other reading; as to highest literature what I felt three years ago is more than ever true now, with all their precious augmentations. I want nothing else--am fully fed & satisfied there. I sit alone many hours busy with my needle; this used to be tedious; but it is not so now--for always close at hand lie the books that are so dear, so dear, I brooding over the poems, sunning myself in them, pondering the vistas--all the experience of my past life & all its aspirations corroborating them--all my future & so far as in me lies the future of my children to be shaped modified vitalized by & through these--outwardly & inwardly. How can I be content to live wholly isolated from you? I am sure it is not possible for any one,--man or woman, it does not matter which, to receive these books, not merely with the intellect critically admiring their power & beauty, but with an understanding responsive heart, without feeling it drawn out of their breasts so that they must leave all & come to be with you sometimes without a resistless yearning for personal intercourse that will take no denial. When we come to America I shall not want you to talk to me, shall not be any way importunate. To settle down where there are some that love you & understand your poems, somewhere that you would be sure to come pretty often--to have you sit with me while I worked, you silent, or reading to yourself, I don't mind how: to let my children grow fond of you--to take food with us; if my music pleased you, to let me play & sing to you of an evening. Do your needlework for you--talk freely of all that occupied my thoughts concerning the children's welfare &c--I could be very happy so. But silence with the living presence and silence with all the ocean in between are two different things. Therefore, these years stretch out your hand cordially, trustfully, that I may feel its warm grasp. Good-bye, my dearest friend. ANNIE GILCHRIST. LETTER X ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN _50 Marquis Rd. Camden Sq. London July 14, '72._