I have not written you for some days, do not know how many, press of work still
continues and I have not had any thing to say that seemed worth while and in fact
have not now. Mrs Bucke2 is home again from Sarnia, I was there
over Sunday and Pardee3 is not much better. Willy Gurd4 (the inventor of the meter) came home two days ago—it
remains to be proven whether the meter will be a financial success. I suppose you
are getting the "Complete Works"5 into shape—in your mind, that is?—Will
you not keep the sale of this big book in your own hands? Make it autograph &
personal? Have you fixed on the price? I do not think loc_es.00301.jpg it should be less than $10. I should not
look for a large sale but that those who really care for you and your writings
should have something substantial and handsome as a perpetual reminder of you,
something that they would hand down to their children "bequeathing it as a rich
legacy"—Write me a line when you feel to—I do not suppose you care to
exert yourself much and I would not have you worry yourself to write me when you do
not feel up to it.
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).