Yours of 20th, dear Walt, came
yesterday evening. Yes, I am thoroughly satisfied with the big book2 and more and
more (if possible) as I look it over. I think it will stand in future ages as the
cheif glory of the nineteenth century.3 Yes, I have no
doubt I get all your letters and papers &c also4—I shall be very glad to hear of O'C.5 if you have any
thing from there to send me—I fear he is very sick, I wrote him lately a
letter that ought to have been answered and I think would have been if he had been
able, but it was not—this makes me anxious. loc_es.00541.jpg No sign of Wm
Gurd6 and no further letters from him. No sleighing so far,
we have had a few days cold but mild again today—not much of a winter so far.
All goes quietly here, we are preparing for Xmas.
What will you have for your Xmas dinner? Roast turkey and plum pudding is the regular thing here but you will hardly be up to that this year. But by new year I am in hopes you will be in pretty fair shape again. The sun is out warm and bright—looks almost like a spring day out doors. From the two far corners of my office (where I am sitting) the 1st & 2d heads7 look down upon me grandly & calmly.
I am, dear Walt, your friend R M BuckeCorrespondent:
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).