Walt Whitman to Richard Maurice Bucke, 31 August 1890
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Camden1
Sunday Evn'g Aug: 31 '90
All well as usual—fine day cool—a quiet day—Have I sent the enc'd before2?—If not I tho't you might like to have them—Have had my supper—roast beef & cold slaw—ate with appetite—grip continued—last day of summer—have been looking over old reminiscent letters rec'd War times—
Walt Whitman
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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).