1

In June was forged one of the links that connected Walt most intimately with England. Through the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Anne Gilchrist, the widow of the first biographer of William Blake, read *Leaves of Grass*, lent to her by Madox Brown. She was not satisfied with Rossetti's very proper and purged selections, but insisted upon getting the complete volume from Rossetti himself. With her reading of this, an incredible infatuation developed. On first opening the volume, her eye fell upon the engraving of Walt in shirt-sleeves. She was smitten with a strange premonition, half-recognition, and half-desire. She exclaimed aloud: "Here at last is the face of Christ which the painters have so long sought for!"

After Anne Gilchrist read *Leaves of Grass* in its entirety as Walt had really written it, she wrote to William Rossetti, who had lent her the volume: "Since I have had it, I can read no other book--it holds me entirely spellbound, and I go through it again and again with deepening wonder and delight." She continued to read Walt. The next day: "I am very sure you are right in your estimate of Walt Whitman. There is nothing in him

2

that I shall ever let go my hold of."

She was as good as her word. A fortnight later she was commending Rossetti on his courage in giving her *Leaves of Grass* unadulterated. "I had not dreamed that words could cease to be words, and become electric dreams like these. I do assure you that, strong as I am, I feel sometimes as if I had not bodily strength to read many of these poems. In the series headed 'Calamus,' for instance, there is such a weight of emotion, such a tension of the heart, that mine refuses to beat under it--stands quite still--and I am obliged to lay down the book for a while."

Anne is especially moved by the poems which express "what it means for a man to love his fellow-men." "These 'Evangel-poems of comrades and of love' speak with the abiding penetrating power of prophecy of a new and superb friendship:

> I sit by the restless all the dark night;
> some are so young,
> Some suffer so much: I recall the
> experience sweet and sad.
> Many a soldier's loving arms about this
> neck have crossed and rested,
> Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these
> bearded lips.

Anne comments that these kisses "touched with the fire of a strange new undying eloquence the lips that received them!"

Anne lost no time in publicizing her discovery of Walt Whitman. In May 1870 appeared anonymously

3

in the Boston *Radical* "An English Woman's Estimate of Walt Whitman." It was based on the letters Anne had written to Rossetti in her first enthusiasm. But Rossetti had not been the only one to hear about what Anne felt so profoundly. Even before her essay was printed, she saw to it that Rossetti should forward a copy of her letters to William O'Connor, who in turn should serve them up to Walt. As a result, Walt sent a photograph to Anne by way of Rossetti, with the acknowledgement that he was "deeply touched by these sympathies and convictions, coming from a woman and from England."

Finally Walt secured the *Radical* containing Anne's article and sent it to his mother, who wrote back immediately--"i set right down and read it that Lady seems to understand your writing better than any one ever did before as if she could see right through you she must be a highly educated woman."

Although Walt was as enthusiastic about the article as his mother, and called Anne's essay "the proudest word of all from any source"-- "a burst of sunlight over sea," he took good care not to answer with any personal expression in response to Anne's published outburst, which was in substance a love letter to him. He may have thought--"This is just another fan letter." He sent no written word to her. At her request, he did finally send a copy of *Leaves of Grass*. This did not

4

satisfy her. She recorded her thoughts toward Walt
at that time during "the long, long waiting, the hope
derred: each morning so sure the book would come
& with it a word from you that should give me leave to
speak: no longer to shut down in stern silence the
love, the yearning, the thoughts that seemed to strain
& crush my heart. I knew what that means--'if thou
wast not gifted to sing thou wouldst surely die.'
I felt as if my silence must kill me sometimes. Then
when the Book came, but with it no word for me alone,
there was such a storm in my heart I could not for
weeks read in it. Then again months of heart-
wearying disappointment, as I looked in vain for a
letter--O the anguish at times, the scalding tears,
the feeling within as if my heart were crushed &
doubled up--but always after wards saying to myself,
'if this suffering is to make my love which was born
& grew up & blossomed all in a moment strike deep
root down in the dark & cold, make it a love such
as he himself is capable of giving, then welcome
this anguish, these bitter deferments: let its
roots be watered as long as God pleases with my tears.'

After he got his 1871 *Leaves of Grass* and the
Exposition poem out of the way, Walt did try to make
an answer to Anne Gilchrist, who was continuing her
adoration from afar. She had written on September
3, 1871, to instruct him in the ways of womanly love,

5

in which she perceived that he had still something
to learn. "A woman is so made that she cannot give
the tender, passionate devotion of her whole nature
save to the great conquering soul, stronger in its
powers though not in its aspirations than her own,
that can lead her forever and forever up and on.
It is for her soul exactly as it is for her body. The
strong divine soul of a man embracing hers with passionate
love--so alone the precious germs within her soul can
be quickened into life. And the time will come when man
will understand that a woman's soul is as dear and equal
to his and as different from his as her body to his body.
This was what happened to me. When I had read for a
few days, nay hours, in your books, it was the divine
soul embracing mine. In May, 1869, came the voice over
the Atlantic to me--'O, the voice of my Mate: it must
be so--my love rises up out of the very depths of the
grief & tramples upon despair. I can wait,--any time, a
lifetime, many lifetimes--I can suffer, I can dare, I
can learn, grow, toil, but nothing in life or death
can tear out of my heart the passionate belief that one
day I shall hear that voice say to me, 'My Mate. The
one I so much want. Bride, Wife, indissoluble eternal!'
It is not happiness I plead with God for--it is the very
life of my Soul, my love is its life. Dear Walt. It is
a sweet & precious thing, this love; it clings so close,
so close to the Soul and Body, all so tenderly dear, so
beautiful, so sacred; it yearns with such passion to
soothe and comfort & fill thee with sweet tender joy; it

6

aspires as grandly as gloriously as thy own soul. Strong
to soar--soft & tender to nestle and caress. If God
were to say to me, 'See--he that you love, you shall
not be given to in this life--he is going to set sail
on the unknown sea--will you go with him?' never yet
has bride sprung into her husband's arms with the joy
with which I would take thy hand & spring from the
shore."

She then recounted how she had first put her
thoughts about him in the letters to William Michael
Rossetti, published anonymously. They constituted
really her first love letter to Walt. She now apolo-
gized for not having signed her name in print. She
resumed her appeal, but made it personal this time.

"O dear Walt, did you not feel in every word the
breath of a woman's love? Did you not see as through
a transparent veil a soul all radiant and trembling
with love stretching out its arms toward you? I was so
sure you would speak, would send me some sign: that I was
to wait--wait. So I fed my heart with sweet hopes:
strengthened it with looking into the eyes of thy picutre.
O surely in the ineffable tenderness of thy look speaks
the yearning of thy man-soul towards my woman-soul.
But now I will wait no longer. O come. Come, my darling:
look into these eyes and see the loving ardent, aspiring
soul in them. Easily, easily, will you learn to love all
the rest of me for the sake of that, and take me to your
breast for ever and ever."

7

On the 23rd of October, she still had heard nothing
from Walt. She could not resist the urge to write once
more: "I wrote you a letter 6th September, and would
fain know whether it has reached your hand. Spare me
the needless suffering of uncertainty on this point, and
let me have one line, one word of assurance that I am
no longer hidden from you by a thick cloud--I from thee--
not thou from me; for I that have never set eyes upon
thee, all the Atlantic flowing between us, yet cleave
closer than those that stand nearest & dearest around
thee--love thee day & night:- last thoughts, first
thoughts, my soul's passionate yearning toward thy
divine Soul, every hour, every deed and thought--my
love for my children, my hopes, aspirations for them,
all taking new shape, new height through this great
love. My Soul has staked all upon it. In dull dark
moods when I cannot, as it were, see thee, still, still
always a dumb, blind yearning towards thee--still it
comforts me to touch, to press to me the beloved books--
like a child holding some hand in the dark--it knows not
whose--but knows it is enough--knows it is a dear, strong,
comforting hand. Do not say I am forward, or that I lack
pride because I tell this love to thee who have never
sought or made sign of desiring to seek me. Try me for
this life, my darling--see if I cannot so live, so grow,
so learn, so love, that when I die you will say, 'This
woman has grown to be a very part of me. My soul must
have her loving companionship everywhere & in all things.

8

I alone & she alone are not complete identities--
it is I and she together in a new, divine, perfect
union that form the one complete identity.' I am
yet young enough to bear thee children, my darling,
if God should so bless me. And would yield my life
for this cause with serene joy if it were so ap-
pointed, if that were the price for thy having a
'perfect child'--knowing my darlings would all be
safe & happy in thy loving care--planted down in
America. Let me have a few words directly, dear
Friend."

At last, in order not to seem utterly boorish in
his lack of appreciation for so full a revelation,
I put down some words on paper: Nov. 3, 1871--
"I have been waiting quite a long while for time and
the right mood to answer your letter in a spirit as
serious as its own, and in the same unmitigated trust
and affection. But more daily work than ever has fallen
upon me to do the current season, and though I am well
and 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 and propitious influences--con-
fident that I could then write you a letter which would
do you good, and 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 dis-
appointment because I now write but briefly." He con-
cluded with the thought that his mother had expressed

9

when she read Anne's "Estimate"-- "that Lady seems to
understand your writing better than any one ever did
before." Why not lean upon the judgment of the one
whom he knew well in dealing with Anne, the unknown?

"MY BOOK IS MY BEST LETTER, my response, my
truest explanation of all. IN IT I HAVE PUT MY BODY AND
SPIRIT. You understand this better and fuller and
clearer than anyone else. And I too fully and clearly
understand the loving and womanly letter it has evoked.
Enough that there surely exists between us so beautiful
and delicate a relation, accepted by both of us with
joy."

The obvious evasion in Walt's note was not lost
on a woman so sensitive as Anne. Nevertheless she
could not pass up her dream without one more effort to
make him understand.

Nov. 27, 1871--"Your long waited for letter brought
me both joy and pain; but the pain was not of your giving.
I gather from it that a long letter which I wrote you
September 6th after I had received the precious packet,
a letter in which I opened all my heart to you, never
reached your hands; not yet a shorter one which, tor-
tured by anxiety & suspense about its predecessor, I wrote
October 15th--it, too, written out of such stress &
intensity of painful emotion as wrenches from us in-
most truth. I cannot face the thought of these words
of uttermost trust & love having fallen into other hands.

10

Can both be simply lost? Could any man suffer a base
curiosity, to make him so meanly, treacherously cruel?
It seems to cut and then burn me. I was not disappointed
at the shortness of your letter & I do not ask nor even
wish you to write save when you are inwardly impelled
and desirious of doing so. I only want leave and security
to write freely to you. Your book does indeed say all--
book that is not a book, for the first time a man com-
plete, godlike, august, standing revealed the only way
possible, through the garment of speech. Do you know,
dear Friend, what it means for a woman, what it means
for me, to understand these poems? It means for her
whole nature to be then first kindled; quickened into
life through such love, such sympathy, such resist-
less attraction, that thenceforth she cannot choose
but live & die striving to become worthy to share this
divine man's life--to be his dear companion, closer,
nearer, dearer than any man can be--forever so. Her
soul stakes all on this. It is the meaning, the ful-
fillment, the only perfect development & consumma-
tion of her nature--of her passionate, high, im-
mortal aspirations--her Soul to mate with his for ever
& ever. You might not be able to give me your great
love yet--to take me to your breast with joy. But I
can wait. I can grow great & beautiful through sorrow

11

& suffering, working, struggling, yearning, loving
so, all alone, as I have done now nearly three years--
it will be three in May since I first read the book,
first knew what the word *love* meant. I could face,
I could joyfully accept, the fiercest anguish, the
hardest toil, the longest, sternest anguish, the
hardest toil, the longest, sternest probation, to
make me fit to be your mate--so that at the last you should
say, 'This is the woman I have waited for, the wife--
the one I so much want.' Life has no other meaning
for me that that--all things have led up to help prepare
me for that. Ah, that word 'enough' was like a blow
on the breast to me--breast that often & often is so
full of yearning tenderness I know not how to draw
my breath. The tie between us would not grow less
but more beautiful, dear friend, if you knew me *better*;
if I could stand as real & near to you as you to me.
Ah, foolish me! I thought you would catch a glimpse of
it in those words I wrote--I thought you would say to
yourself, 'Perhaps this is the voice of my mate, '
and would seek me a little to make sure if it were so
or not."

Walt continued to hear from Anne Gilchrist in much
the same vein. At almost the same time that he heard
from John Addington Symonds, Anne wrote to him that
she was "restless, anxious, impatient, looking so
wistfully towards the letters each morning--above all,

12

longing, longing so for you to come--to come and see
if you feel happy beside me. So can you judge whether
I am indeed the woman capable of rising to the full
height of great destiny, of justifying and fulfilling
your grand thoughts of women." She reminded him that
when they came closer together there might develop a
"broad unmovable foundation-rock of perfect truth and
candour for our love." Walt took her at her word
and wrote back with "perfect truth and candour": "Dear
Friend, Let me warn you about myself and yourself also.
You must not construct such an unauthorized and imaginary
figure and call it Walt Whitman, and so devotedly in-
vest your loving nature in it. The actual Walt Whitman
is a very plain personage and entirely unworthy such
devotion."

Walt did not in any way minimize the worth and
significance of the unusual friendship growing up
between them. To William Michael Rossetti he con-
fessed: "Nothing in my life, or my literary fortunes,
has brought me more comfort and support every way--
nothing has more spiritually soothed me than the warm
appreciation and friendship of that true, full-grown
woman--(I still use the broad, grand old Saxon word,
our highest need)."

But to Anne he gave no further sign of affection.
He sent occasional papers with articles about himself
or poems by him, but not a single personal word, even
about his own health, when she inquired about it fre-

13

quently and particularly. At last, almost a year
after his "warning," she broke down and proposed to
maintain their friendship on his own terms. "Shall
you never find it in your heart to say a kind word
to me again? or a word of some sort? Please let it
be a letter just like the first three you wrote; do
not fear that I shall take it to mean anything it
doesn't mean. I shall never do that again, though
it was natural enough at first, with the deep un-
questioning belief I had that I did but answer a call.
It may be that this shaping of my life course towards
you will have to be all inward--that to feed upon your
words till they pass into the very substance & action
of my soul is all that will be given to me & the
grateful, yearning, tender love growing ever deeper
and stronger out of that will have to go dumb and
actionless all my days."

"Anne Gilchrist was preparing to embark from
England and make a home in America on purpose to satisfy
the "terrible, irrepressible yearning" for a companion
that Walt was writing about with such a difference.
She wrote him in January, 1876: "I have heard through
a friend of Bee's, a fellow-student who lives in Camden,
that we shall be able to get a very comfortable home with
pleasant garden there for about fifty-five pounds a year.
I think I can manage that very well--so all I need is to
hear of a comfortable lodging or boarding house (the
former preferred) where we can be, avoiding hotels even
while we hunt for the house. I have arranged for my

14

goods to sail a week later than we do. Bee has obtained
a very satisfactory account of the Women's Medical College
in Philadelphia & introductions to the Head, &c."

No response from Walt, except a marked newspaper.

After five weeks of waiting, Anne risked all. "My dear-
est Friend--I received the paper & enclosed slip Saturday
week, filling me so full of emotion I could not write, for
I am too bitterly impatient of mere words. Soon, very
soon, I come, my darling. I am not lingering, but held
yet a little while by the firm grip of conscience--this
is the last spring we shall be asunder--0 I passionately
believe there are years in store for us, years of tran-
quil, tender happiness--me making your outward life serene
& sweet--you making my inward life so rich--me learning,
growing, loving--we shedding benign influences round us
out of our happiness and fulfilled life--Hold on but a
little longer for me, my Walt--I am straining every nerve
to hasten the day--I have enough for us all (with the
simple, unpretending ways we both love best.)"

This brought the definite reply: "Dearest Friend,
To your good & comforting letter of February 25 I at
once answer, at least with a few lines. I have already
written this morning a pretty full letter to Mr. Rossetti.
My new edition is printed & ready. Upon receipt of your
letter I sent you a set, two volumes, (by Mail, March 15)
which you must have rec'd by this time. I wish you to
send me word soon as they arrive. My health, I am
encouraged to think, is perhaps a shade better-- certain-
ly as well as any time of late. I even already vaguely
contemplate plans (they may never be fulfilled, but

15

yet again they may) of changes, journeys--even of
coming to London & seeing you, visiting my friends,
&c. My dearest friend, I do not approve your Amer-
ican trans-settlement. I see so many things here
you have no idea of--the social, and almost every other
kind of crudeness, meagreness, here (at least in ap-
pearance.) Don't do anything toward it nor resolve in
it nor make any move at all in it without further
advice from me. If I should get well enough to
voyage, we will talk about it yet in London. You
must not be uneasy about me--dearest friend, I get
along much better than you think for. As to the
literary situation here, my rejection by the coteries
and the poverty (which is the least of my troubles),
am not sure but I enjoy them all--besides, as to the
latter, I am not in want."

Before Walt's caution reached her, Anne had
sent these words of elation: "I have such joy this
morning, my Darling--Poems of yours given in the
Daily News--sublime Poems one of them reaching dizzy
heights, filling my soul with strong delight. These
prefaced by a few words, timid enough yet kindly in
tone & better than nothing. The days, the weeks, are
slipping by, my beloved, bearing me swiftly, surely
to you--before the beauty of the year begins to fade we
shall come. I expect, Darling, we must go to some
little town or village ten or twenty miles short of
Philadelphia till the tremendous influx of visitors to
the Centennial has ceased, else we shall not be able to

16

find a corner there. By the bye, I feel a little sulky at your always taking a fling at the poor piano. I see I have got to try & show you it too is capable of waking deep chords in the human soul when it is the vehicle of a great master's thought & emotions--if only my poor fingers prove equal to the task! (All my heart shall go into them.) Take from my picture a long, long look of tender love and joy and faith, deathless, ever young, ever growing, ever learning, aspiring love, tender, cherishing, domestic love. Oh, may I be full of sweet comfort for my Beloved's Soul and Body through life, through and after death."

In answer to Walt's warning that there were many reasons against her coming that she had no idea of, Anne dropped "my Darling" and "my Beloved" in addressing Walt. After that he remained to her--as she to him--the "dearest Friend:" "Yesterday was a day for me, dearest Friend. In the morning your letter, strong, cheerful, reassuring--dear letter. In the afternoon the books. There are a few things I want to say to you at once in regard to our coming to America. I will not act without "further advice from you"; but as to not resolving on it, dear friend, I can't exactly obey that, for it has been settled, steady purpose (resting on a deep, strong faith) ever since 1869. Nor do I feel discouraged or surprised at what you say of American "rudeness," &c. I have not shut my eyes to the difficulties and trials & responsibilities (for

17

the children's sake) of the enterprise. I am not
urged on by any discontent with old England or by
any adverse circumstances here which I might hope to
better there; my reasons, emotions, and the sources
of my strength and courage for the uprooting & trans-
planting--all are inclosed in those two volumes that
lie before me on the table. O to talk it all over with
you, dearest Friend, here in London first; I feel as
if that would really be--the joy, the comfort, of that."

"Do not dissuade me from coming this autumn, my
dearest Friend. I have waited patiently--7 years--
patiently, yet often, especially since your illness,
with such painful yearning. It is by far the best
step, for instance, I could take on Beatrice's account.
She is heartily in earnest in her medical studies."

"If I do not hear from you to the contrary I am
to take our passage by one of the "States" Line of
steamers that come straight to Philadelphia sailing
about the 1st of September. But if there be indeed
an increasing hope of your coming here in the course
of the summer, or if you think it would be best for
us to go to New York (only I want to go at once where
we are likely to stop, because of my furniture) let me
hear as soon as may be, dear Friend. Looking at it
purely as concerns the young ones, for some reasons
it is very desirable to come this year & for others
to wait till next. With Bee, for instance, we are both
losing time & wasting money by going over another winter
here when there is no complete & satisfactory medical

18

course to be had."

In thus resolutely shaping her plans toward
residence in America near Walt, Anne could not
feel that she was building entirely upon the baseless
fabric of a vision, for had not Walt already in the
midst of the greatest trial of his life, taken his
own ring from his finger and sent it--in one irresis-
tible gesture of loving-kindness--to soothe her sick
heart pining over seas! soon after his mother's
death: "Since I last wrote, clouds have darkened
over me, and still remain. On the night of 3d
January last I was paralyzed, left side, and have remained
so since. Feb. 19 I lost a dear dear sister, who died
in St Louis leaving two young daughters. May 23d, my
dear inexpressibly beloved mother died in Camden, N.J.
I was just able to get from Washington to her dying bed
& sit there. I thought I was bearing it all stoutly,
but I find it affecting the progress of my recovery
since and now. I am still feeble, palsied & have
spells of great distress in the head. But there are
points more favorable. I am up & dressed every day,
sleep & eat middling well & do not change much yet,
in flesh & face, only look very old. Many times
during the past year have I thought of you & your
children. Many times indeed have I been going to
write, but did not. I have just been reading over
again several of this & last year's letters from you
& looking at the pictures sent in the one of January

18-4

24, '72. Do not think hard of me for not writing
in reply. If you could look into my spirit & emotion
you would be entirely satisfied & at peace. I am at
present temporarily here at Camden. My intention as far
as anything is on getting stronger, and after the hot
season passes, to get back to Washington for the fall
& winter. My post office address continues at Wash-
ington. The enclosed ring I have just taken from
my finger, & send to you, with my love."

Together with her son Herbert, and her daughters,
Grace and Beatrice, Anne Gilchrist arrived in America
in September 1876. Walt did not leave any traceable
record of their first meeting--Anne did not leave
any record either. Although she had been writing
to Whitman about her contemplated move to America
for eight months, he apparently was not in evidence
when she arrived. He was still recuperating at Tim-
ber Creek. All that Anne had to say about their
arrival in America when she wrote to William Rossetti,

* -- Insert

When Burroughs visited the Centennial Fair in
late September, he stayed at the same hotel with
the Gilchrist's, where Walt joined them every
evening for supper. "He likes Mrs. Gilchrist
and her family," commented Burroughs.

18-A

24, '72. Do not think hard of me for not writing in reply. If you could look into my spirit & emotion you would be entirely satisfied & at peace. I am at present temporarily here at Camden. My intention as far as anything is on getting stronger, and after the hot season passes, to get back to Washington for the fall & winter. My post office address continues at Washington. The enclosed ring I have just taken from my finger, & send to you, with my love."

Together with her son Herbert, and her daughters, Grace and Beatrice, Anne Gilchrist arrived in America in September 1876. Walt did not leave any traceable record of their first meeting--Anne did not leave any record either. Although she had been writing to Whitman about her contemplated move to America for eight months, he apparently was not in evidence when she arrived. He was still recuperating at Timber Creek. All that Anne had to say about their arrival in America when she wrote to William Rossetti, their mutual friend, was: "A fairly good voyage. Favorably impressed by Philadelphia, a fine, picturesque city."

Walt's diary entries record his activities and residence at the Stafford farm through November 14. On his return to Camden, sometime between November 14th and December, he speaks of George's wife Lou

Insert *

19

19

and domestic arrangements in Camden. Of Anne there
is no mention till many weeks later. The silence
of Walt about Anne was tallied by Anne's about Walt.
Her first reference to seeing Walt was in a letter
to Rossetti on December 22d, over three months after
she arrived in Philadelphia. Her comments are
eloquent in what they do not say: "I need not tell
you our greatest pleasure is the society of Mr.
Whitman, who fully realizes the ideal I had formed from
his poems, and brings such an atmosphere of cordiality
and geniality with him as is indescribable. He is
really making slow but, I trust, steady progress toward
recovery, having been much cheered (and no doubt that
has acted favorably on his health) by the sympathy man-
ifested towards him in England and the pleasure of find-
ing so many buyers of his Poems there. It must be a
deep satisfaction to you to have been the channel through
which this help and comfort flowed. Walt Whitman
possesses a richness and breadth of manner, the ideal of
democratic freedom and suave dignity of mien. # Insert

The reactions aroused by Walt Whitman in a refined
English woman, whose exquisite sensibilities had been
wounded, were thus expressed with British candor and
reserve. Anne Gilchrist wrote these words to the man
who had introduced her to Whitman's works and with whom
she had collaborated in raising funds in England for

20

Whitman's support. These funds had far exceeded any
concrete testimonial of appreciation he had ever
received in America.

Walt had not called in Philadelphia to see her.
Of course she loved him enough to seek him out! He
had never shown any passionate love for her in their
long correspondence when he was well. Why should he
put himself out now that he was sick? The inevitable
inference is that, exhausted by waiting, Anne came to
Walt Whitman's door in Camden. After their first talk
together, he felt he should see her home. It had been
Walt's habit to escort lady friends on their return
journey through that disreputable district of Camden
in which he lived and across the ferry to Philadelphia.
He had done as much for Helen Price. Certainly he
could do it for Anne Gilchrist.

As time wore on Walt himself made the trip across
to the house in Philadelphia that Anne had taken for
herself, her son Herbert, and her two daughters. Every
evening but Sunday, he took tea with the Gilchrist's
regularly. There was much high talk. When Walt stayed
there all night, he would entertain the family by sing-
ing opera arias in the bathroom next morning. They
were tunes that he remembered from his frequenting of
the opera and concert hall. The result was a strange
conglomeration of phrases resembling famous airs, com-
bined with free passages of Walt's own improvisations,

21

21

all sung slightly off key, resembling nothing known
in any conventional repertoire. No wonder the
Gilchrist family were fascinated by it! "I am sure
he had no preconceived idea of rendering any set
musical motif," said Grace, the younger daughter.
Music, science and philosophy, along with literature,
were Anne's great intellectual passions. Naturally
their talk turned often on favorite singers and actors.
The opera was a favorite theme.

Walt aired his prejudice against the piano. He
frequently said derogatory things about that instrument,
although he liked almost all other forms of music.
"America," he remarked casually one day, "makes better
pianos than the English do, but I don't attach much
importance to this little fact. If I could think Amer-
ica produced the finest people in the world, I wouldn't
care who made the finest pianos or the finest soap."

Again, Walt promulged his ideas on education. He
had been interested in seeing how the Staffords's boy
from Laurel Springs progressed when he was sent to a
school in Camden. He was being ruined by intellectual
stuffing, Walt thought. "Intellect is a fiend. It is
a curse that all our American boys and girls are taught
so much. I think that a boy or girl should be taught
very little. The majority of them know far too much.
The Staffords want Harry to learn shorthand and three
languages. Why, it is like putting jewels on a person
before they have got shoes on. The boy is sharp enough

22

of wit. I suggested that he should study literature.
This learning is helpful."

Anne was a great admirer of Emerson. Naturally she was curious about him. At this time Walt was rather anxious to point out flaws in the old transcendentalist who had once been his brightest guiding star, so he regalled Anne with this story: Miss Fredrika Bremer was at Emerson's house, and the conversation fell upon music. They turned to discussing the quality Swedish airs lacked. So Miss Bremer went to the piano, and suiting the action to the word, said, "I will show you what excellence our music lacks," at which some of the party asked her immediately to desist. Even Emerson himself said, "No, Miss Bremer, this is Massachusetts, and Sunday evening! I can't have it!" Miss Bremer blushed up and seemed put out. But like a good soul, which she was, she soon recovered and laughed. "Just think of that!" smiled Walt. I had to twice question my informer before I would believe it.

Walt discussed a wider and wider circle of topics as he became an intimate of the Gilchrist household. Anne was not only a creative scholar and critic of literature--she had finished her husband's life of William Blake after his death--but was the author of scientific essays, and an ardent and intelligent

23

lover of music as well. This was the finest intellectual feast he had ever known. Here was the cream of English culture and he became gradually used to more sophisticated subjects than he had even in the homes of Burroughs and O'Connor. So charming and natural did his tea-table conversations with the Gilchrist become that he almost lost his distrust of the highly educated!

Russia was one of the new topics that he launched into reading about. It was rumored that people in Russia were becoming aware of Walt Whitman. "I think it would be the thing for Russia to mix more with other nations. The Russians I look upon as overgrown boys and girls. It is just as if a great giant were trying to develop."

He delighted to tell tales of Count Gurowsky, a bearish old Polish nobleman whom he had come to know in the brilliant circle that frequented the homes of O'Connor and Burroughs. He was a hard old man with a soft, temperamental inside. He had a head as round as an apple and sharply-cut features. One eye had been knocked out in a duel, which had left a hideous scar.

"He let me in to a good deal about Russians," said Walt.

"He was a wild old fellow with ideas of his own. He came to America for liberal reasons. I used to like being

24

with him and never tired of looking at him. He told me he was at a <u>soiree</u> in Boston once when a lady who knew that he had studied under Hegel said to him eagerly, 'O what was the color of Hegel's eyes?' Gurowsky could not speak English very well, but showed his Slavic manners by being animated, vivacious, polite, bowing, anxious to understand. When the question was repeated, 'But what was the color of Hegel's eyes?'— 'Damn his eyes, what do I care for the color of his eyes!' Gurowsky stormed. He came to a sad end and died in great poverty. He knew he must die soon, but he used to say, 'It has come! It has come! but a brave man does not fear death.'"

There were none of the personal, private talks based on intimate understanding or passionate love that Anne had long looked forward to so eagerly. But there were far-flung discussions of imperishable truths that touched the hearts warmly and stisfied the soul as well as the mind. One day when they ended a peculiarly poignant discussion of immortality, Anne told him in moving words that he never forgot, of her deep-seated conviction that everything in the universe obeys the principle of evolution and leads on to constantly higher expression of the life-force. As a

25

woman of broad education and deep intuition she risked all of her knowledge on the certain truth that we are all moving slowly forward--that life is an endless march toward a definite goal, and that every manifestation of created existence, whether it be the universe, the world, or the individual soul, is certainly "going somewhere."

During the winter before Walt went back to the Stafford farm for the spring and summer months of 1877, he was a regular guest in the Gilchrist home. He had tea there every evening, except Sunday, which he spent regularly at Tom Harned's home in Camden. When Walt wanted to entertain he invited his friends at Mrs. Gilchrist's and let her serve as hostess. Anne's coming had had a definite effect on him. It was the beginning of a new era of respectable home-life combined with intellectual stimulation of the highest sort. Jack Burroughs said, "Why he has begun to take more care of his personal appearance and to spruce up a bit."

He was a regular guest in the Gilchrist home. He wrote to Burroughs: "Come to Mrs. Gilchrist's--I will prepare them--I will be there--it is 1929 North 22nd Street."

About this visit, Burroughs had to say: "I spent the night with Walt at Mrs. Gilchrist's. Never saw Walt look

26

so handsome, so new and fresh. His new light-gray
clothes, his white hair and beard, and his rosy
god-like, yet infantile, face, all combined to make
a rare picture. I is a feast to me to look at
Walt's face. It is incomparably the grandest
face I ever saw--such sweetness and harmony, and such
strength--strength like the Roman arches. If that is not
the face of a poet, then it is the face of a god.'' Bur-
roughs's picture was uncannily like what Walt had said
of himself in 1859--that he was ''a child, very old.''

Anne Gilchrist wrote of the same impression to Rossetti:
''His white hair and beard give him a look of age,
curiously contradicted by his face, which has not only
the ruddy freshness but the full rounded contours of
youth, nowhere drawn or wrinkled or sunk. It is a
face as indicitive of serenity and goodness and of men-
tal and bodily health as the brow is of intellectual
power. But he speaks of himself as having ''a wounded
brain'' and of being still quite altered from his former
self.''

Late that summer, Carpenter, like Burroughs, was
entertained by the Gilchrist in order that he might
see Walt. Carpenter neatly described the domestic
arrangements by saying that Anne provided in her Phila-
delphia home a ''prophet's chamber'' always ready for
Walt. So Edward Carpenter spent a week there. He
arrived at night. His English sense of propriety
was shocked at what he found. The house was built

27

directly on the street with steps giving from the
front door on to the sidewalk. On these steps were
draped a perfectly proper English lady with volumi-
nous skirts, with two young ladies and a young
gentleman flanking her. In the midst of the group
sat an old nature-diety, or druid priest, with his
long, white beard and hair glistening in the moonlight.
Thus Edward Carpenter was greeted by Anne Gilchrist,
with her children and Walt Whitman in a midsummer
night's gambol. Edward's conventionality was only
skin-deep. He was very pliable underneath, and after
he discovered that it was a general custom in Phila-
delphia for respectable people to take the air in this
way on warm evenings, he himself consented to be a mem-
ber of the party every night. He attributed his un-
bending to Walt's magic presence. "Why, instead of
making you feel as most people do," said he, in awed
British accents, "that the Present is a kind of squalid
necessity to be got over as best may be, in view of
something always in the future, he gave you that good
sense of nowness, that faith that the present is enjoy-
able, which imparts color and life to the thousand and
one dry details of existence."

The conversations there on the Gilchrist polished
doorsteps were of an intimacy never experienced before

28

by English Edward. He was surprised to note that when Walt was talking, he would as often as not take hold of his listener by the hand. Even his words seemed to have a peculiar force of attraction. He was above all sincere and frank. No current notions of politeness could make him do anything he did not enjoy. One evening when they withdrew from the door-stool to the parlor, Mrs. Gilchrist entertained them by showing some of the fine collection of engravings that she had brought over from England. Walt looked at them with interest as long as he felt like it and then suddenly said, "Well, I've had enough of this." Edward Carpenter said he had never known anyone who could be so cordial and near to other people and then detach and withdraw himself as decisively as Walt did. "I have never known anyone who spent more time in solitude than Walt. No picture of his character would be complete which does not take into account the strong element of obstinacy that exists in him."

Since Edward had been in the Orient, the conversation naturally turned to conditions there. Walt commented on his impression of the Chinese people comparing them with the Germans. "My notion is that the Germans are simple, true, affectionate folk, but there is a kind of roughness, one may almost say brutishness about them. The Chinese have the same good qualities with a certain alertness and grace which the Germans lack." Anne wondered about the social conditions

29

in India and especially their effect upon the women.
Walt was mouved to "spout," as he called it. He had
been reading Oriental literature. He compared the
Hindu play "Sakuntala" to Shakespeare in its modernness.
He recited for them the story of "Yudsthura" from the
Indian epic "Ramayana."

Again, Anne would talk of women's equality with
men. She doubted whether in the cramped life of the
East women had a chance to live intelligently, especially
among the high-born classes. Walt reflected, when it
came to that, on a shoddiness and vulgarity of modern
well-to-do life in America, especially among the women.
"It seems a strange thing to me this love of gilt and
upholstery among Americans. It is unnatural that people
leading a free, natural open-air life should, as soon
as they make a little money, want to go in for sofas,
expensively furnished rooms, dress, and the like. Yet
it seems to be a law, a kind of necessity, that they
should do so. I suppose it is partly that each man
wishes to feel himself as good as others, to feel that
he can have the "best" too. Democracy shows itself for
a time in that way, reducing the borrowed, old World
standard of superiority to an absurdity. But I guess
it will not last forever."

The company in the Gilchrist home did not always
indulge in such highly intellectual pastimes. On rainy
afternoons they would play the game of "Twenty Questions,"

30

that Walt had amused the soldiers with during the war, and also had used to keep his pupils in a good humor when he had taught school. At other times, Walt liked to putter around the kitchen preparing some little dish of his own devising for the evening meal. Sometimes he would regale the family with reading aloud. They liked his reading of Ulysses, which Walt said "is the best Tennysonian poem, I guess." Or, he would tell them of some of his adventures in prison. He had had a "fancy" to visit Sing Sing. He became acquainted with some of the prison officers and had free access to the place. He went there frequently for a while and wrote letters for the prisoners and visited them. But that was only a passing whim.

**********

He hears from the Gilchrist's in Brooklyn, just returned from a long visit in Concord, where they have absorbed transcendentalism at its fountain-head and observed the Concord dieties at close range. The lecture on Lincoln, postponed the previous spring, because of ill-health, has become a fixed fact. "I shall wait till I get good and ready," says Walt determinedly.

Anne tells all about her visit to Emerson: "He unites with his fine genius a fine character, and is

31

1

full of goodness and amiability. His memory fails somewhat as to recent names and topics, but as usual in such cases all the mental impressions that were made when he was in full vigor remain clear and strong. Emerson looks 'the picture of health and cheerful serenity and has just such a home as one could desire for him."

While Anne was at the Emersons, he had two lapses of memory that belied her flattering account. Once he turned to his wife and said, "What was the name of my best friend?" She answered as she invariably did to this oft-repeated question, "Henry Thoreau." "O yes, Henry Thoreau," reflected Emerson musingly. Anne thought Emerson might be interested in her photographs, for she was a great collector of pictures. She showed her album to him. He lingered over the picture of Walt without seeming to have any flash of recognition. "That is Walt Whitman, you know, Mr. Emerson," he was courteously reminded. "And who is Walt Whitman?" asked Emerson, "Is he one of your English friends?"

The next June, 1879, Anne Gilchrist sailed for England. Then, she, too, became a memory, but Walt did not forget her image as Emerson had forgotten him and Thoreau.

32

As he dwelt more and more in pictures of the
past, he was sadly aware of a tremulous undertone
weaving together the pattern of his life with a slender
but irrefragable strang--the murmur of a yearning un-
quenched, unending. Did he sometimes detect the like--
an answering murmur of a woman's heart that understood
the baseless fabric of his own vision, borne toward
him across the Atlantic waves?

COPY

July 15th, 1943.

My dear Grace Gilchrist:

I was calling upon Mrs. Frank Sprague. She showed me a photograph of a very lovely painting of your mother with Walt Whitman. Ever since I was a young woman, I have admired Whitman's portrait, and have a wonderful collection of his books and also of your dear Mother's books. I have the greatest admiration for your mother. She was a beautiful, brave, gracious, individualistic, understanding character. I have everything she has written and everything written about her. I have also the Blake edition, which she and your father wrote. I am partly English and lived in England a great many years and knew Rosetti, who gave me some wonderful photographs and letters and one of Walt Whitman's envelopes, with his strong, masterful handwriting, which I treasure. The letter was about your mother and her wonderful, inspired recognition of his genius. I know of no man who has given a greater, honored comradship than he gave to your mother, Ann Gilchrist.

Mrs. Sprague gave me a photograph of a small miniature, of which I had photographs made, and I am sending a copy to you from her and me. I am also sending another one that was given me that used to be in Whitman's living room.

-2-

What a marvelous thing it was for Whitman
to have had the friendship and comradship of a woman
like your mother. His Philadelphia days with your
family must have been one of the great things in his
life.

The misery of these days are too terrific
to talk about. There is hardly a family in America
that has not a son engaged in the war. Even eight-
een year old boys, who are still only schoolboys. To
think they would take boys from school and college!
Nineteen would have been young enough. Every one of
my friends has a son or husband in the war. I have
two grandsons in the forces.

I have written a novel called CONSEQUENCES.
It was translated into Chinese because, the Chinese
said, so many have written about the uneducated poor
of China, but that I had dealt with the poets and
literary men of China, and that is why they printed
it in Chinese. I am sending a copy to you. I
hope it reaches you safely. You will see, and I
think you will be interested in the distinction I
make between Whitman and Emerson, and the resemblance
of Whitman's poetry to the Chinese.

I had many dear friends in England - Ellen
Terry, Lawrence Housman, Alice Maynell, Lord and Lady
Dunsany, William Butler Yeats, his family and his
lovely sister Elizabeth, who established the Cuala
Press, John Masefield, and many others.