Yours of friday and saturday, (finished the evening of saturday) came to hand last evening—and your postcard of sunday reached me this morning. I am greatly rejoiced that you are doing so well—I look forward confidently now to seeing you in fair trim when I go East next month. You ought to have some copies of the big book2 by now and I shall hope to get one in a very few days. All is quiet here, no winter yet, roads slush, grass almost green, thin snow lying in patches, "a gray discouraged sky over-head."3 loc_es.00515.jpg Wm Gurd4 not back here yet & no further word from him—he may be here this evening.
I am reading Parkman's histories—they are most fascinating books—have read "La Salle and Discovery of the Mississippi" and am reading "France and Spain in the New World."5 Have struck nothing more interesting for a long time—I am borrowing them from R.S. Gurd6 who has become quite a book man these late years. Hope to be able to tell you tomorrow something about Wm Gurd and the meter.
Love to you R M Bucke loc_es.00512.jpg See notes 12/26/88 loc_es.00513.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).