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Camden1
Sunday noon
Aug: 24 '90
Continue well as usual. Horace2 here this morning & yesterday
afternoon—Tom Harned3 last evn'g—Geo:
Stafford4 (the elder) yesterday—Cool weather here—fine
sunny—My nurse Warren Fritzinger5 went to Atlantic
City yesterday—returns to–night—He is very good to me—made a good
relishy breakfast, bread, honey in the comb coffee—appetite fair to
plus—I sent you Aug: 17 the "rejoinder" a printed slip with papers6—enclose another in this (copied Boston
Transcript)7—papers notice it some—(is my
old theory repeated, that's ab't all)—you are a little more severe on
Symonds8 than I sh'd be9—he
has just sent me a singular letter, wh' I have answer'd (tho't at first I w'd not
answer at all, but did)10—have not found the older
letter of his, but doubtless will & will surely send it you11—(sometimes I wonder whether J A S don't come under
St Paul's famous category12)—I am sitting here alone in my den thick undershirt
& big blue woolen gown but open window. —Scribble away some—
—Love to you & all
W W
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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 Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. |
Aug 25 | 6 AM | 90; N.Y. | 8–25–90 | 10 30 AM | 10; London | PM | AU
26 | 90 | Canada. [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel (1856–1914), was
Horace Traubel's brother-in-law. For more on him, see Dena Mattausch, "Harned, Thomas Biggs (1851–1921)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on his relationship with Whitman, see
Thomas Biggs Harned, Memoirs of Thomas B. Harned, Walt
Whitman's Friend and Literary Executor, ed. Peter Van Egmond (Hartford:
Transcendental Books, 1972). [back]
- 4. George Stafford (1827–1892)
was the father of Harry Stafford, a young man whom Whitman befriended in 1876 in
Camden. Harry's parents, George and Susan Stafford, were tenant farmers at White
Horse Farm near Kirkwood, New Jersey, where Whitman visited them on several
occasions. For more on Whitman and the Staffords, see David G. Miller, "Stafford, George and Susan M.," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Frank Warren Fritzinger
(1867–1899), known as "Warry," took Edward Wilkins's place as Whitman's
nurse, beginning in October 1889. Fritzinger and his brother Harry were the sons
of Henry Whireman Fritzinger (about 1828–1881), a former sea captain who
went blind, and Almira E. Fritzinger. Following Henry Sr.'s death, Warren and
his brother—having lost both parents—became wards of Mary O. Davis,
Whitman's housekeeper, who had also taken care of the sea captain and who
inherited part of his estate. A picture of Warry is displayed in the May 1891
New England Magazine (278). See Joann P. Krieg, "Fritzinger, Frederick Warren (1866–1899),"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 240. [back]
- 6. "An Old Man's Rejoinder"
appeared in The Critic 17 (August 16, 1890), 85–86.
The "Rejoinder" was later reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy
(1891) (See Prose Works 1892, Volume II: Collect and Other
Prose, ed. Floyd Stovall [New York: New York University Press, 1964],
655–658). Bucke acknowledged receiving it on September 2, 1890. [back]
- 7. Whitman is referring to
an offprint of "An Old Man's Rejoinder," headed "From The
Critic, New York, Aug. 16, 1890." [back]
- 8. John Addington Symonds
(1840–1893), a prominent biographer, literary critic, and poet in
Victorian England, was author of the seven-volume history Renaissance in Italy, as well as Walt
Whitman—A Study (1893), and a translator of Michelangelo's
sonnets. But in the smaller circles of the emerging upper-class English
homosexual community, he was also well known as a writer of homoerotic poetry
and a pioneer in the study of homosexuality, or sexual inversion as it was then
known. See Andrew C. Higgins, "Symonds, John Addington [1840–1893]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 9. In his August 20–22, 1890, letter, Bucke remarked:
"The whole article is 'flat, stale and unprofitable'—a saw dust chewing
business—dealing with the hull, the shell, the superfices, never for one
line, one flash of insight penetrating to the heart of the business." [back]
- 10. In response to Symonds'
points over the "semi-sexual" implications of comradeship in his letter of
August 3, Whitman wrote in a draft letter of
August 19: "Ab't the questions on Calamus
pieces &c: they quite daze me. L of G. is only to be rightly construed by
and within its own atmosphere and essential character—all of its pages
& pieces so coming strictly under that—that
the calamus part has even allow'd the possibility of such construction as
mention'd is terrible—I am fain to hope the pages themselves are not to be
even mention'd for such gratuitous and quite at the time entirely undream'd
& unreck'd possibility of morbid inferences—wh' are disavow'd by me
& seem damnable."
Symonds' reply on September 5 concealed his
disappointment. As a disciple he thanked the poet for stating "so clearly
& precisely what you feel about the question I raised." But his opinion
remained unchanged: "It seems to me, I confess, still doubtful whether
(human nature being what it is) we can expect wholly to eliminate some
sensual alloy from any emotions which are raised to a very high pitch of
passionate intensity." The same reservation appears in Studies in Sexual Inversion (1897): "No one who knows anything
about Walt Whitman will for a moment doubt his candour and sincerity.
Therefore the man who wrote 'Calamus,' and preached the gospel of
comradeship, entertains feelings at least as hostile to sexual inversion as
any law-abiding humdrum Anglo-Saxon could desire. It is obvious that he has
not even taken the phenomena of abnormal instinct into account. Else he must
have foreseen that, human nature being what it is, we cannot expect to
eliminate all sexual alloy from emotions raised to a high pitch of
passionate intensity, and that permanent elements within the midst of our
society will emperil the absolute purity of the ideal he attempts to
establish".
[back]
- 11. This "older letter" would
probably be Symonds' passionate letter of December 9,
1889, which prefigured Symonds' August
3rd letter. Whitman mentioned this older letter in his December 25–26 1889, letter to Bucke. [back]
- 12. Bucke is referring to St.
Paul's categories of those who will "not inherit the kingdom of God,"
particularly men who had sex with men. See, for example, 1 Corinthians
6:9–10, which in the King James version reads: "Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor ers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." In the New King James Version
(1982), "homosexuals" and "sodomites" replace "effeminate" and "abusers of
themselves with mankind." [back]