"Same subject continued" glorious weather and all quiet here at Asylum. Annual Report
will have to be written this month, not begun yet, meter2 moving slowly, wedding to
attend in Sarnia next week—a nephew of Mrs Bucke's (Fred. Kittermaster3 a young and
very promising lawyer) marrying a daughter of Mr Pardee4—will be a grand affair. You ought to see the melon patch in our garden
here—hundreds of melons lying thick on the ground loc_es.00335.jpg Little Robbie has just come into the
office—all the rest of the children go to school5—Robbie has got to be a
great boy for horses—wants to be riding or driving all the time—can
handle a quiet horse as well as any one—will be seven years old the coming
Xmas.
I suppose you have not yet read "Robert Elsmere" by Mrs Ward6—it is quite a book & I believe has made quite a stir in England—I am just reading it—it is calculated to make the modern Britisher think—
Love to you RM 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).