LETTER XLII

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

_39 Somerset St. Boston Nov. 13, '78._

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

I feel as if I didn't a bit deserve the glorious budget you sent me yesterday, for I have been a laggard, dull correspondent of late, because, leading such an unsettled kind of life, I don't seem to have got well hold of myself. Beautiful is the title prose poem--the glimpse of the autumn cornfield: one smells the sweet fragrance, basks in the sunshine with you--tastes all the varied, subtle outdoor pleasures, just as you want us to. A lady who has just been calling on me--Miss Hillard--no relation of the odious Dr. H.--said, "Have you seen a lovely little bit about a cornfield by Walt Whitman in a New York paper?" She did not know your poems, but was so taken with this. By the bye, I am not quite American enough yet to enjoy the sound of the locusts & big grasshoppers--ours are modest little things that only make a gentle sort of whirr--not that loud brassy sound--couldn't help wishing for more birds & less insects when I was at Chesterfield--but I like our English name "ladybird" better than "ladybug". Do your children always say when they see one, as ours do, "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home: your house is on fire, your children are flown"? But for the rest--I believe I am growing a very good American; indeed, certain am I there is no more lovable people to live amongst anywhere in the world--and in this respect it has been good to give up having a home of my own here for awhile--for I have been thrown amongst many more intimately than I could have been otherwise. What you say of Herby's picture delights me, dear Friend. I have been grieving he was not with us, sharing the pleasant times we have had and enlarging his circle of friends--but after all he could not have been doing better--he must come on here by & bye. I wonder if you are as satisfied with his portrait of you as with the landscape. I suppose he is gone on to New York to-day. I have sighed for dear little Concord many times since I came away--beautiful city as Boston is & many the interesting & kindly people I am seeing here: but the outdoor life & the entirely simple, unpretending, cordial, friendly ways of Concord & its inhabitants won my heart altogether--one of them came to see me to-day & to ask us to go and spend a couple of days with them there again before we leave & I could not say nay, though our time is short. There are some portraits in the Art Museum here, which interested me a good deal--of Adams, Hancock, Quincy, &c.,--& of some of the women of that time--they would form an excellent nucleus of a national portrait gallery, which (together with good biographies while yet materials & recollections are fresh & abundant) would be a very interesting & important contribution to the world's history.--Tennyson's letter is a pleasure to me to see--considering his age & the imperfection of his sight through life, matters are better rather than worse with him than one could have expected. Since that was written a friend (Walter White) tells me they--the Tennysons--have taken a house in Eaton Sq., London, for the winter. And last, not least, thanks for Mr. Burroughs's beautiful letter--that young man is indeed, as he says, like a bit out of your poems.

There are two or three fine young men boarding here, & Giddy & I enjoy their society not a little. Love to your Brothers & Sister. I shall write soon as I am settled down in New York to her or Hattie. Love to Mrs. Stafford. And most of all to you.

Good-bye, dear friend.

A. GILCHRIST.

I will send T's letter in a day or two.