loc_jm.00151.jpg
Camden1
well on P M
Apr: 29 '91
Seven or eight bad days & in one now—bowel action (restricted) yesterday
evn'g—Dr L2 comes faithfully—pretty fair
nights yet—have been formally invited by a N Y
Club3 (quite swell) to a public dinner, my birth night anniversary4—of course
shall decline5
Walt Whitman
loc_jm.00150.jpg
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 29 | 8 PM | 91. [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. The Quaint Club was a social
club that met monthly at different hotels and luxury steamers around New York
City from 1889 to about 1910. One observer writes that the Quaint Club is
"composed of journalists and artists who make a feature of stated dinners which
are enlivened with caricature and song" (Frederick G. Mather, "Club Life in
New-York City," The Memorial History of the City of
New-York, ed. James Grant Wilson [New York: New-York History Company,
1893], 4:255). A newspaper account of these dinners suggests that they were
scenes of biting comedy, often at the guest of honor's expense: "Its habit is to
secure the wittiest and most eloquent speakers in the country and guy the wit
and eloquence out of them when they get on their feet. They are lucky if they
survive one of its dinners. Few persons really like this, but the process has
the same power as the candle flame exerts toward the moth" ("Fun for the Quaint
Club," The Sun, [March 21, 1891], 9). Horace Trabuel
notes that Whitman received this letter; see With Walt Whitman
in Camden, Wednesday, April 29, 1891. [back]
- 4. Whitman's seventy-second
(and last) birthday was celebrated with friends at his home on Mickle Street. He
described the celebration in a letter to Dr. John Johnston, of Bolton, England,
dated June 1, 1891: "We had our birth anniversary
spree last evn'g —ab't 40 people, choice friends mostly—12 or so women—[Alfred,
Lord] Tennyson sent a short and sweet letter over his own sign manual . . . lots
of bits of speeches, with gems in them—we had a capital good
supper." [back]
- 5. Julius Chambers extended
the invitation on April 25 on behalf of the Quaint
Club. He also noted that he had reprinted a paper Whitman had sent in the New
York World on the preceding day. [back]