This time last year when I seemed dying I could have no secrets between me & my dear children. I told them of my love: told them all they could rightly understand, and laid upon them my earnest injunction that as soon as my mother's life no longer held them here, they should go fearlessly to America, as I should have planted them down there--Land of Promise, my Canaan, to which my soul sings, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come & the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." After the 29th of this month I shall be in my own home; dear friend--it is at Brookebank, Haslemere, Surrey. Haslemere is on the main line between Portsmouth & London. Good-bye, dear Walt, ANNE GILCHRIST. _Sept. 6._ The new portrait also is a sweet joy & comfort to my longing, pining heart & eyes. How have I brooded & brooded with thankfulness on that one word in thy letter[7] "the comfort it has been to me to get her words," for always day & night these two years has hovered on my lips & in my heart the one prayer: "Dear God, let me comfort him!" Let me comfort thee with my whole being, dear love. I feel much better & stronger now. LETTER III ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN _Brookebank, Shotter Mill Haslemere, Surrey October 23, 1871._ DEAR FRIEND: I wrote you a letter the 6th September & would fain know whether it has reached your hand. If it have not, I will write its contents again quickly to you--if it have, I will wait your time with courage with patience for an answer; but spare me the needless suffering of uncertainty on this point & 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. Oh, for all that, this love is my pride my glory. Source of sufferings and joys that cannot put themselves into words. Besides, it is not true thou hast not sought or loved me. For when I read the divine poems I feel all folded round in thy love: I feel often as if thou wast pleading so passionately for the love of the woman that can understand thee--that I know not how to bear the yearning answering