Camden
P M Sept: 2 '89
Respects & good-will & good luck to you, dear friends both—Nothing very new or different with
me—I have just finished my early supper (I only eat two meals a day—no dinner)—mutton &
rice broth, Graham bread & a cup of tea—relish'd all—
Rush1 was here to-day—his imprisonment over, & he goes right off to
Concordville (is it?)—he looks well & was very thankful—had your names over & over again with
thanks & blessings2—
I am writing for pub'n a little still—have had a bad spell last week & before—one of my worst—but
am now ab't as usual considering the steady downward trend—Dr Bucke3
is well—I enclose some pictures.
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Ingram, a Quaker, kept a tea
store—William Ingram and Son Tea Dealers—in Philadelphia. Of Ingram,
Whitman observed to Horace Traubel: "He is a man of the Thomas Paine
stripe—full of benevolent impulses, of radicalism, of the desire to
alleviate the sufferings of the world—especially the sufferings of
prisoners in jails, who are his protégés" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, May 20, 1888). Ingram and his wife visited the physician
Richard Maurice Bucke and his family in Canada in 1890.
Notes
- 1. Little is known about
George Rush, Jr. When William Ingram called on August 3, Whitman gave Ingram a
copy of Specimen Days for Rush, who was then in prison in
Bucks Country, Pennsylvania (Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of
the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.). Ingram's letter of August 10, 1888 reported
how gratified Rush was to receive the gift. [back]
- 2. Whitman wrote about
Rush's visit in his Commonplace Book, noting, "Rush call'd—look'd
well—was very thankful, eulogistic, full-hearted—is just out of
prison, is just off to his parents in the country" (Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). [back]
- 3. 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). [back]