Camden
3 P M April 8 '901
Sick yet & pretty badly—still feel however that it is more hubbub &
misery, than any thing deeply serious. I doubt if I shall be well enough to go over
to Phila: 15th2 (wh' I much regret.) I have rec'd the
London Universal Review of Feb: 15—Sarrazin's3 article4
appears to be the same old one in French (& good as ever)—If you want one
you can get it from the New York International News Co:—I drink freely of hot
flax seed tea, flavored with lemon & sugar—am half killed from
phlegm—
W W
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: Philadelphia,
(?) | Apr 8 | (?) | 90. [back]
- 2. This is a reference to
Whitman's lecture entitled "The Death of Abraham Lincoln." He first delivered
this lecture in New York in 1879 and would deliver it at least eight other times
over the succeeding years, delivering it for the last time on April 15, 1890. He
published a version of the lecture as "Death of Abraham Lincoln" in Specimen Days and Collect (1882–83). For more on
the lecture, see Larry D. Griffin, "'Death of Abraham Lincoln,'" Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed. (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. Gabriel Sarrazin (1853–1935)
was a translator and poet from France who commented positively not only on
Whitman's work but also on Poe's. Whitman later corresponded with Sarrazin and
apparently liked the critic's work on Leaves of
Grass—Whitman even had Sarrazin's chapter on his book translated
twice. For more on Sarrazin, see Carmine Sarracino, "Sarrazin, Gabriel (1853–1935)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Whitman is referring to Gabriel
Sarrazin's "Poetes modernes de l'Amerique, Walt Whitman," which appeared in La Nouvelle Revue, 52 (May 1, 1888), 164–184.
Whitman had asked both William Sloane Kennedy and Richard Maurice Bucke to make
an abstract in English of it (see Whitman's letter to Kennedy of January 22, 1889, and to Bucke of January 27, 1889). Sarrazin's piece is reprinted in
an English translation by Harrison S. Morris in In Re Walt
Whitman, ed. Horace L. Traubel, Richard Maurice Bucke, and Thomas B.
Harned (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1893), 159–194. [back]