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Superintendent's Office.
ASYLUM
FOR THE INSANE
LONDON,
ONTARIO
London, Ont.,1
28 Aug
1890
Your letter of 26th2 just to hand.
Many thanks for the enclosures—Kennedy's3 letter and the
slips from "Times" & "Inquirer."
Scovel's4 long "Talk with Whitman"5 is about as little like W. as
could well be—Guess we must stand it. These mis–representations will all be
set right by and by. The real W.W. will undoubtedly emerge at last and be known of
all men. Scovel's cussedness is damnable because he evidently means so well and does
so badly. With (apparently) the best intention in the world, and thinking all the
time that he is doing a big thing, he paints you as a 3d or
4th rate man all from
pure inability to appreciate either W.W. or the quality of his (Scovel's) writing.
But these little skits are nothing. The real Whitman will duly appear to the next and all
following generations—do not be the least uneasy
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about that. Sorry to hear of even partial return of grip—hope it will not stay
long with you.
All well and going well here. Gurd6 working away at meter,
expects to have same on the market within a few weeks. We have had some aggravating
delays. A machine of ours stuck fast somewhere down the Hudson—been stuck the
last 3 weeks & still no word of it.—on account of strike I guess. So
Johnston7 is back in England—I am real sorry he did
not come along this way
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send to T B H
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Love to you now and always
R M Bucke
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 | PM | AU 23 | 90 | Canada; Camden, N.J. | Aug | 30 | 6PM 1890 |
Rec'd. [back]
- 2. See Whitman's August 26, 1890, letter to Bucke. [back]
- 3. William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. James Matlack Scovel
(1833–1904) began to practice law in Camden in 1856. During the Civil War,
he was in the New Jersey legislature and became a colonel in 1863. He campaigned
actively for Horace Greeley in 1872, and was a special agent for the U.S.
Treasury during Chester Arthur's administration. In the 1870s, Whitman
frequently went to Scovel's home for Sunday breakfast (Whitman's Commonplace
Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman,
1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). For a description of
these breakfasts, see Walt Whitman's Diary in Canada, ed.
William Sloane Kennedy (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1904), 59–60. For Scovel,
see George R. Prowell's The History of Camden County, New
Jersey (Philadelphia: L. J. Richards, 1886). [back]
- 5. In his letter of August 26, 1890, Whitman mentions enclosing William
Sloane Kennedy's August 23, 1890, letter and "the
printed slip" of James M. Scovel's "A Talk with Whitman," which appeared in the August 25, 1890, issue of
the Philadelphia Times. The slip from The Inquirer is unexplained. It may simply have been a reprint of the
same Scovel "talk." [back]
- 6. 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]
- 7. Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, founded
the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston and Wallace
corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members of the
Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet and
published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two Lancashire
Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more information on
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]