I was to tell you about my acquaintanceship with Tennyson,1
which was a pleasant episode in my life at Haslemere Hearing of the extreme
beauty of the scenery thereabouts & specially of its comparative wildness &
seclusion, he thought he would like to find or build a house, to escape from the
obtrusive curiosity of the multitudes who flock to the Isle of
Wight2 at certain
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seasons of the year—He is even morbidly sensitive on this point & will not stir beyond
his own grounds from weeks end to weeks end to avoid his admiring or inquisitive persecutors—So, knowing an
old friend of mine, he called on me for particulars as to the resources of the
neighbourhood—And I, good walker & familiar with every least frequented spot of
hill & dale for some miles round, took him long rambles in quest of a site. Very
pleasant rambles they were; Tennsyon, under the influence of the fresh, outdoor
quite unconstrained life in new
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scenery & with a cheerful aim, shaking off the languid ennuyée
air, as of a man to whom nothing has longer a relish—bodily or mental that
too often hangs about him. And we found something quite to his mind—a coppice
of 40 acres hanging on the south side two thirds of the way up a hill some 1000 ft high—so as to be sheltered from the cold & yet have the light, dry,
elastic hill air—& with, of course, a glorious outlook
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over the wooded weald of Sussex so richly green & fertile & looking almost as boundless as
the great sweep of sky over it—the South Downs—the Surrey Hills &
near at hand the hill curving round in a fir-covered promontory, standing out very
black & grand between him & the Sun set. Underfoot too a wilderness of
beauty—fox gloves (I wonder if they grow in America) ferns, purple heath
&c &c.—I don't suppose I shall see much more of him now I have left
Haslemere;
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though I have had very friendly invitations; for I am a home bird—don't like staying
out—wanted at home and happiest there. And I should not enjoy being with them
in the grand mansion half so much as I did pic-nicing in the road & watching the
builders as we did. It is pleasant to see T. with children—little girls at
least—he does not take to boys—but one of my girls was mostly on his knee
when they were in the room & he liked them very much. His two Sons are now both
6 ft. high.—I have received your letter of March 203
from Brooklyn: but the one you speak of as having acknowledged the photograph4
never came
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to hand—a sore disappointment
to me, dear Friend. I can ill afford to lose the long & eagerly watched for
pleasure of a letter. If it seems to you there must needs be something unreal,
illusive in a love that has grown up entirely without the basis of personal
intercourse, dear Friend, then you do not yourself realize your own power, nor
understand the full meaning of your own words—"whoso touches this, touches
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a man"5—"I have put my Soul & Body into these Poems."
Real effects imply real causes. Do you suppose that an ideal figure conjured up by
her own fancy could, in a perfectly sound healthy woman of my age; so happy in her
children, so busy & content, practical earnest, produce such real &
tremendous, effect—saturating her whole life, colouring every waking
moment—filling her with such joys such such pains that the strain of them has
been well nigh
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too much even for a strong frame, coming as it does, after twenty years of hard
work?
Therefore please dear Friend, do not "warn" me any more—it hurts so, as seeming
to distrust my love—Time only can show how needlessly. My love, flowing ever
fresh & fresh out of my heart, will go with you in all your wanderings, dear
Friend, enfolding you day and night soul & body with tenderness that tries so
vainly to utter itself in these poor helpless words, that clings closer than any
man's love can cling. O, I could not live if I did not believe that sooner or later
you will not be able to help stretching out your arms towards me & saying "Come,
my Darling."—When you get this will you post me an American News
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paper (any one you have done with) as a token it has reached you—& so on at intervals during
your wanderings; it will serve as a token that you are well, & the post marks
will tell me where you are—And thus you will feel free only to write when you have
leisure & inclination—& I shall be spared that feeling
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fancy my letters have not reached you—as if I were so hopelessly helplessly
cut off from you which is more than I can stand. We all read American news eagerly
too.—The children are so well & working with all their might. The
school turns but more what I desired for them than I had
ventured to hope.
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).