All quiet here. The affairs of the meter2 look flourishing though there is a great deal to do yet before we get it fairly started. The weather with us keeps wonderful, pleasant. I had a long letter today from O'Connor3" he seems wonderfully bright and lively considering—His letter was all about you & Donnelly.4 He sticks to you like a grand fellow as he is. The last news from Pardee5 is not good, still I do not know that he is really worse—I cannot make out much of a letter today loc_es.00315.jpg topics are scarce and I am probably somewhat stupid.—
I have been thinking over the "Riddle Song"6 and have made up my mind that the answer is "Good Cause" or "Old Cause" or some other words meaning about the same thing.—?—
Your friend RM Bucke loc_es.00312.jpg See notes Aug 31, 1888 loc_es.00313.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).