safe arrival of the precious copy of "Specimen Days," with the portraits:
it makes me very proud. Your father had a fine face too--there is
something in it that takes hold of me & that seems to be a kind of natural
background or substratum to the radiant sweetness of that other sacred &
beloved face completing your parentage. I like heartily too the new
portraits of you: they are all wanted as different aspects: but the two
that remain my favourites are the portrait taken about 30 without coat of
any kind, and the one you sent me in '69 next to those I love these two
latest--& in some respects better, because they are the Walt I saw & had
such happy hours with. The second copy of book & my lending one, has come
safe--too--and the card that told of your attack of illness, & the welcome
news of your recovery in the Paper; & I have been fretting with impatience
at my own dumbness--but tied to as many hours a day writing as I could
possibly manage, at my little book now (last night)--finished, all but
proofs, so that I can take my pleasure in "Specimen Days" at last; but
before doing that must have a few words with you, dearest Friend. First a
gossip. Do you remember Maggie Lesley? She came to see us on her way to
Paris, where she is working all alone & very earnestly to get through
training as an artist--then going to start in a studio of her own in
Philadelphia. She, like my mother's sister, are to me fine, lovable
samples of American women--in whom, I mean, I detect, like the distinctive
aroma of a flower, something special--that is American--a decisive new
quality to old-world perceptions. Herby is working away still chiefly at
the Consuelo picture--has got a very beautiful model to-day sitting to
him. His summer work was down in Warwickshire, making sketches--& very
charming ones they are, of George Eliot's native scenes--one of a
garden-nook--up steep, old, worn stone steps bordered with flowers that is
enticing--it will make a lovely background for a figure picture.--Giddy's
voice is growing in richness & strength--& she works with all her heart,
hoping one day to be a real artist vocally--in church & oratorio music.
She will not have power or dramatic ability for opera--nor can I wish that
she had; there are so many thorns with the roses in that path. I fear you
will be a loser by Bogne's bankruptcy. Did I tell you that among our
friends one of your warmest admirers is Henry Holmes, the great violinist
(equal [to] Joachim some think--we among them). Per. & wife & little
grandson all well. My love to brother & sister & to Hattie [&] Jessie.
Good-bye, dear Walt. I hope to write more & better soon.
ANNE GILCHRIST.
Greetings to the Staffords.
LETTER LXIII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_12 Well Rd.
Hampstead
Jan. 27, '83._
It is not for want of thinking of you, dear Walt, that I write but seldom:
for indeed my thoughts are chiefly occupied with you & your other
self--your Poems--& with struggles to say a few words that I think want
saying about them; that might help some to their birthright who now stand
off, either ignorant or misapprehending.
We all go on much as usual.
_Feb. 13._ I wonder if you will like a true story of Lady Dilke that I
heard the other day--I do: It was before her marriage. She was a handsome
young heiress, a daring horsewoman, fond of hunting. There was a man,
weakly & of good position, who had behaved very basely & cruelly to a
young girl in her neighbourhood, & when (as is the case in England) half
the county was assembled on the hunting field, Lady D. faced him & said in
a voice that could be heard afar, "Sir you are a black-guard, & if these
gentlemen had the right spirit in them they would horsewhip you." He
looked at her with effrontery & made a mocking bow. "But," she continued,
"since they won't, I will"--and she cut him across the face with her
riding whip; upon which he turned and rode off the field, like a dog with
his tail between his legs, & reappeared in that neighbourhood no more. She
was a woman much beloved--died at the birth of her first child (from too
much chloroform having been given her). Her husband was heart-broken. I
see you, too, are having floods. With us it pours five days out of seven,
& so in Germany & France. We have made the acquaintance of Arabella
Buckley, who has just written an interesting article about Darwin, whom
she knew well, for the _Century_. She says his was the most entirely
beautiful & perfect nature she ever came in contact with. How I wish we
could have a glimpse of each other, dear Friend--half an hour talk--nay, a
good long look & a hand-shake. Herby is overhead painting in his
studio--such a pleasant room. How is John Burroughs? We owe him a letter &
thanks for a good art. on Carlyle. Love to you, dearest friend.
Hearty remembrances to your brother & sister & Hattie & Jessie.
A. G.
LETTER LXIV
HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Well Road, Hampstead, London, England
April 29th, '83._
MY DEAR WALT:
Your card to hand last night, with its sad account of dear Mrs. Stafford's
health; but what the doctor says is cheering. I wonder, though, what the
doctor would call good weather--mild spring, I suppose.
Very glad, my dear old Walt, to see your strong familiar handwriting
again; it does one good, it's so individual that it is next to seeing you.
Right glad to hear of your good health--had an idea that you were not so
well again this winter. John Burroughs was very violent against my
intaglio; on the other hand, Alma Tadema--our great painter here--liked it
very much. I take violent criticism pretty philosophically, now that I see
how unreliable it nearly always is. John Burroughs has got a fixed idea
about your personality, and that is that the top of your head is a foot
high and any portrait that doesn't develop the "dome" is no
portrait.--Curious what eyes a man may have for everything except a
picture. I finished lately a life-size portrait of James Simmons, J.P., a
hunting (fox) squire of the old school--such a fine old fellow. My
portrait represents him standing firmly, in a scarlet hunting-coat well
stained with many a wet chase, his great whip tucked under his arm whilst
buttoning on his left glove, white buckskin trousers in shade relieving
the scarlet coat, black velvet hunting cap, dark rich blue background to
qualify and cool the scarlet. I wish you could see it. Then I have painted
a subject "The Good Gray Poet's Gift." I have long meant to build up
something of you from my studies, adding colour. You play a prominent part
in this picture--seated at table bending over a nosegay of flowers,
poetizing, before presenting them to mother. I am standing up bending over
the tea-pot, with the kettle, filling it up; opposite you sits Giddy; out
of the window a pretty view of Cannon place, Hampstead. Mater thinks it a
pretty picture and a good likeness of you, just as you used to sit at tea
with us at 1729 N. 22nd St. Now I am going out for a stroll on Hampstead
Heath. Have just come in from a long ramble over the Heaths--a lovely soft
spring day, innumerable birds in full song. I think J. B. is right when he
says that your birds are more plaintive than ours--it's nature's way of
compensating us for a loss of sunshine: what would England be without the
merry lark, the very embodiment of cheeriness. Are not the Carlyle &
Emerson letters interesting? It seems to me to be one of the most
beautiful and pathetic things in literature, C's fondness for E. But all
Englishmen, I must tell you, are not grumblers like Carlyle; he stands
quite alone in that quality--look at Darwin!
I should be grateful for another postcard. With all love,
HERB. GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXV
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Hampstead
May 6, '83._
DEAREST FRIEND:
I feel as if this beautiful spring morning here in England must send you
greetings through me. Our sunny little mound of garden, which runs down
toward the south, is fragrant with hyacinths and wall-flowers (beautiful,
tawny, reddish, yellow fellows laden with rich perfume)--and at the bottom
is a big old cherry tree--one mass of snowy blossom; in a neighbour's gay
garden & beyond is a distant glimpse of some tall elms just putting on
their first tender green: our little breakfast room where I always sit of
a morning opens with glass doors into this garden. Herby is gone with the
"Sunday Tramps," of whom he is a member, for a ten or fifteen-mile walk.
Said tramps are some half dozen friends & neighbours, some of them very
learned professors but genial good fellows withal, who agree to spend
every other Sunday morning in taking one of their long walks together--& a
very good time they have. Giddy is gone to hear a lecture; our bonnie
Scotch girl is roasting the beef for dinner, singing the while in the
kitchen; and pussy & I are sitting very companionable & meditative in the
little room before described.
You cannot think, dear friend, what a pleasure it was to have a whole big
letter from you (not that I despise Postcards--they are good stop-gaps,
but not the real thing). Yes, I have & prize the article on the Hebrew
Scriptures. How I wish you could make up your mind to spend your summer
holiday with us.
I am still struggling along, striving to say something which, if I can say
it to my mind, will be useful--will clear away a little of the rubbish
that hides you from men's eyes. I hear the "Eminent Women Series" is
having quite a large sale in America. Good-bye. Love to Mrs. Whitman.
Greetings to your brother. Love from us all to you.
A. GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXVI
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Hampstead, Jul. 30, 1883._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Lazy me, that have been thinking letters to you instead of writing them!
We have Dr. Bucke's book at last; could not succeed in buying one at
Tuerbner's--I believe they all sold directly--but he has sent us one. There
are some things in it I prize very highly--namely, Helen Price's
"Memoranda" and Thomas A. Gere's. These I like far better than any
personal reminiscences of you I have ever read & I feel much drawn to the
writers of them. Also your letter to Mrs. Price from the Hospitals, dear
Friend. That makes one hand-in-hand with you--then & there--& gives one a
glimpse of a very beautiful friendship. But why & why did Dr. Bucke set
himself to counteract that beneficient law of nature's by which the dust
tends to lay itself? And carefully gathering together again all the
rubbish stupid or malevolent that has been written of you, toss it up in
the air again to choke and blind or disgust as many as it may? What a
curious piece of perversity to mistake this for candour & a judicial
spirit.[39] Then again, how do I hate all that unmeaning, irrelevant
clatter about what Rabelais or Shakespeare or the ancients & their times
tolerated in the way of coarseness or plainness of speech. As if you
wanted apologizing for or could be apologized for on that ground! If these
poems are to be _tolerated_, I, for one, could not tolerate them. If they
are not the highest lesson that has yet been taught in refinement &
purity, if they do not banish all possibility of coarseness of thought &
feeling, there would be nothing to be said for them. But they do: I am as
sure of that as of my own existence. When will men begin to understand
them?
We have had pleasant glimpses of several American friends this summer--of
Kate Hillard for instance, who, by the bye narrowly escaped a bad accident
just at our door--the harness broke & the cab came down on the horse &
frightened him so that he bolted--struck the cab against a lamp-post
(happily, else it would have been worse)--overturned them & it--but when
they crawled out no worse harm was done than a few cuts from the glass--&
Kate & her friend behaved very pluckily, & we had a pleasant evening
together after all. Then there was Arthur Peterson, looking much as in the
old Philadelphia days: and Emma & Annie Lazarus--who, owing to some
letters of introduction from James the novelist, have had a very gay time
indeed--been quite lionized--and last, not least, Mr. Dalton Dorr, the
curator of the Pennsylvania Museum in Fairmount Park--whom we all liked
much. He is enjoying his visit here with all his heart--is a great
enthusiast for our old Gothic Cathedrals, and for everything
beautiful--but says there is nothing such a source of unceasing wonder &
delight as riding about London & over the bridges &c on the top of an
omnibus watching the endless flow of people--it is indeed a kind of human
Mississippi or Niagara.
The young folks are busy packing up to start for the seaside. Herby wants
a background for a picture in which green turf & trees and all the
richness of vegetation come down to the very edge of the sea and I seem to
remember such a place near Lynn Regis, where I was thirty years ago, when
my eldest child was born, so they are going to look it up. We hear the
heat is very tremendous in America this year. I hope you are as well as
ever able to stand it & enjoy it? I wonder where you are. Friendly
greetings to Mr. & Mrs. Whitman & Hattie & Jessie & the Staffords. Love to
you, dear Friend, from us all.
ANNE GILCHRIST.
My little book on Mary Lamb just out--will send you a copy in a day or
two.
LETTER LXVII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Hampstead
Oct. 13, '83._
DEAREST FRIEND:
Long & long does it seem since I have had any word or sign from you. I
hope all goes well & that you have had a pleasant, refreshing summer trip
somewhere. All goes on much as usual with us.
_Hythe. Kent. Oct. 21._ Not having felt very well the last month or two,
and Giddy also seeming to need a little bracing up, we came down to this
ancient town by the sea--one of the Cinque Ports--on Wednesday, and much
we like it--a fine open sea--a delicious "briny odour"--and inland much
that is curious and interesting--for this part of the Kentish Coast--so
near to France--has innumerable old castles, forts, moats, traces
everywhere of centuries of warfare and of means of defence against our
great neighbour. It is a fine hilly, woody country, too, and very
picturesque these gray massive ruins, many of them used now as farm
houses, look. The men of Kent are very proud of their country and are
reckoned a fine race--tall, muscular, ruddy-complexioned, and often too
with thick, tawny-red beards--curious how in our little island the
differences of race-stock are still so discernible--keep along this same
coast to the west only about a couple of hundred miles & you come to such
a different type--dark--blackest and Cornish men.--I get a nice letter
now & then from John Burroughs. I also saw this summer two women doctors
who were very kind & good friends to my darling Bee--Drs. Pope--twin
sisters from Boston, whom it did me good to see. They work hard--have a
good practice--& say they don't know what a day's illness means so far as
they themselves are concerned. They tell me also that the women doctors
are doing capital work in America--and that one of them, who was with dear
Beatrice at the Penn. Med. Col., Dr. Alice Bennett, is the efficient head
of the woman's department of a large lunatic asylum. We are getting on in
England too--but the field where English women doctors find the most work
& the best position is India, where as the women are not allowed by their
male relatives to be attended by men, the mortality was immense.--Herby
has taken a better studio than our house afforded--both as to light &
size--& finds the advantage great. I expect he is having a delightful walk
this brilliant morning with the "Hampstead Tramps"--of whom I think I have
told you. They often walk fifteen miles or so on Sunday morning.
Such a glorious afternoon it has been by the sea--sapphire colour--the air
brisk & elastic, yet soft. To-morrow Gran goes home & I shall be all alone
here.--I hear of "Specimen Days" in a letter from Australia--there will be
a large audience for you there some day, dear Friend. I like what John
Burroughs has been writing about Carlyle much. We have had nothing but
stupidities of late about him here--but there will come a great reaction
from all this abuse, I have no doubt--he did put so much gall in his ink
sometimes, human nature can't be expected to take it altogether meekly. I
hope you received my little book safely. I should be a hypocrite if I
pretended not to care whether you found patience to read it--for I grew to
love Mary & Charles Lamb so much during my task that I want you to love
them too--& to see what a beautiful friendship was theirs with Coleridge.
How are Mr. & Mrs. Whitman and Hattie & Jessie? Send me a few words soon.
Good-bye, dearest Friend.
ANN GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXVIII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Hampstead
April 5, '84._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Those few words of yours to Herby "tasted good" to us--few, but enough,
seeing that we can fill out between the lines with what you have given us
of yourself forever & always in your books--& that is how I comfort myself
for having so few letters. But I turn many wistful thoughts toward
America, and were not I & mine bound here by unseverable ties, did we not
seem to grow & belong here as by a kind of natural destiny that has to be
fulfilled very cheerfully, could I make America my home for the sake of
being near you in body as I am in heart & soul--but Time has good things
in store for us sooner or later, I doubt not. I could hardly express to
you how welcome is the thought of death to me--not in the sense of any
discontent with life--but as life with fresh energies & wider horizon &
hand in hand again with those that are gone on first.
Herby found the little bit of gray cloth very useful--but one day _save
him an old suit_. Your figure in the picture is, I think, a fair
suggestion of one aspect of you; but not, could not of course be, an
adequate portrait. He will never rest till he has done his best to achieve
that. As soon as he can afford it (for it is a very slow business indeed
for a young artist to make money in England, though when he does begin he
is better paid than in America) he means to run over to see you. He says
he should like always to spend his winters in New York. I say how very
highly I prize that last slip you sent me, "A backward glance on my own
road"? It both corroborates & explains much that I feel very deeply.--If
you are seeing Mrs. Whitman, please say her letter was a pleasure & that I
shall write again before very long. I feel as if this letter would never
find you--be sure & let us know your whereabouts.
Remembrance & love.
Good-bye, dear Walt.
ANNE GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXIX
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Hampstead
May 2, '84._
MY DEAREST FRIEND:
Your card (your very voice & touch, drawing me across the Atlantic close
beside you) was put into my hand just as I was busy copying out "With
husky, haughty lips O sea" to pin into my "Leaves of Grass." I hardly
think there is anything grander there. I think surely they must see that
that is the very Soul of Nature uttering itself sublimely.
Who do you think came to see us on Sunday? Professor Dowden.[40] And I
know not when I have set eyes on a more beautiful personality. I think you
would be as much attracted towards him as I was. It was he who told me
(full of enthusiasm) of the Poems in _Harper's_ which I had not seen or
heard of. We had a very happy two or three hours together, talking of you
& looking through Blake's drawings. He is a tall man, complexion tanned &
healthy, nose finely modelled, dark eyes with plenty of life & meaning in
them, hair grayish--I should think he was between forty & fifty--but says
his father is still a fine hale old man.
Herby disappointed again this year of getting anything into the R.
Academy.
I think I like the idea of the shanty, if you have any one to take good
care of you, to cook nicely, keep all neat & clean &c. I wonder if I have
ever been in Mickle St. I, still busy, still hammering away to see if I
can help those that "balk" at "Leaves of Grass". Perhaps you will smile at
me--at any rate it bears good fruit to me--I seem to be in a manner living
with you the while.
Everything full of beauty just now here, as no doubt it is with you.
Good-bye, dearest friend--don't forget the letter that is to come soon.
Love from us all, love & again love from
ANNE GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXX
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Aug. 5, '84._
DEAREST FRIEND:
The notion [that] one is going to write a nice long letter is fatal to
writing at all. And so I mean to scribble something, somehow, a little
oftener & make up in quantity for quality! For after all the great thing,
the thing one wants, is to _meet_--if not in the flesh--then in the
spirit. A word will do it. I am getting on--my heart is in my work--&
though I have been long about it, it won't be long--but I think & hope it
will be strong. Quite a sprinkling of American friends--some new ones this
spring--among them Mr. & Mrs. Pennell[41] from Philadelphia--whom you
know--we like them well--hope to see them again & again. Also Miss Keyse
(her sister married Emerson's son) from Concord, and the Lesleys--Mary
Lesley has married & gone to the West--St. Paul--has just got a little
son.
How does the "little shanty" answer, I wonder? Herby has been painting
some charming little bits in an old terraced garden here. I do wish you
could hear Giddy sing now; I am sure her voice would "go to the right
spot," as you used to say. Good-bye, dearest friend. Love from all & most
from
ANNE GILCHRIST.
LETTER LXXI
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Wolverhampton
Oct. 26, '84._
DEAR WALT:
I don't suppose the enclosed will give you nearly so much pleasure as it
gives me. But Villiers Stanford is, I think, the best composer England has
produced since the days of Purcell & Blow, and your words will be sent
home to hundreds & thousands who had not before seen them. How lovely the
words read as themes for great music!
I have been staying with old friends who have a house you would enjoy--it
stands all alone on the top of a heath-clad hill, with miles of coppice
(young woods) below it, and spread out beyond is a rich valley with more
wooded hills jutting out into it--and you see the storms a long way off
travelling up from the sea, and you can wander for miles & miles through
the woods or over the breezy hill--or, as you sit at your window, feel
yourself in the very heart of a great, beautiful solitude. Very kind, warm
friends, too, they are, who leave you as free as a bird to do what you
like. I have had all the papers, dear friend, & have enjoyed them.
Now I am in the heart of the "Black Country," as we call it--black with
the smoke of thousands of foundries & works of all kinds--staying with
Percy & his wife. Percy is having a very arduous time here starting some
Steel Works--& what with his men being inexperienced & times bad & the
machinery not yet perfectly adjusted, he seems harassed night & day--for
these things have to be kept going all night too--but I hope he will get
into smoother waters soon. The little son is rosy & bright & healthy--goes
to school now, which, being an only child, he enjoys mightily for the sake
of the companionship of other boys.
Love from us all, dear friend.
A. GILCHRIST.
Grace & Herby well & busy when I left.
LETTER LXXII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
_Keats Corner
Hampstead
Dec. 17, '84._
DEAREST FRIEND:
At last I have extracted a little bit of news about you from friend
Carpenter, who never comes to see us and is [as] reluctant to write
letters as--somebody else that I know. That you have a comfortable,
elderly couple to keep house for you was a good hearing--for "the old
shanty" had risen before my eyes as somewhat lonely, & perhaps the
cooking, &c., not well attended to.--There seems a curious kind of ebb and
flow about the recognition of you in England--just now there are signs of
the flow--of a steadily gathering great wave, one indication of which is
the little pamphlet just published in Edinburgh--one of the "Round Table"
Series--no doubt a copy has been sent you. If not and you would care to
see it, I will send you one. On the whole I like it (barring one or two
stupidities)--at any rate, as compared with what has hitherto been
written. My poor article has so far been rejected by editors--so I have
laid it by for a little, to come with a fresh eye & see if I can make it
in any way more likely to win a hearing--though I often say to myself, "If
they have not ears to hear you, how is it likely one can unstop their
ears?" But on the other hand there is always the chance of leading some
to read the Poems who had not else done so.--Percy & Norah and Archie, now
grown a very sturdy active little fellow, are coming to spend Xmas with
us, which is a great pleasure.