It did me much good to get your Poem—beautiful earnest eloquent words from
the soul whose dear companionship mine seeks with persistent longing, wrestling
with distance & time. It seems to me, too, from your having spoken the Poem
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yourself I may conclude you have made fair progress. What I would fain know is
whether you have recovered the use of the left side1
so far as to get about pretty freely, and to have as much open air life as you
need & like; and also whether you have quite ceased to suffer distressing
sensations in the head. If you can say yes to the first question, will you in
sign of it put a dash under the word London, & if
yes to the second under England when you next send me
a paper?
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Unless indeed the paper itself contain a notice of your health. But if it does
not that would be an easy way of gladdening me with good news, if good news there
is. I wish I could send you good letters, dearest Friend, making myself the vehicle
of what is stirring around me in life & thought that would interest you; for
there is plenty—But that is very hard to do—though I watch, hear, read
eagerly full of interest—Everything
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stirs in me a cloud of questions, makes me want to see its relationship to what
I hold already. I am for ever brooding pondering, sifting, testing—but that
is not the bent of mind that enables one to reproduce ones
impressions in comport & lively form. So please dear Friend, be indulgent, as
indeed I know you will be, of these poor letters of mine with their details of my
children & their iterated & reiterated expressions of the love and hope
and aspiration
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you have called into life within me—take them not for what they are but for
all they have to stand for—Beatrice2 is at Colne
(having got well through the exam: we were anxious about in the autumn) and is a
very great comfort to my Mother—as I well knew she would be; for a more
affectionate, devoted, care-taking nature does not breathe—with a strong
active mental life of her own too. So, though missing her sorely, I am
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well satisfied she should be there; & the country life & rest are doing
her a world of good. My artist boy3 is working away
cheerily at the R. Academy, his heart in his work. Percy4
is coming to spend Xmas with us—he, too, continues well content with his
work and in good health. Gracie5 is blooming.
The Rossettis6 have had a heavy affliction this first
year of their married life in the premature death of her only brother7—a young
man of considerable
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promise—barely 20.
The Conways8 are well. I feel more completely myself than I
have done since my illness.—so you see dear friend if it has taken me quite
four years to recover the lost ground one must not be discouraged if two does not
accomplish it in your case.—I hope your little nieces9
at St. Louis are well—and the brothers you are with, and that you have
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many dear friends round you at Camden.
I think my thoughts fly to you on strongest and most joyous wings when I am out walking in the clear cold elastic air I enjoy so much.
Good bye my dearest Friend. Annie Gilchrist.A cheerful Christmas, a New Year of which each days brings its share of restorative influence be yours.
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).