Richard Maurice Bucke 'Waa a Man of .Marked Personality

RICHARDMAURICE BUCKE . .. __ - . .. .- . .. .. .. .. .. ~ ~- .. A Sketch by JAMES H. COYNE, LL.D., F.R.S.C. With bibliography and two unpublished portraits. Revisededition. Reprinted from the TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROk AL SOCIETY OF CANADA 1906 HENRY S. SAUNDERS 7 Neville Park Boulevard Toronto, Canada I923 l 5 l ln the preparation of the following sketch, the . writer had access to documentary material in the po!messionof the family of thelate Dr. Bucke. Much of this was autobiographical. In using it the plan has been adopted, as far as possible, of letting the subject of the memoir tell the story in . his own way, with such omissions, chronological rearrangement and explanatory ' connecting links aa the nature of the case seemed to requiTe, re- gardbeing had to the necessary limita of this paper.. Quotation harksare not always used, especdy .where, ae in the case of the fight with the.Shoshones andthe adventure in theSierra Nevadas, the narrative is simply condensed from Dr. Bucke's detailed description. Wherequota- tion .marks are used, the passage is autobiographical, unlesr otherwbe rtated. *. .. .~ _..... -_.......... -- .._..I ,,...-.,:::..:. ... ,..I ......,!,. ......,. :.. ..........i -. _". .-.- -> ........-...- 7 INTRODUCTION 'Richard Maurice Bucke 'waa a man of .marked personality. Hia individuality impressed itself on all who came into contact with him. Of striking pres- 'ence, great native ability, wide and vaned experi- ence of the world and of human nature, he dis- tinguished himselfin morethan one line of thought and action. For many years medical superintendent of one of the largest asylums for the insane in Ontario, he was ranked among the foremost alienists in America. An original in- vestigator in the fields .of medical science, phil-, osophy. and literature, he worked out his prob- lems with a single eye to the truth, and, having solved them to his satisfaction, presentedthe processes and. his conclusions frankly and fear- lessly, leaving the results with the future for acceptance or rejection. Hia intellectual product is intimately related to his close asaociation for a quarter of a century with Walt Whitman, whoae, influence was profoundand lasting. The names of Whitman and Bucke are inseparably linked togetherfor all time. The story of their friend- ship isof permanent interest and value. As a littérateur, scientist and administrator, and as the biographer and close friend of Whit- man, Dr. Bucke was an outstanding figure among the intellectuals of America. 8 But to the public at least it was not generally known that he had had a youth of extraordinary adventure, characterized by thrilling incident, in- tensesuffering, prolongedand arduous struggle. These experiences were important factors in the development of atype of manhoodworthy of being studied. Somestages and phases of thatdevelopment it will bethe work of thefollowing pages to attempt to outline. ... .- . .. .- . ? II l ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE At the Church of St. Olave; Old Jewry, Lon- don, on the 4th of May, 1801, Thomas George l Bucke, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, married Georgina Walpole. Three childrenwere born of this marriage. All received a goodeducation. Horatio Wal- pole, eldest child and only son, was educated at TrinityCollege, Cambridge, took holy orders, andwas appointed curate of theneighbouring village of Methwold. He married Clarissa An- drews, whose brother, Biggs Andrews, Q.C., was . a barrister of some eminence. To the Reverend Horatio Walpole Bucke and Clarissa, his wife, were born seven sons and three daughters. It was at Methwold that theirseventh child and fifth son first opened his .eyes tothe light I onthe. 18th day of March, 1837. Of this aon, Richard Maurice Bucke, it is proposed to speak in the following memoir. Through his mother,Horatio Walpole Bucke was-a great grandson of the famous Prime Min- istCr of England,Sir RobertWalpole, and a grand nephew of Horace Walpole, whose Letters c have given him a niche in the pantheon of Eng- lish literature. Onthe side of the Buckes also literature had its representative.Charles Bucke, a brother of Thomas George, was the author of **Beauties of Nature," and .*'Ruins of Ancient . 12 13 Cities,” books which continuedto be published and settled down to the life of a pioneer farmer. until nearlythe end of thelast century. The A scholar and linguist, he had brought with him tendency to literature of thesubject of thir a library of several thousand volumes, in which sketch was therefore part of his inheritance. no fewer than seven languages were represented. Here in the midst of the primeval forest he in- In the spring of 1838 the curate, with his wife stalled his family and his books; here three chil- and seven children, emigrated to Upper Canada. dren were born to him: and here, in the gradu- For a score of years general attention had been ally.widening clearing he passed the remaining directedto the Talbot settlement. Perhaps the years of his life. The property,known after- familiar nomenclature, reproducing the names of wards as the CreekFarm, adjoins what is now counties, cities, towns and streamsbelonging to thesite of the village of Pottersburg, a suburb the eastern part of England added to the attrac- of the city of London. tion. On the river Thames, in Upper Canada aa in England, were the counties of Oxford, Middle- The Reverend Mr. Bucke was master of seven sex, Kent, and Essex.In the township of Lon- languages : Latin,Greek, Hebrew, French, Ital- don Richard Talbot1 had takenup land twenty ian, Spanish and English. The education of hie yearsbefore, and settlement had proceeded sons was, however,left largely to chance. That apace.His son, E. A. Talbot,was one of a is to say, he taught each of them to read in one number of writers bywhom the praises of the or more languages, and then, turning them loose Talbot Settlement were sounded in books which inhis library,left them to shiftfor themselves. were extensively circulated in the British Islands. But, to use Maurice’s ownwords, “they were born with thedesire to know,’ and with the in- To the township of London Mr. Bucke pro- stinctto find out.”Each was thenceforward his ceeded with his family to spy out the land, if it own schoolmaster. Of the sons, threebecame was good. physicians andone a lawyer. A fifth entered the civil service of Canada. At the forks of the Thames the town of Lon- don hadalready more than twelve hundred in- Maurice learned Latin from his father. Brows- habitants, ministered toby five churches, seven ing amongthe thousands of books,breathing taverns and three or four schools. Two or three their atmosphere,he became saturated with lit-. miles east, .on Dundas Street, was a fam which erature of widerange and variedcharacter. Á caughtour immigrant’s fancy. He purchasedit betterfoundation could hardly have been laid. Not to be confoundedwith Colonel the Honourable for his professional and literary life-work, which Thomas Talbot, founder of the Talbot Settlement, which was to .demand acomprehensive knowledge of included twenty-eight townahipe in whole or in pert. the mental and moral nature of man. 14 IS He never went to school, in the ordinary sense pose;but probably not more than many other of the word; but his education was, notwithstand- introspectivesmall fellow mortals. He wassub- ing, productive of results that couldnot easily ject at times to a sort of ecstasy of curiosity and havebeen surpassed, had heattended in boy- hope; as, on one special occasion, when about hood the regular institutions of learning. tenyears óld, he earnestlylonged to die, that the secrets of the beyond, if there was any be- Hisearly life is described by Dr. Bucke as yond, might be revealed to him; also to. agonies follows: of anxiety and terror, as, for instance, at about the same age, he read Reynolds’ Faust, and being. “He was born of good middle-class English near its end one sunny afternoon he laid it down stock and grew up almost without education on utterlyunable to continueits perusal, and went what was then a backwoods Canadian farm. As out into the sunshine to recover from the horror a child he assisted in such labour as was within (after more than fifty years he distinctly recalls his power. Tended cattle, horses, sheep, pigs: it) which had seized him.” brought in firewood,worked in thehay field, drove oxen and horses, ranerrands. His pleas- At the age of fifteen he read the “Vestiges of ures were as simple as his labours. An occasional Creation,” a well-known precursor of Darwinism. visit to a small town, a game of ball, bathing in His inclination to philosophy and science, thus the creek that ran through his father’s farm, the manifested at so early an age, was a determining making and sailing of mimic ship,s, the search for factor in his career. bird’s eggs and flowers in thespring, andfor wild fruits in the summer and fall, afforded him, with his skatesand handsled in thewinter, hi6 homely, much-loved recreations. While still a young boy he read with keen appreciation Mar- ryat’s novels, Scott’spoems and novels, . and other similar books dealing with outdoor nature and human life.” The great problemsof religion presented themselves to him even as a child:-God, Jesus Christ, immortality, eternal suffering. “The boy (even the child) dwelt on these and similar topics far more than anyone would sup- I I 16 17 of a train of twenty-six loaded freight waggons, ADVENTURES IN THE WEST consigned to a mercantilehouse in SaltLake City. Eachwaggon was drawnby six yoke of Maurice's motherhaving died in 1844, his oxen, and carriedfrom three to four tons. It father* married a second wife, and in 1853 she was a wearisome, diffcult and perilous trail ; for too died.

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