Your letter of 16th & 172 just to hand, also the parcel
(Revue Independante, Critic, & Palermo papers). The Critic don't seem to have
much in it, the Italian papers3 I am sorry to say I
cannot read (but glad to have them all the same for my collection), in the "R. Ind."
there is just 8 pp. translation (Faces, Locomotive in Winter, A World below the
brine) no comment at all, translation not good (translator did not fully understand
the english text).4 It is funny he did not claim to
translate from the English but from the "American." The bundle is all welcome. As to your letter,
dear Walt, I cannot say how it grieves me that you have had to suffer so much, nor
how rejoiced I am that you can say you are "decidedly better"—I pray earnestly
that you may keep on the mend now and loc_es.00529.jpg have at least a good respite and rest; I wish I could get away to
see you and stay a little with you—but you have good doctors and I am glad to
think, a good nurse.5 You have also a wonderful constitution and I have great hopes
you will make a good rally yet and be with us for many a good day and talk. I had a
line from O'Connor6 (sending me on your letter)7 he said he had been bad but "am now better" which I was
glad enough to hear. Willy Gurd8 not here yet—untill he
comes I have no idea when I can get away East about the meter business, and even
after he comes I shall probably know very little more about it for awhile for he
seems to have no ideas of time at all and his days are
weeks and his months years.
We are having a mean winter so far, mud (soft & sometimes frozen in to spikes and lumps) dirty snow, bad wheeling, no sleighing—but we all keep well. Love to you as always
R M 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).