Camden
Sept: 25 '881
Of late I have two or three times occupied spells of hours or two hours by running
over with best & alertest sense & mellowed & ripened by five years your
1883 book (biographical & critical) about me2 & L of G—& my very
deliberate & serious mind to you is that you let it stand just
as it is—& if you have any thing farther to write or print book
shape, you do so in an additional or further annex (of say
100 pages to its present 236 ones)—leaving the present 1883 vol. intact as it
is, any verbal errors excepted—& the further pages as (mainly) reference
to and furthermore &c. of the original vol.—the
text, O'C[onnor]'s3 letters, the appendix—every page of the 236 left as
now—This is my spinal and deliberate request—the conviction the main thing—the details & reasons not put
down.4
Sept: 26 noon
Dr Osler5 has call'd—evidently all right—I have a good deal of pain (often sort of
spasmodic, not markedly violent) in the chest & "pit of the stomach" for the last
three days. O says it is nothing serious or important—& prescribes a mustard
plaster—lately we have a sort of cold wave & I shouldn't wonder if that was behind
it—(I have the mustard plaster on now)—It is bright & sunny—rather cool—I have
rec'd a long letter from Sidney Morse6 from Chicago7—no special news—Mr Summers,8 M
P from England, has just call'd & we've had a talk9—a nice fellow (how much more &
more the resemblance between the cultivated Englisher and Americaner)—I have been
reading Miss Pardoe's "Louis XIIII"10—I wonder if as a sort of foil to the Carlyle
reminiscences (T[homas]'s and J[ane]'s)—the same sort of business in another sphere
& land—Your letters come & are always welcome—As I close I am sitting in my big
chair in my room 1½ p m quiet & measurably comfortable—
Walt Whitman
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:
Dr R M Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: Camden,
N.J. | Sep | 26 | 8 PM | 88. [back]
- 2. Whitman is referring to
Bucke's book Walt Whitman, published by Philadelphia
publisher David McKay in 1883. [back]
- 3. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Bucke replied on September 28, 1888: "I note all you say about my
'W. W.' Your wishes will be religiously respected. I did think of considerable
changes (for I am certain the book will sell by & by) but was never set on
them and less so lately. Yes, I shall leave it stand as it is and add under a
later date what else I may have to say." [back]
- 5. Sir William Osler (1849–1919)
was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding staff members of Johns
Hopkins Hospital, where he served as the first Chief of Medicine. Richard
Maurice Bucke introduced Osler to Whitman in 1885 in order to care for the aging
poet. Osler wrote a manuscript about his personal and professional relationship
with Whitman in 1919; see Philip W. Leon, Walt Whitman and Sir
William Osler: A Poet and His Physician [Toronto: ECW Press, 1995]).
For more on Osler, see Philip W. Leon, "Osler, Dr. William (1849–1919)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on the relationship of Osler and
Whitman, see Michael Bliss, William Osler: A Life in
Medicine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). [back]
- 6. Sidney H. Morse (1832–1903)
was a self-taught sculptor as well as a Unitarian minister and, from 1866 to
1872, editor of The Radical. He visited Whitman in Camden
many times and made various busts of him. Whitman had commented on an earlier
bust by Morse that it was "wretchedly bad." For more on this, see Ruth L. Bohan,
Looking into Walt Whitman: American Art,
1850–1920 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2006), 105–109. [back]
- 7. Whitman may be referring
to Morse's letter of September 2, 1888. [back]
- 8. The Irishman William Summers
(1853–1893) was a member of the British Parliament, junior whip of the
Liberal Party, and strong proponent of Irish home rule. He visited Whitman on
September 26, 1888. His account of the visit was published in The Pall Mall Gazette on October 18, 1888. Whitman said of the visit that "Summers hit me
hard. He made a grand show-up—had fine ways—was young, strong,
optimistic" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Wednesday, September 26, 1888).Summers came with a letter of
introduction from Mrs. Costelloe dated September 1; see also Horace Traubel,
With Walt Whitman in Camden (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1915), 2: 384-385,
390-391. Of Summers' article in Pall Mall Gazette, "A Visit to Walt Whitman," on
October 18, Walt Whitman observed: "It is good --pretty good: nothing to brag
of, but passable" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden [New York:
Mitchell Kennerley, 1914], 3: 14). [back]
- 9. William Summers came with
a letter of introduction from Mrs. Costelloe dated September 1, 1888. See also Horace Traubel, With
Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, September 26, 1888, and Thursday, September 27, 1888. Of Summers' article in Pall Mall Gazette, "A Visit to Walt Whitman," on October
18, Walt Whitman observed: "It is good —pretty good: nothing to brag of,
but passable" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in
Camden, Saturday, November 3, 1888. [back]
- 10. Julia Pardoe's Louis the Fourteenth and the Court of France in the
Seventeenth Century (1855), 2 vols., are now in the Charles E. Feinberg
Collection. Walt Whitman made the same point on September 28, 1888 to Traubel:
"Here is another world—. . . opposite to the gloominess, irascibility, of
Carlyle and his extreme dissatisfaction with the condition of the world" (Horace
Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, September 28, 1888). Carlyle's Reminiscences appeared in 1881. [back]