The fair still goes on. I hear in the hall outside my door the steady tramp and
chatter of some dozens of men and women. Weather not so good rainy last evening and
cloudy and cold this morning. The Inspector is to be here in a day or two (perhaps
today) then things will be livelier than ever—he calls the roll when he comes
this time, i.e. sees every patient individually. Nothing new in re meter,2 we are
expecting a man from Montreal every day who will probably go in with us. If he decides
loc_es.00393.jpg to do so we
shall be in a position to move. At present we need a little capital and cannot get
on without it.
We are all well and hearty, Mrs B.3 took all the children to the fair yesterday, they had quite a time—for my part I quit going to fairs some years ago.
I am reading Past & Present4— funny, isn't it, to see a man of the 19th century who thinks better of the monastic feudal life of 12th century than of the industrial life of today? And by his own showing they must have been a bad lot those monks and knights—and see Froude's5 Henry VIII especially as to the monks!
I6 hope you are having at least a tolerable time of it & are getting on with the books7.
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).