I have been wanting the comfort, of a talk with you dearest Friend, for weeks & weeks, without being able to
get leisure & tranquillity enough to do it to my hearts content,
indeed hearts content is not for me at present; but restless,
eager longing to come—& the struggle to do patiently & completely & wisely what remains for me here
before I am free to obey the deep faith and love which govern me—So let me sit close beside you my Darling—&
feel your presence & take comfort & strength & serenity from it, as I do, as I can when with all my heart
& soul I draw close
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to you realizing your living presence with all my might.—First, about Percy1—things
are beginning to look a little brighter for him. He is just entering upon a new engagement with some very large &
successful works—the Blenavon Iron Co.—where, though his salary will not be
higher at first, his opportunities of improvement will be better & he is also to be allowed to take private
practice (in assaying & analyzing). The manager there believes in Science & is friendly to Percy &
will give him every facility for showing what he can do, so that he hopes to prove to the
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Directors before long that he is worth a good salary. The parents of Norah2 (whom he loves) have
released from their unfriendly attitude since my Beatrice3 has been staying with him, the
two girls have attached themselves to one another & Per. has had
delightful opportunities of being with Norah, & best of all she is to return here with
Beatrice (they are coming tomorrow) & Per. is to have a
weeks holiday & come up, so that he & Norah will be wholly together
& have I suspect, the happiest week they have yet had in their lives. Then I have stored away for them the furniture
of the dear old home at Colne & I really think that by the time
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/76 is out they will be able to marry. I see, and indeed I have known ever since he formed this attachment, that I must
not look for him to come to America with me. But what I build upon dearest Friend is that when I have been a little while
in America & have made friends & had time to look about me I might hear of a good certainty for him—his
excellent training at the Lond. Sch.
of Mines, large experience at Blenavon energy ability & sturdy uprightness will make him a first rate manager of works
by & bye.
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But the leaving him so happy with his young wife will make it easier for us to part—Nov. 26—Beatrice has
begun to work at anatomy at the School of Medicine for Women lately founded, & seems to delight in her work. She
will not enter on the full course all at once—I am for taking things gently. Women have plenty of strength but it
is of a different kind from mens & must work by gentler & slower
means—Above all I do not like what pushes violently aside domestic duties & pleasures. The special work must
combine itself with these; I am sure it can. Herby4 is getting on very nicely, never did
student love his work better. He is eager, & by making the best use of present opportunities & advantages
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yet looking towards America full of cheerful hopes & sympathy. Grace5 is less developed
in intellect but not less in character than the others. I can't describe her but send you her photograph. There is a
freshness & independence of character about her—yet withal a certain waywardness & reserve. She is a good
instinctive judge of character—more influenced by it than by books—yet with a growing taste for them too.
She comes to America with a gay and buoyant curiosity, declining to make up her mind about anything till she gets there.
We want as far as possible
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to transplant our home bodily—to bring as much as we can of our own furniture because we have beautiful old things
precious in Herby's eyes & that we are all fond of. And coming straight to Philadelphia & taking a house somewhere
on the outskirts of it or Camden immediately we fancy this might be practicable, but have not yet launched into the matter—I
have just heard from Mr. Rossetti,6 & also from Mrs. Conway7
of her husbands 8 having seen you, & if
his report be not too sanguine it is a cheering one & would comfort me much dearest Friend.
But what he says is so favourable I am afraid to believe it
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altogether, knowing that you would make the very best of yourself & indeed be probably at your best with the pleasure
of seeing an old friend fresh from England & also that he is sanguine.
Nov. 30. And now, dear Friend, I have had a very great pleasure indeed, thanks to you—a visit from Mr.
Marvin9—& hope to have another when he returns from Paris. And the account he gives
of you is so cheerful—so vivid—it seems to part assunder a gloomy cloud that was brooding in my mind.
And though I know that for the short hours that you feel bright & well are many long hours when you are far
otherwise, still I feel sure those short hours are the earnest of perfect recovery—with a fine
patience—boundless patience. And now I can picture you sitting in your favourite
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window, having a friendly word with passers by—& feel quite sure that you are happy & comfortable in
your surroundings. And a great deal else full of interest Mr. Marvin told me. I was loth for him to go, but one
hour is so small we have noticed for a friend I am sorry to say.
William Rossetti has a little girl which is a great delight to him. Miss Hillard10 of Brooklyn
has also paid me a visit & spoken to me of you. She charmed me much—only I felt a little cross with her
for giving Herby such a dismal account of his chances as an artist in America— loc_cb.00333.jpgHowever
we both refused to be discouraged, for after all he can send his pictures to England to be established &c. having
plenty of friends who would see to it; & we are both firm in the faith that if you can only paint the really good pictures
the rest will take care of itself somehow or other—& that can be done as well in America as in England—but of
course he must finish his training here—
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).