It is 2.20 P.M. I am writing at the desk in my office. It is so dark that I almost
need the gas to see to write. Outside the rain pours down, the sky is a dark leaden
gray. This kind of thing has gone on for about two weeks now and is getting a little
monotonous. The bundle of ad's2 came this morning, I shall send them to friends as I
write. Do you read R.L. Stevenson?3 If so get the "Master of Ballantrae,"4 I am in the
middle of it, it is first rate—a regular Xmas story lots of adventure and
old-fashioned hair breadth escapes. Willy Gurd5 is not home yet
and no word of him, I expect him almost every train now. Mrs. B6 is still in loc_es.00669.jpg
Detroit, will probably return home tomorrow. We are having 4 evenings a week
amusements at the Asylum—one lecture each week among them. It keeps us all
going I am in the middle of getting new scenery for our new amusement hall. When it
is done we shall have as good a drop curtain and as good scenery as in the Opera
House in London here! Have just heard from Willy Gurd (mail just in) he will not be
home to Xmas, is in N.Y. submitting the meter to the N.Y. gas co. I do not know what
he expects to come of this—he will likely be home before New Years
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).