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  My dearest Friend

Has it seemed to you a long while since I wrote? It has to me, a very long while, & many's the day that I have said to myself, to-morrow I shall write a long letter & then the quiet leisure needed has never come. I sometimes think the best way would be to keep a letter always going—to jot down once a week, say, anything that I fancy will interest you & then send you the sum total at a months end.

I have news about dear Bee that will surprise and, perhaps, disappoint you. After she had studied four or five months at Bern the field of medical study began to broaden out before her: she realized   more than even before what science was being brought to bear on the investigation of disease, & slowly, reluctantly, painfully she came to the conclusion that she had not sufficient grasp of intellect to master all that she saw a physician ought to master. She could get through her examinations well enough as she has done before—but could not she said "pass" her own inward examination or conscientiously enter upon practice—she would not add to the already too great number of "fumbling physicians".  I thought perhaps she was suffering from such work & took a morbid view of things, & wrote to her to come home at once for a rest at any rate. So she is now with us, & I said we would not speak of it to any one till she was rested, & we had talked it well over. For I fully believe myself, that though not brilliantly gifted, her intellect is fully up to the average & a character a good deal beyond—that her devotedness & sympathy would in the end after long years of careful study make her an admirable physician. But I find her conviction is so strong & so conscientious, so against  her own wishes—for she loves both the studies & the practice better than ever & is bitterly disappointed,— that no more was to be said. And as regards my own feelings (though I am sorry for her sorrow, & sorry too that the excellent work I think she would do should go undone) yet the profession was like a great man that swallowed her up from me. I had seen nothing of her for two years & should not for three or four more, & I shrank from the arduousness of the life for her. And I have no doubt but that she will find scope  in other ways for her fine qualities. So I am well content—& it is such a comfort & delight to have her at home with us once more. And the training she has is a splendid preparation for life generally.—Herby has been working double tides to finish a picture he is going to send into the Academy on Tuesday; but whether it will get hung or no is always a toss up for young artists. One of our Philadelphia friends Mr. Murry Gibson has been over here & gives Herby a small commission too. William Rossetti spent good Friday afternoon with us; was very pleased with Herby's work. And then we had a long jolly talk about you dear Friend—you have no truer  appreciator & friend than he I find he stands fast. Indeed your friends & lovers in England are none of them half hearted,—but then perhaps it is not possible to be so toward you. We find Hampstead so pleasant & healthful that we are looking out for a house to settle down in—and then dear friend if only you will come! it is not so formidable a journey as to Colorado. I wonder if you have been lecturing or writing about that.

I have made the acquaintance of Mr. Buxton Forman whom you know by letter  & who is a very old & dear friend of Dr. Bucke's concerning whom he has told me some very interesting particulars. Did you ever hear his history? if not I will tell it you in my next & you will like him all the more. Rossetti thinks that little paragraph about Ruskin's admiration of your poems which appeared in last weeks Atheneum & has no doubt been sent to you, will give a greater impetus to the circulation of your poems here than anything that has yet  happened. Indeed every year the soil gets more & more ready for the crop.—In political matters we are faring very badly just now. England is fairly besotted by Beaconsfield's specious but rascally foreign policy & I believe he will have another lease of power. I hope Mr & Mrs Whitman are well—& Jessie & Walter? My love to all My thoughts travel daily to America—it has become a part of my life in a very real sense. Love from us all;

Good bye Dearest Friend. Anne Gilchrist