[London, Ont.,]1
20 March [188]9
Willy Gurd2 & I went to New York Monday evening3 [/] put up at Grand Union Hotel 42d Street [/] —I
saw Johnston4 next day and lunched with him—they all asked
most particularly after you. I saw J's new store (Union Square) he seems to be doing
well but says he needs more capital than he has. We had a long conference with our
New York lawyer and decided on a line or action in reference to the meter.5 We left
N.Y. 6 o'clock last evening and after a very pleasant run of 17 3/4 hours arrived at
London 11.45 today, 5 minutes (only) late. Find my folk all well and the asylum in
good shape—a lot of work had accumulated which it will take a few days to wade
through but that is nothing. As things look now I hope to be down your way again
early in the summer, meanwhile you must keep me posted as to your health &c
&c. [—] I find a book (sent for before I left home) [a]waiting me
here—"The Bacon-Shakspere question answered" by C. Stopes.6 He /(rather she
Charlotte Stopes[)] /believes S. wrote the plays—I expect to find the volume interesting and
will send it to you if you would like to see it as soon as I gave run through it.
[—] Willy Gurd & myself (though we should have been glad to found a
company for the manufacture of the meter in Phila) are not
the least discouraged by our failure. We believe more strongly than ever that the
meter is immensely valuable and that we shall eventually carry our plans
through—the only subject of regret on my own part / (except regret on
Horaces7 account). /is that I shall not see you as much in
the immediate future as I had hoped but I trust a few months will make this all
right—all the folk here were greatly interested to hear from me all about you
and they were much pleased that I could give so good an account of your health.
(though certainly you might easily be better than you are).
I will soon write again
R M Bucke
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. Horace Traubel's note,
"see | notes | March 22 | 1889," appears in the upper right-hand corner of the
recto. The reference is to Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman
in Camden, Friday, March 22, 1889. The note "TO WW?" is written in an
unidentified hand. [back]
- 2. William John Gurd (1845–1903)
was Richard Maurice Bucke's brother-in-law, with whom he was designing a gas and
fluid meter to be patented in Canada and sold in England. Bucke believed the
meter would be worth "millions of dollars," while Whitman remained skeptical,
sometimes to Bucke's annoyance. In a March 18,
1888, letter to William D. O'Connor, Whitman wrote, "The practical
outset of the meter enterprise collapsed at the last moment for the want of
capital investors." For additional information, see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, March 17, 1889, Monday, March 18, 1889, Friday, March 22, 1889, and Wednesday, April 3, 1889. [back]
- 3. See Horace Traubel,
With Walt Whitman in Camden, Volume 4:
224–371. [back]
- 4. John H. Johnston (1837–1919) was a New York
jeweler and close friend of Whitman. Johnston was also a friend of Joaquin
Miller (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 14, 1888). Whitman visited the Johnstons for the
first time early in 1877. In 1888 he observed to Horace Traubel: "I count
[Johnston] as in our inner circle, among the chosen few" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, October 3, 1888). See also Johnston's letter about
Whitman, printed in Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man,
Poet and Friend (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915), 149–174. For
more on Johnston, see Susan L. Roberson, "Johnston, John H. (1837–1919) and Alma Calder," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Bucke and his brother-in-law
William John Gurd were designing a gas and fluid meter to be patented in Canada
and sold in England. [back]
- 6. Bucke is referring to
Charlotte Carmichael Stopes's The Bacon Shakespeare Question
Answered, 2nd ed (London: Truber & Co., 1889). As Bucke states
here, Stopes believed that Shakespeare had written the plays attributed to him.
The title of her book, however, refers to arguments that Shakespeare's plays had
been written by Francis Bacon. [back]
- 7. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]