Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 16 March 1890
loc_es.00731.jpg
Superintendent's Office
Asylum for the Insane Ontario London, Ont.,1 16 March 1890
Here I am over at my office in the main asylum sitting at my desk with a fine wood
and coal fire at my left hand—every thing snug and comfortable. Have attended
chapel this morning and spent near three hours in here since. Have written a number
of letters. Spent a while puzzling over the "Riddle Song"2 (I wish I could find the
answer to it—I suppose you will never tell it?)—read some pages of
Browning3 "Paracelsus"4 and now finish the forenoon writing this note (for it is
dinner time and I must go over to the house). W.J. Gurd5 &
self have been hard at work
loc_es.00732.jpg
on the meter and we think that at last we shall get it under way. We have decided to
form (have taken the first steps for that purpose) a company—sell
stock—get tools made—start a factory here—build up a business if
possible—move the meter by placing it in actual use—then launch out in
the States, England & as we see our way. We began selling stock yesterday and
sold $1000. worth—we only want to raise $5000, or $6000. That sum will get
what tools we want and start us in a small way here—if the meter sells we
shall have no difficulty in increasing our capital and enlarging our operations
Something6 of a blizzard here since last night. Blowing & snowing. More like winter than any time since last November.
RMB
loc_es.00729.jpg
loc_es.00730.jpg
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden | New Jersey U.S.A. It is postmarked: London | AM | MR 17 | 90 | Canada; Camden, N.J. | Mar | 18 | 1 PM | 1890 | Rec'd. [back]
- 2. See "A Riddle Song" in the "From Noon To Starry Night" cluster of Leaves of Grass (1881–82). [back]
- 3. Robert Browning (1812–1889) was one of the foremost Victorian poets and playwrights, and was married to the famous poet Elizabeth Barret Browning (G. K. Chesterton, Robert Browning [New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1908]. [back]
- 4. Browning's "Paracelsus" is a five-part epic poem about a sixteenth-century physicist. The poem was published in 1835, and it became a major and celebrated work. [back]
- 5. William John Gurd (1845–1903) was Richard Maurice Bucke's brother-in-law, with whom he was designing a gas and fluid meter to be patented in Canada and sold in England. Bucke believed the meter would be worth "millions of dollars," while Whitman remained skeptical, sometimes to Bucke's annoyance. In a March 18, 1888, letter to William D. O'Connor, Whitman wrote, "The practical outset of the meter enterprise collapsed at the last moment for the want of capital investors." For additional information, see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, March 17, 1889, Monday, March 18, 1889, Friday, March 22, 1889, and Wednesday, April 3, 1889. [back]
- 6. Bucke wrote this postscript in red ink in the upper-left corner of the recto. [back]