Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 14 July 1889
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Superintendent's Office.
Asylum for the Insane London. Ontario London, Ont., 14 July 18891
If you could only be here, dear Walt, and enjoy this beautiful weather! Today it is simply perfect—the temperature just right—the sky shaded by a thin veil of cloud, a fresh breeze blowing, one cannot but think that the trees, flowers and grass must enjoy it all. The old place is lovely—I wish you could see it!
All goes quietly and well with us all here and if I could only feel that you were having a good time (I am afraid you are not) I should be perfectly happy
Love to you dear Walt R M Bucke
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Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden | New Jersey U.S.A. It is postmarked: London | [illegible] | JY 15 | 89 | Canada; Cam[illegible] | [illegible] | 16 | 3 PM | 1889 | Rec'd; NY | 7-16 89 | 8 AM | [illegible]. [back]