A quiet, warm, dreamy, breezy, sunshiny, peaceful, Sabbath day—no sounds in the
air but the sleepy buzzing of flies and the distant church bells—chapel is
over and the folk mostly gone to church—I am off duty and putting in the
morning in the office writing a batch of letters—have just written to Mrs
Costelloe2—had a letter from her last
evening—she says Mr Smith3 is now quite blind of one eye
but can read with the other—she sends me a picture of Ray4 who seems to be
thriving finely. I have begun my Annual Report am going to loc_es.00343.jpg make it pretty long this year—shall
put in a lot about alcohol—results of its disuse at the Asylum and a
discussion as to its mode of action upon the nerve
centers. I shall be kept here pretty steady I guess until I get the Report off my
hands, a month from now, after that if all be well it is quite possible I shall be
East about the meter5 business—Should that go as we
think it ought this may be the last annual report I shall write—but of course
I say nothing about that at present.
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).