What on earth can I say to you in response to the news about your dearest mother in
my2 letter rec'd this morning?—words are such
weak things any how in so deep & solemn a case—makes me heavy hearted
indeed, & have been so, all the day. As it is I can only send best best love
& thoughts dwelling with her all the time3—I
have seriously considered coming to London—but it seems impossible—I am
still here—my eyesight is less disturbed, is nearly ab't as formerly—but
my walking power worse than ever—they have to half carry me out to the wagon
to take the only little exercise I get every day—but my spirits remain cheery
& buoyant as ever—I eat and sleep fairly—am so far without any pain
of violence—& still have my good & kind housekeeper Mrs.
Davis—Have just rec'd the third instalment (31 pounds 19 shillings) of the good English
"offering" from Wm Rossetti—(some 49 pounds previously,—making 81 pounds
or thereabout altogether so far rec'd)4—and I can
assure you it has been upa.00080.002_large.jpg all most acceptable to me—& heart's thanks to you
all—I was down yesterday to the Staffords' at Glendale.5—O how I wish I could see your dearest mother—again my best, deepest love to
her.
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).