Am sitting here toward 8—nothing very new—Am so-so, heavy-headed feeling & the same old insuperable inertia—was out this afternoon in the wheel chair,2 the sun half-out in starts & rather cool—Supper of rice & mutton stew—I continue my non-mid-day meal or dinner—appetite fair—as I sit here my nurse Warren3 is down stairs practising on his fiddle—
Sunday 3 p m—Nothing amiss today—but dull dark rainy weather—am pottering over an article prose essay "Old Poets—and other Things," probably to be offer'd to N[orth] A[merican] Review4—as they have ask'd me to write something for them—bowel action—had a good currying two hours ago—breakfast oysters, toast & tea—y'r letters rec'd5—am floating along carried idly, by the momentum of things I suppose—stupidity may be a strong word but it suggests if not describes my cond'n these times—
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).