LETTER LXXII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
Keats CornerHampsteadDec. 17, ’84.
Dearest Friend:
At last I have extracted a little bit of news about you from friend Carpenter, who never comes to see us and is [as] reluctant to write letters as – somebody else that I know. That you have a comfortable, elderly couple to keep house for you was a good hearing – for “the old shanty” had risen before my eyes as somewhat lonely, & perhaps the cooking, &c., not well attended to. – There seems a curious kind of ebb and flow about the recognition of you in England – just now there are signs of the flow – of a steadily gathering great wave, one indication of which is the little pamphlet just published in Edinburgh – one of the “Round Table” Series – no doubt a copy has been sent you. If not and you would care to see it, I will send you one. On the whole I like it (barring one or two stupidities) – at any rate, as compared with what has hitherto been written. My poor article has so far been rejected by editors – so I have laid it by for a little, to come with a fresh eye & see if I can make it in any way more likely to win a hearing – though I often say to myself, “If they have not ears to hear you, how is it likely one can unstop their ears?” But on the other hand there is always the chance of leading some to read the Poems who had not else done so. – Percy & Norah and Archie, now grown a very sturdy active little fellow, are coming to spend Xmas with us, which is a great pleasure.
I am deep in Froude’s last volumes of “Carlyle’s Life in London”. Folks are grumbling that they have had enough & too much of Carlyle & his grumblings and sarcasms. But he is an inexhaustibly interesting figure to me, & will remain so in the long run to the world, I am persuaded. It grieves me that he should have been so cruelly unjust to himself as a husband – that remorse, those bitter self-reproaches, were undeserved, were altogether morbid: he was not only an infinitely better husband than she was wife: he was wonderfully affectionate & tender & just – & as to his temper & irritable nerves, she knew what she was about when she married him. Herby was walking through the British Museum the other day with a friend when a group, a ready-made picture, struck him – it was a young student-sculptress, a graceful girl high on a pile of boxes modelling in clay a copy of an antique statue, & standing below, looking up at her, was a young sculptor in his blouse, criticising her work with much animation & gesture; the background of the group, a part of the Elgin Marbles. So this is what Herby is painting & I think he will make a very jolly little picture out of it. I have been much a prisoner to the house with bad colds ever since I returned from Wolverhampton, but am beginning to get out again – which puts new life into me. I have never envied anything in this world but a man’s strong legs & powers of tramping, tramping, over hill & dale as long as he pleases – legs would content me and a sound breathing apparatus! I am in no hurry for wings. Giddy’s voice, too, is just now eclipsed by cold.
I hope you have escaped this evil and are able to jaunt to & fro on the ferries as freely as ever. And I hope the pleasant Quaker friends are well – and Mr. & Mrs. Whitman and Hattie & Jessie – there is a fellow student of Giddy’s at the Guild Hall music school who so reminds her of Hattie.
Love from us all, dear friend. Most from me.
Anne Gilchrist.
LETTER LXXIII
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
Keats CornerHampstead, EnglandFeb. 27, ’85.
Dearest Friend:
How has the winter passed with you I wonder? Me it has imprisoned very much with bronchial & asthmatic troubles – and the four walls of the house & the ceiling seem to close in upon one’s spirit as well as one’s body, all too much. I hope you have been able to wend to and fro daily on the great ferry boats & enjoy the beautiful broad river & the sky & the throngs of people as of old – you are in my thoughts as constantly as ever, though I have been so silent. Percy & his wife & the little son spent some weeks with us at Christmas & now they have taken a house quite near, into which they will be moving in a week or two. I can’t tell you what a dear, affectionate, reasonable, companionable little fellow Archie is – now six years old. Perhaps you will have seen in the American papers that Sidney Thomas, the cousin with whom Percy was associated in the discovery of the Basic process, is dead – he spent his strength too freely – wore himself out at 35 – he was much loved by all with whom he had to do. His mother & sister have been watching & hoping against hope & taking him to warm climates, he himself full of hope – the mind bright and active to the last – & now he is gone – & his eldest brother died only two months before him. – I cannot help grieving over public affairs too – never in my lifetime has old England been in such a bad way – no honest & capable man seemingly to take the helm – & what Carlyle was fond of describing as the attempt to guide the ship by the shouts of the bystanders on shore – the newspapers &c. prospering very ill. A government that tries perpetually how to do it and how not to do it at the same moment! The best comfort is that I do not think there is any, the smallest sign, of deterioration in the English race; so we shall pull through somehow, after tremendous disasters. How many things should I like to sit and chat with you about, dear Walt – above all to see you again! I could not get my article into any of the magazines I most wished. I believe it is coming out in To-Day. Giddy was so pleased at your sending her a paper – a very capital article too it is of Miss Kellogg. I was interested also in a little paragraph I found about Pullman town, near Chicago, which confirmed my suspicion that it was not a thing with healthy roots – but only a benevolent despotism. I am seeing a good deal of your socialists just now – & I confess that though they mean well, I think they have less sense in their heads than any people I ever saw.
I am going to pay a little visit to those friends (friendliest of friends) who live on the lonely top of a heath-covered hill – with such an outlook, such wooded slopes and broad valleys – and the storms travelling up hours before they arrive – such sweeps of sunshine too! – & they mean to drive me about till I am quite strong again. So the next letter I write, dear Friend, shall be more cheery. I am afraid to look back lest this one should read too grumbly to send. I don’t feel grumbly however – only shut in. Herby has been working hard at getting up an exhibition here to help along our Public Library. It is so very hard to stir up anything like public spirit & unity of action in London or its suburbs – I suppose because of its vastness – & alas! also the social cliques & gentilities & snobbishnesses. Good-bye, dearest Walt, with love from all.
Anne Gilchrist.
LETTER LXXIV
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
HampsteadMay 4, ’85.
My Dearest Friend:
Delays of Editors – there is no end to them! I am promised now that the art. shall appear in the June No., & if it does I will send you at once the number of copies you name. And if it does not, I think I had best get it back & have done with the editors of To-day & try for some other & better opening again.
I have been reading & re-reading & pondering over Froude’s 9 vols of Carlyle – “The Reminiscences,” “Letters,” &c. &c. – and am pretty well at boiling point with indignation against Froude – boiling point of anger & freezing point of contempt. His betrayal at every point of a sacred trust! lazy, slip-shod editing! not even taking the pains to put letters and their answers together – but printing the one in 1882 & the others three or four years after – so that half the meaning and all the mutuality of the letters are lost! And then the sly malignity of the comments with which they are preceded! If I live I will do my utmost to expose all this & to show that Mrs. Carlyle was no injured heroine, nor he a selfish & neglected husband. Both had their faults, but the balance of affection & tenderness was largely on his side, as well as of other great qualities: though I like her too – & think she would have scorned Froude’s ignoble championship.
Herby has had rather better luck with his pictures this year. Has one – “The Sculptor’s Lesson” – fairly well hung at the Royal Academy – where it shines out very cheerfully & holds its own modestly, I may say without maternal vanity. I think I described to you the little bit of actual life it depicts – a young girl he saw at the British Museum modelling a copy of an antique statue & young sculptor in his blouse standing below & giving her some animated criticism – a little bit of the Elgin marbles in the background. Herb. has also a little picture he calls “Midsummer” – a bit of a very old & buttressed wall hung with roses in full bloom, & Giddy’s figure standing above – at the Grosvenor. Now if he has the luck to sell too! He has a commission also to paint a small portrait of me for our friends at Marley, on which he is busy just now. As soon as he has a little spare money in his pocket I think his first use of it will be a run across the Atlantic & a glimpse of you, dear Friend. Giddy is going to sing at a Soiree of socialists & revolutionary folk in general on Wednesday. Her songs are to be “The Wearing of the Green” – & “Poland Dirge” & the “Marseillaise”. You will think we are getting pretty red hot! But alas! though our sympathy with the Cause – the cause of suffering millions – is warm, our faith in the wisdom & ability of those who are aspiring to be the leaders, so far as we know anything of them – is infinitesimal.
What a burst of beauty we have had during the last ten days! We look out just now on a sea of apple & pear blossoms, from the deepest pink to dazzling white – & the tenderest green intermingled with all. I hope you are able to be out nearly all day & enjoy all – and that home affairs go smoothly & comfortably & that Mrs. Davis42 is attentive & good & every way adequate as care-taker.
I am looking forward very much to the “After Songs” and “Letters of Parting”. Does the sale of “Leaves of Grass” continue pretty steady? I look forward with a sort of dread to seeing my article in proof, lest I should feel very disappointed with it.
Your loving friend,
A. Gilchrist.
Do you ever see or hear from Mr. Marvin? He is a favourite with all of us. Do you remember how we laughed at his dramatic presentation of a negro prayer meeting?
LETTER LXXV
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
Hampstead, LondonJan. 21, 85.
My Dearest Friend:
I hope the To-days have come safe to hand. I am thinking a great deal about the new edition; and cannot help hoping you are going to revert to the plan of the Centennial Edition, which issued your writings in two independent volumes. May I, without being presumptuous, dear Walt, tell you how I should dearly like to see them arranged? I want “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Song at Sunset,” “Song of the Open Road,” “Starting from Paumanok,” “Carol of Words,” “Carol of Occupations” and either as “As I Sat by Blue Ontario’s Shore” or the Preface to edit. 55 put into “Two Rivulets” – you could make room for them that the volumes might balance in size by making them exchange places with the “Centennial Songs” and the “Memoranda During the War”; not that these are not precious to me, but I want it dearest because I want in the Two Rivulet Volume what will best prepare the reader, lift him up to the true point of view, and make him all your own, before he comes to the inner sanctuary of “Calamus” & “Walt Whitman” & “Children of Adam.”
Monday morn. Your letter just to hand. It gives me deep joy, dear Friend. I have sent copies of To-Day to Dr. Bucke & John Burroughs but did not know of his change of address; so fear it has miscarried. I will send another, and also one to W. O’Connor. – You did not tell me about your fall – unless indeed a letter has been lost. It fills me with concern because of the difficulty it increases in getting that free out-door life that is so dear & essential to your soul & body, and because, too, I still cherished in my heart a hope that I should yet see you again – here in my own home – & now it seems next to an impossibility. Right thankful am I to hear about Mrs. Davis – that she takes good care of you – please give her a friendly greeting from me. I am going to have rather a bothersome summer – first of all, the house full of workmen to make all clean & tidy; & then my Scotch lassie, friend & factotum rather than servant, must have a holiday & go to her friends in Scotland for a month. I shall heartily welcome your friend, no need to say, & be sure to like her. Love from Grace & Herb. & most of all from me. I have plenty more to say but won’t delay this.
Good-bye, dear Walt.
Anne Gilchrist.
LETTER LXXVI
ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN
12 Well Rd., Hampstead, Eng.July 20, ’85.
My Dearest Friend:
A kind of anxiety has for some time past weighed upon me and upon others, I find, who love & admire you, that you do not have all the comforts you ought to have; that you are perhaps sometimes straightened for means. We have had letters from several young men, almost or quite strangers to us, asking questions on this subject; and we hoped & thought that if this were so, you would permit those who have received such priceless gifts from you to put their gratitude into some tangible shape, some “free-will offering.” Hence the paragraph was put into the Athenaeum which I send with this, and we were proceeding to organize our forces when your paper came to hand this morning (the Camden Post, July 3), which seems decisively to bid us desist. Or at all events wait till we had told you of our wishes and plan. One thing would, I feel sure, give you pleasure in any case; and that is to know that there is over here a little band – perhaps indeed it is now quite a considerable one, for we had not yet had time to ascertain how considerable – who would joyfully respond to that Poem of yours, “To Rich Givers.”
A friend and near neighbour of ours, Frederick Wedmore, is coming over to America this autumn, and counts much on coming to see you. He is a well-known writer on Art here – a friendly, candid, open-minded man with whom, I think, you will enjoy a talk.
I am on the lookout for Miss Smith43– shall indeed enjoy a talk with a special friend of yours, dear Walt. I hope she will not fail to come. Giddy is away at Haslemere. Herby just going to write for himself to you.
That is a very graphic bit in the Post– the portrait of Hugo, the canary & the kitten – I like to know all that – as well as to hear the talk.
My love, dear Walt.
Anne Gilchrist.
So far as can be ascertained this is the last letter. Anne Gilchrist died Nov. 29th, 1885.