Well, my dear Walt, I have yours of 8th inst.2 and judging by it you are not having a good time. I am worried about Dr Longaker3 being sick and so not able to look after you. It is too bad—But I hope he will soon be round again and will then be able to do something for your comfort. As for me I am all right (wish you were as well) still lame but less so than have been.4 At office and about grounds in buggy every day (grounds lovely now—leaves about ½ out—all as fresh as on the first day of creation), good appetite and sleep well. I told you last letter5 that I had N.E. maga.6
Best love R M Bucke loc_zs.00464.jpg loc_zs.00465.jpgCorrespondent:
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).