Rec'd the Saturday Review with notice of Nov: B.2 wh' I will send you soon (thro' O'C[onnor])3—Nothing different to write ab't—am rather easier in head &c.—a dark half rainy day not cold—sold two books to-day4—am sitting here as usual in the big chair dawdling over the papers &c—Rather wonder I feel as well & hearty even as I do—
Walt WhitmanCorrespondent:
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).