Camden
March 22 '89
Sunny & beautiful to-day here. I am fairly well considering—News not of favorable or
improving character from O'C[onnor]1—has great weakness & fits of vomiting—Dr
B[ucke]2 has got safely home in Canada & resumes his work—the meter project3 will yet
be launched, & go—the last Vol. 4th American Supplement to Enc: Brit: page 7724 has
a notice &c of me—
W W
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. 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).
Notes
- 1. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. Bucke and his brother-in-law
William John Gurd were designing a gas and fluid meter to be patented in Canada
and sold in England. [back]
- 4. The Supplement to
Encyclopedia Britannica (Ninth Edition): A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and
General Literature, vol. 4 (New York: J. M. Stoddart, 1889), 772,
contained an entry on "Whitman, Walt, poet," ending this way: "He resides on
Mickle Street, Camden, in a plain frame dwelling which has become a shrine where
he receives the homage of numerous devoted admirers, not a few from foreign
lands. He is a bachelor, and his real amiability and charm of character endear
him to all who know him." [back]