Walt Whitman to Anne Gilchrist, 3 November 1871 a machine readable transcription Walt Whitman Kenneth M. Price Ed Folsom Transcription and encoding Kenneth M. Price Elizabeth Lorang Zachary King Eric Conrad Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln University of Iowa National Historical Publications and Records Commission 2014 The Walt Whitman Archive
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Copyright © 2014 by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, all rights reserved. Items in the Archive may be shared in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Redistribution or republication on other terms, in any medium, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher, Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. Permission to reproduce the graphic images in this archive has been granted by the owners of the originals for this publication only.

 upa.00011 Walt WhitmanEdwin Haviland Miller The Correspondence New York New York University Press 1961–19772 140 Walt Whitman Walt Whitman to Anne Gilchrist, 3 November 1871 November 3, 1871 box 1 folder 3 Walt Whitman Collection, 1842–1957, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania Walt Whitman Anne Gilchrist added schematron declaration blessed checked encoded extracted transcription from Major Authors cd Washington City, U. S. November 3, 1871. Dear friend,

I have been waiting quite a long while for time & the right mood to answer your letter in a spirit as serious as its own, & in the same unmitigated trust & affection. But more daily work than ever has fallen upon me to do the current season, & though I am well & contented, my best moods seem to shun me. I wished to give to it a day, a sort of Sabbath or holy day apart to itself, under serene & propitious influences—confident that I could then write you a letter which would do you good, & me too. But I must at least show, without further delay, that I am not insensible to your love. I too send you my love. And do you feel no disappointment because I now write but briefly. My book is my best letter, my response, my truest explanation of all. In it I have put my body & spirit. You understand this better & fuller & clearer than any one else. And I too fully & clearly understand the loving & womanly letter it has evoked. Enough that there surely exists between us so beautiful & delicate a relation, accepted by both of us with joy.

Walt Whitman