You cannot imagine, dear Walt, how peaceful and dreamy the landscape
is this morning—the air is full of great, white, soft feathers
that come down as tenderly upon the grass and trees as a mother's love
falls upon her child. I have never witnessed anything more exquisite.
The silence and quietude here this Sunday morning are equal to—they
are "the peace of God that passes all understanding."2
It calls up that longing feeling—which visits us at intervals—to drop
the body and float off into the eternal stillnesses. Surely that will be the best
thing of all when it comes? I remember once when a little boy this feeling, passion
to escape into the real came upon me so strongly that for the time it seemed
I could hardly wait. But I am glad now I waited for had I not I might have missed
you
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loc_sd.00068.jpg
in that other land where "it is not chaos or death
but form, union, plan, eternal life, happiness."3
I have not seen the "North American"4 yet—shall try and find it in town tomorrow.5 We are all well here6—I send my love to you
So long! R M Bucke see notes Nov 5, 1890Correspondent:
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).