loc_zs.00452.jpg
KINGSGATE,1
CRICKLEWOOD, N.W.
London England2
31 July '91
Your card of 21st3 came to hand last evening and I am well pleased that you seem
to jog along about the same in health and strength—I trust now that you will go through the summer
in pretty fair style. I have been at work at the British museum on the Danish piece4 this & yester day
afternoon—a Danish loc_zs.00453.jpg scholar there reads it for me in English
(literal translation) and I scribble it down with a pencil. In 4 ½ hours work we have done over half
of it.
There is nothing new to report abt. the meter.5 All goes (apparently) well but I do not expect to accomplish
anything more at present than to pave the way for the establishment of the business later. I have just received
an invitation from Mrs Costelloe6 to accompany her to the loc_zs.00454.jpg
country (Hazelmere) next Sunday evening. I have gladly accepted as I am most anxious to have my impressions
as to the attitude of the Smiths7 towards you either confirmed or contradicted. So far I am still persuaded
that what I wrote you the other day8 (in re Smiths & Costelloes9) was & is correct. But I shall refer
to this again when I write you after being in Hazelmere. I may have a chance to call on Tennyson10 while down there,
we shall see.11
What with the meter, the lecture for McGill College Montreal, and the W. W. book12 I am not getting exactly
a holiday but I enjoy it all & am as well as can be—guess the trip will do me
all the more good for having something to occupy and interest me while away and keep me from getting homesick!
I wrote Horace13 this morning.
Best love to you
R M Bucke
loc_zs.00455.jpg
see notes August 10 1891
loc_zs.00456.jpg
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:
Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden | New Jersey | U.S. America It is
postmarked: KILBURN | C A | JY31 | 91 | N.W.; PAID | H | ALL | 91; CAMDEN, N.J.
| AUG | 10 | 6AM | 1891 | REC'D. [back]
- 2. At this time, Bucke was
traveling abroad in England in an attempt to establish a foreign market for the
gas and fluid meter he was developing with his brother-in-law William
Gurd. [back]
- 3. See Whitman's postal card to
Bucke of July 21, 1891. [back]
- 4. Bucke is referring to Rudolf
Schmidt's "Walt Whitman, det amerikanske," which had been published in For Ide Og Virkelighed 1 (1872), 152–216. It was
translated in part by R. M. Bain and Bucke for inclusion in Bucke, Horace
Traubel, and Thomas Harned, eds., In Re Walt Whitman
(Philadelphia: David McKay, 1893), 231–248. [back]
- 5. Bucke and his brother-in-law
William John Gurd were designing a gas and fluid meter to be patented in Canada
and sold in England. [back]
- 6. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945), daughter of Hannah Whitall and Robert Pearsall Smith, was a
political activist, art historian, and critic, whom Whitman once called his
"staunchest living woman friend." For more information about Costelloe, see
Christina Davey, Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945),"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 7. Bucke is referring to
Whitman's Philadelphia Quaker friend Robert Pearsall Smith (1827–1898), an
evangelical minister, and his wife Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911).
Whitman had a close relationship with the Smiths and their children; the family
moved to England in 1888. For more information on Smith, see Christina Davey,
"Smith, Robert Pearsall (1827–1898)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 8. See Bucke's letter to
Whitman of July 26, 1891, where he reports that
"something has gone wrong with the Smiths" and that they no longer consider
themselves to be Whitman's friends. [back]
- 9. The Costelloes were Benjamin
Francis ("Frank") Conn Costelloe (1854–1899) and Mary Whitall Smith
Costelloe (1864–1945). Frank was Mary's first husband, an English
barrister and Liberal Party politician. [back]
- 10. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) succeeded
William Wordsworth as poet laureate of Great Britain in 1850. The intense male
friendship described in In Memoriam, which Tennyson wrote
after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, possibly influenced Whitman's
poetry. Whitman wrote to Tennyson in 1871 or late 1870, probably shortly after the
visit of Cyril Flower in December, 1870, but the letter is not extant (see Thomas Donaldson,
Walt Whitman the Man [New York: F. P.
Harper, 1896], 223). Tennyson's first letter to Whitman is dated July
12, 1871. Although Tennyson extended an invitation for Whitman
to visit England, Whitman never acted on the offer. [back]
- 11. Whitman wrote a letter
introducing Bucke to Tennyson. The manuscript letter, which Whitman addressed to
Tennyson and dated June 26, 1891, may not be extant. The only known copy of this
letter is a transcription made by Bucke. Whitman
enclosed the letter of introduction in his June 26,
1891, letter to Bucke. [back]
- 12. Horace Traubel and Canadian
physician Richard Maurice Bucke were beginning to make plans for a collected
volume of writings by and about Whitman. Bucke, Traubel, and Thomas
Harned—Whitman's three literary executors—edited In Re Walt Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1893), which included
the three unsigned reviews of the first edition of Leaves of
Grass that were written by Whitman himself, William Sloane Kennedy's
article, "Dutch Traits of Walt Whitman," and Robert Ingersoll's lecture Liberty in Literature (delivered in honor of Whitman at
Philadelphia's Horticultural Hall on October 21, 1890), as well as writings by
the naturalist John Burroughs and by James W. Wallace, a co-founder of the
Bolton Whitman Fellowship in Bolton, England. [back]
- 13. 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]