The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 9 September 1889
Date: September 9, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: loc.07315
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Caterina Bernardini, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
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Superintendent's Office.
Asylum
for the Insane
London.
Ontario
London, Ont.,
9 Sept 18891
Still keeps warm here. Quite warm indeed the last week and still so this morning though the nights are getting cool. Yours of 4th came on Saturday,2 I was very glad to hear that you are keeping fairly well—I trust it may last. Now that the hot weather is about over I have great hopes of you. We (Mrs. B. Clare,3 some friends & self) drove to Delaware yesterday—had a pleasant visit there and a most charming drive home by moonlight. I have had a plain, very neat, oak frame, with a good mat, put on the new Photo'—it sets it off well and will keep it clean—it is a magnificent portrait, I do not know that any of the paintings touch it—I do not think I ever saw a photo' with so much expression in the eyes. The picture came in perfect order—Dickwas careful of it you may be sure4
R M Bucke
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 USA. It is postmarked: London | PM | SP 9 | 89 | Canada; Camden, N.J. | Sep | 11 | 6AM | 1889 | Rec'd. [back]
2. Bucke is referring to Whitman's letter of September 4, 1889. [back]
3. "Mrs. B" is Bucke's wife, Jessie Maria (Gurd) Bucke (1839–1926), and "Clare" is the Buckes' daughter, Jessie Clare Bucke (1870–1943). [back]
4. Richard "Dick" Flynn was a longtime assistant to Bucke at the London asylum, doing odd jobs. Whitman met Flynn and admired his gardening work when he visited Bucke in 1880; he mentions Flynn in his October 14, 1880, letter to Thomas Nicholson. Traubel also records that Whitman was anticipating a visit from Flynn in Camden shortly before Bucke wrote this letter (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 27, 1889). Flynn, while on a tour of the U.S., apparently stopped by Whitman's Mickle Street home and carried a copy of the Gutekunst photograph of 1889 back to London with him. Whitman had worried that the photo would get damaged in the mail. Whitman and Bucke both greatly admired this photographic portrait. [back]