loc_es.00727.jpg
Superintendent's Office
Asylum
for the Insane
Ontario
London, Ont.,
6 March
1890
I have yours 28 Feb. and 1 March enclosing John Burroughs1
of 27 Feb.2 and the funny little wood cut. So you have
become immortal in a cigar advertisement!!3 Well done! I always thought you would
come to something if you stuck to your business long enough! Burroughs' letter is
deeply interesting—but what ails the fellow that he is so damned pathetic? He
is (I judge) fairly well fixed (as things go)—good reputation, lovely home,
enough to eat &c. &c. then why is he so infernally down in the mouth all the
time? I don't see anything to whine about in getting old—think (on the whole)
it is rather a good joke—my strongest feeling
loc_es.00728.jpg
about it is: what is to come next? That we are going to (or towards) the bad all the
time does not occur to me as likely at all and if not what is there to be blue
about? I have just received and answered the enclosed long letter from Mrs O'Connor4
which I am sure you would like to read—you need not return it. I have some
notion that I may take a week's run about middle of April to Philadelphia, Baltimore
and Washington. I shall look out for the May Century with considerable interest.5 We
are pegging away at the meter6 trying to get it on its feet and I look to succeed all
in good time but it will take weeks perhaps months yet
Always affectionately
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. The naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After
returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a decades-long
correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman.
However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged,
curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or
devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and
Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting
the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs,
see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. See Whitman's February 28–March 1, 1890, letter to Bucke.
The poet enclosed Burroughs's letter of February
27. [back]
- 3. Whitman apparently had
sent Bucke an advertisement for cigars that used Whitman's image. See William
White, "Walt Whitman Cigars," Walt Whitman Review 16
(September 1970), 96. [back]
- 4. Ellen M. "Nelly" O'Connor (1830–1913) was the
wife of William D. O'Connor (1832–1889), one of Whitman's staunchest
defenders. Before marrying William, Ellen Tarr was active in the antislavery and
women's rights movements as a contributor to the Liberator and to a women's rights newspaper Una. Whitman dined with the O'Connors frequently during his Washington
years. Though Whitman and William O'Connor would temporarily break off their
friendship in late 1872 over Reconstruction policies with regard to emancipated
African Americans, Ellen would remain friendly with Whitman. The correspondence
between Whitman and Ellen is almost as voluminous as the poet's correspondence
with William. Three years after William O'Connor's death, Ellen married the
Providence businessman Albert Calder. For more on Whitman's relationship with the O'Connors, see Dashae
E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas [1832–1889]" and Lott's "O'Connor (Calder),
Ellen ('Nelly') M. Tarr (1830–1913)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. In his February 28–March 1, 1890, letter to Bucke,
Whitman mentioned that "A Twilight Song" was going to appear in the May issue of Century. [back]
- 6. Bucke and his brother-in-law
William John Gurd were designing a gas and fluid meter to be patented in Canada
and sold in England. [back]