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Camden1
Evn'g May 28 '90
Get out doors a little most every day—but to-day is one of my grip
seizures & I am ill. Dr Bucke2 is still here (is in Washington these two
days)—The boys are to have the birth-day supper3 Saturday Evn'g next—just now it
looks suspicious ab't my getting there—
W W
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Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This postcard is addressed: Sloane Kennedy |
Belmont Mass:. It is postmarked: CAMDEN, N.J. | MAY 28 | 90. [back]
- 2. 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). [back]
- 3. In honor of Whitman's
71st birthday, his friends gave him a birthday dinner on May 31, 1890, at
Reisser's Restaurant in Philadelphia. The main speaker was Col. Robert G.
Ingersoll, and there were also speeches by the physicians Richard Maurice Bucke
and Silas Weir Mitchell. The Camden Daily Post article
"Ingersoll's Speech" of June 2, 1890, was written by Whitman himself and was
reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (Prose
Works, 1892, ed. Floyd Stovall, 2 vols. [New York: New York University
Press: 1963–1964], 686–687). "Honors to the Poet" appeared in the
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 1, 1890. See also the notes
on Whitman's birthday party in the poet's June 4,
1890, letter to Bucke. [back]