We are having wonderful weather here—as mild as September or April—I look for a sudden drop of the mercury almost any night. Just at present the dandelions are in blossom by thousands on the asylum lawns. I lecture tomorrow morning and a week from then (if all be well) give the last lecture of the course—then I am going in for a rest and a good time. I think I have done more work the last 3 months than ever before in the same time—and I feel none the worse thank the Lord. Right away after Christmas I shall go to work in ernest at my "Cosmic Consciousness" piece1 and am in hopes of making a good thing of it. How are you, dear Walt? Does Longaker2 come to see you often? I fear you have a bad time.
Best love R M BuckeCorrespondent:
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).