Had for dinner stewed blackberries—a favorite tipple of mine—and boiled rice. . . . Sidney Morse2 has made a second big head—an improvement, if I dare say so, on the first. The second is the modern spirit, awake & alert as well as calm—contrasted with the antique & Egyptian calmness & rest of the first. We have decided on the second.
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy and Richard
Maurice Bucke were two of Whitman's closest friends and admirers. Kennedy
(1850–1929) first met Whitman while on the staff of the Philadelphia American in 1880. He became a fierce defender of Whitman
and would go on to write a book-length study of the poet. For more about
Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). Bucke (1837–1902), a Canadian physician,
was Whitman's first biographer, and would later become 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).