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Camden1
Jan: 13 91 Evn'g
Have had two bad days & nights—bad bladder plight & lots
else—easier this evn'g—"hope ever springs"—(bad surmises, tho'
yesterday)2—Sh'l probably have a piece in the
forthcoming NA Rev: (Feb:)3—the
intentions keep on ab't March Lip:4 (we will
see)
I write in fair trim
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. | Jan 13 | 8 PM | 91; London | [illegible] PM | JA 15 | 9[illegible] | Canada. [back]
- 2. Whitman's remarks
disturbed Bucke, who on January 17 wrote a "Private" letter to the poet's
biographer Horace L. Traubel: "How do you account for such gloomy reports f'm W.
to me when you see every thing 'coleur de rose'? My impression is that tho'
putting (for most part) a good face on things W. is really in a pretty bad way
and liable to collapse at any time." Again on February 10
in a letter for Traubel marked "For yourself only," Bucke expressed his concern
about Whitman's health: "I look for a sudden end (when it comes) and I feel
satisfied it may come any day" (Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). Traubel and Bucke wrote to each other several times a week
during the last fifteen months of Whitman's life. [back]
- 3. See Whitman's letter to
the editor of The North American Review of November 4, 1890. Whitman's "Have We a National
Literature?" was published in the March 1891 issue of the magazine. [back]
- 4. 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]