I have your card of 17th2 Have also had a letter from Mrs
O'Connor3 telling me about O'C.'s4
exodus to the west. I have just written to her and to O'C. It seems O'C.'s doctors
are at present telling Mrs O'C. that the disease is now
sclerosis the disease has been Sclerosis all along and how
the doctors could have thought otherwise (if they did so
think) I cannot imagine. It is pitiable to see the poor fellow at this late hour
going for "change of air" as if that could by any possibility do any good in such a
case. However it won't do any harm and the change may rouse him up a little for the
time. He may go on living for months (even quite a few years) yet and the great
thing of course is to save him all the loc_es.00235.jpgsuffering (mental & bodily) possible. All quiet
here—Country all grown solid again—splendid wheeling smooth hard
roads—cloudy weather—All well here we have just had a good
dinner—roast turkey, bread sauce & apple pie—What more could one ask
for? We are all looking forward to seeing you here by & by—if the
lecture5 comes off Mrs B.6
will go with me to New York after you and surely we can bring you home comfortably
between us—I have just written to Johnston7 too
about the lecture we want to find out what they are thinking about in New York I
guess it will be all right—they surely will not let the chance go by after
Phila8 letting them send a good example last
year—I wonder when they are going to mind your hospital article in the
Century?9
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).