Your card of 26th to hand this morning.2 I grieve much that you should be depressed and by me about O'C.3 but I am anxious that his possible death at any time should not take you unawares for if it did I fear it [would] be a terrible shock to you. [—] Weather here bright and colder, very pleasant—We keep all well—nothing new with us. [—] I have had quite a time the last few days arranging and posting recent additions to my W. W. Collection. It is growing rapidly and assuming very considerable proportions. Nothing new about the meter Willy Gurd4 still here—he is waiting for Nesbit5 (our other partner) who should have been here to consult long ago but does not come for some reason
Best regards R M BuckeCorrespondent:
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).