Collected Letters of Walt Whitman & Anne Gilchrist. Gilchrist Anne Burrows

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 indicative of serenity and goodness and of mental and bodily health as the brow is of intellectual power. But I notice he occasionally speaks of himself as having a ‘wounded brain,’ and of being still quite altered from his former self.”

      Whitman, on his part, thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon sunshine of such friendly hospitality, for he considered Mrs. Gilchrist even more gifted as a conversationalist than as a writer. For hints of the sort of talk that flowed with Mrs. Gilchrist’s tea I must refer the reader to her son’s realistic biography.

      After two years of residence in Philadelphia, the Gilchrists went to dwell in Boston and later in New York City, and met the leaders in the two literary capitals. From these addresses the letters begin again, after the natural interruption of two years. It is at this time that the first letters from Herbert and Beatrice Gilchrist were written. These are given in this volume to complete the chain and to show how completely they were in sympathy with their mother in their love and appreciation of Whitman. From New York they all sailed for their old home in England on June 7, 1879. Whitman came the day before to wish them good voyage. The chief reason for the return to England seems to have been the desire to send Beatrice to Berne to complete her medical education. After the return to England, or rather while they are still en route at Glasgow, the letters begin again.

      Several years of literary work yet remained to Mrs. Gilchrist. The chief writings of these years were a new edition of the Blake, a life of Mary Lamb for the Eminent Women Series, an article on Blake for the Dictionary of National Biography, several essays including “Three Glimpses of a New England Village,” and the “Confession of Faith.” She was beginning a careful study of the life and writings of Carlyle, with the intention of writing a life of her old friend to reply to the aspersions of Freude. This last work was, however, never completed, for early in 1882 some malady which rendered her breathing difficult had already begun to cast the shadow of death upon her. But her faith, long schooled in the optimism of “Leaves of Grass,” looked upon the steadily approaching end with calmness. On November 29, 1885, she died.

      When Whitman was informed of her death by Herbert Gilchrist, he could find words for only the following brief reply:

      15th December 1885.

       Camden, United States, America.

      Dear Herbert:

      I have received your letter. Nothing now remains but a sweet and rich memory—none more beautiful all time, all life all the earth—I cannot write anything of a letter to-day. I must sit alone and think.

      Walt Whitman.

      Later, in conversations with Horace Traubel which the latter has preserved in his minute biography of Whitman, he was able to express his regard for Mrs. Gilchrist more fully—“a supreme character of whom the world knows too little for its own good … If her sayings had been recorded—I do not say she would pale, but I do say she would equal the best of the women of our century—add something as great as any to the testimony on the side of her sex.” And at another time: “Oh! she was strangely different from the average; entirely herself; as simple as nature; true, honest; beautiful as a tree is tall, leafy, rich, full,[Pg xxxvii] free—is a tree. Yet, free as she was by nature, bound by no conventionalisms, she was the most courageous of women; more than queenly; of high aspect in the best sense. She was not cold; she had her passions; I have known her to warm up—to resent something that was said; some impeachment of good things—great things; of a person sometimes; she had the largest charity, the sweetest fondest optimism. … She was a radical of radicals; enjoyed all sorts of high enthusiasms: was exquisitely sensitized; belonged to the times yet to come; her vision went on and on.”

      This searching interpretation of her character wants only her artist son’s description of her personal appearance to make the final picture complete: “A little above the average height, she walked with an even, light step. Brown hair concealed a full and finely chiselled brow, and her hazel eyes bent upon you a bright and penetrating gaze. Whilst conversing her face became radiant as with an experience of golden years; humour was present in her conversation—flecks of sunshine, such as sometimes play about the minds of deeply religious natures. Her animated manner seldom flagged, and charmed the taciturn to talking in his or her best humour.” Once, when speaking to Walt Whitman of the beauty of the human speaking voice, he replied: “The voice indicates the soul. Hers, with its varied modulations and blended tones, was the tenderest, most musical voice ever to bless our ears.”

      Her death was a long-lasting shock to Whitman. “She was a wonderful woman—a sort of human miracle to me. … Her taking off … was a great[Pg xxxviii] shock to me: I have never quite got over it: she was near to me: she was subtle: her grasp on my work was tremendous—so sure, so all around, so adequate.” If this sounds a trifle self-centred in its criticism, not so was the poem which, in memory of her, he wrote as a fitting epitaph from the poet she had loved.

      “GOING SOMEWHERE”

      My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend (Now buried in an English grave—and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake),

       Ended our talk—“The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern learning, intuitions deep,

       Of all Geologies—Histories—of all Astronomy—of Evolution, Metaphysics all,

       Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,

       Life, life an endless march, an endless army (no halt, but, it is duly over),

       The world, the race, the soul—in space and time the universes,

       All bound as is befitting each—all surely going somewhere.”

      THE LETTERS

       OF

       ANNE GILCHRIST

       AND

       WALT WHITMAN

A WOMAN’S ESTIMATE OF WALT WHITMAN[1]

       Table of Contents

[FROM LETTERS BY ANNE GILCHRIST TO W. M. ROSSETTI.]

       Table of Contents

       June 23, 1869.—I am very sure you are right in your estimate of Walt Whitman. There is nothing in him that I shall ever let go my hold of. For me the reading of his poems is truly a new birth of the soul.

      I shall quite fearlessly accept your kind offer of the loan of a complete edition, certain that great and divinely beautiful nature has not, could not infuse any poison into the wine he has poured out for us. And as for what you specially allude to, who so well able to bear it—I will say, to judge wisely of it—as one who, having been a happy wife and mother, has learned to accept all things with tenderness, to feel a sacredness in all? Perhaps Walt Whitman has forgotten—or, through some theory in his head, has overridden—the truth that our instincts are beautiful facts of nature, as well as our bodies; and that we have a strong instinct of silence about some things.

      July 11.—I think it was very manly and kind of you to put the whole of Walt Whitman’s poems into my hands; and that I have no other friend who would have judged them and me so wisely and generously.

      I СКАЧАТЬ