loc_es.00772.jpg
Superintendent's Office.
ASYLUM
FOR THE INSANE
LONDON,
ONTARIO
London, Ont.,
17 Aug
1890
After a long dry spell this morning the
blessed rain begins. It is falling soft and steady as I write here at my desk in my
office and from time to time look up and out at the windows to realise & enjoy
it. How good it is after heat and dust! How lovely and soothing!
"The Poem of Earth—the voice of the rain1
"Giving back life—making it pure & beautiful
"Returning with love."
Well, I have your good letter of 14th2
enclosing Rhys'3 and
M. J. Cummings4 (whoever he (or she?) may be—(melancholy enough) the poor soul
seems to have had a bad time.
Yes, I got the "Woodberry Piece" all right.5 These foolish, would be visions, lies
& liars loc_es.00773.jpg will one day
come to an end—in the mean time I do not know but they do more good than
harm—keep things stirred
up (Mr Goethe's6 Faust God says the Devil is a good
servant of his—that he (Satan) keeps man
stirred up while without such prodding
man would go, and stay, asleep).— Real glad to hear that you are likely soon
to write the O'C7 preface.8
Dr Johnston9 (I am sorry to
say) has never turned up in these parts—perhaps he may yet—hope
so—want to see him.10
Mr & Mrs Ingram11 are
still here—they will go I believe tomorrow—we all like them well and
have enjoyed their visit with us.
The meter12 is jogging along slowly—we are getting the shop fitted up—there
is a lot to do yet before we have a business established—but we still have
confidence and we shall put the thing right through
Your friend
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. Bucke is referring to
Whitman's poem "The Voice of the Rain," in which Whitman writes: "I am the Poem
of Earth, said the voice of the rain." [back]
- 2. See Whitman's letter to
Bucke of August 14, 1890. [back]
- 3. Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Little is known about M. J.
Cummings. Cummings may be the individual who wrote to Whitman on August 12, 1890, claiming to be "a confirmed and
melancholy invalid" and sending Whitman some lines of verse. At the time,
Cummings was in San Diego, California. [back]
- 5. Charles J. Woodbury, who met
Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1865, spread the story that Emerson told him that he once
met Whitman for dinner at the Astor House in New York, and that the poet showed
up without a coat, as if to "dine in his shirtsleeves." Whitman denied the
rumor. For one of Whitman's responses to the shirtsleeves story, see Horace
Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, August, 11, 1890. [back]
- 6. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749–1832) was famous for The Sorrows of Young Werther
(1774) and Faust (1808), in which Faust sells his soul to
the devil. [back]
- 7. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 8. On May 29, 1890, Ellen O'Connor asked Whitman to write
a preface for a collection of tales by her husband, the late William Douglas
O'Connor, which she hoped to publish—The Brazen Android
and Other Tales (later entitled Three Tales).
After the poet's approval was conveyed to her through Bucke, Mrs. O'Connor wrote
on June 1, 1890: "Your name & William's will
be associated in many ways, & this loving word from you will be a comfort to
me for all time." Not having heard directly from him, she wrote about the
preface once more on June 30, 1890. [back]
- 9. Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, founded
the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston and Wallace
corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members of the
Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet and
published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two Lancashire
Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more information on
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 10. Dr. Johnston had visited
Whitman, John Burroughs, and Herbert Gilchrist during July 1890, but he returned
to England without visiting Bucke. See Johnston and James William Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–91 (London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1917), 31–86. [back]
- 11. William Ingram, a Quaker, kept a tea
store—William Ingram and Son Tea Dealers—in Philadelphia. Of Ingram,
Whitman observed to Horace Traubel: "He is a man of the Thomas Paine
stripe—full of benevolent impulses, of radicalism, of the desire to
alleviate the sufferings of the world—especially the sufferings of
prisoners in jails, who are his protégés" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, May 20, 1888). Ingram and his wife visited the physician
Richard Maurice Bucke and his family in Canada in 1890. [back]
- 12. 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]