I was glad last evening to get a card from you dated 22d. I wish I could see you to have a real good talk with you about the "Complete Works,"2 I have a feeling that there is a chance to do something really worth while, something quite in the monumental style in the care of this vol. I should like to see it—what it might easily be—something unique & special. I trust you will give it full consideration before taking any actual steps. The "Nov. Boughs"3 I think decidedly should be published at a low figure and it should contain a full advertisement of the "C.W."—be a sort of avant courier of these. I will not trouble you by loc_es.00305.jpg repeating all I have said in former letters on this subject but leave it now to your serious consideration.
Today John Nesbit4 comes down and he, Willy Gurd5 & myself will have a consultation re the meter. The meter is the great thing with us here just now and will be until it is put into some kind of shape—something definitely settled about it.
We are all well.
I send my love to you RM Bucke loc_es.00302.jpg See notes Aug. 27, 1888. loc_es.00303.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).