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Camden
P M July 25 '891
Dull & quiet—Slightly more ill than usual—half cloudy &
warmish—Kennedy's2 book is at sea again as you will learn by enclosed3—Herbert Gilc4
comes frequently—often strangers, visitors, sometimes queer ones—
I get out in the wheel chair5—was out last evening till dark—acts as
sort o' pacifyer—The Staffords6 are well—
Walt Whitman
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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 letter is addressed: Dr
Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario Canada. Whitman has reused an envelope,
marking through the previous addressee and the printed return address and
writing in Dr. Bucke's name and address. The letter is postmarked: Camden, N.J.
| Jul 25 | 8 PM | 89; London | AM | JY 27 | 89 | Canada. [back]
- 2. William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. On July 24, 1889 Kennedy sent Gardner's letter of
rejection—"the pultroon's letter"—and observed: "I guess we have to
wait for the book & pub[lish] it here sometime . . . . I am going to let
Fred [W] Wilson look at the MS again. He has never refused it, you know." Only
the envelope, with the second quoted sentence written on it, is extant. On August 4, 1889, he commented "I kind o' hope Fred.
Wilson will tackle in some way my Whitman." On September
5 he rationalized: Gardner "publishes highly respectable religious books (not our cosmic-pantheistic kind, of
course)"—even though Gardner was the English publisher of November Boughs. Kennedy's books on Whitman would not be
published until after the poet's death. [back]
- 4. Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist
(1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter
and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro,
"Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Horace Traubel and Ed
Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for
the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's
letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8,
1889. [back]
- 6. Susan (1833–1910) and
George Stafford (1827–1892) were the parents of Whitman's young friend,
Harry Stafford. Whitman often visited the family at their farm at Timber Creek
in Laurel Springs (near Glendale), New Jersey, and was sometimes accompanied by
Herbert Gilchrist; in the 1880s, the Staffords sold the farm and moved to nearby
Glendale. For more, see David G. Miller, "Stafford, George and Susan M.," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]