Thanks for your letter this morn'g—the "Sands"1 is intended (such as it is) for 20 pp. of "Annex" to follow L of G. consecutively paged—I have duplicate sets of them to be properly paged for the pp. for the "Annex"—I am probably no worse, but am to day certainly no better or strongly—the bowel movement is just right (a great favorable point daily or every other daily)—my eye sight goes badly—I enclose you Pearsall Smith's note2 wh' is favorable & you will want to know—the remains cool & pleasant to-day—My sister Lou3 is here to-day. My dinner is just here & I relish it—
W WIt was with much regret that we felt compelled to leave you in your sickness last week. We hold you in affectionate remembrance as we pass over the waters to England where once we hoped to have had your company. We beg that you will send us from loc_no.00115.jpg time to time as you feel able accounts of your health and of all that nearly concerns you concerns us also who love you.
Our passage across the whole way has been nearly as smooth as a duck pond, and my health has been very much benefitted by it.
I bear your messages of love and remembrance to your many friends in loc_no.00116.jpg London, who without my privileges of personal fellowship with you, honour and love you. I hope that the knowledge of this may often cheer and console you in hours of pain and weariness. Alys,4 my faithful secretary, joins me in the expression of the hearty affection with which I am always
Your loving friend R. Pearsall Smith per AlysCorrespondent:
Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).