I have your card of 17th2 Have also had a letter from Mrs O'Connor3 telling me about O'C.'s4 exodus to the west. I have just written to her and to O'C. It seems O'C.'s doctors are at present telling Mrs O'C. that the disease is now sclerosis the disease has been Sclerosis all along and how the doctors could have thought otherwise (if they did so think) I cannot imagine. It is pitiable to see the poor fellow at this late hour going for "change of air" as if that could by any possibility do any good in such a case. However it won't do any harm and the change may rouse him up a little for the time. He may go on living for months (even quite a few years) yet and the great thing of course is to save him all the loc_es.00235.jpgsuffering (mental & bodily) possible. All quiet here—Country all grown solid again—splendid wheeling smooth hard roads—cloudy weather—All well here we have just had a good dinner—roast turkey, bread sauce & apple pie—What more could one ask for? We are all looking forward to seeing you here by & by—if the lecture5 comes off Mrs B.6 will go with me to New York after you and surely we can bring you home comfortably between us—I have just written to Johnston7 too about the lecture we want to find out what they are thinking about in New York I guess it will be all right—they surely will not let the chance go by after Phila8 letting them send a good example last year—I wonder when they are going to mind your hospital article in the Century?9
Goodbye—we all send love to you R M Bucke loc_es.00232.jpg loc_es.00233.jpgCorrespondent:
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).