LETTER XIII

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

50 Marquis Road Camden Sq. N. W. May 20th, '73.

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

Such a joyful surprise was that last paper you sent me with the Poem celebrating the great events in Spain--the new hopes the new life wakening in the breasts of that fine People which has slumbered so long, weighed down & tormented with hideous nightmares of superstition. Are you indeed getting strong & well again? able to drink in draughts of pleasure from the sights & sounds & perfumes of this delicious time, "lilac time"--according to your wont? Sleeping well--eating well, dear friend?

William Rossetti is coming to see me Thursday, before starting for his holiday trip to Naples. His father was a Neapolitan, so he narrowly escaped a lifelong dungeon for having written some patriotic songs--he fled in disguise by help of English friends & spent the rest of his life here. So this, his first visit to Naples, will be specially full of interest & delight to our friend. He is also in great spirits at having discovered a large number of hitherto unknown early letters of Shelley's. Of modern English Poets Shelley is the one he loves & admires incomparably the most. Perhaps this letter will just reach you on your birthday. What can I send you? What can I tell you but the same old story of a heart fast anchored--of a soul to whom your soul is as the sun & the fresh, sweet air, and the nourishing, sustaining earth wherein the other one breathes free & feeds & expands & delights itself. There is no occupation of the day however homely that is not coloured, elevated, made more cheerful to me by thoughts of you & by thoughts you have given me blent in & suffusing all: No hope or aim or practical endeavour for my dear children that has not taken a higher, larger, more joyous scope through you. No immortal aspiration, no thoughts of what lies beyond death, but centre in you. And in moods of pain and discouragement, dear Friend, I turn to that Poem beginning "Whoever you are holding me now in hand," and I don't know but that that one revives and strengthens me more than any. For there is not a line nor a word in it at which my spirit does not rise up instinctively and fearlessly say--"So be it." And then I read other poems & drink in the draught that I know is for me, because it is for all--the love that you give me on the broad ground of my humanity and womanhood. And I understand the reality & preciousness of that. Then I say to myself, "Souls are not made to be frustrated--to have their greatest & best & sweetest impulses and aspirations & yearnings made abortive. Therefore we shall not be 'carried diverse' forever. This dumb soul of mine will not always remain hidden from you--but some way will be given me for this love, this passion of gratitude, this set of all the nerves of my being toward you, to bring joy & comfort to you. I do not ask the When or the How."

I shall be thinking of your great & dear Mother in her beautiful old age, too, on your birthday--happiest woman in all the world that she was & is: forever sacred & dear to America & to all who feed on the Poems of her Son.

Good-bye, my best beloved Friend.

ANNIE GILCHRIST.

I suppose you see all that you care to see in the way of English newspapers. I often long to send you one when there is anything in that I feel sure would interest you, but am withheld by fearing it would be quite superfluous or troublesome even.