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 retard 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 ashore 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.