loc_vm.00021_large.jpg
12 Well Road,
Hampstead,
London, England.
July 8th
1888
My dear Walt;
I have followed your illness with breathless concern—that is, what I could
learn of it from the short and alarming dispatches in the "Daily News." I was so
rejoiced to see substantive proof of your part recovery in the firmly written post
cards to Mrs. Costelloe.1
We both wanted to telegraph when you were so ill only we didn't know who to telegraph
to, as Mr. Smith2 was just leaving Phila.
I have just received a letter from Ernest Rhys3 who speaks
of having been back to England 2 weeks. loc_vm.00023_large.jpg
loc_vm.00022_large.jpg Mrs. Costelloe told me that he told
Count Stenbock4 that he (Ernest R) had made & lost a fortune in the States.
It is a cold rainy summer with us—so cold that we feel to want a fire.
Mrs. William Rossetti5 is far from well & is away at Ventnor
recruiting.
Saturday Grace6 & I gave quite a large
party—58 guests—from 8.30 to 12 o.c. in the evening. Everyone seemed to
enjoy it & the evening passed off quite brilliantly.
Mrs. Costelloe is sitting 3 days a week to me —how affectionately and nicely
she talks of you.
I think that I shall paint a pretty picture from her.
You forwarded a long & interesting letter from S. Morse7
which I have duly answered: he wrote in excellent spirit—affairs seem to be
going well with him.
With hearty greetings & remembrances to Mrs. Davis,8
Herbert H. Gilchrist
I am just starting for a sitting with Mrs. Costelloe
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Henry Holmes9 violinist & composer is on the point of writing to buy books
from you.10
Correspondent:
Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist
(1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter
and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro,
"Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom
Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." A scholar of Italian
Renaissance art and a daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith, she would in 1885 marry
B. F. C. "Frank" Costelloe. She had been in contact with many of Whitman's
English friends and would travel to Britain in 1885 to visit many of them,
including Anne Gilchrist shortly before her death. For more, see Christina
Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. Robert Pearsall Smith
(1827–1898) was a Quaker who became an evangelical minister associated
with the "Holiness movement." He was also a writer and businessman. Whitman
often stayed at his Philadelphia home, where the poet became friendly with the
Smith children—Mary, Logan, and Alys. For more information about Smith,
see Christina Davey, "Smith, Robert Pearsall (1827–1898)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Stanislaus Eric Stenbock
(1860–1895) was the count of Bogesund. A poet and short story writer, he
was a close friend of the Costelloe family in England. [back]
- 5. Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti
(1843–1894) was a Pre-Raphaelite painter, model and intellectual. She was
the daughter of painter Ford Madox Brown (of whom she wrote an unpublished
biography) and his first wife, Elisabeth Bromley. She married critic and writer
William Michael Rossetti in 1874. An active feminist, she was a signatory of the
national petition for women's suffrage and wrote a biography of Mary Shelley,
published in 1890. She started suffering from tubercolosis in 1885 and died in
San Remo, Italy, in 1894. [back]
- 6. Grace Gilchrist Frend
(1859–1947) was one of Anne Gilchrist's four children and Herbert's
sister. She became a contralto. She was the author of "Walt Whitman as I
Remember Him" (Bookman 72 [July 1927],
203–205). [back]
- 7. Sidney H. Morse (1832–1903)
was a self-taught sculptor as well as a Unitarian minister and, from 1866 to
1872, editor of The Radical. He visited Whitman in Camden
many times and made various busts of him. Whitman had commented on an earlier
bust by Morse that it was "wretchedly bad." For more on this, see Ruth L. Bohan,
Looking into Walt Whitman: American Art,
1850–1920 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2006), 105–109. [back]
- 8. Mary Oakes Davis (1837 or
1838–1908) was Whitman's housekeeper. For more, see Carol J. Singley,
"Davis, Mary Oakes (1837 or 1838–1908)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 9. Henry Holmes (1839–1905) was
a well-known English violinist; he also composed violin concertos, cantatas, and
symphonies, and he taught at the Royal College of Music. [back]
- 10. This sentence is written on
the manuscript's first page verso. [back]