I have had joyful news today; Percy's1 wife2 has a fine little boy—it was born on the 10th, and Norah got through well & is doing nicely—so I feel very happy—
Since then Per has gone to Paris where he is to read
a paper before the "Iron and Steel Institute," on the Elimination of phosphorus from Iron"—which
is also a little triumph of another kind for him—for the Council which accepted his paper is
composed of eminent English Scientists & eminent foreign ones will hear it.—I need not tell
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you it is indescribably lovely here now—no doubt Kirkwood3 is the same—the
light so brilliant and yet soft—the rich autumn tints just beginning to appear—the temperature
delicious—crisp & bracing yet genial—
The throng of people is gone—but a few of the pleasantest of the old set remain—& a
few interesting new ones have come—among them Mrs. Dexter from Boston,4 who was
a Miss Ticknor, daughter of the author of the book on Spanish literature5—she
and her husband full of interesting talk—Also Mr Martin Brimms & his
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wife6—a fine specimen of a leading Bostonian—Besides these also a Physician from
Florida whom I much admire—with a beautiful firm tenor voice—very handsome & graceful too a
true southerner I should say—(but of Scotch extraction).
Next week we go to Boston—
I went over the Lunatic Asylum7 here the other day & saw some strange sad
sights—some figures crouched down in attitudes of such profound dejection I shall never forget
them—some very bright & talkative. It is said to be the best managed in America. Dr.
Earle,8 who is at the head, is a man of
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splendid capacity for the post—a noble looking old man (uncle of those Miss Chases9 you met at our house)—
I can't settle to anything or think of any thing since I received Per's letter but the baby & Norah—
Love to you & to Mrs. Whitman10 & Hattie11 & Jessie.12
Good bye dear Friend. Anne Gilchrist.Send me a line soon
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).