Anne Gilchrist to Walt Whitman, 23 October 1871
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Brookbank, Shotter Mill
Haslemere, Surrey
Oct. 23. 1871.
Dear Friend.
I wrote you a letter the 6th September1 & would fain
know whether it has reached your hand. If it have not, I
will write its contents again quickly to you—if it have, I
will wait your time with courage with patience for an answer;
but spare me the needless suffering of uncertainty on this
point & let me have one line, one word of assurance that I
am no longer hidden from you by a thick cloud—I from
thee—not thou from me: for I that have never set eyes upon
thee, all the Atlantic flowing between us yet cleave closer than
those that stand nearest & dearest around thee—love thee
day & night:—last thoughts first thoughts, my soul's
passionate yearning toward thy divine Soul, every hour, every
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deed and thought—my love for my children, my
hopes aspirations for them all taking new shape new
height through this great love My Soul has staked all upon
it. In dull dark moods when I cannot as it were see thee,
still, still always a dumb blind yearning towards thee—still
it comforts me to touch, to press to me the beloved books—like
a child holding some hand in the dark—it knows not
whose—but knows it is enough—knows it is a dear strong,
comforting hand. Do not say I am forward, or that I
lack pride because I tell this love to thee who have never
sought or made sign of desiring to seek me. Oh for
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all that this love is my pride my glory. Source
of sufferings and joys that cannot put themselves
into words—Besides it is not true thou has not sought or loved me. For
when I read the divine poems I feel all folded round in thy love: I
feel often as if thou wast pleading as passionately for the love
of the woman that can understand thee—that I know not how
to bear the yearning answering tenderness that fills my
breast. I know that a woman may without hurt to her
pride—without stain or blame tell her love
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to thee. I feel for a certainty that she may. Try me for this life my
darling—see if I cannot so live, so grow, so learn, so love that
when I die you will say—"This woman has grown to be a
very part of me. My soul must have her loving companionship
everywhere & in all things. I alone & she alone
are not complete identities—it is I and her together in a new
divine perfect union that form the one complete identity."
I am yet young enough to bear thee children my darling if God should so bless me. And would yield my life for this cause with serene joy if it were so appointed, if that were the price for thy having a "perfect child"—knowing my darlings would all be safe & happy in thy loving care—planted down in America.
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Let me have a few words directly dear Friend. I shall
get them by the middle of November. I shall have to go to
London about then or a bit later—to find a house for us—I
only came to the old home here from which I have been
absent nearly four years to wind up matters & prepare for a
move, for there is nothing to be had in the way of educational
advantages here—it has been a beautiful survey for the
children, but it is not what
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they want now. But we leave with regret for it is one of the sweetest
wildest spots in England though only 40 miles from London.
Correspondent:
Anne Burrows Gilchrist
(1828–1885) was the author of one of the first significant pieces of
criticism on Leaves of Grass, titled "A Woman's Estimate
of Walt Whitman (From Late Letters by an English Lady to W. M. Rossetti)," The Radical 7 (May 1870), 345–59. Gilchrist's long
correspondence with Whitman indicates that she had fallen in love with the poet
after reading his work; when the pair met in 1876 when she moved to
Philadelphia, Whitman never fully returned her affection, although their
friendship deepened after that meeting. For more information on their
relationship, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Anne Burrows (1828–1885)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter has not been located. [back]