Yours of 18th & 19th to hand,2 enclosing Herald scrap3 and Logan Smith's4 letter5. Thanks for all. All quiet here and nothing new. I guess things are pretty quiet, not to say dull, with you. You will very soon now have your autographing to do, quite a job for you I should think (?). Annual Fair begins in London today so no doubt we shall have enough visitors for the next week or ten days. I expect W. Gurd6 (and my boys) home this evening—guess we shall be able to move ahead with meter now. A certain little hitch there was seems to be got over all O.K.
loc_es.00381.jpgWe are talking of having a copy made (or get a casting) of your (Sidney Morse)7 bust and putting it in our new (big) amusement room (now building)—hope we shall be able to manage it. It would go over the front of store (the plan was to put Shakespeare there but as we cannot be sure of his likeness and can be of yours we think of this change).
Mrs Bucke8 and children all well—we are all enjoying the quiet autumn days, and the good fresh fruit and vegetables from our orchards & gardens—we have never had a more plentiful season.
Love to you RM Bucke loc_es.00378.jpg See notes Sept. 24, 1888 loc_es.00379.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).