side two thirds of the way up a hill some 1000
ft. high so as to be sheltered from the cold & yet have the light, dry,
elastic hill air--& with, of course, a glorious outlook over the wooded
weald of Sussex so richly green & fertile & looking almost as boundless as
the great sweep of sky over it--the South Downs to Surrey Hills & near at
hand the hill curving round a fir-covered promontory, standing out very
black & grand between him & the sunset. Underfoot too a wilderness of
beauty--fox gloves (I wonder if they grow in America) ferns, purple heath
&c &c. I don't suppose I shall see much more of him now I have left
Haslemere, though I have had very friendly invitations; for I am a home
bird--don't like staying out--wanted at home and happiest there. And I
should not enjoy being with them in the grand mansion half so much as I
did pic-nicing in the road & watching the builders as we did. It is
pleasant to see T--with children--little girls at least--he does not take
to boys but one of my girls was mostly on his knee when they were in the
room & he liked them very much. His two sons are now both 6 ft. high. I
have received your letters of March 20 from Brooklyn: but the one you
speak of as having acknowledged the photograph never came to hand--a sore
disappointment to me, dear Friend. I can ill afford to lose the long &
eagerly watched for pleasure of a letter. If it seems to you there must
needs be something unreal, illusive, in a love that has grown up entirely
without the basis of personal intercourse, dear Friend, then you do not
yourself realize your own power nor understand the full meaning of your
own words, "whoso touches this, touches a man"--"I have put my Soul & Body
into these Poems." Real effects imply real causes. Do you suppose that an
ideal figure conjured up by her own fancy could, in a perfectly sound,
healthy woman of my age, so happy in her children, so busy & content,
practical, earnest, produce such real & tremendous effect--saturating her
whole life, colouring every waking moment--filling her with such joys,
such pains that the strain of them has been well nigh too much even for a
strong frame, coming as it does, after twenty years of hard work?
Therefore please, dear Friend, do not "warn" me any more--it hurts so, as
seeming to distrust my love. Time only can show how needlessly. My love,
flowing ever fresh & fresh out of my heart, will go with you in all your
wanderings, dear Friend, enfolding you day and night, soul & body, with
tenderness that tries so vainly to utter itself in these poor, helpless
words, that clings closer than any man's love can cling. O, I could not
live if I did not believe that sooner or later you will not be able to
help stretching out your arms towards me & saying "Come, my Darling." When
you get this will you post me an American newspaper (any one you have done
with) as a token it has reached you--& so on at intervals during your
wanderings; it will serve as a token that you are well, & the postmark
will tell me where you are. And thus you will feel free only to write when
you have leisure & inclination--& I shall be spared [the] feeling I have
when I fancy my letters have not reached you--as if I were so hopelessly,
helplessly cut off from you, which is more than I can stand. We all read
American news eagerly too. The children are so well & working on with all
their might. The school turns out more what I desire for them than I had
ventured to hope. Good-bye, dearest Friend.
ANN GILCHRIST.
LETTER IX
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_50 Marquis Rd.
Camden, Sqre.
June 3d, 1872._
DEAR FRIEND:
The newspapers have both come to hand & been gladly welcomed. I shall
realize you on the 26th sending living impulses into those young men, with
results not to cease--their kindled hearts sending back response through
glowing eyes that will be warmer to you than the June sunshine. Perhaps,
too, you will have pleasant talks with the eminent astronomers there.
Prof. Young, who is so skilful a worker with that most subtle of tidings
from the stars, the spectroscope--always, it seems hitherto bringing word
of the "vast similitude that interlocks all," nay, of the absolute
identity of the stuff they are made of with the stuff we are made of. The
news from Dartmouth that too, is a great pleasure.
It has been what seems to me a very long while since last writing, because
it has been a troubled time within & what I wrote I tore up again,
believing it was best, wisest so. You said in your first letter that if
you had leisure you could write one that "would do me good & you too";
write that letter dear Friend after you have been to Dartmouth[14]--for I
sorely need it. Perhaps the letters that I have sent you since that first,
have given you a feeling of constraint towards me because you cannot
respond to them. I will not write any more such letters; or, if I write
them because my heart is so full it cannot bear it, they shall not find
their way to the Post. But do not, because I give you more than
friendship, think that it would not be a very dear & happy thing to me to
have friendship only from you. I do not want you to write what it is any
effort to write--do not ask for deep thoughts, deep feelings--know well
those must choose their own time & mode--but for the simplest current
details--for any thing that helps my eyes to pierce the distance & see you
as you live & move to-day. I dearly like to hear about your Mother--want
to know if all your sisters are married, & if you have plenty of little
nephews & nieces--I like to hear anything about Mr. O'Connor[15] & Mr.
Burroughs,[16] towards both of whom I feel as toward friends. (Has Mr.
O'Connor succeeded in getting practically adopted his new method of making
cast steel? Percy[17] being a worker in the field of metallurgy makes me
specially glad to hear about this.) Then, I need not tell you how deep an
interest I feel in American politics & want to know if you are satisfied
with the result of the Cincinnati Convention & what of Mr. Greely?[18] &
what you augur as to his success--I am sure dear friend, if you realize
the joy it is to me to receive a few words from you--about anything that
is passing in your thoughts & around--how beaming bright & happy the day a
letter comes & many days after--how light hearted & alert I set about my
daily tasks, it would not seem irksome to you to write. And if you say,
"Read my books, & be content--you have me in them," I say, it is because I
read them so that I am not content. It is an effort to me to turn to any
other reading; as to highest literature what I felt three years ago is
more than ever true now, with all their precious augmentations. I want
nothing else--am fully fed & satisfied there. I sit alone many hours busy
with my needle; this used to be tedious; but it is not so now--for always
close at hand lie the books that are so dear, so dear, I brooding over the
poems, sunning myself in them, pondering the vistas--all the experience of
my past life & all its aspirations corroborating them--all my future & so
far as in me lies the future of my children to be shaped modified
vitalized by & through these--outwardly & inwardly. How can I be content
to live wholly isolated from you? I am sure it is not possible for any
one,--man or woman, it does not matter which, to receive these books, not
merely with the intellect critically admiring their power & beauty, but
with an understanding responsive heart, without feeling it drawn out of
their breasts so that they must leave all & come to be with you sometimes
without a resistless yearning for personal intercourse that will take no
denial. When we come to America I shall not want you to talk to me, shall
not be any way importunate. To settle down where there are some that love
you & understand your poems, somewhere that you would be sure to come
pretty often--to have you sit with me while I worked, you silent, or
reading to yourself, I don't mind how: to let my children grow fond of
you--to take food with us; if my music pleased you, to let me play & sing
to you of an evening. Do your needlework for you--talk freely of all that
occupied my thoughts concerning the children's welfare &c--I could be very
happy so. But silence with the living presence and silence with all the
ocean in between are two different things. Therefore, these years stretch
out your hand cordially, trustfully, that I may feel its warm grasp.
Good-bye, my dearest friend.
ANNIE GILCHRIST.
LETTER X
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_50 Marquis Rd.
Camden Sq. London
July 14, '72._
The 3d July was my rejoicing day, dearest Friend,--the day the packet from
America reached me, scattering for a while the clouds of pain and
humiliation & filling me through & through with light & warmth; indeed I
believe I am often as happy reading, as you were writing, your Poems. The
long new one "As a Strong Bird" of itself answers the question hinted in
your preface & nobly fulfils the promise of its opening lines. We want
again & again in fresh words & from the new impetus & standpoint of new
days the vision that sweeps ahead, the tones that fill us with faith & joy
in our present share of life & work--prophetic of the splendid issues. It
does not need to be American born to believe & passionately rejoice in the
belief of what is preparing in America. It is for humanity. And it comes
through England. The noblest souls the most heroic hearts of England were
called to be the nucleus of the race that (enriched with the blood &
qualities of other races & planted down in the new half of the world
reserved in all its fresh beauty & exhaustless riches to be the arena) is
to fulfil, justify, outstrip the vision of the poets, the quenchless
aspirations of all the ardent souls that have ever struggled forward upon
this earth. For me, the most precious page in the book is that which
contains the Democratic Souvenirs. I respond to that as one to whom it
means the life of her Soul. It comforts me very much. You speak in the
Preface of the imperious & resistless command from within out of which
"Leaves of Grass" issued. This carried with it no doubt the secret of a
corresponding resistless power over the reader wholly unprecedented,
unapproached in literature, as I believe, & to be compared only with that
of Christ. I speak out of my own experience when I say that no myth, no
"miracle" embodying the notion of a direct communication between God & a
human creature, goes beyond the effect, soul & body, of those Poems on me:
& that were I to put into Oriental forms of speech what I experienced it
would read like one of those old "miracles" or myths. Thus of many things
that used to appear to me incomprehensible lies, I now perceive the germ
of truth & understand that what was called the supernatural was merely an
inadequate & too timid way of conceiving the natural. Had I died the
following year, it would have been the simple truth to say I died of joy.
The doctor called it nervous exhaustion falling with tremendous violence
on the heart which "seemed to have been strained": & was much puzzled how
that could have come to pass. I left him in his puzzle--but it was none to
me. How could such a dazzling radiance of light flooding the soul,
suddenly, kindling it to such intense life, but put a tremendous strain on
the vital organs? how could the muscles of the heart suddenly grow
adequate to such new work? O the passionate tender gratitude that flooded
my breast, the yearnings that seemed to strain the heart beyond endurance
that I might repay with all my life & soul & body this debt--that I might
give joy to him who filled me with such joy, that I might make his outward
life sweeter & more beautiful who made my inner life so divinely sweet &
beautiful. But, dear friend, I have certainly to see that this is not to
be so, now: that for me too love & death are folded inseparably together:
Death that will renew my youth.
I have had the paper from Burlington[19]--with the details a woman likes
so to have. I wish I had known for certain whether you went on to Boston &
were enjoying the music there. My youngest boy has gone to spend his
holiday with his brother in South Wales & he writes me such good news of
Per., that he is "looking as brown as a nut & very jolly"; his home in a
"clean airy old farm house half way up a mountain in the midst of wild
rough grand scenery, sea in sight near enough to hear the sound of it
about as loud as the rustling of leaves"--so the boys will have a good
time together, and the girls are going with me for the holiday to their
grandmother at Colne. W. Rossetti does not take his till October this
year. I suppose it will be long & long before this letter reaches you as
you will be gone to California--may it be a time full of enjoyment--full
to the brim.
Good-bye, dearest Friend,
ANNIE GILCHRIST.
What a noble achievement is Mr. Stanley's:[20] it fills me with pleasure
that Americans should thus have been the rescuer of our large-hearted,
heroic traveller. We have just got his letters with account of the five
races in Central Africa copied from N. Y. _Herald_, July 29.
LETTER XI
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_50 Marquis Road
Camden Sqre.
Novr. 12, 1872._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
I must write not because I have anything to tell you--but because I want
so, by help of a few loving words, to come into your presence as it
were--into your remembrance. Not more do the things that grow want the
sun.
I have received all the papers--& each has made a day very bright for me.
I hope the trip to California has not again had to be postponed--I realize
well the enjoyment of it, & what it would be to California & the fresh
impulses of thought & emotion that would shape themselves, melodiously,
out of that for the new volume.
My children are all well. Beatrice is working hard to get through the
requisite amount of Latin, &c. that is required in the preliminary
examination--before entering on medical studies. Percy, my eldest, whom I
have not seen for a year, is coming to spend Xmas with us.
Good-bye, dearest Friend.
ANNIE GILCHRIST.
LETTER XII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_50 Marquis Road
Camden Sq. London
Jan. 31, '73._
DEAREST FRIEND:
Shall you never find it in your heart to say a kind word to me again? or a
word of some sort? Surely I must have written what displeased you very
much that you should turn away from me as the tone of your last letter &
the ten months' silence which have followed seem to express to me with
such emphasis. But if so, tell me of it, tell me how--with perfect
candour, I am worthy of that--a willing learner & striver; not afraid of
the pain of looking my own faults & shortcomings steadily in the face. It
may be my words have led you to do me some kind of injustice in thought--I
then could defend myself. But if it is simply that you are preoccupied,
too busy, perhaps very eagerly beset by hundreds like myself whose hearts
are so drawn out of their breasts by your Poems that they cannot rest
without striving, some way or other, to draw near to you personally--then
write once more & tell me so & I will learn to be content. But please let
it be a letter just like the first three you wrote: & do not fear that I
shall take it to mean anything it doesn't mean. I shall never do that
again, though it was natural enough at first, with the deep unquestioning
belief I had that I did but answer a call; that I not only might but
ought, on pain of being untrue to the greatest, sweetest instincts &
aspirations of my own soul, to answer it with all my heart & strength &
life. I say to myself, I say to you as I did in my first letters, "This
voice that has come to me from over the Atlantic is the one divine voice
that has penetrated to my soul: is the utterance of a nature that sends
out life-giving warmth & light to my inward self as actually as the Sun
does to my body, & draws me to it and shapes & shall shape my course just
as the sun shapes the earth's." "Interlocked in a vast similitude" indeed
are these inner & outer truths of our lives. It may be that this shaping
of my life course toward you will have to be all inward--that to feed upon
your words till they pass into the very substance & action of my soul is
all that will be given to me & the grateful, yearning, tender love growing
ever deeper & stronger out of that will have to go dumb & actionless all
my days here. But I can wait long, wait patiently; know well, realize more
clearly indeed that this wingless, clouded, half-developed soul of me has
a long, long novitiate to live through before it can meet & answer yours
on equal terms so as fully to satisfy you, to be in very truth & deed a
dear Friend, a chosen companion, a source of joy to you as you of light &
life to me. But that is what I will live & die hoping & striving for. That
covers & includes all the aspirations all the high hopes I am capable of.
And were I to fall away from this belief it would be a fall into utter
blackness & despair, as one for whom the Sun in Heaven is blotted out.
Good-bye, dearest Friend.
ANNIE GILCHRIST.
LETTER XIII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
50 Marquis Road
Camden Sq. N. W.
May 20th, '73.
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Such a joyful surprise was that last paper you sent me with the Poem
celebrating the great events in Spain--the new hopes the new life wakening
in the breasts of that fine People which has slumbered so long, weighed
down & tormented with hideous nightmares of superstition. Are you indeed
getting strong & well again? able to drink in draughts of pleasure from
the sights & sounds & perfumes of this delicious time, "lilac
time"--according to your wont? Sleeping well--eating well, dear friend?
William Rossetti is coming to see me Thursday, before starting for his
holiday trip to Naples. His father was a Neapolitan, so he narrowly
escaped a lifelong dungeon for having written some patriotic songs--he
fled in disguise by help of English friends & spent the rest of his life
here. So this, his first visit to Naples, will be specially full of
interest & delight to our friend. He is also in great spirits at having
discovered a large number of hitherto unknown early letters of Shelley's.
Of modern English Poets Shelley is the one he loves & admires incomparably
the most. Perhaps this letter will just reach you on your birthday. What
can I send you? What can I tell you but the same old story of a heart
fast anchored--of a soul to whom your soul is as the sun & the fresh,
sweet air, and the nourishing, sustaining earth wherein the other one
breathes free & feeds & expands & delights itself. There is no occupation
of the day however homely that is not coloured, elevated, made more
cheerful to me by thoughts of you & by thoughts you have given me blent in
& suffusing all: No hope or aim or practical endeavour for my dear
children that has not taken a higher, larger, more joyous scope through
you. No immortal aspiration, no thoughts of what lies beyond death, but
centre in you. And in moods of pain and discouragement, dear Friend, I
turn to that Poem beginning "Whoever you are holding me now in hand," and
I don't know but that that one revives and strengthens me more than any.
For there is not a line nor a word in it at which my spirit does not rise
up instinctively and fearlessly say--"So be it." And then I read other
poems & drink in the draught that I know is for me, because it is for
all--the love that you give me on the broad ground of my humanity and
womanhood. And I understand the reality & preciousness of that. Then I say
to myself, "Souls are not made to be frustrated--to have their greatest &
best & sweetest impulses and aspirations & yearnings made abortive.
Therefore we shall not be 'carried diverse' forever. This dumb soul of
mine will not always remain hidden from you--but some way will be given me
for this love, this passion of gratitude, this set of all the nerves of my
being toward you, to bring joy & comfort to you. I do not ask the When or
the How."
I shall be thinking of your great & dear Mother in her beautiful old age,
too, on your birthday--happiest woman in all the world that she was & is:
forever sacred & dear to America & to all who feed on the Poems of her
Son.
Good-bye, my best beloved Friend.
ANNIE GILCHRIST.
I suppose you see all that you care to see in the way of English
newspapers. I often long to send you one when there is anything in that I
feel sure would interest you, but am withheld by fearing it would be quite
superfluous or troublesome even.
LETTER XIV
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Earls Colne
Halstead
August 12, 1873._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
The paper has just been forwarded here which tells me you are still
suffering and not, as I was fondly believing, already quite emerged from
the cloud of sickness. My Darling, let me use that tender caressing word
once more--for how can I help it, with heart so full & no outlet but
words? My darling--I say it over & over to myself with voice, with eyes so
full of love, of tender yearning, sorrowful, longing love. I would give
all the world if I might come (but am held here yet awhile by a duty
nothing may supersede) & soothe & tend & wait on you & with such cheerful
loving companionship lift off some of the weight of the long hours & days
& perhaps months that must still go over while nature slowly,
imperceptibly, but still so surely repairs the mischief within: result of
the tremendous ordeal to your frame of those great over-brimming years of
life spent in the Army Hospitals. You see dear Friend, a woman who is a
mother has thenceforth something of that feeling toward other men who are
dear to her. A cherishing, fostering instinct that rejoices so in tending,
nursing, caretaking & I should be so happy it needs must diffuse a
reviving, comforting, vivifying warmth around you. Might but these words
breathed out of the heart of a woman who loves you with her whole soul &
life & strength fulfil their errand & comfort the sorrowful heart, if
ever so little--& through that revive the drooping frame. This love that
has grown up, far away over here, unhelped by the sweet influences of
personal intercourse, penetrating the whole substance of a woman's life,
swallowing up into itself all her aspirations, hopes, longings, regardless
of Death, looking earnestly, confidently beyond that for its fruition,
blending more or less with every thought & act of her life--a guiding star
that her feet cannot choose but follow resolutely--what can be more real
than this, dear Friend? What can have deeper roots, or a more immortal
growing power? But I do not ask any longer whether this love is believed
in & welcomed & precious to you. For I know that what has real roots
cannot fail to bear real flowers & fruits that will in the end be sweet &
joyful to you; and that if I am indeed capable of being your eternal
comrade, climbing whereon you climb, daring all that you dare, learning
all that you learn, suffering all that you suffer (pressing closest then)
loving, enjoying all that you love & enjoy--you will want me. You will not
be able to help stretching out your hand & drawing me to you. I have
written this mostly out in the fields, as I am so fond of doing--the
serene, beautiful harvest landscape spread around--returned once more as I
have every summer for five & twenty years to this old village where my
mother's family have lived in unbroken succession three hundred years,
ever since, in fact, the old Priory which they have inhabited, ceased to
be a Priory. My Mother's health is still good--wonderful indeed for 88,
though she has been 30 years crippled with rheumatism. Still she enjoys
getting out in the sunshine in her Bath chair, & is able to take pleasure
in seeing her friends & in having us all with her. Her father was a hale
man at 90. These eastern counties are flat & tame, but yet under this
soft, smiling, summer sky lovely enough too--with their rich green meadows
& abundant golden corn crops, now being well got in. Even the sluggish
little river Colne one cannot find fault with, it nourishes such a
luxuriant border of wild flowers as it creeps along--& turns & twists from
sunshine into shade & from shade into sunshine so as to make the very best
& most of itself. But as to the human growth here, I think that more than
anywhere else in England perhaps it struggled along choked & poisoned by
dead things of the past, still holding their place above ground. Carlyle
calls the clergy "black dragoons"--in these rural parishes they are black
Squires, making it their chief business to instruct the labourer that his
grinding poverty & excessive toil, & the Squire's affluence & ease are
equally part of the sacred order of Providence. When I have been here a
little I wish myself in London again, dearly as I love outdoor life &
companionship with nature. For though the same terrible & cruel facts are
there as here, they are not choked down your throat by any one, as a
beautiful & perfect ideal. Even in England light is unmistakably breaking
through the darkness for the toilers.
I did not see William Rossetti before I came down, but heard he had had a
very happy time in Italy & splendid weather all the while. Mr. Conway &
his wife are going to spend their holiday in Brittany. Do not think me
childish dear friend if I send a copy of this letter to Washington as well
as to Camden. I want it so to get to you--long & so long to speak with
you--& the Camden one may never come to hand--or the Washington one might
remain months unforwarded--it is easy to tear up.