Just been out for a long sleigh ride and had dinner—roast turkey, bread sauce, a boiled onion and apple pie—mighty good. Sorry to say it is thawing here, likely to lose our snow unless it mercury drops between now and midnight.
All quiet, we are getting ready to start—hope to get off wednesday morning (am pretty sure we shall not get off tuesday) & see you thursday. Nothing new in any direction, I shall probably not write again (before leaving)
Affectionately 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).
This letter has been misclassified as being from Bucke to Traubel. It is, in fact, from Bucke to Whitman. According to Loyzynsky, there is both internal and external evidence for his attribution; see Artem Loyzynsky, ed., The Letters of Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1977), 108–109.
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