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Camden1
early P M
Nov: 25 '90
Y'rs of three days since rec'd2 & welcomed—the
enclosed is just rec'd f'm Dr Johnston3—his celluloid
photo plate I have consigned to be used in Horace's4 article
ab't me in NE Magazine5 if they print it6—I am
easier to-day belly ache milder but still not gone—sunny &
cold—shall probably get out an hour or so hence in wheel chair7 (first in three
days)—am to send Mrs: Ingersoll8 400 5th av: NY. some good
photos of self in big handsome envelope for Christmas present.—oysters plenty
& good, ate them yesterday & to-day—the papers copy "sunset
Breeze"9—Horace's sister Agnes,10 do you remember
Agnes? (a nice healthy, cute, womanly
Americo-German girl, a great friend of mine)—has just gone & got
married—still apparently some flurry & sporadic failures in financial
& brokers' circles11 hereabout—but I guess nothing serious, nothing
chronic—a fair normal bowel passage this fore'n—Young Dr Mitchell12 (he said his father13 sent him) was
here f'm Phila. yesterday evn'g—fine y'ng fellow—no medicine (at least
yet)—some head ache to-day—have just sent off a ¶ to the Critic14 announcem't number
(Nov. 29) for O'Connor's15 book16 (no
news of its publication yet)—Well I will now put on a top coat & see if
Warry17 is ready to propel me out18
Walt Whitman
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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 letter is addressed: Dr
Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Nov. 2[illegible] | 4 30 PM | 90; London | AM |
NO 27 | 90 | Canada; NY | 11–25–90 | 11 PM | 11. [back]
- 2. See Bucke's letter to
Whitman of November 22, 1890. [back]
- 3. Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, 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
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was a close acquaintance of Walt Whitman and one of the poet's literary
executors. He met Whitman in 1873 and proceeded to visit the aging author almost
daily beginning in the late 1880s. The result of these meetings—during which
Traubel took meticulous notes—is the nine-volume collection With Walt Whitman in Camden. Later in life, Traubel also
published Whitmanesque poetry and revolutionary essays. He died in 1919, shortly
after he claimed to have seen a vision of Whitman beckoning him to 'Come on'.
For more on Traubel, see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. (1858–1919), Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed., (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998), 740–741. [back]
- 5. Whitman is referring to
Horace Traubel's "Walt Whitman at Date," which was published in the New England Magazine 4 (May 1891), 275–292. [back]
- 6. Traubel's article was
accompanied by several illustrations, both photographs and engravings based on
photos, but it is unclear if any of these was based on the photographic plate
Dr. Johnston had sent to Whitman. [back]
- 7. Horace Traubel and Ed
Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for
the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's
letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8,
1889. [back]
- 8. Eva Amelia Parker Ingersoll
(1841–1923) of Groveland, Illinois, was the daughter of Benjamin Weld
Parker and his wife Harriet E. Lyon Parker. She married Robert G. Ingersoll in
1862, and they had two daughters, Eva Ingersoll Brown (1863–1928) and
Maude Ingersoll Probasco (1864–1936). [back]
- 9. Whitman's "To the Sunset Breeze" was first published in Lippincott's Magazine in December 1890. [back]
- 10. Agnes Traubel Lychenheim
(1881–1923) was Horace Traubel's sister. She married Dr. Morris
Lychenheim, an osteopathic physician from Chicago. [back]
- 11. Whitman is referring to the
threat of collapse faced by the House of Baring Brothers Bank in England, which
invested in both North America and Argentina. Although the bank was saved by a
consortium of national banks, by November 1890 the resulting financial panic
bankrupted Decker, Howell, & Co., a brokerage firm in New York that was
backed by the Bank of North America. The financier J. P. Morgan persuaded a
consortium of New York banks to support the Bank of North America, averting the
failure of the financial institution. [back]
- 12. During Dr. William
Osler's absence, beginning on July 8, Whitman was attended by Dr. J. K.
Mitchell, son of S. Weir Mitchell (Horace Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Sunday, July 8, 1888). For Whitman's opinion of the young man, see
Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Thursday, July 12, 1888. [back]
- 13. Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell
(1829–1914) was a specialist in nervous disorders as well as a poet and a
novelist. In 1878, Whitman met with Dr. Mitchell, who attributed his earlier
paralysis to a small rupture of a blood vessel in the brain but termed Whitman's
heart "normal and healthy" (see Whitman's letter to Louisa Orr Whitman of April 13–14, 1878). Whitman also noted that
"the bad spells [Mitchell] tho't recurrences by habit (? sort of automatic)" (Whitman's Commonplace Book,
Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). For more, see Jennifer A. Hynes, "Mitchell, Silas Weir (1829–1914)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 14. The
Critic was a literary magazine published in New York from 1881 until
1906. Four of Whitman's poems were published in the magazine: "The Dead Tenor" (1884), "Yonnondio" (1887), "To the Year 1889" (1889), and "The Pallid Wreath" (1891). [back]
- 15. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 16. Three of William D.
O'Connor's stories with a preface by Whitman were published in Three Tales: The Ghost, The Brazen Android, The Carpenter (Boston and
New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892). Whitman's preface was also
included in Good-Bye My Fancy (Philadelphia: David McKay,
1891), 51–53. [back]
- 17. Frank Warren Fritzinger
(1867–1899), known as "Warry," took Edward Wilkins's place as Whitman's
nurse, beginning in October 1889. Fritzinger and his brother Harry were the sons
of Henry Whireman Fritzinger (about 1828–1881), a former sea captain who
went blind, and Almira E. Fritzinger. Following Henry Sr.'s death, Warren and
his brother—having lost both parents—became wards of Mary O. Davis,
Whitman's housekeeper, who had also taken care of the sea captain and who
inherited part of his estate. A picture of Warry is displayed in the May 1891
New England Magazine (278). See Joann P. Krieg, "Fritzinger, Frederick Warren (1866–1899),"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 240. [back]
- 18. Horace Traubel and Ed
Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for
the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's
letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8,
1889. [back]