Dearest Friend:
You have long ere this, I hope, received Herby’s letter telling of the safe arrival of the precious copy of “Specimen Days,” with the portraits: it makes me very proud. Your father had a fine face too—there is something in it that takes hold of me & that seems to be a kind of natural background or substratum to the radiant sweetness of that other sacred & beloved face completing your parentage. I like heartily too the new portraits of you: they are all wanted as different aspects: but the two that remain my favourites are the portrait taken about 30 without coat of any kind, and the one you sent me in ’69 next to those I love these two latest—& in some respects better, because they are the Walt I saw & had such happy hours with. The second copy of book & my lending one, has come safe—too—and the card that told of your attack of illness, & the welcome news of your recovery in the Paper; & I have been fretting with impatience at my own dumbness—but tied to as many hours a day writing as I could possibly manage, at my little book now (last night)—finished, all but proofs, so that I can take my pleasure in “Specimen Days” at last; but before doing that must have a few words with you, dearest Friend. First a gossip. Do you remember Maggie Lesley? She came to see us on her way to Paris, where she is working all alone & very earnestly to get through training as an artist—then going to start in a studio of her own in Philadelphia. She, like my mother’s sister, are to me fine, lovable samples of American women—in whom, I mean, I detect, like the distinctive aroma of a flower, something special—that is American—a decisive new quality to old-world perceptions. Herby is working away still chiefly at the Consuelo picture—has got a very beautiful model to-day sitting to him. His summer work was down in Warwickshire, making sketches—& very charming ones they are, of George Eliot’s native scenes—one of a garden-nook—up steep, old, worn stone steps bordered with flowers that is enticing—it will make a lovely background for a figure picture.—Giddy’s voice is growing in richness & strength—& she works with all her heart, hoping one day to be a real artist vocally—in church & oratorio music. She will not have power or dramatic ability for opera—nor can I wish that she had; there are so many thorns with the roses in that path. I fear you will be a loser by Bogne’s bankruptcy. Did I tell you that among our friends one of your warmest admirers is Henry Holmes, the great violinist (equal [to] Joachim some think—we among them). Per. & wife & little grandson all well. My love to brother & sister & to Hattie [&] Jessie. Good-bye, dear Walt. I hope to write more & better soon.
Anne Gilchrist.
Greetings to the Staffords.
LETTER LXIII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
12 Well Rd.
Hampstead
Jan. 27, ’83.
It is not for want of thinking of you, dear Walt, that I write but seldom: for indeed my thoughts are chiefly occupied with you & your other self—your Poems—& with struggles to say a few words that I think want saying about them; that might help some to their birthright who now stand off, either ignorant or misapprehending.