LETTER LXIX

ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

Hampstead

May 2, ’84.

My Dearest Friend:

Your card (your very voice & touch, drawing me across the Atlantic close beside you) was put into my hand just as I was busy copying out “With husky, haughty lips O sea” to pin into my “Leaves of Grass.” I hardly think there is anything grander there. I think surely they must see that that is the very Soul of Nature uttering itself sublimely.

Who do you think came to see us on Sunday? Professor Dowden.40 And I know not when I have set eyes on a more beautiful personality. I think you would be as much attracted towards him as I was. It was he who told me (full of enthusiasm) of the Poems in Harper’s which I had not seen or heard of. We had a very happy two or three hours together, talking of you& looking through Blake’s drawings. He is a tall man, complexion tanned & healthy, nose finely modelled, dark eyes with plenty of life & meaning in them, hair grayish—I should think he was between forty & fifty—but says his father is still a fine hale old man.

Herby disappointed again this year of getting anything into the R. Academy.

I think I like the idea of the shanty, if you have any one to take good care of you, to cook nicely, keep all neat & clean &c. I wonder if I have ever been in Mickle St. I, still busy, still hammering away to see if I can help those that “balk” at “Leaves of Grass”. Perhaps you will smile at me—at any rate it bears good fruit to me—I seem to be in a manner living with you the while.

Everything full of beauty just now here, as no doubt it is with you.

Good-bye, dearest friend—don’t forget the letter that is to come soon. Love from us all, love & again love from

Anne Gilchrist.

40 Edward Dowden, of the University of Dublin.