Dear Herbert:
I have received your letter. Nothing now remains but a sweet and rich memory—none more beautiful all time, all life all the earth—I cannot write anything of a letter to-day. I must sit alone and think.
Walt Whitman.
Later, in conversations with Horace Traubel which the latter has preserved in his minute biography of Whitman, he was able to express his regard for Mrs. Gilchrist more fully—“a supreme character of whom the world knows too little for its own good ... If her sayings had been recorded—I do not say she would pale, but I do say she would equal the best of the women of our century—add something as great as any to the testimony on the side of her sex.” And at another time: “Oh! she was strangely different from the average; entirely herself; as simple as nature; true, honest; beautiful as a tree is tall, leafy, rich, full, free—is a tree. Yet, free as she was by nature, bound by no conventionalisms, she was the most courageous of women; more than queenly; of high aspect in the best sense. She was not cold; she had her passions; I have known her to warm up—to resent something that was said; some impeachment of good things—great things; of a person sometimes; she had the largest charity, the sweetest fondest optimism.... She was a radical of radicals; enjoyed all sorts of high enthusiasms: was exquisitely sensitized; belonged to the times yet to come; her vision went on and on.”
This searching interpretation of her character wants only her artist son’s description of her personal appearance to make the final picture complete: “A little above the average height, she walked with an even, light step. Brown hair concealed a full and finely chiselled brow, and her hazel eyes bent upon you a bright and penetrating gaze. Whilst conversing her face became radiant as with an experience of golden years; humour was present in her conversation—flecks of sunshine, such as sometimes play about the minds of deeply religious natures. Her animated manner seldom flagged, and charmed the taciturn to talking in his or her best humour.” Once, when speaking to Walt Whitman of the beauty of the human speaking voice, he replied: “The voice indicates the soul. Hers, with its varied modulations and blended tones, was the tenderest, most musical voice ever to bless our ears.”
Her death was a long-lasting shock to Whitman. “She was a wonderful woman—a sort of human miracle to me.... Her taking off ... was a great shock to me: I have never quite got over it: she was near to me: she was subtle: her grasp on my work was tremendous—so sure, so all around, so adequate.” If this sounds a trifle self-centred in its criticism, not so was the poem which, in memory of her, he wrote as a fitting epitaph from the poet she had loved.
“GOING SOMEWHERE”
My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend (Now buried in an English grave—and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake),
Ended our talk—“The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern learning, intuitions deep,
Of all Geologies—Histories—of all Astronomy—of Evolution, Metaphysics all,
Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
Life, life an endless march, an endless army (no halt, but, it is duly over),
The world, the race, the soul—in space and time the universes,
All bound as is befitting each—all surely going somewhere.”