Am easier than during the week, but bad enough yet—Have made away with my breakfast (wet Graham toast, honey & tea) though—(living mostly on toast & tea the last three or four days)—am sitting here in the big chair, by window—cloudy & half rainy to-day—a jolly letter2 f'm Ernest Rhys3 f'm Wales wh' I enclose—yr's rec'd this mn'g4—thanks—was formally requested (did I tell you?) to write an article "Tennyson at 81"5 for the Oct. No of the N A Review—by the new owners—but have been too ill to try it, & shall probably give it the go-by—(I don't know but I have said all I want to say ab't T any how)6—the sun out—& warm—It is ab't noon as I finish—I am feeling sort o' comfortable—Mrs. D7 and one of the boys have gone over to Phila: wharf somewhere to see an old staunch ship the "Emily Reed"8 involved in their family history9—Ed10 is here taking care—
Luck & prayers. Walt WhitmanYour welcome p'card of July 23rd11 reminds me how the time has slipped away since my last letter to you. I have now been here in North Wales for nearly six weeks, having retreated to these mountains very soon after returning from Paris. I am lodged very comfortably in the cottage of a quarry-man,—William Davies,12 who works at Festiniog , 5 or 6 miles from here. He is a very good type,—healthy, well-built, good-natured, impulsive, with the over-carefulness of the average Welshman tempered by his experiences of American life, for "he went to the states," as they say here, some years back, & travelled far & wide, working in mines & quarries. Even now he does not talk English very fluently, & prefers his native Welsh, in which he gives me lessons every night on his return from work. Many people in the district speak no English at all. The Welsh are a peculiarly adhesive race, & stick to their language & old customs, &, it must be added, to their money, with a somewhat dubious devotion. An infusion loc.03338.002.jpg of American generosity & freedom would do them great good. As it is, Methodism & money-making is the formula of the lives of most of them,—their redeeming quality being their love of music & oratory!
I found the change here from Paris very striking. The French are exactly opposite in every way,—those who live in Paris at any rate. There the sunshine & the gaiety & general friendliness are very pleasantly in contrast with the grey skies & the somewhat montonous routine of London. Paris is a sort of ideal New York,—a New York touched with Romance & the finer graces of the Past, but without the youthful ardency that pulses in Mannahatta. Paris would delight you greatly, I know, though you might have misgivings at last about a life so frivolously secular, so wanting (as it seemed to me) in humane & religious aims of the higher kind. But this notwithstanding, the charm of those sunny streets, & good-natured irresponsible faces, is something to remember.
The Exhibition, I daresay, you have heard enough of. What struck me most of all—much more than the Eiffel Tower & other nine-days wonders, was the endless cosmopolitan ebb & flow of the peoples of the world,—American, Arabian, Japanese, Indian, Egyptian, English, Norse:—a wonderful, indescribable Concourse de Monde!
I must stop here to-day—Post-time!—hoping to take up the story at greater length shortly. Luck has been dead against me of late. I suppose I shall have to turn Quarry-man presently,—Scottish Art Review & other papers not paying up!
With love & remembrances to Camden friends, yrs. Ernest RhysCorrespondent:
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).