The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman Part 10

Oh, it makes me long, with pa.s.sionate longings, with yearnings I know not how to bear, to come, to be your loving, cheerful companion, the one to take such care, to do all for you--to beguile the time, to give you of my health as you have done to tens of thousands. I do not doubt, either, but that you will get well. I feel sure, sure, it will be given me to see you; and perhaps a very slow, gradual recovery is safest--is the only way in this as in other matters to thoroughness; & a very speedy rally would be specious, treacherous, in the end, leading you to do what you were not yet fit for. I believe if I could only make you conscious of the love, the enfolding love, my heart breathes out toward you it would do you physical good; many-sided love--Mother's love that cherishes, that delights so in personal service, that sees in sickness & suffering such dear appeals to an answering, limitless tenderness--wife's love--ah, you draw that from me too, resistlessly--I have no choice--comrade's love, so happy in sharing all, pain, sorrow, toil, effort, enjoyments, thoughts, hopes, aims, struggles, disappointment, beliefs, aspirations. Child's love, too, that trusts utterly, confides unquestioningly. Not more spontaneously, & wholly without effort or volition on my part, does the sunlight flow into my eyes when I open them in the morning than does the sense of your existence enter like bright light into my awaking soul. And then I send to you thoughts--tender, caressing thoughts--that would fain nestle so close--ah, if you could feel them, take them in, let them lie in your breast, each morning.

My children are all well, dear Friend. Herbert is going to spend his holidays with his brother in Wales--& we shall all go to Colne as usual the end of this month & remain there through August and September; so if you think of it, address any paper you may send [to] Earls Colne, Halstead, because I should get it a day sooner. But it does not signify if you forget & send it here; it will be forwarded all right. Beatrice has just got through one of the Govern. Exams. in elementary mathematics; and I hope Herby has got into the Academy, but do not know for certain yet. He works away zealously and with great delight in his work. William Rossetti and his wife are coming to dine with us Wednesday--they look so well and happy, it does one good to see them. The Conways are going to Ostend, I think, for their holiday, & when they come back [are] going to move into a larger house. I heard an American lady, Miss Whitman, sing at a concert the other day, who delighted me, fascinated me--I longed to kiss her after each song, though some of them were poor enough Verdi stuff--but she contrived to impart genuineness & beauty to them. I hope you will hear her when she returns to America, which will be soon, I believe.

Good-bye, dearest Friend. Beatrice, Herby & Grace join their love with mine. I had the sweet little Bridal Poem all safe, & by the bye I liked that Springfield paper very much.

Your loving ANNIE.

LETTER XXIII

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_Earls Colne Sept. 3, 1874._

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

The change down here has refreshed me more than usual and I find my Mother still wonderful for her years (the 89th), able to get out daily in her Bath chair for two or three hours--to enjoy our being with her, and suffering little or no pain from rheumatism now. I hope you have had as glorious a summer & harvest as we have, and that you are able to be much out of doors and absorb the health-giving influences, dear Friend. Such mornings! So fresh and invigourating. I have been before breakfast mostly in a beautiful garden (the old Priory garden) with my beloved Poems and the dew-laden flowers and liquid light and sweet, fresh air; & the sparkle of the pond & delicious greenness of the meadows beyond & rustling trees, and had a joyful time with you, my Darling--sometimes with thoughts that lay hold on "the solid prizes of the Universe," sometimes so busy building up a home in America, thinking, dreaming, hoping, loving, groping among dim shadows, straining wistful eyes into the dim distance--then to my poems again--ah! not groping then, but hand in hand with you, breathing the air you breathe, with eyes ardently fixed in the same direction your eyes look, heart beating strong with the same hopes, aspirations, yours beats with. It does not need to be American to love America and to believe in the great future of humanity there; it is curious to be human, still more English to do that. I love & believe in & understand her in & through you: but was always drawn towards her, always a believer, though in a vaguer way, that a new glorious day for men & women was dawning there, and recognized a new, distinctive American quality, very congenial to me, even in American virtues, which you not perhaps rate highly or r.e.t.a.r.d as decisively national, not adequately or commandingly so, at any rate. Did I ever tell you the cousin of mine[23] who owns the priory here fought for two years in the Secession war in the army of the Potomac when Burnside & McClellan were at the head? John Cowardine was Major in a Cavalry regiment--was at Vicksburg, Frederickburg, &c. Never wounded, or but slightly--had a good deal of outpost duty, being just the right sort of a man for that, & has letters of approval from his generals of which he is not a little proud. Before that fought under the Stars & Stripes in Mexico & has had a curiously adventurous career, which he commenced by running away from a military college, where he was being prepared for a cadetship, & enlisting as a private--getting out of that by & bye and working his way before the mast as a sailor--then mining in California--then in Australia, riding steeplechases, keeper of the Melrose hounds, market gardening, hotel keeping, then on his way back to California, cast ash.o.r.e on one of the Navigator Islands, where he remained for six months, the only white man among savages, who were friendly & made much of him--now, come into a good estate, married to a woman who seems to suit him well & is healthy, cheerful rich & handsome, he has fallen into indifferent health & considerable depression of spirits. Perhaps he finds the atmosphere of Squirearchical gentility very stagnant, the bed of roses stifling--perhaps, too, the severe privations he has at different times undergone have injured him. I often think he was perhaps one of those your eyes rested on with pride & admiration--"handsome, tan-faced, dressed in blue." He is the very ideal of a soldier in appearance & bearing--has now some fine children, of whom he is very fond.

It was just this time of year I received the precious letter and ring that put peace and joy, and yet such pain of yearning, into my heart--pain for you, my Darling. O sorrowing helpless love that waits, and must wait, useless, afar off, while you suffer. But trying every day of my life to grow fitter, more capable of being your comfort and joy and true comrade--never to cease trying this side death or the other--rejoicing in my children more than I ever rejoiced in them before, now that in and through you I for the first time see and understand humanity (myself included)--its divine nature, its possibilities, nay, its certainties. How I do long for you to see my children, dear Friend, and for them to see and love you as they will love you, and all their nature unfold and grow more vigorously and joyously under your influence. Gracie, of whom you have photographs, grows fast,--is such a fine, blooming girl. I hope soon to send you one of Beatrice too. They have been enjoying their visit here and are now gone home. Gracie for school, Beatrice for the examination at Apoth. Hall she is hoping to get through. Then she is coming here to be with my Mother, & I going back to London. We mean now one or other of us always to be with my Mother here. Herby has had such a happy time with his brother in Wales--& is looking as brown as a nut & full of health & life--he had a swim in the sea every day. He did succeed in getting into the Academy, & will begin work there Oct. 1st! Be sure, dear Friend, if there is a word about your health in any paper to send it me--that is what I search for so eagerly--to have the joyful news you are getting on--but even if it is but so very very slowly, still I would rather know the truth? I do not like thinking of you mistakenly. I want to send you the thoughts, the yearnings, that belong to you, the cherishing love that enfolds you most tenderly of all when you suffer. O if I could send it!

and the cheerful companionship, beguiling the time while strength creeps back. I hope your little nieces at St. Louis are well.

Good-bye, my dearest Friend. Herby, the only one here with me, would like to join his love with mine.

ANNIE GILCHRIST.

I go back the beginning of October.

_Sep. 14th._

LETTER XXIV

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_50 Marquis Rd.

Camden Sq. London Dec. 9, 1874._

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

It did me much good to get your Poem--beautiful, earnest, eloquent words from the soul whose dear companionship mine seeks with persistent longing--wrestling with distance & time. It seems to me, too, from your having spoken the Poem yourself I may conclude you have made fair progress. What I would fain know is whether you have recovered the use of the left side so far as to get about pretty freely and to have as much open-air life as you need & like; and also whether you have quite ceased to suffer distressing sensations in the head. If you can say yes to the first question, will you in sign of it put a dash under the word _London_, and if yes to the second under _England_, when you next send me a paper?

Unless indeed the paper itself contain a notice of your health. But if it does not, that would be an easy way of gladdening me with good news, if good news there is. I wish I could send you good letters, dearest Friend, making myself the vehicle of what is stirring around me in life & thought that would interest you; for there is plenty. But that is very hard to do--though I watch, hear, read eagerly, full of interest. Everything stirs in me a cloud of questions, makes me want to see its relationship to what I hold already. I am forever brooding, pondering, sifting, testing--but that is not the bent of mind that enables one to reproduce one's impressions in compact & lively form. So please, dear Friend, be indulgent, as indeed I know you will be, of these poor letters of mine with their details of my children & their iterated and reiterated expressions of the love and hope and aspiration you have called into life within me--take them not for what they are, but for all they have to stand for. Beatrice is at Colne (having got well through the exam. we were anxious about in the autumn) and is a very great comfort to my Mother--as I well knew she would be; for a more affectionate, devoted, care-taking nature does not breathe--with a strong active mental life of her own too.

So, though missing her sorely, I am well satisfied she should be there; and the country life and rest are doing her a world of good. My artist boy is working away cheerily at the R. Academy, his heart in his work. Percy is coming to spend Xmas with us--he, too, continues well content with his work and in good health. Gracie is blooming. The Rossettis have had a heavy affliction this first year of their married life in the premature death of her only brother--a young man of considerable promise--barely 20.

The Conways are well. I feel more completely myself than I have done since my illness--so you see, dear friend, if it has taken me quite four years to recover the lost ground, one must not be discouraged if two do not accomplish it in your case. I hope your little nieces[24] at St. Louis are well--and the brothers you are with, and that you have many dear friends round you at Camden.

I think my thoughts fly to you on strongest and most joyous wings when I am out walking in the clear, cold, elastic air I enjoy so much.

Good-bye, my dearest Friend.

ANNIE GILCHRIST.

A cheerful Christmas, a New Year of which each day brings its share of restorative influence, be yours.

LETTER XXV

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_50 Marquis Rd.

Camden Sq.

Dec. 30, 1874._

I see, my dearest Friend, I must not look for those dashes under the words I thought were going to convey a joyful confirmation of my hopes. I see how the dark clouds linger. Full of pain & indignation. I read the paragraph--but fuller still of yearning tenderness & trust and hope. I believe, my dear love, that what you need to help on your recovery is a woman's tender, cherishing love and care, and that in that warm, genial atmosphere the spring of life will be quickened once more and flow full and strong through all its channels as of old, gradually, not quickly, even so. I dare say: but with plenty of patience; with utmost intelligent care of all conditions favourable to health, of diet, of abundant oxygen in the rooms you inhabit, of as much outdoor life as possible, of happy, cheerful companionship, & all the homely everyday domestic joys which are so helpful in their influences. America is doing what nations in all times have done towards that which is profoundly new & great, that which discredits their old ideals and offers them strange fruits & flowers from another world than that they have been content to dwell in all their lives. But for all that I do not believe the precious seed is lying dormant even now--everywhere a few in whose hearts it is treasured & yields a n.o.ble growth. Since it is America that has produced you nourished your soul and body, she is silently, unnoticed, producing men & women who will justify you, who will understand the meaning of all and respond with a love that will quicken & exalt humanity as Christ's influence once did.

Still it is inscrutable to me that the heart of America is not now pa.s.sionately drawn toward the great heart that beats & glows in these Poems--that "Drum Taps," at any rate, are not as dear to her as the memory of her dead heroes, sons, brothers, husbands. It must be that they really do not reach the hands of the American people at large--that the professedly literary, cultivated cla.s.s asking for nothing better than the pretty sing-song sentimentalities which "join them in their nonsense," or else slavishly prostrating their judgments before the models of the past (so perfect for their day, so wholly inadequate for ours), raise their voices so loud in newspapers & magazines as to prevent or everywhere check the circulation.

_Jan. 1._ The New Year has come in bleakly & keenly to the inner as well as to the outer sense, with the papers full of the details of the dark fate of the emigrant ship & of the terrible railway accidents. Percy was not able to join us at Xmas (through business) but I am expecting him to-night. My mother bears up against the cold wonderfully--& even continues to go out in her chair. Bee's letters are very bright & cheerful--she & indeed all my children enjoy the cold much, provided they have plenty of out-door exercise--above all skating, which they are now enjoying. I too like it, but am so haunted by the thought of the increased misery it brings to our hundreds of thousands of ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed. I trust the family circle round you & your nieces at St. Louis & all near & dear to you are well, and that you have felt the warm grasp of many loving friends this wintry, cloudy time, my dearest--and that there may breathe out of these poor words a warm, bright glow of love and hope & unrestricted trust in the future.

A. GILCHRIST.

LETTER XXVI

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_Earls Colne, Halstead Feb. 21, 1875._

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

I have run down to Colne for a glimpse of my dear Bee, whom I had not seen for five months, and of my Mother; & now I am alone with the latter, Beatrice taking my place at home with her brother & sister for a week or two. A wonderful evergreen my Mother continues; still able to face the keen winds & the frost daily in her Bath chair--well swathed, of course in eiderdown & flannels. Beatrice takes beautiful care of her & is happy & content with her life here, loving the country as dearly as I do & having time enough for study & reading, as well as for domestic activities, to keep her mind as busy as her body. How I do long for you to see my children, dearest Friend. I wonder if you are surrounded with any in your brother's home--young, growing, blossoming plants that gladden you. And I wonder if the winter, which I hear is so severe in America this year, tries you--whether you can yet move briskly enough to keep up the circulation--and whether you have as many dear friends round you as you had at Washington. In my walks I keep thinking of these things. Write me a little letter once more, it would do me such good. No one of all your friends so easy as I to write to because none to whom any & every little detail is so welcome, so precious--lifting a tiny corner of the great vast of s.p.a.ce between us, giving me for a moment to feel the friendly grasp of your hand--I that long for it so. Two years are over since your illness began, or seemed to begin, dearest friend--so slow & stealthy in its approaches, so slow & stealthy in its retreat--may the spring that is coming (the birds have already caught sight of it, cold & brown & bare as the landscape still is)--may it but come laden with healing, strengthening, refreshing influences--so that you begin to feel again the joyous freedom of health, warbling once more a song of joy for lilac time.

True, I know indeed, my dearest, that anyhow you are content, not grudging the price paid for your life work, but even some way or other the richer for paying it--garnering precious equivalents for pain & privation of health in your inmost soul. I cannot choose but believe this earnestly--the resplendent faith that there is not "one cause nor result lamentable, at last, in the Universe" which glows throughout the Poems is for me an exhaustless source of strength & comfort.--I see every now & then & like the more each time the Conways. I am half afraid Mr. Conway works too incessantly--that is, does not like well enough the indispensable supplement of close mental work--plenty of air & exercise, &c.,--hates walking, & indeed it is not to be wondered at in great, smoky London (I shall be fond enough & proud enough of it too when I am over the Atlantic). Unless one has a real pa.s.sion for open air & the sense of sky overhead, like me. I hear Mr. Conway is coming to America for six months in October.

_Feb. 25_--I kept my letter till to-day that I might have the happiness of speaking to you on my birthday. See me this evening in the bright, cheerful parlour of our cottage, which stands just in the middle of the old village (it has been a village & jogged on through all change at its own sober, sleepy pace this 800 years)--my mother in her arm chair by the fire; I chatting with her & working or playing to her when she is awake; & with the Poems I love beside me, reading, musing, wondering while she dozes. Ah, shall I ever attain to the Ideal that burst upon me with such splendour of light & joy in those Poems in 1869--so filling, so possessing me, I seemed as if I had by one bound attained to that ideal--as if I were already a very twin of the soul from whom they emanated. But now I know that divine foretaste indicated what was possible for me, not what was accomplished--I know the slow growth--the standstill winters that follow the growing joyous springs & ripening summers. I believe it will take more lives than this one to reach that mountain on which I was transfigured again, never to descend more, but to start thence for new heights, fresh glories. Ah, dear friend, will you be able to have patience with me, for me?

Good-bye, my dearest.