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Camden1
Nov: 4 '91
Bright cool Nov: day—Stoddart2 (Lippincott's)3 & a Californian girl4 just here—a great pot of
yellow chrysanthemums—& John Russell Youngs5 big
"Round the World"6 by express—bad-feeling day with me—head, gastric &
bladder—Wallace7 left NY.8 this mn'g—Arnold9 also f'm here10—
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 | Nov 4 | 8 PM | 91; London | PM | NO 6 | 91 | Canada. [back]
- 2. Joseph Marshall Stoddart
(1845–1921) published Stoddart's Encyclopaedia
America, established Stoddart's Review in 1880,
which was merged with The American in 1882, and became
the editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1886. On
January 11, 1882, Whitman received an
invitation from Stoddart through J. E. Wainer, one of his associates, to dine
with Oscar Wilde on January 14 (Clara Barrus, Whitman and
Burroughs—Comrades [Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931],
235n). [back]
- 3. Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was a literary magazine published in
Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915. Joseph Marshall Stoddart was the editor of the
magazine from 1886 to 1894, and he frequently published material by and about
Whitman. For more information on Whitman's numerous publications here, see Susan
Belasco, "Lippincott's Magazine." [back]
- 4. We have no information on
this person, but Whitman did tell Horace Traubel about her: "I had visitors
today—Stoddart, with a girl. Oh! A fine girl, a girl out of the
West—from San Francisco, I think—a quick, chipper girl—a
delight to me" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in
Camden, Wednesday, November 4, 1891). [back]
- 5. John Russell Young
(1840–1899) was a journalist, United States minister to China, and the
seventh Librarian of Congress. In Men and Memories (New
York, F. Tennyson Neely, 1901), a posthumous collection of Young's personal
reminiscences, his editor and wife, May Dow Russell Young writes: "A deep and
genuine affection existed between Walt Whitman and John Russell Young, the
result of many years' acquaintance and profound admiration" (76). The collection
includes Young's account of reading the first edition of Leaves of Grass and later meeting Whitman in Washington, D.C.
(76–109). For more information, see John C. Broderick, "John Russell
Young: The Internationalist as Librarian," Quarterly Journal
of the Library of Congress 33 (April 1976), 116–149. [back]
- 6. In 1877, Young was invited
to accompany President Ulysses S. Grant on a world tour; in 1881, Young
published Around the World with General Grant, a
two-volume account of the tour. [back]
- 7. James William Wallace
(1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of
Whitman. Wallace, along with Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927), a physician in
Bolton, founded the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston
and Wallace corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members
of the Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet
and published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace,
Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two
Lancashire Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more
information on Wallace, see Larry D. Griffin, "Wallace, James William (1853–1926)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 8. At the time Whitman wrote
this letter, Wallace was traveling back to England after his two-month journey
in the U.S. and Canada, where he visited Whitman and many of Whitman’s friends,
including a long stay at Richard Maurice Bucke's home in Canada. [back]
- 9. Sir Edwin Arnold
(1832–1904) was the author of the controversial The
Light of Asia . . . Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama . . . as told in
verse by an Indian Buddhist (London: Truber & Co., 1879). Arnold
had visited Whitman on September 13, 1889. Whitman reported the visit to
Traubel: "[Arnold's] visit was only in transit—he goes back to New York at
once—then across to San Francisco—then to Japan and the East
Indies." Whitman found the visitor interesting but too effusive: "My main
objection to him, if objection at all, would be, that he is too
eulogistic—too flattering" (Horace Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Friday, September 13, 1889). [back]
- 10. In Men and
Memories (New York: F. Tennyson Neely, 1901), John Russell Young
describes arranging the meeting of Walt Whitman, celebrity manager James B.
Pond, and English poet Sir Edwin Arnold at Whitman's Camden home on November 2,
1891: "Sir Edwin had a profound admiration for the poet, and was the bearer
among other things of a message from [Alfred, Lord] Tennyson. . . . [Whitman]
was pleased, but still and always in reserved sovereign fashion, to hear from
Arnold of his growing fame in England" (see especially 90–96). Whitman
related his thoughts on the visit to Traubel on Monday, November 2, 1891. [back]