I did not write you yesterday—had a couple of men here to look at meter and
Gurd2 & myself were with them all day. One of them a big
capitalist and manufacturer from Montreal. No definite announcement made with
them—and may not be—but they were pretty impressed by the meter and I
expect they will make us a proposition. Our fine weather left us right in the middle
of fair week—i.e. last week has got very cold dark & dull all at once, rains more or less every day—altogether dismal loc_es.00401.jpg decidedly—I am
looking out anxiously for "N.B."3 & "C.W."4 hope to get the first any how this
week and the other next week at latest. Johnston has written me5 for a likeness of
myself to be used in an article on "Walt and his friends" Have not had one taken for
years—shall go in tomorrow (if all well) and have one done—shall of
course send you a copy—Maurice6" goes to Toronto in morning to college again. I
shall have to get at my lectures on "mental diseases" for the students at medical
college here as soon as possible—meanwhile I have not more than half written
"Annual Report." Such is life!
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).