The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman Part 18

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 modic.u.m 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 a.s.siduous 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 p.r.o.ne 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 la.s.sie, 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 10. 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 n.o.bility 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 compet.i.tion 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.