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Camden1
early P M Feb: 23 '91
Sunny bright day—still bound up & bad but a slight turn for better—(have just bo't
& used a good enema pipe & seems helpful)2—Sent off the copy
for "Good Bye"3
pp: 3 to 42 to printer, but he sends me word he can only put one man
on it—(dont expect the proof complete for ten days)—my piece is
adv: for March N A Rev:4 (it will be very scrappy)—a little
delay in March Lip:5 but yrs will go to-morrow
I guess yr letter rec'd6—
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Dr Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. |
Feb 23 | 8 PM | 91; London | PM | Fe 25 | 91 | Canada. [back]
- 2. On February 26, Richard Maurice Bucke, spoke as a
doctor: "The enema business is all very well in its way but it will not do much
for you—you want the upper bowel to act as well as the lower—if you
would take a dose of Freidrickshall early in the morning and an enema after 3 or
4 hours to assist it (if necessary) that would be more like what is wanted and
you might do this 2 or 3 times a week." [back]
- 3. Whitman's book Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) was his last miscellany, and it
included both poetry and short prose works commenting on poetry, aging, and
death, among other topics. Thirty-one poems from the book were later printed as
"Good-Bye my Fancy" in Leaves of Grass
(1891–1892), the last edition of Leaves of Grass
published before Whitman's death in March 1892. For more information see, Donald
Barlow Stauffer, "'Good-Bye my Fancy' (Second Annex) (1891)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Whitman published "Have We a
National Literature?" in the March 1891 issue of The North
American Review. [back]
- 5. In March 1891, Lippincott's Magazine published "Old Age Echoes," a cycle of four poems including "Sounds of the
Winter," "The Unexpress'd," "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht," and "After
the Argument," accompanied by an extensive autobiographical note called "Some
Personal and Old-Age Memoranda." Also appearing in that issue was a piece on
Whitman entitled, "Walt Whitman: Poet and Philosopher and Man" by Horace
Traubel. [back]
- 6. See Bucke's letter of February 22, 1891. [back]