Camden
April 17 '891
Y'rs came—welcome—I send some papers—the "sayings" of the
Japanee2 make Horace3 frantic
angry—they are invented or distorted most horribly—I take it all
phlegmatically—Dark, heavy, raw day, & my feelings ab't same.
Love—
Walt Whitman
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 postal card is
addressed: Dr R M Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario Canada. It is postmarked:
Camden (?) | 17 Apr | (?) PM. [back]
- 2. Whitman is referring to
an article by C. Sadakichi Hartmann (1867–1944), "Walt Whitman. Notes of a
Conversation with the Good Gray Poet by a German Poet and Traveller." It
appeared in the New York Herald on April 14, 1889. For
Whitman's reactions, see his April 17, 1889,
letter to Bucke and his May 4, 1889, letter to
William Sloane Kennedy. See also Horace Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, April 16, 1889, and Wednesday, April 17, 1889. Bucke prepared a correction for the Herald which was not printed (Traubel, Monday, May 6, 1889). [back]
- 3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]