A rare egg & Graham br'd for my breakfast—Y'r good letter rec'd2—the sun is out after clouding for several days—I shall get out a little in wheel-chair3 (I got out even yesterday)—am moved (as the Quakers say) to write some poemetta these days—partly small orders, & part to please myself.
This cold or gathering in the head, & the bladder trouble continued, sometimes quite bad, sometimes less bad—massages unintermitted—appetite, night-rest & bowel action fair to fairish, wh' I am thankful for as it is, as no worse—Some of the fellows hereabout notice that the departing grippe leaves an eye bother, or liability—& there probably is something in that—I have mark'd defection & weakness in my own eyesight (but something of it before)—nothing serious yet—Shall try to send you any new thing I give out printed these days without fail, prose or verse—Enclosed the "Cipher" bit, also another slip of "Old Ages Ship"4—Suppose you rec'd the "Death Bouquets" ¶'s5 (bad typo errors in it)—
God's peace & health to you all— Walt WhitmanCorrespondent:
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).