I have your card of 16th2 and
feel pretty bad that you do not rally. I am getting anxious about you, dear Walt,
and shall get East to see you as soon as possible.3 If I go to England4 should make a point of seeing you on the way. You must
be very weak and that wheel chair5 exercise does not seem
to suit you any more. It is too rough—too jolting—I used to wonder year
or loc_jm.00222.jpg two ago that you
could stand it—if you only had good roads (like the Park) and a carriage that wd be the thing for you.
As for myself I am geting on very well—still confined to my room (except that I get out every day for a drive) but not sick—the foot still inflamed6 but mending daily—not much pain or irritation in it now and I can sleep very well—I sit here and read and write letters—Beemer7 comes over and we consult abt. asylum affairs and all goes on just about as well as if I was at the office (but I shall be glad to get back there again).
It is charming weather here—the grass is green again and the grounds full of birds—I sit here looking out the window and enjoying it all—in a week or two if this weather lasts the trees will be pretty on their beautiful summer drapery.
With love, dear Walt, yr friend R M BuckeCorrespondent:
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).