A sleepy, cloudy, warm, dull, balmy June day. A day to sit on the verandah and dream of old friends and old times. The syringas and roses are beginning to come out and the best of the seasons will soon be here. I should have taken a long drive in the country somewhere today but that the Inspector is still here so I stay around in case I might be required. We are all well and all goes well and quietly. I had a line from Horace2 he thinks the little book3 he is at work upon will be quite an important affair and I think likely it will be so. I hope it will soon be printed so I can have a look over it—send me an early copy
Love to you R M Bucke loc_es.00616.jpg loc_es.00613.jpg loc_es.00614.jpgCorrespondent:
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).