Well we are in Christmas week once more: and yesterday (thank goodness) I wound up my course of lectures with a very philosophical one on the gensis of insanity. I am now a free man once again and shall do some writing I hope between now and spring—but first of all I have to go (tomorrow) to Toronto on some government matters—shall return Tuesday or Wednesday—then we shall get Xmas safely over (I hope) and then for the literary business. I (as an experiment) spoke an hour yesterday without notes—was (and am) surprised that I got on so well—of course I omitted things that I should have said but on the whole am satisfied with the way the thing "eventuated." How are you, dear Walt? Not very well I fear.2 I hope I shall be able to see you before long.—
Best love to you. So long! RM Bucke loc_zs.00612.jpg see notes Dec 22 1891 loc_zs.00613.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).