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Camden1
April 2 '91
Y'rs of 31st M comes & helps me much2—& I need it for I am feeling badly—&
yet guess things medically & physically are going on as near to satisfaction as
c'd be expected—bowel action to-day—(g't straining)—Dr L3 not here to-day—company & talk make me
headachy & deaf—dark & raw weather—
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 postal card is
addressed: Dr Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario Canada. It is postmarked:
Camden, N.J. | Apr 3 | 6 AM | 91; N.Y. | 4-3-91 | 10 30 AM | 91. [back]
- 2. Bucke, on March 31, 1891, wrote eloquently of Whitman's book
Good-bye My Fancy (1891), quoting from "L. of G.'s
Purport": "Well, the 'haughty song—before in ripened youth—never
even for one brief hour abandon'd,' is finished, and the singer soon
departs—and the present listeners soon depart. But the song remains and
will do its work—that same song is the most virile, potent and live thing
on this earth today—and the singer and the listeners they go the way
provided for them but they will not get out of the range of this prophetic
utterance." That Bucke was in part writing for posterity is evident from a
passage in his April 5, 1891, letter to Horace Traubel, "If you see my letter to
W. of 31st Mar kicking about save it or return it to me—W. refers to it in
card of 2d inst. and I may want it later" (The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of
the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C). [back]
- 3. Daniel Longaker
(1858–1949) was a Philadelphia physician who specialized in obstetrics. He
became Whitman's doctor in early 1891 and provided treatment during the poet's
final illness. For more information, see Carol J. Singley, "Longaker, Dr. Daniel [1858–1949]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R.LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]