ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
Earls Colne
Halstead
August 12, 1873.
My Dearest Friend:
The paper has just been forwarded here which tells me you are still suffering and not, as I was fondly believing, already quite emerged from the cloud of sickness. My Darling, let me use that tender caressing word once more—for how can I help it, with heart so full & no outlet but words? My darling—I say it over & over to myself with voice, with eyes so full of love, of tender yearning, sorrowful, longing love. I would give all the world if I might come (but am held here yet awhile by a duty nothing may supersede) & soothe & tend & wait on you & with such cheerful loving companionship lift off some of the weight of the long hours & days & perhaps months that must still go over while nature slowly, imperceptibly, but still so surely repairs the mischief within: result of the tremendous ordeal to your frame of those great over-brimming years of life spent in the Army Hospitals. You see dear Friend, a woman who is a mother has thenceforth something of that feeling toward other men who are dear to her. A cherishing, fostering instinct that rejoices so in tending, nursing, caretaking & I should be so happy it needs must diffuse a reviving, comforting, vivifying warmth around you. Might but these words breathed out of the heart of a woman who loves you with her whole soul & life & strength fulfil their errand & comfort the sorrowful heart, if ever so little—& through that revive the drooping frame. This love that has grown up, far away over here, unhelped by the sweet influences of personal intercourse, penetrating the whole substance of a woman’s life, swallowing up into itself all her aspirations, hopes, longings, regardless of Death, looking earnestly, confidently beyond that for its fruition, blending more or less with every thought & act of her life—a guiding star that her feet cannot choose but follow resolutely—what can be more real than this, dear Friend? What can have deeper roots, or a more immortal growing power? But I do not ask any longer whether this love is believed in & welcomed & precious to you. For I know that what has real roots cannot fail to bear real flowers & fruits that will in the end be sweet & joyful to you; and that if I am indeed capable of being your eternal comrade, climbing whereon you climb, daring all that you dare, learning all that you learn, suffering all that you suffer (pressing closest then) loving, enjoying all that you love & enjoy—you will want me. You will not be able to help stretching out your hand & drawing me to you. I have written this mostly out in the fields, as I am so fond of doing—the serene, beautiful harvest landscape spread around—returned once more as I have every summer for five & twenty years to this old village where my mother’s family have lived in unbroken succession three hundred years, ever since, in fact, the old Priory which they have inhabited, ceased to be a Priory. My Mother’s health is still good—wonderful indeed for 88, though she has been 30 years crippled with rheumatism. Still she enjoys getting out in the sunshine in her Bath chair, & is able to take pleasure in seeing her friends & in having us all with her. Her father was a hale man at 90. These eastern counties are flat & tame, but yet under this soft, smiling, summer sky lovely enough too—with their rich green meadows & abundant golden corn crops, now being well got in. Even the sluggish little river Colne one cannot find fault with, it nourishes such a luxuriant border of wild flowers as it creeps along—& turns & twists from sunshine into shade & from shade into sunshine so as to make the very best & most of itself. But as to the human growth here, I think that more than anywhere else in England perhaps it struggled along choked & poisoned by dead things of the past, still holding their place above ground. Carlyle calls the clergy “black dragoons”—in these rural parishes they are black Squires, making it their chief business to instruct the labourer that his grinding poverty & excessive toil, & the Squire’s affluence & ease are equally part of the sacred order of Providence. When I have been here a little I wish myself in London again, dearly as I love outdoor life & companionship with nature. For though the same terrible & cruel facts are there as here, they are not choked down your throat by any one, as a beautiful & perfect ideal. Even in England light is unmistakably breaking through the darkness for the toilers.
I did not see William Rossetti before I came down, but heard he had had a very happy time in Italy & splendid weather all the while. Mr. Conway & his wife are going to spend their holiday in Brittany. Do not think me childish dear friend if I send a copy of this letter to Washington as well as to Camden. I want it so to get to you—long & so long to speak with you—& the Camden one may never come to hand—or the Washington one might remain months unforwarded—it is easy to tear up.
I hope it will find you by the sea shore!—getting on so fast toward health & strength again—refreshed & tranquillized, soul & body. Good-bye, beloved Friend.
Annie Gilchrist.