tenderness that fills my breast. I know that a woman may without hurt to her pride--without stain or blame--tell her love to thee. I feel for a certainty that she may. 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. 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 appointed, 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. I shall get them by the middle of November. I shall have to go to London about then or a little later--to find a house for us--I only came to the old home here from which I have been absent most four years to wind up matters and prepare for a move, for there is nothing to be had in the way of educational advantages here--it has been a beautiful survey for the children, but it is not what they want now. But we leave with regret, for it is one of the sweetest, wildest spots in England, though only 40 miles from London. Good-bye, dear friend, ANNE GILCHRIST. LETTER IV[8] WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST _Washington, D. C. November 3, 1871._ (TO A. G., EARL'S COLNE, HALSTED, ESSEX, ENG.) I have been waiting quite a 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 to me to do the present season, and though I am well and contented, my best moods seem to shun me. I wish to give to it a day, a sort of Sabbath, or holy day, apart to itself, under serene and propitious influences, confident 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 disappointment because I now write so briefly. 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 any one else. And I too fully and clearly understand the loving letter it has evoked. Enough that there surely exists so beautiful and a delicate relation, accepted by both of us with joy. LETTER V ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN _27 November '71._ DEAR FRIEND.