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Camden
near noon Sept:4 '891
Fine weather—nothing very different or new—am feeling passably
comfortable—rec'd y'rs2 of Dick Flynn's3 safe return & of y'r satisfaction
with the picture!4 Did it come in good order? We too all like it
well—T B5 and Frank6 and H Traubel7 and Herbert
G8 all here last evn'g—Mr & Mrs Ingram9 this forenoon—
I am sitting as usual in the big chair in second story room as I
write—was out in the wheel chair10 last evn'g—
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. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. |
Sep 4 | 8 PM | 89. [back]
- 2. Whitman is referring to
Bucke's letter of September 3, 1889. [back]
- 3. Richard "Dick" Flynn was a
longtime assistant to Bucke at the London asylum, doing odd jobs. Whitman met
Flynn and admired his gardening work when he visited Bucke in 1880; he mentions
Flynn in his October 14, 1880, letter to Thomas
Nicholson. Traubel also records that Whitman was anticipating a visit from Flynn
in Camden shortly before Bucke wrote this letter (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 27, 1889). Flynn, while on a tour of the U.S.,
apparently stopped by Whitman's Mickle Street home and carried a copy of the
Gutekunst photograph of 1889 back to London with him. Whitman had worried that
the photo would get damaged in the mail. Whitman and Bucke both greatly admired
this photographic portrait. [back]
- 4. See the frontispiece of the fifth volume of Horace Traubel's With Walt Whitman in Camden (Carbondale, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1964), as well as the entries for Tuesday, August 27, 1889 and Friday, August 30, 1889. [back]
- 5. Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel (1856–1914), was
Horace Traubel's brother-in-law. For more on him, see Dena Mattausch, "Harned, Thomas Biggs (1851–1921)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on his relationship with Whitman, see
Thomas Biggs Harned, Memoirs of Thomas B. Harned, Walt
Whitman's Friend and Literary Executor, ed. Peter Van Egmond (Hartford:
Transcendental Books, 1972). [back]
- 6. Francis (Frank) Parkerson Harned
(1849–1934) was Tom Harned's brother; he was a chemist and the founder of
the Penn Chemical Works. [back]
- 7. 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]
- 8. 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]
- 9. 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]
- 10. 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]