All goes well with us here. We are all well and flourishing. I am just finishing Romanes "Origin of the Human Faculty"2 the best book I have read for a long time. I have been hoping to hear something definite as to the publication of W.S. Kennedy's3 "W.W."4 but I hear nothing—hope to see K. here before a great while but have not heard from him for so long that do not know whether to expect him or not. Inspector has been here three days—will go East tomorrow—all goes well with meter5 as far as I know but it seems slow work
Love to you R M Bucke owu.00024.001_large.jpgCorrespondent:
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).