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Camden1
May 18 noon '90
Bright sunny day—am feeling fairly—had a mutton-chop for breakfast, ate all—hope
to get out early
afternoon—Warren2 has gone off in the country—Lezinsky3 was here last evn'g—goes off west (to Chicago)
to-day, en route I suppose to Cal—I could not make any thing very definite or
satisfactory from his
talk (wh' was very profuse) & I told him finally & summarily I guess I was exhausted, &
to write plainly
what he proposed & send me, when I w'd give him categorical reply—(If he writes,
proposing any thing I will
first show it you, & probably to Horace4 too)—
It is probable I shall not see the hansom any more5—went out four miles
north hence to what we call Pea Ridge
Shore, a shallow bay of the Delaware, yesterday midday, in hansom—an enjoyable
country drive—have rec'd a
book ab't Dante6 &c. (pretty good, interesting) f'm Addington
Symonds7—a letter f'm Dowden8—I send to
both & many others, foreigners &c y'r piece in "Conservator," wh' reads well to
me9—have not sent my
piece to Scribners, likely shall not—the enc:
are a letter f'm Kennedy10 to you, (marked for me to open)—also
an old one f'm K11—I shall look for you Tuesday—
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 R M Bucke | the Aldine hotel Decatur Street | Cape
May City | New Jersey. It is postmarked: Cape May City | May 19 | 12 Pm | 1890 |
N. J.; Camden, N. J. | May 18 | 5PM | 90. [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. David L. Lezinsky was an
1884 graduate of the University of California, who wrote poetry and visited
Whitman on May 13, 1890, while setting out on a trip to California. Whitman
wrote letters to him and sent him a copy of his Complete Poems
& Prose, but there is minimal information about what his
"proposition" to Whitman was, and he remains something of a mystery. Whitman
related his impressions of Lezinsky to Horace Traubel, saying of Lezinsky, "The
tone of the man—his startling propositions, all confound me. As I
understand, he comes from California, must have money, has become possessed of
ideas about Walt Whitman. Today he went off to Washington, to be back again in
several days. Why, Horace, you have no idea of the exuberance of the man: he
talks of buying all my books, of buying a share in the copyrights, paying me
several thousand dollars, having me write no more but by consultation with him:
a series of surprising stipulations" (Horace Traubel, With
Walt Whitman in Camden, May 13, 1890). See Whitman's letters to Bucke of June 5, 1890 and to Lezinsky of October 28, 1890. [back]
- 4. 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]
- 5. In his Commonplace Book,
Whitman noted on May 17 "the imminent (dangerous) at Market st:
wharf"—which may explain this sentence. However, William T. Stead took him
for a "drive to Gloucester" on May 19 (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the
Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.). [back]
- 6. John Addington Symonds's
An Introduction to the Study of Dante (London: Smith,
Elder & Co., 1872) was reissued in May 1890. [back]
- 7. 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]
- 8. Edward Dowden (1843–1913), professor of
English literature at the University of Dublin, was one of the first to
critically appreciate Whitman's poetry, particularly abroad, and was primarily
responsible for Whitman's popularity among students in Dublin. In July 1871,
Dowden penned a glowing review of Whitman's work in the Westminster Review entitled "The Poetry of Democracy: Walt Whitman," in which Dowden described
Whitman as "a man unlike any of his predecessors. . . . Bard of America, and
Bard of democracy." In 1888, Whitman observed to Traubel: "Dowden is a book-man:
but he is also and more particularly a man-man: I guess that is where we
connect" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Sunday, June 10, 1888, 299). For more, see Philip W. Leon, "Dowden, Edward (1843–1913)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 9. See Whitman's letter to
Bucke of April 28, 1890. [back]
- 10. 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]
- 11. According Edwin Haviland
Miller, Whitman is referring to Kennedy's letter to Bucke on May 15 and one page
of a letter written about April, 1887, dealing with Thomas Wentworth Higginson's
criticism of Walt Whitman in Harper's Bazar. See
Whitman's letter to Kennedy, Bucke, and the naturalist John Burroughs of April 21, 1887, n1. [back]