WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST
I must write
friend once more at
Since I last wrote, clouds have darkened over me, and still remain.
On the night of 3d January last I was paralyzed, left side, and have remained so since. Feb. 19 I lost a dear dear sister, who died in St. Louis leaving two young daughters. May 23d, my dear inexpressibly beloved mother died in Camden, N. J. I was just able to get from Washington to her dying bed & sit there. I thought I was bearing it all stoutly, but I find it affecting the progress of my recovery since and now. I am still feeble, palsied & have spells of great distress in the head. But there are points more favourable.
I am up & dressed every day, sleep & eat middling well & do not change much yet, in flesh & face, only look very old.
Though I can move slowly very short distances, I walk with difficulty & have to stay in the house nearly all the time. As I write to-day, I feel that I shall probably get well—though I may not.
Many times during the past year have I thought of you & your children. Many times indeed have I been going to write, but did not. I have just been reading over again several of this & last year’s letters from you & looking at the pictures sent in the one of Jan. 24, ’72. (Your letters of Jan. 24, June 3 & July 14, of last year and of Jan. 31, and May 20, this year, with certainly one other, maybe two) all came safe. Do not think hard of me for not writing in reply. If you could look into my spirit & emotion you would be entirely satisfied & at peace. I am at present temporarily here at Camden, on the Delaware river, opposite Philadelphia, at the house of my brother, and I am occupying, as I write, the rooms wherein my mother died. You must not be unhappy about me, as I am as comfortably situated as can be—& many things—indeed every thing—in my case might be so much worse. Though my plans are not definite, my intention as far as anything is on getting stronger, and after the hot season passes, to get back to Washington for the fall & winter.
My post office address continues at Washington. I send my love to Percy & all your dear children.
The enclosed ring I have just taken from my finger, & send to you, with my love.
FACSIMILE OF A TYPICAL WHITMAN LETTER.
FROM THOMAS B. HARNED’S COLLECTION