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[tornaway]1
Office.
INSANE ASYULUM
LONDON
ONTARIO
7 Dec
18
90
Yours of 3th came to hand2 friday evening
but hardly have had time to breathe the last few days—lectured
two hours yesterday and lecture two hours tomorrow—but thank
goodness the lectures will soon be through with. I have sent for the
Critic3 of 25 Nov.4 Yes, Dr Johnston5 sent me a copy
of the little pamphlet6 and I read it at sight—never
laid it down till I finished it. I found it exceedingly interesting though
I do not know that it has any extraordinary literary qualities—its
peak advantage is being upon an interesting[tornaway]7
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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. Part of Bucke's letterhead
that included the first words of his printed address at the London Asylum has
been torn away. [back]
- 2. A December 3, 1890, letter
from Whitman to Bucke has yet to be located. Bucke may have intended to refer to
Whitman's letter of December 4, 1890. [back]
- 3. The Critic
(1881–1906) was a literary magazine co-edited by Joseph Benson Gilder
(1858–1936), with his sister Jeannette Leonard Gilder (1849–1916).
Whitman's poems "The Pallid Wreath" (January 10, 1891) and "To The Year 1889" (January 5, 1889) were first published in The Critic, as was his essay, "An Old Man's Rejoinder"
(August 16, 1890), responding to John Addington Symonds's chapter about Whitman
in his Essays Speculative and Suggestive (1890). [back]
- 4. There was no November 25,
1890, issue of The Critic; the November 27 issue (p.
282), however, did contain a paragraph about Whitman's forthcoming Good-Bye My Fancy, about his health, and about his
preface to William D. O'Connor's forthcoming collection of stories. [back]
- 5. 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]
- 6. Johnston published (for
private circulation) Notes of Visit to Walt Whitman, etc., in
July, 1890. (Bolton: T. Brimelow & co., printers, &c.) in 1890.
His notes were also published, along with a series of original photographs, as
Diary Notes of A Visit to Walt Whitman and Some of His
Friends, in 1890 (Manchester: The Labour Press Limited; London: The
"Clarion" Office, 1898). Johnston's work was later published with James W.
Wallace's accounts of Fall 1891 visits with Whitman and the Canadian physician
Richard Maurice Bucke in Visits to Walt Whitman in
1890–91 (London, England: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.,
1917). [back]
- 7. The remainder of this letter
has not yet been located. [back]