all that you learn, suffering all that you suffer (pressing closest then) loving, enjoying all that you love & enjoy--you will want me. You will not be able to help stretching out your hand & drawing me to you. I have written this mostly out in the fields, as I am so fond of doing--the serene, beautiful harvest landscape spread around--returned once more as I have every summer for five & twenty years to this old village where my mother's family have lived in unbroken succession three hundred years, ever since, in fact, the old Priory which they have inhabited, ceased to be a Priory. My Mother's health is still good--wonderful indeed for 88, though she has been 30 years crippled with rheumatism. Still she enjoys getting out in the sunshine in her Bath chair, & is able to take pleasure in seeing her friends & in having us all with her. Her father was a hale man at 90. These eastern counties are flat & tame, but yet under this soft, smiling, summer sky lovely enough too--with their rich green meadows & abundant golden corn crops, now being well got in. Even the sluggish little river Colne one cannot find fault with, it nourishes such a luxuriant border of wild flowers as it creeps along--& turns & twists from sunshine into shade & from shade into sunshine so as to make the very best & most of itself. But as to the human growth here, I think that more than anywhere else in England perhaps it struggled along choked & poisoned by dead things of the past, still holding their place above ground. Carlyle calls the clergy "black dragoons"--in these rural parishes they are black Squires, making it their chief business to instruct the labourer that his grinding poverty & excessive toil, & the Squire's affluence & ease are equally part of the sacred order of Providence. When I have been here a little I wish myself in London again, dearly as I love outdoor life & companionship with nature. For though the same terrible & cruel facts are there as here, they are not choked down your throat by any one, as a beautiful & perfect ideal. Even in England light is unmistakably breaking through the darkness for the toilers. I did not see William Rossetti before I came down, but heard he had had a very happy time in Italy & splendid weather all the while. Mr. Conway & his wife are going to spend their holiday in Brittany. Do not think me childish dear friend if I send a copy of this letter to Washington as well as to Camden. I want it so to get to you--long & so long to speak with you--& the Camden one may never come to hand--or the Washington one might remain months unforwarded--it is easy to tear up. I hope it will find you by the sea shore!--getting on so fast toward health & strength again--refreshed & tranquillized, soul & body. Good-bye, beloved Friend. ANNIE GILCHRIST. LETTER XV[21] WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST I must write friend once more at Since I last wrote, clouds have darkened over me, and still remain.