The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman Part 11

ANNE GILCHRIST.

LETTER XXVII

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_50 Marquis Rd., Camden Sq.

London, May 18, 1875._

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

Since last I wrote to you at the beginning of April (enclosing a little photograph of that avenue just by our cottage at Colne) I have been into Wales for a fortnight to see Percy, & have looked for the first time in my life on the Atlantic--the ocean my mental eyes travel over & beyond so often and that your eyes and ears & heart have been fed by, have communed with and interpreted, as in a new tongue, to the soul of man. Looking upon that, watching the tides ebb & flow on your sh.o.r.es, sharing, through my beloved book, in those greatest movements you have spent alone with it--that was a new joyful experience, a fresh kind of communing with you.--I went to Wales because I felt anxious about Percy, who is not happy just now. I must not tell friends here about it (except his brother & sisters) but I am sure I may tell you, for you will listen with sympathy.

He has attached himself very deeply, I think it will prove, to a girl, & she to him, whose parents welcomed him cordially to their house for a year or two & allowed plenty of intercourse till they became aware through Percy himself (who thought it right to tell the father as soon as he was fully aware of his own feelings & more than suspected Norah's response to them) that there was a strong affection growing up between the two. Then they peremptorily forbade all intercourse--not because they have any objection to Percy--quite the contrary, they say; but solely and simply because he is not yet earning money enough to marry on, & they hold that a man has no right to engage a girl's affections till he can do so. As if these things could be timed to the moment the money comes in! Percy was in hopes, & so was I, that if I went down, I might get sense enough into their heads, if not kindness & sympathy into their hearts, to see that the sole effect of such arbitrary & narrow-sighted conduct would be to alienate & embitter the young people's feelings toward them, while it would make them more restless & anxious to marry without adequate means.

Whereas if a reasonable amount of intercourse were allowed, it would be a happy time with them, & Norah being still so young (18), & Percy working away with all his might, doing very well for his age & sure, conscientious, thorough, capable, & well trained worker that he is (for the L. School of Mais gives a first rate scientific preparation for his profession) to be making a modest sufficiency in a year or two. Well, they were very courteous & indeed friendly to me, & I think I have won over the mother; but the father remains obdurate, & Percy feels bitterly the separation--all the more trying as they live almost within sight of each other. So Beatrice & Grace are going to spend their holidays with him this summer to cheer him up. Meanwhile, dear friend, I am on the whole happier than not about him. I liked what I saw of Norah & believe he has found a very sweet, affectionate girl of quiet, domestic nature, practical, industrious, sensible--thoroughly well to suit him, & that there is true & deep love between them--also, she took to me very much, & I feel will be quite another child to me. It is besides no little joy to me to find how Percy has confided in me in this & chooses me as the friend to whom he tells all--far from being any separation, as sometimes happens, this love of his seems to draw us closer together. Only I am very, very anxious for his sake to see him in a better berth--they would let her marry him on 300 a year; now he has only 175. He is quite competent to manage iron or copper or tin works, only he looks so young, not having yet any beard or moustache to speak of. That is the end of my long story.

This will reach you on your birthday perhaps, my dearest Friend; at any rate it must bear you a greeting of love and fond remembrance for that dear day such as my heart will send you when it actually comes: patiently waiting heart, with the fibres of love and boundless trust & joy & hope which bind me to you bedded deep, grown to be, during these long years, a very part of its immortal substance, untouchable by age or varying moods or sickness, or death itself, as I surely believe. I long more than words can tell to know how it fares with you now in health and spirit. My children are all well & growing & unfolding to my heart's content.

Beatrice & Herbert deeply influenced by your Poems. Good-bye, my dearest Friend.

A. GILCHRIST.

LETTER XXVIII

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_Address 1 Torriano Gardens Camden Road, N. W.

London

Earls Colne Aug. 28, 1875._

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

Your letter came to me just when I most needed the comfort of it--when I was watching and tending my dear Mother as she gently, slowly, with but little suffering, sank to rest. There was no sick bed to sit by--we got her up and out into the air and suns.h.i.+ne for an hour or two even the day before she died--No disease, only the stomach could not do its work any longer & for the last three weeks she lived wholly on stimulants, suffering somewhat from sickness. She drew her last breath very gently before daybreak on the 15th inst., in her 90th year, which she had entered in Jan. She looked very beautiful in death, notwithstanding her great age--as well she might--tranquil sunset that it was of a beautiful day--a fulfilled life--joy & delight of her father in youth (who used to call her the apple of his eye), good wife, devoted, self-sacrificing, wise mother--patient, courageous sufferer through thirty years of chronic rheumatism, which, however, neutralized & ceased its pains the last few years--unsurpa.s.sed, & indeed I think unsurpa.s.sable, in conscientiousness--in the strong sense of duty & perfect obedience to that highest sense--she is one of those who amply justify your large faith in women.

I do not need to tell you anything, my dearest friend--you know all--I feel your strong comforting hand--I press it very close.

I had all my children with me at the funeral.

O the comfort your dear letter was & is to me. Thinking over & over the few words you say of yourself--& what is said in the paper (so eagerly read--every word so welcome) I cannot help fancying that the return of the distressing sensations in the head must be caused by your having worked at the book--the "Two Rivulets" (I dearly like the t.i.tle & the idea of bringing the Poems & Prose together so)--that you must be more patient with yourself and submit still to perfect rest--& that perhaps in regard to the stomach--you have not enough adapted your diet to the privation of exercise--that you must be more indulgent to the stomach too in the sense of giving it only the very easiest & simplest work to do. My children join their love with mine.

Your own loving

ANNE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE OF ONE OF ANNE GILCHRIST'S LETTERS TO WALT WHITMAN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE OF ONE OF ANNE GILCHRIST'S LETTERS TO WALT WHITMAN]

LETTER XXIX

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_1 Torriano Gardens Camden Rd., Nov. 16, 1875.

London_

I have been wanting the comfort of a talk with you, dearest Friend, for weeks & weeks, without being able to get leisure & tranquillity enough to do it to my heart's content--indeed, heart's content is not for me at present--but restless, eager, longing to come--& the struggle to do patiently & completely & wisely what remains for me here before I am free to obey the deep faith and love which govern me--so let me sit close beside you, my Darling--& feel your presence & take comfort & strength & serenity from it as I do, as I can when with all my heart & soul I draw close to you, realizing your living presence with all my might.--First, about Percy--things are beginning to look a little brighter for him. He is just entering upon a new engagement with some very large & successful works--the Blenavon Iron Co.--where, though his salary will not be higher at first, his opportunities of improvement will be better & he is also to be allowed to take private practice (in a.s.saying & a.n.a.lyzing). The manager there believes in Science & is friendly to Percy & will give him every facility for showing what he can do, so that he hopes to prove to the Directors before long that he is worth a good salary. The parents of Norah (whom he loves) have released from their unfriendly att.i.tude since my Beatrice has been staying with them; the two girls have attached themselves to one another & Per. has had delightful opportunities of being with Norah, & best of all, she is to return here with Beatrice (they are coming to-morrow), & Per. is to have a week's holiday & come up, so that he & Norah will be wholly together & have, I suspect, the happiest week they have yet had in their lives. Then I have stored away for them the furniture of the dear old home at Colne, & I really think that by the time '76 is out they will be able to marry. I see, and indeed I have known ever since he formed this attachment, that I must not look for him to come to America with me. But what I build upon, Dearest Friend, is that when I have been a little while in America & have made friends & had time to look about me I might hear of a good certainty for him--his excellent training at the School of Mines, large experience at Blenavon, energy, ability, & st.u.r.dy uprightness will make him a first-rate manager of works by & bye.

But the leaving him so happy with his young wife will make it easier for us to part. _Nov. 26_--Beatrice has begun to work at anatomy at the School of Medicine for Women lately founded, & seems to delight in her work. She will not enter on the full course all at once--I am for taking things gently. Women have plenty of strength but it is of a different kind from men's & must work by gentler & slower means--Above all I do not like what pushes violently aside domestic duties & pleasures. The special work must combine itself with these; I am sure it can. Herby is getting on very nicely--never did student love his work better. He is eager, & by making the best use of present opportunities & advantages yet looking towards America full of cheerful hopes & sympathy. Grace is less developed in intellect but not less in character than the others. I can't describe her but send you her photograph. There is a freshness & independence of character about her--yet withal a certain waywardness & reserve. She is a good, instinctive judge of character--more influenced by it than by books--yet with a growing taste for them too. She comes to America with a gay and buoyant curiosity, declining to make up her mind about anything till she gets there. We want, as far as possible, to transplant our home bodily--to bring as much as we can of our own furniture because we have beautiful old things precious in Herby's eyes & that we are all fond of.

And [by] coming straight to Philadelphia & taking a house somewhere on the outskirts of it or Camden immediately we fancy this might be practicable, but have not yet launched into the matter. I have just heard from Mr.

Rossetti, and also from Mrs. Conway of her husband having seen you, & if his report be not too sanguine it is a cheering one & would comfort me much, dearest Friend. But what he says is so favourable I am afraid to believe it altogether, knowing that you would make the very best of yourself & indeed be probably at your best with the pleasure of seeing an old friend fresh from England. _Nov._ 30. And now, dear Friend, I have had a very great pleasure indeed, thanks to you--a visit from Mr. Marvin--& I hope to have another when he returns from Paris. And the account he gives of you is so cheerful--so vivid--it seems to part asunder a gloomy cloud that was brooding in my mind. And though I know that for the short hours that you feel bright & well are many long hours when you are far otherwise, still I feel sure those short hours are the earnest of perfect recovery--with a fine patience--boundless patience. And now I can picture you sitting in your favourite window, having a friendly word with pa.s.sers-by--& feel quite sure that you are happy & comfortable in your surroundings. And a great deal else full of interest Mr. Marvin told me. I was loth for him to go, but one hour is so small, we have noticed, for a friend, I am sorry to say.

William Rossetti has a little girl which is a great delight to him. Miss Hillard of Brooklyn has also paid me a visit & spoken to me of you. She charmed me much--only I felt a little cross with her for giving Herby such a dismal account of his chances as an artist in America. However, we both refused to be discouraged, for after all he can send his pictures to England to be established &c., having plenty of friends who would see to it; & we are both firm in the faith that if you can only paint the really good pictures the rest will take care of itself, somehow or other--& that can be done as well in America as in England, but of course he must finish his training here.

With best love from us all, good-bye, my dearest Friend.

ANNE GILCHRIST.

LETTER x.x.x

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_1 Torriano Gardens Camden Rd., London Dec. 4, 1875._

Though it is but a few days since I posted a letter, my dearest friend, I must write you again--because I cannot help it, my heart is so full--so full of love & sorrow & struggle. The day before yesterday I saw Mr.

Conway's printed account of you, & instead of the cheerful report I had been told of, he speaks of your having given up hope of recovery. Those words were like a sharp knife plunged into me--they choked me with bitter tears. _Don't give up that hope_ for the sake of those that so tenderly, pa.s.sionately, love you--would give their lives with joy for you. Why, who knows better than you how much hope & the will have to do with it, & I know quite well that the belief does not depress you--that you are ready to accept either lot with calmness, cheerfulness, perfect faith, perhaps with equal joy. But for all that, it does you harm. Ideas always have a tendency to accomplish themselves. And what right have the Doctors to utter gloomy prophecies? The wisest of them know the best how profoundly in the dark they are as to much that goes on within us, especially in maladies like yours. O cling to life with a resolute hold, my beloved, to bless us with your presence unspeakably dear, beneficent presence--me to taste of it before so very long now--thirsting, pining, loving me. Take through these poor words of mine some breath of the tender, tender, ineffable love that fills my heart and soul and body--take of it to strengthen the very springs of your life: it is capable of that; O its cheris.h.i.+ng warmth and joy, if it could only get to you, only fold you round close enough, would help, I know. Soon, soon as ever my boy has one to love & care for him all his own, I will come; I may not before, not if it should break my heart to stop away from you, for his welfare is my sacred charge & nearer & dearer than all to me. Verily, my G.o.d, strengthen me, comfort me, stay for me--let that have a little beginning on this dear earth which is for all eternity, which will live & grow immortally into a diviner reality than the heart of man has conceived.

I am well satisfied with Norah, dear Friend. She is very affectionate, loveable, prudent, & clear in all practical matters, well suited to Percy in tastes, &c.

Your own ANNIE.

LETTER x.x.xI