Camden
Friday noon
Oct 26 '881
Yours came this morning, & I am satisfied & agreeable—Edward
Wilkins2 (tell me more ab't him—is he a
Canadian?) should understand that it is not a soft or profitable job, & some
features not very nice either—I have tho't of
dispensing any caretaker, but I believe I get no nearer to even the middling-get-along-condition-of-myself before this
spell—with a sort of prospect (if I live at all) of getting in a more immobile
situation than ever—(am indeed in a pretty bad way now)—But you &
Horace3 manage it, & I shall be docile—If E W is indeed the proper one
& willing I shall be glad enough to have him—
I rec'd a nice letter f'm E C Stedman4 (44 East 26th St
New York) this mn'g—He likes Nov. B.5" and has considerable to say of my
"fame"—(I am not sure but we are to put E C S on our list of
real permanent friends & understanders)6—
I suppose you have got (or will soon get) the Springfield Republican short notice of Nov: B7—I
rec'd a note from Hamlin Garland,8 Jamaica Plain, Mass.
asking me to send Nov. B. to W D Howells9, wh' I did.
I am sitting in my big chair by the oak wood fire as I write—it is a darkish,
damp, heavy-air'd day & I am not feeling my easiest—Mr Ingram10 has just
been in & bo't a copy of Nov: B. for a Quakeress friend, & got some loose
reading matter for a prisoner in jail I send to sometimes11—my head is weighty & sore to-day—
Dave McKay12 is behaving very well—he takes the whole ed'n,
& pays me $313.50 on Jan 10 '89—& pays the binder—I retain 100
(printed 1100)13—Did I tell you I rec'd a strong
affectionate literary & personal letter from Kennedy14—I repeat that last photo of you in hat &c. is one of the very best
could be made—there is nothing better made here or in N Y—
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. | Oct 26 | 8 PM | 88. [back]
- 2. On October 24, 1888, Bucke reported that he was
sending Edward Wilkins as a replacement for Musgrove: "He is a real good, nice
looking, young fellow. I have known him some years—he is as good as he
looks" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, October 26, 1888). Wilkins (1865–1936) arrived in
Camden on November 5, 1888 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). He stayed for a year, then returned to Canada to attend the
Ontario Veterinary College in Toronto. After graduation in 1893 he moved to
Alexandria, Indiana, where he married and spent the rest of his life. For this
biographical information I am indebted to Bert A. Thompson, Director of
Libraries at Kearney State College, Nebraska. [back]
- 3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Edmund Clarence Stedman
(1833–1908) was a man of diverse talents. He edited for a year the Mountain County Herald at Winsted, Connecticut, wrote
"Honest Abe of the West," presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served
as correspondent of the New York World from 1860 to 1862.
In 1862 and 1863 he was in the Attorney General's office until he entered the
firm of Samuel Hallett and Company in September, 1863. The next year he opened
his own brokerage office. He published many volumes of poems and was an
indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were Poets
of America , 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement
to the Present Time , 11 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster,
1889–90). [back]
- 5. Whitman's November Boughs was published in October 1888 by Philadelphia
publisher David McKay. For more information on the book, see James E. Barcus
Jr., "November Boughs [1888]," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 6. On October 25, 1888 Stedman wrote: "In many respects
this collection (so strikingly and fittingly got up) is one of the most
significant—as it is the most various—of your enduring works"
(Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, October 26, 1888. [back]
- 7. The notice appeared on
the editorial page on October 23, 1888. For Whitman's taste, "there's too much
of the battered old veteran business" (Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Friday, October 26, 1888). [back]
- 8. Hamlin Garland
(1860–1940) was an American novelist and autobiographer, known especially
for his works about the hardships of farm life in the American Midwest. For his
relationship to Whitman, see Thomas K. Dean, "Garland, Hamlin," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 9. William Dean Howells (1837–1920) was the
novelist and "Dean of American Letters" who wrote The Rise of
Silas Lapham (1885) among other works. He described his first meeting
with Walt Whitman at Pfaff's in Literary Friends and
Acquaintances (New York: Harper & Bros., 1900), 73–76. [back]
- 10. William Ingram, a Quaker, kept a tea
store—William Ingram and Son Tea Dealers—in Philadelphia. Of Ingram,
Whitman observed to Horace Traubel: "He is a man of the Thomas Paine
stripe—full of benevolent impulses, of radicalism, of the desire to
alleviate the sufferings of the world—especially the sufferings of
prisoners in jails, who are his protégés" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, May 20, 1888). Ingram and his wife visited the physician
Richard Maurice Bucke and his family in Canada in 1890. [back]
- 11. When William Ingram
called on August 3, Walt Whitman gave Ingram a copy of Specimen Days for George Rush, Jr., who was in prison in Bucks
Country, Pennsylvania (Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the
Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.).
Ingram's letter of August 10, 1888 reported how
gratified Rush was to receive the gift and recounted in great detail the death
and cremation of the "free thinker" William Cooper. [back]
- 12. David McKay (1860–1918) took
over Philadelphia-based publisher Rees Welsh's bookselling and publishing
businesses in 1881–82. McKay and Rees Welsh published the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass after opposition from the Boston
District Attorney prompted James R. Osgood & Company of Boston, the original publisher,
to withdraw. McKay also went on to publish Specimen Days &
Collect, November Boughs, Gems
from Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works,
and the final Leaves of Grass, the so-called deathbed edition. For
more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 13. McKay had 950 copies to
sell, 50 copies were distributed to reviewers, and Whitman retained 100 copies,
some of which he sold but many of which he gave to friends. [back]
- 14. 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]