The Walt Whitman Archive
Commentary
Disciples
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Friday, February 7, 1890
7.50 P.M. Weather was inclement today, W. consequently confined in-doors. Reading the Boston Transcript. Gave me a letter from Bucke in which was some message to me. "I laid it out for you yesterday, but it slipped my mind when you were here." McKay's Shakespeare at his feet. He had been reading today "The Merchant of Venice."
Spoke again of his declination of the dinner, and added: "I can see more and more why I should not get involved with such arrangements." Repeated that he "looked favorably" on
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our birthday project, but would "say nothing till you tell me what you want of me."
Treating of disease W. said: "The stomach seems to be the seat of all—all headaches—everything (to put it a little extravagantly) hangs upon good digestion. Indeed, I doubt if a good doctor, hearing whatever of a patient, ever prescribes except for the stomach, however he may not appear to." Harned has been ill—probably "La Grippe"—W. concerned, speaking of having missed him.