May this find you safe there, well & hearty, able to go freely to & fro on
the ferries & streets. I wish one of those old red Market Ferry cars were
going to land you at our door once more! What you would have to tell us of
western scenes & life! What teas & what evenings we would have--you would
certainly have to say "there is a point beyond which"--& would have pretty
late trips back of moonlight. Strange episode in my life! so unlike what
went before & what comes after--those evenings in Philadelphia--yet so
natural, familiar, dear! If I were American-born, I certainly should not
want to change it for any country in the world, and if as you have
dreamed--as I too have dreamed--it is given us hereafter to have another
spell of life on this old earth, may my lot be cast there when the great
time dimly preparing is actually come. But meanwhile, dear Friend, my work
lies here: innumerable are the ties that bind us. And I can only hope &
dream that you will come & stay with us awhile when we have a home of our
own. That dear little grandson stayed with me two months till I really
didn't know how to part with him, & grew more & more engaging & pretty in
his ways every day--rapid indeed is the opening of the little bud at that
age--between 1 & 3--& the way he had of looking up & giving you little
kisses of his own accord would win anybody's heart. Bee's letters continue
as cheery as ever--she is heartily enjoying work & life, and accomplishing
the purpose she has set her heart upon, & the people she is with are so
good and kindly, it is quite a home. She is working a good deal with the
microscope. Her outdoor recreation is skating. Herby is getting on very
nicely. He has had a commission to make some designs for a new kind of
painted tapestry--and his figures "Audrey & Touchstone" are very much
admired & have been bought by a rich American, & he has a commission for
more. But the summer work he has set his heart upon is a portrait of you
from all the material he brought with him--the many attempts he made
there--handled with his present improved skill with the brush. I hope you
will be able by & bye to send him the photograph he asked for--but no
hurry. Edward Carpenter came up from Sheffield and spent an evening with
us--which we all heartily enjoyed--he is a dear fellow. We talked much of
you. He has been giving lectures this winter on the Lives of the Great
Discoverers in Science. Carpenter knows intimately, goes freely among, a
greater range & variety of men than any Englishman I know--he has a way of
making himself thoroughly welcome by the firesides of mechanics & factory
workers--his own kith & kin are aristocratic.
Giddy is taking singing lessons again, & hoping by the time you next see
her to be able to contribute her share of the evening's pleasure. Percy is
still working away indomitably at the "process," which is gaining ground
rapidly on the continent, & I hope I may say slowly & surely in England. I
see the Gilders now & then--indeed they are coming up to lunch with us
to-morrow--Mr. Gilder[34] is the better for rest--& they seem to enjoy
England; but England has done her very worst in the way of climate ever
since they have been here. O I do long for a little American sunshine. We
met Henry James at the Conways last Sunday & found him one of the
pleasantest of talkers. Rossetti & all your friends are well. Please give
my love to your brothers & sister. Were Jessie & Hattie at home in St.
Louis, I wonder, when you were there? Love from us all.
Good-bye, Dearest Friend.
A. GILCHRIST.
Please give my love to John Burroughs when you write or see him.
LETTER LV
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Marley, Haslemere
England
Aug. 22, '80._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
I have had all the welcome papers with accounts of your doings, and to-day
a nice long letter from Mrs. Whitman, which I much enjoyed, giving me
better account of your health again, & of your great enjoyment of the
water travel through Canada. So I hope, spite of drawbacks, you will
return to Camden for the winter quite set up in body, as well as full of
delightful memories. If only we were at 22nd St. to welcome you back &
talk it all over at tea! Ah, those evenings! My friends told me I looked
ten years younger when I came back from America than when I went. And I am
not yet quite re-acclimatized; & what with missing the sunshine & working
a little too hard, was feeling quite knocked up: so Bee insisted on my
coming down, or rather up, here to stay with some very kind & dear
friends. The house stands all alone on a great heath-covered hill, and
below & around are endless coppices, so that you step from the lawn into
[a] winding wood-path, along which I wander by the hour: and from my
window I look over much such a view as we had at Round Hill Hotel,
Northampton, this time two years, only that with the soft haze that is so
often spread over our landscape, the distant hill looks more ghostly in
the moonlight. My friend is a noble, large-hearted, capable woman, who
devotes all her life and energies to keeping alive an invalid husband; and
he well deserves her care, for he has a beautiful nature, too, & their
mutual affection is unbounded. He is just ordered by the doctors to leave
the home they have made for themselves up here--which is as lovely as it
can be--& to spend two years at least in Italy. So it is a sorrowful time
with them--they have no children, but have adopted a little niece. Our new
house is just ready & we are daily expecting our furniture from America.
Herby has been working as usual, making good progress & has just done a
beautiful little drawing for the new edition of his father's book. Bee,
you will be glad to hear, has decided to continue her medical studies & is
going to be assistant to a lady doctor at Edinburgh, who is to pay her
sufficient salary to cover all remaining expenses. Meanwhile we have got
her at home for a few weeks to help us through with the move in, and a sad
pinch it will be to part with her again. Giddy has been paying a
delightful visit to some friends of Carpenter's near Leeds--a Quaker
family--the daughter very lovable & admirable. We do not forget the
Staffords[35] nor they us. Mont. often sends Herby a magazine or a token.
Love to them when you see them, & to Mr. & Mrs. Whitman & Hattie & Jessie
& kindest remembrance to Dr. Bucke. Send me a line soon, dear Friend--I
think of you continually & know that somewhere & somehow we are to meet
again, & that there is a tie of love between us that time & change & death
itself cannot touch.
With love,
A. GILCHRIST.
LETTER LVI
HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner, England
12 Well Road, Hampstead, London
November 30th, 1880._
MY DEAR WALT:
Your postcard came to hand some little time ago. I was pleased to get it,
to hear of your being well, & with your friends. I have been extremely
busy seeing after the new edition of my father's book;[36] the work of
seeing such a richly illustrated "edition de luxe" through the press was
enormous, but it is done! The binders are now doing their work, & next
Tuesday the reviewers will be doing theirs--I defy them to find any fault
with the book. I dare say you think it "tall" talk, but I think that it is
the most perfectly gotten up book that I ever have seen. My mother has
written an admirable memoir of my father at the end of the second vol.
POND MUSINGS
(Pen sketch of a butterfly)
by
WALT WHITMAN
I thought that this was to be the title of your prose volume. I will
undertake the illustrations, choosing the paper (hand made), everything
except the expense of reproducing, etc. I should say London is the place
to have things executed in: if you wish to give photos they must be drawn
by an artist and reproduced; no photo ever looked well in a book yet! they
haven't decorative importance and don't blend with type. I should suggest
that we should imitate the artistic size & style of your earliest edition
of "Leaves of G.," a large, thin, flat volume, a fanciful, but as
inexpensive as possible, cover written in gold on blue, a waterlily say:
but I could think this over. I will design fanciful tailpieces to be woven
in with the text; as a frontispiece the drawing that I gave you, retouched
by me, and reproduced by the Typographic Etching Company, 23 Farringdon
street, London, E. C. All these are only suggestions, which I am prepared
to execute in right earnest thought. I read your letter to mother with
interest. We like our new house so much, & I am sure that you would. You
must come and stay with us & stroll on Hampstead Heath, & ride down into
London upon an omnibus & sit to some good sculptor here in London (Boem
say). And you yourself could make arrangements with the publishers. With
remembrance to friends,
HERBERT H. GILCHRIST.
LETTER LVII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Well Rd., Hampstead
Apr. 18, '81._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
I have just been sauntering in our little but sunny garden which slopes to
the South--surveying with much satisfaction some fruit trees--plum, green
gage, pear, cherry, apple--which we have just had planted to train up
against the house and fence--in which fashion fruit ripens much better
with our English modicum of sunshine, besides taking no room & casting no
shade over your little bit of ground--Then we have filled our large window
with flowers in pots which make the room smell as delicious as a garden.
Giddy is assiduous in keeping them well watered & tended.--Welcome was
your postcard--with the little rain-bird's coy note in it. But I had not
before heard of your illness, dear friend--the letter before, you spoke of
being unusually well, as I trust you are again now, & enjoying the spring.
I am well again so far as digestion &c. goes; but bronchitis asthma of a
chronic kind still trouble me. My breath is so short I cannot walk, which
is a privation. I am going, at the beginning of June, to stay with Bee in
Edinburgh, as she will not have any holiday or be able to come & see us
this year, & much am I longing to be with her. Have you begun to have any
summer thoughts, dear Walt? And do they turn towards England, & our nest
therein? Yes, I have received & have enjoyed all the papers &
cuttings--dearly like what you said of Carlyle. Everyone here is speaking
bitterly of the harsh judgments & sarcastic descriptions of people in the
"reminiscenses." But I know that at bottom his heart was genial and good &
that he wrote those in a miserable mood--& never looked at them again
afterwards. I hope you received the little memoir of my husband all right.
Herby is very busy with a drawing of you--hopes that with the many
sketches he made, & the vivid impress on his memory & the help of
photographs, it will be good. I wish he had possessed as much power with
the brush when he was in America as he has now--he is making very great
progress in mastery of the technique. I observe, too, that he reads &
dwells upon your poems--especially the "Walt Whitman"--with growing
frequency & delight. We often say, "Won't Walt like sitting in that sunny
window?" or "by that cheery open fire" or "sauntering on the heath"--&
picture you here in a thousand different ways. I believe Maggie Lesley is
coming from Paris, where she is studying art in good earnest, at the
beginning of May, & then will come and spend a few days with us. Welcome
are American friends! The Buxton Forman's took tea with us last week & we
had pleasant talk of you & of Dr. Bucke. Mrs. Forman is a sincere,
sympathetic, motherly woman whom you would like. The Rossetti's too have
been to see us--we didn't think William in the best health or spirits--&
his wife was not looking well either, but then another baby is just
coming.
This Easter time the poorest of London working folk flock in enormous
numbers to Hampstead Heath; it is a sight that would interest you--they
are rougher & noisier & poorer than such folks in America--& the men more
prone to get the worse for drink--but there is a good deal of fun &
merriment too--the girls & boys racing about on donkeys (who have a pretty
hard time of it)--plenty of merry-go-rounds--& enjoyment of the pure air
& sunshine, & such sights, more than they know. The light is failing,
dearest friend; so with love from us all, good-bye.
ANNE GILCHRIST.
Friendliest greeting to your brother & sister & to Hattie & Jessie when
you write & to the Staffords.
LETTER LVIII
HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner, Well Road
North London
Hampstead, England
June 5th, 1881, Sunday afternoon_
5 P. M.
MY DEAR WALT:
You don't write me a letter nor take any notice of my magnificent offers
concerning "Pond Musings", etc. however, I will forgive you this
oft-repeated offence. I often think of you, very often of America and
things generally there, and nearly always with pleasure.
My mother is away staying with Beatrice in Edinburgh city, recruiting her
health, which has most sadly needed it of late. So I and Grace & a new
Scotch lassie, one Margaret, who officiates as servant most efficaciously
too, I can tell you (such scrubbing & cleaning as you never saw the like)
we three, I say, are alone at Keats Corner; cool sitting here in our long
drawing-room (hung with innumerable pictures as of yore), although it has
been scorchingly hot this past month. The morning I spend sketching on
Hampstead Heath, which is lovely just now, all the May-trees are in full
bloom the gorse & broom are a blaze of yellow, the rooks fly constantly by
a quarter of a mile (seemingly) overhead, the sly fellows giving some side
like dart when you look up at them even at that height. I am painting one
of them; so I have to look up pretty often. In the early morning the
nightingale sings, oh, so sweetly, long trills & roulades in the most
accomplished manner.
Last Wednesday Miss Ellen Terry, whose name you are doubtless familiar
with as being the leading actress in London, well, she called upon me to
ask my advice or opinion of a drawing connected with my father's book.
Ellen Terry expressed herself highly interested in our house, pictures,
decorations and so forth. Her manner was a little stagey, but graceful to
the extreme, and you could see peeping out of this theatric manner a kind,
good heart, oh, so kind, I feel as if I would do anything for her, her
manners were so winning. "Will you come to the stage entrance of the
Lyceum some day soon and you shall have stalls for two; now will you come?
Do." Were her last words to Grace. I called on her at Kensington last
week, returning the drawing, and I was so charmed with two beautiful
children of hers, a tall, fair girl, a pretty mixture of shyness and
self-possession that quite won me. She too I should fancy will be a great
actress some day, she has such a bright face. The boy, Master Ted, was
nice too.
Well, I gave Ellen Terry a proof of a drawing that I have just completed
for Dr. Bucke's book--a job I got through Buxton Forman, a great friend of
Bucke's, done _con amore_ on my part. This drawing has been beautifully
reproduced by the new photo intaglio-process. I hope Dr. Bucke will like
it, but I should not expect great things from him in that line, judging
from the twopenny hapenny little pen & ink sketch by Waters which he sent
over in the first instance; however, Forman rescued him from that & so far
he has been guided by his friend. Whether he will when he sees my drawing,
we neither of us know; but both feel to have done our best in the matter.
I said that Ellen Terry must ask for you when she goes to America, which
she contemplates some day. I have sold the last drawing I made in New
York of you for L10. 10s to Buxton Forman ($50. odd). Church bells have
just commenced chiming in the distance, a sound I like better than the
parsons. I hear that the young American artists are doing capitally
filling their pockets. My cousin Sidney Thomas is, or was, in America, a
good deal lionized, I understand. If at any time you favour me with a
letter let it be a letter and not a postcard please. I have been reading
Carlyle's reminiscences--good stuff in them, brilliant touches, but
dreadfully morbid, don't you think? & one shuts the book up with a feeling
that in some respect one Carlyle is enough in the world: & yet in some
respects a million wouldn't be too many. I often think of your remark to
us one day that tolerance is the rarest quality in the world.
Interested in those Boston scraps you send my mother. You have always been
pretty well received in Boston, have you not--I mean in the Emerson days?
Pity that when Emerson is no more there will be no fine portrait of him in
existence; there was a nobility stamped upon his face that I never saw the
like of, and which should have been caught and stamped forever on canvas.
We all see something of the Formans & all like them; they have so much
character, rather unusual in literary folk of the lighter sort, I fancy;
but there is something very fresh and original about Forman. Nice children
they have, too. Miss Blind is bringing out a volume of poems; why will
people all imagine they can write poetry? William Rossetti is writing a
hundred sonnets--writes one a day; one about John Brown is not bad: and
many are instructive, but are in no sense poems. I am going down to tea &
must not keep Grace waiting any longer. Love to you.
HERBERT H. GILCHRIST.
LETTER LIX
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_12 Well Road, Hampstead
London, Dec. 14, '81._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Your welcome letter to hand. I have longed for a word from you--could not
write myself[37]--was stricken dumb--nay, there is nothing but silence for
me still. Herby wrote to Mrs. Stafford first, thinking that so the shock
would come less abruptly to you.
I heard of you at Concord in a kind long letter from Frederick Holland,
with whose wife you had some conversation. Indeed all that sympathy and
warm & true words of love & sorrow & highest admiration & esteem for my
darling could do to comfort me I have had--and most & best from America.
And many of her poor patients at Edinburgh went sobbing from the door when
they heard they should see her no more.
The report of your health is comforting dear friend. Mine too is better--I
am able to take walks again--though still liable to sudden attacks of
difficult breathing.
Herby is working hard--has just been disappointed over a competition
design which he sent in to the Royal Academy--a very poor & specious work
obtaining the premium--but is no whit discouraged & has no need to be, for
he is making great progress--works hard, loves his work & is of the stuff
where of great painters are made, I am persuaded--so he can afford to
wait. Giddy is not quite so well & strong as I could wish, but there
seems nothing serious. She is working diligently at the development of her
voice--& is learning German. Dr. Bucke's friend, Mr. Buxton Forman, & his
wife are very warm, staunch friends of Herby's.
Please give my love to your sister, and tell her that her good letter
spoke the right words to me & that I shall write before very long. Thanks
for the paper, dear friend--& for those that came when I was too
overwhelmed but which I have since read with deep interest--those about
your visit to your birthplace. With love from us all--good-bye, dearest
Friend.
A. GILCHRIST.
LETTER LX
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_12 Well Road
Jan 29, '82._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Your letter to Herby was a real talk with you. I don't know why I punish
myself by writing to you so seldom now, for indeed to be near you, even in
that way would do me good--often & often do I wish we were back in America
near you. As I write this I am sitting to Herby for my portrait again--he
has never satisfied himself yet: but this one seems coming on nicely--and
so is the Consuelo picture. Another one he has in his mind is to be called
"The tea-party," and it is to be the old group round our table in
Philadelphia--you & me and dear Bee & Giddy & himself. He thinks that what
with memory & photograph & the studies he made when with you, he will be
able to put you & my darling on the canvas.
Giddy's voice is developing into a really fine contralto & she has the
work in her to become an artist, I think & will turn out one of the
tortoises who outstrip the hares. Percy and Norah are spending the winter
in London (at Kensington)--and we can get round by train in half an hour;
so I often see them and the dear little man. Do you remember the Miss
Chases--two pleasant maiden ladies who took tea with us once in
Philadelphia & talked about Sojourner Truth? One of the sisters is in
London this winter & has been several times to see us. The birds are
beginning to sing very sweetly here--& our room is full of the perfume of
spring flowers--indoor ones. Did dear Bee tell you, in the long letter she
once wrote you, how much she loved the Swiss ladies with whom she made her
home while in Berne? A more tender & beautiful love and sorrow than that
with which they cherish the memory of her never grew in any heart. I think
you will like to see some of their letters--please return them, for they
are very precious to me (the little matters they thank me for are some of
dear Bee's things which I sent them for tokens). Love to your sister &
brother. How are Mr. Marvin & Mr. Burroughs? Best love from us all.
Good-bye, dear Friend.
ANNE GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXI
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_12 Well Road
Hampstead
May 8th, '82._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Herby went to David Bognes[38] about a week ago: he himself was out, but
H. saw the head man, who reported that the sale of "Leaves of Grass" was
progressing satisfactorily. I hope you have received, or will receive,
tangible proof of the same. Bognes is a young publisher, but, I believe
from what I hear, a man to be relied on. His father was the publisher of
my husband's first literary venture & behaved honourably. Herby brought
away for me a copy of the new edition. I like the type like that of '73, &
the pale green leaf it is folded in so to speak. I find a few new friends
to love--perhaps I have not yet found them all out. But you must not
expect me to take kindly to any changes in the titles or arrangement of
the old beloved friends. I love them too dearly--every word & _look_ of
them--for that. For instance, I want "Walt Whitman" instead of "Myself" at
the top of the page. Also my own longing is always for a chronological
arrangement, if change at all there is to be; for that at once makes
biography of the best kind. What deaths, dear Friend! As for me, my heart
is already gone over to the other side of the river, so that sometimes I
feel a kind of rejoicing in the swelling of the ranks of the great company
there. Darwin, with his splendid day's work here gently closed; Rossetti,
whose brilliant genius had got entangled in a premature physical decay, so
that _his_ day's work was over too! In a letter to me, William, who was
the best, most faithful & loving of brothers to him, says, "I doubt
whether he would ever have regained that energy of body & concentration of
mental resource which could have enabled him to resume work at his full &
wonted power. Without these faculties at ready command my dear Gabriel
would not have been himself." Edward Carpenter's father, too, is gone, but
he at a ripe age without disease--sank gently.
The photographs I enclose are but poor suggestions--please give one to
Mrs. Whitman with my love, or if you prefer to keep both, I will send her
others. Does the idea ever come into your head, dear Friend, of spending a
little time this summer or autumn in your English home at Hampstead?
Herby is well and working happily. So is Grace. Little grandson & his
parents away in Worcestershire.
It is indescribably lovely spring weather here just now. A carpenter near
us has a sky-lark in a cage which sings as jubilantly as if it were
mounting into the sky, & is so tame that when he takes it out of the cage
to wash its little claws, which are apt to get choked up with earth, in
warm water, it breaks out singing in his hand! Love from us all, dearest
Friend. Good-bye.
ANNE GILCHRIST.
Affectionate greetings to your brother & sister & Hattie & Jessie.
Do you ever see Mr. Marvin? If so, give our love, we hope to see him one
day.
LETTER LXII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Well Rd., Hampstead, London
Nov. 24, '82._
DEAREST FRIEND: